Mastery of Mind and Body: Pathways to Personal Excellence | Brian Johnson

[00:00:08] What a great book for anyone who's ever been interested, even for a second in the personal development inspirational category. This book, Arite, Activate Your Heroic Potential by Brian Johnson. You have to just visually see this book. It's 451 chapters, 1,000 pages.

[00:00:28] It's almost like a little cube, but it's actually very fast to read because every chapter is just one or two pages and it's really well done.

[00:00:35] And it interweaves all these hundreds of stories and different authors and philosophers into one cohesive strategy for living the best life you can live. The word Arite means every day living the best life.

[00:00:54] And this book is about how to do it, and there's hundreds of stories and examples. Brian Johnson has his own stories and we talk about it from various perspectives. In the very beginning, we're talking about how his son is super interested in chess, which is coincidental to me.

[00:01:09] So we talk about how he's using Arite with his son. But then we dive into so many different subjects about what it means to activate your heroic potential. One of my funnest podcasts that I've done, check it out. Subscribe to the podcast if you like it.

[00:01:24] Share it with your friends. Do whatever you want. But I really recommend listening to this one. Thanks. This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altiger show. I was the New Jersey Junior Champion and now I'm the Georgia Senior Champion.

[00:01:54] Dude! And I remember I played at the National Tournament of State Senior Champions a few months ago and one of the GMs, everybody there was, you know, there was a bunch of GMs, IMs, FMs and me.

[00:02:07] And everybody there was 250 points lower than their high because they're all like over 50 years old. Yep. And I remember Elliot Winslow who was an IM told me, I was delusional that, you know, and I'm like, well, do you keep studying?

[00:02:22] He says I study hours a day, but he's 77 years old. So maybe. But then another guy. You just need to be here. Yeah, I know. But it's good for the story.

[00:02:33] Another guy did a study almost like as a favor and he kind of analyzed all the USCF data going all the way back. Essentially, maybe one person has done what I'm trying to do. Wow. I mean, one person has succeeded. Everyone else has failed.

[00:02:47] Like tens of thousands have failed. And I am so inspired right now. Yeah. Well, so how old were you at your peak? How old were you at your peak? I stopped playing also like from high school to this time.

[00:03:02] And when I was, I guess I was 28 and I was rated 2048. I remember the exact rating. Yeah. And in six months working with John Fedorowicz, I became 2250 and then I stopped. Okay. Oh, actually then I went down a little bit and I stopped at like 2208. Oh my gosh.

[00:03:24] And now though, I'm in the 2000s because it's, it's these, these first off, the whole chess world has improved. Like just training has improved openings have improved theory has improved, you know, computers gave us good lessons on what new good strategies are.

[00:03:42] And now young people and everybody has computers to train with or you go on zoom and you have lessons with a Bulgarian grandmaster and whatever. And, but I've been doing everything.

[00:03:53] I've been, I've talked to a neurologist, sports coaches, sports psychologists, I have a chess coach obviously and it is just hard. And I know I'm better than I had dinner with Magnus Carlson. Like I know, I know I've learned, but somehow my playing skills are not as good.

[00:04:14] And I'm still figuring it out. I'm Arate. I'm still Arate. Let's go. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Again, so much there is so inspiring and your target is what to get over it or to go over to a certain point or how are you, how are you?

[00:04:30] Really, my target is to go over 2200 again. I mean, you're once a master always a master in the title system, but, and I've learned so much and it's been, it's obviously such a beautiful game.

[00:04:41] But what you told Emerson in like chapter two, so early on in the book that, you know, you can't be afraid and you talk about this throughout the book. Like fear is in the path, is in, is, you know, blocks mastery.

[00:04:55] And what you told Emerson about it's a win when you could learn from the game. It's a very hard lesson to learn, particularly if you're losing a lot. So I always have a choice, you know, in tournaments.

[00:05:08] I could play in, you know, the second section or I can play in the premier section. And in the second section, I'm going to win a lot of games in the premier section. You know, I'm playing GMs and I am going to lose a lot of games.

[00:05:20] And I've lost a lot of games in the past year and a half. And it does get to you sometimes. Yeah. Dude, we'll have to talk about all sends you will need to connect after and all sends you. We've got this protocol dude.

[00:05:34] He's like a world class athlete every single match before it. We're doing a certain set of things, you know, he'll bang out 33 burpees. He listens to his mom's one minute like declaration track set to Rocky. Dude, it's so good.

[00:05:46] So he walks in just in this peak state ready to go. So just we're having so much fun playing the margins, particularly with the energy. Because when I look at the chess world, the one thing that I think is under tapped is true mastery from a physical perspective,

[00:06:03] like a Tiger Woods of chess doesn't exist. You know, coming in and redefining what it means to be an athlete where you're using your body. Magnus Carlsen is like the Tiger Woods of chess. He's the closest dude. But again, with respect to Magnus, he's talking about sleep.

[00:06:18] He's doing this and that, but that's not he there's a lot of room to go up from where Magnus is. And you're right. He's kind of the apex. But you know, Wesley so talked about it in the recent championship and all these things.

[00:06:32] But I think that that's an under tapped opportunity. That's huge high leverage gains. And you're right, not only in chess, but in many fields like a business meeting, there isn't the same thing.

[00:06:42] But if basketball, they do their exercises, then it's all okay, put your hands in the middle one, two, three victory. And like they really in a coach gives a talk like they really pump themselves up. No one does that.

[00:06:54] And I'll say chess, but in painting, writing, business investing, no one does that kind of like pump, pump me up sort of thing. And I've been wondering about this lately, what is the value of that in some of these other endeavors?

[00:07:09] Like should I listen to, you know, a heroic speech beforehand like Rocky and do the exercise? Like what do you think? Well, I think it needs to be part of an overall kind of training strategy.

[00:07:22] So for me, it's the basic fundamentals and showing up like a world class athlete, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, training your mind focus before you get to the event. And then putting yourself in a peak state just makes sense.

[00:07:36] Like why wouldn't I do the things that allow me to show up at the most high level cognitively? And it's my belief that our physiology drives a lot more of our psychology than most people recognize. And particularly- I agree, and the physiology I do.

[00:07:52] So I do the exercise, I sleep, nutrition, all this stuff has completely changed for me in the past year and a half because of this quest I'm on. But what about that getting into that peak state right before a high performance event?

[00:08:04] Yeah, and again, I'm going to playfully push back again. I would want to know what you're doing and I'd want to know if you're at a world class standard because I believe that that will significantly contribute to your performance, especially with the kind of disadvantages you have.

[00:08:16] You need to play the margins even tighter. And I believe, again, it's a huge competitive advantage in your domain in particular with Chess and Emerson's. I mean, dude, there are very few kids that are doing what he's doing.

[00:08:27] The way he eats and moves and sleeps and trains his mind, he doesn't use screens. I mean, the things that we're doing other than when he's playing chess are significant. And when I walk into that chess room and he's walking in, we'll get to how he walks in.

[00:08:40] I look around and I'm seeing families that are struggling physiologically, you can tell from just a physical vantage point. And it's almost unfair in many degrees.

[00:08:53] And again, when I look at the top performers in chess and I just watched whatever the championship was, he watches Hikaru for hours a day. I love Hikaru.

[00:09:02] I'd love to come in and coach Hikaru on his eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, but there's a level of performance that one can go to that's a period of the current when you really pay attention to it.

[00:09:13] I will say Hikaru has gotten healthier in the past two years that I've been watching him. But you're right. Probably no one except for Magnus is at athletic levels of physiology. I think Magnus is. He has a huge presence.

[00:09:32] Yes, and I mean, I would want to know different parameters. And again, what standards are we holding him to others in chess or Rory McElroy or LeBron James? What standards are we holding him to?

[00:09:43] I mean, there's an excitement and Magnus is a straw person and he's clearly at the peak in that domain. I would offer again that what would a true world class athlete look like and act like and perform like in that regard?

[00:10:00] Again, Magnus is obviously one of a kind and superior. But then for the mortals among us, it becomes even more important to find those opportunities to be our best in general, let alone if we want to perform well at the board.

[00:10:16] But it's super fun chat for me and we're having fun with him, you know, Emerson doing that. But in terms of the state, so for us when he's playing, I like to say that today began yesterday. How you ended yesterday is going to dictate how you start today.

