Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

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Sinopsis

OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson features the best Big Ideas from the best optimal living books. More wisdom in less time to help you live your greatest life. (Learn more at optimize.me.)

Episodios

  • +1: #375 You, a Farmer and His Horse

    15/04/2018 Duración: 03min

    Once upon a time in a land far away, there was an old farmer.   This man had a horse.   Then, one day, his horse ran away.    All the neighbors said, “Gah!! That’s such a bummer. What bad luck.”   The man said, “Maybe. It is what is.”   Then, one day, the horse returned!! And, lo and behold, the horse brought along a bunch of wild stallions with him!   All the neighbors said, “Wow!! That’s incredible. What good luck!”   The man said, “Maybe. It is what it is.”   At this point in the story, I should mention that the man also had a son. This son was pretty excited about the new horses. Especially one particularly wild stallion he wanted to ride.   So, he hops up on the horse and, WHAM! He gets slammed to the ground and breaks his leg.   All the neighbors said, “Ohhhhhhhhh, man! What bad luck. I can’t believe that happened. Now your son can’t work the fields. That’s really bad.”   The man said, “Maybe. It is what it is.”   Then one day, the army came marching into the small village. There wa

  • +1: #370 Mistake-Learner’s High

    10/04/2018 Duración: 04min

    In our last +1, we talked about Phil Stutz’ great phrase: “Endlessly evolving process.”   Phil likes to draw upward spiraling loops to describe the flow of evolving into the best version of ourselves.   In fact, his spiraling loops are almost identical to Ray Dalio’s spiraling loops. Remember his? We unpacked his 5-Steps to Success model not too long ago.   The super-quick recap: You start with an audacious goal. Then you fail. Then you figure out why you failed. Then you design a better solution to your challenge. Then you get to work on the solution.    Then you spiral up and repeat that process of evolving into a slightly better version of you. (For how long? E N D L E S S L Y.)   Now, Dalio tells us that it’s REALLY important to fall in love with that process. ESPECIALLY (!) the part most people shy away from — that whole failing part.   “But can’t I just evolve without all those mistakes?”   (Insert laughter from all philosophers ever.)   (Still laughing.)   “No. You can’t.”   Therefore

  • +1: #365 Fingers and Lectures

    05/04/2018 Duración: 03min

    Please extend your pointer finger and shake it as if you’re lecturing someone — saying something like, “You shouldn’t do this, this and this! Do that, that and that!”   Thank you.   Now, look at your hand and count how many fingers are pointing at the person you’re lecturing and how many fingers are pointing back at you.   Unless you’re missing a digit, you should see one finger pointing at the lucky recipient of your lecture and THREE fingers pointing back at you.   You may want to pay attention to that the next time you’re lecturing someone.   Debbie Ford tells us that this practices is a really handy way to notice our “shadow” — the stuff we haven’t integrated in our own lives that, unfortunately, we tend to project onto others.   She tells us to “attend our own lectures” because, more often than not, whatever lecture we’re giving someone else is the one WE desperately need to attend.   Today’s +1. The next time you start telling someone all the things you think they need to start doing more

  • +1: #360 Isn’t That Extreme?

    31/03/2018 Duración: 03min

    Susan Peirce Thompson wrote a great book called Bright Line Eating. She has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and is one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of eating.    Before all that, Susan was addicted to cocaine and food and basically everything else — which gives her a very nice vantage point from which to talk about how to recover from addiction.   In her book and programs, she applies the bright lines of Willpower 101 we talk about all the time to the fundamentals of Nutrition 101 we talk about all the time.    Her top two bright lines for eating? Eliminate sugar and flour.    Don’t reduce or eat them more moderately. E L I M I N A T E.    Susan walks us through all the reasons those edible foodlike substances act more like drugs than food and she points out the havoc they cause in our bodies. But today I want to focus on a question she often gets asked when she encourages people to make a 100% Commitment to those two bright line rules.   People often say (insert at least a slightly wh

