You Are Heroic with Brian Johnson

The Plant Paradox. In a nutshell: The plants that nourish us can also hurt us. Dr. Steven Gundry is a renowned cardiologist and heart surgeon. He's a former professor at Loma Linda University and has authored 300+ peer-reviewed articles on using diet and supplements to eliminate a bunch of diseases. And, to put it in perspective: He's Tony Robbins's doctor. Big Ideas we explore include Rule #1 of nutrition (and life) (hint: STOP eating/doing stuff that doesn't work for you), the little edible enemies that are taking you down, the vagus nerve and it's communication from your gut to your brain, how fruit might as well be candy and 90% new you in 90 days.

Want this year to be the greatest year of your life? Here's how to go about making that happen. We'll start with a quick inventory of what's awesome. And, what needs work. Then we'll move on to imagine THE (!) best version of you in 10 years and 25+ years (eulogy you!) while reflecting on how to make the prior best version of you your new baseline. Then… It's all about being that version of you NOW. We'll revisit the fundies and your Big 3 while creating Masterpiece Days, avoiding the pickles and kryptonite dust, WOOPing everything and playing the game that is our lives as well as we can.

Pierre Hadot was one of the most influential historians of ancient philosophy. In this book, he gives us an incredible look at Marcus Aurelius and his classic Meditations. You can feel Hadot's incredible intellectual rigor and equally incredible passion for engaged philosophy. It's inspiring. Big Ideas we explore include spiritual exercises, your inner citadel, your daimōn, amor fate, turning obstacles upside down and carpe areté.

Got problems with your soul? These days, you'd see a psychotherapist. But, back in the day, it was the philosopher who'd help you optimize—they were the preferred physician of the soul. This book is about the philosophical roots of modern psychotherapy. Specifically, it outlines the connection between cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and Stoicism. Big Ideas we explore include being a warrior of the mind vs. a librarian of the mind, your highest human purpose, getting on good terms with your inner daimon, practicing the reserve clause and modeling your ideal sage.

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." Hah. Obviously, stepping back and thinking about things is a vital skill but the fact is, nothing actually HAPPENS until we take action, use the tools and get to work on and in our lives. (And, as we've discussed numerous times, most of us don't actually THINK, we ruminate—which, we know, is not good. At all.(https://www.optimize.me/plus-one/rumination/) Phil says we all tend to live in the Thinking Space. He says we need to force ourselves DOWN—out of (over)thinking and into the Work Space. How? Use one of our +1 tools, get to work, do ANYTHING but overthink (or indulge in our Kryptonites). He tells us that it's kinda like a beach ball in water. You press it down and what does it want to do? Pop back up. Well, we want to get REALLY good at keeping that ball down. Today's +1: Do you (like me and most people on the planet), have a default tendency to spend too much time thinking about things and not enough time actually DOING things? Remember the beach ball. Push it down every time it pops back up.

Do you know how caffeine actually works? Most of us think that caffeine gives us energy. But what it actually does is mask our fatigue—making us feel more energized than we actually are. Here's the quick story on what's going on behind the scenes. One of the by-products of being awake and having your neurons fire is a neurotransmitter called adenosine. As adenosine accumulates in your brain, you get tired—cueing you to go to sleep to recover. Caffeine is structurally very similar to adenosine. So similar, in fact, that it can actually sneak into those little adenosine receptors and block the adenosine from doing its job of letting us know we're tired. And voila! You feel energized. Obviously, that's pretty cool. (Hah.) Today's +1: Two things we want to consider as we optimize our caffeine intake. 1. We want to know that when we use caffeine we're "borrowing" energy. Therefore, we'd be wise to use caffeine strategically rather than habitually. If we need caffeine to get going in the morning, what we really need is more rest, not more caffeine. 2. We also want to know that caffeine has a half-life of 5-8 hours—which means that if you have a coffee with 200 mg of caffeine at 2 pm, half of that (or 100 mg) is still in your system as late as 10 pm. (That's a lot!) Bottom line: If you're going to use caffeine, do it strategically and do it earlier in the day. Have a "caffeine curfew" to make sure you get a good night of sleep. Experts say no later than 2 pm and earlier if you're really serious about allowing your body to recover. So… How's YOUR caffeine intake? How can you +1 it?

Darren Hardy is the publisher of SUCCESS magazine. His message is clear: We are living in the era of greatest opportunity in human history. There's never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. NOW IS THE TIME to hop on the entrepreneur roller coaster. Big Ideas we explore include the importance of getting super freaky, practicing getting up after getting knocked down, setting the pace as an effective leader and remember it's the fear of fear we fear.