Teacher | Entrepreneur

Brian
Johnson

To this point, I might have learned more from Brian Johnson than any other person on the planet.  He has created a library of classic and modern teachings on becoming the best you and living your best life.

G.O.A.T. Rank

Who Is Brian Johnson?

Brian Johnson is the definition of an “information entrepreneur.  He has created a business around his own passion for learning.  In the process, he has assembled what may be the greatest series of “how to have a good life” manuals of all time.

Some people see Jesse as a “coon” or “Uncle Tom.”  I see him as a man trying to do what is right.  That’s why he’s so high on my list.

Brian Johnson Bio

Some people see Jesse as a “coon” or “Uncle Tom.”

I see him as a man trying to do what is right.

But I’ll get to that.  First, let’s just answer…

Who is Brian Johnson?

Brian Johnson is the definition of an “information entrepreneur.  He has created a business around his own passion for learning.  In the process, he has assembled what may be the greatest series of “how to have a good life” manuals of all time.

He’s also going to buy the NY Jets.

Born in Alabama in the time of Jim Crow, Jesse gives a powerful counter to many mainstream narratives.  He often pines for the “good ‘ol days” when boys were boys and men were men.   ……….. ……………………………………………………………………………………………..

As Seen By Me

To me:

Brian Johnson is an example.

He’d probably reject both of those titles.  But I’ve learned a lot from him in a short time.  And I enjoy his take on the news.  He has a unique, entertaining type of wisdom.

He has helped me craft a better me.

It was over as soon as I heard him talk about forgiveness.

Jesse is one of those heroes like Jordan B. Peterson, that has shown me better ways to live out the principles I believe in.

  • Level of Understanding – 95%
  • Level of Admiration – 98%
  • Level of Modeling – 99%

Found: November 2019

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JesseLeePeterson.com

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RebuildingtheMan.com

Videos Watched

Books Read

Mentions on My Site

G.O.A.T. Rank

Why Brian?

For the time being, this site is mostly just a data dump.  Over time, it may become more useful to the outside observer.  Who knows?

I don’t claim to be an expert on anyone I write about.

Hell, I hardly claim to be an expert on myself.

These profiles are largely for me.  I use them to record and reference.  In the future, I may make them more meaningful to the outside observer.

No guarantees.  Let’s start small.

Life Optimizer

Brian is a life hacker extraordinaire.  He optimizes across all domains and has powerful life planning strategies.

Social Responsibility

As an entrepreneur, Brian is devoted to making the world a better place.  He is how I first heard of CSR clauses.

Learning Addict

This guy casually talks about reading entire books in a morning.  To this point, he has cataloged over 500.

Personal Philosopher

To a large degree, watching Brian has inspired the design of this site.  I learn and take public notes.  His are better.

What Brian Teaches

Brian touches a variety of topics.  He marries ancient wisdom and modern science brilliantly.  Across the range of topics he studies, he makes connections that others can benefit from.  I am one of those.

Maximizing
Productivity

There is a lot that goes into.  I can’t make up my mind whether to focus on the writing or the designing.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  The daily content challenge marches on.

PNTV: Deep Work

1. Myelin Workout – 2:47

  • To develop skill, work out your neurons
  • Cultivate myelin (what insulates our brain neurons)
  • To perform at a peak level, you need to train your brain
  • Building myelin via deliberate practice/deep work in our chosen field

2. Attention Residue – 4:56

  • Multi-tasking doesn’t really exist
  • When you split your attention, you have what researchers call “attention residue”
  • When your attention is split, you perform less well than someone focusing on one thing only
  • Strongest reason to create “time blocks,” or invested time intently focused over extended periods of time

3. Routines (xy) – 8:46

  • First rule of working deeply: create routines
  • Structure your life with routines and rituals to make deep work more likely to occur
  • The monastery approach (detaching from the world), bimodal approach (combining monastery approach with normal life), rhythmic approach (“don’t break the chain of creativity”), and journalistic approach (setting deadlines and getting into deep work on demand)

4. #1 = Wildly! – 12:13

  • Discover what you’re fired up about; what goal that’s challenging and feasible could you achieve in the next 6-12 months?
  • Becoming so excited about your goal that distractions are organically removed

5. Shutdown Complete – 13:15

  • We need to create “containers” for our creativity
  • Create limits for your workday
  • The only way to sustainably produce high-quality work is to train our “rest phase”
  • If you go hard, you need to recover
  • Quit letting your work leak into every aspect of your life

 

PNTV: Getting Things Done

1. 2 Key Objectives – 0:26

  • 1. Capture Everything – You have a lot of things going on in your mind, so you need to capture everything in a trusted system. When you have a thousand things going on, it’s like having 100 tabs open on your computer.
  • 2. Next Actions – Take the ideas and things you have going on and articulate them on the front-end into actionable steps. That way you know the next things you need to do.

2. Make It up, Make It Happen – 2:15

  • There’s only two problems you can have. Knowing what you want but not knowing how to make it happen, or not knowing what you want.
  • But it comes down to making it up and making it happen
  • Outcomes + Action. What do you want to see happen and what can you do to make it happen.

3. 2-Minute Game – 3:28

  • All the time management gurus tell us that we need a standard. If something takes us less than 2 minutes to do, we do it.
  • Don’t keep saying you’re going to do something and keep putting it off, just do it and it’s done.
  • It’s nuts how much velocity is created in our lives but not avoiding little things
  • Willpower outpredicts intelligence in acedemic performance by a power of 2.

4. Inbox 0 – 5:44

  • How many emails are sitting in your inbox right now? If it’s more than zero you’re being suboptimal
  • If you have 1,000 emails, you have 1,000 open loops in your mind taking up space and brain power. So you want to shut those programs down by getting to inbox zero.
  • It’s not that it’s hard or takes longer than 2 minutes, but it can seem overwhelming. The emails that remained were ones it was hard to make a decision on. But setting inbox zero is a decision muscle-builder.

