+1 #576: Soul Force

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome Back to another optimize +1. The other day in one of our coaching sessions, Phil and I talked about Soul Force. Now, we arrived at that powerful phrase via a very mundane question related to the keynote I was giving later that month. Now, I literally never do talks. So, to PowerPoint or not to PowerPoint? That was the question. Actually, I use a Mac, so technically the question was to keynote or not to keynote. Of course, the answer to such an epically important question will vary depending on the individual, but for me, the answer, in short, was no. Now I actually wound up using a very simple one. But why was the answer no? Because we decided that we didn't want anything to get in between me and me expressing my soul force. I needed to have fun being naked and just sharing ideas I deeply care about, rather than hiding behind a clicker and some slides. Practically speaking, it was a helpful hint. Spiritually speaking, it was a life changing distinction. I mean, soul force, how beautiful is that phrase? It pretty much captures the primary goal of all of our work together. And it was the final idea in my talk and in our optimizing for the Modern Hero 101 class. The arc of that class and my entire body of work goes something like this. We start at the philosophical top with optimus hero equals soul oxygen. In short, we optimize to become our heroic best, giving our greatest gifts and greatest service to the world. As Maslow says, this need to actualize our potential is as fundamental as our need to breathe. What one can be, one must be. As such, actualizing in service to the world is in my world, soul oxygen. Then we move on to telos plus eudaimon plus arete equals psyche. In short, Aristotle and his pals from philosophers 2500 years ago to modern scientists today, agree flourishing people have targets. We're teleological. The ultimate target to have a great relationship with our inner soul. Greeks called that eudaimonia. It's the summum bonum, the highest good. The individual who hits that ultimate target is a eudaimon. How do we achieve that? Virtue. Virtue. Virtue. In a word, arete. Now, although modern research and therapeutic psychologists rarely use the word soul to capture the essence of what they do, do you know what the word psyche in psychology is literally means? It means breath or life. Or get this. Soul. Long story short, again, modern science agrees with the ancients. In fact, as we've discussed, the whole positive psychology movement was founded on the core universally shared virtues of all major wisdom traditions. And they say the way to be happy in the deepest sense of eudaimonic flourishing, of course, is to. Drum roll. Please put your virtues in action again. In a word, arete. Now from there, we leave the world of philosophical ideals and drill into our own idiosyncratic personal realities, getting clarity on our big three and writing algorithms to create masterpiece days while cultivating an anti fragile sense of confidence, emotional stamina, etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Repeat moment to moment to moment forever. Now, why do we do all that? Well, that brings us back to the beginning. Soul Force. We do all this work so we can be on great terms with our inner soul to be eudaimons, capable of giving our best to the world on a consistent basis, while of course enjoying the process. But here's the kicker. We don't need to build our Soul Force. All that power is already there. Just like The Golden Buddha Statue 1. We simply need to get rid of the stuff that's hiding the gold. And perhaps even more accurately, just like the Niagara Falls metaphor in that one, we need to harness the latent energy that that's already there. Recall our discussion on Eric Butterworth's great book Discover the Power within Yourself. And recall that this is one of Oprah's all time favorite books. Butterworth tells us that in short, we got the whole the meek shall inherit the earth wisdom pretty much all wrong. The Greek word that has been translated as meek is praeus. But meek is a very weak translation of a very powerful word. Praeus, Butterworth tells us, means something closer to tamed. Steve Chandler says it's closer to disciplined, as in the disciplined shall inherit the earth. Butterworth tells us to picture Niagara Falls. Imagine all that water pounding down every moment of every day. There was always a ton of potential energy there. Technically there was about 3,160 tons of water flowing over the falls every second. That's approaching 1 million gallons of water every single second. But it wasn't until Niagara Falls was tamed that we could harness all that potential energy and convert it into energy we could actually use. Which leads us back to where we started and to the point of today's +1. How's your soul Force? Couple quick questions. How can you tame or discipline yourself just a little more today to harness all that latent energy just a little more. And are you hiding behind any slide clickers in life? If you feel so inspired, sit up or stand up straight. Take a nice deep relaxing breath in through your nose. Hold for just a moment, smile, exhale slightly longer than your inhale and feel the energy within yourself. Smile again and let your soul force shine.