One of the key themes we come back to in our Optimizing work together is the idea that we want to make our prior best our new baseline.

Why We Sleep is a life-changing kinda book. We’re going to spend a few more days mining a few more of the many gems from Matthew Walker’s masterpiece. Today we’re going to flip open our virtual Optimize magazine to the kind of ad we’d allow in there.

We’re on a roll with Optimizing our sleep so I say we continue our little series. Today we’ll look at some fun facts about the idiosyncratic universality of sleep. But first, let’s step back and remind ourselves just how fundamental sleep is to our Optimizing and well-being.

In our last several +1s, we’ve been having fun Optimizing our Z’s. Let’s continue. We wrapped up our last +1 with a quick inventory of our current sleep and simple question: What’s one thing you ALREADY know you could be doing to Optimize your sleep?

In our last couple +1s, we’ve had some fun hanging out with our suprachiasmatic nuclei and chatting about how to Optimize our sleep. Let’s continue that theme for a bit longer, shall we?

In our last +1, we talked about some fascinating research from Matthew Walker’s BRILLIANT (!) book Why We Sleep. Recall that reading via iPad at night suppressed melatonin released by over 50%. (Print books for the win!!) That data kinda begs the question as to WHY iPads have that effect.

In our Optimize Coach certification program, we kick the party off by establishing the game we’re playing in Module I: Eudaimon-ology in which we connect ancient wisdom (Aristotle!) to modern science (Seligman!) to establish the fact that it’s all about flourishing/having a “good soul” via living with virtue.

In our last few +1s we talked about a few Tools Phil Stutz encouraged me to consider employing as I prepared to launch our inaugural Optimize Coach program.

In our last couple +1s, we’ve had fun chatting about a few of Phil Stutz’s Tools found in the Laws of Action aisle of our ever-expanding inventory of Tools we want to have ready at hand in our Optimizing Toolshed.

Mike Erwin joins us as a guest teacher for this class! CEO of The Character Center, co-founder of the Positivity Project, and co-author of the book Lead Yourself First, Mike is passionate about inspiring leaders across the country. His secret sauce to leadership? Solitude!