You Are Heroic with Brian Johnson

In our last couple +1s, we've been hanging out in an fMRI scanning our brains and seeing some fascinating stuff. Let's stay in there for one more study on how your brain lights up in different ways depending on the food you eat. First, a little background: David Ludwig is a professor and researcher at both Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. He has both an M.D. and a Ph.D. and is one of the world's leading researchers on the science of optimal nutrition. He's overseen dozens of diet studies and authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles. In his great book Always Hungry?, he tells us about some powerful research. Get this: You can bring people into a lab and have them drink a milkshake that's identical in every way but one. One shake has "fast-acting" carbs and the other has "slow-acting" carbs. You have the people in the study drink their shakes and then, a few hours later, you scan their brains. Guess what. Well, before we even get into that fMRI machine, we see that the individuals who consumed the fast-acting carbs are reporting more hunger and their blood glucose levels have dropped more than the ones who consumed the slow-acting carbs. And… When we look at their brains, we see something amazing. The people who consumed the "fast-acting" carbs have a little part of their brain lit up that's called the "nucleus accumbens." The nucleus accumbens is the primary reward center of our brains. It's the part of our brains tied to addiction—addiction to stuff like alcohol, tobacco and cocaine. It's what drives you to compulsively consume more of something. And, it LIGHTS up when you eat fast-acting carbs!!! So, right as your blood sugar drops and your hunger increases, you have your nucleus accumbens screaming at you to have more of the sugary stuff. Not a winning combination. The solution? First, make the connection between your food choices right now and your future self x minutes and hours from now as per our last +1. And… Reduce or eliminate those fast-acting carbs. What qualifies as fast-acting carbs? Well, the obvious stuff like sugar (in all its forms!) needs to go. The less obvious stuff like bread and pastas also need to go. Let's cool off that nucleus accumbens as we Optimize our nutrition one bite at a time. +1. +1. +1.

This is a quick-reading, smart, practical guide on how to, as the sub-title suggests, "Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done. My kind of book. I *highly* recommend it. Big Ideas we explore include rats + rewards (real vs. random), progress hacks to conquer the progress paradox, saying "YES!!!" en route to saying "No" plus the physics of emails and 21st century superpowers.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the world's leading researchers studying the science of well-being. He co-founded the Positive Psychology movement with Martin Seligman and has written landmark books on Creativity and Flow. After surveying thousands of people, Mihaly was able to shine some light on that elusive state in which we're at our best. In fact, he's the one who coined the word "Flow." Here's the basic idea: Imagine drawing two lines. On the x axis we have our Skill level. On the y axis we have our Challenge level. If the Challenge is high but your Skill is low, what will you experience? ANXIETY. On the other hand, if your Skill is high, but the Challenge is low, what will you experience? BOREDOM. Now, what if your Skill level matches the Challenge? Enter: FLOW. So, Today's +1: A quick inventory. Are you feeling Bored? Increase the level of Challenge. (For example, if you're doing a mundane, repetitive task, see how flawlessly you can do it or how quickly or both!) Feeling Anxious? Decrease the Challenge a bit and/or increase your Skill. Want to feel more Flow? Bring more awareness to the whole process, set a goal that focuses your attention (that is ALWAYS the first step, btw!!), eliminate distractions (Go Deep!!), and allow yourself to be fully immersed in the experience. Repeat. FLOW!!! +1. +1. +1.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that the word courage comes from the Latin word for "heart." Just as our heart pumps blood to the rest of our body, our COURAGE pumps energy to our other virtues. Here's one of the simplest, easiest and most powerful ways to build your courage in any given moment. Strike a pose. A courageous, power pose. As we've discussed so many times, the relationship between our feelings and our behaviors is what researchers describe as "bidirectional." It goes both ways. Science says that feelings FOLLOW behavior at least as much as the other way around. In other words, by simply taking certain actions, we can influence how we feel. Amy Cuddy has demonstrated this in her lab at Harvard. In her great book Presence, she tells us that we all E X P A N D when we feel most powerful. Get this: Even blind athletes, who have never seen anyone else do it, will strike that victorious "V!" pose with arms triumphantly up in the air when they win a race. So, she started her research with this question: "Since we naturally expand our bodies when we feel powerful, do we also naturally feel powerful when we expand our bodies?" Spoiler alert: YES!!! In one study, individuals were split into two groups. One group assumed "low-power" poses in which they, essentially, took up less space (sitting while slouching, with their hands close to their bodies and standing with their legs close together, and their arms close to their bodies and their heads down). The other group assumed "high-power" poses in which they EXPANDED and took up more space (sitting in a relaxed, confident manner with legs out and hands behind head; standing like Wonder Woman or Superman with hands on hips, chin up and feet wide apart). After only TWO minutes of posing, here's what happened: "the high-power posers showed a 19 percent increase in testosterone and a 25 percent decrease in cortisol. Low-power posers showed the opposite pattern—a 10 percent decrease in testosterone and a 17 percent increase in cortisol, the exact pattern we predicted." That pattern is known as the dual hormone hypothesis. High testosterone + low cortisol = HIGH power. Low testosterone + high cortisol = LOW power. Think about that: Two minutes of posing produced those dramatic shifts in biology. Simply moving our bodies in a more expansive way significantly boosts our confidence and power. That's Today's +1. Feel the difference between going through life in a low-power, shrunken state vs. expanding into your most powerful self. Want to feel more confidence and power today? Smile. Strike a power pose. And go rock it.

