Interview - Be Happy, Damnit! with Karen Salmansohn

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi there. This is Brian. Welcome. Today we'll be chatting with Karen Salmanson, one of my favorite people who I got to know late in 2012. You might know her from her incredibly inspiring viral posters and her inspiring site, notsalmon.com plus all the great books she's written. Karen is one of the most creative, funny, inspiring, and inspiringly prolific people I know, and I'm thrilled to chat today. Karen, thanks for being here.

How great to be here.

So let's start with your creative output day in and day out, month in and month out and just over. Your creative career is just astounding to me. I want to know your secrets.

Coffee. So, Well, I guess I'm a curious person and I get curious about ideas, so when I do my books, I'm so really intrigued. Like with the Bounce Back book, I was really curious about learning everything I could about resiliency psychology to be compassionate about about an idea. And when you're in that passion zone, you know, like, it's kind of, I guess like a honeymoon period, you're just so passionate about something, you just want to dig in and spend a lot of time doing it and it doesn't feel like work. I also call it my Haagen Dazs theory. Productivity.

Yeah, tell me about this, because this is something that I've heard you share before and it's genius. So share that with us.

Well, people are always saying, Karen, you're so disciplined. You're so disciplined. Because I do have kind of a prolific output. But to me, it doesn't feel like discipline because I'm passionate about what I'm doing. So I give the comparison of Haagen Dazs, where I'm also passionate about Haagen Dazs and so are most people. So let's say I said to you, Brian, here's a pint of Haagen Dazs ice cream, and I'm going to go away for half an hour, and when I come back, I want this entire pint of Haagen Dazs gone down to the very bottom. I handed you a spoon and then they came back. It wouldn't be unusual for the pine to be gone because of course you'd want to keep spooning and spooning and spooning. It's Haagen Dazs. It's delicious. And it's not necessarily discipline that you kept spooning and spooning and spooning and spooning. It's that you Loved the Haagen Dazs. Well, I just think I love spooning and spooning and spooning.

That's so great.

That's sort of. That's part of my secret of productivity is I pick things that I'm really passionate and curious about and that are fun and playful. And then I guess that also expands to picking people that are on my team that are fun and playful because I've done some of my books in teamwork with other people. And the formula is usually like, laugh 98% of the time, realize, oh, we got no work done, so we have to leave in an hour and then do the work. It's sort of like creative foreplay in a way. Like we're kind of in the zone because we're having so much fun and then we do the work.

That's awesome. And then because now you're producing a lot of, you're doing a lot of different things, but you're also working on the viral posters, right, that will put some near this interview so people can see them if they aren't familiar yet. But you crank out a bunch of those a week and even one or two a day, is that right?

Yeah, yeah, I do, I do. So how do I do that? Well, I wake up in the morning and I play with my son a little bit first, which I do think might be some of my secret sauce. Like the way that I told you, like if I'm working with somebody on a project together as a teammate, we have fun first. You know, a lot of people think that creativity comes from like suffering and angst. You know, for me, suffering does not aid creativity. Hedonism aids creativity. Laughing, create fun aids creativity. You know, I need to be in that kind of a mindset. And then I kind of, I let the idea come to me, I don't force it, you know, and I'm thinking about what's in my mind today. So I go to write and create from a place of letting it surface, not forcing it, and just thinking about what's on my mind. So it's really coming from, you know, and I'm not that much of a woohoo person, but I'll just say it, it's going to be a little bit woo woo, but like my soul or my core self or just things that are really mattering to me, you know, So I write from a place that something that's both on my mind and in my heart, you know, so it's resonating with me. And then I. That would make sense that it Might resonate with others when I go to create it. And I guess that's also part of the secret sauce, is that I'm doing it because it's something that it's in my craw. The more things you do from your craw, the better.

Yeah, just that authentic, nothing contrived. You're just truly passionate about these ideas. And I think it comes through. I think there's just a feeling sense and that universality of, you know, the ideas that you're wrapping your brain around and then sharing in such an innovative way. There's such deep resonance with that authenticity, huh?

Yeah, like, I guess. So if it's on my mind, if it's in my craw, chances are other people's craws are pretty crowded with it too. And I mean, that's what happens also when you put it up on Facebook, you do have people saying, like, have you been reading my mind? You know, and it's because some of this stuff is. It is just. It's all so universal. We're all not that different when it comes down to it in a lot of ways, you know?

