174 Brian Johnson: Activate Your Heroic Potential

[00:00:00] ck: Welcome to Noble Warrior.

My name is CK Lin. This is where I interview masters about their journey to master the mind and body to have greater performance, joy, and purpose in life and in business.

My next guest is the founder and CEO of the Heroic Public Benefit Corporation.

He has spent the last 25 years of his life, dedicated to synthesize ancient wisdom and modern science to help people become the heroes of their lives.

His mission is to create a world where 51 percent of the planet is flourishing by 2051, with wisdom, discipline, courage, and love.

He is also the author of the new book, Arite, Activate Your Heroic Potential.

If you like what he has to say, go to heroic. us forward slash book to pre order the book coming out November 14th.

Please enjoy my conversation with Brian Johnson.

[00:00:59] ck: Brian, thanks so [00:01:00] much for being here. Really appreciate it as always. Our path has crossed, you know, we met each other, I don't know if you remember back in 2005 in Toastmasters.

I remember, yeah, yeah. When you spoke, and then this dude has got something, and you've been on this path for a long time. It's been 25 years you've been Uh, synthesizing wisdom over time, and I'm curious, how do you not get deviated and get distracted by shiny objects and

[00:01:32] Brian: the latest trends? Uh, well, I, that presupposes that I don't, so.

Well,

[00:01:40] ck: I mean, based on output, you know, I'm looking at everything that you've done from the outsider

[00:01:45] Brian: point of view. You, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. So one of the fun things, um, that I like to come back to is there are no perfect human beings and you and I won't be the first, not that you were implying that, but in my productivity still, um, I'm proud of my diligence and [00:02:00] consistency, but we're all always distracted at times, you know, but that's been a real deep focus of mine.

Um, and I think the direct answer to the question is I have a really, really strong yes. So Stephen Covey, David Brooks say it's easy to say no to certain things, some of which is just nonsense, shiny stuff, and some of which is interesting, potentially valuable stuff. But for me, I've just really worked hard to get clarity on, um, who I am, what I think I'm here to do, and then just bringing an intensity to it, um, as consistently as I can.

But I, I've certainly had, you know, zigs and zags of, of less or more focus. Um, but right now I'm pretty all in, so I'm wearing a tattoo that points me in the direction I want to go, actually two of them, um, all day, every day, and I think that's been helpful for me to have a really, really, really strong yes.

Um, making a lot of the smaller nodes pretty easy.

[00:02:58] ck: Well, let me ask you a quick [00:03:00] question, because part of your, let me bring in, um, your soul force formula. I really like that by the way. Soul force formula. I actually, for those of you that don't know, can you just real quick talk about the soul

[00:03:13] Brian: force formula?

Yeah, so well, soul force itself is a phrase I got from Gandhi. So Gandhi's nonviolent resistance movement, he actually called it Satya Graha. Um, and it's two Sanskrit words. He coined the word Satya Graha means truth force or virtue force or love force or soul force. And it's the power within himself that he cultivated.

Martin Luther King references it in his, I have a dream speech. He talks about soul force. So I've really leaned into that. And my thing is, look, we all of our heroes have the same superpower, which is soul force. There's something powerful about a human being who's living in integrity with their ideals.

You know, Confucius is on my [00:04:00] wall. Ancient Chinese philosophy, wu wei. is effortless, virtuous action, as you know, and you know, the way they describe soul force is moral charisma. So there's something in someone who's a noble warrior striving to live their best life that you can feel at a neurological level, you can feel it.

Um, so anyway, the whole point of all of my work is to help people activate their superpower, which we call soul force. Now there's an equation for it. And I kind of like to think of it as like a heroic, Power of now. So you've got Eckhart Tolle telling you, all right, power of now. It's all about this moment, which of course is true.

But what do you do with that? You know, like, how do you really operationalize that? And again, he's got a lot of great ideas. But what I've tried to do is boil it down into an equation. So, um, what we talk about is, Energy times focus times what's important now or when parentheses around that. So energy times focus [00:05:00] times what's important now to the power of consistency.

So the basic math goes something like this. If you can get your energy from, say, zero to 100 and you're focused zero to 100, you're what's important now, truly what, what is important with zero to 100, 100 energy where you're doing the little things, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, you're fully energized at 100.

And then you get your mind focused. You're not distracted at 100. And then you truly do the most important thing, you know, not a kind of sort of maybe, but this is the most important thing right now. And again, that can be spending time with my kids. It could be with you right now, but energy focus on what's important.

Now, a hundred times, a hundred times, a hundred is a million now, a million to the power of zero to a hundred, depending on how consistent you are. So if you're the type of person that can do that once in a while, or when you feel like it. [00:06:00] Or very rarely, then you're not going to have as much power as someone who can do it all the time.

So I remember when I was working on this equation, I'm like, what's a million to the power of a hundred, right? And I remember literally going to Google calculator and I did the math. But first, a hundred times a hundred times a hundred is a million. But if your consistency sucks and you raise it to the power of zero, Your power is one.

You lose it all, right? But if you can get your energy focused on what's important now consistently at 100, a million raised to the power of 100. The answer in Google calculator is infinity. Your power is infinite. So for me, that's the equation through which we can tap into our latent potential. Um, and it's kind of the point of my whole body of work, you know, R a T is how we arrive at that moment to moment to moment to moment.

Um, but that's now a long answer to your short question. So this

[00:06:57] ck: is super great. No, this is super great. So I have a, [00:07:00] I have a gentle pushback. All right. So I love that. equation, by the way, I'm an engineer by trade. So anything with equation frameworks,

[00:07:07] Brian: everything let's go. I had to find the exponential in the scientific calculator.

Where is that thing? All right, let's go. Yeah,

[00:07:15] ck: I love it. So so here's the gentle pushback. It's as you said, there are certain things that's really obvious the addictions, the you know, the junk food that's like, okay, that's bad for me. Don't do it. Right. But in our modern life, where you know, as you mentioned earlier, Time with spouse, take care of your business, time about your dharmic path, maybe your spirituality.

These are all important things. So, how do you, in the moment, discern for yourself what is the most important

[00:07:44] Brian: for that? Yeah, it's a great push back hard, by the way. I look like, looks like we're in a dojo right now. So, I'm all about pancreation, full strength, you know, grappling with these ideas and finding the truth.

Um. So, uh, [00:08:00] I think we always know so I have a different a number of different practices, but I think that the real challenges slowing down long enough to ask yourself the question. So in any given moment, the question is, all right, what's important right now? And again, of course, to your point, there will always be multiple pathways and multiple things we can choose.

But at some point, we just need to decide this is the most important thing right now. And being decisive is a really important part of the equation and asking yourself that question consistently and then having a deep yes. So I, I like to teach something called targeted thinking. So one way to answer the question when you're in doubt is what do you want?

So in any given moment, step back and ask yourself the question, what do I want? All right, perfect. So I want to have a great connection with you right now, right? When I'm with my kids, I want to be with my kids. When I'm with my wife, I don't want to be in an argument with my wife. I want to be in a joyful, deep connection with her.

