You Are Heroic with Brian Johnson

In our last +1, we talked about my mission to become a Spartan World Champion. My heart skips a beat just typing that. (Which, btw, is a good "reverse indicator" as my Yoda would say. Btw2: When Phil and I chatted about my contemplations about raising my standards and going all in on the Spartan mission, he told me that I MUST go for it or the Universe will fire me from my job. Laughing.) So… The title of that last +1 was "Becoming a Champion." Today's it's called "Being a Champion." We're going to talk about another coach of champions: Ben Bergeron. Ever heard of him? If you don't know who he is, have you ever heard of CrossFit? If you're alive and into Optimizing, my hunch is that you almost certainly have. One more question: Ever watch the CrossFit Games where the world's best CrossFit athletes get together and see who is "The Fittest on Earth"? Those world-class CrossFit Games athletes are absolute BEASTS. As in: ASTONISHINGLY strong, skilled and tough. Only 40 men and 40 women (and 40 teams) make it through the regional qualifiers to the world championships. Most of the athletes who make it there are just happy to be among the world's best. But a select few are there to win it. Those are the athletes Ben Bergeron coaches. In fact, he's coached his athletes to six world championships. In 2016 he coached BOTH the men's champion AND the women's champion. (Which is kinda crazy awesome when you think about it.) All of that to say, Ben wrote a GREAT book called Chasing Excellence in which he shares his approach. We'll chat about it a bit more in the next few +1s. Today I want to focus on one simple point. He and his athletes never talked about being champions. They were too focused on ACTING like a Champion NOW. Here's how two-time champion Katrín Davíðsdóttir puts it: "Though I moved halfway around the world with the goal of making it back to the CrossFit Games, Ben and I never actually talked about the Games. We didn't talk about qualifying, we didn't talk about finishing in the top ten, and we certainly didn't talk about winning. What we did talk about was giving full effort in every single moment of every single day, and becoming the best we could possibly be." Today's +1. You may or may not have aspirations to be an "official" "champion" of anything in your life. Of course, that's fine. (Although I'd encourage you to think for a moment about what you COULD be the absolute best in the world at Jim Collins Hedgehog Style.) But, if you're this far into this +1, I'm going with the assumption that you're at least moderately committed to Optimizing. (Hah.) So, reach over to the virtual stovetop in your mind, turn the heat up to 212 degrees, and think about YOU at your ABSOLUTE (!) BEST. Then be that version of you Today. Moment to moment to moment. Put your old identity on a permanent vacation and act like a Champion.

A few +1s ago we talked about Stuart Wilde. He's an old-school self-help teacher who used to lecture with Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay and Deepak Chopra. He's really funny. He's also a fascinating blend of super-esoteric spirituality AND super-intense discipline. (As per our "Dominate Your Life!!" +1!!) Today I want to chat about a practical little exercise I've been using from his great book Infinite Self. Short story: The book is, as the title suggests, all about connecting to a power that's infinitely (!) bigger than us. Call it whatever you want—God, the Universe, the Field, the Force. Doesn't matter. But, I think we'd all agree that there's SOMETHING bigger than us that's beating our hearts and growing our toenails while somehow finding the time to expand the universe at the mind-boggling speed of around 68 kilometers per second per megaparsec. So… Stuart tells us that we'd be wise to figure out how to make that infinite power a more conscious, consistent part of our lives. He offers 33 steps. Step 1 is to FEEL the force WITHIN you NOW. It's not some abstract thing out there. It's within you. Now. Check out the Notes for more. For now, the exercise. The next time you feel annoyed by something or someone in your life, step back and imagine yourself as a 250-foot tall version of yourself. You're so tall that you can basically straddle your city and stand WAY above your little self—barely even seeing the tiny little problem(s) you're dealing with at the moment. And, if you want to go astronaut-style all in on it, just imagine yourself as a 250,000-MILE tall version of you—so big you can touch the moon with your finger. That should do the trick. From either of those vantage points, look down at your city or our planet and try to find your little self and your little problems that feel so big when you live from such a contracted place. How do things look from THAT perspective? Exactly. Like a non-issue. Guess what? That's the accurate perspective. All of which leads us to Today's +1. Anything or anyone annoying you? Say hello to the 250-foot (or 250-mile!) tall version of you. Look at your problems from that vantage point. Smile. Wave. Then do what needs to get done.

