Brian Johnson (Heroic +1) presents a short, practical reflection connecting spiritual wisdom (reference to Yogananda) and daily self-mastery. He emphasizes mastering fundamentals—eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, focusing—to create 'calm confidence' and a stronger connection to one's best, heroic self. He recommends simple practices (sleep well, meditate 1–15 minutes before phone/email, consult your daimon) and frames life challenges as opportunities to practice and build antifragile confidence. He closes by recommitting to the two virtues: calm and confidence.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one we talked about Yogananda's wisdom on connecting to something bigger than ourselves to tap into its infinite wisdom. How did he encourage us to do that? By calming our minds. Now like Yogananda, I'm blessed to have many people come to me to talk about their worries. You know what I tell them? Well, I never start with the problem. I ask them how their fundamentals are. How's your eating, you're moving, you're sleeping, you're breathing, you're focusing. Why? Well, because when we dominate our fundamentals, we create a more powerful connection to our best selves. And at the same time we create a calm confidence knowing that we have what it takes to handle whatever life throws at us because we have structural, reactive and expansive discipline. And we are the type of people who know how to consistently connect with the best, most heroic version of ourselves as we use every obstacle as another opportunity to practice our philosophy and forge a little more antifragile confidence as we get just a little bit stronger. Then after a high level discussion in which we help them get more clarity on what they think is the number one highest leverage thing they could start and stop doing to most powerfully change their lives, I often encourage them to get a good night of sleep, meditate for a minute or 15 the next morning. Then before looking at their smartphones or checking their email or otherwise blowing up their brains with inputs, I encourage them to ask their daimon what she or he thinks. The wisdom is always there. We just need to have the wisdom. Self mastery, love, courage, gratitude, hope, curiosity and zest to connect to it. Let's do that today. Little P.S. the two virtues I recommit to in my energy, work and love. If you haven't guessed them yet, calm confidence.
