In Conversation Brian Johnson and Mark Divine

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. How are you, man?

I'm doing fantastic. What an interesting time, right? Oh my gosh. We developed what I call a COPE plan. Not because we need to cope, it stands for crisis opportunity, plan, plan and execution. Because this is such a time of opportunity, I think. I mean, I know there's a suffering going on in the world and a lot of people are scared, but if you can overcome that fear and conquer the stress and learn how to focus and pivot and you know, do all the stuff that both you and I have been teaching for years, it's in time to thrive and to be, you know, going forth with a, with a steely eyed vision of, you know, the future that is not the same as the past, both individually and for our companies and I think for society at large. So I'm really energized, I should say. And I've been busier than a one legged man in the ass kicking contest, doing tons and tons of webinars and zoom calls and offering free coaching to clients and to organizations. It's just extraordinary. What we need, what we offer is really great supply or great demand right now, I should say.

Yeah, that's powerful. I appreciate you coming on and talking to our coaches and I know that, Michael, you said something along the lines of, you know, when I look up at the sky, it's not falling, it's we got it, we got a blue sky up there. You know, and to take that into, you know, the word that we use a lot is antifragile. To really use this as an opportunity to not only be resilient and to deal with the challenge, but to be antifragile and to actually get stronger the more we kicked around. And I found it interesting because, you know, we've been talking about emotional stamina and antifragility and the little things and showing up every single day that for me more than anything, this is just a very stark reminder of this is what we train for. You know, let's practice our philosophy on those small things and if we haven't been practicing on the small things, we're going to find ourselves even more kicked around and even more vulnerable right now. Which again, spectrum of challenges for all of us. But how do we use this as an opportunity? I love your COPE model. To respond to the opportunity to strengthen any weaknesses in might be there and to lean into those opportunities for growth. Right, right.

And I think coaches are like first responders in this regard. Like they're the front line to help their clients, their teams, you know, even in their organizations. If you think of the leader as a coach. I just did a webinar yesterday to launch the next cohort of our coaching program. And I know you're launching one for yours. Like this is the time for all leaders to develop coaching skills. Whether you're in an organization, CEO or mid level management, or you're doing it as kind of a career or just an additional skill set. Coaches are like first responders bringing a new way of thinking, that antifragile mindset, as well as the optimistic, abundant mindset that can see the future in a slightly different way. You know, like when I walk outside, you know that I live on the Pacific Ocean and, and I stare at the ocean and I kind of miss the surfers, but I'm really happy that the ocean is getting a break, just like this air is getting a break. And I've seen more dolphins in the past week, like massive pods of dolphins just frolicking in the ocean and leaping into the air. And I'm thinking, wow, they are just rejoicing in this global pause. They've been under constant punishing threat from humans. And I think about the, the sea life, you know, just the pollution and the constant churn of all the ships and, you know, whatever happening in the ocean and the overfishing and now it's just like zip. It's just right up, almost stopped.

Yep.

So you could see this all around us, you know, and you, and I'm sure everyone listening has seen pictures of, you know, the cities in India where they, they've literally seen the Himalayas a hundred miles away for the first time in a generation. Can you imagine that being a kid growing up there and all you see in the distance is kind of like this gray, you know, smog. And suddenly you wake up and you see those majestic mountains and you're like, why have they been hidden from me? Why do we allow that to happen? And I hope, people hope as a society globally, we don't go back to that. We don't race back to that. That old norm is not good enough for us. We need to set a new standard. And coaches will lead the way.

Yeah, they will. And it's interesting too, because as our part of our program, probably 80% of it is you are client number zero. So you need to be what we call a radiance exemplar, you know, such that your presence emanates the wisdom that you aspire to teach. And there's almost that invisible Magnetism of someone that actually has a sense of energized tranquility and calm confidence in the face of, you know, crises. And it's interesting because we just did this series of plus ones on you.

Thank you very much, by the way. I did take notice.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it, man. I always love knowing that you're, you're plugged into those. And you know, I film those one to two to three months before. So, you know, when I got your book, read it, did the note, created those plus ones a while ago. And to see the timing of them well before the COVID crisis came in, you know, and to see the power of that, you know, today's was Semper Gumby, you know, always flexible. And we're planning our event. We had to move it, as you know, from June to December and then right after. I love it. Right after, right after. Michael and I, you know, my right hand guy, we're talking about our plans. We're leaning in harder than ever to that antifragile. We think the world needs it even more now, you know, 2021. Okay. We're gonna roll into that as strongly as we can.

That's great.

Now trying to get off of the call with him. I do. Now. I haven't done digital news before this crisis, Right. So now I do a quick little survey of what's going on.

Yeah, yeah, me too. Once a day is enough.

Yeah, yeah. Literally once a day or every other, you know, whatever it is, you know, it's a lot of the same. But I want to keep, keep fresh. Anyway, I go to cnn, the number one piece of news right after we recommit. Strategically set the initiative on December in la. The mayor of la. The number one story on CNN is the mayor of LA saying he doesn't think they're going to have events until 2021.

I saw that, I saw that and I laughed.

And I think, you know, for us, the greatest feedback we get, which we just got this morning from one of our coaches who, when this crisis struck her, she was in Pennsylvania. And her story is actually amazing. She's in Pennsylvania. She was organizing a meetup for other optimized individuals and coaches interested in this idea. The day before they locked everything down in Pennsylvania, she wanted to have 15 people. She had five people show up because everyone was already getting nervous. Long story, a little shorter. She day they shut it down, she loses 80% of her business, literally, because she's an event business and lost several hundred thousand dollars. And her immediate response, she told us Wasn't to cry. It was to say thank you. We jokingly said stoic gods for the opportunity to practice my philosophy and where can I get a little stronger? And there was a woman at this event that she wound up coaching on the anti fragile ideas. As it turns out, when she went to check in on what resources existed within Pennsylvania, she made a phone call. And the woman who answered the phone was the woman who she had coached the day before. Unbeknownst to her, she actually worked in this organization.

