17 Dec 2025 · 5 min
Brian Johnson uses the chemistry concept of activation energy—the minimum heat needed to trigger a reaction—as a metaphor for personal change. His new book Activate Your Heroic Potential contains 451 ideas designed to help you reach that threshold.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Arete One Degree. A micro chapter from my new book Activate youe Heroic Potential. This is one of 451 of my all time favorite ideas that I hope help you activate your heroic potential. Today's is on 451 degrees activation energy. Have you ever heard of activation energy? It's a chemistry thing. The dictionary tells us that it's, and I quote, the minimum quantity of energy that the reacting species must possess in order to undergo a specified reaction. Mundane examples, water only boils once it reaches its activation energy point of 212°F. 100° certainly won't do it. 200° won't do it. Not even 210° or 211° will do it. Simmering but not boiling. You want to boil, then you need to get the heat all the way up to 212 degrees. Then you'll undergo the specified reaction and boil. Same rules apply with fire. Carbon and hydrogen atoms are hanging out in paper all day every day. And of course oxygen is hanging out in the air all day every day. But they won't combine to set the paper ablaze until a certain threshold is reached. We need 451 degrees of heat to create enough energy to catalyze the magical dance that is fire. 400 degrees, nothing. 449 degrees, nothing. 450 degrees. No nothing. 451 degrees. Bam. Let there be light. That's activation energy. And that's why this book has 451 degree ideas. Any one of which might help you go to the next level in aggregate. If all goes as planned, we'll activate your heroic potential. I hope you enjoyed that. Arete One Degree from my new book Arete Activate your heroic potential. The book will be shipped on November 14th right before black Friday. In time to make it the perfect holiday gift, perhaps. I wanted to let you know that we have some special giveaways if you think you might like to pre order the book. And even more goodies if you think you might want to give the book away this holiday season. Here's the deal. Pre order one copy and get a free advanced reader copy of the ebook today. Pre order three copies and get a free advanced copy of the ebook and the audiobook. And a limited edition Arete coin that we'll send to you. Pre order 10 copies of the book. Bless you and get all of that plus in autographed advanced hardcover reader copy sent to you immediately inside the fancy Arete VIP box which is packed with other goodies including this Arete T shirt, a Heroic t shirt and 10 free annual heroic memberships for your gift recipients. You'd be able to give them a book and a year's worth of Heroic 4 Free. If you pre order 25 copies, you'll get all that plus a free ticket to our launch event party in Austin November 10th through 12th and you'll get a personal voice memo. Thank you and a high five from me if you're feeling inspired to order over 50 copies of the book. We've been blessed to have a lot of CEOs and corporations do that. We'll give you a huge discount. Just let us know all of this. You can learn more about at Heroic U.S. book Heroic U.S. book of course you can order the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Independent bookstores will be everywhere. You can buy a book, Hudson's airport stores, etc. And let us know of course when you've done that and purchased a copy or three or ten or more if you feel inspired to do so at Heroic Us Book. I appreciate you and I hope you love the book. I'm super excited about it, super proud of it, and I hope it helps you and your families transform your lives.
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