A short micro-class podcast by Brian Johnson teaching the 'struggle switch' (on/off): when you resist negative thoughts and feelings your suffering increases. Drawing on Russ Harris's The Happiness Trap and Kristin Neff's framing (suffering = pain × resistance, described as exponential), Johnson uses a quicksand metaphor to recommend accepting pain and turning the struggle switch off. The episode also includes promotional material for the Optymyze premium membership and the Philosopher's Notes program (30-day free trial, community of ~10,000 users).
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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 the struggle Switch. It's inspired by the happiness trap by Russ Harris, the struggle switch. You have two options for this struggle switch. It can be in the on position or it can be in the off position. If you are struggling with all negative thoughts and feelings that arise in your life, then your struggle switch is on. And he says you need to know that when your struggle switch is on, you amplify all the negativity. It's kind of like a person that's in quicksand, right? If you fall into quicksand, keep this in mind, pro tip here. If you fall into quicksand and you struggle, you sink faster than if you were just calm and you kind of laid at the surface waiting for someone to come help you. That's actually the wise thing to do. You turn the struggle switch off, otherwise you're going to sink really deeply. He says it's the same thing if you are, say you get anxious, right? So you're experiencing anxiety. And rather than expand to allow the anxiety to be present, you get angry about your anxiety and then you actually get depressed about your anger about your anxiety, right? You're struggling, your struggle switch is on. What you want to do instead is flip that switch off and quit resisting the pain. Which brings us to a little equation that Kristin Neff shares in Self Compassion. One of her mentors said suffering equals pain times resistance. The reality is that we're all going to experience pain in our lives. The happiness trap is the idea that you shouldn't ever experience pain, that you should be happy all the time. Well, guess what? Never gonna happen. And if you think that you're gonna struggle all the time and you're going to resist this pain, which is going to create suffering in your life, and her teacher actually said it's more like this. Suffering equals pain times resistance. It's an exponential relationship. It's not a multiplicative relationship. Right? Pain to the resistance power. Your suffering is going to go up the more you resist. Therefore don't resist. Don't struggle switch this struggle switch off. Allow pain to be present, diffuse from the negative thoughts, expand to allow those emotions to be present and your suffering will go down. The Dalai Lama says pain pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. This is one way to look at it. How's your struggle switch doing? Can you turn it off a little bit more? 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 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 is 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.
