An 80/20 Look at How To Focus Your Soul Force on the Only Moment That Matters

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimize Mastery series. Today we've got the fifth fundamental of module six. We talked about eating, moving, sleeping, breathing. Now it's time for focusing. I've got a lot of favorite subjects, but as I was walking into the studio today, I thought, you know what? This might be my favorite subject. Focusing our soul force on the only moment that matters right now. People ask me, you know, often, well, how do you create so much? Blah, blah, blah. This is how we've got to use our willpower wisely to install habits that run on autopilot to fly. Focus our energy on what matters most right now, then do it consistently. Which is our first idea we'll talk about today. Let's do a quick look at the top 10, then we'll jump in. But the first idea is really the essence of all of our work together, the soul force equation. We called it the genius work equation before. Do you remember what it is? We want to memorize this. I might just have to get a little tattoo or something. It's tattooed on my brain, and I'd like to be a little tattoo artist on your brain if you'd allow me to. Soul Force, that ability to connect with and express the best within us equals time times parentheses, energy times focus times what's important now, end parentheses to the power of consistency. We're going to unpack that again and we're going to look at the central power part of that focus. We cultivate all this energy, which you may have noticed, we just spent a lot of time on, but the last four sessions on eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, boom. Energy is up. Now what do we do with it? We focus it on what's most important now, how often? Consistently. Then we have our second idea. Carpe punctum. Carpe diem's nice. Sees the day. Yeah. And you know what? All we have is this moment. Dan Millman introduced me to that phrase. Carpe punctum. Seize the moment. We're going to talk about the power of the present in your past, your present, your future. We're going to look at the relationship. The present is part of each of those. You want to have a great future and you want to enjoy life. Now focus on this moment right now. The third idea is the spotlight of attention. Scientists, psychologists tell us this is the number one asset, the number one skill for healthy human beings. I joked before, talk to an eating expert. They're gonna tell you that eating is most Important movement, right? Sleeping, breathing, those are the most important. You talk to a psychologist who isn't thinking as much as they should, frankly, about the body. They're gonna tell you your attention, your ability to put your mind where you want, when you want, for how long you want. In other words, to focus on this moment at will is the fundamental skill of a healthy, happy, flourishing human being. So we're going to talk about that. Remember this, a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science to that. Then the fourth big idea. We're going to talk about how to focus on what's important right now, right? So we've got focus and we've got what's important right now. Now you can only decide what's important. Now if you can step back far enough and know what your ultimate target is. We're going to talk about target practice, having soul goals, wildly important targets that dictate what's important. Now we're going to map that over energy, work and love and help you get very, very good at effectively shooting at your targets. Then we're going to look at three specific ways to train your focus, your presence, your attention, get good at target practice, etc. One is technology. Two is mental strength training. And three is micro moments of focus, opportunities to focus. So we're going to talk about digital minimalism and the smartphone effect for technology, which is big idea number five and big idea number six. We're going to hit the focus gym. Can you guess how we're going to do that? Meditation. We're actually going to do a guided meditation together. I'll share with you what I do in the second part of of my meditation. I shared the breath work in our last session. We'll do that a little bit again today. Then we're going to do the virtue meditation that I do in the second 11 minute session. Then we're going to talk about what are we going to talk about. Then we're going to talk about your opportunities to focus. We had opportunities to move OTMs in movement, opportunities to breathe in breathing and opportunities to focus. We want to know that multitasking is a myth and we want to create big time blocks. Run the algorithm so we can focus consistently. Then our eighth idea is targeted thinking. We're going to have target practice and targeted thinking, right? We want to focus on what needs to get done right now. We don't want to complain, we don't want to be in victim mode. We want to say, hey, what do I want? What target do I want to hit? I'm going to Embrace reality. And then I'm going to get clear on what I want. And then I'm going to ask myself now what needs to be done. And then, guess what? We're going to go focus all of our energy on that most important thing. Then our ninth idea is we are going to be radiantly charismatic exemplars. The reality is, when I talk about soul force, that ineffable power that emanates from an individual that's living in integrity with their highest values, scientists would call that charisma. And they've studied it. And there are three aspects to charisma that we're going to talk about. And of course, the first variable you need to get right, they call it presence, but you can call it focus. You need to be here right now with the individual or individuals with whom you're interacting. That's the first part of charisma. We're going to connect that to soul force. Then our tenth idea, one more time, we're going