Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

This book combines two of my favorite things: Stoicism + Ryan Holiday’s wisdom. Stoicism was one of the most influential philosophy of the Roman world and has continued to influence many of history’s greatest minds. As Ryan says: It’s time to bring it back as a powerful tool “in the pursuit of self-mastery, perseverance, and wisdom.” This is one of the my favorite books ever. Big Ideas we explore: the #1 thing to know about Stoicism, how to create tranquility, a good answer to “What’s the latest and greatest?!,” the 2 essential tasks in life and the art of acquiescence (aka amor fati).

In one of my coaching sessions with Phil Stutz he told me to write something down. (He often does that.

Do you know how caffeine actually works? Most of us think that caffeine gives us energy. But what it actually does is mask our fatigue—making us feel more energized than we actually are. Here’s the quick story on what’s going on behind the scenes. One of the by-products of being awake and having your neurons fire is a neurotransmitter called adenosine. As adenosine accumulates in your brain, you get tired—cueing you to go to sleep to recover. Caffeine is structurally very similar to adenosine. So similar, in fact, that it can actually sneak into those little adenosine receptors and block the adenosine from doing its job of letting us know we’re tired. And voila! You feel energized. Obviously, that’s pretty cool. (Hah.) Today’s +1: Two things we want to consider as we optimize our caffeine intake. 1. We want to know that when we use caffeine we’re “borrowing” energy. Therefore, we’d be wise to use caffeine strategically rather than habitually. If we need caffeine to get going in the morning, what we

Darren Hardy is the publisher of SUCCESS magazine. His message is clear: We are living in the era of greatest opportunity in human history. There’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. NOW IS THE TIME to hop on the entrepreneur roller coaster. Big Ideas we explore include the importance of getting super freaky, practicing getting up after getting knocked down, setting the pace as an effective leader and remember it’s the fear of fear we fear.

In our last couple +1s, we’ve been hanging out in an fMRI scanning our brains and seeing some fascinating stuff. Let’s stay in there for one more study on how your brain lights up in different ways depending on the food you eat. First, a little background: David Ludwig is a professor and researcher at both Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. He has both an M.D. and a Ph.D. and is one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of optimal nutrition. He’s overseen dozens of diet studies and authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles. In his great book Always Hungry?, he tells us about some powerful research. Get this: You can bring people into a lab and have them drink a milkshake that’s identical in every way but one. One shake has “fast-acting” carbs and the other has “slow-acting” carbs. You have the people in the study drink their shakes and then, a few hours later, you scan their brains. Guess what. Well, before we even get into that fMRI machine, we see that the individu

This is a quick-reading, smart, practical guide on how to, as the sub-title suggests, “Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done. My kind of book. I *highly* recommend it. Big Ideas we explore include rats + rewards (real vs. random), progress hacks to conquer the progress paradox, saying “YES!!!” en route to saying “No” plus the physics of emails and 21st century superpowers.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the world’s leading researchers studying the science of well-being. He co-founded the Positive Psychology movement with Martin Seligman and has written landmark books on Creativity and Flow. After surveying thousands of people, Mihaly was able to shine some light on that elusive state in which we’re at our best. In fact, he’s the one who coined the word “Flow.” Here’s the basic idea: Imagine drawing two lines. On the x axis we have our Skill level. On the y axis we have our Challenge level. If the Challenge is high but your Skill is low, what will you experience? ANXIETY. On the other hand, if your Skill is high, but the Challenge is low, what will you experience? BOREDOM. Now, what if your Skill level matches the Challenge? Enter: FLOW. So, Today’s +1: A quick inventory. Are you feeling Bored? Increase the level of Challenge. (For example, if you’re doing a mundane, repetitive task, see how flawlessly you can do it or how quickly or both!) Feeling Anxious? Decrease

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that the word courage comes from the Latin word for “heart.” Just as our heart pumps blood to the rest of our body, our COURAGE pumps energy to our other virtues. Here’s one of the simplest, easiest and most powerful ways to build your courage in any given moment. Strike a pose. A courageous, power pose. As we’ve discussed so many times, the relationship between our feelings and our behaviors is what researchers describe as “bidirectional.” It goes both ways. Science says that feelings FOLLOW behavior at least as much as the other way around. In other words, by simply taking certain actions, we can influence how we feel. Amy Cuddy has demonstrated this in her lab at Harvard. In her great book Presence, she tells us that we all E X P A N D when we feel most powerful. Get this: Even blind athletes, who have never seen anyone else do it, will strike that victorious “V!” pose with arms triumphantly up in the air when they win a race. So, she started her research wi

In our last +1, we talked about the power of recommitting. You make a big commitment, then you fall a little off track. No big deal, REcommit and continue on. Today, we’re going to add a little letter to recommitment. It’s a “P.” We’ll drop it in right at the beginning. Giving us: PREcommitment. So, now we have: Precommitment. Commitment. And Recommitment. Science says precommitment is one of the most powerful tools in the Willpower tool chest. They even give precommitments a pretty cool name: Odysseus Contracts. Before we jump into ancient mythology and see what it has to say about modern science, let’s remember: Will power exemplars play OFFENSE not DEFENSE (https://www.optimize.me/plus-one/want-willpower-play-offense-not-defense/). They use their finite willpower wisely to install habits that run on autopilot—avoiding the temptations that drain our willpower as we try to resist them. Offense. Not defense. One of the most powerful ways to do that? Decide in ADVANCE how we will handle a challenging si

Ready to upgrade your vision of love? Then you’re in for a treat with this fantastic book by Barbara Fredrickson. Barbara is one of the world’s leading positive psychologists. The book is incredibly well-written, deeply inspiring and incredibly practical as well. In fact, I just told Alexandra that this book might be the one that most positively impacts my life. Big Ideas we explore include: Love 1.0 vs. Love 2.0, taking a trip to Vagus, identifying our prevailing desire, #1 tip: create 3 loving moments today, exiting our cocoon of self-absorption via loving-kindness meditation, and Love 2.0 x 2: compassionate + celebratory love.