Yep. Well, that's awesome. In one of your, you know, as you're saying, you know, you're not. Woo woo. I love your little tagline on your site, Self help for people who wouldn't be caught dead doing self help. I just love it. And I know that you share a passion for positive psychology. So tell me some of your favorite ideas that you've gleaned from the positive psychology literature and integrated into your life and into your teaching and your work.

Oh, great gosh. There's so much of it. Well, Seligman has a lot to say on the spirit of altruism and how that makes for a happy life. And he did a study where he gave two different groups two different forms of tasks. One was given fun things to do. And even though I'm talking about the power of fun, the fun tasked people didn't have as much power as the other group, which is he gave the other group acts of altruism to do. And then he let enough time go by. They kept journals, yada, yada, yada. And then he touched base with them. And it turns out that the people that were doing acts of altruism were far happier than the people that were just doing surface fun things to do. And in a lot of studies, it's come back that altruism is really a strong happiness motivator for so many reasons. Because in other studies that I've read, not Necessarily from positive psychology. But in general, they say that the three top happiness boosters are high self esteem, connecting with others, and acts of altruism. And so when you do acts of altruism, you actually get ding, ding, ding, all three out of three, because you're raising your self esteem. Because there's the feel good, do good phenomenon. You know, do good, feel good. It's when you're doing good, you feel good. When you feel good, you do good. Like they all, you know, it's upward spiral instead of downward spiral. And then you're connecting with others because that's what acts of altruism do. And then there's the acts of altruism. So you get all three out of three. And then also studies show when you have meaning and purpose in your life, when you feel like what you're doing matters, people are happier. So you just reap so many benefits from helping people and being of service.

That's so great. And I think that's another energy that I feel from you as well with your creativity is there is a sense of service, right? That there's truly you using some of your greatest gifts in greatest service to the world via your art and your blend of this fun wisdom and psychology. That's fantastic. And I was talking to Sonia Lyubomirsky in another one of these chats and she told me about a study. I asked her about any. Aha. She's experienced and she shared a study with kids in high schoolers. I know you're passionate about ending bullying and all that. And they did altruism work. Do one act of kindness for six weeks and the other group just did whatever they did. And then they showed back up. And not only were they happier, which they expected, but they were actually more popular in school. And it was just one of those. Wow. Yeah, just to your point, I thought of it because you're talking about the altruism and then that feeds back to the high self esteem. And even if they weren't doing nice things at school, they were vacuuming the house for mom. But that translated into they were more popular at school. Just amazing.

I bet it is the high self esteem. When you do good, you feel better about yourself. You really do. I mean, it's a good way to jump start if you feel yourself on a downward spiral. The way to get yourself upwardly spiraling again is to start to do acts of service. Feel like what you do matters.

That's awesome. I mean, they say that's the quickest way to boost your happiness, right? Is to be nice, do an act of kindness. You talked about purpose too. Do you. Do you have an orientation or an articulation of your purpose and how you kind of arrived at that that you can share?

Yeah, well, one of my things that I've said is that the purpose of your life is to find and do the purpose of your life. Like, I really feel like that that is, you know, part of why we're here. Learning lessons and going into our higher selves is probably the kind of more all encompassing way I feel like father here. I feel like I can read really complicated or very dense things and repeat them back to people in a way that's funny, humorous. With graphics, I make change less scary and more fun and more easy to understand the steps so it doesn't look like such a long, complicated journey. And I think that's one of my skill sets that I can do that for people. And I think humor helps in my books because a lot of times people are coming to my books feeling very challenged and just to be able to just laugh as you're reading it, not take what feels so serious so seriously. And that's a way of also removing your ego from the situation when you can kind of laugh. In fact, you know, you're making progress in whatever situation you're in when you can laugh about it.

Good rule of thumb, right?

You know, there's an expression that it only hurts when I laugh. For me, it only hurts when I can't laugh. You know, as long as I'm laughing about something that I feel like, okay, I'm making some progress here.

That's awesome.

You kind of wiggled your ego loose.

So you can laugh and you're observing the whole process rather than just being swept away by it, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's great. And then do you have any tips for people who may not have as much clarity about their purpose in terms of how we can discover that and get more clarity on it?