  • +1: #355 The Decade View

    26/03/2018 Duración: 04min

    Matthew Kelly has written a number of great books. We have Notes on three of them: Perfectly Yourself, The Rhythm of Life and Off Balance.   In Off Balance, Mathew tells us that if we want to change the trajectory of our lives (and/or careers), we need to change the period of time we think about.   Here’s how he puts it: “So, the first step is, don’t be in too much of a hurry to create the ideal life you have imagined. Personal and professional satisfaction are built like a castle, one brick at a time. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a week. In the same way, we tend to overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in a decade.   Take a decade view. Give yourself a decade to build the life you have imagined for yourself, one that is rich and overflowing with personal and professional satisfaction. Until you take the decade view, until you begin to imagine and plan what you can do in a decade, you have not even begun to exp

  • +1: #350 Wealth thru Profound Service

    21/03/2018 Duración: 05min

    When I worked with Steve Chandler, one of the themes of our work together was “creating wealth through profound service.”   I just love that phrase: “Wealth through profound service.”   Steve wrote a great book called Wealth Warrior and he’s the one who inspired me to look up the ancient meaning of the word “astonish.” It’s from the Latin ex "out" + tonare "to thunder." It literally means "to leave someone thunderstruck.” Or, as I like to say, “to strike with lightning.”   Steve says that most people have the wrong standard. They’re thinking about “customer satisfaction.” But, he says, how uninspiring is the idea of merely “satisfying” someone? Much better, he says, to ASTONISH. I, of course, agree.   All that’s nice, but how do we do that?   Well, I think the essence of it is found at the nexus point of those three circles we talk about in the +1 called “How’s Your Hedgehog?” in which we talk about Jim Collins’ perspective on how great businesses (and lives!) are created.   In short: C

  • +1: #345 No More Ice Cubes, Please

    16/03/2018 Duración: 04min

    A couple +1s ago we talked about taking a systems approach to disease vs. just a symptoms approach. We referenced Dr. Junger’s metaphor of a wise gardener tending to the roots.   Which reminds me of T Harv Eker’s line: “In every forest, on every farm, in every orchard on earth, it’s what’s under the ground that creates what’s above the ground. That’s why placing your attention on the fruits that you have already grown is futile. You cannot change the fruits that are already hanging on the tree. You can, however, change tomorrow’s fruits. But to do so, you will have to dig below the ground and strengthen the roots.”   Here’s another metaphor and pop quiz to bring the point home.   If you had a boiling pot of water and you wanted to easily and permanently make the water stop boiling, would you:    a) Drop in two ice cubes at regular intervals; or,  b) Turn the flame off/move the pot off the heat?   Option b) for the win!    Seems so simple... Yet, somehow, in a world where over fifteen million peo

  • +1: #340 How to Win the Cancer War

    11/03/2018 Duración: 03min

    Continuing our Anticancer theme, let’s chat about another brilliant idea from David Servan-Schreiber’s book, Anticancer.   Imagine this.   It’s 1942. Hitler has amassed an army of one million Nazi soldiers. They’re pushing to take over Russia — which finds itself so undermanned that adolescents and schoolgirls who have never used a firearm are joining the fight.    Miraculously, the Russians are able to resist. But, knowing they can’t sustain the defense, their leader shifts their strategy and decides to attack the German supply lines deep within German-controlled territory.   And, it works. Without the supply lines, the million soldiers are forced to retreat.   That’s the Battle of Stalingrad — one of the most influential battles of the European front in World War II.   And, David tells us, that’s the PERFECT metaphor for how we need to approach cancer. We need to cut off the supply lines. And FORCE cancer’s retreat.   How?    Well, we talked about the four levers a few +1s ago: Environment +

