You Are Heroic with Brian Johnson

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**You Are Heroic with Brian Johnson**

The best big ideas from life-changing books, plus the tools to live them. Brian Johnson helps you move from Theory to Practice to Mastery and flourish in Energy, Work, and Love. More wisdom in less time so you can activate your best, every day.
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Latest Episodes:

Cooking 101 (Intro) Apr 21, 2018

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What You Can Do on a Daily Basis to Optimize Your Nutrition in an Easy and Practical Way.

+1: #380 Seneca Says: Be Harsh with Yourself at Times Apr 20, 2018

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In our last couple +1s, we had some fun at the hospital with our Stoic friends Seneca and Epictetus. Recall Epictetus' wisdom that sometimes good philosophy feels more like a trip to the hospital than a spa. (Ouch!) Seneca echoes this wisdom in Letters from a Stoic where he says, "Be harsh with yourself at times." Now, of course, this does NOT mean that we need to go around like that albino monk from The da Vinci Code mutilating ourselves. (Yowsers!) But… It DOES mean that, at times, with a base of (and, ultimately, OUT OF a deep sense of) self-compassion, we need to give ourselves a Zen stick to the head and wake up from the bad habits that might be dragging us down. As with the virtuous mean chat we had awhile ago, there's a virtuous mean here. TOO MUCH harshness is destructive — we'll develop a sense of self-loathing that Aristotle would consider a vice of excess. TOO LITTLE harshness on the other hand, and we run the risk of being a bit too self-contented. That would be a vice of deficiency. The virtuous mean rests right there in the middle path — where we're appropriately correcting our weaknesses WITHOUT self-criticism per se, just a nice firm "needs work" look in the eye as we embody more and more of our ideals. The great Sufi philosopher Rumi comes to mind. He tells us: "This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace to extract the silver from the dross. This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away." In other words, be harsh with yourself at times. Check yourself into the hospital for the surgery. Throw yourself into the furnace. Let's extract the silver from the dross. Purify the gold within by boiling away the scum. When? Now. And again and again and again. How? With a knowing, joyful, Stoic-Sufi-Optimizing smile.

+1: #375 You, a Farmer and His Horse Apr 15, 2018

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Once upon a time in a land far away, there was an old farmer. This man had a horse. Then, one day, his horse ran away. All the neighbors said, "Gah!! That's such a bummer. What bad luck." The man said, "Maybe. It is what is." Then, one day, the horse returned!! And, lo and behold, the horse brought along a bunch of wild stallions with him! All the neighbors said, "Wow!! That's incredible. What good luck!" The man said, "Maybe. It is what it is." At this point in the story, I should mention that the man also had a son. This son was pretty excited about the new horses. Especially one particularly wild stallion he wanted to ride. So, he hops up on the horse and, WHAM! He gets slammed to the ground and breaks his leg. All the neighbors said, "Ohhhhhhhhh, man! What bad luck. I can't believe that happened. Now your son can't work the fields. That's really bad." The man said, "Maybe. It is what it is." Then one day, the army came marching into the small village. There was a war and the king demanded that all able-bodied young men join them in their battle. Our man's son with the broken leg was spared. All the neighbors said, "Wow. Your son has been saved! What good luck." The man said… Well, at this stage you know what the man said. Today's +1. How do YOU respond to life's events? Is it all either "good" or "bad"? Or, perhaps, is it just what it is? P.S. Shakespeare must have had this Zen story in mind when he had Hamlet say that "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

+1: #370 Mistake-Learner's High Apr 10, 2018

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In our last +1, we talked about Phil Stutz' great phrase: "Endlessly evolving process." Phil likes to draw upward spiraling loops to describe the flow of evolving into the best version of ourselves. In fact, his spiraling loops are almost identical to Ray Dalio's spiraling loops. Remember his? We unpacked his 5-Steps to Success model not too long ago. The super-quick recap: You start with an audacious goal. Then you fail. Then you figure out why you failed. Then you design a better solution to your challenge. Then you get to work on the solution. Then you spiral up and repeat that process of evolving into a slightly better version of you. (For how long? E N D L E S S L Y.) Now, Dalio tells us that it's REALLY important to fall in love with that process. ESPECIALLY (!) the part most people shy away from — that whole failing part. "But can't I just evolve without all those mistakes?" (Insert laughter from all philosophers ever.) (Still laughing.) "No. You can't." Therefore, the wisest among us (with Dalio in the lead on this one) tell us that we want to so fall in love with the process of making mistakes and then getting a little better that we're kinda like a runner who hits a certain point during his or her run where the pain goes away and the "runner's high" takes over. Dalio calls this the "mistake-learner's high." You're so engaged in the dynamic process of Optimizing that you L O V E the mistakes — knowing that they're just part of the process of going after something audacious and the perfect data/fuel to Optimize just a little more today. And, we all know that it's all about aggregating and compounding those tiny little gains over an extended period of time, right? So… Today's +1. Made any mistakes lately? Can you see how those mistakes are an ESSENTIAL part of your (endlessly evolving) process of achieving your audacious goals?! Fantastic. Keep that in mind today. And tomorrow. And the day after that. Enjoy your mistake-learner's high!

