Brian Johnson teaches that mastery requires wholehearted commitment, not just going through the motions. He uses the "dojo decision" metaphor and a warrior image to frame life as an internal battle between your best self and your worst, drawing on Socrates and Gandhi to argue you need a vow to win it.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome Back to another optimize +1. The other day we kicked off our mastery series. It was awesome. As I was prepping for that first session, I knew that of course I'd be giving an overview of our 250 day program featuring our seven modules and all that. But as I prepared, I knew that the really important thing to get across for that session was just how important it is for us to flip the switch in our heads and truly commit to being our best selves. I knew we'd chat about going for mastery versus going through the motions. We call that the dojo decision. Short story. Two versions of you walk into a dojo. You have a white belt. One version is content to just go through the motions and stay a white belt. The other version of you is going for mastery and is all in on getting a black belt. You tell me which one shows up with more intensity and gets more out of the experience. I always say either decision is fine, of course, but. Well, you know what? This isn't a dojo. As wonderful and empowering as it can be to commit to excellence in a dojo, we're not talking about getting a black belt in a martial art. We're talking about life. And last time I checked, we only get one of these lives to live. So then I knew we'd do the eulogy exercise along with a quick trip to hell to help us make the decision to go all in. Which led me to the word commitment. Which led me to my dictionary to see if there's a cool etymology I could lean into. There isn't. So then I thought, what about vow? That's a powerful word. Wonder what that means etymologically. Then I flipped from C to v in my 1000 page dictionary. I overshot it a bit and I landed on W. I looked at the top right of the page to see where I was, and the word up there was warrior. I kid you not. How perfect is that? Yes, I said to myself, warrior, that's precisely the spirit we need to have as we approach our lives. Then I knew we'd talk about librarians versus warriors and that I'd reference Socrates and Gandhi, who also used the metaphor of a battlefield to to represent the challenge inherent to closing the gap between who we're capable of being and who we're actually being. Socrates told us, I desire only to know the truth and to live as well as I can and to the utmost of my power. I exhort all other men to do the same. I exhort you also to take part in the great combat which is the combat of life and greater than every other earthly conflict. Mahatma Men. Mr. Peace Guy Gandhi carried around his sacred beloved Bhagavad Gita everywhere he went. You know what that's about? War. A young warrior is counseled by his God on how to win an external battle. Which is really a metaphorical representation of the battle raging within each of us. All the great teachers tell us that there's a battle raging within each of us. Our Daimon versus our Demon. Let's commit as warriors to winning that battle today.