No kidding.

This surreal opportunity. But anyway, Semper Gumby, always flexible. And just the dynamicism of where we are right now and the fact that it demands us as leaders, coaches, to be the change we want to see and to practice these basic, basic fundamentals again from our philosophical vantage point more now than ever before. You know, I'm eager to hear. When I talked to Joe Decenta on his Spartan, you know, he was just talking about his protocol and how he's committed to his protocol now more than ever. When I was imagining us chatting, I was eager to hear kind of how you're personally approaching it. When we do our little chats privately, it's always fun to kind of get an inventory of the current best practices. What are your current best practices?

Well, similar to what you're talking about, Brian, it has been extremely energizing because, you know, of course, warriors, you know, can tend to get a little complacent. Now. Complacency for this warrior is to work out two hours a day, do my breath practice, do, you know, my visualization meditation, you know, continue to work all the tools, but you can lose a sense of urgency around that. And so I've actually been super energized to up the sense of urgency because, you know, when the crisis comes, the warrior steps into the breach. So it's been a great reminder that the warrior, sheepdog leader we all are in vuca, we all need to lead with that mindset. And so every day, you need to keep that razor's edge and look at every day as if you're stepping into the breach and you might have to deal with an actual firefight of some sort. And so this has been a great reminder for me of that. And so I really upped my game in terms of the. The quality and attentiveness to my personal practices. My physical training has just really amped up. You know, in fact, right before this, every moment I have a free moment, I'm cranking out a spot drill. You know, I did 20 minutes AMRAP of 20 wall balls, 20 slam balls, you know, and I just was like dripping in sweat and breathing great, feeling like a million bucks. And that wasn't even my main workout, right? That was, that was a drill. I've already done my 200 burpees, I've taken a sauna, cold shower, right. I've done my visualization and box breathing. And the recognition also that, you know, a lot of people, I'm sure you deal with this in your training is like, are wondering, how do I fit it all in? And it's like you fit it in because you have to and because it's fun and because you actually have a shit ton more time than you think you have when you say no to the right things and you say yes to training yourself, mastery and service. And then I've also upped my game in terms of the leadership principles that I preach to make sure that I'm showing up for my team authentically, not pretending that I've got any answers that, you know, I don't have. In a spirit of, you know, openness and that, you know, together every one of us is going to achieve more. And also practicing some of the Navy SEAL style, you know, fail forward fast, get off the X, move to higher ground, shift your perspective, let's figure out what work what, what's going to work in the future and have a whole new look at our business model. And also being grateful that we had the foresight in 2011 to launch our first online training model and then a second and third and then our virtual coaching program. And so we were really well prepared. The 80% of our revenue was already digital, virtual, supported by the live training and not, you know, have the live training be the main thing. So when we lost our live event business, right, we didn't skip a heartbeat. We just doubled down on the digital and we haven't had to let anyone go or furlough anyone or cut any pay. And we're running hard, you know, and so we've been able to really apply our own training methodology to the, both the culture and the organization and not just me as a leader. And that's one of the key things we teach is that three sphere alignment. It's not just about you, it's about you. How you show up with a team and then bringing out the best in your team and then the team working with the structure to adapt the structure fast. So organizationally you're nimble and the organization isn't what's holding you back, even if you have the mindset of anti fragility. So it's just been an extraordinary, like I said, a month of wow, you know, it's game on, let's do this. And tons of great learning and momentum and excitement. The team's really come together and we were already starting to work largely virtually. I know you're mostly a virtual organization. And now I come to the office basically here alone or with my assistant, and it's like a playground because I got all the gym equipment, I've got my studio, and it's chirp chirp. Though we get on zoom for all of our team meetings, you know, and we're actually more focused as a company. We're getting more done. Anyways, that was a little bit of a, you know, a broad brush there. But daily, you know, for me, daily, it's upping my game with my personal training and practices, upping my game with my authenticity and connection with my family and team to, you know, tons of walks with my wife, tons of yoga and meditation with her and, you know, fun exploring all the different ways that we can connect deeper and helping my son, who lives with us through this, he's 21 and bored out of his mind. It's been really fun to see his sense of humor kind of really come out. And so that's been really neat to see the principles kind of play out at a personal level and then also at a company level. Love it a lot there. I mean, I could go into more specific details, but I think that's probably enough, you know, And I know you and Joe disana and I share so much of the same philosophy, but it's really fun to talk because we, you know, we all, like, there's that sameness. Like, there's sameness in certain clusters of people, like warriors and optimized coaches and unbeatable coaches. And then we also recognize the sameness that we have with all humanity, right? And that's that essential nature. And when you, when a crisis comes, you can do one of two things. You can cower in fear and let. Let fear infect your decision making and separate further. Or you can recognize that change is the constant in the material world. It just was a little slower before this. Now I see it's becoming faster. So. Oh yeah, I recognize change is what happens out here, but what is in here, in the heart, mind and soul of Mark Devine and Brian Johnson is, you know, perpetual. And there's a sameness to that, you know, And I see you, Brian, I see all my friends. I'm like, oh, yeah, this is a great time to remember that and to feel a deeper connection to all humanity and those beautiful dolphins and deer and all the animals out there that are relying on us to keep the environment safe for them. So that when we, you know, with that deepening awareness born from courage, from the heart as opposed to from fear, we can see truth. Right? The real truth of the world. And that is that everything's going to be okay because we are all in this together. We're one interconnected whole. And it doesn't matter what happens outside. I know, yes, we got to deal with it, especially if you get infected with COVID or, you know, maybe we've all been infected, but if you get impact really badly, then of course we deal with that. And we, you know, we bring all arms to bear, but at the same time, we recognize that even life is not permanent. Right? And I learned that as a Navy seal, one day, one lifetime, today might be my last. So bring my best self to it and serve, you know, with attention and presence and heartfelt connection, because it may not be there for me tomorrow. And that's been a good reminder also for this period of time. So many great lessons and wisdom can come out of a crisis like this if you pay attention.