[00:10:34] So we start with a shutdown complete ritual, we all the blue light stuff getting to bed early, circadian rhythms, getting a great night of sleep is always our number one priority. We're waking up, we're getting early AM sunlight, we're putting in a 1530 minute fun workout.

[00:10:49] You know, we invent workouts and parking lots called skippy ball throwing a ball back and forth while we do little, you know, back and forth movements and kicking the ball and running and having fun like a 10 year old would want to have.

[00:11:01] And then he's walking into the game with that physiology kind of in that state where, you know, as John Radie would say, exercise is like releasing a little bit of Ritalin and a little bit of Prozac, you know,

[00:11:15] that brain chemistry fundamentally changes when we've exercised even for two, three, five minutes. Yeah, I remember in the book you say not exercising is like taking a stress pill in the morning. A depressant is how tall Ben Shihar puts it.

[00:11:30] He says the days you don't exercise, it's as if you popped a depressant pill. And again, he's using it to exaggeratively make the point, but we evolved to move. And to the extent we're not moving in any given day, we're violating our underlying, you know, evolutionary physiology,

[00:11:47] which is going to drive our physical energy and presence and psychology, etc. But we have a lot of fun architecting a pre-match ritual just like a professional athlete would do. And we're ritualistic about it and it's become part of how we do things.

[00:12:04] So then it includes, you know, the morning workout, but then between matches. And of course he's playing three or so long matches a day on these weekend tournaments that are going from 90 minutes to two hours.

[00:12:17] And before that, you know, we do a little bit of movement, whether it's three minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes. And it now includes 33 burpees. 11 burpees will move around play catch, do some sprints. Then another 11 burpees play some more do another 11 burpees.

[00:12:33] And then as we're walking in, we're listening to his mom's little declarations, which last 60 seconds. You know, tell them you've got this and I love chess and I'm going to play, you know, winter learn all the little things, you know.

[00:12:45] And I'll literally share it with you because it's kind of fun. And do you think that works? I do. Sometimes I have disbelief in like, I think to myself, I'm just bullshitting myself. Yeah. And again, everything else needs to be under this.

[00:13:02] The foundation is, you know, he loves chess. He's playing four, six, eight hours a day. He's watching Hikaru for hours a day. He's watching these championship matches like I used to watch the World Series. He's in the culture of chess. He loves it.

[00:13:16] That's not going to work unless you did the work. But then of course we want to think about the things that can put us in a peak state. That's the tip of the iceberg. The physiology, I think is unbelievably important.

[00:13:28] And again, the nutrition and just all the little, little things that we do on that front. But then yeah, I have him assume a strong posture, chest up, chin down, what it is, what I've told him hundreds of times, chest up, chin down.

[00:13:41] He's breathing in through his nose, down into his belly. He sits down. He's sitting down strong and he's connecting with the individual and training his breath. And yeah, I think those things matter. Do any one of them dictate everything? Of course not.

[00:13:58] But in aggregate, I do believe that those margins matter. I agree. The only question I'm asking is the inspirational stuff he's listening to from his mom right beforehand. Do you think that does change you to be a little bit more positive and optimistic going in there?

[00:14:15] The short answer is yes. I think that P-performers know how to control their mental state. And I think that that particular set of declarations helps him focus his mind in constructive, directive ways where he's talking to himself,

[00:14:30] not listening to himself while he's walking into a match that is superior. Positive orientation. And again, these things include winter learn, I'm playing every move, process things. It's not some manicky, silly, whatever. It's a no-no.

[00:14:48] And the meditation we have, by the way, which we do at least once during the day is tournaments are one in the days and weeks and months preceding the event. What do we do? This is his mom telling him this in his seven minute meditation.

[00:14:59] So we're constantly in touch with him. Wait, his mom's really into this. I mean, his mom's really into this. His mom says crazy about this stuff as I am. And he's a lucky kid to have her supporting in all the different ways.

[00:15:08] But I think it's a nice additive. I'm not suggesting that it is the foundation of P-performance, but I do think that even Magnus, I mean, Magnus, who's mentally stronger than him? We're watching an interview that he did in the last tournament.

[00:15:26] And the announcers, you know, were right there so the players could hear the announcers commenting on their games. I'm sorry, before they started, they could hear the announcers. And one of them predicted Magnus to lose and he heard him say that.

[00:15:42] And they predicted another guy would lose and that guy heard him say, that guy got pissed off and stressed out and lost. Magnus heard it and basically said, yeah, all right, buddy. I'm going to show you and he called him out on it.

[00:15:54] That mental toughness, that ability to shape your mind is, I mean, what's more important than that in the span of a tournament and a match that might not be going the way you want, right?

[00:16:21] I mean, Magnus is one of the few players who tends to do better after suffering from a loss in every way he does better. Like he wins, but even the computer says every move is better after he suffers a loss.

[00:16:33] Whereas a lot of other players, they get disappointed and they do worse. Yes. How do you reverse engineer that? And this is where we come back to what we were talking about before, of that growth mindset,

[00:16:42] truly operationalizing winning or learning and knowing that losing is part of it. And again, he knows how many times Magnus has lost. He knows what Magnus does after he loses. And there's a level of fearlessness isn't quite the right word, but pretty darn close.

[00:16:59] When I took me, I'm 49 years old, I'm still learning these ideas. That was a fixed mindset son of a father that struggled with alcohol. I had to do everything perfectly. It wasn't okay to make mistakes.

[00:17:11] So that's been one of the biggest things we've tried to teach him is the only way you learn is through mistakes, lean into it, win or learn, but there can't be a platitude.

[00:17:23] I've worked hard to show him that every time that he's lost, there was a lesson there. And then that lesson translated into a future win such that still hurts when he loses, but there's a deeper understanding of, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I truly learned that.

[00:17:41] And I know that from the past that led to a win in the future. So I'm going to alchemize it quickly. And then, you know, that Magnus ferocity of, all right, I see how it goes and we turn it up rather than shame ourselves

[00:17:54] and kind of spiral out, right? I mean, it's interesting because the negative self-talk is really hard to avoid once you start losing, whether it's a game or a sales pitch or, you know, you're writing something and you don't quite like it.

[00:18:10] It's so easy to slip into kind of these negative habits and you talk about this in the book. Let's talk about the book for a second. First off, I'll tell you one read the first thing I noticed about the book,

[00:18:21] which forced me to read it is the book is beautiful. Like it's 451 chapters, you know, how many pages? Over a thousand pages. By the way, quite beautiful that it's 1024 pages, two to the power of 10. So I don't know if you realize that that's how it worked out.

[00:18:46] And you draw from not only your own experiences, but you draw from so many great authors, many of them have been on this podcast with so many like great and inspirational authors. And I like that you take the important ideas from each.

[00:19:01] You talk about how it's applied to your own life or you tell other stories. And it's basically 451 chapters about mastery, like all the tools and techniques and ideas one would need to know about mastery. Tell me about the title, Arite. Yeah, Arite.

[00:19:22] And it's interesting too because a friend of mine sent me your interview with Robert Green in which you briefly talked about the book and of course mastery and that idea of making the book a work of art.

[00:19:32] So it means a lot to me that you reflect on the beauty. We tried hard to create something that had a felt sense of just differentiated beauty, you know, that just felt different in your hand, literally.

[00:19:44] And the reason I told Robert Green about it is because that's Robert Green's thing as well. He loves just the book itself to be a beautiful sculpture. Yeah. And of course the content has to match that but which yours does and his all of his books do.

[00:20:02] But I felt that way about your book and it inspired me in terms of my own writing, like, oh, maybe I should try this idea of a massive number of chapters because that's an interesting thing about topics you love.

[00:20:16] Well, I'm inspired by your work too, you know, choose yourself and others. Like just that conversational pithy, you know, for you, I can say iconoclastic. Boom, here we go. You know, I could love it like that level of intensity and clarity of communication.

[00:20:30] I've been inspired by you and your work in Robert, et cetera. But the title or a day it's essentially it's an ancient Greek word. If you ask the ancient Roman Stoics how to live a good life, they would have answered you in a single word.

[00:20:47] And that word is or a day which we translate as virtue or excellence, but has a deeper meaning something closer to being your best self moment to moment to moment. So I actually had a different title before we settled on this.

