You Are Heroic with Brian Johnson

Leonardo da Vinci. Charles Darwin. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Martha Graham. The Wright Brothers. Jane Goodall. Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Edison. Zora Neale Hurston. What do they all have in common? Mastery. In this great book Robert Greene shows us the key components of their mastery and, most importantly, how WE can each attain our mastery in our own lives.

This is an old-school mental training book written for athletes in 1999. When Kenneth Baum wrote it, the mind-body connection wasn't as well-established as it is now so many of the ideas he shares were cutting-edge at the time. Big Ideas we explore include the power of a desire inferno, DROPing into WOOP, power talk, 26,000 breaths a day, and Maslow's warning.�

Masterpiece days are where it's at. Here's a quick look at the M&Ms: Macro + Micro.

Deep Work. It's the key to how you get So Good They Can't Ignore You—which, of course, is the title of another one of Cal's great books. Big Ideas include Deep Work vs. Shallow Work, how to give your neurons a workout, cleaning up attention residue, the four rules of deep work, finding the routine that works for you and learning how to shut down completely.

Ready to quit putting your life on hold and actualize your potential? Awesome. Here's a quick overview of Big Ideas I explore in my Procrastination 101 class. Join our membership program and get access to this class + a ton of other classes (like Confidence 101 + Habits 101 + Meditation 101 + Relationships 101 + ...) AND get instant access to 300 PhilosophersNotes. Sign up here: brianjohnson.me/membership

Dr. Daniel Amen MD is one of the world's leading psychiatrists. He's a clinical neuroscientist (love that phrase!) who has performed 115,000+ SPECT scans on his patients's brains. (That's a lot.) This book captures what he's learned about optimizing our brains, why it's important and how to do it. Big Ideas we explore include #ANTspray, wisdom from Fat Freddie the penguin, how hungry your brain is (did you know it's 2% body weight but uses 20-30% of calories consumed?), and a bunch of other goodness. More goodness: http://changeyourbrainbook.com

Want happiness? Put your virtues in action. Modern-day positive psychologists tell us it's all about using our signature strengths. Here are some ideas on how!

Bernard Roth has been a Professor of Engineering at Stanford for over FIFTY (!!) years. A pioneer in the field of robotics, Bernie is one of the founders of the famed d.school at Stanford. In this great book, he brings the concepts of design thinking to life in the context of our most important design project: designing our optimal lives. Big Ideas we explore include the 5 elements of design thinking, doing vs. trying, ignoring odds, and being the cause.

Emotional peaks and valleys. We want to avoid them if we're committed to optimizing and actualizing. Here are some ideas on how to rock that.

EVERYBODY procrastinates. And this "concise guide" by Timothy Pychl, Ph.D.--one of the world's leading procrastination experts--helps us solve the procrastination puzzle. Big Ideas we explore include IF ... THEN (<-- huge!), Just getting started (vs. Just doing it), the horror of "It will just take a minute," why multitasking is a myth, and why it's best to be nice to yourself when you stumble.