OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson | More Wisdom in Less Time

In our last +1, we talked about paying the price to achieve our wildly important goals—whatever they may be. I shared a partial accounting of the price I’ll be paying to have a shot at one of my big goals and we checked in on YOUR accounting. (How’d that go for you?) Today I want to talk a little more about the whole idea of knowing the price of success and then getting busy paying it.

The other day as we were wrapping up another great studio session, our film genius Ben was breaking down our setup and we were chatting about that day’s +1s.

We’ve been talking a fair amount about the idea that some of history’s greatest creators didn’t work all that much. To be clear, they worked hard and (very importantly!) CONSISTENTLY, but the fact is that it’s really hard to put in any more than 4 to 6 hours of really high-quality work.

In our last +1, we talked about you and Jay-Z in the studio of life. 10,000 potential micro-hero’s journeys. Every single day. Did you show up and answer the call yesterday? Today, I want to be super clear: That studio? It has no walls.

Steven Pressfield is one of the world’s masters of the creative process—which is why we keep on coming back to him and his wisdom. Today we’re going to talk about his take on Joseph Campbell's wisdom that the great life is, basically, one hero’s journey after another.

In it (and throughout the rest of his massive body of work), he makes a distinction between being what he calls a “cog” or being a “linchpin.” Here’s my very quick take.

Continuing our theme of architecting the optimal 4-Hour Workday, let’s talk a little more about some wisdom from Alex Pang (and his great book Rest) on HOW the greatest creators can get away with working so little.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that we need to train our recovery the same way we train our Deep Work. We want to create nice, rhythmic waves in our lives and prioritize rest. One great way to do that? Deep Play.

Continuing our theme of attaining mastery sans the misery, let’s talk about Deep Play. That’s one of the main things Alex Pang talks about in his book Rest in which he teaches us how to get a lot more done by, somewhat paradoxically, working less.

Jordan Peterson is one of the world's leading intellectuals. He's a Canadian clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Toronto. (Before that, he taught at Harvard.) He’s published over 100 scientific articles and he’s super-popular on YouTube. This book is wonderfully intense and equally thoughtful...