[00:21:02] But then I looked down at my right forearm where I've tattooed RTA, right? And I'm thinking about the fact what this is. It's the one word summation. And yet no one knows how to spell it, let alone pronounce it, but they should.

[00:21:14] Why did this word ever fall out of our cultural vernacular? It was the essence of a good life in ancient Greece and Rome, which bring it back. So that's kind of the origin story for the book's title.

[00:21:28] And we can talk about more about that, obviously, but that's the short ish answer on that one. Yeah, so now we get into the techniques and you know, and you divide it up into various categories.

[00:21:44] And I love all the categories, but let me just read some of them out loud. Make today a masterpiece. It's a beautiful concept because when you keep that in your mind, it prevents it really prevents you from the negative self talk actually.

[00:22:02] Because once you say, you know, damn, I'm a loser. That day is no longer a masterpiece basically. So, you know, master yourself, activate your superpower like these are very and then each one of these sections has, you know, like 50 or 100 chapters.

[00:22:21] So I don't even know where to start. Talk about antifragile confidence because I think that's an important concept.

[00:22:27] Dude, uh, Gears, Fox, you say that in there's so much we can go on on that when the negative voice comes up doesn't mean you're going to have a bad day. Depends on what you do when it comes up.

[00:22:37] So if you can recognize it as the resistance that Steven Pressfield talks about. And by the way, my book is The War of Art meets war and peace and or kind of church hills, uh, biography, which was the two proxies for this book. But that's a longer chat.

[00:22:51] But antifragile confidence, I appreciate you bringing that up because that's actually the newest tattoo on this arm. I've got heroic and dear literally in the last week I put antifragile confidence. So this is the thing that, um, that I've been asked to speak about the most.

[00:23:07] So the US men's national team was in Austin, you know, a month or two ago came and talked to the team about antifragile confidence for soccer. The US men's national soccer team was in Austin.

[00:23:17] And then literally two weeks ago, um, uh, it was invited to give a talk at the US special operations command by General Fenton, um, talking about resiliency. Only my first slide in the talk was resiliency. I put a line through it, striped through antifragility.

[00:23:35] So the idea is you. But before you explain it, why are you being asked to speak? You know, a little background. You why are you being asked to speak at the US special operations command?

[00:23:46] Like that's a pretty, pretty big gig that they're trusting you with speaking to these, you know, powerful players. Yeah, it was a sacred honor.

[00:23:54] I mean, it was the top commanding officers of the special forces, um, uh, talking about the fact it's the first soft truth, which is people are more important than hardware. And the theme was mental health, resilience, et cetera. Um, uh, I mean, there's no straight answer to that.

[00:24:11] I've been working hard for a long time, you know, Robert Green's mastery of mastery of craft put in the effort.

[00:24:17] And as it turns out over the years, um, striving to serve and been blessed to serve some people at some pretty high levels at, uh, in the military and the corporate world, um, in the sports world. And we've done some work with West Point.

[00:24:30] We've rolled out our heroic app at West Point. We've done some other work I can't talk about. Um, and then, uh, you know, Why? Why are you being asked? Oh, why don't they know you?

[00:24:43] I, uh, from, from the work I did with the philosophers notes, um, and with the heroic app, uh, we've trained 10,000 coaches from 100 countries. And so, uh, a lot of our coaches wind up being people at pretty high levels in these different organizations.

[00:24:59] And so it was through connections like that, um, that General Fenton found me and the work. General Fenton is the four star general running so calm, um, 70,000 special forces operators and command support personnel report up into him.

[00:25:13] And, um, he believed I can contribute to, uh, the mental health of their warriors and invited me out. You say yes to an invitation like that and let's go. So we've worked with Navy SEALs as well in different contexts. Um, and, uh, ROTC cadet.

[00:25:29] I mean, it's been a, it's been a blessed thing, but, but, uh, it's the reason again to try to answer the question more directly is, um, I think I have a unique perspective on how to integrate ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools.

[00:25:43] It's been scientifically proven to work in multiple contexts with randomized controlled trial studies. And for whatever reason, um, I found resonance, um, with, uh, some elite performers and in communities like that. So, okay. So antifragile confidence.

[00:25:58] You were speaking about this and this is a topic you speak about quite a bit. It reminds me of Nassim Taleb's antifragile. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody else has made that connection before. Yeah. So we define two different terms, right? Antifragile and confidence.

[00:26:12] So Nassim Taleb, um, I realize I've always mispronounced that. Um, but is the one who coined the word antifragility? So again, we think of, of resiliency, but I love the spectrum where you can be fragile life hits you, you break.

[00:26:28] You can be resilient life hits you, you can withstand more pressure, you break down, you bounce back faster. But as Nassim says, what's the opposite of fragility? What if when you get hit?

[00:26:39] What if when you lose a chest match, what if when you lose a job or you have a health challenge, you use that stimuli and that challenge to get stronger? Um, that's antifragility.

[00:26:49] And the metaphor he uses is a wind will extinguish a candle, but it will fuel a fire. So my question is which are you? Are you a candle or are you a fire?

[00:27:00] How can you train yourself to use the thing that used to break you to make you stronger? It's like going to the gym, you lift real weights. You're not lifting styrofoam weights. Now, of course there's a practice to that, which leads us to confidence.

[00:27:11] So antifragility as a concept is as I described it, confidence. Etymologically the word confidence comes from the two Latin words, which I will now mispronounce confiderate right? Intense trust is what confidence is intense trust that things are going to go perfectly.

[00:27:30] Of course not that you have what it takes to meet whatever life throws at you. So then my question is how do you build intense trust in any relationship? If, if you and I want to build trust, then we need to do what we say we will do.

[00:27:44] If I don't do what I say or will do, you shouldn't trust me. Well, I like to say if you don't do what you say you will do, you shouldn't trust yourself.

[00:27:53] If you say you're going to meditate and move a certain way and eat a certain way and be with your family in a certain way and you consistently aren't, then you're eroding your trust and you shouldn't have an intense level of trust in yourself.

[00:28:05] Now stated positively, when you get clear on who you are at your best, you make those commitments to do those things, you earn your own trust.

[00:28:13] And that's the heart of everything I do is forging antifragile confidence by helping people get clarity on who they are at their best and then make that prior best their new baseline. That's a Josh Waitzkin phrase. Make your prior best your new baseline.

[00:28:31] Too many people give away their gains. They've performed at a high level, but then they forget what they did at those moments and they're constantly going forward and then back.

[00:28:40] So what I like to do is help people architect that protocol and then execute it more and more consistently. Well, and I want to hear how you do that, but I want to say that's really true.

[00:28:51] Like the time where you have where you could potentially lose the most money is right after you make the most money.

[00:28:58] Right after you sell your business, that's the one year period you've got to watch out for losing all your money because you stop performing at that high peak level. And so, okay, so how do you kind of keep that protocol in place?

[00:29:12] Yeah, well, first thing you got to recognize is the importance of a protocol. So in my talk, there was a few different themes that I kind of used to structure it. I'll quickly touch on a couple then I'll get to the protocol.

[00:29:25] So the first soft SOF, Special Operations Forces, the first soft truth is that people are more important than hardware. Right? And that was the theme of the event.

[00:29:36] So I had a slide up saying that the first soft truth people, these special forces operators are more important than the hardware. Perfect. But then I say the first life truth is the ultimate war isn't outside of ourselves. The ultimate game isn't outside of ourselves.

[00:29:51] It's in our own head. So we've got to train ourselves to play that game well to win that war. Then you look at it and you come back to the protocol. So the way I like to frame it up is Atul Gawande, you know, in the checklist manifesto.

[00:30:04] Yeah. He talks about the fact that you would never get on a plane if the pilot didn't run through a checklist period would never happen. They have a systematic checklist they go through to make sure the plane is ready to be taken off into flight.

[00:30:18] Well, he learned that surgical teams that don't have a checklist of the most mundane things. Hey, my name is so and so we're operating on this part of the body. The teams that don't have checklists kill 47% more people than people who have checklist.

[00:30:36] So in that moment I'm like, I continue the theme with well you need a checklist. You as a warrior have a checklist if I'm so calm. You have a checklist for the war you're fighting out there.

[00:30:48] But do you have a checklist to help the human being win the war within their mind? And then do you as a chess player have a fundamental protocol and checklist that you execute, especially when you don't feel like it? And that's the trick.

