Unlocking Your Inner Hero with Brian Johnson

At a time when you know we're facing historically significant challenges and this is also our call to heroism of we need you. You're the hero we've been waiting for. Look in the mirror. You're mine. Our most important hero right now is you stepping up, being your best self in service to something bigger than yourself.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than a star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the squad.

Hey Happiness Squad.

It's great to have you with Ashish.

And I as we host guests who are industry leaders helping individuals and organizations unlock their inner happiness and flourishing. Get ready for an episode of heroic proportions. We are joined by Brian Johnson, founder of Heroic and When our minds come together, the conversation is simply powerful. Brian founded Heroic Public Benefit Corporation. He's a 50% philosopher and a 50% CEO, but he's 101% committed to create a world in which over 51% of humanity is flourishing. By 2051, he's made crowdfunding history and he's built and sold two social platforms. As a philosopher, he's helped millions of people from around the world, trained over 10,000 heroic coaches from over a hundred countries, and created a protocol that science says changes lives. He lives outside of Austin, Texas with his wife Alexandra and their two kids, Emerson and Eleanor. On November 14th, he'll be launching his book Arete Volume One. In this episode, you're going to hear about his amazing story, the journey that led him to create the Heroic platform, what he envisions for his readers to unlock when they open his book RIT Volume 1 for the first time and understand the seven objectives he's laid out and how they can integrate them into his day to day lives. The science and benefits of the practices that we discuss at Happiness Squad through our Rewire program and Brian discusses through Heroic are real and can change your life. So stay tuned at the end for Rapid Fire. Well, you'll get to know Brian at a deeper level. So hey, let's get started. Please join Ashish and I, as we welcome Brian to the happiness squad and rewire together.

Ashish, Bri. It is amazing to be with the two of you. I just feel like I'm in company of just legends right now. How are you both doing?

I'm doing great. I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me here.

I know.

And great to see you, Ashish.

Same here.

Same here. Lovely to be here. I can't wait for this jam together. I think it'll have so many nuggets for our listeners to live their best lives. Bri and I are so committed to this, so we're really excited, and I want to just open up with one of the questions we've asked every guest. And we had a researcher, he's like, I know what you're doing. You're trying to kind of basically get a collection from everyone and you want to post something. And I was like, trust me, we're not. The question is a very simple one, but very complex, which is, what is happiness? And how has your definition, Bree, changed from younger years growing up to the amazing work you're doing now?

Yeah, Well, I like to start by playfully inviting two of my favorite teachers as proxies for ancient wisdom and modern science. Anytime I ask, well, what is the meaning of life? What is happiness? Et cetera? So I like the way Aristotle frames it and the way Martin Seligman frames it, and they both tell us basically the same exact thing, as you well know. But I prefer the ancient Greek word eudaimonia. So in ancient Greece, if you asked Aristotle what the meaning of life is, he'd say, the summum bonum. The greatest good is eudaimonia. Now, we weakly translate that into English as happiness, but it has a deeper meaning, something closer to flourishing, where you're successfully actualizing your potential. I love that. And then, of course, Martin Seligman, his most recent book is called Flourish. So I like to tweak happiness and to kind of redefine it with that ancient flavor toward eudaimonia. To have a good soul is what the word literally means etymologically, where we are expressing the best within ourselves, moment to moment to moment. And then, as you know, I tattooed my body with how you do that, which is arete, his one word answer to that question of, well, how do you live with eudaimonia, which we translate as virtue or excellence, but has a deeper meaning, something closer to being and expressing your best self, moment to moment to moment. And when there's a gap between who you're capable of being and who you're actually being. It's in that gap and only in that gap where anxiety, regret, depression, disillusionment exist. So closing that gap, moment to moment to moment, is how I frame it up these days. You know, I used to be seduced by societies hedonic. You know, it's the extrinsic stuff. It's the fame, the wealth, the hotness, the initials after my name, all that stuff. Instagram followers, whatever. And now I'm deeply committed to practicing this philosophy and inspiring others to live from a more eudaimonic lens.

I love that, Bri, right? So much, so much wisdom there. And we've all been climbed that first mountain. We've all in our lives, you know, and there's so many who still keep going after it, right? Like money, relationships, power, fame, promotions, what have you. But, you know, in certain ways, so simple, right? Living into our fullest potential from the inside out. And I love how simply to some extent, you faded and how difficult that can be, which is recognizing the gap moment to moment, day to day, and choosing to do something about it. And the way you do something about it is, as you said, virtue, right? Practices. What are we practicing that are allowing us to kind of move down a path, to be an expression of our best self in service of something bigger.

Which is why we have such coherence. Your nine practices, it's like that's exactly it. And the cardinal virtues is a big thing for us. Having the wisdom to know the ultimate game, we like to say the discipline. To actually practice your philosophy when it matters most. And then, of course, the love and the courage and the gratitude and the hope and the curiosity and the zest is what we like to come back to again and again and again. And it's interesting because it's simultaneously, you know, one of those things. It's actually rather simple. Be your best self. And the wisdom is always there. If you slow down long enough and say, but what's the right thing to do right now? But that's a really hard thing to do. It's simple, not easy, as they say, right? But yet simplifying that and then creating the practices, as you said, to help people more consistently, never perfectly, but more and more consistently close that gap and express their best selves, your life changes, you know, and so many details we can talk about behind that, of course.