I love it. And then I just got off the trail, my little workout. You know, you're down to 200 burpees now, though, Mark. You're no longer doing 300.

Well, remember when I did 300 a day for that year and I ended up doing like 130,000 burpees? I didn't do much else. And I went from being able to do 20 dead hang pull ups to like 0.5. And so I said at this time, I said, okay, I'm going to do 200 burpees a day and I'll save that energy to do it. Another couple functional. So I'm not going to, you know, repeat that mistake and lose in one area while I gain in another.

That's really funny. I remember I got all excited about the 300 for about 45 days, and I started just wearing it, breaking down, drop back to my hundred, but just playfully hitting on that. Yeah, I don't even know where I was going to go with that. I got a.

You were talking about your trail run.

Yeah. Got back from the trail run. Yes. I took out the coins that I wear in my pocket that I have in the trail kind of shorts. Memento mori. Ryan Holiday's coins. Right. Memento mori in Amor Fatih. So again, for me, we can't wait till the crisis to actually practice our philosophy. These need to be ever present ideas, right? Reminder of our death, that this might be the last moment. And of course, in the seals, you know, that's a constant, daily, true reminder and an actual, you know, felt presence. But how do we bring that sacredness of this moment, this day, as a gift to our consciousness every single day. And then Amor Fatih, he represents it with a fire, you know, And Nietzsche is not just to bear it, but to love what is. And again, from my philosophical vantage point, personally, not a lot has changed. I've actually simplified even more. Right. I have you in my mind often simplify the battlefield, front side, focus what's important right now. Let's streamline everything. We've got all this energy, boom. How do we execute what really matters now? And that fog of the chaos of war, as you have put it in your work, but just simplifying again and again and again and reminding ourselves of those truths and then reminding ourselves again that when I talk to Joe, I use the metaphor of this is like an ultra beast times two. Now, if you've been training, it's still hard, and it's supposed to be hard. If you haven't been training, then it's nearly impossible. It's going to feel almost impossible. Yeah. And again, the rule for me is to use this as an opportunity to remind ourselves that we got to practice with the little things such that we've built up that philosophical psychological endurance in emotional stamina, which is, again, is a phrase we use a lot. Your emotional stamina, your ability to weather the ups and downs, comes as a function of you working your protocol. And my coach, Phil Stutz, says, you know, the obvious stuff, but. And he loves you and your work, by the way. You come up often, literally just on Monday, he said, oh, I was thinking about the front sight. Focus from Mark again. But the worse you feel, the more committed you are to your protocol. The worse you feel, the more committed you are. And if that's actually the more challenges you face in your life, the more committed you are to the protocol. And for us, it's John Wooden socks. The most basic things that you need to master. Turning off your electronics at night so you can get a good night of sleep. Science says the bridge from despair to hope is a good night of sleep. So if when you get stressed, you blow up your brain at night, snow globe style, good luck getting a good night of sleep and waking up feeling refreshed. So again, though, we got to practice that in the, in Peace time. Right. Such that we're ready in crises. And that's become more salient for me than ever. And it's been interesting to notice that, paradoxically, I feel less called to say anything different than ever before. I feel more like, clear on. No, no, no, no. This is what we've been talking about, and this is just a very stark reminder. And again, if you've been practicing it, then you feel energized like you described. And it's almost like with compassion to the range of experiences people have and the suffering that's. That's part of this challenge right now. For many, it's almost like a big wave rider. When the waves get big, if you've been training on the little waves and little ones and you're committed to riding the big ones, it's almost as if it's, go get your surfboard and get someone to tow you out and ride it and be of service. And to use that metaphor with another that I've used a lot, we've got a plus one coming up on this soon. In case of war, break the glass in your awesome metaphor on that, that the seals train for the crises, and we're not pulling back in this moment of crises. We're doing everything you just described so beautifully and humbly and. And doubling down on all the practices so we can put that oxygen mask on ourselves first so we can actually be of service. And again, one more time, this is what we train for, and we do it in those moment to moment apparently unimportant decisions that mean everything.