[00:31:02] That's really important by the way, especially when you don't feel like it. Dude, so my coach is a guy named Phil Stutz who's one of my few living heroes on the wall. Love Phil Stutz. Love the book The Tools. We had Barry Michaels on the podcast.

[00:31:14] Phil couldn't make it unfortunately, but love his stuff. Oh, okay, cool. We'll need to see if we can circle back and get him on. Phil is my spiritual father. I've done 400 one-on-one coaching sessions with Phil over the last, we're now in our eighth year.

[00:31:29] In one of our early sessions, he complimented me on emotional stamina. He said, dude, he said, Brian, you have a lot of emotional stamina. Perhaps more than I've ever seen is what he said. Very end of our chat. I'm like, well, that's awesome.

[00:31:42] I have no idea what emotional stamina is, but cool. Go me. Next session, what's emotional stamina? And he said that it's basically my ability to tolerate pain, uncertainty and hard work, his three unavoidables in life. And then following one question, how do I get more of it?

[00:31:59] So how can I cultivate that emotional stamina, which I now call evolved into antifragile confidence? And what he told me is tattooed on my brain, which is you need to have a protocol such that the worse you feel, the more committed you are to your protocol.

[00:32:16] So when you were feeling hammered by life, that's when you need to be most committed to doing the things you do when you're at your best. Now, the old me and most people and me when I'm not at my best, when I get hit,

[00:32:28] I want to go do all the numbing things, all the things that invite the circus into town that I know I shouldn't be doing. But now when I get hit, that becomes an opportunity to focus on my protocol with even more ferocity.

[00:32:41] It's what Magnus does, that one of the things he does that allows him to respond to a loss. Boom. He knows that now is the time to step it up in every regard. So that algorithm of the worse you feel, the more committed you are to your protocol

[00:32:57] is the essence of antifragile confidence. But it presupposes you have a protocol. It presupposes you have identified your checklist of the things you do when you're at your best. And that's what I try to help people get clarity on.

[00:33:09] So give me an example of someone you've helped who you help build their checklist. It could be a business guy, it could be a sports guy, it could be a creative. Like give me an example of an unusual protocol you helped someone develop.

[00:33:22] Yeah, I mean, I can share my own with you. Yeah. Basically the app is all about this. So the app is all about help heroic helping you get clarity on your protocol.

[00:33:32] One of the objectives in the book is you got to simplify self development into what I call the big three. So that's one of the big things we do is you got to know who you are at your best in your energy, your work and your life.

[00:33:45] And then you can systematically architect your life. So you're doing the things that keep you plugged in when you're at your best energy wise. You know, one of my favorite human beings on the planet has become a dear friend.

[00:33:58] One of our coaches that we've trained was the hitting coach for the New York Yankees, guy named Sean Casey. He's got a protocol where he steps up and every day he's doing certain things in his energy, certain things for his work and then certain things for his love.

[00:34:13] And they're basic, basic fundamental things. So for me, for example, sleep is my number one thing. I used to be up and down for a range of reasons, but my number one thing is sleep. I agree with that.

[00:34:26] And I think that's become a lot more understood, particularly in the personal improvement community that sleep is critical. Ariana Huffington wrote a book about sleep. Sean Stevenson who runs the Model Health podcast wrote a book about sleep. Very valuable. I think people know this part.

[00:34:46] Not to interrupt you. Okay, cool. So my question is and my challenge is perfect. You know it. Do you do it? We got to move from theory to practice to mastery. So every single day I recommit to being a certain type of human being.

[00:34:59] We can talk more about identities and how important that is, but I'm in bed for nine to 10 hours a night. So I get my eight to nine hours of sleep per night because 90% efficiency is obviously very, very good. And then I'm meditating.

[00:35:12] I train my mind for 15, 30, don't do 60 minutes anymore. That was where nice days. And then I'm moving. That's funny. That's like my path as well with meditation. Like I used to do 60 minutes. Now I don't do 60 minutes. Let's put it that way. Exactly. Perfect.

[00:35:28] But we have basic things and my challenge is if I can help you get clarity on what you do at your best, and then I can get you to recommit to doing that, not on New

[00:35:36] Year's Eve, but every single day I call that new days resolutions are much better than new year's resolutions. And if you know what you do when you're at your best in your energy, your work and your love, three simple things in each. And you do them.

[00:35:50] Good luck having a really bad day. You'll have challenges. You'll have off days of course, because you're human, but your highs will get higher and your lows will get higher. So it's taking the simple obvious stuff, making a checklist out of it, a

[00:36:03] protocol out of it, and then doing it especially when you don't feel like doing it. Then the things that used to hit you and knock you off and break you down literally become the things that make you stronger. That's the essence of anti-frowning.

[00:36:18] That's the essence of anti-fragile confidence. Those are some general principles we use to help people get clarity. Well, let's talk about Sean Casey. So he's got his kind of life protocol. Okay, I'm going to sleep, exercise, nutrition. What would, let's get more specific with him.

[00:36:50] Does he have a protocol that he helps people develop for when you're actually at bat? One minute from now the picture is going to be pitching and what's your checklist for a battle? Dude. Okay, cool.

[00:37:03] I can tell you that that box you received, the VIP box, Sean Casey got that. The New York Yankees got that on the last day of the season, right? And then he shared what he shared with them in the last talk he gave him.

[00:37:15] But what he told him was here's the book by my buddy who does this and this and this and Arte, it's what you did to get here. You got to the Yankees because you live with Arte. You close the gap between who you're cable being and who

[00:37:28] you're actually being. We need you to do it off the field in the off season, etc. The specifics of what Sean has people do, I can't speak to you, but I can tell you that they do the exact same thing every time. There's a basal ganglia program.

[00:37:41] I'm not thinking about it. Every moment is the same for me. Every moment is my game seven bases loaded. I'm the guy that needs to get a hit every single moment I'm approaching with an intensity. I'm playing this at bat like it is the most important

[00:37:59] at bat I'm ever going to have in this pitch more importantly. And I'm working my process. I'm working that protocol so I can't tell you the three things he has them do, but I can tell you he has them do those three

[00:38:10] things and I can also tell you that he shares the same philosophy in terms of it can't happen in the three seconds before the pitch comes in. You better have lived in integrity with your values in your eating or moving or sleeping or breathing or focusing

[00:38:25] in your family life in order to show up in that moment and give your best. But there's the ritualistic I mean it's this is Robert Green again. I mean it's the true master who makes the ultimate craft their life.

[00:38:38] This is me hi cheeks at me hi in his book creativity. He says the thing you should study with these great creators is how they created their lives. It's exactly what Robert says in mastery. So architecting our lives such that we're connected

[00:38:52] to our best selves such that that version of us comes through and when the you know the Greeks called that when you live with our day you experience the summum bottom the highest good of life you diamondia. That means it at a logical it's good soul you diamond.

[00:39:11] So the diamond is your guiding spirit the diminutive of diamond is demon demon is the voice in your head that when you lose a chess game comes on the airwaves. Well we need to be able to step back see that and run

[00:39:24] an algorithm if this then that if that voice comes up then I immediately do this because that's Steven Proustfield resistance that's Phil Stutz's part X it's an inevitable part of life and you better have a plan of what you're going to do when that voice comes

[00:39:38] up but it's exciting you know and we can kind of frame it all up and and create the awareness have the wisdom to know the game we're playing and then the discipline to play it. Yeah day in and day out especially again to repeat

[00:39:55] myself to ever leave when we don't feel like it right. Yeah and again I love the idea that you add when you don't feel like it because most of the time you don't feel like doing things like look if I could

[00:40:10] choose you know I do a lot of these I do a podcast I work on different businesses I'm an investor obviously I spend hours either writing or playing chess but a lot of times I don't feel like doing some of these things and you have to

[00:40:26] do it the world does not care if you don't feel like doing it it's not going to reward I don't feel like doing it and and if you can get the pleasures of the things you're doing you got to do it with or without whether you're motivated

[00:40:42] or not. Yep 100% and then you know some of my best days now are the days that I showed up you know and I didn't have it but it's that first 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 seconds right so it's harder than we'd like

[00:40:56] it to be but not as hard as we think it will be but then just making that again none of us are perfect I'm certainly not there are no perfect human beings etc but even getting 5, 10, 15% better at this is life changing fully

[00:41:10] life changing you know part of what's exciting about what we're doing is these ideas help the most elite performers go to the next level and they also help people who don't know if they want to live another life go to a place

[00:41:23] of having a more deep sustainable meaning which frankly is part of what gives my life so much meaning. Well what's a story where kind of you work with somebody and it really these ideas and the other ideas in your book I mean

[00:41:38] again you have 451 ideas or chapters in this book and it's beautiful all the stories you really have almost like the Robert Green style where you mix kind of the stories with the concepts what's a life that you feel you've really changed and up their game.

