The OptimalWork Podcast

#19: Exercise has a tremendous power to transform your brain. Surprisingly, exercise has been shown to be one of the most effective treatments for depression. In this video, we discuss why this is the case, and why exercise offers unique benefits for everyone, from shaping the way you approach challenges to the way your brain functions.

#18: Embracing challenges starts with your judgements about them. If you’re stuck seeing challenges as threats, you need reframing. Rather than avoiding challenges, or forcing yourself to get them over with, reframing means recognizing each challenge as an opportunity for growth or service, by placing it in its true context of your whole life. Reframing is not just a mental trick — it causes an identifiable change in your brain. Among other things, this episode covers why it’s important and how to do it — with a thorough example.

#17: How motivated are you to tackle the challenges of the day? For many, motivation comes and goes, which means it’s not really under your control and, more importantly, it’s not really coming from you. You get motivated by things, rather than you motivating yourself to do what’s best. Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif discuss what motivation really is, what the only true stable source of motivation is, and how to cultivate it so you can always feel motivated to give your best.

Exploring the significance of outcomes and the sacrifices one may need to make to achieve them. The problem of attachment to outcomes and its negative effects on our lives. Setting sincere goals and sacrificing outcomes for the people we love. The impact of following a predetermined path on personal life and the importance of family. Balancing outcomes and personal growth, prioritizing people over projects.

#15: In this episode Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif discuss the nature and cause of anxiety. Understanding how anxiety works and what it really is — which is quite simple — can help you transform your approach to it. Crucially, as Dr. Majeres explains, anxiety is not a disorder or something to be avoided. Anxiety can be transformed into your best performance by following three steps: reframing, mindfulness, and engaging the challenge. You can follow these three steps before a time of work, turning it into a Golden Hour of focus and training yourself to embrace anxiety and use it to your advantage.

Explore the left brain-right brain framework and the motives that drive human actions: fear and love. Emphasize the importance of being motivated by love and serving others for true growth and productivity. Discuss the concept of clean code and its importance in programming, relating it to the motive of service. Explore the power of mindfulness, reframing, and serving others, emphasizing the role of motives rooted in love and gratitude.

A discussion on the roles of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, debunking popular beliefs. Exploring the division between the two hemispheres as explained in Ian McGill-Christ's book. Understanding the specialties and limitations of each hemisphere and their collaboration during the learning process. How the distinction between the left and right brain affects conversation and the importance of using both sides for engaging and empathetic discussions.

In this episode, the hosts discuss the concept of frustration and how it can lead to personal growth and unexpected opportunities. They explore strategies for reframing frustration as a path to growth, redefining success based on personal ideals, and the importance of perseverance and learning from failure. The speakers also delve into the challenges of fitting into rigid categories and the fear of futile efforts in finding perfection in our lives.

Dr. Kevin Majeres and Sharif discuss the default mode network and its impact on work and life, exploring how distractions and rabbit holes affect staying on track, the relationship between distractibility, ADHD, and the default mode network, and the differences between default mode attention and task attention.

#10: Mastery is one of the central concepts of OptimalWork. It means doing work well, and is cultivated through the development and practice of strategies. The projects and templates tools on www.OptimalWork.com are meant to help you make good strategies, and refine them over time. Some of the questions we discussed in this video are: What is mastery? How can you grow in mastery? What's the role of mentoring and collaboration in growing in mastery? What's the relationship between strategies and mastery?