Brian Johnson is what I’d call a modern-day philosopher and coach, leading others to be their very best. He’s the founder of “Heroic” – a platform and framework to do just that.
This book is an absolutely amazing resource for anyone who sees that gap between who they are now and who they want to become.
Brian is like a human Cliff Notes for personal development. He’s read hundreds of books and academic studies in his quest to be the best version of himself… and then strives to inspire others to be their best self by distilling those resources into an actionable framework.
These are stronger than flight-by-night trends in the personal development space. He’s found the common threads and overarching messages from ancient wisdom and modern science to give us time-tested and science-backed approached for creating a fulfilled life.
And that’s why I think this chunk of a book will stay on the corner of my desk as a reference, as a daily reader even.
He’s taken those approaches and created little snippets of easily digestible motivations and practical points. These are short enough to be nice five minute inspirations, yet are tied together and build on each other so that if the reader gets momentum in their reading session they can enjoy a solid lesson in personal development over whatever time they can spend.
Here’s a sample of one those snippets, found on page 772, called “turning around glitches: true confidence and how to build it”
True confidence isn’t about thinking it’ll always be easy and/or that things will work out just the way we planned. True confidence comes from knowing that we will have challenges and that we have what it takes to meet each and every challenge.
In fact, as we’ve discussed, the Latin root of the word confidence literally means to have full trust or to have intense trust,
But…
Again..
Intense trust in what?
Intense trust in your ability to respond powerfully to each challenge as it arises.
He goes on to say his own coach Phil Stutz (yes, THAT Phil Stutz, psychiatrist to the stars), calls these challenges ‘glitches’ and then it’s up to us as to how we recover from those glitches. We can view these glitches as practice for speeding up our recovery time and for getting our confidence stronger and stronger.
There are 451 one of these snippets, so to just narrow them down to one takeaway is pretty daunting. My takeaway instead is how this book is an amazing tool and resource. This book gives me strength in knowing there are proven methods to activating our potential. They’ve been around for centuries and have been proven by science here in modern times. And now when I need fuel to boost my journey towards my own potential, I know just what book to pick up!
So those are my takeaways from Arete. Give it a read then let me know what your takeaways are!