Yeah, One tiny step along the way. Great. One tiny step along the way.

You know, Bre, one thing that I love. You shared an early copy of your book and we're going to come to that here in a moment. But you actually told the story of how you explained to your kiddo what arete means. Right? You know, you hand up here versus hand down here, below your feet, below your ankles. And that's the gap that, you know, just love in simplistic terms. I love arete because one of our previous guests, my, one of my best friend at my wedding, Eric, Eric Schmidt, he actually has that tattooed on his wrist. And he got it tattooed, believe it or not, like 18 years ago, dead serious. Like, it's. So that's why when I saw that, I was like. And he's, he's into Greek philosophy. And so it had a lot of special meaning for me. I know you have another tattoo on your arm and you've named your platform about heroic. Could you maybe give our listeners an idea of like, what does heroic mean to you and what led you to therefore establish the heroic platform?

Yeah, I appreciate that, but I can't go so fast past Eric. What? He's got an arete tattoo. We are soul brothers. Arete brothers is what I like to say. We got a number of people, some of my dearest friends have the arete tattoo. So I would love to connect with Eric Off.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yes. I got Arte on one forum and then on the other forum I have the name of our public benefit corporation, Heroic. So on election night, 2020, politics aside, genuinely aside, woke up in the middle of the night, I got a 10 year old, a 6 year old. It was one of those moments of, you know what? We can do better. In my background entrepreneurially, I've built and sold two social platforms before Facebook. So I sold my last one to a publicly traded company. It died a sad death, as many startups do over 15 years ago. And so I've waited for someone to create an alternative to Facebook that were Instagram, etc. That would be an answer to the Social Dilemma, the great documentary with Tristan Harris, etc. Anyway, that's what heroic is. Heroic is a social training platform leveraging the absolute best of social and persuasive technology to help bring out the absolute best in individuals, such that we can help create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by the year 2051. But it's the etymology of the word heroic that most inspires me. So the word hero, etymologically in ancient Greece, didn't mean tough guy or killer of bad guys. The word hero meant protector. So I want to redefine what it means to be a hero. All of us are called to be heroes in our own lives, however humble it may be. But we all have values we cherish. We all have institutions and a bigger purpose that we can commit ourselves to. And the moment that we live with Aretes close the gap and express our best version of ourselves. In my mind, we are heroic. So those are the two tattoos that my joke is. Science says if you write down your goals, you increase the odds of hitting them by. So I like to say, you know, a lot of people write their goals on a post it note, put it on their bathroom mirror. I put mine in 1 inch tall, 4 and 5 inch long permanent ink on my forearms. And I'm hoping that it helps me have a greater degree of potential success in both endeavors. The moment to moment and of course the longer term.

I absolutely love that.

You know, Bri, it's amazing to me Anil, right Like it's when he. When Bri and I connected, think about the world in which we're living. It is amazing. We were two people in certain ways. Completely different upbringings, different parts of the worlds in which we grow up. Different kind of. I worked in consulting, right. Pretty much 25 years you spent time 50% building startups, selling startups and 50% as a philosopher. Right. Very, very different. And around the same time you got called looking at the world and where it was going to create a platform that really helps people be at their best, be heroic. Right. Everyone matters. Everyone can make a difference. And you wanted to. I love that. And here I was in a very same place. You know my reason for leaving McKinsey? There were so many people who asked me why are you leaving? And I said I'm leaving because I really feel the work we do. What we have learned over 25 years around behavior change needs to reach a billion or more people pretty quickly because we are hardwired for fear. We are operating out of a place where we are deepening a crisis at every level. We are tearing the world apart. And while the planet will survive, I'm not sure humanity will. And I want to be able to make a difference. Right. So I mean to me, when I saw your journey and Bri, when you launched Heroic and everything that was with it, I think April 2022 was right when. April 21 or 22 when it. No, 22. When you started with the official launch.

Yeah. So founded November 2020 and then we launched it. Then we blessed to work with Metalab, the same company that built Slack, Tinder, Uber Eats, Neuralink, Built our platform. So we launched the training platform in April of last year. We're launching the social platform literally right now, which we're really excited about. But. Yeah, and it's funny, too, because when I. When I. As we got to know each other more, I looked at what you're doing, and you've done exactly the same thing. Yeah, okay. I was a founder, CEO, part that half philosopher. But look what you are, you know, and all the work you did at McKinsey and just how passionate you've been and how deeply you've gone into this. And now our shared missions to create a world in which more and more people are flourishing at a time when, you know, we're facing historically significant challenges. And this is also our call to heroism of we need you. You're the hero we've been waiting for. Look in the mirror. You're my. And our most important hero right now is you stepping up, being your best self in service to something bigger than yourself.

I love it. Everyone matters. Everyone can make a difference. And you start from here to now, which is the other thing I love about it. It's small, little things every day, but you show up and you do them every day.

And then you do them again, and then you do them again. It's day one, but only always. Let's go.

You know, Brian, when you've reached out to people and you've spoken to them about what your endeavor is, did you ever, like, encounter any naysayers? Like, you know, I'm a hero on my own. Right. But I don't need to do that like that. That's not appealing to me. That doesn't resonate with me. What have you encountered and how have you overcome that. That thought process, or at least that attitude?

Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of a diffusion of adoption curve. You know, I'm not naive enough to think that everyone's going to resonate with me or with our movement or with anything. You know, I've earned a few gray whiskers here. But, you know, it's. We've been blessed to have individuals across the spectrum, from individuals, some of the most elite military officers and Special Forces operators, to the CEOs of very large organizations, to other people, former, you know, and professional athletes and coaches, et cetera, to people who are struggling, get out of bed and are thinking about ending their lives. And we've been blessed to be able to meet those individuals wherever they're at and help them go to the next. Next level. But, yeah, I mean, there's always going to be individuals who. Who just aren't interested. But I look at it as. There's the early adopters who are just going to, you know, they're excited about this stuff, they want to go next level. And we have a lot of them who see us as a platform that can give them a lot of value. And then you move all the way down the diffusion and you've got individuals who are more cynical, you know, critical, and that's fine. And then there's just the cynics, then you get to the nihilists. But for me, at the end of the day, I have compassion for those individuals and then I focus on with humility, and then I focus on the individuals of influence. And my obsession is, how can I help them? How can I help them integrate ancient wisdom, modern science, practical tools to go to the next level in their lives, knowing that those influencers are of influence in their community? And, you know, the vision we have, and we train coaches as well. So We've trained over 10,000 people from 100 countries in a protocol that Sonia Lybomersky and her lab has proven works. It changes lives. So I'm focused on that group, the individuals that just get it, that are passionate, meeting them where they're at and then giving them as much as we can to help them impact those that they influence in such a range of ways.

Yeah. And it's so important to know that. Right. And I think even be aware of it, because, look, there's so many people who start companies who want to do this work and they stop because they face obstacles or they'll face people who are like, yeah, I don't believe in it. Right. Or I don't want to do it. And I think if we go in with the understanding that, look, the reason we are doing this work is if 80% of the people already believed in it, then we won't be here. Right? We don't need to be doing this. Right. You don't want to be building, you know, why are you building heroic if 80% of people get it right? Or why would I be doing what we are doing? Anil with Happiness Squad. So even when I do, and I do a lot of my work with companies around changing, you know, company cultures and building and embedding these practices into how teams work, people ask me, what do people. Are people doing this? Are they open to me? And I say, listen, I get it that 80% of the people are not open to it right away. And it might be because they don't believe in it. Or it might be because it is a fact that if you want to get something done quickly, force is the way to do it. If you want to get much higher impact done over longer times, you cannot force your way into it. And a lot of people are stuck in that place of fear about, I just need to get it done. I'm not playing the long game, right? We've got to recognize that there are enough of those. But I love this brain, right? Which is you're saying, let's find the people who want to do it, let's find the early adopters, let's find the influencers and let's really have them together with us at their voice. Because you know what, if somebody is not an early adopter, that's okay. Treat them with compassion because they are struggling. Life is not easy living in that gap of. You highlighted your fullest potential where you are. It is not easy. It is hard. So let's have compassion. But let's wait for them to discover this work when they're ready in their time, and then they will come into.

It and then let's bring them the modern religion, which is scientific proof. So for me, about, this isn't me, you know, this isn't even ancient wisdom. It's modern science. And at the end of the day, you know, we live in a culture in which 80% may be resistant, but 90, 95, 99% are unhappy and are not flourishing in their energy, in their work or their love. So if we can create, and we, I mean us and our separate entities and together and everyone else in this space, if we can create rigorous scientific proof that this works and you are likely to be more energized, more productive, more connected, you know, it's hard to have. No one's going to say, no, I don't want that. I don't want to feel great when I wake up in the morning and feel energized. I don't want to feel on purpose and more productive at work. No, I don't want to feel connected to my spouse and my kids. I prefer to feel alienated. So finding the frame, you know, through which we can, quote, sell it, you know, and be able to present it in a way that just meets them where they're at in a very rigorous, grounded, but also fun, inspiring, practical way that is, you know, a beautiful creative challenge. And I love the way that you framed it. And yeah. And then again, it's day one. Let's go. What's up? Who's next? You know. And how do we continue to create value?

Well, just on that, Brian, I think what I'd love to now do is shift gears. You are not a stranger to writing. You are launching a book in November. Arete volume one. What I'd love to understand is I know from what you shared there are seven objectives that you've laid out in the book. I'd love to know if you have a favorite objective and how do you yourself integrate that into your day to day.