So when I find myself a little bit wobbly and I'm not quite [00:09:00] clear on it, or I'm not showing up as my best, I step back mindfully and say, all right, well, what do I want? And then the next question is very simple. What do I need to do to get that? And then you just need to decide. But I think the wisdom is always there.

The problem is we're not slowing down long enough and we haven't disciplined ourself to actually ask the question and step in between a stimulus. And our response, and it's in that gap that Viktor Frankl says, you know, our freedom exists. So I think it's like anything, you just gotta practice it, use it as a muscle, but then, then you decide, and you get your energy focused on what's important now, and when you do that, you tend to feel really alive, present, and you know you're expressing, or at least trying to, express the best version of yourself.

[00:09:45] ck: I appreciate the answer. So I'm asking that question for myself as well. So that's really

[00:09:52] Brian: the selfish question. So what's an example where you feel... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

[00:09:55] ck: I'm going to give you an example. Because you read thousands of books, right? And [00:10:00] then for me, I love knowledge. So I can be reading this book, this book, this book.

Or I can synthesize the knowledge of this other thing that I'm thinking about, right? It gave me a lot of different ideas how do I synthesize them together. So my attention is constantly being pulled, like, Oh, I should finish that book and this chapter. Oh, this is really interesting thing. I'll make sure you really listen to my conversation with Brian.

So in the moment I get, there's an, I mean, I have my own mental model around this. So I'm curious to know, how do you not get pulled in all different ways, given that you're a very curious

[00:10:35] Brian: person, you know, I decide, I mean, to me, it's that simple. And my coach Phil starts. Who's on my wall back there. He's in the Netflix documentary, Stutz, et cetera.

He says you need to be well, first of all, the word decision, as you know, comes from the Latin day seer to cut off. People don't like to make decisions. So one of the reasons why I, you, all of us struggle with choosing one thing or [00:11:00] the other is you have to cut off other options. So Phil Stutz says you got to die at the crossroads.

You come to a choice point and you can't do it all and you got to decide I'm going to do this and not that he calls that death at the crossroads, but it's painful and people don't experience the pain of making a decision. So they don't decide. And then they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by by endless choices.

Then you get into the science of the paradox of choice. And it's overwhelming to have so many options. But what I personally do is I get clear on what I want in general in my life today with my business goals, you know, over the next quarter, 15 months or whatever. Um, and then I make a decision, you know, and if I dropped F bombs, I drop a bomb, you know, like I just decide at some point you need to decide.

Then I create blocks of time. In which I go deep. So it's energy focused on what's important now. And I'll go deep for 60 minutes, 90 minutes for a week, for 10 days. I went a year without using my phone. [00:12:00] And Cal Port actually profiled me in his latest book or one of his latest books, a world without email, ran a significant business without using email.

And I didn't use my phone literally for a year. So that was because it was the decision I made in light of my, my choices and my targets and stuff. But playfully, at the end of the day, we just need to decide knowing we can't do it all embracing the constraints of our reality, but then going all in on whatever we decided and then proving ourselves right.

Um, but I'm the same, you know, with a book I got, I have a stack of books, but I just Sunday, couple days ago, my son's at a chess tournament and I'm going to read Arnold Schwarzenegger's new book and I read it cover to cover. And I'm not sitting there wondering, well, shoot, should I be reading this other books?

I've got literally a thousand more in my library that I could read. No, I'm reading this one right now. And then it's fun. Because my energy is focused on what I decided is most important now and [00:13:00] then I'm in flow and I'm not distracted. I'm not second guessing myself and I'm feeling that, um, joy of being fully alive in the moment without ambivalence and diffusion of my energy, but a real strong focal point.

I love

[00:13:15] ck: that. I also love that you always give credit to your teachers. You know, Phil Stutz is one of the person that you keep giving credit to. By the way, how did that happen? And also inside of that, how do you pick your teachers? Because you have teachers like Socrates or Aristotle, like, you know, thousands, hundreds of teachers.

How do you choose your

[00:13:36] Brian: First, I appreciate you reflecting that back. It's really important to me that I honor the people that have supported me. And in the, you know, the book, I've got, I think, 300 people I reference, you know? And it's very important to me to name the people that gave you the ideas, you know?

So I appreciate you reflecting that back. Um, you know, Phil, I met, I was introduced to Phil when I somehow found the tools, a book he wrote [00:14:00] maybe 12 years ago. I read it and I'm like, wow, best book I'd read that year tied for first best book ever from my vantage point. And then I bought a book for everyone on our team.

And then I actually sent a book to several of my friends. Including a guy named Trip Lanier, who interviews guys and does different things, and he interviewed Phil and Barry, who, uh, Barry, um, Michaels, with whom Phil wrote the book. And so then, I got into interviewing people as well, you know, a year or whatever, two years later, and I'm like, hey dude, can you introduce me to Phil and Barry, because I want to interview them.

So anyway, he introduced me to him, I interview him, and then, in terms of who, I choose as my teachers. I had worked with a guy named Steve Chandler for years, who's amazing, and I was ready for, um, I had ended my relationship with him, and I was working with, uh, looking to work with a new coach. And, you know, the choice point for me was, who do I work with?

Is it Barry? And the joke was, it's like Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda, like in that situation, you have to [00:15:00] go with Yoda. So this was eight years ago, started working with Phil. I've done 400 one on one sessions with Phil. I love him. Had my session with him right before we got together today. And, um, he's deeply influenced me in my thinking.

Um, yeah, I'll pause there.

[00:15:18] ck: So I watched the Netflix documentary. I could see why, you know, Phil is such a beloved, um, coach slash therapist. What are some of the mental models that you use? Is it competency? Is it, you know, personal resonance? Like what, when you say Yoda versus Obi one, like what are some of the things that you

[00:15:39] Brian: think about?

Well, in terms of that particular choice, more just a joke. So Phil Stutz, um, is, uh, Barry Michaels is kind of his student and they've now collaborated on a lot of stuff. But, you know, Phil is kind of the Yoda in that relationship who came up with the tools and that idea. Um, but I, I, again, I respected him [00:16:00] a lot after reading his book, I felt connected to him in the interview.

And then our first coaching session, I actually have. You know, I've taken notes in every one of our sessions, and I don't keep a lot of things. Books and family stuff is all I have, and a stack of my notes with him. It's literally like, you know, over a foot tall at this point. But the very first page of notes, um, from my very first session with him, you and I could talk about it for a month.

I mean, the density of wisdom I got in that one session was just insane. Um, but I think my main mental model is, is trusting myself. You know, my, I named my son Emerson after Ralph Waldo Emerson, and he's on my wall up there and every single morning I meditate and reflect on my heroes and they give me wisdom every day.

He tells me, trust thyself, every heart vibrates that iron string. And that's my number one mental model is it's an intuitive, um, just sense of what's right. And again, I, I deliberately [00:17:00] trained that ability to have clarity and to know what I want and then to trust kind of what feels right. So I'd offer that as, um, and that, that navigated my process with Phil, frankly, all the big decisions I make.

My wife is another adjunct mental model, uh, support system for me as well. When the two of us are aligned, I'm feeling pretty good. Hmm. I love that.

