Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

Continuing our time with my dear friend Katherine Collins, let’s talk about another micro-moment of Divine wisdom from our recent chat.   Quick context.   As you know if you’ve been following along, I’ve spent half of the last 20 years in Founder/CEO mode and the other half in Philosopher/Lover-of-Wisdom mode.   Although I’m not really into astrological signs (lol), I happen to be a Gemini and that myth happens to describe one of my primary challenges pretty well.   I often feel a pull to be one OR the other.    A CEO or a Philosopher.   Which recently made me think of the word ambivalence.   Which led to a trip to my 2,084-page American Heritage dictionary.   I flip to page 56. Here’s the definition: “the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.”   Alright. Got it.    But what I’m really interested in is the etymology of the word.   Get this: ambi means “on both sides of” and valence comes from the same root as valor and valence—it bas