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Heroic with Brian Johnson | Activate Your Best. Every Day.
Heroic with Brian Johnson features the best big ideas from life-changing books and practical tools to help you move from Theory to Practice to Mastery and flourish in Energy, Work, and Love. Get more wisdom in less time so you can activate your best, every day—so that we can change the world, one person at a time, together, starting with you and me and us, today! (Learn more at https://heroic.us)Categories
Now displaying: October, 2022
Oct 6, 2022
Who Cares? Work Your Protocol, Hero!
One of my new dear friends is a guy named Sean Casey.
Sean is a former Major League Baseball player. He was an All-Star who played first base. They called him “The Mayor” because he chatted up EVERYONE who made it to first base. 
He was SUCH a nice guy that Sports Illustrated declared him the friendliest guy in baseball.
I met Sean through a mutual friend named Brian Cain who happens to be a longtime student of mine AND one of the world’s best mental toughness coaches. We’ll talk more about Cainer and his wisdom soon.
For now, I want to talk about a story Sean told me about his playing days. It goes something like this…
Once upon a time, while playing with the Cincinnati Reds, Sean was having an insanely great season.
It was summer time and he was batting near .400—which, if you know anything about baseball, you know is an insanely hard thing to do.
Then…
Sean went 0 for 12.
Now, going 0 for 12 is never a good thing for a professional baseball player but going 0 for 12 after starting the season THAT strongly is especially painful.
So…
Sean called a guy named Harvey Dorfman. Harvey was that era’s greatest mental toughness coach.
Btw: Check out our Notes on his GREAT book called Coaching the Mental Game AND check out our full collection of Notes on a TON of mental toughness books—which, for the record, is probably my favorite category on Heroic!
Now…
Sean tells Harvey that he’s struggling. “I’m 0 for 12, Coach!!”
Harvey doesn’t care about those stats. All he wants to know is if Sean is executing the protocol they committed to.
Sean tells him, “Yes! Of course. I’m doing exactly what we’ve talked about. I’m hitting the ball hard. And guys are just making great plays.”
Dorfman listens a little longer then he says something along the lines of (perhaps with a little profanity 
!): “Why in the HECK are you calling me?! We have nothing to talk about. Quit looking at the results and keep on dominating your protocol.”
!): “Why in the HECK are you calling me?! We have nothing to talk about. Quit looking at the results and keep on dominating your protocol.” Click.
Call over.
Haha.
Of course, that story has nothing to do about Sean or baseball or batting .400.
It’s all about YOU.
Are YOU going through a rough patch?
Not feeling very energized or productive or connected?
PERFECT.
I love ya (
) and… Ultimately, I don’t care about those things.
) and… Ultimately, I don’t care about those things. What I do care about is this: Are you working your protocol?
Do you know who you are at your best in your Energy, your Work and your Love? Are you recommitting to being that best version of yourself every morning?
Do you know what virtues that best version of you embodies? Are you recommitting to showing up with those virtues every morning?
Do you know what specific things you DO when you’re most on fire? Are you recommitting to those things every morning and then ACTUALLY DOING those things every day?
Yes. I get it. Life can be incredibly challenging.
AND…
Love ya ( ) but…
) but… Life doesn’t need to be THAT hard.
And the process of showing up as your best self is DEFINITELY not THAT complicated or THAT hard.
It all comes down to this: Know who you are and what you do when you’re at your best. Then recommit to being that version of yourself and doing those things you do when you’re on.
Not someday. And definitely not only on the days when you really feel like it.
TODAY.
That’s the only way to move from theory to practice to mastery so we can change the world together.
Day 1. All in.
Let’s go, Hero!!
Oct 5, 2022
Breath + Heroes + Virtues + Stillness + Quest
In our last +1, we talked about my new Heroic Mantra Meditation practice.
Our one-word mantra?
Areté.
On the inhale…
Areté. Areté. Areté.
On the exhale.
Areté. Areté. Areté.
Repeat.
