OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson | More Wisdom in Less Time

Today we’re going to talk about some bad math. Specifically, bad cancer math. Here’s the short story: Two days before Christmas in 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a War on Cancer. Since then, we have spent $100 billion on research. Today we spend over $100 billion on cancer medications each year.

Not too long ago we had a series of +1s on how to conquer cancer. Although I’m somewhat hesitant to jump back into the cancer discussion again via these +1s, I’m also BLOWN away by the stats as I continue to obsess about how to support my brother and, by extension, you and your family as your virtual brother.

What You Can Do on a Daily Basis to Optimize Your Nutrition in an Easy and Practical Way.

Continuing our good times with our Stoic friends, how about couple more gems from Seneca and Aurelius? Seneca once said, “The worse a person is the less he feels it.” Think about that for a moment. “The worse a person is the less he feels it.” And, guess what? This corollary follows that truth: The worse a person is the less he (or she) feels it. And… The less he wants to hear about it from YOU! (Hah.)

In our last couple +1s, we had some fun at the hospital with our Stoic friends Seneca and Epictetus.  Recall Epictetus’ wisdom that sometimes good philosophy feels more like a trip to the hospital than a spa. (Ouch!) Seneca echoes this wisdom in Letters from a Stoic where he says, “Be harsh with yourself at times.”

In our last +1, we talked about how to give advice Seneca-style. Recall that he didn’t do it from a soapbox. He did with the humility of a friend in the hospital bed next to you.  (Pop quiz: You practice that approach yesterday in any potential advice-giving?) Continuing our Stoics-in-a-hospital theme, how about a parallel idea from Epictetus?

I recently interviewed Donald Robertson. Donald is one of the world’s leading thinkers on Stoicism. He wrote The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Continuing our theme of how to Optimize our productivity, let’s talk about an Idea from Tm Ferris. In The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim combines two concepts to create some magic. I just so happened to be a micro-case study in the power of this approach today and thought it would be a good time to share.

Lanny Bassham won a gold medal in rifle shooting. We’ve talked about him and his wisdom from With Winning in Mind a number of times. Today we’re going to chat about another little story from that great book. Here’s the rough take.

Once upon a time in a land far away, there was an old farmer. This man had a horse. Then, one day, his horse ran away. All the neighbors said, “Gah!! That’s such a bummer. What bad luck.” The man said, “Maybe. It is what is.”