Heroic Interview: Do More Great Work with Michael Bungay Stanier

You're listening to do more great work, an optimal living interview with michael bungay stanier and brian johnson. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living 101 series. Today I am so excited to be chatting with my friend Michael Mungay Stanier, who is one of the most creative and cool human beings I know. Just a good, good guy who's written a bunch of great books. Do More Great Work is one of my favorites that I've got in front of me right now. And another great creative book, End Malaria. Is that what it was called, Michael?

Yeah, that's right.

It's such a cool project where great marketing individuals and great thinkers contributed their wisdom. And was it all the proceeds or just a huge percentage of the proceeds that were donated?

100% of the Kindle book and $20 or at least $20 out of 25 for the hard. So we raised about close to $400,000, I think, for Malaria no More. So it's kind of an awesome project.

A very awesome project. And it's just a great book. End Malaria. And then you also, you gave me a phrase that has become a guiding light for our business. And it's a quote that when we talked, however long ago you had it, I think posted up, post it note on your computer, give the best to the most for the least Charles Eames. And it's become literally just like the mantra in our business. So appreciate that. And I just want to say you really inspire me and I'm excited to jump into some great ideas today. So thanks for taking the time, Brian.

That's one of the best introductions ever, if not the best introduction I've ever had. So thank you. You guys are doing such a good job at ntos, and for me to be able to come and play and have a conversation with you, it's going to be great fun and I appreciate the invitation. So thank you.

Right on. Well, let's jump straight in. So let's talk about a big part of your work and your life mission is helping people do more great work. It's the name of one of your great books. And tell me what is great work.

Sure. Well, the best way to understand it is part of a system and it boils down to this. And I can do this really succinctly now. I've been talking about it so long, I've got it down to a finely tuned machine. Everything, Brian, everything, everything you spend your time on, everything you do in your life falls into one of three different buckets. It's either Bad work or good work or great work. We'll get to great work. But let's start with those other two. Bad work. When it boils down to it, bad work is the mind numbing, life sucking, soul crushing stuff that you do that somehow has become part of your regular routine. If you work in business, it's that kind of bureaucrat, meeting driven, email sucking type of experience. If you have life outside work or you're doing kind of non organizational work, then it's all that sort of stuff where you go, how did I end up doing this? This is my one and precious life. What am I doing here now? Everybody had bad work. It grows like weeds through the sidewalk. It's part of our life, but it's also just part of to be mindful and conscious that that bad work is there for all of us. Keep showing up. That's bad work. Good work. I mostly talk to people in organizations and I tell people that their good work is their job description. So it's important. It's productive, efficient, focused. It's getting things done. It's what people expect, it's what people want you to do. And you can see that whether you have a traditional job or you're outside, you have a life outside that, that can still apply to you. It's the kind of, the everyday stuff. And here's a test for good work. You get to the end of your week, it's Friday afternoon, say, and you're pouring yourself a nice glass of Australian Shiraz and reflecting on the week that's just gone by. Or maybe it's a cup of green tea because people are more spiritual than I am. And they were going, so how did I spend my week? Because I know I was busy. I felt like I was on the move the whole time. I didn't really have a any kind of chance to rest. And you think to yourself, I can't really remember how I spent my week. I know I was doing stuff. But I can't really tell you how I spent yesterday. And I certainly can't tell you how I spent Monday. That is probably the curse of good work. And Brian, you know this from neuroscience. You know, we've got these two big parts to our brain. We've got our conscious mind, our prefrontal cortex, genius, but easily exhausted, and our unconscious mind actually the engine that really drives so much of what we do. And when we're in good work mode, basically our brain goes, look, to save energy, I'm going to just funnel all this directly into your unconscious brain as fast as I can. So good work is important. I'm not saying give up good work, but I am saying that most of us spend a lot of time in good work because it's comfortable, it's, it's familiar, but it's also a bit of a comfortable ride. It's kind of us going through the motions a bit. There's bad work, then good work. You can guess that this leaves us with great work. And of course this is one of our places of connection. Brian which is great work is the work that makes a difference. It's the stuff that you care about. It's the stuff that speaks to who you are and who you want to be in this world and how you want to show up. It's the work that both thrills you and excites you, but at the same time scares you and is a bit of a step into the unknown. And it's a bit of a step out to the edge of who you are and what you can do. So on the one hand, in my experience, people are hungry to do more great work. They're like, yeah, I want more of the stuff that I remember, more of the stuff that I care about, more of the stuff that makes a difference, more of the stuff that truly speaks to who I am. And at the same time they go, you know, that's a little bit scary over there. And in some ways it's just a whole lot easier to keep busy, busy, busy with the stuff that has filled up my day to day life. And what I'm trying to do in my various ways and what so many people are trying to do is go, look, wouldn't it be great if you had a little bit more of the great work stuff and a little bit less of all the other stuff. So much of what we do and what Entheos does in its way as well is to have people become more mindful and strategic about what they say yes to and what they say no to so they can build the life that they want.

