Brian Johnson walks through a five-step practice for optimism grounded in Darren Donnelly's Relentless Optimism and Martin Seligman's research. Start by accepting what is, clarify what you want, map the work needed, then act. The practice treats optimism not as blind positivity but as disciplined thinking about what's in your control.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one, we started talking about book number three in Darren Donnelly's Sports for the Soul series, relentless optimism. Then I called an audible and we chatted about Michael Jordan and Stuart Smalley and how to forge antifragile confidence. You watch that video? It's pretty funny. Today we're going to come back to relentless optimism. Here's how Darren puts it. I quote, positive thinking leads to positive outcomes. Study after study proves this. Researchers have found that optimistic people live longer, live healthier, have more energy, have more successful careers, make better decisions and are more productive, are less stress, have healthy relationships, and not surprisingly, are much happier than pessimists. Now, very importantly, Darren continues by saying, and I quote, however, a lot has been misunderstood about what it means to be a positive thinker and what it takes to maintain an optimistic outlook. He tells us it requires more than repeating feel good platitudes to make positive thinking work in your life. It takes discipline, commitment, and a proper understanding of what optimism really means in a world that is constantly throwing new challenges at us. Now, relentless optimism is a lot more powerful than relentlessly reciting positive platitudes to yourself. In fact, one of the reasons why I loved this book so much is that Darren provides one of the absolute best, most practical distillations of Martin Seligman's research on the science of optimism I've ever read. More on that in our next plus one for today. Let's recall that back in the day we made the distinction between positive, negative and neutral thinking in our notes on Trevor Moad's It Takes what It Takes, I extended those basic ideas to create what we now call targeted thinking in an effort to move from theory to practice to mastery. Together today, let's focus our energy on what's important now via some quick targeted thinking. Practice step zero and go through a sequence of steps here. Flip the switch. Invite the best, most heroic version of yourself to join us. Sit or stand a little taller. Pull the thread through your head. Chest up, chin down. Inhale through your nose, down into your diaphragm. Exhale back out through your nose slightly longer than your inhale and smile. Step one. Radically accept everything in your life. And by everything, I mean everything. And by radically accept, I mean love it all. Act as if you and the heroic gods scripted these challenges and into your life so we get to see you the hero. Show us what you got. Step two. Ask yourself, what do I want? If you feel so inspired, write that down. In big font on the top of a blank piece of paper. I've done this dozens and dozens of times. Then answer the question. Step 3 Ask yourself what do I need to do to get what I want again? Write that down below what you want and get clear. Have multiple pathways. Know your first plan probably won't survive first contact with reality. Perfect. Whoop your plans for those obstacles. Step plus one Ask yourself now what needs to get done? Then go do it. Today's the day, hero. Let's show up like we mean it as we practice our philosophy with targeted thinking and heroic action and relentless optimism.
