Micro Class - Anxietivity

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on anxiety. Anxiety. It's inspired by how successful people think by John Maxwell. Anxiety is a little word I just came up with which combines two words, anxiety plus creativity. John Maxwell makes the very, very important point that these two things go together. Alan Watts created this little word goes with. Some things are so connected that they go with one another. Anxiety goes with creativity, and creativity goes with anxiety. You can't have one without the other. So if you want to be creative, you need to learn how to embrace failure. Another little metaphor that he uses is, here's your tree, right? You want to climb up the tree and you want to go out on this limb. You want to go out on a limb to get the awesome fruit. Well, guess what? Limbs break. Sometimes failure occurs when you engage in creativity and that produces anxiety. Anxiety. It goes together. So what we want to do is quit trying to get rid of the anxiety. It's not a sign that something's wrong with us. It's a sign that we're in the game. And as I've mentioned in different contexts, when I was Talking with Kelly McGonigal, she said, if you want to find how much meaning someone has in their life, find out how much stress they have. Because meaning goes with stress. Stress goes with meaning. Too often we want to stamp a happy face sticker over our lives and just be awesomely happy all the time. I talked about this in the episode on Hedonic versus Eudaimonic. Joy. Hedonic is just pure pleasure. It's this little happy face. Eudaimonic is flourishing. If you want to flourish, you have to be willing to invite a deep level of stress in your life because you are constantly going to be stretching your comfort zone. And that comes with anxiety every single time we say bring it on to our fears such that we can express the next highest version of ourselves. Comes with a risk. And that's a good thing. Anxiety. Let's embrace it and go out and optimize and actualize. Have another awesome day. Here's to some more failure in your life. See ya. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that micro class. 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 two, 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 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, et cetera. 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.