Brian Johnson (Heroic +1 #1,692) explains the concept of "emotional stamina": the ability to handle life's inevitable pain, uncertainty, and hard work. He recounts Phil Stutts calling out his emotional stamina, describes the defining rule for cultivating it — be most committed to your protocol when you feel the worst — and explains how this principle underpins his "Antifragile Confidence" tattoo and the design of the Heroic app. The episode closes with two reflective prompts (one to start, one to stop) and a PS linking to a photo of the tattoo.
Questions this episode answers
"Antifragile Confidence."
On his left forearm.
"Your ability to handle life's inevitable pain, uncertainty and hard work."
March 9, 2024.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In our last few plus ones, we've been exploring some of the most powerful life changing ideas Phil Stutts and I have chatted about countless times in our one on one work over the last seven plus years. As you may recall, we started with the five Truths of Reality. Then we discussed the Laws of Action. Then we discussed the three disciplines. Today I want to chat about the number one all time most life changing idea Phil has ever taught me. Emotional stamina. It's the idea I've come back to more than any other in my dozens and dozens of podcast interviews for Arete. I had it in my mind when I gave myself my newest tattoo as a New Year's gift to myself. Antifragile Confidence. Here's the origin story. Once upon a time, in one of our very first coaching sessions, Phil ended by telling me, you have a lot of emotional stamina. Perhaps more than I've ever seen. To which I thought to myself, I have no idea what that means, but awesome. In our next session I asked him what emotional stamina was. Phil told me that emotional stamina is essentially your ability to handle life's inevitable pain, uncertainty and hard work. Then I asked the life changing follow up question, how can I get more of it? He told me. And this has been tattooed on my consciousness since that chat and is now effectively tattooed on my left forearm. If you want to cultivate emotional stamina, then you need to be most committed to your protocol when you feel the worst. Now that may not sound like a huge revelation, but I literally can't think of anything more powerful than truly getting and relentlessly practicing this idea. It's the essence of how we forge anti fragile confidence and get as close to being invincible as we can become. To state the obvious, what do most people do when life hits them hard? They go off the rails and start doing all the things they know they shouldn't be doing. What would happen instead if we when life hits you hard and you feel overwhelmed and scared and ready to give up, you somehow got yourself to fiercely dominate your protocol and do the things you do when you're at your absolute best. I'll tell you what happens if you get just 3, 5, 10% better at this, you fundamentally and permanently change your life as you forge antifragile confidence, knowing you have what it takes to to respond to whatever life throws at you. Of course, all that presupposes you have a protocol, right? Know this. We architected our entire heroic app with this wisdom in mind. Helping you get clarity on who you are at your absolute best to help you craft a protocol you can dominate when you feel your absolute worst. This is the essence of why our app has been scientifically shown to change lives, and why it can help the most elite performers go to the next level in their lives, while simultaneously helping people who don't know if they want to live another day rebuild a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. For now, today's plus one Spotlight on you. What's one thing you know you could start doing that would most positively change your life? And what's one thing you know you could stop doing that if you stopped doing it would most positively change your life? Here's to letting adversity be the catalyst for our next level of growth as we move from theory to practice to mastery, embodying the wisdom from these lessons for living, today's the day we're all in. Let's go hero. PS Got a link to a picture of the tattoo at the end of this plus one.