In our last +1, we talked about the power of recommitting. You make a big commitment, then you fall a little off track. No big deal, REcommit and continue on. Today, we're going to add a little letter to recommitment. It's a "P." We'll drop it in right at the beginning. Giving us: PREcommitment. So, now we have: Precommitment. Commitment. And Recommitment. Science says precommitment is one of the most powerful tools in the Willpower tool chest. They even give precommitments a pretty cool name: Odysseus Contracts. Before we jump into ancient mythology and see what it has to say about modern science, let's remember: Will power exemplars play OFFENSE not DEFENSE (https://www.optimize.me/plus-one/want-willpower-play-offense-not-defense/). They use their finite willpower wisely to install habits that run on autopilot—avoiding the temptations that drain our willpower as we try to resist them. Offense. Not defense. One of the most powerful ways to do that? Decide in ADVANCE how we will handle a challenging situation. PRECOMMIT ourselves to the best possible action. So, back to mythology. What did Odysessus do when he and his sailors needed to get by the Sirens without crashing into the rocks? He precommitted himself to a course of action. How? By tying himself to his mast and commanding his sailors not to untie him regardless of how much he begged them to do so. THAT's precommitment. He chose to do something that locked himself into a virtuous course of action when he knew he'd be challenged. His sailors precommitted as well. Rather than tie themselves to the boat, they took an even smarter path and avoided the temptation in the first place by plugging their ears with beeswax. They didn't even hear the tempting sounds of the Sirens. Voila! Safe passage through that dangerous path. Again, THAT's precommitment. Odysseus Contracts. Someone struggling with alcohol, for example, would be much wiser to never go into a bar than to try to not drink once they're in there. Someone looking to Optimize their energy would be much wiser to not even walk down the fake food aisles at the grocery store than to buy the sugar and refined flour toxic goop and then try to resist eating it once it's in their pantry. Back to you and Today's +1: What Odysseus Contracts do YOU need to make with yourself?

Ready to upgrade your vision of love? Then you're in for a treat with this fantastic book by Barbara Fredrickson. Barbara is one of the world's leading positive psychologists. The book is incredibly well-written, deeply inspiring and incredibly practical as well. In fact, I just told Alexandra that this book might be the one that most positively impacts my life. Big Ideas we explore include: Love 1.0 vs. Love 2.0, taking a trip to Vagus, identifying our prevailing desire, #1 tip: create 3 loving moments today, exiting our cocoon of self-absorption via loving-kindness meditation, and Love 2.0 x 2: compassionate + celebratory love.

