Brian Johnson walks his son Emerson and contrasts the inner whiner voice that makes excuses with the winner voice that takes ownership. He draws on Jocko Willink's extreme ownership and Dr. Nate Zinser's work on confidence to show how your thoughts either help or hurt your action.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. I just got back from a quick trail walk with Emerson. Energy Target Swipe. I love training on the trail. Love Target Swipe. I enjoy our trail with my family. Note you might have noticed that all my heroic targets these days are now affirmations. Longer chat. But I spent 30 minutes changing all my targets to affirmations. Present positive, powerful statements. The other day after reading about the science of affirmations in Dr. Nate Zinser's great book, the Confident Mind. Now, right before we hit the trail, Emerson texted his chess coach to ask him if he needed to do the exercises that he had assigned to him last week. His coach said, yeah, let's get them done. Now. I knew his coach would say that, as I knew he had assigned the exercises for Emerson to complete before his last coaching session with him. So I said, hey, buddy, you knew you were supposed to do those exercises before you asked, didn't you? Emerson said, well, I mean, I wasn't sure. Insert a slightly whiny voice. Me? Dude, come on. You knew it. You just let that little whiny voice in your head convince you that you weren't sure, right? And then I said, hey, was that voice in your head questioning what you knew you needed to do helpful or was it hurtful? Emerson smiled and said, it was hurtful to me. I said, yeah, it was. Look, I. I have the same voice in my head. We all have a voice that's trying to convince us to do less than we know we can do, even today. I've only done one set of burpees so far, but I should have already done all 10 sets. I was dominating a slightly different protocol, but then that lazy voice in my head comes in and tries to convince me that I don't need to worry about it. And that's why I grabbed you, to go on a walk to show that voice who's boss. Emerson smiled. Then we proceeded to talk about the fact that we can name those voices the whiner versus the winner, along with some Jocko Willink wisdom on extreme ownership and never making excuses and other such. Goodness, it was a fun walk. And that's today's plus one. Let's shine a spotlight back on your thoughts and encourage you to consider asking this question helpful or hurtful. Then follow the voice of your winner, not your whiner today.