[00:17:22] ck: Hmm. That's actually a really interesting point. They mentioned trust that trust thyself and then part of your book The message that you gave is you're the hero you've been waiting for now. I agree with you However, when I was younger, I didn't really like who I see in the mirror And, but over the years, I've been falling in love with myself over and over again. Now, because I respect and admire who I become over time, right? So, and this is not from a place of ego, but just genuine, authentic, like love and appreciation.

So for someone who is on that journey [00:18:00] of finding You know, having more faith, more trust, more confidence in who they are. What would you say to them?

[00:18:08] Brian: Yeah, I, I, you know, in terms of the book, I'd go to the book. Objective one in the book is you got to know the ultimate game. So we've been seduced to play the wrong game.

We can talk about that. But then objective two is you need to forge anti fragile confidence. And then I talk a lot about confidence, the science of confidence, the etymology of confidence, et cetera. Um, but etymologically, as you know, the, the word confidence means intense trust. So confidence, intense trust, that's what it means to have confidence.

And so if you want to have confidence in yourself, you need to trust yourself. And then the way I frame it up is look. If you want to have, um, trust in any relationship, what do you need to see from the other person? They need to do what they say they will do. So, you know, if you and I schedule this time to be together and I don't show up, you may give me a pass the first time, but [00:19:00] the second time you're like, who is this guy?

I don't trust him. I don't have confidence he's going to do what he says he's going to do. So I say, look, it's the same with you. And you're the most important relationship, your relationship with yourself. And if you say you're going to do certain things, You say you're going to meditate in the morning or turn off your electronics at night or be with your family in a certain way or train your body or eat a certain way and you don't, why should you trust yourself?

You shouldn't. You shouldn't have a deep, grounded sense of confidence. Now stated positively, when you do do those things, more and more consistently, never perfectly, you earn your trust. In your relationship with yourself, the same way you doing it in any relationship. And that's exciting because when we get that, then we can cultivate a true grounded trust.

become anti fragile, where it's the opposite of fragility. So when you're fragile, you break when life pushes you. When you're resilient, you can endure more stress, then you break, and then you bounce back faster, basically. When you're [00:20:00] anti fragile, when life hits you, not only do you not break, you get stronger.

And the only way to do that is to practice your philosophy, to know who you are at your best, and to do it, especially when you don't feel like it. And then, and again, we talk about this a lot of my work and it's the thing I'm most excited about in, in what I do is helping people cultivate that deep level of grounded, humble trust that you're talking about.

Um, and then you feel a level of invincibility, where you know you're going to get knocked around, you know life will challenge you, but you also know you have what it takes to respond to whatever life throws at you. Um, and again, a long answer to your short question, but those are some of my thoughts on confidence and, um, I can feel it in you, you know, there's a grounded, um, you know, you're not trying to, true confidence isn't loud.

You know, there's a level of humility. You know how hard you've worked, you know how hard you still need to work and you've got it, you know, and people feel that. I mean, that goes back [00:21:00] to the, the soul force, the moral charisma. You can feel in someone's presence. The moment you came on screen, I'm like, damn, look at CK.

He's practicing his philosophy. People can feel that. Um, it's a really, really powerful aspect of leadership. Um, of ourselves and, um, you know, if we're going to make a difference and be the hero of our own story to come back to where you started, um, we've got to earn that trust. We got to build the strength.

Um, and you do that one moment at a time. Yeah, man.

[00:21:28] ck: I mean, likewise, it goes back to you on the moment I met you into today, you, there's, there's, there's that energetic transmission, right? There's a solidity in your presence. you know, the spiritual people call it a spiritual spine, right? You, you, you know, there's power, potency in your words.

You've done the work, you've done the thinking, you've done, um, the process, and then you can speak with confidence. Yeah.

[00:21:54] Brian: Thank you for, I appreciate that. Do we go way back? I can't believe it was 20 years Toastmasters. [00:22:00] That was fun. Oh my goodness. And I have CK to thank by the way, to publicly thank for introducing me to my wife, connecting us.

So thank you. Bless you, dude. Uh, life is good and it wouldn't be as good as it is without you and your influence. Um, so I deeply appreciate you, uh, making that connect versus working through you and grateful. I

[00:22:19] ck: appreciate a shout out. Also, Mike Flynn, Karen Solomon, public acknowledgement as well. I actually remember exactly the moment before I made that call.

Wow. Uh, uh, Alexandra was, uh, was like. You know, uh, but without getting too personal, like,

[00:22:37] Brian: Let's go. She shared the story publicly. Share it if you're open to it. That's so cool, man.

[00:22:41] ck: So, uh, she shared that she had a crush on you. She, uh, really wanted to meet you. And then we said, Hey, we actually know Brian from Toastmasters.

And she was like, I don't know. I'm a little nervous. And then basically, we nudge her quite a bit. And so we made that call. [00:23:00] And you know, the rest is history.

[00:23:02] Brian: Oh, dude, bless you. I'm so happy that we connected and that you pushed her in that moment. It's a sacred moment. And I appreciate you sharing it. And she and I will have fun with it after.

[00:23:12] ck: Yeah, amazing. So, um, okay, well, what about affirmation, self love, self worth, or that's really just the natural consequence of Doing the work honoring yourself honoring your integrity.

[00:23:33] Brian: Yeah, I think the answer to almost any question that implies a dichotomy is yes And you know, but I think at the end of the day, you know affirmations and healthy thoughts are clearly Essential no question about that a strong self image is really really important, but it's it's your behaviors At the end of the day, you can only affirm so many things until your brain's like, that's nonsense.

You know, that, that just isn't true. So you know, we [00:24:00] want to match the, uh, the vision board, if you will, with a lot of action and consistent action. But in, in the heroic app that we have, um, we help you get clarity on in the book. Of course, we help you get clarity on your identities and identity literally means repeated beingness.

I got that from James Clear. It's a phenomenal book, Atomic Habits. But your identity is your repeated beingness. It's who you are repeatedly and who you affirm and commit to being. And then you act like that and you, you recraft your identity. So you went from, and I went from, I'll say with unequivocal certainty, a very insecure man.

I wanted to end my own. I wanted to end my life. Not too long before you and I met one another. I mean, years before, you know, my early 20s, I struggled. I dropped out of law school. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Um, and I had none of this wisdom, none of it. First generation college student, blue collar family, all that stuff.

Um, And I worked very hard to craft a new self image and identity, but I [00:25:00] think the affirmations need to be followed up with action and vice versa. Then you create a really virtuous cycle and what you're saying is true. And then in moments where you may doubt yourself, you go back to your moments when you were on and, um, affirm those things.

Um, and then, you know, self love and self care and self compassion. I talk a lot about in my work. is essential. You know, you can't have, I don't think shame should be zero percent. I frankly, I think it should be a little seasoning, but it can't be the main dish. You got to once in a while. As Seneca, the great Stoic says, be harsh with yourselves, be with yourself, but, but you need to do that after you're, um, you know, giving yourself a lot of compassion and realizing you're not perfect, you're never going to be perfect.

And then you figure out, all right, well, what do I need to change in order to cultivate more, um, trust in myself, et cetera. Um, but yeah, I think it's yes to all of it. And, um, you know, [00:26:00] ultimately the more the merrier and the more consistently practiced the better. And, uh, and then it's, you're not telling yourself something, you are that thing.