Sure, sure. It's about. Well, I actually do work on this. I have my own little Pillage and Conquer program that I do to help people Pillage and conquer and jackhammer drill down and find out what the purpose is. But, you know, it's about finding out where you're in your zone. You know, when you lose track of time, you know, where you feel the bravest and where you feel like your most truest self. And a lot of times people, unfortunately, they let themselves be moved by, you know, choosing things, being externally driven instead of internally driven, and thereby they're not Living a life based on purpose.

Awesome. That's fantastic. You got me wandering into my own sense of. Yeah, that's great. When do I feel most in the zone? Fantastic. Well, one of your just to kind of to move from. I have 10 principles, right. That in the optimal living philosophy, we start with optimism, we move to purpose and, and then we go to goals. But I want to step back to optimism for a second. And how do you like when you find yourself with any challenges or et cetera, what are kind of your go to practices to get your mind right? Do you have any that come to mind that you want to share?

I do, I do. And actually one of them is from positive psychology and it's about making sure that what you're thinking is not based on making it permanent or pervasive or personal. Seligman mentions the 3p, but usually permanent and pervasive. Cover the third one too. And that you know you're making something permanent or pervasive. If you have a challenge. If you find yourself saying it always or never, like this always happens to me, I'll never, you know, fill in the blank. You know, I'll never, you know, get that book published. If you're out there and you're struggling to be an author, you know, whenever you hear yourself saying it, always or never, you have to take a step back and then you have to be kind of like a, almost like a tough lawyer with yourself and put that always up on the stand and cross examine it, get it to break down until you realize that's just ridiculous, you know. You mean always, you know, what do you mean? Never find examples that contradict it. So that's really very helpful. And also I think people, when they're in a challenged state, they ask what I call depressing questions, which is they find themselves bombarding their own minds with thoughts like why didn't I? What if things that there really aren't happy answers to? So if you ask the question questions, you're going to get depressing answers. So I say you have to stop them and swap them for happy questions like how can I grow from this? What's a gain in my pain from this? Who do I. Who did I get to meet because of this? Yeah, you know, so, so that's one of my go tos. Stop asking depressing questions.

That is so cool. Stop them and swap them. That's awesome. And what a great way to look at the three Ps. I'm a huge fan of Seligman's learned optimism. And we talk about that throughout my work. And just that idea of the permanence of the always and never bring in that tough lawyer challenge, those negative thoughts. Awesome. So then optimism, purpose, and self awareness. Those are the first three principles that I usually walk people through. Then goals is the next stage to kind of take it out of the abstract into, okay, what concretely, concretely do I want to create? How do you orient to goals? How do you approach goals?

Well, you have to take them in small steps. I think people feel overwhelmed sometimes by how long a journey is ahead of them. And so you have to, you know, I mean, this is something that other people said too. You have to break them into little chunks. I think of it as sort of like tweaking your way towards where you want to go. And kaizen is another word that I use for it, where you take it a little bit at a time. And especially if it's something new and scary, you tell yourself, okay, I only need to center in on this for like 15 minutes a day until I can sort of like get more familiar with it. I mean, things are always scariest in the very beginning. Anything that anybody does is a little bit uncomfortable. And that's the good news. That means whenever you're feeling discomfort, it means you're getting out of your comfort zone. But you don't have to. You know, I say it's easier to be a Saint for like 15 minutes than a saint for like four hours. So if you want to try to do something new and expand who you are and grow as a person, just give yourself little chunks of it, little small steps at it. You know, kaizen, your way, tweak your way into the new thing that you want to do until it starts to feel more comfortable and familiar. And then you get into your passion zone with it, and then you're just going really quickly with it.

That's awesome. And now do you set specific, kind of the smart, measurable, all that kind of stuff goals, or you just kind of just hit it day in and day out?

I like to have short term goals and long term goals on my to do list. And I become aware of that. Sort of like having a bifocal lens. Like, you have to be aware of what you're doing today, but then you have to look to where you want to be in the future. You know, you'll begin with the ends in mind, but if you only have one lens, you're going to trip and fall. You have to have both lenses. You have to have like a bifocal lens. I love that, and then even before I write my to do list, I write my to be list, which is something that actually, I don't even think you know this about me, but I'm kind of known for this. When I had a radio show, I started each hour with talking about the to be word of the day. Because I'm a big believer that before you write your to do list, you have to write your to be. Listen.

Oh, I would love you to. Yes.