to identify the number one thing you know you could be doing starting today that would most fundamentally change your life as it relates to focus. Bust out the prescription pad. Write yourself a prescription as a conqueror, one who seeks successfully. So have that in the back of your mind. Get out that pad, maybe write down some options, and then let's go all in on that number one thing as we aggregate and compound all these little gains over an extended period of time to fundamentally and permanently change our lives starting today. Right? Our first big idea, Soul Force. I want you to see this as your superpower. This is the culmination. It's the byproduct of all the work we're doing together to have this soul force moving from theory to practice to mastery. It is your superpower. One more time. The equation of which focus is right in the middle, goes like this. Soul force equals time times. For our point, right now, we're going to focus on this. Energy times. Focus times. What's important now? End parentheses to the power of consistency. Let's walk through that math one more time. So we just did a ton of work to get your energy right. Because as I've said so many times, if your energy is wobbly, good luck. If you have a hard time getting out of bed, metaphorically, or you're just so fatigued and exhausted, good luck giving your best to your work and your love. Kind of the equation just stalls right there. Now, you don't need to be perfect, but this is why we just spent so much time on eating, moving, sleeping, and breathing. Let's do our best to move that number up. Energy. Then what do you do with that energy? You don't spray it around. You focus it. And what do you focus it on? You focus it on what's most important right now. When you do that, boom, you have extraordinary power. Then when you do that to the power of consistency, you literally have infinite power. So we've talked about this a number of times. Let's do the math again. Let's imagine your energy is just not there. It's a one. Let's imagine that your focus is just not there. It's a one. Let's imagine that you're not focusing on what's most important right now. That's just a one. Right? And then you're just not consistent at all. You raise it to a one. What is that? It's a one. Meh. Meh. You do that too much and you don't want to get out of bed in the morning right now, let's go the other end. Let's say you get your energy to 100, you get your focus to 100, and you're focusing that on what's most important right now, and you bring that to the power of, oh, zero, Then what do you get? Well, my math was wrong before. When I've shared this, it's not zero, it's actually one. But you have the same amount of energy, the same amount of power, even though you went boom. If you can't do that consistently, then meh. In some ways, it's almost worse than the other because you tasted it, but you can't maintain that. Then the shame comes in and the gosh, I know I'm capable of more. Why can't I actually execute it? Because we aren't consistent yet. That is our exponentializer. So then one more time. Energy is 100, focus is 100, and you're focusing all that energy on what's most important right now, and you raise it to the power of 100. If you haven't busted out your scientific calculator on your computer or on Google and done this math yet, please do. The answer is awesome. I remember the first time I saw it, you. If you type in 100 times 100 times 100, then you figure out how to put it to the power of 100. The answer is literally infinity. That's Soul Force. Soul Force is infinitely powerful because it's not you anymore. You just connected to the highest, the best, the optimist version of you. And you're doing it consistently. And if there's Such a thing as enlightenment. And I agree with Dan Millman that there are no enlightened beings. There are only more or less enlightened moments. Then that would be enlightenment, the ability to get your energy dialed focused on what's important right now consistently. Voila. You are showing up as a superhero with this superpower of flipping the switch on your Soul Force. Now, one more little thing. Mathematically, let's assume that you move up from 1, but you never get to 100. You only get to 10 energy wise, and then you move up from 1 to 10 focus wise. You can never quite get your focus just totally dialed in, but you get it to a 10. Then let's say you move up your what's important now to a 10. Far from perfect, but better than one. But you get really, really good at doing it consistently. And you raise that 10 times 10 times 10 to the power of 100. You know what the answer to that is? It's a big number. It's a one followed by 300 zeros. And when I did that math, I just fell in love with it. Of course, because our program is 300 days long, we have a nod to the 300 Spartan warriors of Thermopylae, right? Boom. Even if you aren't showing up at your best and feeling great and focused and whatever, but you do it consistently. You do your best. You have this extraordinary power. Not quite infinite, but you're approaching that. All of that to say we're never going to do it perfectly, but if we can get more and more consistent on it, we can tap into our power. That's the Soul Force equation. And remember, focus is right there in the center. So let's talk about why it's so important and how to cultivate it a little more. Hey, this is Brian again. I hope you enjoyed that overview of a Mastery Series session and got some wisdom out of it. You can apply to your life today. What was it again? You can learn more about our Optimize Coach program at Optimize Me Coach. And here's a fun little video we put together featuring some of our Optymyze Coach graduates describing what they got out of our program and why they loved it so much. You can also check out hundreds of other testimonials at Optimize Me Coach. Have an awesome day and let's do this.