  • +1: #335 Meet Your Telomeres

    06/03/2018 Duración: 04min

    Elizabeth Blackburn won a Nobel Prize for her research on telomerase — the enzyme that nourishes our telomeres. She wrote a book called The Telomere Effect with another world-class researcher named Elissa Epel in which they tell us just how powerful our telomeres are.   Today, we’re going to meet our telomeres.   But first, a quick pronunciation lesson: I always thought “telomeres” was pronounced “tell-o-meres” but, apparently, it’s pronounced “tee-lo-meres.”   Alright. With that out of our way, here’s what we need to know: The length of your telomeres is one of the most important indicators of your overall health and/or lack thereof.   Here’s how to think about them. You know those little caps at the end of your shoelaces? Those plastic little guys that keep your laces all neat and tidy? They’re called “aglets.” Once they go, your shoelaces are pretty much done, eh?   Well, that’s almost exactly how your telomeres work. Our chromosomes are the shoelaces and our telomeres are the aglets.   He

  • +1: #330 Hit the Rock

    01/03/2018 Duración: 02min

    In our last +1, we took a quick look at Warren Buffett’s three-step goal setting process and then chatted about how it fits into our Big 3: Energy + Family + Service.   First, pop quiz: Did you do that exercise? If not, all good but…    If we want to move from theory to practice and from merely consuming these ideas to actually deeply thinking about and LIVING these ideas, we’ve gotta do the work.   The image that comes to mind for me is a stonecutter.    Imagine a guy (or gal) banging away at a HUGE rock with a sledgehammer. He pounds and pounds and pounds at that rock with his sledgehammer again and again and again.   And absolutely nothing happens.   Just a big rock. And a sweaty sledgehammer guy.   Then, apparently out of nowhere, on the next strike the rock splits. YAYUH!!!   Now, if you happened to be walking by that guy right when he made the swing that cracked open the rock you might think that a) the guy was super strong and/or b) splitting rocks is easy.   But…    You missed all the tiri

  • Conquering Cancer 101 (Intro)

    25/02/2018 Duración: 12min

    Ready to conquer anxiety? Our first step is to embrace the fact that it happens and then we’ll quit making it worse as we choose a target (calm confidence!), get our fundies in order, remember to breathe (deeply + properly), turn the serenity key in our brains, do some Olympic-style focus training so we see challenges not threats as we exit our mind and enter the moment. We’ll also look at how to create calm confidence in 5 steps and how to tap into infinite calm confidence. Tame those gremlins and rock it!

  • +1: #325 The Psychology of Hope

    24/02/2018 Duración: 05min

    Rick Snyder was the founder of research into the science of hope. And, he was one of the pioneers of the positive psychology movement. In fact, he literally wrote the textbook on “Positive Psychology.”   He documented just how important hope is to our overall well-being and tells us that there are three primary components to having high hope: Goals + Willpower + Waypower.   It all starts with a Goal. Happy people have projects. And, happy, hopeful people have GOALS! They have a future they’re excited about.   Then we have what Rick calls “Willpower.” In this context, Rick tells us that Willpower is that spark of determination that says, “We’ve got this!!” It needs to be there in the beginning AND it needs be there after you get knocked down a few times. (Rick’s protege Shane Lopez described this as “Agency” — a sense of personal power that we have what it takes to make our dreams a reality.)   Then we have what Rick calls “Waypower.” Waypower is all about mapping out the plans for how you

  • +1: #320 You, Buddha and Your Fundies

    19/02/2018 Duración: 03min

    In No Mud, No Lotus, Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that when he was a young monk he thought the Buddha never suffered.    Then, as he matured, he realized that OF COURSE the Buddha suffered. He had a body so he had to at least occasionally get a headache or a stomachache. And, when a friend died, he’d feel sad. He was a human being. Therefore, he experienced pain and suffering.   Of course, he was also the enlightened Buddha so he was very good at regaining his equanimity.   Which leads to another interesting discussion.   If the Buddha was enlightened, Thich Nhat Hanh asks, then why did he still meditate after attaining his enlightenment?    Hmmm… Fascinating question, eh?   Answer: Because the Buddha’s happiness and equanimity was, like EVERYTHING else in the world, IMPERMANENT.    The Buddha needed to tend to his own well-being. Every day. Even after his enlightenment.   Now, if the Buddha needed to keep on doing his fundies after he attained his enlightenment, I’m pretty sure that means we

  • +1: #315 Expecto Patronum!