I actually came up with that idea while rowing. I paused the workout on my ol’ Suunto watch, went into the house, grabbed my batphone (that I use for offline/deep work mode stuff like this), and wrote that +1.
Then I got back to my workout. And started repeating my mantra.
ARETE. ARETE. ARETE.
Today I want to chat about my Heroic Meditation practice.
Nearly every day in the 18+ months after I founded Heroic, I meditated for an hour every morning. The connection I felt with my daimon and our Heroic vision has been GREATLY enhanced from the practice.
Here’s the Heroic meditation I created. You can make it work in as little as 3 minutes.
With VERY rare exceptions, I meditate at the same time every morning: right after I get up.
I start each session with breathwork. Then I invite a few of my top heroes to join me and share some wisdom for the day. Then I walk through our virtue compass in my mind. Then I reconnect to our Heroic vision.
Then I go dominate the day. 
Let’s start with the breathwork.
Actually, let’s start with our posture. As we discussed in Meditation 101 and our Notes on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s great book Wherever You Go, There You Are, the fastest way to find the right posture is to sit with dignity.
Chest up. Chin down. Pull a thread through your head. You’re poised yet relaxed.
In a word: You are sitting with DIGNITY.
Like royalty.
That’s a brilliant way to invite the best, most Heroic and noble version of yourself to the party.
Then we take a nice, deep, quiet, relaxing breath. In through our nose. Down into our bellies. Back out through our nose. Slightly longer exhale than inhale.
That’s the fastest way to flip the switch on our parasympathetic nervous system, get out of fight-or-flight and connect to our daimons.
I practice a version of that breath for a minute or three or eleven, depending on the length of my meditation.
Then I invite my heroes to join me.
I have Heroic portraits of 22 of my favorite heroes on my wall.
On one wall I have large portraits of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Steve Jobs, Joseph Campbell, and Phil Stutz. And… I have a Heroic portrait of ME—to remind me to try to live up to the best within me.
On another wall I have slightly smaller portraits. Five columns with three heroes in each column, representing different wisdom traditions and qualities I aspire to embody.
On the far left, I have Jesus, Saint Ignatius, and Mother Teresa—representing my Catholic upbringing and a commitment to Love and embracing the universal truths of ALL faith traditions.
Then I have Confucius, Epictetus (again!), and John Wooden—representing my commitment to a disciplined approach to life and the moral charisma that emanates from that integrity.
Then I have Aristotle, Viktor Frankl, and Abraham Maslow—representing the integration of ancient wisdom and modern science in the form of three intellectual/philosophical heroes of mine.
Then I have Alexander the Great, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr—representing leaders who embodied Soul Force in their own idiosyncratic, iconoclastic way: Alexander conquered the impossible in the material world while Gandhi conquered the impossible in the spiritual (and material!) world.
Then I have Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Dwight D Eisenhower—representing Heroic war-time leaders as symbols for the internal war between vice and virtue we each must mindfully wage every day.
I ask a few (or all!) of them for a pithy piece of wisdom for that day.
Emerson tells me to trust myself. And he reminds me to always (always always!) do the thing I’m afraid to do.
Epictetus tells me to practice my philosophy and to make The Choice of Hercules—not someday but TODAY.
Jobs tells me to create something insanely great.
Campbell tells me that we train heroes and reminds me that the demon you can swallow gives you its power.
I have connected with those heroes of mine so many times that I can literally hear their voices in my head as I created this +1. Every morning I commit to living in integrity with their wisdom and their example.
It’s hard to put into words how much I believe this practice has changed my life.
The questions for you are…
Who are YOUR heroes?
What wisdom would they like to share with you?
Would you be a better human being if you consistently reflected on and acted in integrity with those questions and answers?
Now…
After a quick trip through my heroes—which can take as little as a minute or as long as 11—I reflect on the core virtues of our virtue compass.
Wisdom. Self-Mastery. Courage. Love.
Hope. Gratitude. Curiosity. Zest.
