#1: Science says: Optimize works!!! (“Massively positive effects!”) (#19)

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time.

Hey guys, what's up? This is Brian. Had a great morning. This morning I wrote a letter basically expressing why I am so excited about our optimized coach program. And I've been kind of working on it and I'm always iterating whatever I'm working on. But I realized that we needed to talk about the science. I'll talk about the data that I collected this morning and do a quick 1, 2, 3 on it. And I'm also going to share a quote from Abraham Maslow. But we, you know, I'm all about ancient wisdom and modern science, right? And so when we started our coach program with our first thousand people from 50 countries almost two years ago, I went to one of my friends and favorite research scientists, Sonia Lybomirsky, and I said, hey, we want to empirically prove or disprove that the optimized coach protocol works. We want to run a scientific experiment, optimize lab style, right? So we wanted to know, like, do we actually, can we help people increase their confidence? Can we help them increase their energy levels, their performance at work and their connection and love. Our big three energy, work and love. So anyway, you know, we did a pre before and then an after. Before day one, how were you showing up in different aspects of your life? And then after 300 days, how did you show up? And the PhD, top PhD student from her lab said that the results were just like staggering. Like he hadn't seen the effect sizes that we have. Massively positive, he said. He said it's something like getting hit by a bus or something funny like that. So anyway, I wrote a letter sharing that you know, of. Look, this is why we do what we do and this is how we are committed to helping you transform your lives. And oh, the data is showing this. So for example, the whole point of if you look at all of ancient wisdom and modern science, at the end of the day, what they all try to do is get you connected to the best version of yourself, whether it's your inner conscience in Christianity or however it's framed in different traditions. The ancient Greeks called it your daimon. You want to pay attention to your daimon. That's what Socrates did, right? That little voice in your head, that best version of you. You want to be connected to that and express it more and more consistently. That's like the whole optimized protocol, the whole point of everything we do. So we said, hey, how do you feel? Do you feel Connected to the best version of yourself. 29% before the program said, yeah, I do. At the end of the program gives me tears and eyes. 93% of our coaches said, yeah, I feel connected to the best version of myself. Oh, my goodness. Oh, that just makes my heart sing. Now, that's a function of a lot of things under the surface, so I'll just walk you through this quickly. This is not necessarily in any particular order, but we've got exercise and meditation, right? We actually said Those are important things. 37% of our optimizers before they went into the coach program. And again, half of these people went through it because they're coaches or they want to go to the next level on their coaching business or they want to create a coaching practice. The other half did it, quote, simply to become the best version of themselves. So it's half and half, right? So half the people in the program before exercised. I'm sorry. 37% of the people day one exercise for at least 25 minutes per day, which is one of the things we encourage and teach them how to build that habit in. 64% doubled, basically, nearly, not quite by the end of the period. Meditation important. 43%, which is actually a huge number, meditated every day. 89% meditated every day at the end. How about confidence? I'm all about antifragile, heroic confidence, where you face your challenges head on. That's how you live, like a hero. This is really important to me and to our protocol. So we ask, do you feel calm, confident, and present most of the day? 37% of the people before said yes. 88% said yes at the end. Yeah, I'm more confident present. Do you lean into challenges or do you avoid them? No, I avoid them. Only. 23% leaned in. 79% leaned in. We have a mantra for that. Obstacles make me stronger. Ohms to see this. This tripling. And that is 46, 60. That is more than three times as many people leaned into challenges. Now, whether you approach challenges or avoid them is one of the most important things for being a healthy, happy, flourishing human, Let alone living heroically. I can handle any challenges life presents. 58% said that at the beginning. 90% said yes at the end. I feel excited more than anxious. This is another big tool. We're all about practical tools. I'm excited. What science says you should say when you feel anxious and then you alchemize that energy into something positive. 41% felt that in the beginning, 83% at the end. Again, that is Just makes my soul soar. And how about work? Right, so those are some energy measures. How about work? Energy, work and love. I feel a deep sense of purpose at my work. 55%, which is pretty good. 89% I feel engaged. 57%. 89% I feel consistently productive. This is kind of my thing, right? High levels of productivity. 37% felt productive consistently. Boom. 81%. I'm phone free. You want to crush your productivity? Well, then have your phone out all the time. We discipline ourselves to get that out of sight and out of touch. Only 19% were phone free. 62% were. What is that? 20 again? 