17 Dec 2025 · 3 min
Brian Johnson and Emerson break down Alden Mills' eight actions for persistence, spelled out in the acronym YOU PERSIST: understand your why, plan, energize, recognize your reason to believe, survey habits, improvise when obstacles hit, seek expert advice, and team up.
You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Hi, this is Emerson. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. So we got a special guest today, you might notice. Welcome, Emerson. Yeah. All right. In our last plus one, we talked about you feasting on your hero bars, using memories of your past success as fuel to walk through fear doors. Today, did you grab three for today? Now all those cookies and hero bars remind me of an idea from former Navy Seal Alden Mills. Great book. Be Unstoppable. I read it years ago and recently re read it with Emerson. Did you love it? Mm, super good, right? Mm, yeah, it's a fantastic parable all about a young captain who who meets a wise older mentor captain who teaches him how to optimize and actualize his potential to become a master. And commander. Emerson and I loved it. Now, the master captain, who goes by Persistent Pete, has eight actions he teaches his young protege. One of which reminds me of the hero bars, which we'll talk about tomorrow. Now, the actions form the acronym. You persist. Emerson can rattle them off. In fact, let's invite him in so we can share. Emerson. Action number one, understand your why. Action number two, Plan. Action number three, Energize to execute. Yeah. Alden may go with exercise to execute, but we expanded it to energize so we can include other fundamentals like eating and sleeping. Action number four, Surveyor. Nope. Action number four, reason to believe in yourself. Yeah. Recognize your reason to believe in yourself. Nice job, buddy. Action number five, survey your habits. Action number six, improvise to overcome obstacles. Action number seven, seek expert advice. Action number eight. Team up. Yeah. Today's plus one. Do you persist? Let's do a quick run through first. What's your number one goal these days? Seriously, what is it? What's your why? How's your plan? Are you energized? What reasons do you have to believe in yourself? Hint. Those are your hero bars. How are your habits? Are you improvising to overcome inevitable obstacles? Ohm style. Do you need to seek advice from any experts? And how can you team up a little more today? There you go. Super quick take on how to be unstoppable. We persist in. Give him a high five. Have an awesome day. See ya. Oh, high five for me. Let's do it. Yeah. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me.