Well, let's use that as the kind of entree into how do we discover our great work. First of all, I just love the bad. Good, great. And then there's also the non work that we do. If we do too much grinding bad work and good work, then there's the pure distraction. Oh my God, I can't even do that bad. And the good isn't even inspiring anymore. But for those of us who are looking to clarify, okay, all that sounds great. I want to do more great work. How do I discover what My great work is what are some things I can do to start cultivating that?

Yeah, it's one of the great quests of our lives. And the answer is, is twofold. But the starting place, like so many of these things, is we start with ourselves and we go, what do I care about? Who am I in this world? And what does that tell me about where my great work might be? So on nps, you have people like Jen Louden doing the Shero's journey and other processes to kind of go, what does it mean to step boldly into the world? But first of all, the Shiro's journey, the hero's journey, you hear a call to adventure, something to say, I'm being tugged forward around this. And sometimes to hear that call, we actually need to spend time with ourselves, reflecting on who we are and what really matters to us. And so one of my favorite processes, Brian, is I look back at the peak moments of my life where I go, you know what? This time, this was a moment where I just felt I got to see a really good version of myself. Some challenge happened and I overcame it, or some situation unfolded. And I was proud of how I responded, how I stood up, who I was in the world. And what I find is that in telling those stories and hearing the stories of those peak moments, in those stories lie seeds of our future. Great work. So I often tell a story of a time when I was actually 17. I'd left high school, hadn't gone to university yet, and I had a year off in England. I worked as a teacher and it was all quite daunting because I'm only 17 and I'm teaching 10 year olds and 15 year olds. But there was one moment where there's basically a riot in a classroom, the disaster. On all objective criteria, it was a disaster. It's crying, broken glass, all sorts of stuff going on. But it stands out for me even now. This is 25 years ago as a really a peak moment because it was a challenge which I rose to and overcame and did something wonderful. And what I like about this exercise, Bry, is that it separates out what feels true and important to us and from external validation that we might have had. So it taps into intrinsic motivation rather than external motivation. So, you know, I can, I have, I've been recognized and rewarded in certain ways that sound impressive on a resume. So I'm a Rhodes scholar. Okay. And some people listening to this will know that, oh, that's kind of impressive and stuff. And it is. And I'm excited to be A Rhodes Scholar. But I tell you what, dealing with those kids in their classroom actually trumps the moment of winning a Rhodes Scholarship for me in terms of speaking to. This is an important moment.

Yep.

I don't know what the question was.

Brian, this is great. It's a fantastic one. We were talking about how to discover our great work and just talking about. You used the language around the hero's journey too, which is what I was thinking about when you were describing what great work was. And that call to adventure and taking the time to actually figure out who we are, what's important to us. And then these peak moments and you use the phrase seeds of our future. Great work and I love that. It made me think of just the process. To drill more into the processes. What do you think? Is this a journaling exercise? How do you approach it? How do you recommend we approach it?

I recommend that you approach it in as many different ways as you can. Because what I think happens rarely is a moment of inspiration shows up and kind of slaps you around the face and goes, this is it. Go for it. Now. It does for some of us occasionally, but it's really rare. And even if it does happen, sometimes we mishear it or we just fall back asleep or whatever it is. We can't read our writing in the morning. What does that say? So to me, it's one of those processes where you find support and you spend time trying to figure out insights about who you are. So I look at some of my structures and we had a two minute chat before we started recording this and you're like, I'd be curious to know how you, what you do to kind of manage and think about and run your life. So you know, I have a coach and my coach helps me spend time thinking about this. I have a mastermind group. Jen Louden is one of them, Mark Silver's one of them. Eric Klein is one of them. I think these are all people who've done work with NTS in the past. They're brilliant. They also kick my ass regularly because they know who I am and they my patterns and they call me on it. I studied an amazing change process called Immunity to Change, available at a book by Bob Keegan and Lisa Lesky. And that's fantastic. And that's a way of understanding who I am. And I do exercises like some of the exercises and do more great work. One of the ones I love is asking people to articulate who their heroes might be or role models and both live people. I might write down Brian Johnson or made up people. Like, I might write down Buzz Lightyear or even brands. Like, I might write down Cirque du Soleil. And I write down people who I admire or brands that kind of speak to me. And then I go, so what is it about them that I react to, that I respond to? And what I find in them is there are things that those people and those brands stand for that mirror something in me. In fact, I would say what they do is they stand for something in a way that I would like to stand for something. So Buzz Lightyear, I love his courage. There is no thing too hard for Buzz Lightyear. He's like, I, if that is a ledge, I will leap.