5. Wild Success – 8:35

  • Have you imagined wild success lately? What does wild success look like to you?
  • Clearly define a purpose and brainstorm some things that would be necessary for that success to occur. Then identify your next action item.
  • Which is essentially what we need to do to get things done

PNTV: Flow

“The Psychology of Optimal Existence”

1. The Contents of Our Consciousness – 1:39

  • How can we determine and choose what we focus on to enter “the flow?”
  • It takes practice to make oneself happy/miserable. It’s done by ordering the consciousness to be in control of feelings and thoughts

2. Knowing and Doing – 3:09

  • It’s not enough to know how to do it, one must do it
  • Theory is rudimentary, practice is advanced. It’s important we do what we know
  • What’s the number 1 thing you know you could be doing to live a more extraordinary life and is now a good time to start doing it?

3. Flow – 5:19

  • The levels of challenge and skill need to be proportional. Flow is when your skills match the challenges you’re facing
  • If skill is greater than challenge, we’re bord. If challenge is greater than skill, we’re overwhelmed. But when they allign, we’re in flow

4. Cultures Building Flow – 8:11

  • Every 25 or 30 years, a tribe in India would relocate the entire village. They felt they were meeting their challenges too easily and becoming stagnant. So to keep their edge, they would move to a new area to face new challenges to keep them sharp.
  • Consciousness is a skill most people haven’t learned to cultivate

5. Flow in Leisure Time – 9:03

  • TV has been correlated to mild depression. Sitting and doing nothing bores us and we’re facing no challenges

PNTV: Peak

1. The Gift (=A) – 1:23

  • Too often we see someone performing at a high level and we think they have a “gift”
  • But we all have the same gift: Adaptability
  • The people who have achieved the most are those who have tapped into our ability to improve through practice
  • Get rid of this toxic myth of “innate talent”

2. Practice^n-p-d – 3:10

  • Naive practice myth – that you just keep on showing up and you get better. Just putting in the time doesn’t make you better
  • Purposeful practice – 1. Having a goal (knowing specifically how you want to improve) 2. Focus (intensely focusing on what you’re doing to trigger the adaptability) 3. Feedback (getting feedback to adjust what’s working/not working) 4. Comfort-zone (never leaving the comfort zone doesn’t trigger adaptability)
  • Deliberate practice (the gold standard) – available in established fields with measurable excellence to compare against (most people who aren’t chess grandmasters or professional athletes remain in purposeful practice)

3. Mental Reps – 6:57

  • What’s changing in our brains when we utilize deliberate practice?
  • The creation of mental representations creates the illusion of extraordinary memory
  • Creates new connections that allow for deeper senses of understanding and improved performance

4. 10,000 Rule? – 8:39

  • It’s not a rule that you have to do something for 10,000 hours to master it
  • If you want to achieve extraordinary performance, you need to put in the deliberate/purposeful practice, not just show up

5. Homo Exercens – 10:45

  • The thing that differentiates humans from other species is that we can strive to better ourselves
  • Homo Exercens – “The Practicing Man,” the man or woman who’s committed to improving themselves via practice
  • Basically, if you want to be at the peak, you have to get there through practice. We all have the “gift” to be able to improve
  • If you want to achieve excellent performance, you have to put in the time and practice

PNTV: Black Hole Focus

1. Sheep vs. Strategists – 0:59

  • In biology, sheep only respond to what’s in front of them. And many people are like sheep, only responding to the most recent stimuli
  • A strategist is stepping back and asking “what’s the vision and what’s the strategy for my future?”
  • If all you’re doing is going through your life like a sheep, then you’ll have a tough time living a life of deep purpose

2. Ikigai – 3:03

  • Japanese word referring to a reason to get up in the morning
  • That purpose gives you energy and vitality
  • Linked with some of the most long-lived populations

3. Rats Swim – 4:34

  • An interesting study from the ’50s about how long rats could swim before giving up
  • Was found that typically, the rats would swim for 15 minutes before giving up and sinking
  • Then he tested what would happen if he pulled them out before the 15 minutes for a break and put them back. If given breaks, they could swim for 60 hours (or 240x more endurance). This is potentially attributable to a sense of hope.
  • Hope is the belief that your future is going to be better than your present. And having hope in a better future creates energy

4. Greatness x2 – 7:20

  • The two steps of greatness are 1. KNOW! that you can achieve greatness (or believing that you can go the distance) and 2. Decide what you’re going to commit yourself to (finding the courage to dive head-first into one thing)
  • If you could do anything and you were guaranteed not to fail, what would you go for. It’s less about specifically what you want, but more about finding the courage to do it.
  • 99% of people don’t think they’re capable of greatness, so they set lower goals
  • There’s more competition for low-hanging fruit

5. Singularity – 11:02

  • The physics of your purpose
  • A singularity is infinite density and infinitesimal volume combined at the center of a black hole
  • When you’re willing to commit that intensity with that singularity focus, everything gets sucked into it
  • It takes a ton of energy to do great work and you can’t dissipate it on trivial distractions 

PNTV: How to Become a Straight-A Student

1. Pseudo-Work – 2:07

  • The distinction between “kinda working but mostly hanging out” (psudo-work) and real work
  • The thing you need to pay attention to is Work = Time spent doing it x Intensity
  • Students who spend a lot of time grinding but don’t have a lot of intensity still end up doing mediocrely
  • If you dial up your intensity, you have to put in less work
  • Deep work time-blocks create masterpiece days

2. Procrastiation – 5:06

  • None of these straight-A students eliminated procrastination completely
  • You’re gonna have the urge to procrastinate, but you can develop effective strategies to combat it
  • It’s not about getting rid of the urge
  • Strategies include being well-rested and well-fed (research agrees). The fastest way to deplete your willpower is to be tired and hungry

3. When?  Where?  How Long? – 6:41

  • When should we study? Where should we study? And how long should we study?
  • When? Early. The earlier the better. You’re best between when you wake up and before dinner. You want to use your best energy wisely, then enjoy your evenings.
  • Where? In isolation. Go find somewhere where no one’s going to find you and turn everything off.
  • How long? Don’t work for longer than an hour in one stretch. We want to be focused and intense, which can be draining and lead to procrastination.

