Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

Dr. Craig Malkin is an author, clinical psychologist, and Instructor of Psychology for Harvard Medical School. He’s also one of the world’s leading authorities on the science of narcissism. In this book, he shares “The bad—and surprising good—about feeling special.” The short story? Narcissism is a lot more nuanced than we might have been led to believe. Big Ideas we explore: the Myth of Narcissus, the Spectrum of Narcissism, healthy narcissism (no, that isn’t an oxymoron), how to bring it forth in our lives, and the passionate life (passion + compassion = magic!).

In our last +1, we talked about Scott Adams’s wisdom on Wishing vs. Deciding (https://www.optimize.me/plus-one/deciding-vs-wishing/). The key difference? When we DECIDE, we get clear on what we want AND we get clear on the price we’ll need to pay. Then… We get busy paying it. Scott tells us that one of the ways to reduce the price and make it more palatable is to create systems. He’s ALL about systems. In fact, he tells us that “Goals are for losers.” (Hah.) We obviously need goals but he says we should, at the very least, word-glue them together so we have goals-systems or systems-goals. His point is that if all we’re doing is chasing a goal, we’re constantly going to be “losing” because the goal is always at some far-off spot we may never reach. On the other hand, when we figure out the SYSTEMS we’re constantly WINNING every single time we successfully execute the system. For example, if you’re trying to lose 20 pounds, you have a goal. Eating right is a system. Trying to run a 4-hour marathon is a g

Harvey Dorfman was one of the world’s leading mental training experts. Major League Baseball described him as a “pioneering sports psychologist.” He earned World Series rings as the mental skills coach for both the Oakland A’s and Florida Marlins. In this book, he covers the A to Z of mental discipline. Big Ideas we explore include Carpe momentum (seize the task at hand!), the peak performance cycle (approach + results + response), the blind men (and their elephant), and Percussus Resurgo (“Struck down. I rise again!”).

In our last +1 we talked about the magic of creating a hoped-for future vision that has super-strong "Pull Power." Today we're going to talk about Pull Power's best friend, Pulling Power. Step 1. Create a vision for your future that truly fires you up. Got it? Great. Pull Power in place. Step 2. Now, imagine that future sitting there in a bag on the ground about 25 feet in front of you. That bag weighs a lot. It's tied to a rope that's right down by your feet. Step 3. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to sit down on the ground of your current reality, dig your heels in and PULL that bag of future awesome all the way to where you are. That's Pulling Power. It's what you do with the Pull Power. Steve Chandler captures this brilliantly in Wealth Warrior where he tells us: “The only good use of any future is artistic. You paint a picture of your positive imaginary future on your whiteboard. Then you PULL THAT PICTURE—WITH EVERY OUNCE OF STRENGTH YOU HAVE—into the present moment.” Today's +1

Irresistible. That’s the perfect word to describe the growing array of addictive technologies that are capturing so much of our attention these days. And, it’s the perfect name for the book. Adam Alter is an associate professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business. This is a great book on, as the sub-title suggests, “The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.” Big Ideas we explore include the fact Steve Jobs didn’t let his own kids use an iPad (why?), why addiction is about more than just personality (and what matters), how to add 11 years back to your life, what happens when your brain gets pickled and the simple question you can ask to Optimize.

Get this: Scientists can bring people into a lab and have them hold a pen in their mouths in one of two different ways to elicit two very different outcomes. One group comes in and holds a pen between their lips. The other group holds the pen between their teeth. (Try it to feel the difference!) Guess what? The group that holds the pen between their teeth (which, you may notice, creates a sort of smile) are HAPPIER at the end of the experiment than people who hold the pen between their lips (which, you may notice, creates a sort-of frown). Kinda nuts. How could something THAT simple lead to a significant change in well-being? Well, as we’ve discussed many times, FEELINGS follow BEHAVIORS. And, even something as mundane as unknowingly moving your happiness muscles into the shape of a smile can make you feel better. Moral of the story: Work today with a pen between your teeth! Hah. Not really. But, DO remember that feelings follow behavior. The little things you do matter. Stand up tall. Act the way yo

