17 Dec 2025 · 5 min
Brian Johnson breaks down Jim Rohn's success formula: pick a few small disciplines and do them every day. His own two easies are going to bed early and waking early, then four hours of focused work in two-hour blocks. Small daily habits compound into real change.
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 the success formula plus two easy's. It's inspired by leading an inspired life. Jim Rohn, Old school classic. Jim Rohn offers us a success formula. His success formula is very, very simple. He says success is simply a few disciplines practiced every day. Emphasis on every day. Not once in a while, but every day. And he says, look, it's not a big deal. It's a few disciplines. And these disciplines should not be heroic. They should actually be easy stuff that you can do, right? He says there are two easies. There's these few disciplines that you do on a daily basis. They are easy to do. But guess what? They're also easy not to do. Not to do two easy, easy to do, easy not to do. The successful among us have identified their few disciplines and, and they do it every single day. So for me, an example is I produce consistently. So doing deep work in my AM one in AM two time blocks, right? Boom, boom. That's what my days look like. I show up and I do deep work. So I get up early, which means I went to bed early, right? That's not hard to do. It's not hard to go to bed early. There are a lot of hard things. That's not one of them, right? Turning off my stuff and going to bed early, that's not a particularly hard thing to do. Then I can get up early pretty easily. And then it's not that hard to show up and do a two hour deep work time block before I get online. Awesome. Take a little break, hang out with my son. And it's not particularly hard to go back and show up and do two more hours of deep work. Not online, not distracted, doing more deep work. Those are easy key disciplines that fuel my success. Those are easy to do. But guess what? They're really easy not to do too. It's really easy to skip these and to do them once in a while. And I choose not to do that. So you need to identify what your few key disciplines are. Not every single thing you can do, but the few key disciplines that if you did them would lead to success, make them easy. We're not talking about heroic stuff, right? And then recognize they're easy not to do. But you got to see that those easy little things aggregated and compounded lead to unbelievable results. This is the basis of Darren Hardy's compound effect, Jeff Olson's slight edge. Jeff Olson says Look, the challenge here is that these are so easy to do that you underestimate their power. And you think that just because you're not getting a huge return at the first time you do it, or the second or third or fourth or fifth, that they're not worth doing. But the wisest among us know you got to be thinking about this over here. Do them so there's your success formula in two easies. What are your key disciplines? And is now a good time to start doing them every single day? Have fun with that. 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 or over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 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 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, etc. 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.
