+1 #85: 50 Pounds = A

You're listening to the Optymyze with Brian Johnson podcast. Unlock the full Optymyze experience and join over 10,000 premium members at Optimize Me. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. So imagine this. It's your first day of art class. You signed up for an introductory class on pottery. Go you. The teacher does something a little weird. He points to one half of the class and says, on the last day of class, I'm going to bring in a bathroom scale. You guys will get an A if you produce £50 of pots. A B for £40 and £30 gets you a C. Then he points to the other half of the class and says, you guys, you'll get an A for creating an amazing pot. I just need one pot from you, but make it awesome and you get the A. Fast forward to the end of the semester and who do you think created the best looking pots? The answer? The group that produced the 50 pounds of stuff to get an A. Why is that? Well, as the authors of Art and Fear put it, it seems that while the quantity group was busily churning out piles of work and and learning from their mistakes, the quality group had sat theorizing about perfection and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. So question how do you approach your creativity? Are you trying to create the perfect pot or are you willing to lean in and produce a ton of stuff, learning from your mistakes and eventually getting better and better? Today's +1. Go create a bunch of pots and remember £50 and you'll get an A. And a little P.S. here Maslow comes to mind. He tells us, it seems that the necessary thing to do is not to fear mistakes, but to plunge in to do the best that one can, hoping to learn enough from blunders to to correct them eventually. Plus one plus one plus one and 50 pounds equals NA. Hey, this is Brian with a quick question for you. Do you know what the word optimize literally means? It's from the Latin optimus, which means the best. In our case, we're talking about helping you create the best version of you. So another quick question. What's the best version of you look like? How does that version of you show up in the world? Helping you be that version of yourself all day, every day is what our Optimize membership program is all about. Now, we obviously give away a ton of content for free and we give our 10,000 premium members a ton more members get hundreds of Philosopher's notes, which are 20 minute book summaries that help you apply the best big ideas from the best optimal living books to your life today. Plus members get dozens of hour long Optimal Living 101 masterclasses, more wisdom in less time for your busy life on everything from the science of setting and achieving goals, how to optimize your energy via the fundamentals of nutrition, movement, sleep and meditation and and how to be super productive day in and day out. While of course enjoying the whole process, every facet of your life optimized equals you at your absolute best.