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In our last +1 we met our Angel’s Advocate via Michael Gelb’s great book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci.

Abraham Maslow studied the greatest people of his generation. People like Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Einstein.

Angela Duckworth created the science of Grit. It’s fascinating. She defines it as intense passion + intense perseverance. In short, you’re REALLY fired up about something and you’re willing to show up every day for however long it takes to make your dream a reality.

Gabriele Oettingen is a world-class researcher who has spent her career studying the science of making your dreams come to life.

Continuing our theme of feelings following behavior, let’s chat about some wisdom from the author of Resilience.

Phil Stutz and Barry Michels wrote a great book called The Tools. There are five Tools in the book and we may chat about others later but I want to focus on the first for now.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that the law does not concern itself with trifles and we busted out some old-school Latin and applied it to our lives.

We’re hitting another exciting milestone in our +1 series today: #200.

Speaking of perfectionism, let’s look at the essence of Tal Ben-Shahar’s great book The Pursuit of Perfect.

Are you familiar with the physics of dominoes?

In our last +1, we talked about Martin Seligman and the science of flourishing.

Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, teacher, parent, manager, or — fill in the blank here —, what percentage of your game do you think is mental?

Jack Nicklaus once said that the real key to being a great golfer was “playing badly well.”

Georges St-Pierre is one of the greatest mixed martial artists in the world. Ever.

David Reynolds wrote what might be the best book you (and most other people) have never heard of.

In our last couple +1s we talked about taking the decade-long view of our lives. Then we chatted about how to create great days consistently.

Although I’m not a huge fan of some of the drawbacks of animal testing, this study is astonishing and worth knowing about.

Emily Fletcher was a Broadway performer living the dream.

Piers Steel is a leading research scientist. After analyzing hundreds of studies on motivation, he came up with a little equation to capture the essence of motivation. It’s a little abstract on first blush but worth internalizing and using as one of our tools. I recommend keeping this ready at hand and using it often to see where your motivation may be waning and how to keep it strong.

Stephen Covey’s son Sean wrote a great book with some other smart guys from FranklinCovey called The 4 Disciplines of Execution.

Yesterday we talked about our motivation equation. You know: Motivation = Value x Expectancy / Impulsivity x Delay

Vice Admiral James Stockdale was shot down during the Vietnam War. He spent seven and a half years in a brutal prison camp. He spent four of those years in solitary confinement and two years in leg irons. He was tortured fifteen times.

Alison Wood Brooks is a researcher at Harvard Business School. She studies the most effective strategy for dealing with acute stress.

In our last +1, we talked about you feasting on your Hero Bars—using memories of your past success as fuel to walk through fear doors today.

Albert Bandura is one of the most respected psychologists in the world. He studies the science of self-efficacy. Also known as: The science of confidence.

In our last +1, we talked about Martin Seligman’s ideas on the science of having a Job vs. a Career vs. a Calling. I proposed we aim to have ALL THREE such that our work involves us using our signature strengths in greatest service to the world WHILE getting paid well AND having fun mastering our chosen domain.

In Getting Grit, Caroline Adams Miller walks us through the science of grit and then helps us apply it to our lives.

David Emerald wrote a great book called The Power of TED*.

In our last +1, we talked about paying the price to achieve our wildly important goals—whatever they may be. I shared a partial accounting of the price I’ll be paying to have a shot at one of my big goals and we checked in on YOUR accounting. (How’d that go for you? 🤓)

To the extent that there’s a gap between who you’re capable of being in any given moment and who are actually being in that moment, you will experience a level of discontent. Regret. Anxiety. Depression.

In our last +1 we talked about the three reasons why we err: necessary fallibility (we’re not omniscient and some things are outside of our human capacity; therefore, we err), ignorance (we may not know what to do; therefore, we err), and ineptitude (we know what to do but we don’t do it; therefore we err).

Jason Selk is one of the world’s leading mental toughness coaches. He tells us that the best among us have a “relentless solution focus.”Note: RELENTLESS solution focus.

In our last +1, we talked about inviting the Conquering Hero to your mind-wandering party and escorting out the Suffering (Whiney) Martyr.