I love it. So, yeah. So the book Arete subtitle Activate youe Heroic Potential, Volume 1 comes out in November. Seven objectives, very briefly. And then I'll highlight my favorite one. The first objective to activate your heroic potential is what we discussed. You need to know the ultimate game. Most people are seduced, they're playing the wrong game. And it's Stephen Covey. You can climb up a ladder real quick, but if it's on the wrong wall, good luck. And then to go back to your metaphor with David Brooks, the second mountain. The way I like to describe it is if you scream up the first mountain in a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, but you're going in the wrong direction quickly. Wow. All right. You're now 2,000 miles further away from your desired destination. So you better know the ultimate game, which is Eudaimonia via Arteta. The second objective is my favorite, which I'll come back to, which is you got to forge antifragile confidence. In a world like today. You can be fragile, you can be resilient, or you can be antifragile. The harder life kicks us, the stronger we get when we practice our philosophy. And then briefly, you got to know your big three. I simplify self development into energy, work and love. You got to make today a masterpiece. Today's the day to move from theory to practice. And then you got to master yourself. The art and science of self discipline, self mastery. I'm all about dominating the fundamentals, which is objective six, eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, etc. And then the final is activate your superpower, which I call Soul Force, which Gandhi inspired. Satyagraha, as you know in Sanskrit, Truth force, love force, soul force. So Martin Luther King Jr. Talked about it in his I have a Dream speech. That's what we activate, our soul force. That is what can change the world. But my favorite objective is objective two, forge antifragile confidence. So I define it in the book. What is confidence? Etymologically, the word confidence means confidere. It's with intense Trust. That's what confidence is. So if you want to have confidence in your life, you need to have intense trust in yourself. So then my question is, well, how do you develop trust in any relationship? Very simply, you do what you say you will do. So if you want to cultivate a trust in a relationship, you do what you say you will do. Leadership, one on one. If you want to develop trust in yourself, you better do what you say you will do. And if you say you're going to meditate, you say you're going to follow your nutrition protocol, you say you're going to turn off your electronics when you're with your kids, and you don't, you shouldn't trust yourself. You're not trustworthy. So the first most important thing is to cultivate trust in yourself. We help people do that by identifying who they are at their best and what specifically they do. And then we say, don't give up those gains. If you have successfully done the right thing in the past, you we just need to make that prior best your new baseline. And then antifragility, as Nassim Tala brilliantly says, is the opposite of fragility. Yeah, I want to make this a dominant part of our cultural conversation. Again, fragility obviously isn't where you want to be. Neither is resilience. You don't want to just be resilient. You want to be antifragile, such that you get stronger the more life pushes you around. And the only way to do that is when you feel overwhelmed, when you feel like you're getting knocked off. Instead of doing vicious behavior, you double down in your protocol and you dominate your protocol even more aggressively when you're most challenged. That's how you build antifragile confidence. That's what I'm, what I love the most, and frankly, what I'm most proud of and what we've contributed to our community to date and what I'm most excited to share via the book and everything we do, because you get that even 5 or 10 or 15% right, then you change your life. And we know that from, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of people that have been exposed to that long answer to your short question. But seven objectives. Number one for gent, fragile confidence.

You know, Brian and I love this. I want to share this with people. Right? You might go like, well, interesting. Antifragile. I'm not anti fragile. We are. All right, Think about how we gain strength. Think about when you do strength training, what you're doing, when we put stress Our muscles, when we give them time to recover, grow stronger. Think about how vaccines work. When we dose ourselves with the virus or the bacteria that can kill us in small doses, our immune system actually becomes stronger. So we have it, we forget it. And I loved what you said. When you struggle, when life, we fall down, that is not the time to give up. That is the time to double down. That is a time to truly take on a different mindset, right? Instead of saying what did I do to deserve this? We can lean in and say what can I learn from this? Or what is the gift in this right Man's search for meaning. Victor Frankl, one of my favorite books that I've read so many times. When we suffer, when something doesn't go our way, it's our ability to reframe and find meaning in that that can allow us a path forward. Or we can wallow and do all kinds of things like go get a drink or you know, find other ways to numb ourself. But let's make that be an opportunity for us to practice something. We are, it's every one of us has it, but having it is not enough. You have to do it.

This is actually one of the micro practices that we've got in the Rewire program is actually around cultivating self awareness. Specifically how do you build that antifragile mindset? Believe it or not, both hand over heart. I woke up this morning, there's a poll that we've run right on our LinkedIn which is which of the four practices would you love to learn more about? And I kid you not, the dead tie between master your anxiety and develop a resilient mindset. So I actually was looking into this and I was actually Ashish rewatching the video and what we talk about here is that growth mindset, like your mind is capable of developing that edge and so it's that growth mindset that you can bring to the table and like if you set an intention of today, growth mindset. You know what, instead of feeling like an expert all the time, I'm going to be curious, I'm going to ask questions. I'm going to ask questions and just seek to learn more than I already do. I think the potential there we all have it. Like you said Ashish, it's within us. Whether it's our immune system, it's our muscle fibers. This is the opportunity to be antifragile. I had no clue what that word meant until I met Ashish. So for all the listeners out there, if you're adding that to your list of words, antifragile. I hande Bart. I think it's a beautiful concept in how we can think better than even resiliency by being antifragile.

Bree share with our listeners. You choose which of those two because they're both so important and they're both a core part of our work and I believe in this. You choose. You want to talk a little bit about optimizing your big three or going back to the first, which is know the ultimate game. What's your game? Where do you want to go? And maybe we cover both of them, you know, one after the other because they're both so, so foundational. There are so many people who are out running, they don't know what, where's the goal? Right. You can spend your whole life going back and for forth and not scoring a goal if you don't know where you're going.

Yeah, we're scoring the goal and wondering why you're not winning the game. I mean, imagine that's even worse. I'm winning, you know, I'm winning, I'm making money, I've got a big house, I've got this, I've got that. But I'm not happy, I'm not fulfilled.

Yes.

