Brian Johnson explains ikigai, the Japanese concept of your reason for getting up in the morning. People in Okinawa and other blue zones live longer because they have strong ikigai. Modern retirement, Johnson argues, is a social construct that kills vitality.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class.
This one's on Ikiguys. It's inspired by the Happiness Equation by Neil Pasricha.
Ikigais.
That's how you pronounce ikigai, a Japanese word which basically means your reason for getting up in the morning.
Getting up.
In a.m. you're icky guy. Why is it relevant? Well, because in Okinawa, part of the island is home to some of the longest lived people on the planet who live on average 7 healthy years longer.
Than the average American.
So in the blue zones, which I need to cover soon, they talk about this fact and they identify one of the factors that they believe leads to their longevity. They also have the most people over 100 years old. Pretty amazing stuff. And Neil says, hey, what do you think Okinawan people call retirement? What's the word they use for retirement? And he says, drum roll. They don't have a word for retirement. And there's a big reason. That's one of the big reasons why they live as long as they live. They have a reason for getting up in the morning, an icky guy throughout their life, which leads to both longevity and more vitality in the near term. And Neil goes off on retirement and how it's a very modern creation.
Right.
Otto von Bismarck in 18, when was it? 89. He arbitrarily decided to create retirement. If you were 65 years old, you needed to retire to free up jobs for younger individuals. Right. In Germany, 1889.
Yeah.
What was the average life expectancy in 1889? 67 years old. So it was 65. And at the time, you know, 67 was the lifespan.
Right.
And then in the 20th century, more countries started adopting retirement. They took his arbitrary 65. It had no basis in anything other than it's kind of close to 67. And now we, after being marketed to people, had to spend a ton of money to convince us that leisure was awesome, that work kind of sucked, and that retirement was what we should look forward to as we get older. Again, Okinawa, Ikigai. Ikigai, rather, they don't even have retirement. But we got conditioned to believe that retirement was what it was all about. Whole nother conversation. Retirement, if we're interested in longevity and we're interested in vitality through our lifespan, is a horrible idea. We want to have a strong, powerful reason for getting up in the morning. And our work tends to be one of the most powerful. So what's your icky guy? What's your reason for getting up in the morning? Neil created little cards for him and his wife. His wife's ikigai card says something along the lines of to turn young minds into future leaders. That's her ikigai. That's her reason for getting up in the morning. His was to remind himself and others how lucky we are to be alive. That's cool. And then he had another one when he was writing the book. Oops.
There you go.
To finish the book was a Zeke guy, right? What's your icky guy? My icky guy is to help you optimize. Help you optimize as I create the greatest collection of wisdom I possibly can. Now that's pretty exciting for me. That's a strong reason for getting up in the morning. I get out of bed, I high five my icky guy and I get to work. We need to create your icky guy. What's your reason for getting up in the morning? And know that it can shift and it should shift. You're not going to have one icky guy for the rest of your life, but you need to have one for tomorrow morning. What's firing you up? High five your ikey guy.
Have another awesome day.
See ya.
Hey guys, this is Brian. A lot of people don't know what I do beyond these YouTube videos I put up. So I thought I'd give you a quick tour of our membership platform. Thousands of people have joined us already. 10 bucks a month get access to a ton of stuff that's in addition to what I put up on YouTube for free. So the basic idea is you just watched a micro class. Hope you enjoyed that. I share. I just started doing these micro classes, but I Now share over 50 of these per month. We've shared dozens so far and it's basically a quick class on my absolute favorite stuff across the different domains of optimal living. 2 to 3 maybe 5 minute little micro classes on how to optimize your life. In addition to that, you get access to every single one of our philosophers notes. We now have over 250 philosopher's notes on some really, really good books. A lot of them in each one of them. You're familiar with the PNTV videos if you've watched many of those. But we also have PDFs and MP3s of our Philosopher's notes. So here's. Let's take a look at what a PDF looks like. This is an example of a philosopher's note. It's a six page PDF where I basically share some of my favorite thoughts, riff on it, talk about how other teachers say the same things and give you a nice playful kick in the butt to go out and apply the wisdom that is a philosopher's note. I record that as an MP3 that you can download as well. And 250 of those, I produce 10 of those at least per month that I share with you in addition to the micro classes. And then you also get access to all of our old classes. We have the five day immersion, reboot habits 101, confidence 101, getting stuff done 101, meditation 101, and then future classes including relationships 101, energy 101, purpose 101, biz 101, goals 101, etc. So there you go. Really blessed to have some extraordinary support and I will share with you where you go to sign up. I'll put a link to this, but basically cruise on over here. You can sign up. And this is the kind of response we've gotten so far from our members. It's pretty neat. I've made more positive changes in my life, my brief membership, only three months so far, than I did through years of counseling. Yes. Brian Johnson, Rockstar.
Thank you very much.
That's very kind of you. And I'm making huge strides in optimizing my life as a result of your philosopher's notes and optimal living classes. I spend $19 a month on my gym membership to take care of my body. A mere $10 a month on an optimal living membership is the biggest value invest investment I've ever made in my emotional, mental and spiritual health. Thank you for the incredible work you're doing to inspire us to be rock stars in our own lives. Unbelievably inspiring and humbling. In 24 hours, we received hundreds of extraordinary notes from members around the world. So there you go. That's a quick look at what we're up to. $10 a month. Hope to astonish you. There you go.
