Brian Johnson presents a short micro-class (inspired by Shane Snow's Smartcuts) on the power of "Small Wins": making continual small progress creates momentum toward larger goals. He uses two vivid metaphors — swinging across playground Olympic rings and a BYU "Bigger-or-Better" trading game (toothpick → pack of gum → magazine → TV/golf clubs) — and cites Harvard Business School research showing people feel best when they perceive progress. He closes with a practical prompt (identify your top goal and the tiniest next step) and a brief promotional outro pointing to his newsletter and paid membership (including pricing and offerings).
Chapters
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on Small Wins. It's inspired by Smart cuts by Shane Snow. So this is a smart cut hack or tip, one of the nine that Shane talks about in the book Small Wins. If we want to have smart cuts in our lives that help us more efficiently achieve what we want to achieve, we need to create a series of small wins. We need to create progress in our lives. He uses a couple of metaphors which are really, really helpful. First, imagine you at a playground, right? There's you at a playground and there's some of those Olympic rings. You know what I'm talking about, right? And you want to go from one side to the other. Well, what's the key component to doing that? You hop on one and then you swing and you get another one. And you go to another one, you go another one. Now what you need to do is create momentum. You want to create small wins and keep the momentum going, AKA progress, to get to the other side. If you stop at this ring, you're going to have a hard time getting it going again unless you create some more momentum, right? So he references research out of Harvard Business School where they profiled a bunch of people and tracked them during the day. And what they found was people feel best when they're making progress. And it actually didn't matter whether it was huge progress or small progress. It was just the idea of making progress. So we want to make progress in pursuit of our goals. Small Wins. Here's another story he uses to capture the point. He talks about students at BYU can't drink there, so they come up with other fun games, right? And one of the things they do is they get a bunch of people together. They don't go to the playground. They come over here and they start the night with a little toothpick. And they play a game called Bigger or Better. They go to a house and they say, hey, we have a toothpick. We'd love to trade with you. Do you have anything that's bigger or better than a toothpick? Now, a lot of people shut the door on them and say, what? What are you talking? But they keep on going, right? They use feedback as just neutral data, right? Which we're going to talk about next. And they go to a house until they find someone who's willing to make a trade for something bigger or better. So they get this toothpick becomes a stick of gum, right? And then that stick of gum, maybe it becomes a pack of post it Notes, Shane tells us. And then that pack of Post it notes might become a magazine, right? Now they've got a magazine and you keep on doing that. And he says 12 to 14 times later on some nights you might wind up with a TV or a set of golf clubs. There's a set of golf clubs, right? That's nuts. You start with a toothpick, pack of gum, Post it note magazine. You keep on trading it up 12 to 14 cycles and you wind up with a TV or a set of golf clubs. But if you started going to a house and saying, hey, I want a TV or a set of golf clubs, never would get there. What we want to do is create small wins. Just get a little bit bigger or a little bit better. It's that 4% principle we talk about a lot, right? The rise of Superman. So to make it super practical, what's your inspiring goal? What's your number one goal that's firing you up these days? And what's the tiniest little thing you can do right now to create progress in pursuit of that goal? Think of the toothpick going to the gum going to the post it note going to the magazine, right? Bigger or better. Leverage that over time and you do some extraordinary things. And I'll tell you what, if this is all you did strategically was to keep your big important goal in mind and then to ask yourself, what tiny thing can I do to move in the direction of that goal? If that's all you did motivationally, you'd achieve extraordinary things. So there you go. Small wins, big. Let's create them. Create the momentum, get across these little Olympic rings and make progress in pursuit of our highest potential. Hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more soon. Have another awesome day. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that micro class. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson. Me. Two basic things. One, our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And two, our Optimal Living membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there, philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas for from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my optimal living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, et cetera. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish, and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson Me Membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.