Right? Right. That reminds me of, or brings up for me the next book that I'm working on. I'm titling it Uncommon. And that comes from when I was honor man of my SEAL training class, and I, and Captain Huth, who is the commanding officer of buds, or Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training, handed me a certificate. Or actually, you read this letter that he had written, and then, you know, that became part of his presentation to me. And at the beginning, it says, I can't remember exactly how it starts. I got to pull it out. But he said, the definition of extraordinary is when you do ordinary things extraordinarily well. Right. And so I've often kind of translated that as to do common things uncommonly well. Like for. For, you know, for my clients. And when you do common things uncommonly well, then you show up is uncommon. And so, like, like, I just recently, literally an hour ago, did a zoom presentation for the entire Colgate University tribe, I guess you'd call it. You know, administration, faculty, students, parents, alumni, and you know, thousands and thousands of people will watch this and many were, many were on, I don't know exactly how many thousands were on the zoom. But the principles that I talked about are just so SOP for me. But they were like groundbreaking for this group of people who are, you know, elite academics and. But it's gonna have to be the new normal, Brian, I think, and it is the next vestige of both personal and leadership development is to make the, the uncommon common by paying attention to basic practices that aren't hard, but they're difficult to do well every day. It's the discipline and the habituation that is hard. But like how hard is breathing? Everybody breathes, but it's hard to do it well with presence and awareness and as a practice every day. I remember Even in this 500 hour yoga training, certification training, I did the teacher, his name was Gary Kraskow, he's a great guy, very, very knowledgeable. And we had a whole two week session just on breath. Two weeks of training on the breath. And what he said was, you know, between this and the next session, six months from now when we were done, because you know, you're, you're, I challenge you to practice a breath practice every single day. And he, then he says, and I know that very few of you will do it based upon my historical observation because, you know, they have the, you're assigned to a teacher and the teacher kind of tracks your progress. And the teachers all report back that, yeah, when they check in, they haven't been doing the practice. These are people in a yoga certification program for 500 hours that they've spent $12,000 for and they still don't do the daily practice of one of the most important tools, which is the breath. So to be uncommon is to look at something like that and say, you don't know. Not me. I'm the person that's going to practice that every day. Because it's in those small movements, those one cut a hundred thousand times is going to get you to mastery as opposed to trying a hundred thousand things once. That was Miyamoto Musashi, Book of Five Rings. And wow, that principle is so powerful. We don't need to overload ourselves with all these shiny bells and whistles and try every new thing that comes across the pike. We just need to choose one, two or three really powerful practices and then commit to them every day.

The worse you feel, the more committed you are to them.

That's right.

And then when we actually do that and we find ourselves spinning down and devolving into the bad habits. If you can actually use that as the signal, and if I feel that, then I'm more fiercely committed to doing the most basic, simple things. Hi, big girl. We got a guest. So part of our challenge right now is we decided. This is Eleanor, Bright shining one. We decided right before this struck, we. Exciting stuff. I haven't talked to you about it yet, but we decided to move. Oh, longer chat. Right. But we put an offer on the house. Put our house up for mark on the market, literally right before.

Good timing.

So we've got a showing right now at the house. Kids are in the office in the other room. Great to see you, Eleanor. But again, if we can actually operationalize the truth of the power of the simple, and then when we feel most challenged and threatened, we use that as an opportunity to deepen our practice. To me, that's the operationalization of being antifragile. We're literally. The more we get kicked around, the.

More energized we get. Right. To dive in.

Yeah. And then you're truly. We use the phrase antifragile. Confidence. And confidence being confidere. Intense trust. In what? In our ability to deal with whatever life throws at us. Not that things will go the way we want, but that no matter what happens, we will respond not perfectly, but with our best. And again, that simple algorithm of if this, then that presupposes we actually have a protocol we can work in those challenging times, which is a big part of our work, is to suggest certain basic fundamentals. Eating, moving, sleeping, focusing our attention, being grateful, obvious things, moving forward with hope, but doing those obvious things, the common things, in an uncommon way, to the best of our ability. And you made me think of the word mediocre. You know the etymology of the word mediocre?

No, I'm anxious to hear it, though.

Literally means it's something like medius ocaris, stuck on the. In the middle of a rugged mountain. So medius is the middle. Ocris is like rugged mountain. So to be mediocre is literally to be stuck in the middle of a rugged mountain.

Right.

There are a lot of synonyms to mediocre. If you look at the synonyms to mediocre, you'll see a lot of them. Average, you know, whatever. Right. Fill in the blank. There's only one antonym. Antonym, which is excellence, which happens to capture the one word answer that Aristotle gave to the game of life, which is, you want to reach the peak of life, the summum Bonum for him was eudaimonia, of course, to have a good soul, to close the gap between who you're capable of being and who you're actually being. And the way to do that was arete, which directly translates as virtue or excellence, but means expressing the best version of yourself moment to moment to moment. And again, the basic fundamentals, these simple building blocks from our vantage point, is what gives us the opportunity to more consistently close that gap. But people want the fancy thing, you know, they want the, I think the big mysterious, go from one cut to the other cut, to use that metaphor, versus no, no, no, no. This is actually remarkably simple. Get clear on your fundamentals, which will be idiosyncratically yours, and then go dominate them. The worse you feel, the more committed you are.

