17 Dec 2025 · 0 min
Brian Johnson explores desirable difficulties, the idea that challenges build strength. He cites Malcolm Gladwell's example of an underdog girls' basketball team using an unconventional full-court press, and shares how his own difficult upbringing taught him resilience and skills he uses in his work today.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. We're on a roll with the whole embrace challenges on your epic quest theme, so how about one more plus one on the subject? Malcolm Gladwell wrote a great book called David and Goliath in which he walks us through some fascinating stories that demonstrate the fact that sometimes what we perceive to be our greatest weaknesses can actually be turned into our greatest strengths. Scientists call these desirable difficulties. Imagine that. Difficulties that are desirable. Like what? Well, how about a girls basketball team packed with kids with with no experience playing basketball and therefore no traditional talent. Oh, and the head coach knows nothing about basketball. That's a weakness, right? Well, sure, but what if they turned that weakness into an asset? That's what one team Gladwell features did. They decided to break all the rules and simply hustle more than anyone else by running a full court press all game which worked you it so disoriented their competitors who are used to people playing by traditional approaches that they won a lot. And personally, I used to wish I grew up in a happy, stable, affluent, well educated family with a silver spoon in my mouth and optimal DNA in every cell. Actually, I still wish that was the case at times, but now I can see that growing up in a lower middle class, blue collar, super conservative Catholic family struggling to pay the bills with a father who struggled with alcohol and whose father struggled with alcohol and killed himself was ultimately a big blessing. The resulting challenges that I experienced and have overcome and continue to overcome in my own journey are the primary reasons I can now do what I do. Thanks to my wonderful cocktail of compromise, nature and nurture, I was forced to develop a set of skills that I otherwise never would have been forced to create. I also have a deep sense of compassion for the inherent challenges of battling demons along with wisdom on how to overcome them that I can integrate into my work to serve even more profoundly. Like that girl's basketball team, I compensated by running full court presses on my eat, move, sleep, breathe, focus all the time. Plus one for today. How about you? Can you create an even more compelling, coherent narrative about your life and how your difficulties have proven to be desirable? Let's do that.
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