The first set includes the four cardinal virtues of every major ancient wisdom tradition.
The second set includes the virtues modern science says are most highly correlated with our flourishing.
After silently saying each virtue, I go through the declaration for each virtue.
Wisdom. I know the ultimate game and how to play it well.
Self-Mastery. I have structural, reactive, and expansive discipline.
Courage. I am willing to act in the presence of fear.
Love. I am joyful, grateful, and encouraging.
Hope. I have an inspiring goal, agency, and pathways.
Gratitude. I appreciate all the blessings in my life.
Curiosity. I pay attention to what’s working and what needs work.
Zest. I dominate my fundamentals so I have Heroic energy.
I can zip through that in a minute or three or take my time and imagine each for eleven minutes.
Then I quiet my mind. And enjoy the silence. That can last from a minute to thirty minutes.
Finally, I imagine a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by 2051.
I see my Soul Force at 101 and commit to doing everything I can to help YOU get YOUR Soul Force to 101.
Then I imagine 1M of us getting our Soul Force to 101 so we can fulfill our mission and change the world, one person at a time, together, starting with you and me.
TODAY.
Oct 4, 2022
Here It Is…
This morning a friend of mine (thank you, Jon!) sent me a link to an article on Ray Dalio’s meditation practice.
As you know if you’ve been following along, I’m a big fan of Dalio and his wisdom.
We’ve also chatted about his 5-step process for success (note: Step 2 is FAILURE!!) as part of our “win or learn” and “learning is winning” so “win or win!” philosophy.
But…
It wasn’t until this morning that I learned about Dalio’s meditation practice.
He says it’s his secret weapon.
His approach?
Transcendental meditation. Otherwise known as TM.
The key features of that approach include two, twenty-minute meditation sessions. Dalio does his first session after waking up and his second before dinner.
Note: He reduces the variability of his behavior to increase the likelihood of making the habit stick which—as you know if you’ve gone through Basic Training and/or the Mastery Series and/or Habits 101–is a scientifically proven way to master yourself.
Another key feature of TM?
A mantra.
With Transcendental Meditation, you get your mantra from your TM teacher. You’re not supposed to share it publicly. But it’s something kinda like “om.”
You come back to that mantra again and again and again.
It’s the anchor (see Meditation 101 and our collection of Notes and +1s on Meditation) that helps still your mind so you can connect to something bigger than yourself while experiencing all the other proven physiological and psychological benefits of meditation.
Now…
I’ve studied TM—and actually learned in the same room Maharishi Mahesh Yogi meditated in as I was blessed to be trained by one of his top students and teachers.
I’ve also studied Vipassana. We chat about my experience with Vipassana in our Notes in As a Man Thinketh. We also chat about Vipassana in our Notes on Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Harari is one of my favorite writers. The lucidity of his writing is EXTRAORDINARY. Did you know he’s been practicing Vipassana and meditating for TWO hours a day for DECADES? It’s true.
I’ve also practiced something called “Passage Meditation” developed by Eknath Easwaran (see those Notes) and the style taught by Nichiren Buddhism (see these Notes), and, well, a bunch of other approaches.
I’ve also developed my own Heroic Meditation we’ll talk more about soon.
But…
Today I want to share the new mantra meditation I’m going to start practicing as a little experiment.
A single word.
Can you guess what I’m choosing?
…
Hint: It’s tattooed on my right forearm. The one-word summation of my life philosophy and ultimate target.
…
Areté.
That’s the new mantra.
Areté. Areté. Areté.
On the Inhale…
Areté. Areté. Areté.
On the Exhale…
Areté. Areté. Areté.
Let’s close the gap between who we’re capable of being and who we’re actually being.
Not someday.
Not even some moment.
Right now.
And…
Here’s to soaking our consciousness in that ultimate target one breath at a time.
+1 Areté.
+1 Areté.
+1 Areté.
All day.
Every day.
Especially TODAY.
Oct 3, 2022
Gandhi’s Great Soul (+ Yours!)
