In this solo Heroic Plus One episode, Brian Johnson reflects on day two of a chess tournament and uses the experience to illustrate how tiny, intentional acts of kindness—what he calls “micro‑moments of Love 2.0”—can pull him out of self‑absorption and foster genuine connection. He describes deliberately letting a driver merge ahead of him on the highway, choosing a staffed checkout at Whole Foods to chat with the cashier, and striking up a brief birthday conversation with a woman in line. These brief interactions, rooted in Barbara Fredrickson’s positive‑psychology research, leave everyone feeling uplifted. Brian acknowledges the initial awkwardness of approaching strangers but encourages listeners to try similar micro‑moments daily, offering a simple how‑to and a call‑to‑action to subscribe and explore his broader library of wisdom at heroic.us.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic Plus One. In our last several Plus Ones, we've been exploring all the little ways I try to get out of my cocoon of self-absorption and connect with people when I'm out in the wild. We talked about Søren Kierkegaard's practice of people bathing as we held doors open, had quick chats in elevators, and found other ways to create micro-moments of Love 2.0. Check out those notes, by the way, on the science of all this stuff. Barbara Fredrickson, amazing, life-changing. Now, today we're going to talk about another little moment as we have fun exploring mundane ways to bring this wisdom to life. It is now day 2 of the chess tournament. The kids got a great night of sleep. Emerson is a 94 readiness, 93 sleep score on Oura. He's ready to dominate. Now, we've already nearly run out of our food, so we decide to make a quick trip to Whole Foods. On the drive there, I do the equivalent of holding the door open for people. How? Well, you know how lanes on the freeway or highway often merge, and you need to decide who goes in what order as you go from 2 lanes to 1? Well, you know how you can kinda sorta jockey for position and try to make sure you stay ahead in the line? Well, I always deliberately let the person next to me go first. Not because I'm a saint. I can assure you I am not, but because I'm often not a saint and want to use these super mundane moments to get out of my obsession with putting myself first and put someone else ahead of me. So we get to Whole Foods, we're checking out again. I always go through a normal human-powered checkout rather than the AI-powered self-checkout to get a little more people bathing in. And I asked the guy what time he got to work that day. The guy who's checking me out, right? As we were there shortly after they opened, and I thanked him for being there. Then I saw a woman with a birthday cake behind me and said, celebrating a birthday today? To which she said, yeah, it was my son's birthday the other day and it's my husband's birthday tomorrow. To which I said, well, when was your son's birthday? To which she said, the 22nd. To which I said, no way, that's my birthday too. Now it's like we're related. As I tell her, I wasn't able to see my mom for my birthday, so it's nice to see her and celebrate with her. She tells me she's also celebrating a baby shower for her other son, and I celebrate the fact that she has a lot to celebrate. Her daughter is in on the party now, right next to her, and we're all feeling great. Again, this took 90 seconds max, and we're all buzzing. I fist bump the checkout guy and head out with a big smile. That's today's plus one. Create a micro moment of awesome with some random person Today. Little PS, yes, it may feel awkward the first 1, 3, 5, 10 times you connect with a stranger, but it becomes surprisingly easy and fun and amazing. Give it a try again today. Hey, this is Brian. Thanks for spending a few minutes with me today. If you enjoyed it, please hit subscribe so that the best of the show keeps landing in your feed. Then head over to heroic.us. That's heroic.us, where you'll find the full library of wisdom I've created over the last 20 years, as well as the app, advanced training programs, coaching, and everything else we've built to help you optimize your life, actualize your potential, and live heroically. It is day one. We are all in. Let's go.
