Brian Johnson uses a parenting moment with his son to explore Phil Stutz's idea of glitches—moments we fall short of our ideals. The most creative act in the universe, he argues, is turning these glitches around fast. Own it, treat it as fuel, bounce back with speed.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic Plus One. In the last couple Plus Ones, we talked about a recent parenting glitch of mine. I promised to mine some gold from the experience and hopefully help us both get better from my failures. Let's get to work. So, I actually used the whole glitch thing we discussed in our last Plus One as part of my post-me-being-lame chat with Emerson. I told him that we all fall short of our ideals. He will while playing chess and in every other domain of his life. I will while parenting and in every other domain of my life. The story we tell ourselves that we should be perfect all the time and that we're the only ones who fall short of our ideals is one of the main reasons we suffer as much as we do and fail to activate as much potential as we have within ourselves. This is Kristin Neff's Self-Compassion: Common Humanity 101. Check out References to her notes, my notes on her book, and some other plus ones. Now, as Maslow said, I repeat, there are no perfect human beings, not a single one. But that's not quite the point of this plus one. This is. Phil Stutz calls those moments we fall short of our ideals a glitch. And as I was laying on the hotel bed this morning next to Emerson chatting about all this, I drew a line in the air. The line started— On the left, dipped straight down. Is this your left? Yeah, I guess that would be your left, right? The line started on the left, dipped straight down as it moved to the right, then looped back up and ended higher than where it started. I said, you see this shape? It's like a fishhook. You start here, then you dip down. Oops. Then you come back up. See how it looks like a fishhook? I said. And Emerson said, yeah. I said, well, Phil calls that a glitch. And you know what he says is the most creative thing you can ever do? Emerson said, no, what? With genuine interest. I said, he says the most creative act in the universe is to see how fast you can turn around a glitch. Then I continued by saying that most people either try to ignore their shortcomings and pretend they didn't happen because they feel so bad about them, and then they numb themselves so they can make the pain go away. that they haven't addressed fully, or they ruminate about all their shortcomings and shame themselves for being imperfect, etc., or they do a little bit of everything. But I said we need to simply recognize the fact that we will all constantly fall short of our ideals. That's a given. Sometimes it will be small, sometimes it will be big. But no one, I repeat, is ever going to be perfect for even a single day. And the trick is to simply own our imperfections, then to make it a game to see just how fast we can bounce back and use the little mistake glitch as fuel to get better. That's how you win the ultimate game. That's how you forge antifragile confidence. You expect the glitches. You don't freak out when they happen. You own it. Then you have fun turning that glitch around with all the speed and power you can muster. Let's do that with our very next glitch today.