So yeah, the distinction. I have goosebumps right now. From the extrinsic to the intrinsic is so essential from the pursuit of fame, wealth and hotness, as I like to playfully say it, to personal growth, deep relationships and making a contribution. Extrinsic, intrinsic. You need to get that. That's life changing. Then you work on the forging antifragile confidence. The other metaphor that Nassim Taleb uses is a wind will extinguish a candle but fuel a fire. It's a great metaphor. So what are you? Are you a candle or are you a fire? Because you're going to be fueled by challenges. The wind if you have a certain protocol. And then the big three is a powerful idea as well. The idea with that is that life gets overwhelming, you know? I love Covey. First book I ever read was 7 Habits. Tony Robbins influenced me as a young man. Stephen Covey has his roles and goals, but I found myself overwhelmed because they're near infinite. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, a writer, a philosopher, a teacher, a friend, an athlete. I'm all these things. Where do I start? Where does it end? Tony has his categories of improvement. My joke is, one of the few times I've agreed with Freud was when he said that a good life comes down to two things, work and love. If you can get your work and your love right, you're, I like to say 80, 90% there. But if your energy isn't optimal because of poor lifestyle choices, then good luck. So we call that the big three. Energy, work and love. And science is unequivocal, by the way. The number one virtue most highly correlated with flourishing is what they call zest. It's your life force. It's your sense of energy and enthusiasm for life, which is dictated by your physiology. So your physiology is driving a lot more of your psychology than psychologists currently recognize. Now, that's changing, but that's why we start with energy. Bring your best self to your work and your love. And what we obsess about in those first three objectives in the book in our coach program, and everything we do.

Foreign.

S We hope you're enjoying the tips discussed in this episode. If you're on the career treadmill, seeking the next promotion, experiencing stress and anxiety, or reach the top of your career and wondering if the sacrifices to get there were worth it, Ashish and I have been there and we're ready to support you. The happiness Squad rewire program is designed to integrate the nine hardwired for happiness practices into your day. Within five minutes form proven habits to experience more success, resilience, satisfaction and creativity. You won't be alone in your journey. Check out the rewire link in the show notes. Make happiness your competitive edge to achieve your goals. Now back to the episode.

What are some ways, Bree, that you help those on the platform and and as well as some of the practices you write in the book? How can somebody be at their best when it comes to energy?

Yeah, well, we do a few different things. One of the ways that we framed up the app and what Metalab built with us in that we've scientifically studied our coach program and the app. So in the app, we help you get clarity on who you are at your best. And my coach, Phil Stutz, who's in the documentary on Netflix called Stutz, calls it emotional stamina, what I call antifragile confidence. He says, the worse you feel, the more committed you are to your protocol. The worse you feel, the more committed you are to your protocol. But it begs the question, what's your protocol? So we need to slow down long enough to say, well, what is my protocol? Who am I at my best in energy, work and love? We help you create an identity. As James Clear brilliantly says in Atomic Habits, identity etymologically means repeated beingness. So we have you literally name your identity in your energy, work, and love for me, and I'm showing it with you right now on our little video chat. It's disciplined athlete. I show up like a disciplined athlete in my energy. In work, I'm a heroic philosopher CEO, which has deep meaning for me. And in love, I'm a joyful soulmate, which has deep meaning for me as well. Then we help you get clarity on your virtues. Another great point David Brooks makes in Second Mountain and the Road to Character is all of us are obsessed about resume virtues, but no one's going to talk about your resume at your eulogy. They're going to talk about your eulogy virtues. So we help you get clarity on the virtues the best version of you embodies in energy. I'm disciplined, I'm calm, I'm confident, I'm poised, I'm strong, and I'm grounded. I commit to those every single morning in our app. And then I have a list of targets that I hit when I'm at my best, and I hit them every day. So we've created this protocol where you get clarity on who you are at your best in your big three energy, work, and love. And then you commit to being that in the morning. Every morning. You spend 60 seconds committing to it in the morning, priming your reticular, activating system to see the opportunities to be your best. And research shows that if you do that and then you hit the targets during the day, you're likely to be 40% more energized, 20% more productive, and 15% more connected. So that's the heart of the practice side of our app that we talk about in the book and then go deeper into in the app. And then that's our whole coach program as well, is training coaches to coach people to do everything that we just described in their own idiosyncratic ways, et cetera.

I love that identities before first going and saying what you're going to do, start to connect to who you are, who you want to be. Only from there can you then which I love the second part of what you highlighted. Right, Brian, which is behaviors, what are you gonna do? Because only when we repeat what we are going to do over and they can be super small. Right. For you, disciplined athletes might be. You might start with, I'm gonna do one pushup and I'm gonna do whatever hundred steps. If that's where you are, that's where you are. But just do them. And when you do them over and over and over, you start to get successful. And I know in your app you can hit them multiple times, you know the behaviors every time, you're actually creating a new set, right? Neurons that fire together, wire together. You're creating a new pathway, you're celebrating everything and that is how you're living into the best version of you. And look, you and I get excited about this because in the end, right, we are both business people, right. The research can't be clear. I think it's time for us to wake up and as leaders, support others in building these habits because you're not just doing it for them. I think it's a good enough reason to do it just for people. Because in the end, right, together we all live and share this world. We are an inter being with each other. So we benefit if our fellow, you know, humans are actually doing well health wise. They're operating from a place of kindness. But listen, even if you just do it for yourself, the data is very clear. Happier organizations, happier individuals are more creative, they are more innovative, they are more productive. The companies are more profitable, they have less attrition, they are more creative. It's all the work, Bree, that you've done that Sonia and in her lab have validated that these things matter. It's the work coming out of Oxford, the latest wellbeing study that they published that clearly show the correlations between well being and return on assets, profitability, shareholder returns. I think it's time for us to wake up and really focus on, on how we can support those we lead and those we work with in really building habits in becoming the best version of themselves. In effect, be the hero you are.