+1: #365 Fingers and Lectures Apr 05, 2018

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Please extend your pointer finger and shake it as if you're lecturing someone — saying something like, "You shouldn't do this, this and this! Do that, that and that!" Thank you. Now, look at your hand and count how many fingers are pointing at the person you're lecturing and how many fingers are pointing back at you. Unless you're missing a digit, you should see one finger pointing at the lucky recipient of your lecture and THREE fingers pointing back at you. You may want to pay attention to that the next time you're lecturing someone. Debbie Ford tells us that this practices is a really handy way to notice our "shadow" — the stuff we haven't integrated in our own lives that, unfortunately, we tend to project onto others. She tells us to "attend our own lectures" because, more often than not, whatever lecture we're giving someone else is the one WE desperately need to attend. Today's +1. The next time you start telling someone all the things you think they need to start doing more of or less of or whatever, imagine you're a student diligently taking notes on the lecture you're giving. You might just find that the lecture you're giving *them* is what YOU most need to hear! (And, btw, the sooner you actually do the stuff you're lecturing other people about, the sooner you'll stop lecturing them about it. ;)

Conquering Cancer 102 (Intro) Mar 31, 2018

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+1: #360 Isn't That Extreme? Mar 31, 2018

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Susan Peirce Thompson wrote a great book called Bright Line Eating. She has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and is one of the world's leading experts on the psychology of eating. Before all that, Susan was addicted to cocaine and food and basically everything else — which gives her a very nice vantage point from which to talk about how to recover from addiction. In her book and programs, she applies the bright lines of Willpower 101 we talk about all the time to the fundamentals of Nutrition 101 we talk about all the time. Her top two bright lines for eating? Eliminate sugar and flour. Don't reduce or eat them more moderately. E L I M I N A T E. Susan walks us through all the reasons those edible foodlike substances act more like drugs than food and she points out the havoc they cause in our bodies. But today I want to focus on a question she often gets asked when she encourages people to make a 100% Commitment to those two bright line rules. People often say (insert at least a slightly whiney voice): "But… Isn't that extreme?" "I mean, really? I have to say no to donuts and cookies and pastries and pizza and…?" "Isn't that just sooooo extreme?" NO, she says. Cutting off your limbs because you have diabetes is extreme. Getting checked into the hospital one Tuesday afternoon then losing half your stomach after having gastric bypass surgery because you have a cancerous growth near your pancreas that is a serious threat to your life? THAT is extreme. Removing sugar and flour? Not so much. Today's +1. Eliminate the sugar and flour. Like, jumbo 100% eliminate. Unless you think it's too extreme and you'd prefer the alternative down the line.

+1: #355 The Decade View Mar 26, 2018

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Matthew Kelly has written a number of great books. We have Notes on three of them: Perfectly Yourself, The Rhythm of Life and Off Balance. In Off Balance, Mathew tells us that if we want to change the trajectory of our lives (and/or careers), we need to change the period of time we think about. Here's how he puts it: "So, the first step is, don't be in too much of a hurry to create the ideal life you have imagined. Personal and professional satisfaction are built like a castle, one brick at a time. We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a week. In the same way, we tend to overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in a decade. Take a decade view. Give yourself a decade to build the life you have imagined for yourself, one that is rich and overflowing with personal and professional satisfaction. Until you take the decade view, until you begin to imagine and plan what you can do in a decade, you have not even begun to explore your potential." The decade view. What's YOURS look like? Seriously. Pull out a blank piece of paper. Wave the wand. What's your life look like? That's Today's +1. P.S. From a career/income perspective, Matthew brings the point home by reflecting on how much various people at McDonalds make depending on the time horizon for which they're responsible. Here's a super quick look:

90 second = Drive-thru clerk = $7-$8/hr
8 hours = Shift manager = $12-$15/hr
3 months = Store manager = $20/hr
1 year = Regional manager = $35-$40/hr
20 years = CEO = $10,000/hr (= $20m/year)

Note: The same returns apply to every aspect of our lives. For example, if our time horizon for our happiness is the next 5 minutes, then we'll prioritize eating the donut, having the extra drink or smoking the cigarette. And, guess what? Although it's easy to take for granted, with that approach we're not even guaranteed a decade. Of course, none of us are guaranteed even an extra moment beyond this one but we want to choose wisely and our #1 priority should be making sure we're giving ourselves the best shot to be around in a decade, eh? Here's to a beautiful decade view. See your Future Self. And prioritize your next moment accordingly.