3 times as many people. That's crazy. Focus. I can maintain a high level of focus. That's very difficult to do in our modern world because of all that smartphone stuff. 26% to 67. I constantly engage with my technology. Same thing. 29 to 72. I'm not distracted by technology. Only 29% could say that. In the beginning we taught our coaches and now they're going to be teaching their clients or their family and kids, colleagues, etc. 74% of them not distracted anymore. That's crazy. And. And then connection. We see the same thing. I'm connected to my family, friends. This was very high to begin with, but it went almost through the roof. 71% to 94% to family and friends, to community, to humanity in general. It's important right now more than ever before to connect to the best, to encourage people. We talk about heroic love, where you see the best in people and really help them achieve it. How about your healthy habits? Self care is a big deal for us. We talk about your number one self care habit. Half had it. 88% at the end did. Walking is big. 10,000 steps. We've talked about this. That walking less than like 5,500 steps a day or something like that is correlated with depression. One of these days I'll share with you. My I'll share with you right now. Why not? Here's my walking commitment. So I 14,200 steps a day. See if I can get that is 14,200 steps a day is 100,000 steps a week. That's my target. So this is my average every day over the last seven days. And it's actually low because it's counting today and I haven't done anything yet. 14,800. 100,000 steps a week. Awesome. Now that's me being me. But we challenge our coaches to walk for 10,000 steps a day. Only 41% did before.77 after sitting. Sedentary Ness is the new smoking, which is why that alarm just went off and I went like that. Boom. Changes your metabolism in important ways. We doubled that. Got some work to do here, by the way. What's going on, guys? Come on. Quit sitting. I fall asleep easily. 59% could say yes. 80% at the end of the day. We talk about what gets in the way of that, of course. And then your energy level zest is the number one thing science says for your flourishing. That's number one virtue. Zest. We got to get our energy right so we can bring it to our work and love. So I feel energized to start the day. 46% said yes. 85% said yes in the end. After the 300 day program, I feel energized during the afternoon. Important. Not just starting, but ending. Only 21% could say that in the beginning. 65% could say that at the end. So stoked about that. I create better relationships. I'm kind, generous, etc. We had some great people in the beginning, but they got even better. I connect with new people. We talk about how to do that through love. 2.0 micro moments of positivity, resonance. Put your phone away, be present, connect with others. It's huge. Just common sense, good humanness. And also for your underlying well being. 33% people connected with new people in the beginning. Now 75% I'm phone free when I'm hanging out with people. Only 31% could say that. But the research is unequivocal. You want to have deeper connections. Get your phone out of sight and out of touch. 85%. I'm so proud of that number. Again, almost tripling the response. And then nutrition. This was exciting to see. I follow my nutritional philosophy. Only half could say that now. 84% do. And that's correlated to. I feel that it's easy to maintain a healthy weight. Only less than half could say that in the beginning. 76% now say that and I'll tell you why. The number of people who have lost a ton of weight and reached a weight they didn't think they'd ever see again in their lives is astounding to me and inspiring for me and important because your waist to height ratio, which is a measure of your visceral fat, which is correlated to your healthy weight, is the greatest predictor of your morbidity. We got to get this right. And again, we challenge our masters and our coaches to get this right for themselves, for their clients. Etc. I don't eat food with sugar. It's the. That was amazing. 68% in the beginning is astonishing. 88% now. I feel nourished from my food. Boom. That went up as well. Being offline is important. Oh, here we go. You want a good night of sleep? Don't have screens before you go to bed. We call that digital sunset. Only 32% of our community did it before, 87% did it after. I'm 100% certain that led to better sleep, and that's why the energy went up both in the morning and the night. This one thing can change your life. And again, we systematically help people write the algorithms, to use their willpower wisely, to install habits, to run on autopilot, etc. I spend time with zero inputs. 