OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson | More Wisdom in Less Time

In our last +1, we had fun applying Rumi’s wisdom that God turns us from one feeling to another so we have two wings to fly and not one.   Today, we’ll look at another one of my favorite gems from Rumi.   He tells us: “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?”

Here’s a quick look behind the scenes for one of our next classes: Journaling 101: How to Use a Pen and Paper to Create Clarity, Confidence, and Consistency. I hope you enjoy this overview of the class (and my process in creating it)! P.S. Optimize with us: http://optimize.me

My morning journaling and strategy thinking (+ Top 10 Books) (behind the scenes)

In one of my coaching sessions with Phil Stutz he told me to write something down. (He often does that.) He said, “Draw a horizontal line. Above that line, put ‘Thinking Space.’ Below the line, put ‘Work Space.’” Then he asked me, “You know what the ‘Thinking Space’ is good for?” I didn’t have a very good answer. He said, “NOTHING. Nothing happens in the Thinking Space.”

In our last +1, we talked about Rebound Days and the fact that you’re not going to be on every (!) single (!!) day (!!!).  We need to consistently remind ourselves that we’re never going to create a PERFECT life where nothing ever goes wrong and we’re exonerated from all future work. Here’s another way to look at that reality. We will still have highs and lows, but our highs will be higher AND our lows will be higher.

A few +1s ago, we talked about Amy Cuddy’s research on how quickly you can build your power and presence by simply expanding your body. We’ve also talked about the research on The iPhone Effect—which tells us that simply having a phone in sight diminishes the quality of your interactions.  Did you know there’s also research into something called the “iHunch”?

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.

Did you know that the word courage comes from the Latin word for “heart”? Yep.  And, just as your heart pumps blood to your arms and legs and brain, your COURAGE pumps energy to your other virtues...

+1: Digital Sunset

I’m a HUGE fan of Phil and Barry's first book, The Tools. Coming Alive is kinda like The Tools Part 2. In this book, we get four new tools to go along with the original five tools. Big Ideas we explore include how to connect to our Life Force, defeat Part X (their name for that part of each of us that gets in the way), build our confidence and learn to see problems as gifts as we live a GREAT life.

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.

Most of us wonder how we can have more willpower in those moments of temptation.  But Roy Baumeister—the world’s leading expert on willpower, and one of the most cited social psychologists on the planet—tells us that the people who use their willpower the most wisely don’t actually use it to deal with that many temptations. 

Jim Collins is arguably the greatest business thinker alive. He’s written classics like Good to Great, Built to Last and Great by Choice in which he applies rigorous research to what makes great companies great.

The great mythologist Joseph Campbell told us to follow our bliss. Why? And… How’d he come up with that?

Michelle Segar, the scientist we learned about in our last +1, tells us that when we choose the Right (concrete) Why (“Feel better now!”) rather than the Wrong (fuzzy) Why (“Get healthier!”), we can turn our health behaviors like exercising and eating well into GIFTS rather than CHORES.