[00:41:54] Wow bless to serve a lot of elite performers which we've already talked about but you know we've had a number of individuals who literally plan to end their life you know literally I can imagine a couple of women in particular right now who share

[00:42:10] their stories who somehow found us somehow found a connection to it and started practicing these ideas. And we haven't talked about the ultimate game and getting out of the extrinsic motivation but just seeing that life is about more than what we've been seduced

[00:42:24] to believe it's about but having individuals find meaning in their lives and to have been supported by my work is deeply meaningful I'm not giving you a good story to go with that per se but that's been helpful. I'm sorry. But talk about the difference between

[00:42:42] extrinsic motivation and the real game. Yeah so then the context in which I talk about that is objective one of the book. So I like to start by saying you got to know the ultimate game and this is a 2,500 year old challenge.

[00:42:56] We have been seduced to play the wrong game we've been seduced to go after the fame the wealth the hotness the extrinsic motivators and that's a 2,500 year old challenge that's not new but it's amplified to the highest degree right now. And you know scientists are

[00:43:13] unequivocal that even if you are successfully pursuing the extrinsic stuff you are less quote psychologically stable than people who are predominantly pursuing the intrinsic motivators of becoming a better person deepening relationships and making a contribution to your community independent of being globally recognized having a lot of Instagram

[00:43:36] followers and all the other things nothing wrong with the extrinsic obviously in fact it's very important but we need our orientation to be predominantly focused on the intrinsic that's the ultimate game as I see it. And again this is what we use chess

[00:43:52] for with Emerson that's the chess is like the secondary game that has the context to win the ultimate game to show up and be him his best self such that he can perform in a game he really enjoys but there's something fun about stepping back a bit and

[00:44:08] and seeing it from that broader perspective and then showing up you know with an intensity and a commitment to being your best self in service is something bigger than yourself. It's interesting with this it feels like when I'm reading this book you've read basically every personal development

[00:44:26] book on the planet it seems. I mean I have as well in part because many of these people have been guests on the podcast over the past nine years but talk about some of the things you've learned you have so many stories in the

[00:44:40] book again I don't know where to begin that's the problem with the book with 451 chapters like I want to talk about every chapter but obviously that's not possible if I open just a random thing there's Hal Elrod he just was like I don't know this guy David Reynolds

[00:44:54] constructive living. Yeah so Dan Milman so one of the things I do Joseph Campbell said one of my heroes on my wall back there the great hero mythologist of course he says when you find an author who grabs you read everything they've

[00:45:08] written and then read everything that they read that influence them. So that's kind of in my strategy you know of like you find an author that grabs you so one of the first authors that grabbed me was Dan Milman I read Way of the Peaceful Warrior which was

[00:45:22] probably the second self-development book I read after seven habits of highly effective people and I just loved it. So then I read everything that he wrote and this is actually funny it comes back to chess so I read

[00:45:34] everything you wrote and then I paid him like a hundred bucks to do one-on-one coaching with him forever ago like 20 years ago or more you know I just wanted to say hi he's like all right

[00:45:42] what do you want to do I'm like I just want to say hi you're awesome you know let's go he's into coming to the town in LA where I was living like the next week so I go let's connect I pick him up from the airport

[00:45:52] we play chess literally there's the chess connection there but he introduced me to David Reynolds so David Reynolds is one of Dan Milman's biggest influences. David Reynolds no one's heard of him no one's heard of his book it's called constructive living it's a brilliant book he's

[00:46:10] a Zen therapist a Zen therapist and his big message there is that your behaviors drive your feelings more than the other way around and literally he's the one who says what is not feeling like it have to do with it you know you've decided

[00:46:28] to do something now what needs to be done don't let your feelings drive your behaviors let your identity drive your behaviors which will drive your feelings and I've architected my entire life's philosophy around that get clear on who you are at

[00:46:42] your best do what needs to get done and let your feelings follow so that's David Reynolds just constructive living is like really short profound book that I talk about in the context of that chapter what does he mean by constructive living meaning mindfully deliberately consciously

[00:47:04] in his main thing is now what needs to get done now what needs to get done now what needs to get done it's the question you'd ask yourself not how am I feeling about this but now what needs to get done I extended that into targeted thinking

[00:47:18] so when I feel overwhelmed or I'm feeling frustrated with my my kids and whatever um stepping back when I can between the stimulus and the response and choosing a better response I like to say what do I want in any given situation

[00:47:34] I want to set a clear target and then what do I need to do to get that uh and it's again one of the things I teach Emerson to deal with the negative voices all right well what do you want I want to learn from this all right

[00:47:46] well what do you need to do in order to um do that um but that's his basic idea um and what I think he's getting at when he's talking about constructive living let's talk about for a second what you just said you tell Emerson what if Emerson

[00:48:00] said what I want to do is win you kind of have to he does he's a competitive dude I mean he wants to win no question but he knows that that he can't win every time period and he knows how many times Magnus has lost

[00:48:14] he watched a car who play and he didn't play well in the last tournament perfect that's part of the deal I lost one I mean it's amazing how quickly he's like it is what it is you know um and uh it's hard to put into words

[00:48:28] how powerful that is because it's like it's such a foreign idea to me wait you can actually really get that without having to like convince you of it you know and Carol Dweck he's my biggest parenting influence so I read her stuff before we had kids

[00:48:42] and her idea of the growth mindset and self theories two of her books that I talk about in this book are my parenting guidebook so since they were born I have constantly said that the only way you get good at anything is what practice why are mistakes

[00:49:00] good because that's the only way you learn literally whenever I make a mistake that's just obnoxious and just silly I'll go oh shoot I was almost the first perfect person and they giggle and I'm like oh no I've made one million seven hundred and twenty two

[00:49:14] thousand six hundred and forty eight mistakes ha ha ha isn't that funny why are mistakes good because that's the only way you learn so we've just tried to create this um culture and consciousness where it's the default you know um so I didn't answer your question

[00:49:30] but it's almost surreal how it hasn't required as heavy of a lift as you would think it would you know you know it's interesting uh the fixed mindset growth mindset time that into parenting it's also like what I consider the sequel to Carol's book mindset is angelo duckworth's

[00:49:46] book grit and you know that kind of takes it one step further which is okay get that growth mindset but then like you say you're going to fail what type of person keeps going yep and yeah and then passion perseverance and then it's it's so cool you said

[00:50:06] that because even when we were talking about what it means to be a prodigy so I one of the things I've taught emerson and if he was here right now we'd have this chat she says that you know her formula for achievement she says that effort counts

[00:50:20] twice so what I've taught him and we've talked about a million times is talent matters and talent she defines as the speed with which you can cultivate skill so talent times effort equals skill and then skill times effort equals achievement right so effort counts twice but then he

[00:50:42] extended it we were doing a little video for our community you know because people like hearing from him and all that so he was doing it after we did a tournament right um and I'm always trying to emphasize that it's not his talent

[00:50:54] we like to talk about he has a fast brain and it seems to work well with just but it's your effort you're putting in that is squeezing the talent into skill and then the further effort you put in is what's allowing you to achieve

[00:51:06] but when I did it with him he missed a couple of little takes we were doing our third take on it right and he said hey buddy what does angela duckworth say about how you how you do things and he said talent times effort equals

[00:51:18] skill and then he said skill times effort equals achievement and then he just spontaneously said achievement times more effort equals mastery and he wants to be a grandmaster that's his unequivocal ambition um so that idea of bringing effort into it

[00:51:34] is the number one thing that I got out of um angela duckworth saying which again is well what do you want and then what do you need to do and the answer is never think about it more you know and avoid the hard

[00:51:46] things it's lean in to rule number one it's supposed to be hard and we need you to do what you need to do and then you can do what you feel like it or not you know it's so important that appreciating the word do because

[00:52:02] thinking won't make anyone a better basketball player I always tell people you gotta like get there at five in the morning every day and shoot baskets like you have to do stuff and it's the same thing even with writing like you could think all you want about