4. #1 Tip = Q – 8:42

  • If you want to study effectively, the worst way is to re-read your notes. This gives you the “fluency illusion.”
  • Shut your book, get out a blank sheet of paper, and quiz yourself. The science says the best way t study is to self-test. Shut your notes and see if you can say it out loud.

5. S.P.A.C.E.O.U.T. – 10:47

  • Space out your studying time, no matter what you’re doing
  • Your mind can only work so hard so long. For memorizing, never try and do more than an hour at a time.
  • You’re better off taking that time and splitting it up
  • Your mind works best with frequent check-ins (“distributed learning”)
  • Do intense real work over time instead of cramming

PNTV: Your Brain at Work

1. Prioritize(ing) – 2:20

  • We need to prioritize prioritizing
  • Our brain can only handle so much at one time and it gets easily depleted
  • Take control of your “AM Bookend,” starting the day with the most important thing
  • Engage in the creative/deep work before you waste brain power on email/less important parts of the day

2. IQ -15 or -5 – 5:50

  • A study was done where they determined constantly emailing or texting effectively reduces your IQ by 15 for males and 5 for females; an average of 10 IQ point reductions
  • You’re bombarding your nervous system with too much stimulation
  • We get more stimulation in a week than our ancient ancestors got in a lifetime

3. Basal Ganglia – 8:06

  • The part of your brain that puts things on routine/autopilot
  • We want to find as many ways as we can to move things from your prefrontal cortex to your basal ganglia

4. Director – 11:28

  • To put on a beautiful performance, you need a strong director
  • “Mindsight” – a form of mindfullness; the ability to look inside your mind
  • The “Director” can say “that thought isn’t particularlly helpful” or “we need to prioritize prioritizing”
  • Also cultivating reapprasial, or the ability to step between tasks

5. Seasaw – 13:19

  • Being cool under pressure; when things heat up, how do we stay cool?
  • Your prefrontal cortex and your limbic system act like a seasaw
  • When you experience high emotions, there are several courses of actions: suppress it (not helpful), express it (also not super helpful), be dramatic about it… but if you label it and mindfully observe it (eg “I notice I am feeling fear”)
  • The Director needs to be in charge

PNTV: A Mind For Numbers

1. 2 Modes – 0:51

  • 1. Focused and 2. Diffuse
  • Focused mode is when you’re working with good attention on what you’re doing
  • Diffuse modeis more like climbing a mountain. If focus mode is the summit, then the diffuse mode is the base camps set up along the route. It’s turning your brain on and off instead of trying to be “on” all the time.
  • Training recovery has to be a part of your learning strategy
  • The best way is sleep. If you’re not getting proper rest, you’re not going to be able to learn optimally.

2. Procrastipain – 3:40

  • In scans of our brains when we procrastinate, our brains light up and experience pain in thinking about what we’re procrastinating
  • But when we engage in it, the pain goes away
  • The anticipation creates the pain, the doing doesn’t

3. P vs P – 4:56

  • Process and Product (ie, systems vs results)
  • Procrastination is like an addiction. You get a short-term kick of feeling good, but the long-term effects are dangeorus.
  • It’s a keystone bad habit. When you figure out a keystone habit, all the other habits fall into place around it. And setting negative keystone habits like procrastination sets you up for other negative habits surrounding it
  • Show up and put in a little bit of time; break that cycle of procrastination

4. I’m Excited – 7:49

  • When you’re feeling stressed, you have a natural stress response. And you can choose to either say “wow I’m stressed I hope I don’t choke” or “wow I’m stressed and I’m excited for the challenge.”
  • Get excited about nerves. Your body is turning on to perform. It’s how you interpret your nerves that determines how they affect you

5. Like I’m 5 – 9:09

  • If you want to learn something, teach it. 
  • Many times we think we should only teach once we fully understand something. But many times, learning comes as a result of explaining a concept to another person.
  • One of the best ways to drill it into out consciousness

PNTV: The Checklist Manifesto

1. Why We Err – 1:07

  • There are reasons why we make mistakes. 1. Necessary Infallibility (we’re humans so we can’t get everything perfect) 2. We don’t do what we’re capable of doing (things are within our control but we choose to do it wrong through ignorence or ineptitude) 
  • What can save us from mistakes are checklists

2. Unflyable Planes – 3:46

  • History shows us that even planes considered “unflyable” can ultimately be successfully flown with effective checklists
  • In the 1930s, Boeing was designing the B17 plane. However, when they brought it out for a test flight, it crashed immediately. Despite a skilled and trained pilot, it still went down.
  • But when they started implementing thorough checklists, they were able to narrow down the scope of problems, and eventually successfully fly it.

3. Down 47% – 5:50

  • The author wonders how we reduce mortality across various surgeries
  • “How do we increase surgeon performance across the board regardless of the sophistication of the instruments?”
  • What they found was that checklists worked. They worked so well that they managed to reduce mortality by 47%
  • The teams that used the checklists saw a mortality reduction of almost 50%

4. M&Ms – 7:54

  • When Van Halen began performing for smaller markets and smaller venues, they still had a massive contract for all of the event hosts. One of the clauses was that they didn’t want any brown M&Ms. So upon arriving at the venue, they would do a walk-through. And if they saw brown M&Ms, they’d leave. The rationale was if they messed up a smaller item on the list, they’d also have messed up larger items.
  • The brown M&Ms are simultaneously mundane and essential
  • The idea is to have these basic things in our lives, where the fundamentals are necessary to move on to higher level tasks