Right, right. And less is more. You know, like you said, that the drive for simplicity, to declutter our lives, to uncommit from the constant crush of commitments, that frees up not just your mind, your time, but your mind and also any potential, you know, emotional stuckness that can come from, you know, entangled relationships and commitments and, you know, the burden of dysfunctional teams which are all around us. And suddenly you have all this space and then you can begin to work with that space to move toward presence. And it really is only in presence that you find the full power of what we're talking about here. Your full potential as a human being is only found when you're purely in a present moment and you've, and you've trained yourself out of the dysfunctional habit of always placing your mind in the past or the future, because then it traps you in your mind, right? Because future and pastor is a mental construct. And pure human potential, raw human potential comes not from within the mind, but from outside the mind, from the spirit. And so excellence to me is to tap into your raw spiritual power, your essential nature, and to let that inform, work through, with and through your mind. And as you do that, it actually clarifies and charges and potentiates your mind, your thinking mind, for more clarity and purpose driven actions. And also because at that point it begins, that aspect of your being is really connected deeply to your heart. You know, like the Buddhists would say that the soul resides in the heart or courage really is your heart, mind speaking. And we use the term kokoro, which means to merge your heart and your brain, your thinking mind, into one more powerful way of acting. And it's more powerful because it's acting with connection instead of disconnection from others. This is really important right now is for people to use this time not just to fill it up with more stuff, but actually to de layer this stuff so that they can have more stillness and find more presence and then practice that presence to tap into their raw potential, their spiritual source energy, and then to use that source energy to reform themselves and to reintegrate and to, you know, optimize, to use your term. So it's almost completely opposite of what most people have been trained to do, you know, to look for something else to go jump after and that maybe that's going to solve the problem. And what I'm suggesting is, no, slow down, you know, get rid of all that crap and then just stop and go out in nature and just watch the animals for a while. Don't try to think them, don't name them, don't categorize them. Just observe. And just observe your own nature and just observe your breath and just begin to tap into that raw wisdom that lies inside.

I love it. I love it. I love it. It's that spirit is the Yudaimon. It's the soul. And it makes me think of Richard Rohr quoting Desmond Tutu. So Richard Rohr, I fell in love with him. I was raised Catholic. Were you raised Catholic as well?

Episcopalian.

Episcopalian. Okay.

I shed those clothing a long time ago.

Yeah, well, I did as well. But I've kind of saw a really integrally informed Catholic Franciscan monk. I was raised in a Franciscan tradition, so discovered Richard Rohr, fell in love with him, integrates Ken Wilber, Joseph Campbell.

I've heard him speak.

He's a really unbelievable. So Falling Upward is one of the books that I've fallen in love with. And it's basically the hero's journey. It takes a fall in order to rise. We just celebrated Easter. As Campbell says, you can't have a resurrection without a crucifixion. That crucifixion is obviously by definition, unbelievably painful. To die to the old self, to be born to the new. So as a culture, it's almost as if we're on a meta level and then individually being invited to go through this process and that courage and willingness to do it. But Richard Rohr quotes Desmond Tutu, who jokingly told him, apparently at one point, that interesting thing. So Joseph Campbell once said, what am I? Am I the light or am I the bulb? Am I the light or am I the bulb? Desmond Tutu says, our job is simple. We're simply the bulb. We just need to stay screwed in. It's an obvious truth. But to me, this is what we're talking about when you talk about presence and letting that spirit come through. I love that metaphor. If we simply need to keep ourselves screwed in and then ideally do enough work. So we go from being a 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 watt bulb that blows up when more energy tries to go through to can we be a x hundreds of watt lighthouse bulb that sustains light in the midst of the darkest storms. But again, that's created somewhat obviously, yet paradoxically through the simplest things. So it's not the occasional trip to nature where you sit in presence to the divine unfolding. It's the repetitive, consistent unplugging practice and the plugging in practice. And again, just the highlighting of the simplicity of what we're talking about in terms of practical tools. Right now. I find myself seduced by checking in more often than I ever have and disciplining myself to look at that in a limited fashion, which is more than I used to, but limited fashion. And for us to simply notice the pull, to go into that constant bombardment of inputs and create a bright line limit of it's going to be five minutes a day, or 10 minutes a day, or 15 minutes a day or whatever it is, that's a threshold. And I'm going to use all that extra time that could have been lost to do all the things we're talking about in terms of practices, et cetera. Then we have time for your 20 minute, you know, more divine warm up and sitting sessions and the breath work and the journaling to actually discover what our true purpose is. If we've been feeling alienated from our work or have lost our jobs or whatever it is, and make that commitment to excellence our full time job, which again is what all the philosophers said is that actually should always be your number one job. Everything else should get what's left over after you've done your work, connect to your inner soul and to shine as brightly as you can.

I think that is your core purpose. And then your secondary purpose in the temporal realm is to align with, align your gifts in service to other humans. But your core purpose is evolution. The other thing that comes up as you're talking about this further, this mistake that a lot of people have, that practice or working on yourself is something that you do, you know, over here and then you go, and then, and then you go do your work stuff and then you know, like real work. And then maybe you take a little bit of time to do another drill of breathing or meditation, you know, get on your Headspace app and you do it over here. And that's fallacy. That's useful to learn the fundamental skills. But ultimately life is the practice. And you know, the Buddhist tradition, they call that taking it off the mat. Every moment is a moment to practice mindfulness. Every moment is a moment of practice, connecting to the heart and practice, you know, being authentic and in stillness and communication so you're not acting or speaking out of a conditioned response. Every moment is an opportunity to practice that worm process the witness, interdict, redirect, maintain, so that you're not being distracted by the monkey mind constantly. Every moment is an opportunity to feel, you know, the presence of that universal spirit that runs through all things running through us, and to strengthen our mind power through concentration so that we can glow like a nuclear power plant Instead of a 40 watt light bulb, which is all within the potential of a human. So it's that it's the recognition or the shifting of your perspective that it's every moment is your opportunity to practice the becoming of whole again. It's not just 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes at night or. You know what I mean? Yoga studio here and there.