I love that.

Cirque du Soleil. I go, these people just do not know what too creative is. There's just nothing like that. But they also have this ability to go, how do I create in a way that connects and challenges an audience? I love that. I love that. Brian Johnson goes, how do I find a way of gathering a community and actually bringing together smart people and committed travelers and having them in a. Have them in a conversation? I love that. So if I see that in those heroes, what I see is people who are in some way doing things that I'd like to be doing bigger and bolder and louder. And that starts telling me that, you know what, connecting to people and teaching like Brian Johnson does is a value of mine. And being creative, but being creative in a way that provokes other people is a value of mine. And being courageous, stepping out to the edge of who I am and what I can, can do is a value of mine. And if I know that, I then start to be in a position where I start noticing potential adventures. I start noticing places that might be great work for me because I've got that kind of focus and a jet engine boost that comes from having a sense of what's true about myself.

Amazing. And then to go back to your kind of prefrontal cortex vis a vis the unconscious, you're kind of using your prefrontal cortex to prime your unconscious to find those opportunities in many ways. Right?

Right. And here's one of the things that I believe about it in terms of, where do you find this? Sometimes it's about something coming down from the heavens above going, this is it. This is your journey. This is your path, which is great if that happens. If you're actually literally a Greek hero and tragedy, then bully for you. Doesn't happen for most of us. Sometimes a new opportunity opens up, somebody comes up and goes, hey, Michael, would you consider writing a book about this? And I might go, oh, wow. I do think when you start getting a sense of yourself, some of those opportunities do start showing up. But I also believe that often our great work can lie in what we're actually doing right now. The stuff we have said. I'm kind of doing this at a good work level. I'm busy, I'm productive. I'm good enough at it. I think there's a way to say, what if I gave this my full attention and my full courage and my full kind of chutzpah and I said, I'm going to make this a great work project? What would that look like? So at a personal level, I might go, I have my small little company box of crayons. We're growing slowly and successfully, and I love my little company and I'm really happy with it. But what if I made scalability and impact my great work? What would shift? And you know what? It makes me slightly sick. And I should just stop this phone call right now because I was like, oh, there's actually something pretty powerful about that. It really does call me forth sometimes. Your great work is there under your nose. What it needs is you to shift around and ask yourself the question, what if this wasn't good work for me? What if this became great work? What if this became a great work project? What would that be like? I'm a big believer in this whole idea of a project. Pick a great work project and work it. Take your best guess. Don't sit there paralyzed because you're not sure. Take your best guess. Have a go at something and it's either going to work or it's not going to work. Either way, that's a good result because it sets you up for the next thing.

I love it. It's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. You're hitting on so many of the themes I'm excited to dig in a little deeper on over the next X minutes. But the project. So picking a project was one of the things I wanted to talk about. How do we do that? And you just mentioned the kind of ready, fire, aim approach is how I've framed it. One of the other heroes of mine that I've interviewed, John Mackey of Whole Foods, he inspired me to really embrace that as a recovering perfectionist. It was very important for me to quit aiming all the time and never fire, but to actually ready, fire, aim it. And I joked with him about it and he said, you know, I actually prefer fire, ready, aim. There are some situations where it's important that we get really clear on that aiming process. We don't want our airline pilots ready, firing and aiming, but otherwise we need to explore life with a lot more of that audacity. Can you talk more about that? And it's related to courage, too. But let's talk about it in the sense of creatively picking a project and just going for it.

