Brian JohnsonChairman & Philosopher in Residence at Heroic

How Can I Best Use a Challenge as Fuel?

4 Apr 2023 · 1 min

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Brian Johnson offers practical guidance for using setbacks as fuel: accept that progress includes regressions, honor the pain of the gap, and treat challenges as prompts to revisit his "big three" protocol—Energy, Work, and Love—then take concrete steps appropriate to current constraints (rest, prioritize, act). The speaker emphasizes skilled persistence and using adversity to get slightly better.

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Brian Johnson

April 4, 2023

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Sometimes you take three steps forward and one step back, and sometimes you take four steps back and you have to crawl to get back where you were. That's the path of the master. The master has the wisdom to know that it won't always be up and to the right. And the further you go, the more attuned you are to how far you can go. So you're realizing just how much you're capable of. So it hurts even more when you see the gap. But then the practice is to honor that. I am a really angry, frustrated, sick person. So I totally get the frustration that that happens when you get knocked down. But again, this is the cue, the trigger, the prompt to revisit your big three protocol. Energy, work, and love. What do I need to do? What's my number one, my number two, my number three? And how am I going to show up and do my best right now and use this as an opportunity to get a little bit better, embracing the constraints of reality? I'm going to get sick. I'm going to feel tired. What do I need to do right now? Let's go.