Yeah, I was watching a TEDx the other day about and something we talked about, Ashish. Happiness is an inner game, right? At the same time, there are people out there who feel like, you know what, I can actually maybe buy my happiness, you know, and I can take care of it externally. And you alluded to it earlier, Brian, when you talked about, you know, this is, there's extrinsic, there's intrinsic. You know, what shocked me is when the speaker was talking, he said, look, a couple of stats. One, the amount of money that we spend on cosmetics, nearly $3 trillion a year. The amount of money we spend on fashion and apparel, $300 trillion a year. Guess how much money we spend on our own personal development to basically work on our inner character where it truly matters. Only $40 billion a year globally. So now the reason why I share that is the amount of money we're spending to Buy the happiness that we hope to achieve, which we know at the end of the day is just a vicious cycle. We don't end up being happy. In fact, we're chasing it. So we end up being unhappy. It blows my mind. And so it's almost a. This inner work. It takes work. It takes effort. So I know you mentioned it earlier, Brian, like This is only 60 seconds in the morning to form this habit. How do we help people? This is for maybe both of you. How do we help people understand that? Look, a few minutes a day in investing in yourself, leveraging the science, unlocking your human performance is actually a good investment versus stressing out for two, three hours a day and everything that comes with that. How do we convince people to unlock.

That anil, by the way, before we even go there, I'll tell you, right? Those stats are staggering. But I'll tell you that $40 billion is also a misnomer. Bri will tell you, because that's where he spent all his time trying to prove affect the method. 40 billion is spent doesn't mean it actually goes anywhere. Right. When I did the work at McKinsey, 70% of transformations fail. The number is even higher for personal transformations. People start, they sign up for subscriptions. All of those things show up. But doesn't mean it leads to any change in behavior.

Got it.

You go from one to the next to the next to the next. Right. And that's why, you know, I am a huge fan of heroic and the amazing work that Bri and his team are leading, because it's grounded in not just science of what works, but also the science behind how do we build habits. That's why our work at Happiness Squad, we use the neuroscience of habit formation as a core. We can know what to do, but if we don't support people in doing it the right way, it's not going to stick. It's not going to stick. That's why I love it. I mean, I love. I've played with the platform. I love it. It is so, so powerful. Community is a big part of it. So I'm so excited about the community side, the platform that you're going to build. We learn together. We learn when we do things small and we learn when we repeat. And the results show up, right? And the results show up. But that 40 billion number, if everybody was actually really using the 40 billion, we might not have all the issues that we have, but the reality is it's not true. Bree, what do you think? What are your thoughts?

I think I Appreciate your kind words about heroic. And I was thinking the same thing about you and how you've spent the last 25 plus years and now what you're doing and just the I can feel the trend and the momentum. We're blessed to have some partnerships with some special forces units unit in the US And West Point has introduced heroic to their cadets and faculty and staff. And so there's heroic military which we're really excited about. Then heroic corporate I think is. And just the idea of corporate, which again in our conversations as she, you know, so inspired by everything you've done and are doing. I think that when we can combine the rigorous science with the ROI to your point, and now of look, there's data here, this isn't that complicated. Now it has not been packaged and sold as effectively as it can be. And you know, in our experience with corporate, you know, relationships, there's an app fatigue, you know, you can only do so much. God bless calm and headspace, all that.

All right, cool.

But what's the fundamental way to help people engage in the habits that truly change their lives? And why we spent what we spent to work with metalab is we wanted to create a Tesla for self development experience where the user experience is as powerful as it can be to get that adoption, which again is going to be diffuse in any organization. But we come back to that and those, those influencers. And I'm excited because the number of wellness directors, the number of leadership development experts speaking with Royal bank of Canada, their 90,000 employee team on mental health day, they're prioritizing this. How do we help create rigorous mental health through what we're talking about? We've got to get the fundamental scientifically proven behavioral change mechanisms installed systematically. And again, I think to make my point, I think corporate America and global corporate organizations are going to be the most powerful way to affect change in the years and decades ahead. Full stop. If we want to have a shot at creating a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by 2051, leaders of these organizations need to prioritize the health and well being of their team. And it's great because science proves it works. The economic return is there. So to me it's a matter of time. It's not if, it's a matter of when. Because the ultimate bottom line is going to be served while we serve every important facet of building a culture in which individuals are honored and supported and flourishing in every aspect of their lives. So I'm very, very optimistic and excited about what the next years and decades will hold for us because frankly, we don't have a choice. And it's so obvious what we need to do. And then we come back to the leaders. So why I'm obsessed about, give me the CEO who's into this, give me the head of HR who's into this, give me the military officer who's into this, and we'll start there and we'll prove it there. And it's just a matter of time. In my vantage point.