In our last +1 we hopped on a treadmill with Will Smith and Smokeybot. Today, let's hop on a treadmill with well-being researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky. Sonja is one of the world's leading experts on the science of what is called "hedonic adaptation." Basically, hedonic adaptation is a fancy phrase for our tendency to get used to good things. The way we so easily adapt to awesome stuff is kinda like being on a treadmill. You get fired up about making $x per year or having a certain car or house or whatever then you get to that point and quickly adapt to it—now wanting the NEXT $X per year or house or car or whatever. Then guess what? There you are on your treadmill, working harder and harder and not going anywhere. That's hedonic adaptation. On a related note, Maslow told us that getting used to our blessings is one of the most "nonevil evils" out there. It's not an obvious evil-evil but it's an evil thing nonetheless. So, how do we deal with this tendency to so quickly adapt and take things for granted as we sweat and get nowhere on that happiness treadmill? Well, first, know that this tendency exists. Know that nothing "out there" is E V E R going to make you happy. Ultimately, creating a durable sense of well-being is an inside job. Today's +1: Let's step off the treadmill. Another thing Maslow taught us is that the most actualized among us have "fresh appreciation" for the things others tend to take for granted. Let's appreciate the amazing things you have in your life. How about three things/people that are awesome in your life right now? (That you might be taking for granted!) 1. __________________ 2. __________________ 3. __________________ Practice gratitude (https://www.optimize.me/plus-one/gratitude/).Grateful flow (https://www.optimize.me/plus-one/grateful-flow/). Celebratory love. etc. Regularly. Step off the treadmill. Appreciate the awesome.(https://www.optimize.me/plus-one/celebratory-love/) Repeat. +1. +1. +1.

This book combines two of my favorite things: Stoicism + Ryan Holiday's wisdom. Stoicism was one of the most influential philosophy of the Roman world and has continued to influence many of history's greatest minds. As Ryan says: It's time to bring it back as a powerful tool "in the pursuit of self-mastery, perseverance, and wisdom." This is one of the my favorite books ever. Big Ideas we explore: the #1 thing to know about Stoicism, how to create tranquility, a good answer to "What's the latest and greatest?!," the 2 essential tasks in life and the art of acquiescence (aka amor fati).

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. Little things. They exist all day, every day. And, if we want to make our TRILLIONS (!) of cells happy so we can shine with a deeper level of radiant, energized enthusiasm, we'd be wise to look for more OTMs throughout our day. Simple stuff. So mundane, unsexy and seemingly unimportant that we can easily overlook them. You know, like parking as far away from the store (or gym or whatever) as possible so you get a few more steps in. Or, even better, just walking to the store and leaving your car at home. Or, once you're in the store, using a hand-held shopping basket rather than a cart. Tiny little opportunities to move more = good. Or… If you really want to go all in and be like one of the 100 Fittest People of All Time like Dean Karnazes, you can go from finding Opportunities to MOVE all day to basically working out all day every day. In our interview, The Ultramarathon Man Dean told me that's how he likes to roll. Apparently, right before our chat he banged out a quick (12- or 14-min) high intensity interval training workout. And, he planned to do another mini-workout right after our chat. Simple sequence of burpees, pull-ups and sit-ups. All day. Every day. That focus on moving his body has allowed him to do the seemingly impossible like run 350 miles at once and run 50 marathons in 50 US states in 50 days. (Wow.) So, Today's +1: Whether you're looking for Opportunities to Move (OTMs!!) or Opportunities to Workout (OTWs!!), let's move a little more today. And tomorrow. And the day after that… +1. +1. +1.

A former Navy SEAL’s warrior framework for elite performance and focus. The power of front-sight focus and choosing one wildly important target. Breaking big goals into micro goals to navigate the fog of challenges. A step-by-step method to direct your mind and win mental battles. Radical commitment, mantras, and daily discipline as tools to expand capacity.