So Frank Sinatra, he's a great crooner, but he's a dyslexic self help guru because he sings do be, do be, do, you know, which is a great little tune. But really for a happy life, you have to be do be, do be do instead of do be do be do. And what I mean by that is your identity affects your actions, who you think you are affects what you do in a day and how you do and how well you do it. So, for example, we all walk around thinking, I deserve a great job, I deserve a great relationship, you know, but are you being the kind of person that could attract a great job or a great relationship? Are you being loving, kind, communicative, patient, a good listener? You know, who are you being? You know, like another good question to ask yourself. You know, just keep checking in with yourself. And usually I like to do this first thing in the morning. That's why my to be list before my to do list is who do I need to be to get everything I want in my life? And you can even think of problems backwards. Like, I have this problem. Okay, well, not what do I have to do? Who do I have to be to amend this problem? You know, oh, I guess I need more patience. I need to be a better listener. You know, all of these things and different things can pop up each morning, especially if you think backwards to where do I feel like a little bit of chaos in my life or a little bit of extra stress that I'm trying to relieve right now? And then think of the to be word that could help you with that. And then when you do your to do list, you're going to do it differently when you make the phone calls, when you do the work. Or you might realize that you need to be moral, organized, and then your writing will show up differently or you'll actually take things off your to do list and prioritize other things when you realize who you want to be.

That's so cool. I love it. One of the other positive psychology ideas I love that I think is related to that is Kind of the virtues in action that Seligman and others talk about. But this to be is just, I think, such a more easy application of that because you're really talking about what virtues do you want to embrace and put into action in order to be this type of person? So I just, I really like that connection because a lot of times when I teach the virtues, it's okay, well, how do I put this into play? And I think that to be list is a fantastic resource for that. That's wonderful.

Thank you.

Well, thank you. So the challenge here is again, we could kind of unpack all this for a weekend, each of these ideas. But I want to hear kind of moving through those 10 principles. So we've got our optimism, we've got the purpose, we've got some goals. You just described some of the action steps. And to be. To do when you run into fear. Courage is one of the principles we talk about. How do you approach fear? How have you. How do you approach fear in your life? And how do you recommend we think about that?

Wow. It's funny because Aristotle talks a lot about, you know, that's one of his main virtues that you have to embrace. And I feel like for me, if I have fear, I guess the Kaizen thing to do a little bit slowly each day, so I realize that there's nothing, you know, I, you know, I go slowly into it, so I don't scare myself so much. And also, fear and excitement are kind of close in energy. And so I try to get myself excited instead of fearful about it. I try to get myself excited about something and remind myself about all I'm excited about. And now I'm actually thinking about of more examples. When you're asking me kind of in a philosophical way, I'm not as clear. But now when I think about examples of my own life, I can actually give you probably a clearer answer, which is, I used to be in advertising. I started off in advertising, and I kept wanting to quit to write books. And my parents kept talking me out of it because I was a senior VP in my late 20s. And they're like, how could you quit now when you're doing so well? And my answer was, actually, that's how I can quit. If I'm doing well here, then I can apply the principles elsewhere and hopefully do well, too, especially if I pick something that I really want to do. So I finally, I quit and didn't tell my parents for a while. And then. But I wanted to write books and everybody I had so much like, if I didn't even feel the fear. I had other people telling me reasons why I should be feeling fearful. And Ford said, Henry Ford says that obstacles are just those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. So you really do have to keep your eyes on the goal and get excited about what it is that you want and focus on that and get yourself so excited about that your passion kind of like blows away your fear. And I called it at that time Mr. Magoo Syndrome, or McGoo. Mr. McGoo was the guy with the big thick glasses. Do you remember him?

Yep.

The cartoon character. And he couldn't see. And he'd be going across the street and there'd be cars honking, and everybody'd be like, oh, my God, look where you got. Like. But he was just, like, focused on, must get to other side of the street. So this was me, must get published. When I quit my job, and I try not to pay attention to the honking naysayers and all the obstacles in my path, it was just like, must get book published. And then I kept myself in an excited state. I would do things that kind of kept my passion going. And so I wasn't focusing on the fear, I was focusing on the passion. And I would go to bookstores, and my first book was a novel, and I would envision my novel on the bookshelf. So I went to see who I'd be next to. And I noticed my last name is Salmonson. I noticed Salinger would be right, my next door neighbor, for my novel, Salinger, Salmonson. So that kind of, you know, made me laugh. And it's sort of like another example metaphor is when, if you had to. If somebody put a plank over a big lagoon of very hungry crocodiles and you had to cross that plank because the crocodiles were there, you'd be more liable to be wobbly as you cross the plank. But if you weren't focusing on the crocodiles, you might be able to walk that plank much more easily if it was just on regular ground. And so you have to stop looking at those, like, all the crocodiles in your life and look at your supporting plank, which is your passions, your talent, your faith, whatever support group that you do have, everything that's your supporting plank and stay focused on that and not the clock that'll be happening at you.

