PNTV - The Science of Being Great by Wallace D. Wattles

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in Less time.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got a great book, how to Be a Genius or the Science of Being Great. Kind of a funny title, super cheesy looking book, funny named author Wallace D. Wattles. But it's packed with wisdom.

Good stuff.

I've got all my little blue marky thingies in there and I've got about 15 big ideas in our six page PDF philosopher's note. And I'm excited to share some great big ideas in here and hope you dig it. So Wallace D. Wattles, old school guy around the turn of the 19th century. When did he die? He died in 1911. 1860 to 1911. He's deeply influenced a lot of people in the personal development, self development movement. His Science of Getting Rich is super popular and this book is great. Again, funny titles to his books. We also did the Science of Getting Rich, by the way. That's one of the hundred we profile as well. But anyway, I want to start with a look at why we should be even interested in the Science of Being Great or How to Be a Genius. He says that why we want to be interested in this is that there's no greater service we can give to God than the service of making the most of ourselves. It's not enough to punch our ticket to heaven with a trip to church on Sunday or a trip to the soup kitchen once or twice a year. That's not holy. And then to go home and eat pizza and drink Coke and watch TV all night long. That's not a sacred life, in my opinion. I firmly believe in what he talks about here, that the greatest service we can give to God and therefore to the world is, is to make the most of ourselves. To take advantage of this precious life. We have to create as much personal power as we can by connecting to the universal mind, to God, to divinity, whatever you want to call it, and really shine in the world. So that's why I'm so passionate about philosophy and this book, the Science of Being Great. So that's the end of the note and we're going to start there. The actual end, end to end of the note is the world needs demonstration more than instruction. You might have heard me say that a few times if you've watched a lot of these. The world needs demonstration more than it needs instruction. That comes from this book. What does that mean? It means that we need less people telling us what to do and more people doing what needs to be done. And that ranges from the self help gurus and all that stuff, the priests, etc. Down to parents and their kids. Kids need less instruction and more demonstration, right? The Dalai Lama was once asked, how do you teach kids how to live a moral life, an ethical life? The Dalai Lama says, you have the most challenging job because it doesn't matter what you say, the kids are going to do what you do. You need to actually, as Gandhi says, be the change. So the world needs demonstration more than it needs instruction. Really cool idea. And that ties back to. We can render no greater service to God than to make the most of ourselves. Therefore, let's go out and rock this stuff.

What else?

Well, here's a great idea. He says that we need to have faith, but it's not faith in ourselves, right? It's faith in principle. It's faith in the principle that if, if we embody these ideas that we so passionately pursue in these episodes and in these notes and in our lives, if we pursue and live those principles, we will live a life of increasing levels of happiness, of joy, of love, appreciation, abundance in every sense. So it's faith in the principle. It's faith in the universal harmony that if we live these ideas, we will see the results we want to see. We've got to have an unbending faith in that, right? Even if our faith in ourselves wanes sometimes, we've got to believe that if we do these things, if we exercise consistently, if we meditate consistently, if we eat well, if we practice optimizing our minds, if we create a compelling vision for our lives, if we consistently take impeccable action and try to live with more and more love and all the other things we talk about that we will experience, all the things we're passionate about experiencing, and all the material benefits will come as a byproduct of that type of lifestyle. Really cool idea, having faith in principle. I love that he says this. He says it's impossible for an anxious or worried person to read the thoughts of God and that being great is all about reading the mind of God. He says, but you can't do that if you're anxious and stressed and overwhelmed and in a hurry and depressed and all these things, fearful, etc. Because you're just. From another perspective, we can look at it as brain states. If you remember the notes on Thresholds of the Mind and on the Silva Method of Mental. Silva Mind Control Method of Mental Dynamics, we talk about different brain states. When you're in fear, you're in a high beta. And literally your brain is going like this very, very quickly. Whereas when you're in alpha, your brain slows down. This is the heart of creativity. You're not doing much creative thinking when your brain is moving like this. Then you get into deeper meditation, aided by different things we talked about in those notes, and you're dropping into a deeper state of alpha. And even if you're a sophisticated meditator, into theta, where your brain waves slow down even more. There's more harmony between your left and right hemispheres. Then in deep sleep delta, your brain is even more slowed down and the waves go like this. We're even more connected to the universal power, right? So what we want to learn to do is to connect to and read in his words, the mind of God. We can only do that by finding stillness throughout our day and being able to quiet our mind when it starts getting out of control. In the last episode, we talked about the jumping monkey who is maddened drunk and and stung by a scorpion. Well, that would be high beta. That'd be anxious. Fearful thoughts are rattling around your brain. A million thoughts a second. Not going to read the thoughts of God. Not going to be in a state we want to be in if we want to achieve the level of greatness, genius we're capable of. Which leads us to the next big idea. I'm going to jump around here. He says, everyone is capable of greatness. This is not reserved for a few select individuals. Paulo Coelho says the same thing. I think it was in a dialogue with him, a great interview that he did. He said, look, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that greatness is the birthright of everyone. It is not reserved for a select few. We all have the extraordinary within us. It's an amazing concept. We need to believe in that as we go out and live our lives. So I like that idea a lot. We all have greatness within us. We all have that potential. The question is, are we going to truly embody these ideals and move forward and shine our lights as brightly as we can not? Does the potential exist? The next big idea here is hurry. If you're in connection with the divine, you are not in a hurry. If you're in a hurry, that's a good sign that you're disconnected. It's a good sign that you're living from fear, some sense of scarcity that you have to get somewhere really fast, right? I say as I rush through these PNTV episodes. So we want to slow Down. We want to act in connection with the divine. And as we have perfect faith, as he says, in the principle that we believe in, we just take the next step, the next step, the next step, and trust that everything will become what we want it to be. So next big idea here is when is a good time to be great? Is it maybe in a decade when you've put in your 10,000 hours? Is it in a year when you, you know, gotten in better physical health? Is it, you know, in a month, once you've, you know, gotten the philosopher's notes or you've done this or you've done that? No, the great. The time to be great is now. Now, right this second is a good opportunity to. To be that greatness in this moment. To think of yourself in the highest light you can and act consistently with that. Wayne Dyer, which we've talked about, has an awesome idea on acting as if, right? So imagine your ideal self, your greatest, most magnificent expression of yourself. Then ask yourself, how would that version of you act right now? How would they eat? How would they breathe? How would they work out and train? How would they create? How would they work during the days? How would they interact with their kids? Act as if you were that version of yourself now and you're going to find that gap closing. And it's a really, really fun momentum that's created. So the final big idea here is to be great. We have to serve greatly. He says the average person thinks of greatness as being served and being doted on. He says, no, no, no, no. True greatness is giving yourself fully to the world.

Serv.

Serving, giving, giving, giving, serving greatly. And huge idea. Nietzsche has a great idea we talk about in the note on Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He says the average person, those of the mob, want something for nothing. They feel entitled. They want everything from life. He says the great ones are the ones who seek to give joy. And we should not seek to enjoy life to enjoy life unless we give joy. So that's the essence of greatness. We're out of time. Hope you dug it. Get your greatness on. Have an awesome day. Share more with you soon.

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