OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson | More Wisdom in Less Time

Emerson is learning how to read and I’m the lucky guy who gets to teach him. The other day Emerson wrote his first word: “mom.” Then he busted out “dad.” Then he was able to write his name by himself. (I get a little misty just typing that.)

A couple +1s ago, we talked about the power of buoyancy and the optimal ratio of positive to negative.  Recall that, as per Barbara Fredrickson (the leading researcher on the subject), we want a positive to negative ratio of 3:1. Not 1:1 or 1:2. And… Not 11:1. She says we want to balance “levity” with “gravity.”

In our last +1 we talked about Dan Pink and the new ABCs of selling. (You recall what they are? Attunement + Buoyancy + Clarity!) I promised we’d talk about a fascinating form of self-talk Dan encourages us to use to stay buoyant. Here it is.

Dan Pink tells us that To Sell Is Human.

Although only 1 in 9 Americans is technically in sales, he says that the other 8 in 9 spend a ton of their time in “non-sales selling.” In fact, the research he commissioned shows that we spend around 40% (!) of our time (or 24 minutes out of every working hour!) trying to move people to do things—whether that’s pitching an idea to colleagues or trying to change someone’s behavior.

Continuing our theme of hammering our #1 Wildly Important Goal, let’s talk a little more (again) about WINning. We’ve touched on the theme a few times.

Yesterday we reviewed our Motivation Equation. I hope you took the time to hang out with your #1 Wildly Important Goal and run it through the little magical formula.

So, I’m currently working on a big project that I’m kinda fired up about. As such, I’m pulling out all my motivational tools from the ol’ toolshed.  Today, I’d like to review our Handy Dandy Motivational Calculator. Let’s dust it off and apply it to whatever big project YOU are working on these days. (Which is…. What?) So… The Motivation Equation.

Brené Brown tells us that what we all really want from other people is for them to be authentic. And that means we need them to be vulnerable.  And… Guess what the last thing is that any of us actually want to be? Yep. You guessed it.  Vulnerable.

Today we’re going to talk about the ancient etymology of the word patient. Pop quiz: Do you know where the word comes from? (No one I’ve ever asked—including many doctors—has known so no pressure if you don’t know and high fives if you do know!) Answer: As Kelly Turner points out in her great book Radical Remission, the word patient comes from the Latin pati which literally means “to suffer” and/or “to submit.”

You may have noticed that we live in a world with near infinite choice on nearly everything. You may think that being able to choose from such a dazzling array of options is a good thing. And, of course, to an extent options are great. But…  And this is a big but…  Research shows that TOO MUCH choice can actually work against us.  Enter: The Paradox of Choice.