We’re on a roll with the whole “embrace challenges on your epic quest!” theme so how about one more +1 on the subject? Malcolm Gladwell wrote a great book called David and Goliath in which he walks us through some fascinating stories that demonstrate the fact that sometimes what we perceive to be our greatest weaknesses can actually be turned into our greatest strengths. Scientists call these “desirable difficulties.” Imagine that, difficulties that are desirable. Like what? Well, how about a girl’s basketball team packed with kids with no experience playing basketball and, therefore, no traditional talent. Oh, and the head coach knows nothing about basketball. That’s a weakness right? Sure, but what if they turned that weakness into an asset? That’s what one team Gladwell features did. They decided to break all the rules and simply HUSTLE more than anyone else by running a full-court press all game. (Hah.) Which worked. It so disoriented their competitors who were used to people playing by traditional

What do you think is the most important, underappreciated muscle in your body? Think about that for a moment. What’s your guess? I think this is the most underappreciated muscle in my body: ___________________________. Well, get this: Breathing experts tell us that the award for the most underappreciated muscle in the human body goes to… your diaphragm—that little, SUPER (!) important muscle down there right below your lungs. Recall: You can live for weeks without food, days without water, and only minutes without oxygen—which makes breathing pretty important, eh? Yet, how often do you think about it? And, do you specifically train your breathing to make sure it’s optimized? If you’re like most people, the answer to the above questions is: “Never.” And, “No.” Today’s +1: Let’s hit the diaphragm gym. The simplest way to practice some “resistance” breathing? Breathe through your nose. All the time. Period. If you’re a mouth breather you’ll notice that breathing through your nose takes a little more wo

Teresa Amabile is the Director of Research at Harvard Business School. It’s pretty much impossible to read a book on business, creativity, or happiness at work and not run into her research. She wrote this book with her husband, leading developmental psychologist Steven Kramer. In it, we learn the secret of joy, engagement and creativity at work. Hint: Small wins! On (important distinction) meaningful stuff. Big Ideas we explore include the power of our “inner work life,” the 3 key influences to optimizing it (progress, catalysts, nourishers) and how to get on the progress loop and stay on it!

First: Welcome to our 100th +1. It’s a special milestone. Kinda excited about it.

Peter Drucker is considered the father of modern management. This book was originally published in 1967. It’s *remarkably* well written and lucid. And, of course, packed with Big Ideas on how to optimize our effectiveness. We cover the 5 key practices/habits of the effective executive: time (first things first; second things never!), contribution (what can you contribute?), strengths (make yours productive; make weaknesses irrelevant), concentration (the secret to effectiveness), decisions (boundary conditions help).

In our last few +1s, we’ve been chatting about reaching the Peak of our potential. What’s the alternative? Well, did you know that the Latin root of the word mediocre LITERALLY means to get stuck in the middle of a rugged mountain? Yep. Medius = “middle.” Ocris = “rugged mountain.” Mediocrity. That’s not where we want to get stuck.

For those of you in the States celebrating today, Happy Independence Day. For everyone else around the world, Happy 4th of July!

I planned to read this book since Cal Newport referenced it in Deep Work. I finally did so in preparation to teach Productivity 101. It’s fantastic. If you’re a business leader or entrepreneur I think you’ll particularly enjoy it. Big Ideas we cover include the 4DX, the whirlwind, your Wildly Important Goals, Lag vs. Lead measures, the power of keeping score, and avoiding the blackhole of the magnificently trivial.

Imagine this: It’s your first day of art class. You signed up for an intro class on pottery. (Nice! Go you!) The teacher does something a little weird. He points to one half of the class and says, “On the last day of class I’m going to bring in a bathroom scale. You guys will get an ‘A’ if you produce 50 pounds of pots. A ‘B’ for 40 pounds. 30 pounds gets you a ‘C.’” Then he points to the other half of the class and says, “You guys? You’ll get an ‘A’ for creating an amazing pot. I just need one pot from you. Make it awesome and you get the ‘A.’” Fast-forward to the end of the semester and who do you think created the best-looking pots? Answer: The group that produced the 50 pounds of stuff to get an “A.” Why is that? Well, as the authors of Art & Fear put it: “It seems that while the ‘quantity’ group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the ‘quality’ group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose t