    14/02/2018 Duración: 06min

    Continuing our Harry Potter theme, let’s explore how to deal with dementors in your life.   Recall that dementors are big, ugly, wraith-like creatures that feed on and suck all the happiness out of you. And, if they’re feeling really feisty, they’ll give you a kiss that sucks your soul right out of you. (Yikes!)    Also recall that there’s a special way to deal with these foul creatures. It’s called the Patronus Charm.    Here’s how Professor Lupin describes it to Harry in The Prisoner of Azkaban: “The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the dementor feeds upon — hope, happiness, the desire to survive — but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the dementors can’t hurt it. But I must warn you, Harry, that the charm might be too advanced for you. Many qualified wizards have difficulty with it.”   Harry wonders what the Patronus looks like and Lupin tells him that “each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it.”   How do you conjure it? Well,

  • +1: #310 The 2nd Arrow

    09/02/2018 Duración: 03min

    In No Mud, No Lotus, Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that suffering is a part of life.    You can’t create a beautiful lotus flower without some stinky mud. As he says, lotuses don’t grow in marble. And… You can’t create a happy, flourishing life without some suffering. That’s just how it is. We need to embrace that reality.   In fact, Thay (as he’s known to his students) tells us that a big part of happiness is learning how to “suffer well.” We want to quit making our suffering worse than it needs to be.   To bring the point home, the Buddha shared a story about two arrows. The first arrow strikes you and it hurts. But, if a second arrow hits you in the exact same spot, the pain won’t just double, it’ll go up TEN fold. (Ouch!)   But, here’s the deal. WE are the ones shooting ourselves with that second arrow. How? By complaining about it, wishing it didn’t happen, moping around, etc.    In Self-Compassion, Kristin Neff tells us the same thing in a slightly different way. She tells us that pain is ine

  • PNTV: The Art of Connection by Michael Gelb

    07/02/2018 Duración: 17min

    Michael Gelb is one of the world’s leading creativity teachers. He’s also a qi gong and aikido master who wrote one of my favorite books: “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci.” In this book, he teaches us the art of creating connection. Big Ideas we explore include how to optimize our ability to connect (practice with the little moments!), The Pygmalion Effect (aka the self-fulfilling prophecy), the importance of centering for conflict resolution, and how our addiction to digital devices (ADD) is leading to attention deficit disorder (ADD) which is leading to troubles in connecting and what to do about it.

  • +1: #305 Spiritual Farts

    04/02/2018 Duración: 03min

    ​​In our last +1, we explored the analytics of American farting behaviors and compared that to the even more prolific Facebook-liking behaviors. (Laughing.) Today, we’re going to explore the subject of farts a little more.​ ​​A particular, shall we say, spicy variety of farts.​​ Spiritual farts. ​​Yes, spiritual farts. ​​What are spiritual farts, you ask?

  • PNTV: Wired to Create by Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Barry Kaufman

    02/02/2018 Duración: 17min

    This book started out as a blog post by Carolyn Gregoire based on Scott Barry Kaufman’s work that went viral: 18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently. Scott is one of the world’s leading creativity researchers. Carolyn is a senior writer at the Huffington Post. Together, they wrote a great little book on the mysteries of the creative mind. Big Ideas we explore include: the fact that creativity is a messy business (embrace complexity!), the power of walking for daydreaming (all the cool philosophers do it!), creating a nice home for your genius to visit (she’s got the magic!), creating again and again (and again), unitask rather than multitask (unless you want to atrophy the best part of your brain), and STAMP your life with your own personality (but only if you want to be great … and happy!).

  • PNTV: The Happiness Track by Emma Seppala

    31/01/2018 Duración: 16min

    Emma Seppälä is the science director of Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. She also has a popular blog called Fulfillment Daily. In this great little book, she walks us through the latest scientific research on everything from resilience, willpower and compassion to positive stress, creativity, and mindfulness. Big Ideas we explore include how to find fulfillment (hint: it’s in this moment—right now!), how to skillfully surf stress waves, the most powerful lever to optimize your mind (hint: your breath), how to succeed in failure Jack Ma style, and the science of compassion.

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