5. Keystone Initiave – 11:10

  • A keystone is the stone that locks in an arch and gives it structural stability
  • Researchers talk about “keystone habits,” or habits we have that most benefit us
  • The author says good cheklists are created during “pause points” of the day. There’s the AM time-blocks, the PM time-blocks, and the fluctuating times throughout the day
  • So making effective and efficient checklists for different points during the day is how we can have truly masterpiece days 
  • Determining one thing you can do to optimize your AM, one thing you can do to optimize your PM, and ways to optimize your cycles throughout the day is how you create effective checklists

PNTV: Tiny Habits

PNTV: The Miracle Morning

1. Head On – 0:32

  • The author was hit head on by a drunk driver when he was 21. Dead on the scene for 6 minutes, in a coma for a week, and told he may never recover
  • Instead, he said “I’m gonna come back from this and be stronger than ever.” So that’s what he did
  • Developed a philosophy of taking life “head on” and being inspired and living with power and vigor and enthusiasm
  • Later he got into an emotional funk and cured himself with a “miracle morning”

2. Good Stories – 2:16

  • He asks “have you read any good stories lately?”
  • The best stories always have the hero overcoming the biggest and best obsticles
  • We wish for the strength to overcome challenges, not a life without challenges. You don’t go ot the gym to lift styrofoam weights

3. Why Mornings – 3:21

  • How you start your day often dictates the rest of your day. Starting your day in a chaotic manner tends to lead to a chaotic day. Which leads to chaotic weeks, months, years, and lifetimes
  • We have a lot more control over our mornings than other parts of our days
  • Bookend your day with awesome AMs and PMs

4. Life S.A.V.E.R.S. – 4:42

  • Silence Affirmations Visualizations Exercise Reading Scribing
  • Silence can be prayer or meditation, starting your day with something bigger than yourself
  • Affirmations are tools of the mind, affirming that which we’re capable of
  • Visualizations is seeing that which we want to bring into our lives
  • Exercise. Not exercising is like taking a depressant. It focuses attention and boosts your mood
  • Reading fills your mind with good stuff. Turn off your phone or internet and connect with some kind of literature
  • Scribing is documenting your life and things you’re excited about 

5. Habits 101 – 8:18

  • Habits drive the show. We use willpower to create habits that go into our subconscious and dictate the quality of our lives
  • If it takes 30 days to create a habit, the first 10 days it’s unbearable. The second 10 days become uncomfortable. But then the last 10 days you hit your stride. Most people give up in the first 10 days. Unbearable, uncomfortable, then unstoppable 

Habits 101

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXYAEtht4_w

1. Use Willpower Wisely – 0:38

  • Willpower is one of the strongest predictors of everything in our lives
  • Willpower outpredicts acedemic performance by a factor of 2
  • But the interesting thing is that willpower is finite. So we want to use it wisely. The most successful among us use willpower to create habits that become part of the auto-pilot

2. Focus on Physiological Fundies – 2:13

  • All great teachers tell us to master our physiology first (your rest, your food, etc)
  • If you don’t have a strong base, you’re goning to have a hard time actualizing your potential
  • What can you do to improve your rest, nutrition, exercise

3. Pick Your Keystone Habit – 3:02

  • An arch has a keystone that holds the rest of the arch up
  • This applies to our lives. There’s a habit that if created will change the rest of your life.
  • The inverse is also true. Find the negative habits in your life and replace them with positive habits

4. Know Your Why – 4:14

  • Nietzsche tells us whomever has a strong “why” can edure almost any “how”
  • How will your life change when you install the new keystone habit. And when you know the “why,” you can endure the “how”

5. 100% Commitment – 4:54

  • We can’t commit 99%, it needs to be 100% commitment
  • Make it non-negotiable
  • Of all the tips, this should be number one. You can’t commit 100% to 100 habits, but you can with one

6. Make It A Daily Habit – 6:00

  • When you’re looking to install new habits, we need to create momentum
  • It’s too easy to pick and choose days. That’s how habits fall apart

7. Make It Easy – 6:34

  • Make it easy to win
  • It’s easier to do a 1 minute habit than a 60 minute habit
  • Set it up so you can have a series of wins
  • Also, allow yourself to kinda suck. It’s better to suck at doing it than to skip it.

8. Never Miss A Day – 7:36

  • Keep the streak alive!
  • Keep track. Know how many days in a row you’ve done something and rock it

9. Definitely Don’t Miss Two – 8:23

  • When you do miss a day (which is inevitable), definitely don’t miss two
  • If I do miss a day, I schedule it into my calender for the nect day and make it the most important day
  • But never miss the second day

10. Embrace the Process – 9:34

  • Habits go through a certain process.
  • If you assume a habit takes 30 days, the first 10 are unbearable. The second phase becomes uncomfortable. Then you get to the third phase, unstoppable.

PNTV: Atomic Habits

1. Tiny=Mighty – 1:47

  • Atoms make up molectules which make us up
  • What happens when you compound 1%, tiny little gains? If you get 1% better today, and 1% better tomorrow, and do that for a year, how much better would you be? The answer is 37x better.
  • These tiny gains have massive results
  • After 2 years you’re 1400x better. After 5 years, you’re ~76 million times better compounded. 10 years is almost a quadrillion.

2. Plateau of Latent Potential – 6:05

  • Compound interest is huge in finance, and is important in habit creation. So why don’t more people do it?
  • If you do a push-up today, you don’t see the result tomorrow. But most people don’t give it enough time, and get stuck in that plateau of latent potential.

3. Identity – 8:28

  • You can create outcome-based habits or identity-based habits. We’re looking to create the best versions of ourselves possible. So we need to think about the “who”
  • We want to let that identity drive out behavior and then let the outcomes be a byproduct of that identity
  • In Latin, the word “identity” is formed from words that mean “repeated beingness.” Your habits literally create your sense of who you are.
  • Know who do you aspire to be, then create those habits now

4. 4 Laws – 10:49

  • 1. Cue, 2. Craving, 3. Response, and 4. Reward
  • First, your cue that kicks off you engaging in a habit needs to be extremely obvious. 
  • Then cue needs to be attractive to create a craving.
  • Which makes the response easy to engage in. If you make something hard, you’re less likely to build a habit. If you’re creating a new habit, you have to be able to do it in 2 minutes.
  • And finally, the reward needs to be satisfying. So that you want to do it again the next day.

