1: September 8, 2009, is a day that Dr. Peter Attia will never forget.
He had just swum to Catalina from Los Angeles, a twenty-one-mile open ocean swim that took him fourteen hours.
“I was standing on a beach on Catalina Island when my wife, Jill, turned to me and said, ‘Peter, I think you should work on being a little less not thin.’
“Less not thin?” he thought to … continue reading
1: Imagine we go to the doctor. We are tested for Type 2 diabetes.
Suppose our hemoglobin A1c test result is 6.5 percent or higher. In that case, we will receive “extensive treatment, including drugs that help the body produce more insulin, drugs that reduce the amount of glucose the body produces, and eventually, the hormone insulin itself, to ram glucose into their highly insulin-resistant tissues,” Peter Attia writes in … continue reading
1: “As a surgical resident at Johns Hopkins, I would learn that death comes at two speeds: fast and slow,” Peter Attia writes in his book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
Peter had chosen Hopkins for his medical residency because of its top-notch reputation for excellence in liver and pancreatic cancer surgery.
But the fact it was located in downtown Baltimore also meant he and his fellow … continue reading
1: Tony Horton is the founder of the wildly popular P90X fitness series.
He is one ultra-fit individual.
So, what are our assumptions about Tony? Number one: This guy obviously loves to work out.
Actually, he doesn’t.
In fact, he tracks how he feels before starting his workout. He says, depending on the day, three different voices show up in his head:
1: Many people are naturally “Either/or.”
“Either extroverts or introverts, competitive or cooperative, smart or naïve,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.
However, people with long-term careers requiring creativity are not built this way.
Creatives are often “Both/and.”
“Creative people show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated,” psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes in his masterwork, creativity. “They contain … continue reading
1: Sir Ken Robinson had the opportunity to interview George Lucas.
“Hey, George,” he asked, “why do you keep remaking all those Star Wars movies?”
“In this particular universe,” George responded, “I’m God. And God isn’t satisfied,”
Sir Ken is one of the leading proponents for creativity. “His TED Talk on the subject remains the most watched of all time,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak … continue reading
1: “Every morning, the writer faces a blank page, the painter an empty canvas, the innovator a dozen directions to go at once,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.
“There is something deeply exhausting about the year-in and year-out requirements of imagination,” he notes.
How do we overcome this daily challenge?
“The advice that has helped me solve this slog came from Nobel … continue reading
When we think about creativity, we typically think about a particular type: The day-to-day creativity that we use to solve the problem at hand.
But there is a second type of creativity, Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.
“Ten years ago, I started investigating a critical but rarely discussed type of creativity,” he writes, “I got curious about what it took to sustain … continue reading
1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.
Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.
In past weeks, we’ve been exploring the idea of the GAP and the GAIN, as outlined in the book of the same name by Dan Sullivan and Ben … continue reading
1: Remember the classic 1946 Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life?
George Bailey is about to jump off a bridge and end his life.
An angel named Clarence appears. He “takes George through a spiritual tour of the world as it would have been had George never been born,” Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy write in The Gap and The Gain: The High Achiever’s Guide to Happiness, Confidence, … continue reading