I love it. It reminds me, too, of Fritz Perl saying that fear is excitement without the breath, that they're so close to one another. Right. And it's a question they are of orientation. Right on. Well, that's, again, awesome. And we can talk about that for a week. I want to hear just a couple of quick things. You've got some great books. How to be Happy. Damn it. The Bad Habits. Enough. Damn it. Right. And then the Business Lessons from a Swimming Cocktail Waitress. Would love to hear kind of what's.

Your top Prince harming syndrome. That's one of my top books, too.

In the Prince Harming, of course. Of course. So let's go through them really quickly. So the business lessons from a Swimming Cocktail Waitress. What's your top tip for business?

Oh, my God. I think you would like this one. I do. It has, like, a little story in it. When I was in college, I worked at one of these places in the Catskills, and I was a cocktail waitress by the pool to make money during the summer. So it happened that my summer working there, it was early, wildly hot summer, and there I was working by poolside, and all of my customers were in the swimming pool, and I was standing around with my tray, looking at a bunch of empty chairs, chaise lounges, and I was not making any money, sweating, sweating my tushy off. And it wasn't fun. No money. And I'm looking at everybody else in the pool laughing and nice and cool. And so suddenly it hit me that that's where my customer base was. And the uniform for us regular cocktail waitresses was a swimsuit, a skirt, and an apron. So I took off the skirt and the apron, left the swimming suit on, and I grabbed my tray and I jumped into the swimming pool, and I started to take cocktail orders from the swimming pool with my tray and then would return with the drinks, and I became the swimming cocktail waitress, and I got to cool off. It was fun, and I made, like, a ton of money. And then that night, later in the evening, I then had a point of difference in the cocktail waitress marketplace at the lounge area. Inside, you know, it was evening time. Everybody wanted to take drink orders from the swimming cocktail waitress. And so from this one story, I have many, many, many, many lessons to be learned from my swimming cocktail waitress experience about why it worked. And I then apply that to all different kinds of careers and all different ways that people can make money.

So what's the biggest lesson you can share right now?

Well, sometimes. Oh, well, what's interesting was that nobody imitated me because everybody else was still afraid. So you have to create a point of difference. Don't ask sometimes before you do something. These are just some quickie ones. And go to where the money is. Go to where the money is. Sometimes you don't have to create like a completely different career. I was still a cocktail waitress. I just found a way to figure out where my target audience was.

That's awesome. You had your to be list that morning. You had I want to be cool, I want to have fun, I want to make money. Awesome. Right on. So then one of your other books called Enough Damage talks about how to end bad habits. Can you give us any quick tidbits on that?

Well, I talk a lot about in that book about why people have bad habits and I dig a little deep. And I mentioned something called masochistic equilibrium in that book, which says that if you grow up in a family that has a certain level of pain around any area, it could be money, it could be love, then that becomes your comfort zone, even if it's a discomfort zone. And let's say you grow up, I'll do it with love, with feeling 70% love and 30% pain. And then now you're an adult in the real world and you're out there, you know, looking for a relationship and you find somebody that gives you 99% love. And it was just 1% of pain. You think that was a good thing. But people do things to self sabotage to bring themselves down, down, down, down to their masochistic equilibrium. And that's part of the reason why people pick up negative patterns or negative habits is because they're in masochistic equilibrium and people do it with money. So even when you coach people, you have to make sure that their masochistic equilibrium is going to keep bringing them down. Even if you're helping them to rise up in their career, even if you're helping them to get a book deal, they might do something to self sabotage.

Yep, very interesting. Well, let's check out the book Enough Dammit for more on that. And then you use love as an example, which Prince Harming is obviously geared toward. Can you tell us a little bit about love?

