Micro Class: Kiwi Kaizen
17 Dec 2025 · 5 min
A short podcast/micro-class by Brian Johnson (Optymyze) introducing the concept of 'Kiwi Kaizen', inspired by James Kerr's book Legacy and the All Blacks rugby team. It explains Kaizen as continuous marginal improvements—finding many small areas to improve by ~1%—and encourages making it a game in daily rituals, relationships, and workouts. The episode also pitches Brian's Optymyze/Philosopher's Notes membership offering.
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 Optymyze with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on Kiwi Kaizen. It's inspired by Legacy by James Kerr. All about the All Blacks New Zealand, the Kiwis national rugby team, arguably the greatest team ever. How do they get so good? Well, James Kerr went in and studied that one of the key attributes was Kiwi Kaizen. Kaizen we know is basically constant and never ending improvement. Can I is what Tony Robbins calls it trying to get better a little bit better day in and day out. The example James uses is imagine if you can find 100 little things in your life. Not big things, tiny little components in your life. And you could increase each of those hundred things by 1%. Just a little tiny gain, little improvement. Well, those marginal gains, when you aggregate them, you put them all together and then you get a little bit better day in and day out. And you do that over an extended period of time. The results are astonishing. That is an attempt at a lightning bolt. Astonishing compound effect of these tiny marginal gains. 100 things that you improve 1%. You don't need to change something. 100%. 1%. Tiny little gains. Make it a game to find all these marginal gains. How can you get just a tiny bit better in your PM ritual, in your AM ritual, in your workouts, in being more consistent on your workouts. 1% in your interaction with your family. How can you get 1% better? 100 different aspects of your life improved? 1%. Kiwi kaizen. It's huge. Think about it. What's one thing you know right now you can improve by 1%? Just do one thing. Okay, cool. You get that? Do one more thing. 1%. Come up with it right now. Three tiny things you can improve by? 1%. Go do them and again, make it a game. 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've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus 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.