[00:52:16] oh this is what my story is but unless you start writing you're not getting better at writing summer sit mon you know Steven Proustfield has that great quote from him of hey do you write only when you're inspired or how do you do it

[00:52:30] and his answer of course is yeah I only write when I'm inspired thankfully inspiration strikes at 9 a.m. every morning so but then that's a protocol that's a checklist that's Steven Proustfield you gotta create the conditions such that the muse the daimon your genius which is simply

[00:52:48] the Roman take on the Greek daimon genius and daimon are the same thing just Greek and Roman so we gotta do everything we can to create the conditions such that the best version of ourselves can come through that's my life's work like that's oratae in a word

[00:53:04] but that's what we're talking about with these checklists and the protocol and the margins whether it's chess or business or relationships or special forces operators yeah let's build my checklist a little bit so sleep 8 hours a day but it was interesting what you said

[00:53:24] you're in bed 9 to 10 hours a day because then you know you'll get that 8 hours of sleep yeah so I use an order ring to track it if one uses a fitness or whatever tracker there's a 90% efficiency is very very good 80, 85 you want to be 85, 90% but 90%

[00:53:42] plus is like world class 9 hours of sleep to use round math and 90% efficiency would demand 10 hours in bed to get the 9 hours of sleep and again different people have different standards but I talked about this it's so calm too sleep the 7 plus hours of sleep that are

[00:54:00] recommended the odds that you were the type of person because of some genetic mutation you can get by on less than 7-8 hours of sleep are the same as the odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime surprisingly high by the way 1 in 11,000

[00:54:16] but anyway sleep is important but step back for a second because the first thing I have people do is a very simple exercise to get clarity on their protocol take out a single piece of paper draw a line down the middle right do on the upper left

[00:54:32] and don't on the upper right then think back to a time in your life when you were at your absolute best so when you were performing and it could be a day, a week, a month a year even a decade and then think about what were you doing

[00:54:46] and what were you not doing and then look at your current life and look at the things that you did at your best you're not currently doing and you didn't do when you're at your best that you are currently doing circle one thing in the do

[00:55:00] one thing in the don't that's the fastest way and stopping the thing you're the kryptonite you're doing right now is the fastest way to change your life then the layer below that is I have you do the same thing in energy, work and love

[00:55:14] what we call the big three so what do you do when you're at your best energy, work and love wise and I want to know the top three things in those categories and then I want you to get clarity on that commit to it every morning

[00:55:28] and then do those top three things and then come back to me in 30 days and tell me how you did you create a scaffolding in your life and then you do those worst challenges and again you do those things especially when you don't feel like doing those things

[00:55:40] whereas in the past you may have stopped doing those things and that's when you went off the rails but that's how I would encourage one to get more clarity on the protocol do's and don'ts but yeah if we wanted to architect your checklist now

[00:55:54] I'd want to know what three things do you do to keep yourself at your best in your energy you know and you're right it's probably not enough so okay I attempt to sleep eight hours a day last night I did it the night before

[00:56:10] the night before I didn't and it's got to be more consistent like I the best when I've been at my best I go to sleep around 8.30 I wake up at 5 that's when I've been at my best now it's a little harder to do that for and I

[00:56:26] can't give excuses there's really no reason why I shouldn't do that nutrition I tend to eat about one and a half meals a day all nutritious food you know as I want to say as organic as possible but I use UberEats so I don't fully know

[00:56:42] and but I think I do pretty well there and exercise I'm probably not as good as I should be so I'll exercise maybe 10 minutes a day you know I try to lift weights but with barbells that are sitting here in my office

[00:57:02] I do a bunch of push ups but I don't do like 30 burpees like your son's doing and I don't go to the gym I mean like I there's a role for exercise but I probably don't do it enough do we got 100 points on your chest rating coming

[00:57:16] just from stepping up your exercise game well it's so interesting like I had the winner so I told you I was in the tournament of state senior champions so I was the senior slash over 50 champion of Georgia and there was a bunch of other guys

[00:57:32] so this grandmaster Jesse cry shout out to Jesse he's also been a coach of mine he won the tournament and I happen to know him so he's been like two years ago it's very thin kind of almost no offense to him wouldn't be looking guy

[00:57:50] but then he started running I think he's even been in a marathon now and you can see he's bulked up like he's got muscles you know and his shoulders are wider and and then he won two major tournaments this past year which was unusual for him he's almost

[00:58:08] my age and so that was so I've noticed that in the end another guy who won the US senior championship also was like built so you could see there's a difference when you have muscles you have more energy yeah and you're training again your physiology is driving

[00:58:26] a lot more of your psychology and mental performance than you think it's just a fact and it works in business do you think it works in sales? I know it does and again there's more to it than just the fact that your brain works better

[00:58:38] when your body is working better so if I'm energized and I got a great night of sleep I'm eating well I'm training I can speak personally n equals 1 I perform better if I get 6.5-7 hours of sleep I perform at a remarkably diminished level

[00:58:52] compared to the version of me that gets 8-8.5 plus hours of sleep full stop I can do things on 8.5 hours of sleep that I can't do on 6.5 now it doesn't mean I'm a complete incompetent but I know what it feels like to be on

[00:59:04] and I like doing things at the highest possible level therefore I prioritize I turn off Netflix, I turn off the phone I don't care about those things I care about feeling great tomorrow morning and being at my best but then yeah business wise and otherwise for sure

[00:59:20] I'm giving the intangible benefit of you feel someone in their presence when they're living in integrity with their values which is the 7th objective in the book is you got to activate your soul force you got to activate your superpower this is ancient Chinese philosophy to cultivate

[00:59:38] effortless right action, uwei when you do that you cultivate a moral charisma that people feel and there's a neuroscientific proof of that to feel resonance in people we want to follow those people so absolutely when you walk into a business meeting and you're walking in in

[00:59:58] you're clearly a demonstration that you're living in integrity with the things you believe yeah, people may not be able to tell you the unconscious reasons that they're influenced by you but there's a certain effect and of course you're performing better you're in a better mood

[01:00:12] you're friendlier all those things come together yeah that doesn't seem like a hard thing to argue over you know what I mean, like two versions of you one that's well rested and fit and feeling great and optimistic and all the other things

[01:00:24] to go with it and the other that's frumpy and hungover and what you tell me which one's going to do better I agree like in the past year and a half for instance I've stopped all alcohol now I wouldn't necessarily recommend that some people enjoy

[01:00:38] having a little drink here and there but I've avoided all of that anything you know I've reduced carbs like anything in the way of my brain I've stopped you mentioned something very interesting earlier about posture and posture is almost a way to demonstrate that you're living in resonance

[01:01:09] with your values and I'll just tell you a quick story one time somebody took a photograph of me in a tournament and my coach lives in Armenia Avidic Rugoria and he's been on this podcast my coach saw the photo and he sent it back to me and said

[01:01:27] I would love to play an opponent who looks like you right in this photo and I was slouched over I was you know kind of frumpy looking and he was right like I was ashamed of that photo and yeah dude so imagine this is

[01:01:43] again Emerson walks in physiologically and also yeah I mean you talk about the war right the metaphorical war that is a chess match well boom of course you want to show up as a warrior so your guys telling you he looks at you

[01:01:57] and he's like dude his body posture sucks his mental game must suck he's weak I'm going to push him and he's going to crumble the moment things get hard whereas I'm we want to have an athlete competing on a chess board when things go a little bit wrong

[01:02:13] posture gets improved chest up chin down is what I tell Emerson all the time breathe deeply through your nose down into your belly exhale in between every single move he's breathing and he's getting his posture right you know and those things matter

[01:02:27] again they matter in general they matter they matter especially when the margins matter you know and when everybody's performing at a certain level you better be doing the things that most people aren't doing if you want to go to the next level from my vantage point

[01:02:41] and again these are fun things these are not chores that one needs to check off of this is why I'm curious can I get to 2250 and then can I get to 2300 all right what price am I going to need to pay

[01:02:53] I'm going to need to do this and this and this and that's fun what an opportunity to prove the people that told me I'm crazy wrong what did the absolute best do I'm going to do that and then I'm going to do a little more

