OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson | More Wisdom in Less Time

In our last +1, we tapped into some wisdom from Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness as we wrote ourselves a permission slip and then hopped on the bus.

Brené Brown is one of the world’s leading scholars on the subjects of vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. She’s also one of the most popular TED speakers and writers out there.

In our last +1, we chatted about The Three Quests: Universal + Unique + Ultimate. I proposed that we all have the same Universal quest to become the best version of ourselves in service to our families, communities and world. (“What one can be, one must be!”)

In our Mastery Series, we kick off the third session of Module II on Hero-ology with The 3 Quests + U in which I proposed that we all have THREE quests—all of which happen to start with the letter “U” which just so happens to be the patron letter of hero’s.

In our last +1, we blew up some belly balloons with our kids. We breathed in through our noses, down into our bellies (can you make that balloon pop?!) then we breathed back out through our noses (slightly longer than the inhale).

Not too long ago, we hung out with Aristotle’s Little River Creatures to get some perspective on the brevity of life.

In our last +1, we practiced some virtue mastery via our new (and always-evolving) Virtuegong practice. How about a super-quick practice together?

Today we’re going to revisit Ward Farnsworth’s great book The Practicing Stoic. Chapter 4. It’s on “Death.” We’ll turn to page 49 to be precise. With the logical precision of the Dean of a Law School, Farnsworth presents the Stoic’s perspective on how to think about things like life and death.

In our last +1, we hung out with Emerson and practiced our Squeezy-eze. As you may recall: Squeeze. Squeeze. Squeeze. = I. LOVE. YOU!!!(You practice yet?)

A little over seven and half years ago, Emerson was born at home. We had an amazing midwife (named Mary Jackson) for both Emerson and Eleanor’s births. I’ll never forget the very first moments of Emerson’s life. I had the blessed honor of being the first to officially welcome him into the world. RIGHT after he was born (literally a couple seconds after), he looked at me and our eyes met. Then he wrapped his tiny (!) little hand right around my pinky finger.