Continuing our underwater theme for a moment longer, have you ever heard of hagfish? They're pretty creepy. (I apologize in advance for the visual image here but I think it's worth it…) Here's how Steve Chandler describes hagfish in Time Warrior: "To really live now there are two things I want to phase out of my life forever: (1) Resentments about the past and (2) Worries about the future. These two activities, strengthened by repeated indulgence, are like hagfish. Hagfish? Many people don't know what hagfish are, but they are just like worries and resentments. In the real, undersea world, hagfish are blind, slimy, deepwater eel-like creatures that dart into the orifices of their prey and devour them, alive, from the inside. Kill the hagfish in your life. Then you can live now and maybe procrastinate later." Um. Hmmm… Wow. That's a heck of a way to kill your prey, eh? Dart into their orifices and then devour them, alive, from the inside? Yikes. And, well, that's Today's +1. Got any hagfish in your life? Any resentments and/or worries that're eating you from the inside out? Is now a good time to kill those hagfish before they get you? Fantastic. Good luck with that!

In our last +1, we talked about W.H. Auden's (genius) quip that routine, in an intelligent person, is a sign of ambition. (I laugh with joy every time I type that.) Then we did a quick check in on your ambition. And, hopefully, we dialed it up a notch and made sure that your routines were reflecting that strong desire to Optimize and actualize in service to your family, community and world. Today I want to talk about work and play. A lot of people think those two things are separate. I think you're doing it wrong if your work ISN'T play. Abraham Maslow would agree. He once said that one of the hallmarks of self-actualizing people is that they get to a place where "apparent dichotomies" are dissolved. In Motivation and Personality, he has a chapter in which he describes the "19 Characteristics of the Self-Actualizer." Check out the Notes for a super-quick look at all 19 of those self-actualizer characteristics. For now, know this: The 19th characteristic of self-actualizers is their "Resolution of Dichotomies." For example, he tells us: "The dichotomy between selfishness and unselfishness disappears altogether in healthy people because in principle every act is both selfish and unselfish." Another dichotomy that dissolves for self-actualizers? The dichotomy between work and play. What happens when work IS play? And when play IS work? Well, then you get a statement like this from author James Michener in his autobiography: "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he's always doing both." That's the way to roll. Here's to mastering the art of living. Let's have fun writing the rules to the game that is our lives and then playing it with all the joy and intensity and excellence we can muster—letting others decide whether we're working or playing. For us, we're always doing both.

A couple +1s ago, while celebrating Yuval Noah Harari's lack of a smartphone, I mentioned the fact that we don't need to become smashing Luddites in response to the tsunami of technology that hammers us all day every day. But… We ALSO want to make sure we don't become addicted users. The best solution? Be an Optimizite. Let's make the best use of technology to sculpt the best possible version of yourself. (Recall that Optimize comes from the Latin optimus which literally means "the best.") That's the central theme of Conquering Digital Addiction 101—which might be my favorite master class so far. Here's the deal. You know how Facebook and Instagram and Google make money? By, essentially, hacking and then selling your attention. They work REALLY REALLY REALLY (!!!) hard to make sure you spend MORE and MORE and MORE time on their sites and apps. Then they SELL your attention to (literally) the highest bidder. Now, of course, there's nothing inherently evil about this per se. These companies often provide astonishingly cool and equally valuable services. But the way they've set up their business model essentially REQUIRES them to, as this must-see 60 Minutes exposé called "Brain Hacking" puts it: HACK your mind. Now, we often say we watch stuff like that for "free" but, technically, we typically pay for it via xx seconds of your attention (which is sold to a sponsor who shows us their ad). Alternatively, you can upgrade your YouTube account and NOT watch ads—which is a really compelling alternative business model that doesn't require a company to focus so much on mining your attention. Saving the bigger picture business model discussion for another time, get this: That whole economy is called the "attention economy" (and could be called the "mind-hacking economy"). You know how much money is made hacking your mind every year? Some researchers put the number at $7 TRILLION dollars. S E V E N. T R I L L I O N. D O L L A R S. $7,000,000,000,000!!! That's a lot of zeroes. (12 in fact.) And… That's a lot of hacking. And… A lot of addicted users. Which brings us to another point of the class and of this +1. Technologists refer to their customers as "users." You know who else refers to their customers as "users"? Drug dealers. (Hah. And d'oh.) Seeing that our smartphones and emails and apps light up the same addiction centers of our brains as cocaine and alcohol and other drugs, it's a fitting parallel. It's also why Bill Maher refers to "social media tycoons" as "tobacco farmers in t-shirts." Only, he says, the tobacco guys only wanted your lungs. Tech titans want your SOUL. Again. I'm NOT saying we should all go smashing our phones and computers Luddite style. But I AM saying that you've gotta wonder why Steve Jobs wouldn't even let his own kids use the iPad he was so excited about. And why so many tech execs follow his lead and RADICALLY limit their kids' use of the very products they build. As Adam Alter says in Irresistible: "It seemed as if the people producing tech products were following the cardinal rule of drug dealing: never get high on your own supply. This is unsettling. Why are the world's greatest public technocrats also its greatest private technophobes? Can you imagine the outcry if religious leaders refused to let their children practice religion?" All of which leads us to the practical point of Today's +1. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "Not at all! I'm 100% Optimizite, baby!" and 10 being "Oh… yikes! I'm a 10 Addicted User!" where are you on the addicted-user spectrum? 1 ----------------------------------------- 10 And… Most importantly: How can you take a step or three toward the Optimizite side of that spectrum today? Here's to wisely unplugging from the $7 trillion mind-hacking economy long enough to become all that we're capable of being!

