Brian Johnson's '+1: #330 Hit the Rock' is a short motivational podcast monologue about the power of persistence and consistent daily effort. Using the stone-cutter metaphor and Jim Rohn's combination-lock analogy, Johnson argues that repeated small efforts (especially deep, focused work done consistently) eventually yield breakthroughs. He offers practical habits—turning off evening entertainment, prioritizing sleep, waking early, and doing creative deep work—to ensure steady progress, and closes with a challenge to "take another swing at that rock" today.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. In our last plus one, we took a quick look at Warren Buffett's three step goal setting process and then chatted about how it fits into our big three of energy, family and service. First pop quiz. Did you do that exercise? If not, all good. But if we want to move from theory to practice and from merely consuming these ideas to actually deeply thinking about and and living these ideas, we've got to do the work. The image that comes to mind for me is that of a stone cutter. Imagine a guy or gal banging away at a huge rock with a sledgehammer. He pounds and pounds and pounds at that rock with his sledgehammer again and again and again and absolutely nothing happens. Just a big rock and a sweaty sledgehammer guy. Then apparently out of nowhere, on the next strike, the rock splits. Now, if you happen to be walking by that guy right when he made the swing that cracked open the rock, you might think that A, the guy was super strong and or B, splitting rocks is easy. But you missed all the tiring, potentially frustrating swings our sledgehammer guy made before he cracked the rock. It's kind of like Jim Rohn's combination lock. You might be one digit away from unlocking a level of clarity you thought was still super far away. Moral of the story? We've got to show up and hit the rock every day. If we want to make sure our ladder is leaning up against the right wall and that we're living a life of deep, authentic purpose and meaning, we need to show up and do the work. We've got to turn off the entertainment at night so our brains can relax and we can get a good night of sleep, then wake up early feeling energized as we choose to go deep into creative work before we splash around in the shallow side of the reactive pool of life over and over and over again. Any one session might not yield epiphanies, but we're accreting, as Cal Newport would say, just a little more value in each deep work session, knowing that, like the rock splitter, if we continue showing up and doing the work, that something good will happen. So today's +1. How can you take another swing at that rock today? Enjoy it. I can hear the rock splitting from here.
