This morning I was doing my normal thing. In the process, I came up with a little insight I’m excited to share. First, the quick recap of what led to the insight. Of course, my day started yesterday when I shutdown early the day before (4:00 PM; right after my every-Monday coaching call), hung out with the fam then went to bed super early (7:30 PM) and deliberately spent 10 hours in bed (getting 9 hours of sleep including 1 hour 24 min of REM sleep and 2 hours 23 min of deep sleep). Then I was up at 5:30 AM (I’m sleeping in these days, folks! lol) with an Oura readiness score of 95 (having fun gaming it). 20-min Meditation, 5-min Movement then AM1 Deep Work. I started the Deep Work with our quick “Carpe Diem” journaling session—noting my Identities + Virtues + Behaviors for Energy + Work + Love. (Note: This practice is a cornerstone of our Mastery Series/Optimize Coach program. Aspiring Coaches need to log 200 days of Optimize Carpe Diem journaling as one of the requirements to get certified.) Then I spent some time doing some strategic planning for 2020 and beyond. That journaling looked something like this. At the top I wrote “Philosopher” (technically, I drew the Φ symbol to represent Philosopher). Then I wrote “Soul Force” then “Elegant Simplicity” then “Focus” then “Flow.” (Note1: Every (!) time I write down “10,000” in the +1 column in 25 years, I imagine the 70-year-old version of me smiling and waving and saying, “Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize +1!” (That actually gets me misty just typing that, imagining the potential of us hanging out for that long.) Note2: If all goes as currently planned, we’ll share that +1 exactly 3 months after I turn 70 on August 22, 2044.) Below that Body of Work goodness, I sketched out the three primary components of our biz as I currently see them. These include what I call “Core Wisdom” which is basically the +1s, PNs, and 101s as articulated above in the Body of Work chart. I draw an arrow to infinity to represent my (current) plans to do those forever as the foundation of our work together. (And, so I can be like this guy.) Then I draw a big “greater than” symbol (>) to represent the fact that all that “Core Wisdom” is going to be distilled into what I’m calling a “Mastery Series.” Imagine my absolute best stuff distilled into a “this will change your life” program that will, well, change your life. (lol) Then I draw a “less than” symbol (<) to represent that all THAT energy goes into “Optimize Coach” to represent the fact that a select group of people will go through the Mastery Series and not only master the wisdom for themselves but use our Optimize protocol to Coach others on how to Optimize their lives. Ultimately, my sketch looks kinda like this: CORE WISDOM > MASTERY SERIES < OPTIMIZE COACH But none of that is really the point of Today’s +1. (Although I do like sharing my thought process and I hope you enjoy it as well. I feel like we’re creating something together and I think it’s important to share my (often messy!) creative process as we have fun creating something awesome together.) So… Below all THAT, I reminded myself of my/our Mission. Change the world. One person at a time. Together. Starting with you and me. Then I wrote down: “Elegant Simplicity” + “Fierce Consistency” + “Energized Tranquility” + “Operationalizing Virtue.” THEN… I drew two venn circles. Next to the one on the left I wrote “ELEGANT SIMPLICITY.” Next to the one on the right I wrote “PROFOUND SERVICE.” And all THAT gets us to the point of Today’s +1. After writing “PROFOUND SERVICE” I got up and cruised over to the dictionary. I was curious what “profound” literally meant. Do you know what the word means? Apple Dictionary tells us that profound is an adjective that has a couple definitions: 1 (of a state, quality, or emotion) very great or intense: profound feelings of disquiet | profound social changes. 2 (of a person or statement) having or showing great knowledge or insight: a profound philosopher. Those are interesting, but what I really wanted was the etymology of the word. It’s from the Latin profundus—which means “deep” and is made up of two little words: pro (before) + fundus (bottom). I literally laughed when I read that. Profound. It means DEEP. As in “right before the bottom.” The best part? I have a chat with Cal Newport scheduled for this afternoon. I can’t wait to tell him that Deep (PROFOUND!) Work is what allows us to engage in Deep (PROFOUND!) Service. And THAT, my friend, is Today’s +1. Let’s serve profoundly. Today.
