Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

Today we spend some time with Abraham Maslow and his wisdom on embracing “misery privileges” in our life as we also connect some ideas from Ray Dalio and his mistake-learner’s high with the inevitable imperfections of life that give us an opportunity to get a little Wiser! Hope you enjoy and let’s do this! -bri

Today we spend some time with Abraham Maslow and his wisdom on embracing “misery privileges” in our life as we also connect some ideas from Ray Dalio and his mistake-learner’s high with the inevitable imperfections of life that give us an opportunity to get a little Wiser!

In Today’s #1, we go for a little walk on the Trail around our property. lol. Emerson makes a surprise cameo as we give you a little tour of our Trail and pond-turned-puddle along with an invitation to join us for Optimize Coach - Class III—which launches in less than one week!!! Learn more, sign up, etc: https://www.optimize.me/coach Love and let’s do this! -bri

This morning we take the quick look at the ol’ Oura score and briefly reflect on the imperfect nature of sleep (especially when your wife stops breastfeeding and you sleep in a family bed! lol) then hit a ton of little things I thought might be interesting—ranging from thoughts on my pre-inputs creative process and systems and wrapping up with Being So Good and Energized and Awesome That They Can’t Ignore Us but they can Feel Us and Adore Us! Hope you enjoy and Happy Monday. Let’s do this!!! -bri

In our last +1, we Optimized our oral posture.   Bet you didn’t think we’d be talking about that when you signed up for Optimize! (Hah.)   I know I didn’t but here we are!   Recall: We want to turn our S-shaped bodies into a J-shape and then close our lips and gently place our tongues up toward the front of the roof of our mouths.   As it turns out, my favorite breathing expert, Patrick McKeown, wrote an awesome kid’s book in which he gives us a name for that spot.    He calls it “The Magic Spot.”   So…   Teaching ourselves AND our kids how to breathe properly is SUPER important. (As in: WAY more important than we may realize.)   Patrick’s book is called Always Breathe Correctly. I highly recommend it.    The book features a wizard who teaches kids how to breathe.    Of course, he teaches us that the nose is for breathing and the mouth is for eating while teaching us to breathe gently into our bellies, etc.   And…    He teaches us how to find that “Magic Spot”— with our tongues gently t

This morning (after the 1-2-3!) I spent a few minutes going through the 100+ PhilosophersNotes on which I'll be doing PNTVs soon (YEEHAH!) and then got to work on my PN on Driven by Doug Brackmann. Here are some thoughts on Optimizing in general (Measure! Consistency!) and also on how to harness our drives in particular. Hope you enjoy. Let's do this. TODAY! -bri

Quick one this morning. 1-2-3, PNTVs are coming back—in black and white! lol—and this gem: “A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both. Enough for him that he does it well.” ~ Lawrence Pearsall Jacks Hope you enjoy and here’s to dissolving the apparent dichotomies between our work and our play! TODAY! -bri

This morning I did the normal 1-2-3 (x2) and celebrated completing the Mastery Series. Then I got to work on reading a book called “Together.” It’s by Vivek Murthy, who was the 19th Surgeon General of the United States. It’s AMAZING. I share a few of my favorite ideas from chapter #1 and also give a little behind-the-scenes look at how I read a book, mark it all up and get ready for a PhilosophersNote. Hope you enjoy and let’s make sure we write that social prescription TODAY! Love and high fives, -bri

Today I had fun hammering out the Introduction Module for the Mastery Series. Fired up. Done!! YES!! I also filmed this #1 on the fascinating Audience Effect and another test. 9 hours in bed for 8 hours of sleep for the win!! :)

This morning I ran a little experiment and got out of bed a little earlier than I normally do. It’s always fascinating to see the data from experiments and use it to get a little better! In this case: I really like 8 hours of sleep so, note to self: Be in bed for 9 hours and get that little extra bonus kick of REM, yo! Hope you enjoy and here’s to crushing the fundamentals and making Today and awesome day!

Today we’re going to take a quick look at THE Ultimate Algorithm for Optimizing. But, first, we drool over Alexandra’s RIDICULOUSLY awesome Oura #s. lol. Then we have fun with some wisdom from two Phils: My Coach, Phil Stutz, and NBA great, Phil Jackson. Guess what? They both say the EXACT same thing about how to win the game of life. As Phil Jackson puts it (in The Last Dance ← awesome): “You’re only a success in the moment you perform a successful act. You have to do it again.” ← And again. And again. btw: THAT is what our Optimize Mastery Series is all about. Join us for Optimize Coach - Class III? Kicks off in less than 2 weeks!!! https://www.optimize.me/coach/ That is all. That and LET’S DO THIS! Today.