That's it. You know, and the best part is because there is a lot of, you know, I want to do it, but my company won't support it. And it's to all those listeners out there, Gandhi said, be the change. You start, you can start with your team. It doesn't matter if you are a warehouse lead, right? You're a supervisor in a warehouse. And the whole company doesn't care if you have a team of 14 that you can commit as 14 to do something together. Start the change, right? We are all designing things that are accessible. Accessible. It's worth investing. So don't wait for the world to change. You change, and trust me, you are part of the system. And collectively, you will start to see the world change with you, right? So go for it. Check out heroic. Get a copy of rte. Come check out Happiness Squad. Please don't let organization leaders not being there yet be the reason. Reach out to Bri, reach out to me. Reach out. We'd be happy to support you any way which can. Because, friends, look, time is running out, right? We don't have the luxury of hundreds of years to get this. If you look at ecologically where we are, if you look at as humanity, you know, within the country, you know, we are at each other's throats. We've got to move with urgency. And so we do need all heroes who put up their hands and say, I am ready. And we want to support you. We will support you in any way we can to be the torchbearers, to be the light bearers, to live into this every day. We can't wait. We can't wait for everybody right in your collective systems to wake up. So we are here and towards that, I want to hear about the community. Ri, you already built an amazing community, but you're about to launch the platform. So talk to us about the role of community and how important it is to personal growth and learning and how are you building that into the offerings to support others.

I want to reflect on how you just beautifully articulated that so bless you. Amen. Let's go so much. We can talk about Gandhi there. But the way I like to frame it is there's wisdom, which is getting a new idea. I call that inside out. You get an idea that can change your life. It's unquestionably important. We have a ton of wisdom on the platform we haven't talked about, but as you know, the philosopher's notes, all the other stuff. But science says the fastest way to change your life is to join a community of people with high standards, because in their presence, literally, you're just a different person. And there's a scientific truth to Jim Rohn's adage that you are the average of the five people with whom you spend the most time. So we're really excited about the social component because we believe it will help serve that being around people where the normative behavior is the optimal behavior is really exciting because most people who are into this stuff feel alienated. Most people in their lives don't have conversations like this. So they're the weird ones. Eating a certain way, getting a certain amount of sleep. They're unusual. Well, that's fine. And that's a whole longer conversation. On Yuval, Noah Harari's point that nothing we experience culturally is natural, inevitable, or immutable. So we want to create a culture in which doing the right thing is the normal thing. And we're really excited about that online. But Cal Newport, deep work, you know, deep living, brilliant guy, is a friend of mine with whom I've. I've chatted about this a lot. What we really want to do is get people together offline. So our online social platform will be powerful, but we're most excited about the offline connections. We call it heroic local. And we had, when we asked people if they'd like to help us build local communities, we had people from, I believe, over 750 cities in 75 countries around the world raise their hand. So imagine heroic Austin, heroic New York City, heroic wherever. You know, fill in the blank around the world where we're connecting with one another offline. That's the idea behind heroic social. And then you combine it with the training, because it's not enough just to get together. We need to have a practical protocol that is structured yet flexible that allows us to show up as our best selves. And that's the social training component coming together in the heroic platform that we're excited about.

So beautiful, right? The notion of sanghas in Buddhist traditions has been a really powerful one. If we want to Be surround yourself with others and create space to practice. Create space to practice together. Because this is our life journeys. Life doesn't stop, you know, your programs, our programs, one and done. One year. Okay. I'm heroic now. I'm done. I can go back to my life. No, it doesn't work that way. Right. We have to show up every day and live it. So I love it. I love the local communities. You can count on our support if it can help you get one going in Boulder free. All in. All in. Just let us know. Just let us know.

You got Amsterdam. You got Amsterdam live on this end.

Is that what you want to do? That's amazing. I didn't place you in Amsterdam.

Yeah, I am in Amsterdam. I'm a global citizen, if you will. 17 years outside the US so spreading the word out on this part of the world, when I hear what you both are saying. I had a real lovely conversation with my sister this morning. And for those that know me, I'm very close to my sister. She's been my guru on my journey, on my self reflection over the last eight years. And Asha, she kind of touched on what you just said. When we think about how we market and how we try to explain to folks the value that we're trying to unlock, the potential we're trying to unlock, you know, she said to me, she's like, you know, just if you surround yourself with people and grow that circle of influence of people who really this resonates with, that's where the power lies, is really growing that circle and surrounding yourself, as you both have said, with people that truly value this. Because again, you know, good begets good. Great begets great. Strength begets strength. So I think we have an amazing opportunity here to really grow that circle. So I love what you're doing. You know, I want to switch to gears, Brian, and talk about your favorite of the nine Hardwired for happiness practices. So we've shared these with you. You've got them up on your screen. I would love to know which one's your favorite. And also, as I mentioned earlier, how do you integrate it or them into your day?

So this is even more unfair question that asking me which is my favorite. I'm looking at that. I knew you'd ask me the question right as we kind of prepped, and I'm like, dude, not fair. So I will. I will answer your question, and I'll do so by saying it's the integration of all nine. So for me, it's funny because the way you have it Is self awareness is in that number one slot which I love. Living with intention is my first objective. It's the essence of wisdom. It's the essence of knowing the ultimate game, that ultimate intention, which of course requires the self awareness to know that you may or may not be playing the right game. And then as I go through your list, I just see deep resonance. I mean defining your purpose. I like to say that there's the ultimate purpose that we all share, it's universal. Then there's your unique purpose. Then there's the ultimate purpose, which is this moment being your best self while we live with eudaimonia, et cetera. But yeah, I'm now not answering your question. It's all there. Look at this, we've got the embracing mindful living. So again, another facet of wisdom, the gratitude. Of course science is unequivocal. Mastering your emotions as a deeper conversation. But that's similar to the protocol of seeing those weather patterns and being able to do what needs to get done, even when you don't feel like it. And then fueling up with compassion. We like to talk about encouragement. So compassion is to suffer with, which is etymologically which clearly is important. But then that counterpoint of the heroic encouragement of let's see a better future together. I love investing in, well being. Anil, you beautifully talked about. And then we just talked about community. And then we're back to intention. And I love the circular pattern and the petals through which you represent this. So again, that is a very long now not answer to your question. I love integration. It's the integration of all of them in their own idiosyncratic dynamic. You know, always iterative, never perfect, but beautifully harmonic way that I think leads to the happiness, the flourishing, the eudaimonia that we're talking about today.

