17 Dec 2025 · 3 min
Brian Johnson explores how to reframe anxiety's physical symptoms as signs you're ready to perform at your best, drawing on John Elliot's research on overachievement. He also previews Optimize 2020, an event focused on self-optimization.
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another optimize +1. In our last +1, we did our best boss impersonation as we reinterpreted our sweaty palms and racing hearts as a sign we're excited and ready to go, rather than as a sign that something's wrong. When I read that passage in Marie's book, I immediately thought of some parallel wisdom from John Elliot's overachievement. Recall that Elliot is the guy who told us that we want to keep our V12 engines and learn how to manage all that power rather than swap it out for a lawnmower engine. We've got a link to that plus one and he told us that we want to be more like squirrels than Einstein when we get ready to perform. Check out that plus one as well. So here's the passage I thought of as I read about the boss's bossness. Elliot tells us, I quote, the physical symptoms of fight or flight are what the human body has learned over thousands of years to operate more efficiently. And at the highest level, anxiety is a cognitive interpretation of that physical response. Aha. That energy we feel when we're about to perform. Elliot tells us we need to remember two more things. Number one, everything that your body does to you when the pressure is on is good for performance. And number two, he tells us pressure is different from anxiety. Nervousness is different from worry. One more time. Everything is inherently empty of meaning. We get to choose the meaning we give to any and everything that's happening to us, period. So we might as well choose the optimal response. Are you excited about anything today? Me too. Let's do this. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optymyze with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me. Hey guys, this is Brian with a quick little P.S. i'm really excited to let you know about an event we're working on. Plan is to make it the premier self optimizing event of 2020. We're calling it Optimize 2020. You the modern hero. Basic idea. Five days, 101 world class luminaries. One million people. You can learn more and get your tickets to the online and offline event at Optimize Me 2020. Again, that's Optimize Me2020. Hope to see you there.
