17 Dec 2025 · 5 min
Brian Johnson explains the iceberg illusion: we see only the visible peak of someone's excellence and miss the years of practice underneath. David Beckham and Andre Agassi didn't wake up great. They got there through sustained, unglamorous work.
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 Optymyze with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on iceberg illusions. It's inspired by Bounce by Matthew Syed. Awesome book. All about the fact that excellence is grown via effort and practice, not an inborn. Some people got it, some people don't kind of thing. One of the ways he has us think about it is to imagine an iceberg. There's an iceberg. Now, most people, when they look at excellent performance, all they see is the tip of this iceberg. They look at it and go, wow, that person's a genius. I can't believe they can bend it the way Beckham does. Wow, that's just extraordinary. They missed the fact that in that scenario with beckham, he practiced 50,000 free kicks as a kid at the local park with his dad. They don't see all the effort that went into the extraordinary performance. When they think of free kicks, they think of his goals. Right? The very tip of the iceberg. When he thinks of free kicks, David Beckham, he thinks of all the times he failed the 50,000 practice shots. He knows it wasn't some inborn amazing talent, but it consequence of how much effort he put in iceberg illusions. When we just see the tip, the extraordinary performance and we think that that's all there is, we need to remember that's never all that there is. So if you find yourself looking at people and admiring them and saying, hey, wow, they must have been born great, I can't do that. Notice you're limiting yourself because you're missing this. And we can build this, we can put in the effort. It may not be 50,000 free kicks, it may not be the million balls a year that Andre Agassi's dad encouraged him to hit so he could be unbeatable. But whatever it is for you put in the effort be willing to freeze all this ice together in your life such that you can shine and have people say to you, wow, that's amazing how you effortlessly navigate conflict. Or how you're able to look so great and be so fit or whatever. They may think that you just got the lucky jeans and you'll know what really happened. Don't fall for the iceberg illusion. Let's put in the effort and sustain that effort over an extended period of time and watch the benefits compound as we optimize and actualize. Isn't it a bit odd that 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 potential. 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 6 page PDF, 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 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.