+1: #350 Wealth thru Profound Service Mar 21, 2018

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When I worked with Steve Chandler, one of the themes of our work together was "creating wealth through profound service." I just love that phrase: "Wealth through profound service." Steve wrote a great book called Wealth Warrior and he's the one who inspired me to look up the ancient meaning of the word "astonish." It's from the Latin ex "out" + tonare "to thunder." It literally means "to leave someone thunderstruck." Or, as I like to say, "to strike with lightning." Steve says that most people have the wrong standard. They're thinking about "customer satisfaction." But, he says, how uninspiring is the idea of merely "satisfying" someone? Much better, he says, to ASTONISH. I, of course, agree. All that's nice, but how do we do that? Well, I think the essence of it is found at the nexus point of those three circles we talk about in the +1 called "How's Your Hedgehog?" in which we talk about Jim Collins' perspective on how great businesses (and lives!) are created. In short: Collins tells us we need to find the nexus point of what we truly Love to do, what we can be Great at, and what the world Needs (and, if it's a biz we're talking about, what the market is willing to pay for!). As I was preparing for Abundance 101, I was thinking about those ideas and also thinking about Cal Newport's great book So Good They Can't Ignore You in which he tells us about the perils of following your Passion Mindset at the exclusion of your Craftsman Mindset. Longer chat but I don't think it's either/or. Which led me to sketch the three venn circles for the one millionth time. But this time I wrote: Passion Mindset + Craftsman Mindset + Servant Mindset. I think that if we want to actualize our potential (in creativity, enjoyment and wealth) we need to truly LOVE what we do. My standard? You love it so much you'd pay to do it. That's a Passion Mindset. (Of course, as Professionals we need to do what needs to get done whether we feel like it or not, so I'm not saying it's all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns but we've gotta start with the Love!) And… If we want to actualize our potential (in creativity, enjoyment and wealth), we need to be ALL IN committed to mastering our craft and doing GREAT work. Enter: The Craftsman Mindset. Finally, it's not enough to Love it and strive to be Great at it, we need to find a way to share our Passion and Craft with the world. And, we need to do the often hard work of figuring out how to truly create value by giving people what they really want and are willing to pay for. Enter: The Servant Mindset. So… Three Mindsets: Passion + Craftsman + Servant. Find the nexus of those three mindsets. Optimize the bliss out of each. THAT is how we astonish. And, over the long run (!), that's how we create wealth through profound service. Today's +1. Sketch your three circles. Take a quick inventory. How're you doing? What's awesome? What needs work? And, most importantly: What can you do today to Optimize 1%?! Passion + Craftsman + Servant. +1. +1. +1.

+1: #345 No More Ice Cubes, Please Mar 16, 2018

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A couple +1s ago we talked about taking a systems approach to disease vs. just a symptoms approach. We referenced Dr. Junger's metaphor of a wise gardener tending to the roots. Which reminds me of T Harv Eker's line: "In every forest, on every farm, in every orchard on earth, it's what's under the ground that creates what's above the ground. That's why placing your attention on the fruits that you have already grown is futile. You cannot change the fruits that are already hanging on the tree. You can, however, change tomorrow's fruits. But to do so, you will have to dig below the ground and strengthen the roots." Here's another metaphor and pop quiz to bring the point home. If you had a boiling pot of water and you wanted to easily and permanently make the water stop boiling, would you: a) Drop in two ice cubes at regular intervals; or, b) Turn the flame off/move the pot off the heat? Option b) for the win! Seems so simple... Yet, somehow, in a world where over fifteen million people have purchased Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we've failed to implement Habit #1 to "Be Proactive." Instead, we throw our hands up in the air at all the symptoms we experience (from acid reflux and headaches to depression and cancer) and, rather than go after the causes of these ailments, we reach for another couple ice cubes to temporarily reduce the heat while doing *nothing* to deal with the flame at the root of the underlying problem. Option a) for the loss! Of course, we all do it at times. Enter: Common Humanity. And, enter: Today's +1. What "ice cubes" are you relying on? And, what little (or big) thing can you do TODAY to deal with the root cause of the issue more proactively? Ice cubes begone! (Except for iced tea. That's awesome.)

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