So here's how I think about it, and here's where I might differ slightly with your metaphor about the ready, fire, aim. Once you fire it, it feels like that's a full commitment. And here's what I like is this idea of rapid prototyping. Peter Sims wrote a book called Small Bets, and I read it, or at least I'm pretty sure I read it, or maybe I read something about it, but here's what I took from it. Even if I haven't read it, I'm still assuming I have that. One of the ways that entrepreneurs succeed, and I think he draws on kind of Silicon Valley experience, is smart entrepreneurs think less about what's the big win I'm going for, and they think more about what's the acceptable loss that I can have with these different projects that I'm investing in. And so many of us included, much of the time, get a little overwrought about, well, I don't want to even start this, because what if I screw up? Or what if it's just disappointing, or what if I fail? One of the truly liberating experiences for me had been moments where I've gone, basically, screw it, I'm doing this anyway, even if nobody reads this. The very first book I published called Get Unstuck and Get Going, I self published. It was 2005, so it was before the self publishing piece had really taken off. And it involved a complicated a design process. But it has three moving flip sections, so you can combine questions and provocations in different ways. So it's very cool. But it was like a $35,000 commitment to get, I think maybe 1,000 or maybe 3,000 of these things published. That was my cash flow. That was it. I was sort of worrying about it. And I'm lucky that I'm married to a smart, generous woman who kind of went, go for it. But it got to a point where I went, even if I am making furniture out of these boxes of books for the next 15 years, damn it, I'm going to go for it, because I think it's going to be cool. And it's worth it. I got to a place where I went, I've defined my acceptable loss. I think that's what a project can do or a series of projects is you go start some stuff, see what starts working and what doesn't, and make sure that you define kind of what acceptable losses are so that you go, if this doesn't work out, then the worst I'm going to be is sad, disappointed. I'll have lost some money, perhaps, I'll have lost some time, perhaps. But I may have learned some cool stuff and I'm okay with it not working. And that can give you freedom, I think.

Yeah, that's awesome. Just that experimental growth mindset.

Right.

Where it isn't an all or nothing, let's just get to market. I love the small bets and rapid prototyping framework and just brilliant. So then, let's talk about the idea of courage. You've mentioned it directly and indirectly a number of times. Tell me how you define courage and why you think it's such an important part of this process of discovering our great work.

Yeah, these are great questions, Brian. Thank you. So I say to do great work, you need three component parts, three characteristics. You need focus, which we've talked about. Focus on who I am and focus on where are the opportunities. We need courage and we need resilience focus. Courage and resilience. Focus is that seeking to understand what your great work is and where the opportunities might be. Courage is the willingness to take the first step and then the next step and then the next step on that. Because starting to do great work starts to challenge your regular life, your regular sense of yourself, your regular relationships with other people. Starting to do great work will inevitably, along with all the good times, those moments of being in flow and feeling like you're really committed to something brilliant will also create resistance and disappointment in other people. And when I go like this, you can tell when you're doing good work because everybody's happy if you're doing great work. Somewhere someone is a little disappointed, a little pissed, a little upset, a little let down because what you've done is you've said, I'm saying yes to this. And if I'm truly saying yes to this, if it's a strong yes, I must say no to this. So many of us kind of hedge our bets. It's like, I'm going to say yes to this kind of. So I can kind of keep saying yes to as many other things as possible because I don't really want to let anybody down. Part of this is like, damn it, I'm just going to say yes to this. I'm going to have the courage to understand the implications of that.

And say no as a byproduct. Have the courage and audacity to say no. Because I have that deeper yes planted.

Yeah, exactly right. And that takes a certain amount of bravery. People have heard me talk about my mastermind group and in fact, I've got two. One here in Toronto and one that meets in a different way scattered around the west coast. And quite frankly, one of the key components for all of us in these mastermind groups is less focus because we mostly got a sense of what we're working on and what's important. But it's courage and resilience. Courage to be bold about taking the step. Resilience. Because we all get to these points where we're like, I give up, it's too hard. Lie down and have a little sleep now. Because there's that willingness to go, I'm not going to be broken by this. I'm going to bend and I'm going to bounce back and I'm going to go, I can keep going. But one of the ways you keep going, one of the ways you build resilience is through your relationships. I think, you know, you talk about your relationships a lot and the importance of your wife and now your child in your life. And I think one of the things that builds resilience is having those nourishing relationships. And I could say the same about my wife. You know, she is part of the reason I keep going is that, you know, she hugs me when I need to be hugged and she kicks my ass when I need to be kicked. It's all good.