This morning I worked on the “Prospering” session for our Mastery Series (which is the foundation of our Optimize Coach program). After a 1-2-3 / 1+2+3! Breakfast of Champions (including savoring some *more* SEAL mojo), we move on to a quick overview of how to get your Prospering on—starting with the etymology lesson on the fact that the word “prosper” LITERALLY means “to go forward with hope.” The opposite isn’t “to be be poor” per se—unless we’re talking about “poor in spirit.” The opposite of “prosper” is “despair”--to be WITHOUT hope. Then, of course, we talk about how to get our prospering on. Hope you enjoy and hope you have an awesome day! More on Sleep at: https://www.optimize.me/sleep/ More on Coach at: https://www.optimize.me/coach/

This morning I worked on the “Celebrating” session for our Mastery Series (which is the foundation of our Optimize Coach program). After a 1-2-3 / 1+2+3! Breakfast of Champions (including savoring some SEAL mojo), we move on to a quick overview of how to get your celebration on—starting with acceptance then moving on to gratitude and finishing with you winning (or learning!) all day every day as you step into the Optimizing arena and give us all you’ve got while celebrating the whole process with deep, eudaimonic joy. Hope you enjoy and hope you have an awesome day!

This morning I thought it would be fun to share how I start my day. Jocko Willink has his 4:00 AM Timex watch. Awesome. I’m thinking I’ll share my Oura data every day and how I quickly use that data to get a little better via a three-step process we teach our Optimizers and Optimize Coaches: 1. What’s working? 2. What needs work? 3. What will I do differently? BOOM! Repeat. Aggregate and compound and let’s see what we’re capable of as we show up day in and day out for an extended period of time. I also share my Breakfast of Champions and some more thoughts on the messy process of creativity! Now it’s time to hit the Trail and then take my kids to the zoo. LET’S DO THIS. TODAY.

After filming Eating, Moving, Sleeping, Breathing, and Focusing over the last 5 days (YES!), I took a step back and did some messy creative work on Celebrating. Today I’m excited to share some thoughts on how I plan to approach that Mastery Series class along with some powerful wisdom from Abraham Maslow. Hope you enjoy and here’s to Radical Acceptance, Profound Gratitude and Ceaseless Celebration!

In our last +1, we got an inspiring (Hoosiers-inspired) pep talk from Admiral McRaven right before engaging in our next most important mission.   I mentioned the fact that I had a chat with an Olympic swim coach shortly after reading that passage from McRaven. He and I chatted about that wisdom in the context of measuring the length of the pool, the number of inches the starting block is off the water. Etc. Etc.   We also talked about flipping the switch and striking an Amy Cuddy-inspired power pose—which can literally change our underlying physiology by increasing our testosterone and decreasing our cortisol while priming us to give the world all we’ve got.   Then I referenced a passage from Cuddy’s great book Presence in which she actually talks about an Olympic swim coach who used that very technique.   Here’s the passage: “In the first month after my TED talk posted, I heard from an Olympic swimming coach who explained how he’d been using a power posing-type strategy—with great success—for y

This morning I prepared for my film session on Focusing for our Mastery Series that is the core part of our 300-day Optimize Coach program. Here’s a super-quick look at some core ideas from that class. Hope you find it helpful!!! Here’s to having an awesome day, one FOCUSED (!) moment at a time!! Remember: Soul Force = T x (E x F x W.I.N.)^C

This morning I prepared for my film session on Breathing for our Mastery Series that is the core part of our 300-day Optimize Coach program. Here’s a super-quick look at some core ideas from that class. Hope you find it helpful!!! Here’s to having an awesome day, one Optimized breath at a time!!  Remember: 1. Nose. 2. Belly. 3. Exhale!!

This morning I was preparing to film a Mastery Series session for our Optimize Coach certification program. We have 7 core fundies: Eating, Moving, Sleeping, Breathing, Focusing, Celebrating and Prospering. Today I was prepping for Sleep. So… Here’s a video with a super-quick overview of the wisdom we’ll be sharing with an emphasis on one of the key practices we want to engage in if we want to Optimize our Sleep. I call it “Training Tranquility.” If you’re having trouble falling/staying asleep you may want to try this out! Hope you enjoy!!! Here’s to some epic sleep.

A couple +1s ago we spent some time pulling some weeds together as we created some new habits.   How?    By STARTING SMALL and MAKING IT EASY!   (Am I repeating myself AND yelling?! Lol. Yes and Yes.)   Today I want to spend a little more time on our new property. We’re going to talk about my new weed whacker and the little running Trail Emerson and I created.    First, a confession.    I’d never used a weed whacker before we arrived at our new place out here in the country. (Note: I did mow the lawn (and our elderly neighbor’s lawn) every weekend growing up but I never got promoted to the weed whacker.)   And…   Just so you know: I’ve spent more time at Home Depot over the last few weeks than I had in my entire life. (Hah.) It’s been awesome.   New Identity: Rancher Bri!    Yeehah!   So…    One of the first things I did after we arrived?    I created a little running Trail around the perimeter of our property. It’s a heavenly little loop that just so happens to be almost exactly a third