Micro Class: Gritty Passion

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 Gritty Passion Inspired by Grit by Angela Duckworth. Fantastic book. Now, grit is basically two different aspects, right? Passion plus perseverance. Perseverance. There are two aspects here, passion. One is interest. You gotta love what you do if you want to be gritty about it over the long run. And two is purpose. Those are two ways to cultivate your passion, which we're going to talk more about in another episode. But what I want to talk about right now is gritty passion and making a distinction between fireworks and a compass. So when Angela talks about passion, she's not talking about, oh, yeah, I get really fired up about something and then my interest kind of wanes. And then I go get fired up about something else. Fireworks show, right? And then my interest wanes, then I get fired about something else. And then I kind of go over here and I do this. She's talking about a sustained passion over a long term for basically one thing, right? Fireworks versus a compass. When you have one thing that fires you up, you have a compass, A clear intention with your life. I haven't drawn this much, but I used to draw this symbol all the time to represent one of the two core aspects of my overall philosophy. You need to have a clear intention. And then what? Then you need to take action. You need to be impeccable. That symbol represents the little tattoo I've got there. Can you see it? Which is the Sanskrit symbol for the third chakra, right? Which represents our self mastery, our discipline, our ability to do what needs to get done in some ways are grit. So you have a clear intention, and then you're impeccable with your behavior over a long period of time. That's how you achieve great things. Now, that requires passion, right? But if you just have this firework like passion, where you're a hero in the beginning, boom, big firework display, and then it fades away. Then you do it again and again and again. You will never achieve anything truly great. So focus your life on that. One thing she talks about in the book, and I share in the note some great examples of people who structured their entire lives around their chosen intention, their chosen compass, literally every single thing. It's very much like what we talked about with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his creativity. You need to discover what you're here to do and then protect that energy, that space. Don't let distractions in as you go out and exercise your gritty passion. We talked about it a lot. You in purpose 101 as well, so check that out more. We called it Black Hole Focus there. But the point is shift from fireworks to a compass and get your gritty passion on. And that also begs the question, of course, what are you passionate about? What's your one thing? Fill it in. Angela says this in the note. She says, my top level life organizing goal is and will be until my last breath. Use psychological science to help kids thrive. That's awesome. Mine is to help people optimize while I create the greatest collection of wisdom I possibly can. What's yours? 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 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 for 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, 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.