Yeah. I mean, this. This temple has no walls, you know, like, just, how do we go out? It's interesting because I'm in a studio that used to be David Allen's getting things done. Ojai headquarters. Right. You know, and one of his phrases that came to mind as you were describing that is the sublime, the most spiritual comes through the most mundane. So can we again embrace every moment of our lives? We're literally turning off our phones at whatever hour we decide is when we're going to do it. Shut down, complete. To be with our family, to get deep restoration is a spiritual act, let alone the actual interaction with our team in a face of challenge, et cetera, and kind of that. Yes. And of let's get the core practices in place that are going to give us the best shot to show up in those moments when we need to the most. And then let's recognize those moments as the very opportunity to practice the things we say are important to us. Yeah. That beautiful spiral just comes to mind of there are no lost moments, to quote George Leonard and his concept of mastery. Reclaim all those supposedly lost moments, put them into your practice, micro moment by micro moment by micro moment.

And it's a great practice of humility, which is. One of the most powerful leadership attributes or attributes of a wise person is humility. Because when we take the practice off the Mat.

There.

There is more failure than there is success. And the human condition is to constantly move away from what we're talking about, right? We've been trained not only through our whole lives, but through many, many millennium, thousands of years. The human mind, the collective mind, has been trained to go toward things it desires and away from things that it finds uncomfortable. And one of the biggest things it finds uncomfortable is not being needed. You know, not the rational nine, you know, feeling not needed. And that's experienced in moments of silence when you try to tame that monkey mind. And so you're going to be distracted, you're going to fail, but then you just keep coming back. Just keep coming back. And it just forges great humility, you know, even, like, people could look at Brian or Mark and say, well, you guys, you know, you've been studying this stuff for years and practicing, and so you're different than I am because, you know, you've already mastered a lot of these things. And I just say, you know, that's bullshit. We're not different. When this whole thing you shared that you've been drawn to check, you know, news more. And this is very normal in a crisis. You want to know what's going on, you know, like, if Ojai is burning, you better check the news to make sure your house is not in the line of fire, right? And I'm certain you did that last time the fire came, and you're thinking, I just, I gotta unplug from this, but I can't. Well, so it's very natural. But you can unplug because you will, you know, someone will knock on your door or someone will call you, you know, if you're in the line of fire, right? The fire department will be there for you. You don't really need to do that. That's a mistake. That's your mind, you know, kind of just really moving towards something that it needs. And so it's very humbling. And for me, it was, you know, in this crisis thinking that I had to be really, like, there for my team and, you know, 24 7. And so. And this had been actually growing on me for the last couple years. And you and I had talked about it, Brian, but, you know, the iPhone has become, you know, one of my greatest tools and also one of my greatest limiting factors, right? And so I found myself, like, constantly checking email and checking the newsfeed, you know, in the first two weeks of this crisis. And then my assistant Ellie basically came up one to me one day, and she said, mark, you're being a hypocrite. I was like, say again? She said, you're being a hypocrite because you teach people that you should declutter and simplify and check your email twice a day. And look at you. You've been on that damn thing almost constantly for the last two weeks. I was like, oh, my God, talk about a humility check. And so I said, okay. She goes, I'm going to take it off your phone. And I said, okay. And so we were right in the middle. It was Easter Sunday, and I was doing a thousand burpees just for fun because I figured, you know, in honor of Jesus, who had to warm up before he pushed that big rock out of the way to get out of his.

Very thoughtful of you, Mark.

He probably did burpees, right? So I was doing it for him. Anyways, she. She removed all of my email apps or the two that I had, you know, from my phone. And I've had to adjust to that. And it's been awesome. You know what I mean? Been awesome. I've had to, like, find new ways to work. And so now I'm basically once, no more than twice a day will I open up my laptop and rip through it. And I haven't missed a darn thing, right? I missed anything. It was all fantasy. Anyways, I share that story that mainly the point was that nobody's perfect. There is no such thing as perfection except for perfect intention to do the work and to continually come back to the work, and then you're just fine. Just almost ridiculously small incremental improvement day over day over day. That sharpening the saw, you're sharpening the sword. You know what I mean? It's like every, you know, every swipe on the sword with the carbon or the sharpening tools, like, you really can't tell. But over time, right, the cumulative effect, that sword becomes razor sharp. So that's what it's like to practice daily throughout the day instead of five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the night.

It's so exciting. And then again, as you say that the sharpening, it's that plus one, plus one, plus one. And the greatest affirmation I've gotten of our work is one of our individuals who's a frontline paramedic saying that I show up in my same black shirt every day, and it's just by design, I'm going to show up. You can count on me to show up every single day. And the intention has been that more than even the wisdom, I Wanted my presence in someone's life to be the teaching. Right. I've never said that loud, really, but that's great. I love that implicit intention. So he basically mirrored that back. But that idea of that, the stabilizing force of the consistency in the midst of all this unknown was very helpful for him as a paramedic serving the homeless in, you know, North Carolina. Like, just super inspiring guy, doing his, his best right now. But that plus one, plus one, plus one plus one aggregated and compounded over time. And then with humility, recognizing that we're going to fail over and over again. Whether it's the beautiful example of in our meditation, you're going to. The failing is the rep. That's the whole.

That's the rep. That's right.

Your mind wandered. Did you bring it back? Is the only question. And can you get a little bit more elegant on that and not judge the quality of it? Just show up and show up and show up with that intention, et cetera. But then when I make a mistake, like I did last night, I just taught a class on, we're doing our carpe diem module, sees the day, right? And I say the day starts the night before. Most people think of their day, it starts at, you know, 5, 6am or 7, whatever it is, and it goes through. I say, no, no, no, it started the night before. How you ended your prior night will dictate the quality of your morning. AM bookend, PM bookend. Anyway, so I literally just taught the PM bookend. And I share the story of you got to have a shutdown complete ritual inspired by Cal Newport. You got to have the Seneca, you know, the Roman Senate shut down at the 10th hour, which for them was around 4pm they didn't accept anything new after that point. Shut down complete. And I literally jokingly said, it's gotta be a complete. It's not a shutdown. And then check your email one more time. You know, So I teach this on Monday, what is it? Wednesday? You know, two days later, I'm sitting here, I do my shutdown, go on a hike with the family, and I get back and Alexander's phone, which as you know, is kind of my bat phone that my right hand guy texted me and I didn't. Rather than having it off, which is the algorithm that should be running, it's on. And so I respond to that and I snow globe is how I describe it kind of my mind right at that time. And sure enough, I'm sleeping and I get up in one of those. Your Mind's thinking about something that it didn't have time to digest before. And for me, I literally laugh in moments like that now because it's such a beautiful opportunity. The algorithm I have then is, okay, I made the mistake. Use that data to get a little.

