Brian Johnson teaches a confidence-building exercise based on Dr. Nate Zinser's "psychological bank account." Write down 10 memories of yourself at your best, add your next big goal, and display the list. Johnson shares examples from his own life, including a company crowdfunding milestone and his son Emerson's achievements, to show how mining past wins fuels confidence for what's next.
Questions this episode answers
June 1, 2024
#1,776
First company to raise $5 million via the SEC's new crowdfunding regulations in 2021.
Approximately 3,000 investors from 75 countries.
Investors expressed interest in $5 million within 24 hours of the first email and $10 million within 100 hours.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one, we continued our chat about how to forge a confident mind as we discuss one of the foundations of confidence accepting the fact that you are perfectly imperfect. I also mentioned the fact that Dr. Nate Zinser tells us we need to build our psychological bank account of confidence. As Dr. Z says, and I quote, just as the balance of any bank account at the end of the day depends upon how much is either deposited into it or withdrawn from it, the psychological bank account of confidence also rises and falls depending on how you are thinking in any given moment. Deposit into that bank account memories of past successes, memories of progress or improvement, and thoughts about future improvements and accomplishments, and the balance grows. Withdraw from that account by replaying past setbacks and difficulties or by fixating on possible future setbacks and difficulties and the balance shrinks. Gaining confidence, protecting confidence, and performing with confidence. Winning that first victory is all about managing your psychological bank account. End quote. Now we manage our psychological bank account by making deposits via three different time horizons. The past, the present, and the future. Today we're going to talk about my favorite way to mine our past For a ton of confidence building gems, let's get straight to work. My favorite exercise from this chapter in the book is called you'd top 10. As Dr. Z says, this exercise is. I quote them again about bringing the 10 most encouraging, most energizing memories out of the dark recesses of your mind and polishing those jewels of thought so they radiate their brilliance back at you. So here's the quick take. Bust out a piece of paper. Put your name at the top. Write down your top 10 list of things you're most proud of. After you've polished those jewels, put your next big goal on the bottom of the page and see how your prior successes are fuel for and point to your future successes. Then put that collection of hero bars somewhere you can see it all day, every day. I had fun doing this. Then I had even more fun doing it with Emerson. If you feel so inspired, do that exercise now. If you don't feel so inspired, definitely do that exercise now. I repeat, take a moment to think about and Write down the 10 most encouraging, most energizing memories of you at your best. What 10 things are you most proud of you at your heroic best? Insert 10 things. That's today's plus one. It's time to mine our past for some heroic gems we'll deposit into our psychological bank account to build some confidence. AKA it's time to cook some hero bars. It's day one. We're all in. Let's go. P.S. for curious souls, my top 10 most encouraging most energizing memories include the fact that Heroic Public Benefit Corporation was blessed to make history as the first company to ever raise $5 million via the SEC's new crowdfunding regulations in 2021. Every single time I think about our 3,000 investors from 75 countries around the world, which is every single morning, and the fact that they expressed interest in investing $5 million within 24 hours of us out, our first email on the subject, and $10 million within 100 hours, I get goosebumps. Making them proud while honoring my sacred vow and practicing my philosophy are tied for first for why I do what I do. Bless you all. Now my top 10 also includes some sacred opportunities to serve some military officers I deeply admire. Check out our recent letter Update, a brief history of Heroic and a quick look at how we intend to forge an anti fragile business and fulfill our mission. For more it also includes the fact that Sonia Lybomirsky says the scientific research she did on our Heroic Coach program created results more powerful than anything she had ever seen in 35 years of research. I capture that by writing science as 35 years. Then I write next to it plus 23% to represent the fact that via the randomized controlled trial study we did with Sonya on our Heroic app, we found that if you hit just one target in the app, you are 23% more energized. Now every time I read that, it deepens my confidence in what we're doing in our resolve to get our first million people to a Sole force score of 101 en route to 51% of humanity flourishing by the year 2051. Then I write down a bunch of other things, including showing up on a Jumbotron, celebrating with my friend John Herdman at his Toronto FC home opener, and Coach SPO giving arete to all his players for Christmas and other goodness that makes me smile and fires me up to go knock over the next domino to fulfill our mission. It's hard not to feel more energized feasting on those hero bars than getting back to work dominating today's win. PPS Emerson's top 10 includes hitting a 2000 plus rating on Chess.com he actually hit it 2100 the other day since I wrote this winning the JV division for the Texas State Championship last year in second place in the championship division this year plus $700 in lifetime earnings ha winning the San Antonio Chess Championships and hitting 75 days in a row on Chesstempo.com all those things fill his psychological bank account up. Those are really powerful deposits to give him confidence that he can hit his next targets. All that leads us back to you and your kids. What are your top 10s?