You know Brian, it was so interesting again, right? Our journeys as well as kind of these frameworks, right, that we kind of independently kind of arrived at this, which is so interesting to me. Intention. I love the fact that your first of the seven objectives, right, which is know your game, know your game awareness, your protocols of every morning, right? Choosing and committing to intention, who you want to be. Because if you don't commit to it and keep it front and center, you're not going to get there, right? And then so many of these kind of weaved in. I can't wait to read the book. I encourage all our listeners to get a copy of it. I think it's going to have so much wisdom. But don't stop There. If you want to practice, go to the app. You can check out Heroic. You can check out Happiness Squad. Go and practice. If you don't create space for it. My dear friends, we live in a world where we are drowning in knowledge. We are parched for practice. We can know all that we want. But if we don't practice, nothing changes. And, you know, one minute, five minutes start there. We all have that, and we owe it to our loved ones, to those we lead. We owe it to ourselves to stop struggling and becoming the lowest version of ourselves, but really grow into and live into our biggest potential, our fullest potential. So, Bree, thank you.

Ashish, thank you. Neil, thank you. What a joy.

My pleasure. Hey, are you guys up for a quick speed round of questions? This is more for fun and just to get to know you a bit better.

Brian, let's go. Yeah.

All right. All right. You have.

And that was. Yes. Let's go.

All right, here we go. First question. Your favorite shoe brand.

Vivobarefoot. The only shoe they wear. Nice.

Okay. I don't know if you know where I work right now, so that's why it's like a curveball question. But I love where.

Where are you? I don't. You got me on that one. Where is it?

I work for Nike.

Okay, cool. So then I'll tell you why I wear the Vivo barefoots. You guys have the equivalent. Whatever, low profile shoe. You get it for me. And shoe dog, Phil Knight's autobiography is one of my absolute favorite books. So you got me on that one. Let's go, Nike, second edge. Although I hired the CEO of Adidas to replace me at 25 years old, so it's a tough battle there for the top three.

Okay. Number two, your favorite song to listen to to turn your frown upside down.

We Can Be heroes by the Score, which I don't know how many times I've listened to that, but Phenomenal band. The score is my favorite band. We had them at our launch party. And actually, no, it's. The name of the song is actually unstoppable, and the lyrics are we can Be heroes. It's a phenomenal song.

Love it. We're creating a playlist of songs like this, so one day we're going to release my.

Yeah, that's great.

Send it over, man. Send it over. All right. Your favorite book. And I know that's a tough one because you've read a lot, but what's the one that you're like unequivocally, this is my go to.

Again, not possible to answer that. I don't know how many books I've read, but I've done 650 philosopher's notes. So I would say an empty journal. And then at the risk of being both biased and immodest, my new book, Arete, it's a thousand pages. I put 450. One of my absolute all time favorite books from all the books I've read over the last, you know, 25 years. So again, I put an asterisk on that one and then. Yeah, I'll stop there. No, it's great.

Okay, last one. Not sure if you're a big movie buff or TV buff, but what's the last series you binged?

Yeah, I can't say I've done that. You know, the last time I did it was. What was it called? Hero. Was that a. Yeah, Heroes.

Heroes. Yeah.

Okay, cool. Here's the deal. I did that and I started dreaming about these guys. And that literally is when my wife and I stopped consuming that. So I don't watch series. I watch, you know, I'll watch movies, I'll watch great documentaries I just watched. My favorite documentary I just watched is Nim's Purjas. Fourteen summits in seven months. Phenomenal. Super inspiring Nepali climber who just made history.

Wow.

Beautiful guy. Followed by Stutz is another one of my favorite documentary.

Amen. That's awesome. That's all I got for you, my friend. I am truly grateful to have been with the two of you. Thank you both so much. I mean from where we were to where we are to where we're going, I am truly excited and I just want to say thank you to Ashish and thank you to Brian. Pleasure to be with both of you.

The feeling is absolutely mutual. I really appreciate your generous support and your kindness and yeah, it's been a blessing to be with you. Thank you.

Such a joy. My dear friend. I can't wait to of course read the book and then hopefully let's make an intention to find time to see each other in 2024, either in Boulder when we launch Heroic Boulder or in Austin together.

I can't wait if you are ever in Austin, either of you. I can't wait to see you and absolutely on Boulder. Can't wait to make it out and can't wait to connect in person. Give you a hug and I can't wait to make it out to Europe and see you. And that'll be open invite, meet you.

Anywhere on the continent. You got it. Indeed. Unbelievable. Lots of love both. Take care.

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Until next time, Sam.