[01:03:03] and then I'm going to be creative about it and do again what Tiger Woods did to golf with Michael Jordan I'm re-watching the last dance nobody trained before Jordan right and then Jordan needed to get through the piston so all of a sudden he put on 15 pounds

[01:03:17] season to season to deal with Detroit and and Tim Grover said you know why do you need big arms and he said what do you think the first thing people see is when he takes off his warm-up coat his arms boom everything matters there's a level of

[01:03:31] the opposite of what your coach said you know that people feel and then you never slouch you never let them see you weak when Horace Grant was complaining about getting kicked by the Bulls Jordan pulls them up don't let him see you if for a

[01:03:45] moment look weak I mean there's that matador is how Jim Moore and Tony Schwartz put it in the powerful engagement the matador that is the tennis player that's strutting around walking around you're never going to see them lose that composer of them being their best selves especially

[01:04:03] when things are going sideways when everybody else spins out they're the ones that are we call it flipping the switch flip the switch chest up chin down feet grounded pull a thread through your head something called the Alexander technique that actors are trained in which is

[01:04:19] lengthen and widen your spine have proper posture so you can breathe properly and oh by the way a slouched posture you're not breathing right so your brain's not getting the oxygen you need you're playing a competitive chess game we need you to get oxygenated so again

[01:04:33] all those things matter aesthetically in terms of how your opponent's feeling your energy and just how you're feeding your brain with oxygen all these things kind of add up right yeah absolutely so you're getting me fired up James I know I want you to be my coach now

[01:04:49] let's go I'm thinking the same thing by the way let me ask you like just about the book itself what again the the approach is very interesting it reminds me of this there's two different styles of people who use PowerPoint presentations there's one where they have like 10

[01:05:05] slides there's let's say you're talking for an hour there's one approach where you have 10 slides and you put a lot of information on each slide and you spend time on each slide and then there's one where you have like 100 slides and you're going

[01:05:17] clicking every few seconds to the next slide and that keeps people active and interested your style of book reminds me of that second style which I think is more an interesting style actually what made what gave you the idea to basically have like an enormous number

[01:05:33] of chapters that's the the book I think I gotta tell you funny story so then 101 slides how many slides I had I had a 45 minute keynote with with some Q&A right so I send these guys the special courses guys my presentation

[01:05:47] like hey don't worry about it I'm gonna blow through these I like to tell a story visually it's very aesthetic you know the book kind of Steve Jobs is on my wall you know so I'm trying to make everything insanely great and beautiful and

[01:05:57] simplistic and minimalist so Mike don't worry about it I'm gonna blow through these slides you know I mean I like to let the slide tell a story but I go through it quickly the couple guys 101 slides you know you realize you have

[01:06:11] forty minutes like don't worry about it guys we're good so that you brought that up is funny and that's the style that I've learned that I've developed organically that I've learned to trust and people like Stephen Proustfield have really inspired me with his war of art

[01:06:25] Pablo Cuello's another writer I admire that pithy unpretentious let's get in let's get out more wisdom in less time is also one of our themes with the work I do with philosophers notes and then I just find it fun but I actually wrote 80% of a normal book

[01:06:43] so I had a normal quote fluffy 250 or 60 page book written I had a deal with a top three publisher and I walked away from it a couple years ago to whatever three years ago because we got into an argument over 10,000 words they wanted 60 to 80,000 words max

[01:07:01] and I told him look I want to create what I hope to be a seminal book you know on the line of seven habits with humility knowing how difficult that is but that's the quality of book I aspire to write well that's 120,000 word book out the gate

[01:07:15] it's been edited etc I just want some flexibility let me go up to 100,000 hard no argument no walked away from the deal right anyway came back so glad you did dude came back but I still had the idea that I needed to write a normal book

[01:07:29] and I got to a point where it just wasn't my style to write a long form chapter that conformed to all the normal standards and I asked my team what ideas most changed their life that I had shared with them and you know like 10-15 people

[01:07:45] on our team and they all came back with different ideas like 3, 5, 10 my right hand guy had like 100 ideas but they were all different no there were very little overlap and I'm like which one am I going to leave out because that idea changed her life

[01:07:59] and that one changed his and then it all kind of clicked of alright it's going to be a different book and then it was what's the number how many we going to do 300 ideas 400 ideas and then 451 is the degrees Fahrenheit you need to start a fire

[01:08:17] so if you want to I didn't know that yeah so if you want to hit an activation energy point is the chemistry phrase where one thing becomes another thing so if you want to boil water nothing happens until 212 degrees then one thing changes to another state

[01:08:35] fire is ignited at 451 degrees Fahrenheit paper is ignited so then it became boom it's 451 and we knew each chapter would be two to three pages so it would be around a thousand pages long and then literally the book is a mashup of

[01:08:51] the war of art by press field short pithy hyper readable micro chapters and war and peace a dense tome and literally when I was writing the book I imagine the people we've talked about the commanding military officers the you know sports executives and coaches holding the book

[01:09:09] I close my eyes and I felt the weight of the book and I wanted it to have like a gravitas to it yet be simultaneously hyper readable open it anywhere get in get out and then it just clicked but even might we partner with a

[01:09:23] different publishing company to create our own imprint where I had complete creative autonomy and all the things but even he's like you know a little crazy there I'm like dude perfect we got to be willing to push here we got to be

[01:09:37] going to do something different I think this is what we need to do etc and I appreciate you asking because it was a fun creative process no it looks like a lot of fun and really it inspired me like I want to do something like

[01:09:49] this like it's very again if you had a 200 page book called I probably wouldn't even have noticed it because I feel like there's just too many blah 200 page books about whatever personal improvement but this really stood out just you know they say

[01:10:09] never judge a book by its cover but you have to because the only thing you see and until you open the book and just the dimensions of this book it's like a little cube and it's beautiful to look at and you're right it's got the right weight

[01:10:27] and there's so much like everything I want to read like you know you have all my favorite books mentioned here like here's one where there's a chapter where you talk about Eckhart Tolle on food poisoning and you put it you mention the power

[01:10:39] of now which is one of my all-time favorite books so talk about Eckhart Tolle and the power of now and what you mentioned in here. I'm going to go ahead and just because that's kind of the consistent theme so Eckhart Tolle that particular

[01:10:51] idea is if you eat a certain type of food that makes you sick at a certain point you need to stop eating that food you would stop eating it if you knew that it gave you food poisoning you'd start eating the food

[01:11:03] why do you eat in quotes the same thoughts that make you sick so why do you allow the same thoughts to arise one in general and any performer in particular that don't help you that sick so getting clarity

[01:11:17] on that and he says at some point you need to move past acceptance oh shoot I'm just bound to be sick you know psychologically or physically you don't do that with food don't do it with your thoughts you need to move from an acceptance to change

[01:11:31] and this is where again the active you got to do something about it we got to look at that analyze it and see what you might be able to do to improve but that's kind of how I play with with Tolle's ideas on that front

[01:11:43] and it's funny too because I mentioned Tolle another time in the book where when Covid hit he did a talk talking about Jesus's you know the parable of the guy that built a house on sand versus a foundation of rock and granite right

[01:12:01] and the basic metaphor there is protocols it's checklist if when the storms come you have not built your house on a solid foundation of course in that context was following the teachings of what Jesus put out but the basic metaphorical idea there is

[01:12:17] you need a solid protocol such that when the storms come you have a solid foundation on which you've built your life which of course is going to have the thoughts we're talking about the behaviors that we have control over which to continue the theme for a moment

[01:12:31] longer is the essence of Stelicism which of course is a major theme in the book my favorite ancient wisdom philosophy you can't control what's going on you can't control whether you want to lost the game but you can control your thoughts and behaviors in response

[01:12:45] to those things that's an obvious truth everyone knows that but are you practicing the things you need to practice in order to be a master at that aspect of your life that's you know some of the way I integrate a tolle with the Stoics and other traditions etc

[01:13:03] no that's great I mean you've integrated hundreds of different philosophers both ancient and modern and very wise people you being easily in their ranks you know with this with this book so you must be very proud when did the book actually

[01:13:21] come out or when does it come out? it just came out dude so we just released it November 14th so it's only been out for 6 weeks you know feel just excited about it you know grateful for the support we've received and it's volume one dude

[01:13:35] you know I'm back at it so you know God willing Dale Valente five volumes is the vision you know so I'm back to work and oh my god what are you going to include even in the second you've include so many ideas in this one