5. Sorites Paradox – 16:08

  • Greek for “heap” or “pile.” Asks is someone wealthy if they have 10 coins? What if you give them one more? And then one more? And then one more? Eventually, that one additional coin will make them wealthy
  • It applies to habits as well with the 1% gains. One 1% gain doesn’t make you a new person, but over time the scales tip.

Habits &
Rituals

This site is the definition of a work-in-progress.  I can’t make up my mind whether to focus on the writing or the designing.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  The daily content challenge marches on.

Goal
Setting

There is a lot that goes into.  I can’t make up my mind whether to focus on the writing or the designing.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  The daily content challenge marches on.

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How to
Journal

This site is the definition of a work-in-progress.  I can’t make up my mind whether to focus on the writing or the designing.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  The daily content challenge marches on.

Mastering
Mindset

There is a lot that goes into.  I can’t make up my mind whether to focus on the writing or the designing.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  The daily content challenge marches on.

PNTV: The Daily Stoic

PNTV: The Daily Stoic

1. Stoicism 101 – 3:19

  • The most important thing within Stoicism is distinguishing that which is within our control vs. things that are outside of our control
  • And the only things within our control are our thoughts and behaviors. Our responses to stimuli. It comes down to knowing the things within our control.
  • We can control how we act moment to moment

2. Euthymia – 5:40

  • A Greek word thats translates to “tranquility”
  • This idea of a grounded, calm confidence, an “energized tranquility”
  • To do this you need to know who you are and what’s important to you and how to get there
  • Second-guessing is the enemy. Also constantly comparing yourself to other people. These two factors destroy tranquility.

3. “I Don’t Care” – 7:41

  • You don’t need to know everything about everything. The philosopher’s attention was on their mind. So the modern stoic wouldn’t spend all their time checking every notification and watching every press conference.
  • The extension of not knowing is not caring. “I don’t care who that pop culture figure is”
  • “Do your best with others in mind”
  • Think about what you’re blowing up your mind with and how it may benefit from some “I don’t know/I don’t care”

4. Life Boxing – 10:33

  • These Stoic philosphers often used boxing and fighting analogies
  • They’d ask “what kind of boxer are you if you get hit once and walk out of the ring?”
  • So if you get hit in life and just give up, then what kind of boxer are you? What are you training for? The whole point is to be training to deal with a strong opponent. You want life to challenge you, forcing you to rise to your absolute best. It’s about being a warrior of the mind, not a librarian

5. Acquiescence – 13:25

  • The Art of Acquiescence is not fighting reality. They roll with the punches.
  • Like Nietzsche’s “Amor Fati,” or “Love Your Fate.” 
  • When you try and get rid of something in your life, you gave up all your power. So you need to love what is and make the most of what is.
  • Think of things in your life you may be fighting, and how you can learn to love that and be a better person by overcoming it

PNTV: Toughness Training for Life

1. Adaptive Stress – 1:34

  • There are different types of stress we can put ourselves under. We can have a low level (under-training) or a high level (over-training)
  • They have similar effects. They both lead to fatigue, lack of energy, lack of motivation
  • So you want to stay above directly between those (your maintenance stress level) into your adaptive stress zone
  • Works in your physical life, your mental life, and your emotional life
  • You push your muscles past the point they can easily bare and force an adaptive response. Which is the cornerstone of growth.
  • Atheletes are typically over-trained, but with non-sport life, most people are emotionally over-trained and physically over-trained. To deal with that, get your physical training up

2. Btwn. Points – 4:24

  • The time between points. Sport psychologist studying tennis players found that the time between the points is what differentiated champion. In a 2 hour tennis match, 80% of the time is between points (ie, they may only play for 30 total minutes)
  • But the toughest competitors were good at making waves and oscellating and recovering between points.
  • We need to train recovery as much as we train stress/the work

3. Ultradians – 6:49

  • Circadian rhythms our our 24 hour rhythms. They’re our strongest connection to the world
  • But there are also micro-rhythms throughout the day lasting 90-120 minutes. They’re called ultradian cycles. They can be effective work cycles, but you need to take the recovery into account.
  • We need to cultivate the skills to recover better. Consistently violating our rhythms is the easiest way to over-train and create a sense of burnout.

4. Physio Recovery – 8:57

  • If you want to optimize your potential, the base is your basic physiological needs
  • Your exercise, your nutrition, your rest, and your relaxation
  • “Fatigue makes cowards of us all”

5. Emotion Phone – 10:37

  • You don’t have as much control over your emotional toughness
  • But by focusing on physical and mental toughness, you can create emotional toughness
  • If you have emotional pain, it’s like a phone is ringing. You can choose to answer or ignore it. And you can look into what need the ringing is telling you you need to fulfill
  • Then do whatever you can to address the need

PNTV: Drive

1. Sawyer Effect – 0:37

  • What doesn’t motivate us? Contingent rewards (ie, if you do this, then you’ll get that). When you make something ocntingent, you remove the internal motivation to achieve a goal, which is the most powerful.
  • The Sawyer Effect – Tom Sawyer had the task to paint a fence and wasn’t excited about it. So he acted like it would be the coolest thing ever, and his friends wound up paying him to do the fence
  • When someone pays you to do something, it implies it’s not worth doing on its own
  • Example, chores and allowances. Chores and allowances are great, but shouldn’t be combined. If you want your kid to never take out the trash, pay them to do it

2. Motivation 3.0 – 3:28

  • Motivation 1.0 – Survival. The basic operating system operating humanity. The fundamental drive is just to survive
  • Motivation 2.0 – If you do x then y. The introduction of carrots and sticks. 
  • Motivation 3.0 – The best businesses have moved to intrinsic motivation. The drive is to express yourself.

