Brian Johnson breaks down grit as passion plus perseverance, drawing on Angela Duckworth's work. Real passion acts like a compass that points you forward consistently, not fireworks that burn out fast. His third-chakra tattoo reminds him daily that discipline and self-mastery are what separate people who actually finish things.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class.
This one's on Gritty Passion Inspired by Grit by Angela Duckworth. Fantastic book. Now, grit is basically two different aspects, right? Passion plus perseverance. Perseverance. There are two aspects to your passion. One is interest. You got to love what you do.
If you want to be gritty about it over the long run.
And two is purpose. Those are two ways to cultivate your.
Passion, which we're going to talk more.
About in another episode. But what I want to talk about right now is gritty passion and making a distinction between fireworks and a compass. So when Angela talks about passion, she's not talking about, oh, yeah, I get really fired up about something and then my interest kind of wanes. And then I go get fired up about something else.
Firework show, right?
And then my interest wanes, then I get fired up about something else, and then I kind of go over here.
And I do this.
She's talking about a sustained passion over a long term for basically one thing, right? Fireworks versus a compass. When you have one thing that fires you up, you have a compass, a clear intention with your life. I haven't drawn this much, but I used to draw this symbol all the time to represent one of the two core aspects of my overall philosophy. You need to have a clear intention. And then what? Then you need to take action. You need to be impeccable. That symbol represents the little tattoo I've got there. Can you see it? Which is the Sanskrit symbol for the third chakra, right? Which represents our self mastery, our discipline, our ability to do what needs to get done, in some ways, our grit. So you have a clear intention, and then you're impeccable with your behavior or over a long period of time. That's how you achieve great things. Now, that requires passion, right? But if you just have this firework like passion, where you're a hero in the beginning, boom, big firework display, and then it fades away. Then you do it again and again and again. You will never achieve anything truly great. So focus your life on that one thing she talks about in the book.
And I share in the note.
So some great examples of people who structured their entire lives around their chosen intention, their chosen compass, literally every single thing. It's very much like what we talked about with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his creativity. You need to discover what you're here to do and then protect that energy, that space. Don't let distractions in as you go.
Out and exercise your gritty Passion. We talked about it a lot in.
Purpose 101 as well, so check that out more. We called it Black Hole Focus there. But the point is shift from fireworks to a compass and get your gritty passion on.
And that also begs the question, of.
Course, what are you passionate about? What's your one thing? Fill it in. Angela says this in the note. She says, my top level life organizing goal is, and will be until my last breath, use psychological science to help kids thrive. That's awesome. Mine is to help people optimize while I create the greatest collection of wisdom I possibly can. What's yours?
Hey guys, this is Brian. A lot of people don't know what I do beyond these YouTube videos I put up, so I thought I'd give you a quick tour of our membership platform. Thousands of people have joined us already. 10 bucks a month get access to a ton of stuff that's in addition to what I put up on YouTube for free. So the basic idea is you just watched a micro class. Hope you enjoyed that. I share. I just started doing these micro classes, but I Now share over 50 of these per month. We've shared dozens so far and it's basically a quick class on my absolute favorite stuff across the different domains of optimal living. Two to three maybe five minute little micro classes on how to optimize your life. In addition to that, you get access to every single one of our Philosopher's notes. We now have over 250 philosophers notes on some really, really good books. A lot of them in each one of them. You familiar with the PNTV videos if you've watched many of those. But we also have PDFs and MP3s of our Philosopher's notes.
So here's.
Let's take a look at what a PDF looks like. This is an example of a Philosopher's note. It's a six page PDF where I basically share some of my favorite thoughts, riff on it, talk about how other teachers say the same things, and give you a nice playful kick in the butt to go out and apply the wisdom that is a philosopher's note. I record that as an MP3 that you can download as well. And 250 of those, I produce 10 of those at least per month that I share with you in addition to the micro classes. And then you also get access to all of our old classes. We have the 5 day immersion reboot habits 101 confidence 101 getting stuff done 101 meditation 101 then future classes including relationships 101 energy 101 purpose, 101 biz, 101 goals, 101, etc. So there you go. Really blessed to have some extraordinary support. And I will share with you where you go to sign up. I'll put a link to this, but basically cruise on over here. You can sign up. And this is the kind of response we've gotten so far from our members. It's pretty neat. I've made more positive changes in my life, my brief membership, only three months so far, than I did through years of counseling. Yes. Brian Johnson, you are a rock star. Thank you very much. That's very kind of you. And I'm making huge strides in optimizing my life. As a result of your philosopher's notes and optimal living classes, I spend $19 a month on my gym membership to take care of my body. A mere $10 a month on an optimal living membership is the biggest value invest investment I've ever made in my emotional, mental and spiritual health. Thank you for the incredible work you're doing to inspire us to be rock stars in our own lives. Unbelievably inspiring and humbling. In 24 hours, we received hundreds of extraordinary notes from members around the world. So there you go. That's a quick look at what we're up to. 10 bucks a month. Hope to astonish you. There you go.
