Brian Johnson uses a broken air conditioner as practice for his philosophy: flip the mental switch, imagine others who'd trade places, then set a concrete target. His protocol for waking at night: focused breathing and silently reciting wisdom passages like "here's to the crazy ones" or Emerson. Everything is fuel for growth.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In our last one we chatted about the heroic gods having fun challenging me to practice my philosophy by killing the AC in the middle of the night after a 105 degree Austin summer day. To which I said perfect. I mentioned the fact that after a few moments of whining to myself when I discovered the issue, I decided to flip the mental switch and use the micro challenge. And as an opportunity to practice my philosophy in this situation, I chose to think about the billions of people in the world who would instantly trade their lives and problems with mine. That turned the whining off for me immediately and that lasted for about five minutes. Then after five minutes of laying in bed sweating, the little entitled voice in my head took over the airwaves again. So I flipped the switch again by reminding myself of how lucky I was. Then I practiced some targeted thinking. What did I want? I decided I wanted to get some extra meditation in while seeing if I could get myself to fall back asleep when it was so hot. Now what did I need to do to hit that target? I focused on my breathing and silently recited my go to wisdom prayer passages that I've said to myself thousands and thousands of times before. I started with here's to the crazy ones. Then Emerson's enthusiasm wisdom. Then W.H. murray's until one is committed passage. Then Churchill's There comes a moment in everyone's life wisdom. No. Number one. Check out a plus one called wake up in the middle of the night for more on those and why I do that. Note number two, I highly recommend you consider developing a protocol to help you efficiently flip the switch and go back to sleep when you inevitably wake up. Whether that's from a broken AC or some gremlins running around in your brain after a challenging day or before a challenging day, that protocol needs to be worked consistently to make it work. So I recited those prayer mantra quotes and I fell asleep, only to wake up again shortly thereafter. Perfect time to get another rep in. Now, throughout that long sweaty night, I was also thinking of this brilliant line from Vernon Howard in the power of your supermind he tells us, and I quote, if your grand purpose in life is to wake up, then whatever happens to you is good for it can prod you into self awakening. And that's today's Poisson. Here's to using everything, all caps three exclamation points, everything as fuel for our next level growth. As in everything. Three more exclamation points. When all day, every day. Especially today. P.S. i created this on the same morning when the AC was out. I'm still sweating. Free sauna. Let's go.