15%. It's a nice uptick. I want to see this continue to go up. 38% have zero inputs during their day. Deep work, I would call that deep connection, etc. I take technology free breaks. This is huge too, to what we call oscillate up and down. Energized tranquility. We doubled that and then we got loving ourselves. You know, I feel satisfied with my physical capabilities doubling. I feel in tune with my inner self. Boom. Doubling. And then we come back to the very top here. And the ultimate purpose of all of our work together, which is, do you feel connected to the best within yourself? That is the game that we're playing. And teaching our community how to play that well is what it's all about. So, again, I'm so humbled and inspired by this data and also just deepens. It's beyond confidence. There's a level of certainty of, look, this works. And the reason why it works is because it's not my stuff, it's not our stuff. It's what all of the greatest teachers across all time have said. I've just put in a fair amount of work and our team has worked hard to help capture it into a systematic protocol and just fire it up. So, anyway, optimize me, coach. We're going to be putting up the letter soon. Class one, I'm sorry, Class three starts. We extended the registration for another week. It starts September 1st. And we also drop the price back to a thousand bucks. It's a thousand bucks, period. We're very, very, very, very, very clear that we want to lead with virtue and do what we think is the right thing to do. Other programs like this are a multiple of this, and we know that, and we are absolutely committed to Astonishing. You giving the best to the most for the least. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. So we had, as part of the coaching program, we also, I do one on one coaching. So we've got the Mastery series I've told you about. And then we got luminaries that come in like Cal Newport and Talbin Shahar and Sony Lyubomirsky who helped with this. I wish we could bring Abraham Maslow in, which is what this note is on one of his books. But in addition to that, I do what's called a Soul Force forge, where I do one on one coaching with our coaches. So they come up in a group environment and they say, hey, this is what's going on for me and I help coach them. So yesterday, a beautiful woman in our community who's just so alive and got so many different things going on asked me about her purpose and how to discover her purpose. And she felt a little inhibited because she's a little intense, you know, and people around her, she's just wondering, like, how do I show up most fully? We had a great hour long discussion, literally I spent two and a half hours total. We spent an hour on this because I know so many of us have this question about how to live our purpose. And then I picked up a note, which I rarely do, and I said, you know what, I just read this and I need to share something here with you first. She was questioning her own ambition and her desire to do great things. And I said, well, look, Abraham Maslow, the forward to this book that I just did a note on Abraham Maslow in his class. He'd say, hey, which of you believe you will achieve greatness? Now this is a idealistic but conservative psychologist, right? He would ask his class, which of you believe you will achieve greatness? When they stared at him blankly, he asked, if not you, who then? So I asked her, if it's not you, if you're not called to achieve greatness, then who is it? I ask that of you right now. If it's not you that's going to live heroically and serve the world, then who? And this is how we change the world when we answer our call and live that hero's journey. Then I read a longer passage to her that I'm going to spare us on right now, but just super powerful that we just need to get rid of the ambivalence and we need to actually do what we're here to do. All of which leads us to a very quick look at the data for today. And then I got to go. We're setting up the PNTV studio. I got to go get some new shirts. The one that I thought I was going to use won't work, but we found something even better like a 1950s style short sleeve collared shirt. Our creative director Ben was so fired up when he saw it. So I'm heading out with the kids to go pick that up, get the studio dialed in. I'm going to start filming pntvs like on this on Monday. Couldn't be more giddy anyway. Yes, I'm ready for the day. Sleep was good. Interesting though, as I did my 1, 2, 3, my heart rate was about 10% higher than where I like it to be. 44 versus 40, still great, but it's 10% higher. My heart rate variability was 58, which is still very good, but considerably lower. That's 60 10. That's another like 10, 15% below my average. So I think to myself, what's going on? And I think, oh, you know what? You ate a little after 4pm yesterday. Went to bed at 8:30 normal time. Right. But ate just a little bit later than normal. And I worked a little bit later than normal. Interesting. Okay, that's what needs work. It get back to eating by 4pm an important point here when you don't hit a target. My target was eat by 4pm that was literally one of the things I wrote down as a goal. Didn't hit it. The point is not to always follow your bright line goals. The point is to know, or you want to obviously, but you want to have them set up so you know when you violate them. And then you can look at data like this and adjust it plus wanted, etc. Yeah, that's more than enough. Let's go, let's do this. Let's connect to the best within ourselves. We moment to moment to moment to moment. And again, if you feel inspired to join us, we'd be honored to have you Optimize Me coach for that. Then of course Optimize me for the $10 a month kind of thing where you get access to all kinds of philosopher's notes, plus ones it cetera. All right, love you guys. Have a great weekend. See you.

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Hi, this is Brian.

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