PNTV: Do You! by Russell Simmons (#34)

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Hey, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes. Tv. Today, as always, we've got a great book, do you? By Russell Simmons. You can't see his happy face, but Russell Simmons, do you. Awesome book. My philosopher's note on it where I've got about 15 of my favorite big ideas. This book, I didn't know much about Russell Simmons before I got this book from my friend Robin Sharma. This little card that he had put in the card when he sent it to me. Robin Sharma wrote the Monk who Sold His Ferrari and the Greatness Guide. And he's just a good guy when he recommends a book. Particularly when he sends me a book, I read it and just awesome, awesome book. Do you. Russell Simmons is affectionately known as the godfather of hip hop. He's part yogi, part business mogul and just all around rock star and just a good guy. I like to say that I know a good book when I finish it and I say the guy who wrote this book or the woman who wrote this book is just a good person. And I totally had this experience when I read this book. So it's just awesome. I so many big ideas in the book and so many big ideas in the note. I'm going to pull out a few of my favorites right now. And here we go. So number one, the first law of this book is all about the 12 laws to access the power in you to achieve happiness and success. That's kind of the subtitle. So 12 laws. The first law is the law of vision, that we've got to have a clear vision, a clear sense of what we want to create in our lives. And Russell just goes off on all different ways that he locks in his vision. He says, you got to get clear on what you want to see and you got to freeze it in place. You got to journal about it. You got to talk about it. He's really funny about how when he has an idea that inspires him, everybody hears about it all the time. And he says that once I have a vision for a new venture, I'm going to ride that vision until the wheels come off. I just love that he gets clear on what he's going to do and success is his only option. He's going to make it happen. He's going to ride it till the wheels come off. And he says, don't be the kind of person who comes up with a cool idea that you're really excited about. And then the moment that obstacles come in your way, you kind of give up and it dissipates and you come up with all the convenient reasons not to go out and rock it. But having a clear vision and clearly committing to it is essential, as we know we talk about this again and again and again and again. It was the big idea from the last note we did on Gay Hendricks Conscious living. This idea of commitment. You're either 100% committed or you're not committed. So what's your vision? What inspires you? If you can do anything in the world, what would it be? If you had an angels advocate, not a devil's advocate that tells you everything that's going to go wrong, but an angel's advocate who's sitting there and you got a magic wand you can wave and create your ideal future, what would it look like? What would the vision be? For your personal health, for your relationships, for your family, for your creative expression in business or art or whatever it is. What's that vision? Get clear on it and go for it. That's law number one. Really good stuff. So Russell Simmons is a yogi. As I mentioned, he talks about Sanskrit throughout the book, which is really cool. He writes in a laid back style, yet is obviously a deeply spiritual human being. And he shares a couple of really cool ideas and Sanskrit concepts. The first one is mantra, or one of my favorite ones is mantra. So did you know that the word mantra. We know what a mantra is. It's something we repeat to ourselves to kind of focus our minds and build positive momentum and energy. But the word comes from two Sanskrit words, man and tra. So apparently the word means to think, man to think. And then TRA is a tool. So a mantra is a tool of thought. It's literally a tool we use to shape our thoughts. How cool is that? Amazing. I just think it's awesome. And Russell goes off on the fact that having a clear and focused mind is our greatest asset. All the great teachers talk about this. This is the first principle in my evolving philosophy of being able to shape the contents of our consciousness, being able to shape the flow of our thoughts. And mantras are really powerful way to do that. So you might already have some mantras. You use some of my favorite mantras. The simple mantra of thank you. I've said thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to myself thousands and tens of thousands of times. I love. I deeply and completely accept myself. I deeply and completely accept myself. That's awesome. I love myself. Very simple mantra. I've Got a few other mantras here in the note, but pick some mantras and when you're walking around on a hike or you're on the bus going to work or on the subway or whatever it is, driving, have a mantra that you're playing and bring your attention from the scatteredness of your life into a focused energy point. So really, really cool practice. I also do a mantra based meditation for the first half an hour of my hour. Morning meditation and for 15 minutes a night. My mantra is top secret on that one though. I can't share. But mantras, tools of thought, tools of the mind, really big idea. Come up with some mantras, rock them in your life. Another big idea here we come back to again and again and again is gratitude. I call this big idea the breakfast of champions. Russell says that when he starts off his day with gratitude, when he thinks about all the things he's appreciative of, he has a much better day than when he doesn't do that. It's a breakfast of champions. How do we have gratitude? Appreciation for all the amazing things in our life? Think about that. Rock that consistently. It's scientifically proven to increase your levels of happiness, which we talk about again and again and again and again and again and again. We've got a great idea here called rotting fish. And Russell's a deeply spiritual guy and he says, look, God gave you gifts, and it's kind of like God giving you fish that you're meant to give to the world. You have fish, right? You got a, you know, a bucket load of fish or whatever it is, and you're meant to give it to the world. He's also a vegan, so pardon the metaphor here, but you have fish, you have gifts to give to the world. And if you don't give them to the world, it's like having a bucket of fish that was supposed to be given away so people can eat, but now it's just rotting. It's just sitting there getting stinky and rotting, rotting, rotting, rotting versus if you got them and then gave them, got more gifts and gave them. It's an amazing concept and we talk about it more here in the note. It's something I come back to again and again and again. Abraham Maslow, the great humanistic psychologist, said, what one can be, one must be. We have this need. He calls it the need to self actualize. Kind of like having the fish. We have a need to give those fish away. We have a need to fully express ourselves and to self actualize as our basic Needs are taken care of. We've got to address that really cool stuff. A lot of great teachers talk about it. We talk about some more here. He says the pain of avoiding work, avoiding hard work, right? And the pain that comes when we don't do what's in front of us is much greater than the pain of just doing it. Just taking the next baby step. And when we stall, when we have a vision that inspires us, we have these gifts we're destined to give to the world, but we stall. We don't give them to the world. That's incredibly painful. And he says what we need to do is take baby steps. We're not going to create institutions overnight. That's just silly. We're not going to visualize something and then all of a sudden it's going to pop into our life perfectly the next day. At least that's not how I see things. We've got to put in the effort and diligently, patiently, persistently, playfully, joyfully give ourselves to the world. And as we do that, we'll feel the joy and we'll move closer and closer to our vision. So we talk about it a fair amount, and I don't have time to go into it right now. But holding the tension between our ideal and our current reality. The only way to do that is to take baby steps, to take action toward our goal. Too often we give up on our goal because we can't handle the tension or we numb ourselves or whatever it is. We've just got to take baby steps consistently. So what in your life are you inspired to do that you need to take some more action on? Don't stop. Really big idea. Part of that is a concept. Another Sanskrit word called tapas. Tapas. So in Sanskrit, this word means essentially purification. And you burn out the impurifications in our consciousness and in our beingness. That allows us to more deeply connect with our highest self, with our source, divine potential, God, whatever you call it. And tapas. It's like a burning heat. One way to burn through our impurities is through hard work. It's through giving ourselves to the world. In service consistently in the form of work. Really cool idea. We've got a bunch of other great ideas here. Check them out. I think you're going to love the book. And do you. The idea is, do you. Don't do somebody else and try to imitate or compare yourself to anyone else. Do you. You have a specific set of unique, amazing gifts you're here to give to the world. You give them have fun. If you like this, check out the note, check out the book, it's awesome. And here's to doing you. Have fun more soon.

See you.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optymyze with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me.

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