Brad Stulberg is a writer focused on health and the science of human performance. (Amy Cuddy calls him her favorite health and science writer.) Steve Magness is a coach to some of the top distance runners in the world. Together, they’ve written a super-engaging, quick-reading book on how to pursue growth in a healthy, sustainable way—aka, without burning out. Big Ideas we explore include the secret equation of sustainable awesome (Stress + Rest = Growth), just-manageable challenges, the iPhone Effect Part 3 (aka how to decrease your productivity in one step!), the optimal work/rest ratio, and the paradoxical twist of fulfillment.

Continuing our theme of making TODAY (and every day!) a Masterpiece Day, let's take a quick look at Time Blocks. Gary Keller wrote The ONE Thing. He also created the largest real estate agency in the world. In his great little book, he tells us how important it is to ruthlessly focus on what’s most important—the key activities that drive the real results. He takes the 80/20 principle to the extreme and has you continue drilling down on the most important things until you get to the ONE Thing that drives the whole show. And then he has you ruthlessly focus on what you need to do TODAY to make that ONE Thing a reality—knocking over the next domino in a chain of dominoes that inevitably leads to the outcome you’re looking for. Just figuring out what your ONE Thing is (over the long run and today) obviously takes a lot of Deep Work. Gary tells us we need to create “Time Blocks” during our day. He calls them the #1 “power tool” of time management. The rules? You turn off ALL distractions for a set amount of

In our last +1 we talked about Spinny Fingers and how to quickly regain our equanimity when life spins us around. Here’s another way. Mark Divine is a former Commander in the Navy SEALs. He tells us that in the chaos of war, elite SEALs are taught to “simplify the battlefield.” When the fog of battle rolls in and things are nowhere near as clear as they were a moment before, it's absolutely essential that we simplify everything. Commander Divine tells us that we need to identify THE next most important target and then put ALL of our energy into successfully executing that micro-mission as we maintain what he calls “front-sight” focus. Simplify. Identify next target. Focus. Execute that micro-mission. Repeat. That’s an incredibly effective way to roll. ESPECIALLY when things are most challenging. That’s today’s +1. How can you simplify the battlefield of your life? What's THE most important thing right now? Give it your front-sight focus. Hooyah! P.S. The last four digits of my phone number are 5320.

You know those times when you need to initiate a tough conversation and you're kinda sorta dreading it and avoiding it? One of my old mentors once told me that you just need to move through what he called “sweaty five-minute conversations” to get to the other side of clarity and resolution. Most of us avoid the challenging conversations because we aren’t willing to endure those few minutes of discomfort. I definitely used to avoid them. Now, I remember that Speed Is a Force then I WOOP it, chant “Bring it on!” + “I’m excited!” and jump in. It’s become a really powerful practice for me as I've mastered it over the years. But here’s the funny thing. Once upon a time, I needed to have one of those “sweaty conversations” with that mentor of mine. Guess how it turned out? It was, by far, LITERALLY, the worst conversation I’ve ever had in my life. HAH. Seriously. I kid you not. As Campbell said, when you dare to go after bliss, there's always the chance for a fiasco. :) Here’s how Campbell puts it: “The he

George St-Pierre is one of the greatest mixed martial artists in the world. Ever. Of course, he wasn’t always one of the greatest. At one point, he was just a young guy working as a garbage man who DECIDED he was going to be the best in the world. People around him thought he was crazy. (Of course they did. Who says stuff like that? Hint: People who have a shot at making it happen.) So, when GSP decided (!) he would be the best in the world at what he wanted to do, he also decided what he WASN’T going to do. “Train instead of party. Work instead of play. Perfect practice instead of casual repetition.” ALL of his energy went into achieving his goal and making his dream a reality. (You should see the consistency in his schedule. Astonishing.) In his great book The Way of the Fight, GSP makes the important distinction that all those things he was no longer going to do weren’t sacrifices. They were decisions. Sacrifices vs. Decisions. There’s a huge difference between the two. One comes with a little whi