In our last +1, we talked about the fact that YOU are my all-time favorite hero. (It’s true.)
We also talked about the fact that, although every hero expresses it in different ways, EVERY (!) hero has the SAME superpower.
We named it… SOUL FORCE
Today I want to share a quick origin story on where I came up with that phrase.
But, first…
In case you’re wondering if you qualify to even aspire to be a “hero,” I have another question for you…
Do you happen to know what the word hero means?
As you may have heard me say before (and I promise I’ll say it again!)… It’s an ancient Greek word. Etymologically, the word hero doesn’t mean “killer of bad guys” or “tough guy” or anything like that it. It means “PROTECTOR."
A hero has strength for two. And, very importantly, a hero is willing to do the HARD work to HAVE that strength for two.
And, do you know what the secret weapon of the ancient hero was? LOVE.
It’s LOVE that fuels our commitment to DO that hard work to HAVE the strength for two. It’s LOVE that gives us the Courage to be willing to act in the presence of fear. It's LOVE that gives us the Self-Mastery to do what needs to get done whether we feel like it or not.
And… If you haven’t noticed, our world needs heroes today more than ever before.
We’re not just recovering from the effects of COVID-19. We have pandemic levels of anxiety and depression and cancer and diabetes and political polarization and social injustice and environmental degradation.
And the ONLY possible way we are going to meet those *historically significant* challenges and create a more noble and virtuous world for ourselves and for our kids and for their kids is if each of us steps up and starts showing up as the best, most Heroic versions of ourselves.
So…
Back to your Soul Force. It’s your superpower.
And…
Activating this superpower is the whole point of EVERYTHING we do together.
As in… E V E R Y T H I N G!!!
Activating your Soul Force is the final Objective (Objective VII) in Basic Training in our Heroic app.
Your Heroic Soul Force score is the first thing you see when you open the Heroic app and it’s THE individual metric by which we measure our success in helping you show up as the best, most Heroic version of yourself. It’s by getting YOUR Soul Force to 101 then helping enough people ALSO activate their Soul Force that we’ll have a shot at LITERALLY (!) changing the world.
Then there’s the sub-title to the Heroic book I’m working on. Can you guess what that might be?
Yep…
“A Training Manual to ACTIVATE YOUR SOUL FORCE”!!
So…
Here’s the origin story on “Soul Force.”
It involves one of my heroes: Mahatma Gandhi.
(Btw: Did you know that mahatma means “great soul” in Sanskrit? Yep. Aristotle had a word for that in ancient Greek as well: magnanimous.)
We’re all familiar with Gandhi’s (paraphrased) admonition that, if we want to change the world, we each must be the change we want to see.
What you may not know is just how FIERCELY disciplined Gandhi was. He practiced his philosophy with a relentlessness that I find deeply inspiring. He was the living embodiment of Areté.
Of course, Gandhi liberated India via what we called “nonviolent resistance” in the West. But “nonviolent resistance” is a VERY weak translation of the Sanskrit word he coined to capture the essence of his movement and practice.
The phrase he used was satyagraha. That word comes from two Sanskrit words: sat and graha. Sat means “beingness” or “truth.” Graha means “polite insistence” or “force.”
Gandhi fiercely believed in and fiercely challenged his followers to stand in the power of truth. He knew that Britain’s domination of India was morally wrong and that, if he and millions of others could stand in that truth without resorting to violence, he could liberate the country without having to go to war.
Now, like many ancient/foreign words that are difficult to translate into English (see: eudaimonia and areté!), satyagraha can be translated as not just “truth force” but also as “love force” or...
SOUL FORCE.
There’s an ineffable and extraordinary power that is palpable in an individual who is standing in their truth—living with fierce integrity to their highest ideals.
THAT is what Gandhi cultivated within himself and was able to help cultivate within enough people to LITERALLY (!) change the world.
It’s also what every hero we’ve ever admired has embodied and what I am so fiercely committed to personally embodying and to helping you and enough people embody in your own idiosyncratic way such that we can LITERALLY (!) change the world.