Yeah, that's awesome. Just that commitment to it which is tied to you mentioned intrinsic versus extrinsic. And this is a big theme of my work is kind of rebelling against what our society tells us is so important. All the fame and the wealth and the power and the hotness and these things. The extrinsic motivators vis a vis the intrinsic deeper relationships, growing as a human being and making a difference. Can you talk to me about how you see intrinsic versus extrinsic and just what comes to mind when you explore that theme?

Well, I mean, it's difficult for us, Brian, because, you know, whilst we eschew those extrinsic motivators, we are extraordinarily good looking and massively successful and famous. So we kind of have it all anyway. But putting that aside briefly, it's important detail, though.

I know, right?

There's just so much that tells us that stuff doesn't make us happy. You know, that's it. Stuff doesn't make us happy. Buying stuff to bolster us doesn't really make us happy. Relying on other people's good graces to tell us that we're wonderful doesn't make us happy. You know, it's one of those things where your stability, your sense of self, your sense of who you are, it's down to you. And that's tough. That's an existential stance. That's where you go. In some ways, I am alone in this world. And ironically, paradoxically, perhaps by being alone in this world is when you start to truly appreciate what this world is about. The people and the things and the glories that are out there. Fantastic. But if you're going, that's what I'm relying on to get my sense of self and my sense of happiness and my sense of importance. It's a fragile and miserable place to go.

Yeah, it's awesome. And just getting that clarity like you talked about, just what's really important to us, independent of all the pats on the back and the nice external validations, which are fine. But really allowing that predominant attention to be put on what we know gives us true, sustainable happiness and what we really, really find important. On that theme.

I have no material possessions other than one small bowl and one chopstick.

That's all you have to.

Yeah, exactly. You have my missing chopstick. I wonder where that got it.

Exactly. You know, we've all been through the pro. I certainly have been through the process of trying to calibrate, well, what is the healthy engagement with the material world and what is enough and where's my kind of insecurity coming in and telling me I need more of this or that. And it's obviously a very dynamic fluid for me, continual process. And again, it's part of that great work, I think, is to have the courage to challenge the norms of what we have been told are important and really figure out, no, no, no. This is the experience it was with these kids at 17 in this room that gave me that sense of really being alive. I want more of that.

Right. I mean, it's such a big topic and such a challenging topic because I like some of the stuff I own. I mean, I really like it. I've got some art pieces in my room. I'm sitting in my room at the moment, and I look around and I feel great about having them. I Love them. I just bought a pair of pink sneakers and they are awesome. But there's something about the mindfulness of the purchase as well, I think can help. And going. When my pink sneakers get stained or lost or disappointed or ripped or whatever, I'm not gonna go. Omega's a little part of me. I'm gonna go. And that was it. And I'm still the same person with or without the pink sneakers in the end.

Just the pink sneakers on the top. That's fantastic.

Just to say it, because sometimes these conversations, Brian, can come across as a little. What's the word? Sanctimonious. Like, come on, people, live your lives. Like I'm implying that I do want you to know that there are moments where I'm truly in touch with my intrinsic motivators and other times where I'm buffeted by the winds of external praise and shallowness and material and all of that. So this is a journey that I'm on as well.

Yeah, well, I'm kind of bummed to hear that because I thought you were going to be the first perfect human being I met. Come on, don't pop that bubble for me.

Sorry about that, man.

I think it's so cool, though, because for me, sanctimoniousness or whatever the proper word is, aside, there's a level of freedom that I felt when I really realized what the psychological literature. Literature says, which is if you're going after those external markers of success, even if you think you're going to achieve them, you're going to be less psychologically stable than someone who's focused on the relationships, growth and making a difference. And for me, as a. In the past, very unstable human being, it was very liberating to realize that a big part of that was this obsession to be someone in a world that sees certain things as the signal points of being okay. And of course, there's the beauty of all the things that we're blessed to have in the Western world. And even the scientists don't say it's zero percent. It's just. Let's just check in on when it becomes the predominant focus of our lives and then finding that groove. Well, thanks for exploring that with me. I'd love to wrap it up with a look at your fundamentals again with the. The beautiful, humble sense of none of us are perfect, yet we strive to connect to that highest within ourselves more and more consistently. I like to highlight the individuals I'm featuring kind of your fundamentals, the things that you do consistently. And when you do them consistently you feel most alive. Can you share some of those practices if you have them with us?

