OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson | More Wisdom in Less Time

In a recent chat with Phil, we talked about the fact that leadership often comes with what he calls “hatred and misunderstanding.” (In fact, as Steve would say, it “goeswith” it.)

In our last +1, we hung out with Alexandra and Steve Chandler and John Madden as we talked about Connection over Perfection. Today I want to chat about Ellen Langer’s ideas on how to give what she calls “Mindful Presentations.” We’ll connect her wisdom back to Steve’s wisdom and see if we can bring it all together in YOUR life.

In our last couple +1s, we talked about a key (arguably the #1 key) predictor of our long-term health/morbidity: our visceral fat. 

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that, as per Robert Lustig’s Fat Chance, our visceral fat (aka abdominal/”big belly” fat) is “the fulcrum on which your health teeters.”

David Perlmutter is one of my favorite nutrition-physicians. We have Notes on a bunch of his books including Grain Brain, Brain Maker, and Power Up Your Brain.

Today we’ll step back a bit and put in an AM Intention practice to go with that PM Reflection practice.

In our last +1, we had fun chatting about the diploma we give to our Optimize Coaches. It so perfectly captures the underlying purpose of all of our work together that I’d like to share it again. 

Last night as I was falling asleep, I was reflecting on the wonderful time I spent with a dear friend who came up to Ojai for a hike to chat about his next hero’s journey. 

The other day I celebrated the 9-month anniversary of my little bionic-arm-creating injury. I celebrated by doing 300 burpees. Then, 6 days later, I celebrated the 9-month anniversary of the surgery. I celebrated by doing another 300 burpees.

Not too long ago, we shared a +1 on what I called “Thought Alchemy.” It was all about “How to Change One Thought for Another.”

The other day I was revisiting my Masterpiece Day. I’m pretty much constantly tweaking it on a micro +1 level and, when needed, revisiting it for a deeper architectural analysis of what’s working and what can use some work. 

In our last +1, we spent some time with Emily Fletcher and reflected on her meditation wisdom that thoughts are not our enemies.

Emily Fletcher was a Broadway performer living the dream. Only… Her hair was graying at 27, she was always stressed and had chronic insomnia. One of her fellow Broadway performers was always super calm and confident. Emily asked her how she did it. The woman told her that she meditated. Emily rolled her eyes. Then she decided to give meditation a try.

Nir Eyal wrote the playbook that pretty much all of the major tech companies use to create their super-compelling (addictive/Irresistible?) web sites, apps, etc. The book is called Hooked.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been having fun hanging out with some Stoics—some modern guys and some ancient ones. It started with a day hanging out with William B. Irvine. Professor Irvine is a rare species—an academic professor of philosophy AND an actual practitioner of (Stoic) philosophy. He and I had fun spending some time together as I read his brilliant book The Stoic Challenge.