OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson | More Wisdom in Less Time

In our last couple +1s, we flipped through my notes from session number 150-something with my Yoda/spiritual Godfather Phil Stutz.

In our last +1, we talked about the power of commitments. I referenced my notes from my chat with my Yoda who gave us the koan-wisdom: “Success doesn’t matter in this world, commitment does.”

This morning I started my Deep Work by reviewing my notes from my recent Coaching call with my Yoda. Among other things, we were talking about life and death.

Let’s go back to Kelly McGonigal’s The Joy of Movement. In addition to deepening my understanding of the science of WHY exercise/movement is SO ESSENTIAL and BENEFICIAL, I can’t remember reading a book that brought me to tears so many times.

In Gratitude Works! Emmons tells us: “Evidence that gratitude visits can make a measurable difference comes from Martin Seligman’s positive psychology laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. Seligman and his colleagues gave participants one week to write a letter of gratitude and then deliver it in person.”

Gratitude. Yes, we’ve been chatting about it quite a bit recently. That’s deliberate. You know how we recently established the (scientifically-validated) Top 2 virtues as Zest + Hope? Well…

In our last couple +1s, we reflected on the fact that we’d be wise to remember that time flies and the fact that (newsflash!) we’re not going to live forever.

In our last +1, we talked about the science of Memento Mori. And, for the courageous among us, we actually walked through the “death” scenario scientists use to create more gratitude in their test subjects.

William Damon is one of the world's leading scholars on human development. As the Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, Professor of Education at Stanford University, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Damon's research explores how people develop purpose and integrity in their work, family, and civic life. In his most recent book, The Power of Ideals, Professor Damon shares how we all have the power to cultivate more noble, moral possibilities in our lives.

Let’s continue our exploration of the science of gratitude for another moment (or three). In his great book Gratitude Works!, Robert Emmons walks us through a number of practices we can use to cultivate our gratitude.