And then you're reminding yourself when you forget, but there's a important difference between the two in my experience. Um, but great question and, um, a fun topic.

[00:26:18] ck: Yeah. So, you, in your book, by the way, tremendous book, love it. Um, you had talked about learning to install and delete habits at will, and the same token, uh, you didn't say this in your public interviews yet, I don't know, but I, I want to ask you this question.

Do you, do you think what you just said now is also the training that you do to install and delete beliefs? About yourself,

[00:26:45] Brian: give me a little bit more Claire or give me a little bit more. Um, nuance on the question. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Let

[00:26:49] ck: me actually, I, my interview styles. I give you a lot of context and people are like, well, you're going to ask me.

So, so when I was younger, I believe I [00:27:00] wasn't worth it. Right. I had to, uh, use my achievements to prove my self worth right to everyone else. But over time, the work that you just mentioned, I start to honor myself. Do the things I say I will do by the time I say I'll do it and then that's a way for me to change the way I view myself.

So in terms of deleting or installing new ideas about who I am as a human, you implied it, but I wanted to see if you have any tactical suggestions on, Oh, okay, here's, you have, you have a disempowering believer by yourself. This is how you

[00:27:36] Brian: transmute it to an empowering belief, blah, blah, blah. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. Fantastic. Um, cool. So then I'll give context to what you, what you said about the installing and deleting habits. Then we'll apply it to our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. Um, so the way I sum it up is I basically integrate B. J. Fogg, you know, James Clear, Charles Duhigg, all their great books.

And if you want to install a habit, you need to do [00:28:00] three things. First, you need to make the cue, the trigger, the prompt, the thing that triggers you to do the behavior obvious. So the, the mundane example is if you want to work out in the morning, you know, trip over your workout clothes and your gym shoes or whatever.

You want to meditate, put your meditation cushion literally. So you're tripping over it when you get out of bed. Oh, shoot. There's the cue, the trigger, the prompt to remember I want to meditate. You make it obvious that you need to do the habit. You want to brush your teeth or floss your teeth, put the floss out on your sink counter.

So when you come in at night, you see it, boom. Then you want to make it easy to win. So you want to simplify tiny habits, atomic habits. You don't want to meditate for an hour a day is the standard to win. It's a breath a day or a minute. Make it easy to win. And the third thing is you celebrate after you do it.

That's the one, two, three obvious. Easy. Celebrate for installing. You do the opposite if you want to delete a habit. You got a drinking problem? Dump out all of your alcohol. Get rid of the cue, [00:29:00] the trigger, the prompt that makes you want to drink. Same with sugary foods. It's why every nutrition book tells you clear your pantry and don't buy this stuff because when it's sitting there staring at you, it's begging you to do it.

Make the cue invisible. Then you make it hard, which is related. You want to drink? Perfect. Go drive to the liquor store. Add a few steps to the process. And then when you inevitably fall short of your standards in deleting the bad habit, do something I call Needs Work It, which is from Lanny Basham, a world class Olympic medal rifle shooter.

He said, don't ruminate the missed shot. Go right back to the moment where you made a mistake and imagine doing it right. There's always a moment right before we do something vicious, whether it's me yelling at my kids or you doing whatever you do, you know, when you're not at your best. You want to go right to the moment before and realize you could have done something better and then replay that and commit to getting better.

Um, anyway, that's installing [00:30:00] and deleting behaviors to apply that to beliefs. It's the same basic idea. Um, so even like, like my clarity on my, my vision for life. You know, I got a tattoo reminding myself of my ultimate target and who I'm committed to being. That's handy, you know, and then I got a reminder on this forearm of how I want to show up and live.

So I've literally created visual reminders, cues, triggers, prompts to remind myself of who I'm committed to being. I'm committed to living a heroic life. In living with virtue or are tech. Um, those are Q trigger prompts and even subtle things like passwords. So whenever I or email addresses whenever I'm stepping into a new identity.

I literally create new passwords. I create new, um, uh, you know, email addresses at times, you know, the pass code to get into our property. We've got a gate, you know, it's like, boom, it means something to me. Um, I try to make my entire life aligned around that [00:31:00] identity, those behaviors, et cetera, um, and those are some ideas in terms of, of what may help.

And then you got to notice when you're off. So training your mind through meditation and through other practices is huge because the first hardest step is to notice when you've slipped. Then you bring it back and use all these different tools and whatever else works for you, um, to just groove the pattern and not let the old patterns take over for any longer than is possible.

Um, and again, you get good at that by practicing it, but those are some of the ways that I've, um, loosely applied the behavioral changes to belief changes. I love it, man.

[00:31:40] ck: You know, it just occurred to me that you're someone who is a self deck deck. This is my interpretation of you. Do you have, you know, counsel allies who support you in your own transformation into being a person that you as the hero that you always want to [00:32:00] be in life?

[00:32:00] Brian: You have those? I'm hanging out with one right now, dude. Let's go. This is how we get stronger though. You know, it's, it's people whose values are aligned with ours having powerful conversations about important things. Um, and I mean that in his style. I've already learned a lot about the ideas I share about myself about you, and it's exciting for me.

So here I am, obviously, you know, excited about my perspective, um, and, and willing to communicate it strongly. But I loved it when you're like, I got a little pushback. I'm all right, cool. Let's go. What am I going to get from from our interaction? Um, and then more generally speaking, Well, specifically, but, but at a more intimate level, Phil, my coach, I mentioned, Alexandra, my wife, unquestionably, I mean, she's my second, not even brain, but intuition.

So she's a very person, even the way that she met you and me is surreal. I mean, she found my website when I was running it 20 years ago, 18 years [00:33:00] ago, way before I'm doing what I'm doing now, obviously, for whatever reason, she decided to go look and see who the CEO was. She learned about me. She saw the books I liked and she said to herself, I'm going to marry this guy.

Gets tears in my eyes. This is what she said immediately when she saw me. Wow. And then he moves out to LA to work with you guys and do the conference at UCLA. She moved a half a mile from my house. Is where she wound up being. Then she's at this event and she audaciously says, yeah, we got to get this company to sponsor us because I want to marry the CEO.

I don't know if she said it quite that way, because I want to meet the CEO or whatever she said. But in her mind, she was thinking, cause I want to marry this guy. And then she connects and here we are 17 years later, tears in my eyes, I trust my wife's intuition, she's got a very powerful intuition, you know, um, she's also got a very strong rational mind and all the other things, but she's a big advocate and, um, counselor for me, my right hand guy, our head coach with Heroic, Michael's another guy I trust [00:34:00] implicitly, um, and our team, you know, each brings different perspectives, I've got some dear friends that I really trust and respect, I mean, each kind of offers a different perspective, and I think it's that beautiful dance, you know, the healthy, um, perspective in general, let alone a masculine perspective to hold our belief strongly.

But loosely, you know, strong opinions loosely held. It's what one of the women who, uh, was an executive at a company we worked with to build our app said. I just love that. The engineering lead, in fact, at our product development company. Strong opinions loosely held. So I found that I get better, you know, in synergy with...