In our last +1, we talked about Professor Harari's two world maps—one before The Scientific Revolution that was all filled in (including areas they knew NOTHING about) and one after that had plenty of empty spaces (accounting for all they things they didn't know). Then we talked about YOUR maps. And, hopefully, we all added a good deal more empty space in our maps—especially that space outside our comfort zones that leads to the unknowable zone of our infinite potential. Today I want to chat about the importance of running our own scientific experiments. Of course, admitting our ignorance is an absolutely essential first step to gaining new knowledge. But, then we've gotta throw on our lab coats and get to work! Before we go there though, how about another quick little history lesson? So, we all know that Christopher Columbus "discovered" the continent that became known as America. But... He refused to believe it. When he landed on the Bahamas he thought he had discovered islands en route to East Asia. As Professor Harari puts it: "He called the people he found there 'Indians' because he thought he had landed in the Indies—what we now call the East Indies or the Indonesian archipelago. Columbus stuck to this error for the rest of his life. The idea that he had discovered a completely unknown continent was inconceivable for him and for many of his generation." Then, get this: America was mistakenly named by map-maker Martin Waldseemüller who thought explorer Amerigo Vespucci discovered it. As Harari says, "There is poetic justice in the fact that a quarter of the world, and two of its seven continents, are named after a little-known Italian whose sole claim to fame is that he had the courage to say, 'We don't know.'" Alright. Back to the Scientific Optimizing. Today's +1. Let's throw on our lab coats and goggles and grab our clipboards. It's time to run some experiments. In fact, let's follow Ralph Waldo Emerson's wisdom and make EVERYTHING an experiment. btw: My hunch is you're familiar with this quote: "All life is an experiment. The more experiments the better." The full passage is even better. As Ralph says: "Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble." So, my dear Scientifically-Experimenting-Ignoramus-Optimizer friend: What experiments have YOU run lately? Let's measure our little (and big) tests as objectively as we can—making the connection between the mundane things like "When I eat that, my nose gets stuffy" and "When I'm online late at night I sleep poorly and that diminishes my energy and optimism which makes me grumpy which slows down my actualization" to... Whatever else you need to shine the light of ignorance on! Then, of course, we need to take that data and APPLY it to our lives. As Harari points out, it's APPLIED scientific knowledge that leads to power. We can only gain new power by moving from *theory* to PRACTICE. So, my dear Scientifically-Experimenting-Ignoramus-Optimizer friend: What data have you gotten from recent experiments and, most importantly, how will you apply that knowledge to your life TODAY? Here's to your lab coat and clipboard. And don't forget the goggles.