Continuing our quick tour through James Clear’s Atomic Habits, let’s talk about the importance of your Identity in forming better habits (and breaking the bad ones). (Soon we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of his 4 Laws of Behavior Change.)

In our last +1, we talked about the two facets of Emotional Stamina.

Creative and reactive.

Imagine your ideal self.

In The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy makes the important point that we have more control over the very beginnings of our day and the very ends of our days than we do over the middle of the days.

Continuing our good times with our Stoic friends, how about couple more gems from Seneca and Aurelius?

In our last +1 we had fun with our new mantra: “No pressure, no diamonds.”

Ultimately, what we want to get *really* (!!!) good at alchemizing any and all challenges into fuel for the bonfire that is our passionate commitment to living a heroic life in service to something bigger than ourselves.

Deo volente.

A little while back, we talked about the keynote talk I was getting ready to present (as part of the Pritzker Group Venture Capital’s annual event for the 60+ portfolio CEOs). Today I’d like to give a quick update on how it went and then talk about how I dealt with my nerves leading up to it—with an emphasis on a little distinction I made about how to apply the “Bring it on!” and “I’m excited!” tools.

In his great book Antifragile, Nassim Taleb walks us through the fact that there’s a big difference between being fragile, being resilient, and being ANTIfragile.

Don Miguel Ruiz wrote The Four Agreements. His classic little book has sold over 5 million copies in the US and has been translated into 38 languages.

So, we’re ready to go ALL IN and make that 100% commitment with super bright lines.

Continuing our theme of spending time with some of the best productivity thinkers on the planet, let’s cruise on over to Harvard Business School and spend some time with its head of research, Teresa Amabile.

After selling my first business over fifteen years ago, I had enough money to spend some time figuring out what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Steven Kotler wrote a great book called The Rise of Superman. In it, he challenges some myths of mastery—telling us that it’s not so much about having the right DNA or the willpower to delay gratification for 10,000 hours.

Jim Rohn tells us that our success in life is all about the two easies. It’s all about consistently doing the tiny (!) fundamentals that are simultaneously super easy to do and super easy not to do.

Ray Dalio is one of the most successful people alive. Time magazine says he’s one of the 100 most influential people on the planet while Fortune magazine says his company (Bridgewater Associates) is the fifth most important private company in the U.S. and Forbes tells us he’s one of the 100 wealthiest people alive.

I dropped out of law school before a semester was over but I do remember one Big Idea from Contracts class.

Charisma.

The other day we chatted about my recent staycation with my Stoic friends.

Rick Snyder was the founder of research into the science of hope. And, he was one of the pioneers of the positive psychology movement. In fact, he literally wrote the textbook on “Positive Psychology.”

In our last +1, we spent some time hanging out with my friend Katherine Collins who is, I am quite sure, the only human on the planet who has run a multi-billion dollar mutual fund AND gone to Harvard Divinity School.

What do you say to yourself when things don’t go as planned?

In our last number of +1s, we’ve been having fun swimming in and out of the Atomic Habits pool. Most recently, we had fun measuring Michael Phelps’ inseam and noticing the fact that it PERFECTLY matched the domain he chose to dominate. (Does YOUR soul-inseam fit your life?)

Imagine this: It’s your first day of art class. You signed up for an intro class on pottery. (Nice! Go you!)

Continuing our theme of how to become Antifragile Heroes, let’s look at another way to rock it.

In our last +1, we talked about the PM ritual Pythagoras came up with 2,500 years ago (!) that the Stoics liked to follow:

Here’s another really powerful tool from The Tools guys, Phil Stutz and Barry Michels.

Have you ever heard of “activation energy”?

At this point, most of us know that Roger Bannister was the first person to break the 4-minute mile. Very smart people of his era said that it was impossible. Period. End of story. He, of course, wasn’t so sure.

In our last +1, we talked about LeBron James and the fact that he tries to get 11 to 12 hours of sleep per day when he’s training. (So does Roger Federer. And, Tom Brady is in bed at 8:30. 😴)

We know it’s important to take good breaks. We want to work for a certain period of time (NASA says no more than 90 minutes or so) and then take a break. Repeat. Making waves as we oscillate from being on to being off.