3. Autonomy – 4:40

  • An umbrella way of looking at intrinsic motivation. If you have autonomy, you have control over what you do.
  • But if everything you do is controlled, there’s an element of coersion. So if someone’s carrot and sticking you, engagement is diminished and performance is reduced 

4. Mastery – 6:24

  • The 3 laws of mastery: 1. Mastery is a mindset 2. Mastery is a pain and 3. Mastery is an asymptote
  • Mindset – If you think your talent is fixed, you won’t put in the effort to get better
  • Pain – It takes a lot of deliberate practice to get better. You aren’t going to grow and get better if you never leave your comfort zone.
  • Asymptote – If you had a straight line and a curved line that approached it but never quite hit it, that’s an asymptote. You’re constantly approaching mastery, but you’re never going to hit it

5. Purpose – 9:27

  • Great leaders can be summarized in once sentence. You don’t want to have a muddled paragraph. Know your one sentence and what your legacy would be.
  • That big question captures the essence of what you want to achieve. The little question is “did I get a little bit better today?” And that’s the essence of creating and cultivating our purpose

 

PNTV: Grit

1. Beast – 1:35

  • The author started her research on grit at West Point, a very difficult military school. It’s very very difficult to get in, but something like 20% will drop out within the first 7 weeks.
  • So the author created a survey to determine a candidates grit score that was able to more accurately predict if candidates would remain
  • The determined “grit score” would predict who would make it through the “Beast barracks” of West Point
  • It turns out that grit predicts a lot of the things we want to see in our lives
  • Grit is passion + perseverance
  • The psychology of achievement: there’s really only two variables, talent and effort. And Talent x Effort = Skills. Then Skills x Effort = Achievement. So effort counts twice.

2. Effort Counts – 4:01

  • Grit is passion + perseverance
  • The psychology of achievement: there’s really only two variables, talent and effort. And Talent x Effort = Skills. Then Skills x Effort = Achievement. So effort counts twice.
  • Talent is important, but not as important as putting in the effort to achieve
  • Gritty people put in a ton of effort over an extended period of time

3. Gritty Passions – 5:34

  • Gritty people who endure with passion love what they do
  • There’s a difference in the kinds of passion
  • You’re not gonna find any gritty people that are like “I hate what I do.” If you don’t have the passion, you’ll be unable to find the grit to keep on
  • You don’t want it to be fireworks where you’re fired up then move on to something else. It’s passion that endures and guides our lives.

4. Grow Grit – 7:34

  • Grit can be grown from the inside out or outside in
  • Properties of gritty individuals: 1. Interest (you need to have a passionate interest in something that fires you up over a sustainable amount of time) 2. Practice (interest isn’t enough, you have to deliberately practice an stretch out of your comfort zone) 3. Purpose (deep passion requires connecting what you love to do with what you want to bring to the world) and 4. Hope (resolve to make one’s life better in the future)

5. Wise Parents – 9:32

  • Wise parents combine high standards with warmth (kind and supportive). Knowing their kids are capable of a lot and encouraging them to do it. Authoritative parents have high standards and low warmth, and permissive parents have low standards and high warmth.
  • The Latin root of the word “parenting” is “to bring forth.” A parent brings forth the potential of a child. And the best way to do that is with high standards with high warmth.
  • So as parents and coaches and teachers, what can we bring out in groups we’re leading?

PNTV: The Ultra Mindset

1. All Good – 1:41

  • The first thing to reach your potential is to train your mind
  • Think of everything as “all good mental training” and use that as a mantra
  • “How can I step in between stimulus and response?”

2. 60/40 – 3:03

  • When the author is 60 miles into 100 mile run, he’s not feeling particularly great, even though he loves running
  • But he knows that’s going to happen and keeps going to finish the 100 miles
  • The point is that how he feels at that moment isn’t dictating his actions 
  • Show up, do the work, and take the next baby step

3. 4:30 am Rule – 5:22

  • Whether you get up at 4:30 or not, note that your day begins the night before
  • When you’ve made the decision to get up at 4:30, it doesn’t matter how you feel when the alarm goes off, you get up
  • That’s the mindset of a champion, knowing that “there’s nothing that’s gonna prevent me from getting up”
  • You make a pre-commitment, do it long enough to get through the honeymoon phase, through the fight-through phase, and create a second-nature habit

4. 100 Miles – 8:31

  • If at 60 miles in we don’t want to do the next 40, how to we keep going?
  • Breaking down a larger task into multiple smaller tasks. “What’s the next, most important thing that needs to be done?”
  • What is your big goal and how can you knock out something to get to that goal? What are the 3 most important things you can do today? Organize tomorrow today

5. Quit? – 11:47

  • When do you quit? Is it okay to quit?
  • There are a couple considerations. But if you know that the path you’re on isn’t the right path for you, then you may need to change course and quitting is the right decision.
  • Quitting when you know something isn’t the right path is the right decision
  • But when you know you’re on the right path, you categorically remove the option to quit. Sometimes you need to quit something to have the grit to do something better

PNTV: The Tools

1. Reversal of Desire – 1:11

  • When we experience pain or stress, we want to avoid that pain
  • But that’s something we can reverse. So rather than looking at your pain as something to avoid, we can get excited about it.
  • We like to live in our comfort zone, but the problem is our infinite potential exists on the other side of our fears. So we need to learn to reverse our desires, as these fears are the best things that can happen to us.
  • A healthy human being faces their challenges head-on and say “bring it on”

2. Active Love – 3:31

  • All these tools are tied to Higher Forces (something bigger than ourselves in the universe) and we want to allign ourselves with them
  • When you find youself super annoyed with someone or something, you’re in The Maze. And when you’re irritated and can’t break free, look inside. And instead of being annoyed with that person, beam them love

3. Inner Authority – 5:06

  • Often times we have trouble expressing ourselves. So we need to embrace the disowned parts of ourselves. Integrate the parts of youself you don’t want to look at.
  • But when we can bring the versions of ourselves we don’t like into ourselves and then present from that perspective, we can gain an inner authority

