12 Sept 2026 · 3 min
Brian Johnson watches his daughter Eleanor jump over progressively distant branches on a trail and connects it to T.S. Eliot's idea that only those who risk going too far discover how far they can go. He encourages listeners to stretch their own limits and celebrate both successes and failures.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic Plus One. Yesterday I read Dan Coyle's new book Flourish. It's all about how to create more meaning and joy in our lives. It's fantastic. Notes soon. Now, I took a break for lunch and got in a quick Yahtzee game with Eleanor as I ate. Fun Johnson household fact: we've been playing an absurd amount of Yahtzee and Uno and Sorry these days. Target swipe, Play with your awesome kids. Now, after the Quick Bite endgame, Eleanor and I went on a quick walk. About a quarter of the way down our trail, we needed to walk around a tree that had fallen a few days before during a pretty good storm. Eleanor chose to make the detour an obstacle course as she balanced and skipped from one fallen tree trunk to the next. Now, I told her how much I loved watching her move her body. She has an incredible natural poise and joy as she moves. Fun fact, she ran her first 5K when she was 3 or 4 and completed her first Spartan Race at 5. I think it was 4 years old for that 5K. I told her we should have named her Eleanor Grace Johnson because she's so wonderfully graceful. She smiled at the fact that we did name her Eleanor Grace Johnson as I celebrated her beautiful, graceful movement. Then— and now we're getting closer to the point of today's Plus One— she sprinted ahead. to show off that joyful, graceful movement. Additional fun fact, she was barefoot, as she always is. Then, as I approached her, I saw that she had set up some branches on the ground as a sort of long jump challenge for herself. She stepped back from the first branch she put on the ground, got a running start, and then leaped from one branch to the next. Success! Then she moved the branches so the second one was a little further away And repeated her process. Success again. Then she did it again, this time putting the second branch even further away from the first. She stepped back, got a running start, and jumped. And this time she didn't quite make it past her mark. Perfect. As I watched, I smiled and thought of T.S. Eliot's wisdom. He once said, only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far One can go. And that's the point of today's Plus One. Remember, only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. If you're easily clearing all the stick goals you're setting for yourself, perhaps you can challenge yourself a little more. If you've missed a couple of jumps lately, perhaps you can recalibrate a bit while celebrating the fact that you went for it and had an opportunity to discover just how far you can go. In all scenarios, here's to celebrating the experience of being alive and finding joy and meaning and purpose with those we love. It is day 1. We are all in. Let's go. Hey, this is Brian. Thanks for spending a few minutes with me today. If you enjoyed it, please hit subscribe so that the best of the show keeps landing in your feed. Then head over to heroic.us. That's heroic.us, where you'll find the full library of wisdom I've created over the last 20 years, as well as the app, advanced training programs, coaching, and everything else we've built to help you optimize your life, actualize your potential, and live heroically. It is day 1. We are all in. Let's go.