Bit better, to sharpen the reinforce, right?

Yeah. And then what needs work, right? So that humility to look at it and go, not beat myself up. I laugh at it and say, what needs work? Rewind to the moment before I made the decision to violate my bright lines. Knowing that you have the bright lines not so you'll never cross them, but so that you know when you do cross them so you can get back, right? And then use it to get a little bit better. Then the. It wasn't a worst day for me. But then the micro flaw in imperfection becomes the very fuel for our growth and we have the humility and the curiosity and the practices to actually get a little bit better. But anyway, just to share that, I thought that was an amusing.

And that's an ever ending process. The gap between success and failure closes over time. But even an Olympic athlete is having constant failure. And then readjustment, failure, readjustment, failure, readjustment, right? They're practicing the OODA loop. Another way to say that is in the beginning, right? You try something new, like meditation. You're like, oh my God, I suck at this. Well, you, you can't suck at meditation. You can just do it. And then you show up and do it again and you're like, wow, I still suck. And then again, and then again. And then maybe after two months you're like, I think I got a little bit better. So you've been deploying. That's your first OODA loop. You observe that you got a little bit better. You reorient your mind toward that practice. You say, okay, maybe this does work. So you give it a little bit more energy. You make a decision which is a commitment to commit deeper to your practice and then you act on it. So your first OODA loop took two months and then, right, it shortens up to a month. You're like, wow, I felt the next level or the next data point, you know, because internal work, as you know, is nonlinear and it's sometimes a lot slower. And then you have a instant epiphany or, you know, transcendent include moment, to use Ken Wilbers terminology. And so then the OODA loop is shortened, right? And now I'm getting to where I get a little bit more conscious. I went from unconscious competence Now I'm in the conscious competence realm. And then when I get up to that mastery level, it's happening almost in real time. Like a fighter pilot. I'm observing my relationship to the other fighter pilot coming at me. I'm reorienting to them. I'm deciding on my next move. I take that action. And at the mastery level, that OODA loop is, like, right here, right now, and it's happening in real time. And if your OODA loop is that fast, it doesn't mean you're not failing. You're still always failing, but you're correcting the failure. You're learning from it, right? Right now.

I love it. Ray Dalio comes to mind and his success model. And the first thing is, you have an audacious goal, and then you fail. And he says, when you really get that and you really lean in the way you just described with the OODA loop, you get a mistake. Learners high, you go away from the shame to Marcus. Raley's comes to mind as well. The equanimity game is what I call it. He says, when force of circumstances forces you to lose your equanimity, see how fast you can get it back, make it a game. Get back, get back, get back. And then the speed with which you can do that becomes part of the game. It becomes an inspiring, energizing thing, which is why brings us back to the where we started this conversation. You're energized in moments like this. So I look at, you know, I've watched a little bit of Gavin Newsom and how he's approaching this, and he is enjoying. It isn't the right word, but he used in one little clip. I watched him inspired by this. You can see his own personal response. Politics aside, that this is what he trained for, he is here to do the work, and this challenge is giving him that opportunity to shine and to see what he's made of in the midst of this broad challenge.

And same as Mario Cuomo, it's cool. Let's see these guys step up and get energized. The warriors stepping into the breach. You know, I tell you what, if you're not failing, then you basically have stopped trying. And that's the definition of being in the comfort zone. And so when you feel like everything's going great and your world is perfect, it means you've stopped trying hard, right? You're not risking enough. So go risk a little bit more and fail, and then speed up your speed of failure. Accelerate your speed of failure and embrace the joy of the learning that comes from it and embracing the suck of the pain. The pain then becomes joy. Right? It's a transmission, right? It's alchemy. The pain of it is alchemy.

It's the hedonic to eudaimonic to bring it back to that. And Epictetus talks about Hermes apparently had a magic wand that can change. It's kind of like a philosopher's stone, a base metal to gold. And Epictetus said, no, no, no, no, it's not base metal to gold. It's anything that happens to me, to exactly what I wanted to happen, that's a positive thing for me to practice the philosophy. And if you we're committed to a life of hedonic joy and pleasure and happiness in quotes, then we don't want challenges. We don't go face the obstacles, run an obstacle or whatever. All the challenges we want to go away. But when we're oriented on that eudaimonic side of things, again, these challenges become the fuel we throw into the fire. And it's that subtle tweak that alchemizes the whole game. And again, it's the most simple, mundane, micro. To me, that's the biggest takeaway for me in this conversation is the reminder of the sublime coming through the mundane. And those basic practices we take for granted that we simply can't doubling down on those things and giving the world all we've got. Right?

That's right. Hoo yah to that.

Who yah to you?