[01:13:49] dude I left so many out you know every day I do a different kind of we call them a plus one and so yeah I mean it's 451 degrees to activate a fire but it's 2200 degrees to forge a sword so five volumes is 2255 degrees so that's

[01:14:07] just my straight line again it's Robert Green it's the path of the master you know it's the practice so I'm excited about it and you know I mean even this chat dude I could write a few chapters just on what we talked about you know and different experiences

[01:14:23] here's a line from the Socom guys right so General Fenton and they've given me permission to talk about these things which is why I'm explicitly asked can I talk about this you know one of his lines was normal people say oh there's no way special operators

[01:14:37] say special forces operators say oh there's a way that's an awesome idea you know there's no way oh there's a way alright well how are you showing up oh there's no way I can do that oh there's a way I'm going to find a way to

[01:14:51] I'm excited about your goal dude 2255 that's like I'm personally fired up about getting there you know and it becomes a fun game right yeah no I and look I've never much to many people dismay I've never wavered in my belief that I could do this but

[01:15:09] I guess I've been I thought I would do it like pretty quickly and it hasn't happened that way so that I have to battle negative self-talk that is an issue for me but you know it's interesting you know you're talking about special forces and the ability

[01:15:23] to say there is a way when everybody tells you there isn't a way to do it but it reminds me of a video Jaco Willink did first off I love Jaco's book Extreme Ownership that's like a philosophy of my life and Jaco has this video

[01:15:39] where he talks about you know a soldier might come up to him and says look we have this problem this problem this problem and Jaco says good and then the soldier will say no you don't understand but there's also this problem this problem and Jaco says good and

[01:15:57] you know I think really the point of the video is just hearing him say good with that confidence but he basically concludes that you know just do it now so 100% in the way that I feel it again we're using our conversation around chess as a context for this

[01:16:13] I look at it and go alright cool so it's taking a little bit longer than you want rule number one it's supposed to be hard you're on a heroic quest that is rule number one it's supposed to be hard when the hardships come when the dragons come

[01:16:25] we don't line about it we go alright perfect and then I say good I like to say perfect perfect it's harder than you think what price are you going to need to pay so now we need to step back

[01:16:35] and go I'm going to need to pay a bigger price than I thought but then I personally get excited because chess doesn't matter like okay it's fun it's a way to challenge yourself but why and if we can get you to go to the next level

[01:16:47] in your energy truly getting you up to world-class standards moving, sleeping, breathing and focusing we're going to add 10 years to your life that matters and then we use chess in your passion for it and the price you're going to pay to win the ultimate game

[01:17:01] which is you being a better person deepening relationships making a contribution showing us what's possible when you set a hard high goal you decide you may decide you don't want to pay the price which is also fine 100% fine we want to know why we want it

[01:17:17] then we got to know what we need to pay to get it then we say good when it's hard and that's what Jaco says he says it's good I got injured, good, I needed some time to recover or I needed to work out that

[01:17:29] or I got laid off, good, hated the job anyway I wanted to find a better job he always immediately alchemizes it so good I'm struggling to go to the next level looks like I'm going to need to go to the next level in other aspects of my life

[01:17:41] in order to perform well on chess and that's awesome because now I'm going to benefit in all these other ways I couldn't have anticipated it's fascinating because the ways you realize you need to improve your life they're uncovered by the mistakes and the loss

[01:17:57] like you wouldn't realize this without it so for instance I realized I pretty much had a fixed mindset that I identified my identity in part with being 30 years ago a successful chess player and I had to crush my ego down so I no longer identified as that

[01:18:19] I can't identify as that right now I had to be aware of these things that were from an ego point of view causing me pain and that was a life improving thing that happens when I on several occasions in my life go broke

[01:18:31] there was an ego thing going on you have to kind of crush your ego to overcome these hardships so now we're going to go ego on it dudes at the end of the book I talk about the ego I see the ego very differently

[01:18:43] I see the ego from a psychoanalytic perspective where the ego is the healthy integrated id and super ego so a healthy ego needs to be transcended of course and plugged into something bigger than ourselves but I would offer it was your super ego that was a shame

[01:18:59] that you weren't impressing people anymore and it was the id that wanted everything quickly and didn't want to have to pay the price and it was the disintegration of those two things and a disintegrated ego that didn't allow you to manage that

[01:19:11] that we need to work on in order to have that solid base longer fun chat but then I also go back to your 22 55 peak in chess and I would frankly do the exact opposite I'd go David Goggins on it and I'd say look cookie jar is his thing

[01:19:27] when life hits him hard and he's failing at his Guinness World Championship pull ups or his long race he goes into his cookie jar and feasts on prior success I'd reframe it I call those hero bars I'd go back to when you were at your best

[01:19:41] and go that's like me I may not be there right now but I'm the guy who was 22 55 I was crushing it even within these constraints I wasn't playing as much as these guys and I was doing this now knowing what I know

[01:19:55] and the price I'm going to pay it's gonna be so fun to close the gap between where I am in there but I'd use that as fuel with humility of how hard it's gonna be but building up that self image of that's like you

[01:20:07] that's like you that's like you we're not attached to that in an unhealthy way but dude that's like you've been there done that you're a champion my kid won the JV it was truly JV not the elite Texas state championship it was a second

[01:20:23] term and he played in and that's like you dude you show up and you win you're a champion and when you don't win I don't tell you know that wasn't like you you're a loser I said dude you're a winner let's learn from this

[01:20:35] that's like you to bring home the biggest trophy that's bigger than you you know let's go let's go let's go we want that self image to be up because you won't outperform a poor self image that's rule number one of mental toughness in sports

[01:20:47] and if you think you suck and you aren't a good good log dude and again all the asterix but that's self image of that's like you to perform at a really high level when it matters most and to learn when you get your butt

[01:20:59] kicked and Magnus channel Magnus how does he do it how does he respond to losses with a better performance I'd want to deconstruct that and again you're getting me fired up but but those are some things that arise one thing I've noticed about Magnus is that

[01:21:17] you know he became world champion let's say 10 or 11 years ago and he didn't rest because like when I met him a few months ago we were in Norway and I had dinner with him his dad and his coach he was telling me some of the things he's

[01:21:33] learned over the past few years meaning since he's become world champion he has continued to learn at a very deep level and he told me which of the top 10 players he didn't think knew these deeper concepts that he's learned only since

[01:21:49] he's become world champion if you imagine being world champion of something and then learning even deeper yes yes and it was like amazing what he was saying because it almost seemed like basic things but then he would like put it in a different light

[01:22:03] and I'm like oh yeah that's really interesting but that's the best the best are focused on those basic fundamentals and that pursuit of mastery I mean this is it it's asymptotic our potential is asymptotic so he's genuinely curious and loves the game so much that

[01:22:19] it's just this incessant craft I remember in his documentary and that's so cool and I'd love to see a picture with you that I can share with Emerson but in his documentary you know he's being interviewed and the interviewer is asking him well how often

[01:22:31] do you think about chess and he's like I'm thinking about it right now you're interviewing me but part of my mind is working on it's just that beautiful healthy wonderful unapologetic obsession you know with the craft and with the joy of mastery and no one

[01:22:49] that we're never going to get there there's no there there you know that's that's so inspiring and so cool to imagine you all having a great dinner yeah no it was it was definitely part of this adventure of this quest so Brian Brian Johnson Arite is spelled A-R-E-T-E

[01:23:05] roughly there's a little accent over the last E but you could just type in A-R-E-T-E into Amazon activate your hero potential volume one this is like right now I feel the personal improvement book you assimilate everything from all these other books and stories and your own experiences

[01:23:31] and you've got it right here this book Arite activate your hero potential is an amazing book I'm going to take a lot of the advice in this book to heart and a lot of the stuff we just spoke about I hope we meet

[01:23:43] in person someday it'd be great and if Emerson your kid wants to play some games I'm always open to it like he could be a good practice partner for him I was actually thinking that I appreciate you bringing that up I'm excited to connect offline and

[01:23:59] really inspired I really appreciate you I've been inspired by you and your work for a very long time and just who you are how you show up it's privilege to be here with you and just really enjoyed our chat and I'm really excited to continue this conversation

[01:24:13] and deepen our friendship and just have a good feeling so bless you man thank you and look definitely work on that volume too and come on anytime so thanks Brian. Thanks Emerson