In our last +1 we hopped on a treadmill with Will Smith and Smokeybot. Today, let’s hop on a treadmill with well-being researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky. Sonja is one of the world’s leading experts on the science of what is called “hedonic adaptation.” Basically, hedonic adaptation is a fancy phrase for our tendency to get used to good things. The way we so easily adapt to awesome stuff is kinda like being on a treadmill. You get fired up about making $x per year or having a certain car or house or whatever then you get to that point and quickly adapt to it—now wanting the NEXT $X per year or house or car or whatever. Then guess what? There you are on your treadmill, working harder and harder and not going anywhere. That’s hedonic adaptation. On a related note, Maslow told us that getting used to our blessings is one of the most “nonevil evils” out there. It’s not an obvious evil-evil but it’s an evil thing nonetheless. So, how do we deal with this tendency to so quickly adapt and take things for granted a

Continuing our movement-is-good for you theme, let’s talk about how Michelle Segar looks at this. You may recall that Michelle is one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of actually DOING the things you know are good for you. In her book No Sweat she tells us that we need to find “opportunities to move” throughout the day. Her clients like to shorten that to OTMs. OTMs. Opportunities to Move. Little things. They exist all day, every day. And, if we want to make our TRILLIONS (!) of cells happy so we can shine with a deeper level of radiant, energized enthusiasm, we’d be wise to look for more OTMs throughout our day. Simple stuff. So mundane, unsexy and seemingly unimportant that we can easily overlook them. You know, like parking as far away from the store (or gym or whatever) as possible so you get a few more steps in. Or, even better, just walking to the store and leaving your car at home. Or, once you’re in the store, using a hand-held shopping basket rather than a cart. Tiny little

A former U.S. Navy SEAL Commander, Mark Divine integrates the ancient warrior traditions with grounded, practical virtue and 21st century get-it-done effectiveness in a way that I find incredibly inspiring. Big Ideas we cover include the power of front-sight focus, how to DIRECT your mind, going Yoda on your commitments and creating micro goals when things are tough.

Men’s Health says that Dean Karnazes is one of the 100 Fittest Men of ALL Time. He’s done crazy things—like running 350 miles at once. Plus running a marathon to the South Pole in negative 40 degrees. Then there was the time he ran 50 marathons in all 50 US states in 50 days—finishing with the NYC Marathon which he banged out in 3 hours flat. (Nice!) In our interview about his great book The Road to Sparta, I asked him what ONE piece of wisdom he would share with someone looking to Optimize their lives so they could make a positive difference in the world. His response? He quoted the ancient Chinese proverb: “Be not afraid of going slowly. Be afraid only of stopping.” Going slowly? Not a problem. Stopping? Eek. That’s when we get in trouble. Whether it’s writing a book or running a marathon or doing whatever challenging thing worthy of our attention, KEEP GOING!!! Steve Chandler has a great line for this. He says we need to “Stop stopping.” All of which leads us to today’s +1 Questions: What epic

Patrick McKeown is one of the world’s leading teachers of the Buteyko Breathing Method which was created in the 1950s by a Russian doctor named Dr. Konstantin Buteyko. McKeown suffered from asthma for decades until he found the Buteyko Method. At which point, he reversed his asthma symptoms and then dedicated his life to helping others optimize their breathing. In this book, he extends the Buteyko Method into an approach he calls the Oxygen Advantage. Big Ideas we cover include the #1 obstacle to optimal breathing, Oxygen Delivery 101, the #1 breathing tip, and how to dial in your sleep.

In our last +1 we chatted about the difference between FALLING in love and STANDING in love. It’s easy to fall in love. It’s considerably more challenging to stand in love—whether we’re talking about an intimate relationship with a significant other, a child or a dear friend. So, know this: We’re inevitably going to run into conflict and challenges in our intimate relationships. THAT’S A GIVEN Today’s +1 is a key practice for STANDING in love. Leading mindfulness and neuroscience and relationship expert Dan Siegel tells us that when something inevitably goes wrong in a relationship we want to REPAIR it as quickly as we can. One of the examples he uses to make his point is a story about a time when he, Mr. Mindfulness, “flipped his lid,” turning off his prefrontal cortex and going full limbic-lame yelling at one of his kids. (Laughing as I type that as a) It’s always refreshing to see a world-class teacher and practitioner humbly reminding us that no one is perfect and b) I very much know the feeling as

In our last +1, we talked about the importance of identifying and installing your #1 self-care habit. Today I want to talk about another SUPER important thing: Identifying your significant other’s (or kids’ or friends’ or colleagues’) #1 self-care habit. Fact is, great relationships are only created by two healthy people. 1 + 1. If you want to Optimize the love in your life, you’d be wise to a) start by Optimizing yourself and b) support your partner (assuming they want the support!) Optimize THEIR lives. And our #1 self-care habit is a REALLY (like, Jumbo-REALLY!!!!) good place to start. For example, my #1 is sleep. Alexandra knows this. And, she knows that she doesn’t really want to be around me when I’m not meeting this fundamental need. So, we prioritize this to make sure I’m getting good sleep. (Thank you, Darling!!) Alexandra’s #1 self-care habit is time alone every day to meditate/reflect/create/etc. Knowing this, we prioritize it to make sure she gets that time. So… What’s YOUR #1. And… Wha

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