A short +1 episode from Brian Johnson contrasting two mindsets people adopt during mind-wandering: the "conquering hero" (positive/constructive) versus the "suffering martyr" (guilty/dysphoric). Johnson urges listeners to notice when they slip into a victim/ martyr orientation and to reinforce fundamentals (eat, move, sleep, breathe), then asks listeners to identify their single most important self-care habit and one action to optimize it today. The episode closes with encouragement to cultivate the hero orientation.
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You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. In our last plus one we talked about the science of daydreaming. Quick recap. Stay out of the poor attention control in guilty dysphoric realms and and in the positive constructive mode. Here's another way to think about it. Thanks again to Minouche Zomorodi. When your mind is wandering and you're kind of randomly thinking about your life, do you imagine yourself as the conquering hero of your own story? The positive constructive version, or the suffering martyr or guilty dysphoric of the story? It's a big distinction. We want to get really good at noticing when we're falling into the Woe is me helpless victim orientation and shift it into the let's do this creator orientation. How? Well again, what do you think we're doing with all these plus ones? I'm basically trying to give you a super stocked tool shed armory of tools and weapons and tips and tricks and hacks you can use the moment you find yourself losing your connection from the best version of yourself. It all starts with mastering our fundamentals. Eat, move, sleep, breathe. You ever notice how the martyr shows up a lot more when you're tired? Me too. That's why Vince Lombardi says that fatigue makes cowards of us all. Let's actually keep things simple and focus there today. Do you know your number one self care habit? The thing that keeps you plugged in? Is it eating well, exercising, sleeping, meditating, doing deep work, helping others? What's the thing that if you don't do it, pretty much guarantees a suboptimal day for me, it is unquestionably getting a good night of sleep. How about you? This is my your self care habit. The number one self care habit. What is it and what's the number one thing you can do today to optimize that number one self care habit? That is all. Here's to doing the things that help the conquering hero show up more and more consistently. And here's to stepping back and looking at the fundamentals whenever we get a little whiny martyr wobbly. Plus one plus one plus one. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me. Sa.