Who yah to you? Brian, it's been a great conversation. I appreciate you and the work that you do. And yeah, you know, all we can do is perfect intention, you know, show up every day, do the work on and off the mat and then just be more present and serve with more authenticity and connection and the details will work themselves out, you know, and everyone listening, you look back at all the obstacles in your life and you know, if you're clear headed about it, you will look back and say that needed to happen. And I'm grateful for the. I mean I've had some real kick in the ball obstacles just like you have. And when I look back, I'm like every one of those needed to happen because they made me who I am today. And this current crisis, you know, we're filming this during COVID 19. This current crisis will have the same effect if you have trained yourself or you're willing to look for that silver lining, willing to look for the growth and the opportunities that are staring you right in front of the face, you know, right in front of your face. And it is my genuine hope that you see the gift. We all see the gift in these big challenges like we're going through right now. And we're going to look back at this in five or 10 years and be like, wow, remember that period of time, what an extraordinary period that was for me of growth and learning. And I came through that like a different person. It was a wake up call. It was another hero's journey for me. You know, people think you go through a hero's journey once. No, I think it's a constant thing. You're always setting off on a hero's journey and testing new terrain and new skills and falling back in the face of defeat and slaying the dragon with the support of your team and new skills and then ultimately mastering it. And then there's no there there with mastery, as, you know, like then you get complacent again and then that becomes your wake up call or, you know, the next crisis becomes your wake up call and then you go on the next level of the hero's journey. So we're all have a great opportunity in front of us to embark upon our hero's journey and slay our dragons.

Again and again and again and again. This is again, Campbell comes to mind one more time. The great life, as you know, as he says, is one hero's journey after another. By definition, you have to leave your known world, your comfort zone. By definition, that is uncomfortable. And you're not going to sidestep lizards. You're going to face dragons and you're going to do it again and again, again. So let go of the shame and then you're going to spiral up and face similar challenges, as I like to think, but hopefully with a little bit more grace. A few more moves, a few more weapons in your arsenal. Yet not without the challenge and the courage required to act in the presence of fear. Mastered again through those most mundane acts. It gives us the energy so we're not screwed in light bulb, so we can go from, as we like to say, optimize is from the Latin optimus, which means the best to express the best version of us so we can be eudaimons a la Aristotle. But ultimately to be heroes, which means protector in its ancient Greek, to have the strength for two. And again, we need it right now. Just that channeling of our divine best in service to something bigger than ourselves. I appreciate you and your just absolute embodiment of the kokoro, calm, confidence and that energized tranquility and the presence of a true radiant exemplar and humble master. So thank you.

Yeah. If you would allow me just a moment to also give our vets a little bit of mental support and spiritual support. A lot of vets, we have, through the Courage foundation set up a 501c3 to support vets who are suffering from post traumatic stress. And even though they've got a lot of training in dealing with vuca, a lot of the stress that build up that causes the PTS traps them in a fear based mindset or in a nervous system that is so debased that they can't, they can't wake up and be optimistic. Like you said, they're not sleeping, they're not eating well, many of them are addicted to painkillers, alcohol, you know. So if you know of any vets who are really suffering, reach out and help them or refer them to Courage Foundation. Our website is feedcourage.org it's an easy one to remember. Feedcourage.org and we have a program to help them using these similar tools with certified unbeatable mind coaches who are military veterans from the special ops community mostly. And then if you're also inspired to support the organization financially, then every bit helps. I mean, I'm doing 200 burpees a day and I'm going to donate 10 cents a burpee. So there you go. You know, I dare someone to match me, right? Both in burpees and in the donation. Yeah. So we need that. And then the other thing is, and I know your coach program is amazing. We have a program and I am not going to say anything about our coach program, but our unbeatable mind program is pretty powerful. And I am of the mind that more is better and together everyone achieves more. And I think optimize is a great program. I would love my unbeatable mind coaches to become optimize coaches. And I would love optimized coaches to become unbeatable mind coaches because the philosophies really mirror and support each other. And more insight equals better, in my opinion, better opportunity to serve. And we're launching our new cohort next week. But also so you could reach out to my team to learn more about that@unbeatablemind.com but also my team offered 30 days of free unbeatable mind training, our foundational training, the original course I built for Navy Seals, which has been totally revamped. And that link is unveiledmind.com optimize any of your coaches or Anyone listening wants to take advantage of that free training. Unveilmind.com optimize but my main message is let's support the vets. But if you want to get some training and share that link with your friends and peers to help people in this time of crisis, then that's where I introduce our core philosophy on build mind on how to win in your mind and eradicate fear and stress from your life and to serve more powerfully. Thanks for letting me share that, Brian.

Oh, I'm so inspired by that. I'm excited to share it. So feedcourage.org and then unbeatablemind.com optimize. Phenomenal. Yeah. I'm so inspired by your work in general and particularly with the vets. We're excited. I know that our team is talking to one another. Our teams.

I know that, yeah.

Ways to support you. I mean this is. I'm so inspired by you and by those who serve our country and create our freedom, preserve our freedom that to find ways to serve together is deeply motivating for me. I just did a note on the leading scientist on post traumatic growth which is just fascinating just to look at what he's seen in post traumatic stress alchemized into post traumatic growth, which of course is the cornerstone of unbeatable mind and all of the work that you've done. So hoo ya. And great chat. Great to see you. Look forward to seeing you again in person soon and one more time. Thank you for being you.

Yeah, hell yeah. Brian. I really appreciate you and I love your tribe and I love Optimize and I love you, man. We love you brother.

All right man, talk soon. Take care.

Bye bye.

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, 1 million people. You can learn more and get your tickets to the online and offline event at Optimize Me 2020. Again, that's Optimize Me 2020. Hope to see you there.