How do we do that?
By showing up and living in integrity with our highest ideals.
Not someday.
TODAY.
Oct 2, 2022
Here’s Their (and YOUR!) Superpower
In our last +1, we re-activated our +1 series and I made a 10,000-day commitment to you.
Well, technically I made a 10,319-day commitment to you.
Every day, from now until January 1, 2051, I commit to showing up in your inbox with a quick little splash of more wisdom in less time. If I don’t show up, assume either our technology died or I died. (Hah. Seriously.) (I’m all in.)
Why have I made that commitment?
That’s a very good question. With a range of possible answers.
One of the reasons can be found on one of the tattoos on my left forearm.
If you look closely above the “I” and the “C” in my “HEROIC” tattoo, you’ll see “51 | 2051.” Then, if you look closely below the “I” and the “C” in my “HEROIC” tattoo, you’ll see “101 | 1M.”
The 51 | 2051 represents my commitment to helping create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by the year 2051. The 101 | 1M represents HOW we will do that.
The 101 is shorthand for the Soul Force I am committed to helping you activate in your life.
But…
We’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Let’s step back for a moment and talk a little more about what “Soul Force” is in the first place.
To make the point, I’d like to ask you a question…
Who’s your favorite hero?
Seriously. Take a moment and think about that right now. Who comes to mind?
I have a few of my favorite Heroes in my studio and on my office wall behind me. Great teachers and leaders who inspire me to show up as the best, most Heroic version of myself.
Aristotle. Epictetus. Marcus Aurelius. Abraham Lincoln. Winston Churchill. Gandhi. Abraham Maslow. Martin Luther King, Jr.
My wife and I even named our kids after two of our favorite Heroes: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Eleanor Roosevelt.
So… Again… Who inspires YOU?!
Seriously.
What individuals—living or dead—embody the qualities you most admire?
What individuals showed up and lived in a way that deeply inspires YOU to show up and give us all you’ve got?
As you think about that, know this…
All those Heroes showed up in their own idiosyncratic way—Gandhi was frail and would go days without talking while Churchill was portly and rarely STOPPED talking!! … And those two guys didn’t even LIKE each other!
BUT…
ALL of those Heroes had ONE thing in common.
It’s what Aristotle had and what he helped ignite in Alexander the Great.
It’s what Epictetus had and what he helped Marcus Aurelius cultivate in his life.
It’s what Gandhi had and is the force that freed his nation. (And, for the record, it was GANDHI who actually gave this power its name.)
It’s what Martin Luther King, Jr. had, and, inspired by HIS hero Gandhi, something he actually talks about it in his “I have a dream” speech.
It’s what Eleanor Roosevelt had. And Florence Nightingale. And Helen Keller and Anne Frank and COUNTLESS others who may have made it into our history books or may have just humbly made an anonymous yet indelible mark on our world by deeply inspiring their friends and families and communities.
So…
What's the ONE thing ALL the great Heroes across all cultures throughout history have had in common?
SOUL FORCE.
It’s every Hero’s superpower.
SOUL FORCE.
It’s that ineffable power you can feel in human beings living in integrity with their highest ideals.
SOUL FORCE.
It’s the force that can (literally) change the world.
And guess what…
It’s YOUR superpower as well.
We just need to ACTIVATE IT.
Not SOMEDAY.
But TODAY.
And then, very importantly!!, we need to REACTIVATE our Soul Force ALL DAY EVERY DAY.
THAT, my dear friend, is how we can tap into YOUR Heroic potential and fundamentally and permanently change your life while fundamentally and permanently changing the world together.
And doing THAT is what Heroic is all about.
For now, I want to wrap up with one more question…
Ultimately, do you know who my all-time favorite Hero is…?
I’ll give you a hint…
Go look in the mirror.
My all-time favorite Hero is, unquestionably… YOU.
YOU are the Hero we’ve been waiting for.