Wallace D. Wattles was an old-school Philosopher-Optimizer who wrote The Science of Getting Rich. He also wrote a little book called The Science of Being Great. (Both of those titles are, of course, finalists for best titles ever.) In The Science of Being Great he has a great line that has been tattooed on my brain since I read it. He said: "The world needs demonstration more than it needs instruction." The world needs DEMONSTRATION more than it needs INSTRUCTION. Isn't that a powerful statement?! (Kinda makes you wonder what you're demonstrating, eh?) For example, we know that kids don't do what they're told or taught, they do what they SEE. So, it's pretty obvious we better model the behaviors we want to see in our kids if we want them to grow up to be great humans. All of which leads us to a little personal story—one from a couple months ago that features me in a (laughably) low moment in my parenting career. Short story: My dad cursed like a sailor. In fact, he literally WAS a sailor. (Hah.) He enlisted in the Navy when he turned 18 and his language was just astonishingly bad. (So bad he'd literally make my devout Catholic mom cry at times. I can laugh now but it wasn't funny then.) Anyway… I rarely curse and I've been committed to never cursing in front of the kids. So, I was particularly appalled at myself (laughing) when, on an evening when I was particularly tired and Emerson was acting particularly like a (tired) 5 year old, I got so annoyed by the meditation cushion (oh, the irony!) he dropped on my face when I wasn't looking as I was laying on the ground playing with Eleanor that I got up, walked out of the room and mumbled in a voice considerably louder than I intended: "You're such a little sh*t!" What happened next? Well, he was at the door and IMMEDIATELY said, "No! YOU'RE such a little s*it!" Again, I can laugh as I type this as a) It's been awhile and b) He had no idea what the word was and hasn't repeated it since and c) I got some serious mileage on the "Needs Work!" front but… It was a really powerful opportunity for me to remember that the world needs DEMONSTRATION more than it needs INSTRUCTION. All of which leads us to Today's +1. What are you demonstrating? Any behaviors that make you wince that you'd like to clean up and throw out? Let's do this!

Today we're going to talk about walking. Walking is awesome. In fact, it's so old-school epically awesome in helping thinkers think that our ancient friends even had a Latin phrase to capture its power: Solvitur ambulando. <- "It is solved by walking." Nietzsche would agree. He said: "All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking." Kierkegaard would agree. He put it this way: "I have walked myself into my best thoughts." Then we have Immanuel Kant. He was so consistent with his daily walks that his neighbors could set their clocks to the time he passed their houses. (They even named a street after him called "Philosopher's Walk.") Then we have Charles Darwin. For nearly FORTY years he followed his schedule with "clockwork" precision. And, you know what made it on the schedule every day? His walk. He was so committed to it that he actually leased his neighbor's land just so he could do a complete loop on what became known as Sandwalk (although he preferred to call it his "thinking path"). Then there's Aristotle. He and his followers walked so much as they thought and taught and philosophized that they were known as the "peripatetics"—which literally means "walking up and down." Of course, modern scientists have proven just how powerful walking is for creativity. (Especially in nature!) So, yah. Ancient and modern philosophers agree: Walking is pretty powerful. But, pop quiz! You know what NONE of those philosophers had on their deep-thinking walks? SMARTPHONES. Of course, none of them lived in a world with such a nonstop tsunami of digital distractions but I can assure you that no self-respecting, deep-thinking lover of wisdom would bring a device that would subject them to OTHER people's thoughts on a walk intended to tap into THEIR own thoughts. … How about you? Today's +1. Go for a walk. (Ideally somewhere easy to get to yet beautiful.) And leave your smartphone at home. (Or in the car/whatever.) Say hello to your deep thoughts for me.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that batting .300 over the course of your Major League Baseball career gets you in the Hall of Fame. Today we're going to continue the baseball metaphor. Pop quiz for baseball fans: You know how many perfect games have EVER been thrown?! (For those who may not know, a perfect game is defined by Major League Baseball (via Wikipedia) as "a game in which a pitcher (or combination of pitchers) pitches for a victory [in a game] that lasts a minimum of nine innings in which no opposing player reaches base.") So… Get this: According to Wikipedia, Major League Baseball has been around for 140 years. Over 210,000 (!) games have been played. And only 23 (!) perfect games have ever been pitched. And… No player has ever thrown more than one perfect game. 140 years. 210,000 (!) games. Only 23 perfect games. And NO pitcher has ever done it twice. Yet you and I want to have perfect lives. (Hahahahahhaha!) I'm also reminded of John Wooden. He was all about GOING for perfection but only doing so KNOWING we'll never actually get it! Here's how he puts it: "Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts." (Sounds a lot like our Guiding Stars and Distant Shores, eh?) You know what else Wooden said? This: "When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts." (Sounds a lot like our Optimize +1s, eh?) And, one more Wooden gem (all of these are from his book called Wooden, btw): "Did I win? Did I lose? Those are the wrong questions. The correct question is: Did I make my best effort? That's what matters. The rest of it just gets in the way." Today's +1. Let's make our best effort. Let's "seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts." +1. +1. +1.