This morning I was doing my normal thing. In the process, I came up with a little insight I’m excited to share. First, the quick recap of what led to the insight. Of course, my day started yesterday when I shutdown early the day before (4:00 PM; right after my every-Monday coaching call), hung out with the fam then went to bed super early (7:30 PM) and deliberately spent 10 hours in bed (getting 9 hours of sleep including 1 hour 24 min of REM sleep and 2 hours 23 min of deep sleep). Then I was up at 5:30 AM (I’m sleeping in these days, folks! lol) with an Oura readiness score of 95 (having fun gaming it). 20-min Meditation, 5-min Movement then AM1 Deep Work. I started the Deep Work with our quick “Carpe Diem” journaling session—noting my Identities + Virtues + Behaviors for Energy + Work + Love. (Note: This practice is a cornerstone of our Mastery Series/Optimize Coach program. Aspiring Coaches need to log 200 days of Optimize Carpe Diem journaling as one of the requirements to get certified.) Then I spent some time doing some strategic planning for 2020 and beyond. That journaling looked something like this. At the top I wrote “Philosopher” (technically, I drew the Φ symbol to represent Philosopher). Then I wrote “Soul Force” then “Elegant Simplicity” then “Focus” then “Flow.” (Note1: Every (!) time I write down “10,000” in the +1 column in 25 years, I imagine the 70-year-old version of me smiling and waving and saying, “Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize +1!” (That actually gets me misty just typing that, imagining the potential of us hanging out for that long.) Note2: If all goes as currently planned, we’ll share that +1 exactly 3 months after I turn 70 on August 22, 2044.) Below that Body of Work goodness, I sketched out the three primary components of our biz as I currently see them. These include what I call “Core Wisdom” which is basically the +1s, PNs, and 101s as articulated above in the Body of Work chart. I draw an arrow to infinity to represent my (current) plans to do those forever as the foundation of our work together. (And, so I can be like this guy.) Then I draw a big “greater than” symbol (>) to represent the fact that all that “Core Wisdom” is going to be distilled into what I’m calling a “Mastery Series.” Imagine my absolute best stuff distilled into a “this will change your life” program that will, well, change your life. (lol) Then I draw a “less than” symbol ( MASTERY SERIES < OPTIMIZE COACH But none of that is really the point of Today’s +1. (Although I do like sharing my thought process and I hope you enjoy it as well. I feel like we’re creating something together and I think it’s important to share my (often messy!) creative process as we have fun creating something awesome together.) So… Below all THAT, I reminded myself of my/our Mission. Change the world. One person at a time. Together. Starting with you and me. Then I wrote down: “Elegant Simplicity” + “Fierce Consistency” + “Energized Tranquility” + “Operationalizing Virtue.” THEN… I drew two venn circles. Next to the one on the left I wrote “ELEGANT SIMPLICITY.” Next to the one on the right I wrote “PROFOUND SERVICE.” And all THAT gets us to the point of Today’s +1. After writing “PROFOUND SERVICE” I got up and cruised over to the dictionary. I was curious what “profound” literally meant. Do you know what the word means? Apple Dictionary tells us that profound is an adjective that has a couple definitions: 1 (of a state, quality, or emotion) very great or intense: profound feelings of disquiet | profound social changes. 2 (of a person or statement) having or showing great knowledge or insight: a profound philosopher. Those are interesting, but what I really wanted was the etymology of the word. It’s from the Latin profundus—which means “deep” and is made up of two little words: pro (before) + fundus (bottom). I literally laughed when I read that. Profound. It means DEEP. As in “right before the bottom.” The best part? I have a chat with Cal Newport scheduled for this afternoon. I can’t wait to tell him that Deep (PROFOUND!) Work is what allows us to engage in Deep (PROFOUND!) Service. And THAT, my friend, is Today’s +1. Let’s serve profoundly. Today.