Sure. Well, this one I gather from all areas from modern psychology, from John Gottman and the lovelap to Aristotle. So I'll throw out my Aristotle tool for this book. Aristotle talks a lot about how there's three kinds of relationships that you can have. And the first one he called relationships of pleasure. And these are people that you're around and they kind of stimulate your ego or your body. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, but they're surface oriented, they don't go deep, they don't really stimulate your soul or your Core self if you're more psychologically oriented. And so although it might feel somewhat happy, it's not the highest level of happiness, which I'll get into what he says that is the second relationship he calls relationships of utility. And then these are people that you're with to garner status, power, fame, glory, beauty, money, you know, again, more surface oriented things. These are usually based around the ego. And again, this won't bring you true happiness because true happiness comes from finding someone who is your soulmate or your core self mate. And these are people that are your ego mate, wallet mate, lust mate, you know, not going to do it for you. And then the third category he calls relationships of shared virtue. And these are people who, when you're with them, they stimulate you in your core self, your soul. They challenge you to become your best possible self. And it's sort of like Jack Nicholson in that movie as Good as It Gets, where he says, you make me want to be a better man. It's people that when you're with them, they. They really help you to develop your character, all your different character strengths and become your best possible self. Which is what Aristotle believes true happiness is, is to surround yourself with people, habits and experiences that help you to grow into your best possible self. Now, I also want to quickly say that Aristotle was not against, you know, lust and pleasure and all of those things, but he felt that those were means to the end and not the end. And that those things are important, but sometimes people make them too important and they make those the ends. And really going to your highest potential should be the end. And so instead of going around looking for Mr. Or Ms. Right, to loosely paraphrase some of what Aristotle talks about in life is that you should be looking for life plan right, or the good life. And so when you meet a partner, you ask yourself, will this person help me to go towards life plan right or life plan wrong? Will this person help me in my journey to grow into my best possible self?

Beautiful. Wow. Thank you. Well, we have already gone by our little 30 minute requirement here. We'd love to wrap it up with a question on your fundamentals. Do you have particular practices? We talked about some of them, I imagine, throughout this conversation. But do you have any fundamentals? The things that you just do besides coffee, that really help you stay plugged in?

Gratitude and forgiveness are completely key in my life. And when I coach people and my friends and everything. So I'm big on gratitude lists, I guess. I'm a writer, I'm big on making lists. Here. So it's really great to, you know, start your day just really thinking about all the things you're grateful for. It helps you to, you know, have that little extra bounce in your step or skip that second cup of coffee. And so I really, in fact, whenever somebody's coming to me in a place of, you know, challenge, I have them refocus, focus on what they have to be grateful for. And that really helps to kind of create a shift immediately, and then forgiveness, because that can really clog you up if you stay resentful. So I have a lot of exercise, but we're near the end here. But I have them in a lot of my books, in both the Bounce Back book and Prince Harming Syndrome. I really talk a lot about for forgiveness being very essential for a happy life.

Love it. Gratitude, forgiveness. And how about a number one tip if we're going to kind of wrap all this up? Do you have a number one tip for those of us who want to optimize our lives?

Number one tip to optimize your life? Meditate medicine. We started off even before we got on the phone talking about meditation because it sort of helps to just cleanse you, you know, it helps you to see things more clearly, helps you to see other ways to interpret things that are bothering you, not go to the top three negative reasons why something might have happened and maybe start to expand and notice, you know, more, you know, the pain, the gain in your pain for the pain. So meditation is really key to. I think of it again, another really quick metaphor that I love to put things into metaphorical examples is that meditation sort of works like, you know, you have a snow globe and you shake it up and all the little snowflakes are all over the place. And at that point, you can't see the little bear scene that's inside the snow globe because it has all the little snowflakey things kind of, you know, all over the place. And then you put the snow globe down and the snowflakes settle, and then you can see, you can see the scene inside of the globe. Well, that's what meditation does. It takes all the little snowflakes of your mind, all the worries and the fears and all of that, and it lets them kind of settle down. And then you can really, really see what you have to be grateful for, why you should forgive, you know, what really matters most, your purpose. You know, that's how you find that stuff. Meditation is wildly powerful.

Amen to that. Well, what a perfect way to wrap it up. Karen, thank you so much. You are awesome. Appreciate you and your genius and looking forward to playing together.

Yeah, no, I'm so grateful that you invited me here. I love everything you're doing.

Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that interview. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson. Me two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome and 2 our optimal living Membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101 Relationships 101 Habits 101, etc. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish, and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.