Smart, wise, driven people like you and, and those I mentioned. Um, and then it just becomes fun. It's a lot more fun to do this work, um, together. And I should say all of our coaches in our community, I connect with them every day at one Oh one with exceptions, but. You know, we're, I'm blessed to be in the role of coaching them, but I'm learning so much [00:35:00] with them and, um, the questions we explore and all the different things that go with that.

Do you

[00:35:05] ck: structure, is it more like intuitive? Like, Hey, I'm thinking about CK, let me just call him. Or is it more structure like, Hey, if we have a weekly mastermind or quarterly retreats or, you know, that kind of structure around these types of, you know,

[00:35:20] Brian: it depends. So two of my best friends are, um, former major league baseball players.

The guy named Sean Casey, who's, uh, just was the New York Yankees hitting coach, great human being, and another guy who's the mental toughness coach for the angels who happened to be big investors in heroic, heroic coaches. And just two of my best friends, every single morning I send them my aura score.

They send me their aura score. And we're going back and forth and we're texting each other every day war score. What's that? Uh, the aura score. So Yeah, exactly I don't wear mine during the day most days because a whole nother chat on their activity score we [00:36:00] argue about that but you know I'll share my sleep and readiness scores from Aura with them every morning as a means of accountability.

We have a social platform we just launched a private beta for. I'm there connecting every single day and being accountable again with our community. I'm not a big fan of meetings. You know, I'm much more dynamic and of course, you know scheduled things like this will be there Um, I have my weekly sessions with phil Uh, but otherwise i'm i'm really dynamic.

So it's what's alive for me Um, and then it's right now boom bat signal to whether it's my right hand guy or a financier advisor um, and when I have questions i'll ask like Five to 10 of the smartest people I know in that domain and just get reps in. So in like 12, 24, 36 hours, 48 hours, I'll like, they'll make me so much smarter, you know, and I'll come in with an idea [00:37:00] and then through conversations, it will be shaped and then at the end of it, I'm like done.

Um, and I'm really, really blessed to have really smart people. Um, you know, we have 3000 investors in our public benefit corporation, 150 of whom are accredited. And so I've got this really beautiful group of, of now friends who are, um, great advisors in a number of different areas. So that's another, um, practice of mine.

Um, but by and large, super spontaneous. And then I like to get clarity and I want to, I want to either kill an idea or prove that it's a good one worth pursuing quickly. I move through those cycles.

[00:37:42] ck: How do you do that? How do you kill an idea quickly? Because, you know, our ideas are our darlings and you're like, the ego is like, yeah, I can have them all.

Right. That's the mantra. Like have them all. Well, in reality, as you mentioned time and again, it's important to make a decision and go. Right. It's a habit. Killing and darling. [00:38:00] Yeah,

[00:38:00] Brian: it's a great question. Um, you know, the ad hoc kind of analysis of it is a lot of the things I've described. I'm willing to be decisive.

I'm not attached. It's not that I'm not attached. It's that I'm willing to detach from ideas. And I genuinely I want to fulfill our mission. So I'm very mission driven. I feel a fiduciary obligation and a moral obligation to our investors in our community to do the right thing. Um, and then I want to know if it's not the right thing as fast as I can.

So then it's a, it's a. Maybe a three step process for me. One. I meditate deeply every day and I find that's when my intuition is strongest and I can kill or more importantly, good ideas just become clear. It's hard to describe, but I see things with clarity. Um, good night of sleep. Wake up feeling refreshed.

Meditate for 10 to 30 to 60 minutes. And in that process, things just become clear. And I do that every day. And then when I [00:39:00] have questions about whether or not something should be pursued or not, I'll often do what I just described, which is I'll reach out to different advisors and I'll literally ask them, what do you like about the idea?

And what do you think sucks? And kill it. Tell me what isn't good about it. And I never used to do that. I always used to be fragile and afraid of criticism and all these different things. Now I care so much about what I'm committed to, that I just don't care. Like, there's a level of detachment from it. Um, because I'm so all in and then it's fun.

And I find that to be so much more rewarding, um, uh, in easy and effective. Um, and then it's then, so it's my own intuition, checking it against my own assumptions and then getting counsel when I feel that's necessary. And then I take action. So then you gotta, it still may not be a great idea, even if you've got some cycles on it with advisors, then you need to put it out there.

Phil Stutz again has a great idea. [00:40:00] He says action drives creativity. You can't figure it all out. You got to just, he uses a donut store metaphor. So if I want a donut, so you know, if I want to eat a donut, right, or if I want to open a donut store, there's no way to know how many sprinkled donuts I should make, how many powdered donuts, how many glazed donuts.

I just don't know. You got to decide you're going to do it. Then you start with some assumption, you know, of 25%, 25%, 25%, 25%. And then you'll see what the market says. And then you'll adjust action drives creativity. So I try to take action and then get the data and then improve upon it and then either go all in on it or kill it.

Um, that's some of the ideas. It sounds cleaner than it is. It's never quite that pristine. Um, which would be the most important thing. I embrace the mess. I don't expect it to be clean, you know, I'm willing [00:41:00] to get messy. It's hard work. Um, it often sucks and perfect. Let's go. That's how I'm going to get strong.

You know,

[00:41:08] ck: I, I, it sounds like you found your doubt, you know, your, your way of living. You know, it's very dynamic. You trust yourself. You trust your advisors. You have a way of managing your time, your energy, your resources. You know, you trust, you know, where you allocate your attention. I mean, one thing that I've always appreciated about you, honestly, is yes, you're a philosopher at heart, but you're also fiercely practical, you know, you're an entrepreneur, you're pursuing all these things.

I've seen you, the iteration of your work, right from PDFs to now membership sites. You know, I don't know if you're still pursuing the TV idea yet, but you're building this media company really to help people actualizing themselves, you know, so I just wanted to give you a props for just continue on the path.

You didn't let any of the self doubt [00:42:00] distract you and you just kept

[00:42:01] Brian: going. Well, I appreciate it. I think that again, why I love the name of your show, Noble Warrior. To me, that's what I'm talking about. So for me, it's philosopher CEO. So, you know, the combining of those two apparent opposites, you know, the noble warrior, the philosophical CEO, like these are, um, I think really powerful things to integrate, and I appreciate you, um, reflecting that back and, uh, to work in progress, you know, just constantly showing up.

Um, it's the discipline on the mundane things, though, that allow me to feel the freedom with my intuition and the dynamicism. I'm insanely structured when it comes to my sleeping, my eating, my movement. Um, I do the basic fundamentals. I just don't think about them, you know, and they're just non negotiable.

And with that structure, I find that I have a lot more freedom to explore with a groundedness. Um, whereas in the, in the past I'd be up and I'd be down and I didn't have the basic fundamentals that, um, I [00:43:00] think are so important.

[00:43:01] ck: So on that note, here's a great segue. You are freaking shredded, dude. I mean, I'm looking at your veins and your bicep and that I, I love that you're so disciplined about your eating, your sleep, your movement, your breathing.