Let’s talk some more about how to become Antifragile.

True confidence doesn’t come from thinking everything will always go perfectly.

Viktor Frankl was a remarkable human being.

So, let’s say you’ve decided to embark on a heroic quest. It’s time for you to leave the normal, routine life and really go for it—stretching yourself to dare greatly and do what you’re here to do.

Let’s say you’re building a new habit a la the Quick How to on Habits +1.

Continuing our theme of making waves and riding them to greatness, let’s learn a little more about how Tony Schwartz applies this wisdom to his own life.

In our last +1, we talked about an exercise to get a little more clarity on the trade-offs you might be making in regard to your top priorities and your tech usage.

While we’re chatting about the science of hope, let’s focus on a key leadership stat.

Idiosyncratic.

Returning to our Hero’s journey theme, imagine yourself at the start of an epic journey. You’re looking out across a canyon. You can see a shimmering oasis on the other side of the canyon. It’s epic. Super bright and shiny and awesome. And it’s yours. You know it. You can feel it.

The other day I was taking a little napitation and I thought to myself, “Self, you should do a +1 on Napitations.”

In our last +1, we talked about Matthew Kelly’s encouragement to slow down, step back, and take the decade view on our lives.

In our last +1 we had fun cultivating a strong Self-Image via “That’s like me!” imprints.

Today we have a Heroic +11. (Hah.)

The other day I had a coaching call with a Hero. It’s always super fun to have a chat with someone who’s ALL IN.

In Greatest Year Ever 2019, we kicked the party off by reminding ourselves of the ultimate game we’re playing—leaning into Aristotle’s wisdom (yet again!) that the summum bonum of life (the highest good!) is to experience the joy of flourishing by having a great relationship with our inner soul.

Stephen Guise wrote a great little book called How to Be an Imperfectionist. As a still-recovering perfectionist, I found it very useful.

In our last +1, we talked about mastering Ownish and noticing when we slip into Victimese. (We also talked about going all in and mastering the dialect of Extreme Ownish—which, I’m told, is where it’s REALLY at. 🤓)

In our last +1, we talked about Stephen Covey’s Habit #1: Be Proactive. How? Be response-able. Step into the gap between stimulus and response and choose the optimal response.

Martin Seligman is basically the Godfather of the Positive Psychology movement. He’s written a number of seminal books on the science of well-being.

At the end of my recent talk I keep on talking about 😉, one of the CEOs came up and asked me how to apply the wisdom I shared to his parenting. He had a 5-year-old like me.

You’ve probably heard the whole “magic of compounding interest as told through the doubling penny” story.

Dan Siegel is one of the world’s leading mindfulness / neuroscience / interpersonal neurobiology experts.

As you might have noticed, it’s easy to stress ourselves out as we strive to step up to our heroic potential.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that we need to train our recovery the same way we train our Deep Work. We want to create nice, rhythmic waves in our lives and prioritize rest. One great way to do that? Deep Play.

As we go ALL IN on optimizing our lives, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

Lanny Bassham won a gold medal in rifle shooting in the 1976 Olympics. But he didn’t win that gold until AFTER he kinda fell apart in the 1972 Olympics where he took home a silver.

In her great book Self-Compassion, Kristin Neff shares a little equation that can help us reduce our suffering.

Eric Butterworth was a Unity minister in New York City. He wrote a great book called Spiritual Economics that helped me integrate my spiritual and material ambitions. I HIGHLY recommend it.

In our last +1, I casually mentioned the fact that our heroic reframing of challenges is something we will work on forever.

In our last +1 we talked about Byron Katie’s idea that you can be in one of three businesses: someone else’s business, God’s business or YOUR business.

Once upon a time (1938 to be precise) there was a pistol shooter. He was incredibly good. Hoped to be the very best, in fact.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that the word courage comes from the Latin word for “heart.” Just as our heart pumps blood to the rest of our body, our COURAGE pumps energy to our other virtues.

First: Welcome to our 100th +1. It’s a special milestone. Kinda excited about it. 😃

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner are two of the world’s leading academic researchers on the science of leadership.