Micro Class: Full-Court Press
17 Dec 2025 · 5 min
Brian Johnson explores how to turn disadvantages into advantages using a full-court press strategy, drawing from Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath. He shares stories of unconventional coaching that emphasize hard work and hustle over raw skill.
Questions this episode answers
First 30 days free (30 days of free optimizing).
Over 10,000 people.
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell.
Rana Dive (coach of a 12-year-old girls basketball team) and Rick Pitino.
Chapters
Hey, this is Brian with a quick note before we jump into today's show. If you haven't signed up for the Optymyze premium membership yet, A, what are you waiting for? And B, you can now get the first 30 days of optimizing for free. Just cruise on over to Optimize me and sign up. Over 10,000 people now start their days with Optymyze so they can actualize their potential, including best selling authors, leading entrepreneurs and even NCAA championship teams. Two of them. So again, 30 days of free optimizing at Optimize Me. If you're already a member, thanks for your support. Now for the show. You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on a full court press. It's inspired by David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. So David and Goliath is all about underdogs, misfits and battling giants. And he tells a great story about a Silicon Valley entrepreneur named Rana Dive who coached his 12 year old girls basketball team. Now this was not a team of all stars. Only a couple of girls actually knew how to play. His daughter and all the other girls really had. They didn't have a lot of skills. They couldn't dribble, they couldn't shoot, they couldn't do any of the things you needed to do to succeed in basketball. So what did he do? That's a disadvantage? His team was not talented. The whole point of David and Goliath is to turn disadvantages into advantages. So what he did was he didn't play by the traditional rules. He ran a full court press all the time. No one does that. But he decided to do it. Why not? I'm going to turn my weakness into an advantage. And this team went to the national championships. That's nuts. They would press from one end of the court. There's your little net, one end of the court, all the way to the next. And they hustled and they hustled and they hustled. He shares stories Malcolm Gladwell does about Rick Pitino, another coach who runs a full court press. And coaches would come to watch his practices and they leave simultaneously inspired and just realizing they can't do it. Rick Pitino would run his players every single day for the full practice taking like seven second breaks max. And the idea here is that you need to turn weaknesses into strengths. But to do that requires hard work. It requires a ton of hustle that most people aren't willing to put in full court press style. We're going to talk about this a little bit more in desirable disadvantages, but keep this in mind. Full court press. That's one way to deal with not having skill. How can you run a full court press in order to compensate via hard work for some areas that you might not have as much skill as you would like? That's one way to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. Let's do it. Have an awesome day. See ya. Isn't it a bit odd we went from Math to Science to history but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your pot. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple six page piece, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101 business 101 meditation 101, that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient wisdom plus Modern science plus Common sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.










