You Are Heroic with Brian Johnson

We're on a roll with the whole "embrace challenges on your epic quest!" theme so how about one more +1 on the subject? Malcolm Gladwell wrote a great book called David and Goliath in which he walks us through some fascinating stories that demonstrate the fact that sometimes what we perceive to be our greatest weaknesses can actually be turned into our greatest strengths. Scientists call these "desirable difficulties." Imagine that, difficulties that are desirable. Like what? Well, how about a girl's basketball team packed with kids with no experience playing basketball and, therefore, no traditional talent. Oh, and the head coach knows nothing about basketball. That's a weakness right? Sure, but what if they turned that weakness into an asset? That's what one team Gladwell features did. They decided to break all the rules and simply HUSTLE more than anyone else by running a full-court press all game. (Hah.) Which worked. It so disoriented their competitors who were used to people playing by traditional approaches that they won. A lot. Personally, I used to wish I grew up in a happy, stable, affluent, well-educated family with a silver spoon in my mouth and optimal DNA in every cell. (Laughing but I *still* wish that was the case at times! 😃) And... Now, I can see that growing up in a lower-middle class, blue collar, super-conservative Catholic family struggling to pay the bills with a father who struggled with alcohol (and whose father struggled with alcohol and killed himself) was, ultimately, a huge blessing. The resulting challenges that I experience(d) and have overcome/continue to overcome in my own journey ARE THE PRIMARY REASONS I CAN NOW DO WHAT I DO. Thanks to the wonderful cocktail of my compromised Nature AND Nurture, I was forced to develop a set of skills that I otherwise never would have been forced to create. I also have a deep sense of compassion for the inherent challenges of battling demons along with wisdom on how to overcome them that I can integrate into my work to serve even more profoundly. Like that girl's basketball team, I compensated by running full-court presses on my fundamentals (eat + move + sleep + breathe + focus!) ALL.THE.TIME. (Hah.) +1 for today: How about YOU? Can you create an even more compelling, coherent narrative about YOUR life and how your difficulties have proven to be desirable? Let's do that.

What do you think is the most important, underappreciated muscle in your body? Think about that for a moment. What's your guess? I think this is the most underappreciated muscle in my body: ___________________________. Well, get this: Breathing experts tell us that the award for the most underappreciated muscle in the human body goes to… your diaphragm—that little, SUPER (!) important muscle down there right below your lungs. Recall: You can live for weeks without food, days without water, and only minutes without oxygen—which makes breathing pretty important, eh? Yet, how often do you think about it? And, do you specifically train your breathing to make sure it's optimized? If you're like most people, the answer to the above questions is: "Never." And, "No." Today's +1: Let's hit the diaphragm gym. The simplest way to practice some "resistance" breathing? Breathe through your nose. All the time. Period. If you're a mouth breather you'll notice that breathing through your nose takes a little more work. That's a good thing. Through your nose. Deep but light. Nice and slow. Repeat. One rep after another. Let's get that diaphragm in shape!!

Teresa Amabile is the Director of Research at Harvard Business School. It's pretty much impossible to read a book on business, creativity, or happiness at work and not run into her research. She wrote this book with her husband, leading developmental psychologist Steven Kramer. In it, we learn the secret of joy, engagement and creativity at work. Hint: Small wins! On (important distinction) meaningful stuff. Big Ideas we explore include the power of our "inner work life," the 3 key influences to optimizing it (progress, catalysts, nourishers) and how to get on the progress loop and stay on it!

Atul Gawande is a surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He's also an extraordinary, best-selling author of a number of books. Short story: Want to get things right? Use a checklist. Sounds too silly to work but… It does. Period. Big Ideas we explore include two reasons we err (ignorance + ineptitude), what to do about it (checklists!), how to reduce your Masterpiece Day mortality rate by at least 47% (checklists!), why Van Halen doesn't like brown M&M's (checklists!), and your Big 3 Keystone Initiative (checklist!).

First: Welcome to our 100th +1. It's a special milestone. Kinda excited about it. 😃 Let's celebrate it with one of my favorite words ever: euthymia. Seneca talks about the power of euthymia in his classic essays. He tells us that euthymia is all about knowing yourself and having the courage to walk your own authentic path. The English translation of that beautiful word? Tranquility. It's the feeling we have when we truly TRUST ourselves. When we know we're headed in the right direction and we're able to quit comparing ourselves to everyone else and stop second guessing ourselves every 5 seconds. Which leads us to today's +1 reflection: How's YOUR tranquility? Here's one way to energize it. In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday riffs on Seneca's perspective on euthymia and tells us: "So why do you do what you do? That's the question you need to answer. Stare at it until you can. Only then will you understand what matters and what doesn't. Only then can you say no, can you opt out of stupid races that don't matter, or even exist. Only then is it easy to ignore 'successful' people, because most of the time they aren't—at least relative to you, and often even to themselves. Only then can you develop that quiet confidence Seneca talked about." So… Why do YOU do what you do? That's the question. Stare at it. Answer it. Say yes to your path. And say no to all the other silly distractions. +1 all the way to energized tranquility.

