Positive Psychology 101: How to Tap into the Science of Optimizing + Actualizing (Intro)

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living 101 Masterclass Series. So far we've covered Greatest Year Ever 101, Masterpiece Days 101, Habits 101, Conquering Procrastination 101 and Relationships 101. Today I'm really excited to focus on Positive Psychology 101, the Science of optimizing and actualizing. In this class we usually do 10 big ideas. Today we're going to do 10 big ideas, but focused on my 10 favorite psychologists, the researchers and scientists whose ideas have most changed my life. And, and that I think can most positively impact your life. So let's take a quick look at those 10 psychologists and then we'll go in deeper into each. We're going to start with Abraham Maslow and his self actualizer. You might know Abraham Maslow as the 20th century humanistic psychologist who came up with the hierarchy of needs. At the peak of that hierarchy is the need to self actualize. Maslow told us what, what one can be, one must be. We're gonna talk about that in depth, what it means to self actualize and how to go about doing it. The second researcher we're gonna look at psychologist we're going to look at is Viktor Frankl. One of my heroes survived the horrors of the Holocaust. And he told us that everything can be taken from us, all freedoms can be taken from us. But the last human freedom, the freedom to choose our response to, to any given situation, stimulus, response, there's a gap. We need to choose wisely. We're going to talk about how to do that. The third psychologist I'm excited to explore is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He wrote the classic book Flow. We're gonna look at the science of optimal human experience. When we're at our best and we feel our best, there are some basic tenets we're gonna look at to get into that more often. And guess what? The actualizing individual lives in flow. Maslow called those peak experiences more often than the average person. The fourth person we're going to look at is Martin Seligman. We've covered his work in a number of different ways. Learned optimism, authentic happiness. We're going to focus on his most recent book, Flourish. Seligman is known as the godfather of the positive psychology movement. And we're going to talk about flourishing and the virtues that we need to identify and put into action on a daily basis so we can Reach our highest potential. There's an amazing science to that will help you unpack it and figure out your calling and write a calling description. The fifth psychologist and researcher, Carol Dweck, who's known for her work on mindsets. We can either have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset, right? An entity mindset, she says, or an incremental notion. We need to know that our intelligence, our ability is not fixed. We can get better. There's some unbelievable research on this that has influenced me creatively and as a parent that I'm excited to share. So that's our fifth individual. The sixth individual we're going to look at is Roy Baumeister. Martin Seligman says Roy Baumeister is his favorite social psychologist. He's the most cited social psychologist alive. He's known for his work on willpower. I talk about this all the time. We're going to do a whole class on Willpower 101. But he calls willpower the queen of all virtues. Willpower out predicts IQ for academic performance by a factor of two. That's crazy. If I know your IQ and I know your willpower, by knowing your willpower, I can predict how you're going to do academically and everything else way better than your native intelligence. That's amazing. We're going to talk about some ways to cultivate willpower. The seventh researcher we're going to look at Talpin Shahar. Tal taught the most popular class in Harvard's history, positive psychology 101. Awesome stuff. We're going to talk about two of his ideas. One, the optimalist helped me deal with my own perfectionism. Really cool idea. Optimalist, Perfectionist. There's a big difference between the two. We're going to talk about that. And then also the happiness archetype. You need to not only have a goal you're excited about, but you need to enjoy the process. You can't just be in the now you and you can't just be chasing a dream. You need both. Happiness archetype. We'll talk about that. Our eighth psychologist is Gabriel Oettingen. Gabriel Oettingen came up with Woop. My absolute favorite big idea from 2015. I talk about this in nearly every class because it's huge. The science of visualizing and effectively achieving your goals. You can't just fantasize. You've got to imagine the obstacles are going to get in the way to create a necessity to act and the energy to go do what needs to get done. Big, big stuff. Our ninth research psychologist is Michelle Seeger. She's out of the University of Michigan and she's one of the leading researchers in the world on the science of motivation as it relates to healthy behaviors. She says meaning matters. The why that you give to yourself for why you eat well or exercise, et cetera matters. So 75% of the people out there give the wrong why. We're going to talk about the right why which will help boost your performance and make all those habits lifetime habits. We're also going to explore your number one most important self care habit that we need to make non negotiable. And finally, our tenth researcher is Kelly McGonigal out of Stanford. She wrote the great book the Upside of Stress. The Upside of Stress. Yeah, there's an upside to stress. How you think about stress has an amazing impact on the effects of that stress. If you think stress is harmful, it will be more harmful to you than if you think that stress is energizing and enhancing. Fascinating stuff. We're going to talk about how to flip that switch and use stress to eat it like an energy bar and use it to engage more powerfully rather than try to dampen it and calm down, etc. So those are our 10 psychologists, some of their best big ideas. I'm really excited to jump in. Let's do that. Now members, of course you get access to this everything else. If you're not a member yet, get access to this class, all the other classes in the series, a ton of other stuff in the archives and everything going forward. 10 bucks a month. I hope you enjoy and I'm excited to jump in. Now. Let's do this. So if you enjoyed that quick overview, I think you'll love the full class. Become a member and get instant access to this class. Plus a bunch of other optimal living 101 masterclasses and over 300 philosopher's notes and a bunch of other goodness. It's only 10 bucks per month. I think you'll love it. Join thousands of other cool peeps at BrianJohnson Me Membership. It's BrianJohnson Me Membership.