Optimal Living 101

Hey guys, how are you? This is Brian. I am really excited to share with you a project I've been working on, really for the better part of the last 10 years, identifying what the key ideas, the key principles are to optimal living. So this is a look at my journal where I have the 10 principles. Here's my mind map of what I've been working on and how all these ten principles come together and all the big ideas. Here's the book I'm working on with the little mini chapters I'm super excited about. And here's the philosopher's notes binder with a hundred of the philosopher's notes. Now what I did is I spent the last few years going through, as you know, going through 100 of what I identified as the greatest self development books out there. From the old school classics like the Bhagavad Gita and the Dao de Jing to modern classics, positive psychology. I'm a huge fan of the science of happiness. What we know that scientifically boosts our level of happiness, to the modern gurus like Michael Beckwith and Deepak Chopra, Paulo Coelho, all these great teachers that have extraordinary things to tell us. And what I found is that in these 100 books there are over a thousand big ideas. Right now, those thousand big ideas, they're, they're saying very similar things again and again and again. And what I've seen is they fall pretty neatly into these 10 principles. And what I'd love to do is quickly walk you through how I see these 10 principles and invite you to play with me in a 10 week teleseminar online program we're launching this summer starting May 25th, where for 10 weeks we're going to spend 90 minutes each week going through each of these principles. And my intention is to share with you the best I know, optimal living 101. Kind of like that class we never had. So really quickly, there's more info on that obviously lower down below this video. So first of all, what I've seen in all these great teachers, again, from the Dhammapada and the Buddha to Marcus Aurelius to positive psychologists, they all say we've got to start with optimism principle number one. We've got to tame those gremlins in our mind, right? The Buddhists and Eastern thinkers say we have a monkey swinging in our mind. And if we can't tame that monkey, if we can't tame those gremlins, we're going to be in trouble. We're going to live with anxiety and depression and all the things we don't want to live with. So these are my notes, mind map of the first first class we're going to have, where I'm going to introduce these ideas and all that good stuff. And then here's my notes on optimism. So we're going to talk about what optimism isn't, learns helplessness. Then we're going to talk about the importance of identifying our locus of control, Stephen Covey's habit number one, what the Stoic philosophers have to say about it, what Buddhist philosophers have to say about it, modern Zen masters. Then we're going to talk about ants, automatic negative thoughts and all kinds of other cool stuff that I really think are powerful ideas to help us gain more control over the contents of our consciousness, which is how Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of Flow, describes the importance of this idea. We've got to control the contents of our consciousness more and more powerfully if we want to live with optimism and create the life of our dreams. That leads us to the next idea, which is purpose. We've got to discover what our highest purpose is. Deepak Chopra, as you may have heard me talk about before, talks about this in his seventh spiritual Law of Success. He calls it the Law of Dharma. He says everyone has a unique constellation of gifts and experiences. A purpose we're here to live. Abraham Maslow says what one can be, one must be. All the great teachers talk about that. We're going to go into detail on that. I've got some goodness here, really talking about the highest goal, what we're here to do in our lives now we're going to have a hard time getting there, living our purpose if we don't have a deep sense of self awareness. That's principle number three. Socrates tells us, know thyself well. We've got to know ourselves. In this section we're going to look at the best journal exercises I know to help us gain self awareness, to deepen our sense of purpose and and go out and crush it. Now all that's nice, but unless we actually bring it into practical reality, we're just going to float around. So we want to set goals. Goals are incredibly important. Of course we want to remain unattached to the outcomes and to the results of our behaviors. But we can't get rid of goals. I'm going to talk about an idea I have called the Tolle Trap, where people get stuck in this idea of misreading Tolle or the Bhagavad Gita and think that goals aren't important, we just need to be in the now. But we know psychologically and of course, throughout the classic philosophical literature, even Tolle himself says goals are important. We just don't want to get caught up in the anxiety about whether or not they're going to come to fruition. So we're going to talk about that now. I'm going to talk about how to move from setting goals that are all about, you know, having things and having a faster car and a bigger house and all the other things that impress people. And we're going to talk about really authentic goals. I call it the highest goal. I've got a really cool process we're going to go through. I call the treasure map. We're going to have fun identifying what our highest goals are. And every day when I journal, I actually first set down my highest goal and I set my intention and then I say what I'm going to do and then I look at my number one now goal. But my highest goal are really things like connecting to and expressing the divine within me, living with joy, love, appreciation, stuff like that. So we're going to talk about that. I'm really excited about it. We're going to move from there to action. None of this stuff matters if we don't take action. I jokingly say, the Greek guru Nike tells us, just do it. We've got to take action consistently. We've got to hold the tension between our ideals in our current reality. Rubber bands that I talk about often. We're going to go into detail here and, and I like to say I've got one sheet for goals and I've got two on action. Action is important. We're going to look at the best ideas I know on how to take action consistently, how to produce effectively, how to get a lot of work done and really go out and achieve our goals and live our purpose. Really exciting stuff. Now we're going to have a hard time doing all of that and living at our highest potential if we have a hard time getting out of bed. So principle number six is energy. I'm going to talk about the best I know here. I see four elements, not five, four, four elements in energy. One is exercise. We've got to exercise. Did you know exercise is as effective as Zoloft in curing depression? Amazingly cool stuff. I'm going to tell you some big ideas there. I'm actually a personal trainer. I got certified a decade ago because I wanted to learn this stuff for myself. So I'll share that. Nutrition, huge Just spent three weeks at honeymoon health boot camp. I'm going to share some of the stuff we learned there and all the other stuff I've been doing for a decade plus. Rejuvenation is the third principle of energy. And then the fourth one is money. Money is simply energy. We've got to use it wisely in order to live at our highest potential. Moving on, we have wisdom. I'm obviously going through this quickly so I can finish it in 10 minutes. Wisdom. We've got to look at life in our classroom. I'm going to share here some more of the most extraordinary ideas I know from all these great teachers. We've actually got three pages for wisdom. Really excited about that. Then we come into courage. Without courage, none of this other stuff matters. We've got to have the courage to move through our fears and to live our highest values. Did you know the word courage comes from the French word, the Latin word for heart? It does. Just as our heart pumps blood to our arms and legs and organs, courage is the virtue that vitalizes all the other virtues. We're going to talk about that now. I'm going to share the number one thing I know to move through fear in my own life. I'm really excited about it. It's all about expectations and some other cool ideas that I'm going to share. So that's going to be a lot of fun. And then love. None of that other stuff matters without love. Right? Love envelops the whole thing. So we're going to talk about the key ideas on living with love. First of all, we've got to love ourselves. Can't give what you don't have. And secondly, we've got to study it just like anything else we want to master. And finally, the tenth principle, or I say the zero principle, is entheos. Two little Greek words, entheos. It means God within. It's the root word of the word enthusiasm. I believe that as we plug into the highest within us, as we connect with God or spirit or divine intelligence, whatever you call it, we live with a radiant enthusiasm that lights up our world. This is the cornerstone of my entire philosophy. This is what all these principles are all about, is helping us connect to the highest within us. And shine. Plug in and shine. Live with radiant enthusiasm that inspires those around us. So Those are the 10 principles. As you can tell, I'm super excited about this stuff. We're going to go into detail on each of these principles in each of the 90 minute sessions. And I am just really excited about it. And I hope to have the opportunity to play with you this summer. Trust you're doing great and look forward to hanging out starting May 25th. So if you're feeling it, sign up and, yeah, let's have some fun. Have an awesome day. Talk to you soon. Bye.