In our last few +1s, we've been chatting about reaching the Peak of our potential. What's the alternative? Well, did you know that the Latin root of the word mediocre LITERALLY means to get stuck in the middle of a rugged mountain? Yep. Medius = "middle." Ocris = "rugged mountain." Mediocrity. That's not where we want to get stuck. 😃 How do we make it through that mid-way point and summit the peak of our potential? Let's open up our Thesaurus for some clues. We'll start with synonyms for mediocre: "ordinary, average, middling, middle-of-the-road, uninspired, undistinguished, indifferent, unexceptional, unexciting, unremarkable, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian, prosaic, lackluster, forgettable, amateur, amateurish." Those are all great ways to get stuck. Guess what? There's one antonym for mediocre. Can you guess what it is? "Excellent." Yep. That's the ticket. EXCELLENCE. When we hit those inevitable tough spots on the rugged mountain that is our heroic quest, we need to show up with excellence. We need to do our best. You may recall the Greeks had a word for that. Areté. It's the best way to high five your inner daimon as you joyfully summit. (https://www.optimize.me/plus-one/how-to-high-five-your-inner-daimon/) Let's do that. One step at a time. Right up to the peak of that rugged mountain. +1. +1. +1.

For those of you in the States celebrating today, Happy Independence Day. For everyone else around the world, Happy 4th of July! 😃 The 4th of July. Of course, today we're celebrating Independence Day. But it's important to note that we're not celebrating the day we *won* our independence. We're celebrating the day we DECLARED our independence. Of course, there was SEVEN YEAR'S worth of blood, sweat, and tears that went into the Revolutionary War to back up that declaration (!!), but that's a pretty cool distinction when you think about it for a moment. So, Today's +1. Two parts. First, let's celebrate all the little Independence Days of our lives. Those moments when we declared our Independence from the bad habits that were tyrannizing our lives. With that in mind: What are three bad habits from which you've won your independence? 1. ___________________________ 2. ___________________________ 3. ___________________________ Fantastic. High fives. Fireworks! Now, it's time to make a new Declaration of Independence. From which keystone bad habit will you Declare your Independence from this day forward? I think the preamble to your Declaration goes something like this: "When in the Course of an individual's life it becomes necessary for that person to dissolve the bands which have connected them with bad habits and to assume among the powers of the earth, the self-mastery and virtue to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the scientific wisdom of the ages requires that they should WOOP their plans to win their Revolutionary War within themselves. As such, I [ INSERT NAME ], hereby declare my Independence from THIS bad habit: _____________________________. I hereby WOOP the successful Revolutionary War against said habit. This is my Wish: _____________________________ This is my Outcome; I shall experience these Benefits: _____________________________ These are my Obstacles: _____________________________ This is my Plan to deal with those Obstacles: _________________________." Enter: A powerful "necessity to act." Here's to winning that Revolutionary War and honoring your Declaration of Independence!

Discover the transformative power of the Four Disciplines of Execution, which emphasize action over strategy. Learn how to pinpoint your Wildly Important Goals and the significance of lead measures. The podcast also delves into the whirlwind of daily tasks that can distract from your objectives and the importance of keeping score to track progress. Avoid getting lost in the 'magnificently trivial' and gain practical insights tailored for business leaders and entrepreneurs.

Imagine this: It's your first day of art class. You signed up for an intro class on pottery. (Nice! Go you!) The teacher does something a little weird. He points to one half of the class and says, "On the last day of class I'm going to bring in a bathroom scale. You guys will get an 'A' if you produce 50 pounds of pots. A 'B' for 40 pounds. 30 pounds gets you a 'C.'" Then he points to the other half of the class and says, "You guys? You'll get an 'A' for creating an amazing pot. I just need one pot from you. Make it awesome and you get the 'A.'" Fast-forward to the end of the semester and who do you think created the best-looking pots? Answer: The group that produced the 50 pounds of stuff to get an "A." Why is that? Well, as the authors of Art & Fear put it: "It seems that while the 'quantity' group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the 'quality' group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay." So, question: How do YOU approach your creativity? Are you trying to create the "perfect pot"? Or, are you willing to lean in and produce a TON of stuff—learning from your mistakes and, eventually, getting better and better? Today's +1: Go create a bunch of pots. Remember: 50 pounds and you'll get an "A." P.S. Maslow comes to mind. He tells us: "It seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, to plunge in, to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to correct them eventually."

Optimize: https://optimize.me/ (← Get Free Stuff + Free 2-Week Trial!) Optimize Coach: https://optimize.me/coach (← Join 2,000+ Optimizers from 70+ Countries!) Here are 5 of my favorite Big Ideas from "The Effective Executive" by Peter F. Drucker. Hope you enjoy! Peter Drucker is considered the father of modern management. This book was originally published in 1967. It's *remarkably* well written and lucid. And, of course, packed with Big Ideas on how to optimize our effectiveness. We cover the 5 key practices/habits of the effective executive: time (first things first; second things never!), contribution (what can you contribute?), strengths (make yours productive; make weaknesses irrelevant), concentration (the secret to effectiveness), decisions (boundary conditions help).