Like these are fundamental things. Public admission, I'm struggling with sleep. Cause I love what I do. So then often I would just, you know, not sleep. So help me get more disciplined around sleep. But what are some of the other things that you do such that you look so good at whatever

[00:43:34] Brian: age you are? Dude, I'm thinking the same thing right here.

So I appreciate that. And, um, 49 is the age I am. And, uh, I mean, there's many things there, so we'll go to sleep, but, you know, physique or whatever, why it's nutrition, it's sugar and, and, um, processed foods of which I eat none. So that's, that's the number one core about no sugar, none period. [00:44:00] Yeah. I mean, that's just, um, that's a whole nother chat insulin and all those things.

Um, and then. Uh, we'll save that. But then sleep. Um, number one rule. And again, I've got a class sleep one on one. Check it out. Uh, but rule number one is you got to prioritize it. So to the extent you haven't made it a truly important thing, then it won't be the important thing. Now, for me, I used to be emotionally up and down.

So as I said before you met me, you know, maybe three years before you met me for five. I forget exactly when it was. 17 years ago was it? So early twenties, you know, X years before we met, I had none of this and I was very up and I was very down. The number one thing that I realized was sleep. I'm a different person, but I don't get enough sleep.

Now it took me, you know, 25 years to get to where I am now, but sleep is a sport for me. And I know how good I feel with a good night of sleep. So last night I'm in bed and it's the number one target [00:45:00] I commit to in our heroic app. And we help people get clarity on what they do when they're at their best.

And then we tell them, look, life isn't hard. Just do that more and more consistently. And don't do the things you don't do when you're at your best. You know, last night I'm in bed for nine hours and 15 minutes. I slept for eight hours and 23 minutes or at aura tells me I got a 94 sleep score, but I went to bed.

I went to bed at, dude, I averaged over the nineties for two years straight in my sleep while raising money, while building a startup. And I went to bed last night at, at, um, 7. 50, you know, and I'll go to bed at 6. 50 when the time changes, I go to bed shortly after the sun sets. That's how we evolve. But what I've done is I've prioritized sleep because I know how good I feel when I get a good night of sleep.

And I'm so committed to playing the long game. And again, yeah, yeah, I can, I can work late at night, but I'm not going to do my absolute best work late at night, nor am I going to do my best [00:46:00] work, even have a shot at it in the morning. I do my best work right after my meditation. I do the most important thing.

I get clarity on what's important and then I do it. And frankly, if that was all I did and I took the rest of the day off, I get more done than the old me used to get done in a week. Um, at a higher quality. So for me, I've, I've gotten really clear that sleep is my secret weapon and the science supports it.

I mean, there's unequivocal science on it. So to me, it's become a non negotiable. It, you couldn't pay me to not get a good night of sleep. Now, asterisks I traveled last week, I flew to Toronto and did some work there that it stretched my, my protocols, but that's fine. I have a protocol to know when it's appropriate to flex it.

And I can operate on less sleep. That isn't my sustainable, you know, sweet spot, but the number one rule is make it a priority and then you just schedule it out and say, well, how much sleep do you want? All right. Well, I had an [00:47:00] efficiency last night of 91%, which is obviously good, you know? Um, for me to get eight hours of sleep, I need to be in bed for nine hours.

So I prioritize that. I go to bed at a certain time. My electronics were off. And 90 minutes, two hours before I went to bed. And it's reflected in my deep sleep, um, which will always be affected by how late I use my technology, how late I had my last meal, things like that. And to me, it's all one big game.

And it's, it's become so obvious to me how it helps me win the game. I want to play that you couldn't pay me to compromise it. It's no longer a chore. It's a gift. Um, and again, I love what I do so much and I work hard. I mean, I, I worked from 5 a. m. Till 6 p. m. Basically with whatever breaks in between. So it's not, I'm not slacking, but it's a, no, no, no.

I'm done at this point to get a good night of sleep, to spend time with my kids. Um, and so I can repeat it. [00:48:00] Um, and there's a joy to it that, um, feels like a gift that I give to myself. Not a chore that I have to do, if that makes sense. Yeah.

[00:48:09] ck: I mean, just that segment alone. Thank you for the gift that you're giving me.

I really, really appreciate it. Yeah. What about you being so shredded and everything? What's your, you know,

[00:48:25] Brian: energy ritual? It's nutrition. 80 percent of physique in my mind is nutrition. Um, with another, I mean, 80 percent on sleep, people don't get sleep. The other thing that happens when you don't get a good night of sleep is you're dysregulating your leptin and your insulin.

Your leptin is your hunger hormone and ghrelin and all the other things. But basically you're hungrier for stuff you know you shouldn't eat. And I experience this. What do I want? I crave the sugary stuff when I am tired. So sleeping is one of the most powerful ways to, um, create a physique that [00:49:00] you may be proud of or whatever, you know?

And then, uh, nutrition again, we talked about it briefly, but, but sugar, refined foods, um, fast acting carbs, these are all triggering, triggering insulin. Sugar is a toxin in your bloodstream. We did not evolve to have concentrated sugar beyond fruit in season. Period. Full stop. I mean, longer chat, but insulin shuttling sugar out of your bloodstream and what does it do?

It stores it in fat. So if you want to reduce your fat, reduce your sugar intake, regulate your insulin, um, all very, very obvious things that I just do without thinking about it now. And then I train. So burpees are my thing. You know, I do. Bro, I love burpees. So one I've never heard anyone say I love burpees Dude, and I love them.

I love it because no one says I love burpees You know what? I mean? Like there's something about falling in love with hard things That's a big part of my philosophy where you realize that's the only way to [00:50:00] get what you want in life is to be willing to go out of your comfort zone into discomfort where your infinite potential exists.

So I genuinely love burpees in general. I don't love them in any particular set per se, but I do 100 burpees a day and I do them 11 at a time. I don't do 100 burpees, I do 11. At a time, but I do 11 every 20 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes in the morning, a stopwatch goes off timer and I bang out burpees. Um, and it also proves to me that anything you do that you break down into a small enough chunk is easy.

So I've done, you know, 110 burpees a day. That's like 40,000 burpees a year, you know? And that's my training. I'll row a thousand meters. I get 10,000 steps, and I do 10 pull-ups, one sun salutation, 10 pull-ups. 100 burpees, 1000 meters of rowing and 10, 000 steps. I've done that every day with a few exceptions for a decade.

I just [00:51:00] don't think, you know, and then it's fun for me to do as little as I can to feel the way I feel and to look the way that I look. And it's just, it's again, it's a game for me. It's funny, you know, cool. I can make all that out. Um, Those are some of the things. So again, the eating, the moving, of course, and then the sleeping, those three basic fundamentals, um, uh, or what I practice that, um, most importantly, it just gives me a sense of sustainable energy.

Um, but yeah.

[00:51:33] ck: Amazing. And you, can you share with us your breathing protocol?

[00:51:38] Brian: Yeah, I appreciate you asking. So breath is, um, I think And I know you know, this one of the most underappreciated practices. Uh, I used to have a ton of anxiety as a little kid, just nervous about everything, shy, scared of everything, et cetera, as a young man, the same thing.

