Brian Johnson explains the power of living in day-tight compartments: focusing entirely on today instead of worrying about yesterday or tomorrow. Dale Carnegie called it shutting iron doors on the past and future. The practice reduces anxiety and sharpens your performance.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one, Dale Carnegie joined us to compliment some wisdom Brian Cain shared about the importance of focusing on this moment right now to crowd out any potential stress about the past or the future that might be eliciting some feelings of depression or anxiety, as you may recall. And don't worry, I promise that I will continue to unapologetically repeat all the important themes we discussed to make sure we're practicing one of the key Tenets of Learning 101, known as spaced repetition. Check out that masterclass. Here's how Kaner put it. Remember, depression is obsession with what the past, anxiety is obsession about the future, and optimal performance is obsession about the present. And here's how Carnegie put it. George Bernard Shaw was right. He summed it all up when he said, the secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. So don't bother to think about it. Spit on your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating, your mind will start ticking, and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. Get busy, he tells us, keep busy. It's the cheapest kind of medicine there is on the earth and one of the best. Now, I ended that one with one of my go to lines encouraging you to consider putting this wisdom into practice all day, every day, especially when today. Which makes me think of another big idea from Carnegie's how to stop worrying and start living. He tells us, and I quote, so let's be content to live the only time we can possibly live from now until bedtime. Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, from now until nightfall, wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means. End quote. And Carnegie encourages us to consider living what he calls day tight compartments. He tells us, and I quote again, shut the iron doors on the past, and the future live in daytight compartments. Then he tells us to ask ourselves these questions. Do I tend to put off living in the present in order to worry about the future or to yearn for some magical rose garden over the horizon? Do I sometimes embitter the present by regretting things that happened in the past that are over and done with? Do I get up in the morning determined to seize the day, to get the utmost out of these 24 hours? Can I get more out of life by living in daytight compartments and he says when shall I start to do this? Next week? Tomorrow? Today? Those are some great questions and reflecting on those is the focus of today's plus one. Let's spend a moment doing so now. Do you tend to put off living in the present in order to worry about the future or to yearn for some magical rose garden over the horizon? Do you sometimes embitter the present by regretting things that happened in the past that are over and done with? Do you get up in the morning determined to seize the day to get the utmost out of these 24 hours? And can you get more out of life by living in daytight compartments? And when shall you start to do this? Next week? Tomorrow? Today? Your answers by the way hint the answer to number five is you should start to do this today. Yes, today's the day to move from theory to practice to mastery hero but only always. Day one all in. Here's to living in daytight compartments. Let's go.