And helping YOU activate your Soul Force is my ultimate mission in life.
Day 1, Hero.
Let’s go.
Oct 1, 2022
It’s +1 Day 1 Again. And Always!
Hi, This is Brian.
Welcome back to another +1.
This is +1 number 1,289.
And…
As you know if you’ve been following along, the last time I did a +1 was nearly two years ago—717 days ago to be precise. I took a little break to launch Heroic. I’m THRILLED to be back.
We used to call these little micro lessons “Optimize +1s.”
Going forward, we’re going to call them “Heroic +1s.”
When I first created the +1 series years ago (2005 days ago to be precise!), I committed to doing 1,000 days in a row. I wound up doing 1,288.
This time, I’m committing to doing over 10,000 (!!!) days in a row.
10,319 days in a row to be precise.
At which point I may consider taking a day off.
So…
If a new +1 doesn’t show up in your inbox, assume that either our technology died or… I died. (Hah!)
Seriously.
I’m ALL IN.
Why 10,319 days?
Because that’s how many days are left between now and January 1, 2051–the date by which we aspire to help create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing.
We’ll chat more about the origin story for that target and the tattoo on my left forearm that reflects my commitment to that moonshot goal.
Why +1s?
Because I believe that the only way to fundamentally and permanently change your life is to move from theory to practice to mastery TODAY.
Not SOMEDAY.
And definitely not only on the days when you (insert whiney voice) *feel* like it.
If we want to forge antifragile confidence and more consistently express the best, most Heroic versions of ourselves, it’s simple…
We.
Must.
Show.
Up.
TODAY.
ESPECIALLY on those days when we don’t *feel* like it.
Now…
The feedback we got from our community about how our +1 series changed their lives was incredibly inspiring.
And…
After launching Heroic, I stepped back and looked at all the ways I (and we!) can best support you in getting your Soul Force to 101 (more on that soon!).
We’re fired up that the early research shows that the core Heroic app experience (featuring Basic Training and Target Practice) can help you flourish.
And, we’re fired up that all the old Optimize content—including over 1,000 +1s, over 600 PhilosophersNotes, and 50 Optimal Living 101 classes—is now integrated into one Heroic app.
We’re ALSO fired up that our Mastery Series (which research has *also* shown can help people change their lives and used to only be available as part of our Coach offering) is now part of our basic premium Heroic offering.
Plus, we can’t wait to roll out our integrated Heroic Social features and welcome more Guides to the platform as we continue to execute our vision in the months and years ahead as we strive to create a world-class social training platform that can serve as an answer to The Social Dilemma and, literally, help change the world.
If you haven’t signed up for the monthly/annual/lifetime options for Heroic, you can learn more about all that here: https://heroic.us/join
And…
As I thought about how we could best support you in fully activating your Soul Force (aka your Heroic superpower!), it became really (!) clear to me that reactivating the +1 series would be a super important part of that commitment to you and to the rest of our community.
As I said in the VERY first +1 on Destiny Math, it’s ALL (always!) about those tiny little decisions we make all day, every day. And, as we discussed in this +1 on Atomic Habits: Tiny = Mighty (inspired by wisdom from James Clear’s super-popular Atomic Habits—check out those Notes), the exponential benefits of aggregating and compounding tiny little gains over an extended period of time by showing up day in and day out are CRAZY.
For now…
I’m thrilled to be back and, if you feel so inspired to have me in your life, I can’t wait to see you tomorrow morning and every morning you’d like a little dose of ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools to help you optimize and actualize your potential.
Of course, if you’d prefer NOT to hang out every morning, you can change your settings and get these +1s Weekly or never!
Your ideal is our ideal.
Just click one of the links in the footer of this email if you want to change your settings.
10,319 days.
(Deo (and daimon) volente!)
It’s Day 1.
Again. Always.
You. Me. Our daimons. It’s going to be Heroic.
It’s time to change the world. One person at a time. Together. Starting with you and me and us.
TODAY.
©2016