And I had meditated for years. Um, and I [00:52:00] still felt some social anxiety and just, just, uh, unnatural, if you will, response to things, you know, that was just heightened, um, even after meditating and then it's interesting. I stopped eating grains. And my calmness factor went way up, it was weird, and we can talk about that separately.

But then when I started training my breath, and I follow a guy named Patrick McYeown, so Wim Hof is great, and there's a bunch of different great teachers. I'm a fan of Patrick McYeown. His whole thing is, you're breathing too much. So you're breathing through your mouth, you're over breathing, and in the process you're dysregulating your carbon dioxide, which is actually the thing you need to focus on in order to get oxygen out of your red blood cells into your tissues and muscles.

Um, so you need to breathe less to breathe right, he says. So exclusively through my nose and I do this breath work, um, every single [00:53:00] morning since I met him again, seven, eight, nine years ago now, and that has most fundamentally changed my, um, just a sense of calm, confidence and ability to kind of flip the switch.

And again, all the great performers, Navy SEALs and whatnot, talk about the power of breath, spiritual teachers, et cetera. And I have found it to be Tied for first as the most transformative thing I've ever done.

[00:53:26] ck: I mean, look him up. Sure, man. I know we're at time. Can you go a little longer?

[00:53:31] Brian: I know. Let's go, dude.

Yeah. All

[00:53:33] ck: right. Amazing. Thank you so much. Um, I got to ask you this question about personal knowledge men, personal knowledge management, because you are, I don't know any other guy who read as many books as you do. And for most people, it's hard enough to keep track of one book, you have hundreds, if not thousands of books.

How do you, you know, manage either you also start on a desktop and manage in some ways [00:54:00] you try to just internalize in your head and just keep using them until they're natural in your mind. Yeah. And I'm so curious about how you

[00:54:08] Brian: Yeah, I'm sure that Let me, um, I'm going to see if I can share my screen here.

So then, um, I would be in that position. One second, let me give you my, go ahead. I think, I think I'll be fine. Check it out. I've got this little thing here where it will show my, my, um, do you see that? Oh man, I love

[00:54:25] ck: it.

[00:54:26] Brian: So I use Ecamm too. I noticed you were doing that before. But, but here's Aura from last night, right?

Um, and then, so here's our app. So, you know, maybe, uh, shoot, 25 years ago. Um, not too long after you and I met, um, no, dude, we met after I sold E Teams. I hadn't created philosophy notes though yet, right? Nope,

[00:54:52] ck: not yet. No, of course. You were 2006 is

[00:54:55] Brian: when we met. Yeah. I remember the first talk I gave, goosebumps again, was [00:55:00] on getting paid to do what you love to do.

This was a Toastmaster talk I gave, something along those themes. So forever ago, I realized that I wanted to get paid to figure out how to live a great life and help others do the same to optimize their lives. And anyway, I realized that I wanted to get paid to read books because I love reading books and I wanted to distill them and share the wisdom with others.

So I created something that you know about called Philosopher's Notes. And this is how I catalog everything. And frankly, I feel off when I read books. Like I read Arnold Arnold Schwarzenegger's book cover to cover on Sunday as we discussed, and I haven't distilled it yet into a philosopher's note, but this is my brain here, dude.

I reread my own notes on book, like the daily stoic, where I pull out those big ideas and I just created a system where I do it. But I figured out how to get paid to do it and then did it 650 times, you know, so I reread my [00:56:00] own notes in the form of these, um, philosophers notes. But that's the way that I, uh, I've captured it.

Um, but when I'm reading a book, I'm marking it up. I just I own it. Twyla Tharp says she reads a book archaeologically. Not passively. She's mining for good ideas. So I'm underlining asterisks, marking it out. But then I pull it out. I type it all out. I capture it. I connect it to other ideas in a six page summary.

Um, and I've been blessed to do that as, uh, professionally for 15, 16 years now.

[00:56:34] ck: So I'm going to push you back on just a little bit. Okay. So I appreciate that. And I love it. You're living the dream. You had an idea 20 some years ago. You, you, you're doing it. Awesome. So the question I have is about searchability of these ideas.

You know, about, because in your mind, there's a meta framework. Oh, this conversation reminded me of this quote, this idea, this idea, this idea. [00:57:00] How do you, do you, do you, you know, have a filing system on your desktop somewhere? Literally

[00:57:07] Brian: just in your mind. Keep on pushing. So then, you that, that I, I literally downloaded my brain and every single idea I ever learned from any book.

Into my philosopher's notes. Now the pushback is, yeah, that's nice, Brian. You figured out how to get paid to read books, which is fair. Um, but the equivalent, um, Non professional way to do it is if you read a great book, capture it in a format that is searchable would be the answer to the question. And the reason I have a data is my database in my brain and my pattern recognition is now very high because I've done so many reps and taking it out, distilling it, um, summarizing it, et cetera.

But literally, like what's a book that comes to mind? Um, or an idea that comes to mind because I'll search our app. I use my own app. That's it. I mean, what do we

[00:57:59] ck: do on the [00:58:00] same term? I don't know if you rate Ray Dalio's principles, you know, he's all about, you know, results and look it up.

[00:58:07] Brian: So Dalia, so I've got 12 little micro classes plus ones in which I've talked about Ray Dalio, but I would not know this stuff as deeply as I do if I didn't go through the process of concretizing it.

I have literally typed out, I think, 5, 000 quotes from books. Um, I've done 650 notes. Each of them has five ideas in them, at least. I have personally typed out 3, 000 long passages, or, you know, reasonably long passages from books. That process has deepened my, my, um, recollection. But here's my note on Ray Dalio's Principles.

It's brilliant. Now, again, it's only a fraction of what he covers in that insanely great book. But here you go. I know his exact. Here's principle number one. I don't know how I could never remember that. Oh, embrace reality. Principle number one. Cool. I'm glad I captured that principle number two. He's got a five step [00:59:00] process to get what you want.

So anyway, I literally have this ready at hand. Um, and I use it that way. Uh, that's my protocol, but I hung out with a woman the other day who uses Evernote, same thing and she literally used to take screen grabs of certain things and there's so many cool tools we can use. We just need to trust ourselves to go back to that theme and then find our own idiosyncratic practices, but then do it and do it consistently and you'll build an archive.

I mean, this didn't happen for me in a day or in a book or in two. It was 10, 20, 30, 50, a hundred, 200, 300, 400, 500 reps. And then we go back to the, the burning desire I have to make a difference and to be my best self. And then I'll say no to all the nonsense. And, you know, structure my life around what I've said is most important and show up over and over and over again.

And, um, it's what I see in you. I [01:00:00] don't know your specific practices, but I know you practice and I know you're showing up and it's what people feel from you and from us. And it's everything we've been talking about. Soulforce activated. Um, which in itself is inspiring. And then we need to figure out what we do when we're at our best and do more of it.

Um, and that's my own idiosyncratic expression. Um, you do these interviews. So that's your way, one of your ways, to go deeper. I personally am curious about this. So I'm going to talk to that guy. And we're going to go deep or gal, and then I'm going to share it. And it's your relationship with, for me, I said, I wanted to have a deal with God.

