Introductory segment of Brian Johnson's "Habits 101" masterclass. Johnson frames habits as central to excellence (arete), states two core intentions—help learners identify and install a single high-impact keystone habit and teach a master habit for building other habits—and previews 10 key ideas covering willpower (finite resource), fundamentals (universal and unique), keystone habit identification and implementation, removing kryptonite habits, finding the right why, daily practice, simplifying habits, cue→routine→reward and implementation intentions, embracing a multi-phase process, and mindset (habit malleability). The intro also references a workbook and notes for practice.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living 101 Masterclass Series. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting about habits 101, how to tap into your superpowers and create habits that can change your life. The best way to frame this class is to think of aristotle's wisdom. To 2500 years ago, Aristotle said, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act. It's not something you do once in a while. It's a habit. It's what you do repeatedly, consistently, habitually. It's who you are. Habits are the cornerstone of optimizing and actualizing. And. And Aristotle actually didn't say excellence. He said arete. And if you've watched much of this stuff, you know that if I could summarize my entire philosophy in one word, it would be arete, which directly translates as excellence or virtue. But it has a deeper meaning, something closer to expressing the highest version of yourself, moment to moment to moment. Arete is not an act. It's not a once in a while thing. It's a habit. It's what we do day in and day out, and that's what this class is all about. So I have two core intentions for the class. Number one, I want to help you identify and install your number one habit. Researchers call this your keystone habit that will have the biggest positive impact in your life once we figure out what it is and install it consistently. That's the first intention. The. The second intention with this class is to help you build the master habit of building other habits. So knowing that habits are the engine of success, we want to get really, really good at creating additional habits. As always, we have 10 big ideas we're going to look at. Basically pulled all kinds of ideas from a ton of philosopher's notes on willpower, habit building, peak performance, etc. You. You also have a workbook, which I'm really excited about, to help take the ideas from theory into practice. So check that out. And then I've got my notes down here as well. So 10 big ideas. Let's take a quick look at those, and then we'll go into depth and see what we can do to make our arete, our excellence, a habit. All right, so our top 10 big ideas. Number one is to use your willpower wisely. We're gonna talk about the fact that one willpower is extraordinarily important. It out predicts iq, for example, for academic performance by a factor of two. Willpower is huge. And you gotta know about willpower that it's finite. You only have so much of it. It's kind of like a smartphone battery or your muscles, you get fatigued. So you need to use your willpower wisely to install habits that then run on autopilot. That's our first big idea. We're gonna unpack in depth. The second big idea fundees. I don't think I'm ever going to teach a class that doesn't touch on your fundamentals. In this class, we're going to look at the universal fundamentals. Stuff like eating, moving and sleeping and mental training. Right? And then your unique fundamentals. Universal. We all have these fundamentals that we need to dial in. And your unique for your craft, for your profession, for your life. What do you need to do consistently in order to attain a high level of excellence? That's our second big idea. The third big idea is to identify your number one keystone habit. A keystone is the stone that locks in the arch. Without that keystone habit, the arch falls. Without your keystone habit, your life is not going to be what it can be. It's going to disintegrate. So we need to identify your number one most impactful habit. We're going to talk about how to do that and then of course we're going to talk about actually implementing it. Identify, install. The fourth big idea is to identify your kryptonite. We've been talking about kryptonite a fair amount in this series so far. Why is that? Because before you plant the seeds, you need to pull out the weeds. If you have stuff going on in your life that's kind of pulling you down, you're not going to be able to optimize and actualize. So we're going to identify your number one keystone kryptonite habit. What's tearing you down? And we're gonna remove that. Those are our first four big ideas. The fifth big idea is to identify your why. We're gonna talk about the science of creating meaning. Michelle Seager, one of the world's leading scientists on motivation, tells us there's a right why and a wrong why. We wanna make sure we have the right why. We're gonna talk about some fascinating research that points to the right way to motivate yourself. Alright? The sixth big idea is do it daily. Pick a habit that you're going to do every single day. Not Monday, Wednesday, Friday or weekly, or whatever you are. What you do repeatedly. You need to do this consistently to build momentum. Pick a daily habit. We're going to talk about how you don't want to miss a day and you never want to miss two days. The seventh Big idea is to make it easy. If you're going to do something every single day so you become that, you want to make it easy. Lots of big ideas we're going to unpack in this one. Mini habits, creating momentum, etc. That's our seventh big idea. Our eighth big idea. If then cue triggers. This combines a few different ideas. But if then Implementation Intentions is how research scientists describe it. Cue Routine Reward is how Charles Duhigg describes it in the Power of Habit. And then Triggers is how Scott Adams described it in our chat. Scott Adams created Dilbert. He's a hypnotist in addition to being a cartoonist. He talked about triggers. You want to have triggers that cue you to take certain actions. We're going to talk about that in depth. And then the ninth big idea is to embrace the process. Embrace the process. It's taken you years, decades to install the habits you have right now. You're not going to snap your fingers and be done tomorrow just because you decided that you were inspired to change your life and create a new habit. It's going to take time. We're going to walk through the three phases of habit creation a la Hal Elrod from the Miracle Morning Great idea. And that leads us to our 10th big idea, which is get your mind right whether you think you can or you think you can't. You're right. Henry Ford said that. And in Make It Happen Recent Philosopher's note we did on the Science of Successful Learning, they said that there's a lot of wisdom in that wit. Whether you think you can or you think you can't. You're right. You need to know. All caps underlined, Know that every single habit is malleable. You may have some habits you're not proud of. You may aspire to create habits that intimidate you. But you gotta know that every single habit is malleable. That's a quick look at the 10 big ideas. Now let's jump in. And let's remember Aristotle. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence or arete, then, is not an act, it's a habit.