Sure. A really important part of this is my mastermind group, my brain trust. We talk, we check in on a web board together probably three to five times a week, just kind of going, this is what I'm up to. This is what my high value actions today are. This is what I'm struggling with. We talk every two weeks for an hour and a half where we'll go, who wants to work on some stuff? And we'll bring stuff forward. And we meet for three day retreat once a year to kind of hang out with each other and do some deeper, more powerful work. And that's been such an important structure in my life to help with this for sure. I do meditate and I'm just such a poor meditator. I'm so bad at it. I'm on a bit of a streak at the moment. So I think I've been meditating for 45 days in a row, so I'm feeling pretty happy about that. That said, it's because I'm doing competitive meditation. So I have a bet with a friend of mine and the person who loses this bet has to buy the other person a pair of expensive shoes. So that's not the most noblest motivation.

That's fantastic.

But it gets me on a cushion and that helps. So when I'm meditating, I'm not going, think about the shoes, think about the shoes. I'm actually going, this is good. I'm actually meditating. So it's understanding my own competitive triggers that can really help, I think. Brian, I tell you, I'm not sure this is a fundamental, but it's a structure I'm really working with at the moment, which is I've just read a book called Mind Sight. I can't remember the name of the.

Author, but he's a Dan Siegel.

My goodness, that's a good book. It's so great. A. It really gets clear and useful and explicit about neuroscience and how we work. And it connects neuroscience to therapy, which is, I think, really powerful. I mean, honestly, it's the first time in my life I've ever gone. Maybe there's something to this therapy stuff after all. Because he explains it. A way of integrating parts of ourselves through therapy, through neuroscience. And what that has prompted in me is a real quest to do a better job at integrating my brain, my mind and my body. So in some ways I'm a classic male in that I've kind of, you know, I Use my body to carry around my head. I'm pretty much in my head. I'm a thinker and so I'm doing what I can to be better connected at my physical self. So what that means is my meditation process has actually shifted in the last little while to trying to spend time noticing physically what's going on with me. I know it was about breath before, but somehow breath became a thought rather than a thing. Now I'm trying to connect with that and I started doing a hot yoga, which quite frankly is killing me. But I'm really noticed. But it's really kind of. I mean it's hard not to be connected with your body when your whole body hurts all over. And I started having massages as a way of doing that. So I'm trying to experiment. This is part of the experimentation piece to go. What are the ways that will actually engage my body and help me be more present in my body and therefore more present in my life and therefore more present with my feelings, which is part of what I want to develop, which is like broaden my emotional palette because it's not as multicolored and multi hued as I would like.

Beautiful. How inspiring. Well, I love it and I appreciate you sharing and I laugh throughout as a male carrying around a head body. That's fantastic. And I just love your humility. It's part of what is so inspiring and just engaging for me and I'm sure so many others who love you and your work. The final question for you is what's your number one tip for people who are looking to optimize their lives wherever they are in the process? Do you have a number one tip that you can offer?

I have a number one question which is one we've kind of touched on but I think is so important and worth coming back to, which is if you're going to really say yes to something, what do you really need to say no to? Because that's something I find difficult and has been a really good practice when I've remembered to do it is to go. What does it really mean to commit to this? It will always mean saying no to something, shutting something down, doing that can be such a powerful place of this is what it means to be an adult. It means to make choices in your life and truly make strong choices. At the heart of making those choices is yes to this, no to that.

Brilliant. Well, so inspiring again, Michael, thank you so much for being you and taking your time. I just love your enthusiasm and for people who want to learn more about Michael, and I highly, highly encourage you to do so. My hunch is you were inspired to do so. Listen to this. Check out boxofcrans Biz B I Z. Another thing we didn't talk about, but you just have so much goodness on that website. So check it out. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Well, there's a ton of free stuff on that website and I encourage people to pillage it. Of all the stuff that's there at the moment, my favorite is probably what we call the Great Work Provocations. They're a daily email that show up. It's 20 words, so it's less than 20 seconds to read. But it's designed to provoke you to think differently about your life so you don't slip too quickly into the familiar rut of good work. It's designed to kind of provoke you and shake you up a bit. So if people wanted to pick one thing there, the Great Work Provocations might be a nice place to start.

Where will they find that? The Provocations are so cool. That's the easiest way to go to find that.

On the front page there's a big box that says free stuff. So I click on the free stuff and then take it from there.

Perfect. Fantastic. Well, again, thank you, Michael, and looking forward to doing some more great work with you in the years and decades ahead. Appreciate you.

Thank you, Brian. You're a lovely interviewer. It's very easy to talk, so thank you very much.

We hope you enjoyed this optimal living interview. Please visit BrianJohnson me for more.