He let me study this stuff to use in whatever pronoun to the extent I shared whatever I was learning. And that I've tried to be in integrity with that deal. And, um, feel blessed to be here with you today talking about these ideas and, and, um, all the other things. Amen.

[01:00:57] ck: Uh, so one of the things [01:01:00] that Differentiates, for me anyway, noble allies are kindred spirits who are on the same path.

You know, I've been watching from afar all the things that you've been putting out and being impressed by it and admire it and respect you for it. And then, uh, I'm so excited about your new book, Arite, you know, I think a lot of people can really benefit. Actually, you know what? I have one more question about that.

So you have tens of thousands of people, you know, who love the artifact that you made, right? Your books, your summaries, and your videos, and so forth. What are some of the, the impact that you never expected that your words, your, you know, artifact has made on people? Yours is like, wow, I never thought. You know, spending a few hours reading this book, putting something together can really, you know, have this kind of

[01:01:53] Brian: ripple effect on people.

Yeah, it's a powerful question. I mean, what immediately comes to mind for me is, um, [01:02:00] people who have told me that they were going to end their own lives before they found my work. I mean, just emotionally riveting. I can think of. Two individuals in particular who actually shared their story in a video that I've watched dozens of times.

Every single time I get emotional, beautiful women couldn't figure out what they wanted to do with their lives for whatever set of reasons were. Impacted by my work, you know, and attribute a big part of their process to finding a life of deep meaning and joy through the work. That's that's hands down the most powerful.

And then, you know, it's been it's been a real blessing to see the individuals like you and others who have been introduced to my work or we connected forever ago and who have been impacted at really elite levels. So military officers commanding You very important missions and, you know, top executives and just people I never would have guessed would be part of our community are, um, and then just the spectrum of [01:03:00] humanity and the fact that we all have the same need.

You know, and to go back to your point about one of the chapters in the book that you're the hero we've been waiting for, and this, this common call that we all have to express the best version of ourselves in service to something bigger than ourselves. Um, but it's, it's been a blessing to see the diversity of people who resonate.

I mean, 11 year old kids. I've gotten a lot of humbling testimonials for the book. But the most powerful one is a commanding military officer who, his 11 year old son, picked up the book and couldn't put it down, stayed up late on a Saturday night to read the first 100 pages. And I told him, look, there's no more powerful testimonial than that.

You know, like, wow, I'm proud of that, that I was able to connect with the next generation, you know, at a point I wish I was introduced to these ideas. I'd say that, frankly, um, is, uh, What I'm most committed to is helping parents raise great kids, but [01:04:00] helping the next generation go out and get these ideas sooner, you know, not have to work through 40 years of.

All the things I had to work through, you know, figuring it out, but to really raise literally the next generation of heroes that will, um, fundamentally change the world if we do our job. So beautiful question. That's, uh, those are some thoughts. I

[01:04:21] ck: got to follow up with one more question. When you write, do you write to the younger Brian or do you write to the current Brian? Because, you You know, it's usually when content creators, they want to write to an avatar, right? You had no idea this 11 year old would connect to you. So how, when you write who, like, how do you, how do you write?

[01:04:43] Brian: Yeah, I totally know what you mean. I've had a lot of different, um, not even avatars, but real people. So in my studio, when I'm filming, you know, I have this beautiful Muslim couple who I just adore, who have been affected by my work and who [01:05:00] have affected me deeply. I'll have a picture of them at one of our events up, you know, the woman I mentioned.

Who nearly ended her own life picture of her who's right there on my right hand guy. Michael is my most gets me emotional. My most ardent student. I often have him in mind. Oh, let me him up my friends. I mentioned to you both of whom found me through my work who are now heroic coaches. I'm thinking of them elite performers.

Boom. Um, but most of all, I'm just I'm not thinking now. So now it's I've got enough reps in and I've done enough writing that I'm really trying to practice my philosophy and trusting myself and it feels alive for me, then let it go, let it rip and be me. And even my book, you know, I had to make some decisions creatively.

Of the type of book I wanted to create. And I broke most rules of publishing in the style book. You know, it's a thousand page book, it's a gravitas and a weight to it. Yet it reads like Steven Pressfield's war of art, [01:06:00] no chapters longer than there are a few that are like five pages, but there are one, two, three pages, really pithy, 451 little chapters that required me to trust myself.

I mean, conversations with my, our publishing partner and with myself and with the team. And um, I, that's it in my writing is I want to come alive. I want to create something that feels, you know, like it's a, an expression of, of who I am and, and, and, and, and for this book, I asked our community of all the ideas I've taught you and, and, and you've learned from what has most changed your life.

And, and every single idea that they shared with me is in the book. And it's one of the reasons why the book went long is I asked our team, Hey, tell me which ideas have most changed your life. Some gave me three or five or 10. My right hand guy gave me like 50. But none of them were the same. They were almost all different.

So what I've learned is I can't predict which content is [01:07:00] going to affect which person and some of the stuff that I thought kind of sucked, frankly, but I had to ship because I do daily content and it's kept me going forever. It's like, it's something I almost didn't ship will be the thing that changes someone's life, literally like really bad.

And so I've learned to trust the process, um, more than anything. And, um, again, that's a very long answer to another great question, but, uh, All of it, you know, I'm writing for all those people and, um, just trying to express myself in a way that, um, brings out the best in people in this moment. Um, hoping that at least one of the ideas in anything I do from this conversation, my intention is simple.

One I, one person, one idea. Then the pressure's off of me and not thinking about me. I'm hoping one person gets one idea and hopefully every person who listens or watches our time together gets one idea. Boom. I've won. Um, those are some, uh, many [01:08:00] thoughts, uh, at this point. Brian,

[01:08:02] ck: man, I can speak to you forever.

So many questions love to reconnect in person one day, you know, the name of the podcast is noble warrior. And my intention here is to talk to masters who are doing the work and to share their wisdom and knowledge, the mastery, you know, to help others to live a life of purpose, joy and performance. And again, I just want to emphasize I so appreciate how you walk your own path, you know, with humility, with authenticity, with power, and you're doing the work, man, and just so cool to see just like You're not dreaming about it, you're doing it, you're helping people in such a magnified way.

So, like, great fucking work.

[01:08:50] Brian: Amazing. Aw, dude, I appreciate you. And uh, as you're saying that, I appreciate it. And I can feel the um, earnestness of your kind words. And it's what I feel in [01:09:00] you. Same thing. That humble, powerful. Authentic expression of your ideals, and it's really important for me to be here with you and to, um, you know, especially as men, you know, just embodying an integrated perspective.

So I really appreciate you. I can't wait to meet in person or see one another in person again. And, uh, Thank you. Great chat. Really, really an honor to be here and look forward to connecting you again. So guys, if you

[01:09:26] ck: haven't yet, yet, not yet inspired, go, go pre order the book. Go to Hero. us. us forward slash book.

Hero. us forward slash book to pre order the book. The book is coming out November 14th. Brian's blood, sweat and tears and all the, all the, all the beautiful things summarizing in one thousand page book.

[01:09:50] Brian: I've read one, two pages at a time. Let's go.

[01:09:54] ck: All right, Brian. So appreciate you.