4. Grateful Flow – 6:18

  • We need to reconnect to our Higher Force through Gratitude. We need to have gratitude on demand
  • If you can turn it on on demand and flip a switch tothink about all the things we’re grateful for, you can feel better on demand
  • Scientifically proven to make you feel better

5. Jeopardy – 7:33

  • Jeopardy is our reminder to use willpower (arguably the most important tool)
  • Willpower is the greatest predictor of our happiness and most important tool
  • Willpower outpredicts academic performance and IQ by a factor of 2
  • Imagine the end of your life, that version of you is screaming at the current you to step up

PNTV: The Obstacle is the Way

1. 1+ 2+ 3 – 1:46

  • The book is organized around 3 concepts: Perception, Action, and Will
  • How we perceive an obsticle is our starting point. If we perceive it as a problem, we don’t move very far forward. But if we percieve it as an opportunity, we can make progress. So controlling our perceptions is important.
  • In spite of obsticles, we take action, whether we feel like it or not.
  • And wil, or soul-power, means we show up. Even when things seem overwhelming or we don’t think we can solve the problems 

2. Panic Buttons – 3:59

  • When NASA first started going into space, the number 1 thing they trained their astronauts in is to not panic.
  • The first American to orbit Earth’s heartrate never got above 100 beats per minute. Yet our hearts race when we read an email. We gotta keep it cool.

3. PTSD vs PTG – 5:31

  • Post-traumatic Stress Disorder vs post-traumatic Growth, or Aversive Growth
  • Some people go through traumatic events and experience a stress disorder, but some people experience growth. How do they take poison and turn it into medicine?
  • We just need to realize it’s a possibility.
  • There’s all this space between a stimulus and a response

4. Genius Equation – 7:34

  • A lot of people think genius is 99% inspiration and 1% perspiration. But the reality is the opposite. 1% inspiration and 99% hard work.
  • Geniuses like Thomas failed again and again and again

5. The Process – 8:42

  • Some of the winningest coaches are all focused on Finishing. Finish this set, finish what you’re starting
  • It’s a combination of will and action.
  • We want to get in the habit of finishing, which gives us a power to be fueled by obsticles

 

PNTV: What to Say When You Talk to Yourself

1. Programming – 0:48

  • The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our programming. 
  • Most of us are unconsciously running bad programs. And how we talk to ourselves dictates a lot of programming. We need to program our thoughts and behaviors, or our operating system.
  • If you’re trying to run your life on an operating system created 20 years ago, it doesn’t work out. But we’ve been conditioned to interact with the world in certain ways, so those old programs need to be changed.

2. Self-Talk – 2:35

  • The best way to change your programming is through your self-talk. There are 5 levels. The first level is negative (“God, I’m an idiot”). And most people end up staying in that first level. 
  • The second level is still negative (“I should…“). You identify a problem but not the solution.
  • The third level (“I’m not going to do X anymore“). Making a declaration of a goal.
  • The fourth level is a positive declaration of who you aspire to be (“I’m a healthy person excited about life!”)
  • The fifth level is more spiritual and about being connected. But it comes as a by-product of the fourth level

3. Two Yous – 5:34

  • Why should we even care about this stuff? Imagine there are two versions of you. One on the old programming, and one on the new. What do the two yous look like in 20 years? 

4. Shower Talk – 6:31

  • Self-talk is affirmative statements that we read or tell ourselves. Then there’s self conversation (shower talk is one example) where you engage in a dialogue with yourself.
  • Many of us already have the wisdom within ourselves to live an extraordinary life, we just need to tap into it.
  • Imagine this version of you can go hang out with the 110 year old version of you for 15 minutes. What would that version of you say to this version of you?
  • The author says many people who get a terminal diagnosis suddenly change their lives. It’s because they already had the wisdom within themselves and knew what they needed to really focus on.

5. Challenge – 9:51

  • The greatest challenge we have in our lives is to master your mind. But it’s also the greatest gift you can give someone, to master their mind. 
  • Imagine the two versions of you, and have enough love for the future you to create the discipline to build a life future you would look back on and thank you for.

Self
Brainwashing

Turning it into action… don’t have to feel good, just need to get it done…

Achieving
Great Things

There is a lot that goes into.  I can’t make up my mind whether to focus on the writing or the designing.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  The daily content challenge marches on.

PNTV: Mastery

1. Your Life’s Task – 1:13

  • We need to turn inward and discover our work and what makes us unique. What fires you up? What’re you here to do? We’re born with uniqueness and destiny that require a level of introspection to know.
  • And knowing that destiny is our Life’s Work. And having that purpose is a fundamental need we all have.

2. Apprentice – 2:21

  • All great masters go through an extended apprenticeship phase
  • On the path of mastery, we all have to do through this phase. And the key to this is to be humble. The goal is to master one’s self 
  • We want to go from distracted and impulsive to disciplined and focused as we work towards mastering our craft

3. 20,000 Hours – 3:49

  • Everyone talks about being willing to put in 10,000 years. But you need to think “I’ll see the benefits of this in 5-10 years.” That’s when you truly benefit from the hard work you’re doing right now.
  • We think that mastery is a function of inborn talent or genuis. But it’s a matter of effort. Which we should be excited about that. It means genius-level performance isn’t reserved to someone born with it.

4. Intensity – 5:58

  • The word the author comes back to again and again is “intensity.” Masters have a sustained intensity that allows them to achieve levels of greatness.
  • There’s a greatness force in all of us that must be identified, but there’s also a counter-force: society. It makes us feel timid and embarrassed by our peers or society when expressing who we are

5. Deep Desire – 7:39

  • When you’re going through all your different challenges, there are zigs and zags, up and down. And when you’re zoomed in on your challenges, the rises and falls seem drastic. But if you zoom all the way out, it forms a much more straight, rising line.
  • We need to tap into the deep desires we have and tap into them. It’s not a selfish dream to want to achieve mastery. There’s something deep inside you that wants to be expressed. And it’s not selfish to work towards expressing it.

