Micro Class - Training Elephants

You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one is on training elephants. It's going to feature Gandhi pulled from the great work of your life. Awesome book. Check out the philosopher's note. So, training elephants. Here's Gandhi, young boy. Here's Ramba, one of his caretakers as a little boy. Now, this little Gandhi was petrified of almost everything. His mind went a little nuts. And Ramba taught him something. She taught him about what wise elephant trainers do. So here's a little elephant. It's a big elephant. He has a very large trunk, just happy elephant. And big ears, of course. Nice ears, buddy. Yeah. So here's our elephant. Now, before that elephant is trained, if he goes into a marketplace, right, he walks in, his little trunk, is checking out everything. It's finding bananas and it's putting them into its mouth. It's finding a coconut, it's putting that into its mouth. It's out of control, just like our minds are out of control. Now, Ramba taught Gandhi that a wise elephant trainer gives the elephant a stick of bamboo. They give him a stick of bamboo. The little elephant wraps its trunk around that bamboo, and then when it cruises through the marketplace, it's not distracted by the coconuts and the bananas. It's just calm and centered and grounded like a prince. Stephen tells us in the great work of your life. Now, she was using the story where the stick represented a mantra. Mantra, man. TRA literally means tools of the mind. Mantra, really cool word, right? The important thing to think about here, though, is that the mantra helps us focus. We focus our energy when we repeat a word. Gandhi's word throughout his life was Rama. Rama, Rama, Rama focused his energy. It's the name of a Hindu God, right? But the idea here that I want us to capture is you can use a mantra to focus your mind so you can go through the marketplace of life without being distracted by the Internet or Twitter or Facebook or whatever other little things you do as an untrained elephant in your life, right? Get focus. You can focus on a mantra. You can focus on just having clear goals and knowing what your masterpiece day looks like with your AM and your PM bookends and what you do here and what you do there. If you do that, you have a level of focus. It's the stick you can hold in your mind in your trunk, such that you can navigate life with grace, like a prince or princess, as the case may be. So remember the young Gandhi, his Mentor Ramba and the Elephant with a Stick of Bamboo in Its Trunk as you gain more focus in your life. That's training elephants. Hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more soon. Have another awesome day. See ya. 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 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, etc. 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.