PNTV: Relentless

1. G->G->U – 2:07

  • Good to Great to Unstoppable
  • If you’re good, you’re a cooler. If you’re great, you’re a closer. If you’re a cleaner, you have a relentless obsession to be your absolute best
  • The first step is moving past this “eh, I’m good enough” mentality
  • Good can’t be good enough, be curious about what greatness looks like
  • We need to strive to be incessant, or ceaseless fighting to realize our ultimate potential

2. Pressure – 4:33

  • This whole idea that stress is bad is wrong. We need that stress to be energized to be our best self.
  • How you perceive your stress will dictate how you physiologically respond to stress. If you look at the stress as pushing you to be your best self, you begin to develop a “challenge response,” not a “threat response”
  • We need to be comfortable being uncomfortable to maximize our potential
  • “No pressure, no diamonds”

3. I’m All In – 8:11

  • When we’re outside of the comfort zone, we make mistakes. Things don’t always work out perfectly.
  • If things don’t work out, that’s okay. Readjust and keep going. The most confident thing we can say is “I’m going to go for this and it might not work.” But we learn and evolve.
  • Leading researcher on the growth mindset says Michael Jordan had the right idea. Saying “I’ve missed 9,000 shots and failed over and over and over. But that’s why I succeed.” When he missed those shots, he went back and practiced that same shot over and over and over. You can only achieve greatness if you’re willing to “fail”

4. Effort = 2x – 11:02

  • Jerry Rice set the all-time NFL receiving record one Sunday afternoon. After that, he did the same thing he did every night and morning. Replaying the game in his head, and waking up early and busting it harder than everyone else.
  • Isn’t it interesting that the most “talented” player is also the one who works harder than everyone else?
  • Talent is still a factor, but Talent x Effort = Skill
  • Then you take that Skill, put in more Effort, and you get Acheivement. If Rice and Jordan didn’t work the hardest, they wouldn’t be the greatest

5. Dreams -> Reality – 15:04

  • Effort counts twice. It’s not all about talent or dreams.
  • There’s only one way to get to greatness and that’s work and relentless effort
  • Your dreams can be a reality, you just have to be willing to put in the work

PNTV: So Good They Can't Ignore You

1. SDT – 1:34

  • Self-Determination Theory has 3 aspects. 1. Autonomy (that you want to have control over your work environment, what you do, and you want to feel it matters) 2. Competence (you want to feel like you’re good at what you do and 3. Relatedness (liking the people with whom you work)
  • Those are the 3 aspects of intrinsic motivation that leads to a high level of fulfillment
  • No where on that list is there a pre-existing passion you have to build around

2. Mindset: P vs C – 3:21

  • Passion vs Craftsman
  • Most people operate with a passion mindset, but we need to operate with a craftsman mindset. Most people ask “what’s in it for me?” But the craftsman asks “what can I do to create an astonishing level of value in your work?”

3. Deliberate Practice – 4:36 

  • Relates to the 10,000 hour rule (the amount of time it takes to achieve mastery)
  • But not just any effort, you need deliberate practice. This is straightforward for atheletes or people with specialties. But most of us “knowledge workers” in the 21st century, it’s a little more ambiguous. We need to find deliberate things we can do and track to get incrementally better. And when so few knowledge workers do that, you become so good they can’t ignore you.

4. Career Capital – 6:21

  • Phrase that describes rare and valuable skills. If you want autonomy, competance, and relatedness, you need those two things.
  • When you follow the passion mindset without the craftsman mindset, you may not succeed. You may not have created enough career capital to create a sustainable job. You have to put in the work.
  • It’s easy to think passion is enough. But you need to follow both your bliss and your grunt. Passion comes after working hard, not the inverse.
  • It’s the craftsman mindset that lets you actually get paid for what you love to do.

5. Work Right – 9:10

  • You need to differentiate between finding the right work (the passion mindset) and working right (the craftsman mindset)
  • We want to show up deliberately over the long run
  • Spend more time thinking about how you can serve more value than thinking about what you can get out of something.

PNTV: Eat That Frog!

1. Frogs! – 1:01

  • There’s a story that says if you have to eat a frog first thing in the morning, that’s gonna be the hardest part of the day.  Then the rest will all be downhill
  • So what’s the number 1 thing that if you completed it would have the most positive impact on your life
  • Getting in the habit of “eating that frog” first thing in the morning gives your day incredible momentum. The rest is a distraction.

2. #1 Goal? – 2:35

  • If you want more memtum and less procrastination, the number 1 way is to set goals
  • Have a clear sense of a goal that you’re excited about.
  • Imagine a blank sheet of paper numbered to 10.  Then think about the top 10 goals you want to achieve in the next year.  Then identify the number 1 goal that would have the most positive impact in your life.  This helps you move forward, as well as determining what the next “frog” is

3. 80/20 – 5:39

  • The Pareto Principle: 20% of individuals owned 80% of the land (in the area where the study was performed).  And this applies across numerous areas (eg, 20% of beer drinkers drink 80% of the beer)
  • If you wrote a list of things you need to do today, 20% would probably account for 80% of the time
  • And that can be narrowed down to one thing.  That’s your frog.

4. Oil Barrels – 7:47

  • Once, the author was travelling across the desert, and saw nothing for miles and miles.  In order to get across, oil barrels were placed every 5 km.  So as you walked, at any given point you could see two barrels.  By getting to the next barrel again and again, the entire desert can be crossed.
  • So what we need to do is break our huge goals into incremental improvement.

5. 1-Handle – 10:01

  • Single-Handling Tasks
  • We waste a lot of time distracting ourselves with constant emails and other distractions
  • You combat this by single-handling tasks.  When you start something, finish it.  Get in the habit of finishing things.
  • See if you have a habit of being distracted, and work on getting into the habit of single-handling tasks.

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