Brian Johnson explains Admiral William H. McRaven's rule: when in doubt, overload. Johnson applied it to his own book, packing 451 ideas into over 1000 pages instead of cutting it down.
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Arete One degree, a micro chapter from my new book, Activate youe heroic potential. 451 ideas, any one of which I hope can make a significant difference in your life and help you activate your heroic potential. Now one of my favorites, this one's called Overload. When in doubt, do this. Admiral William H. McRaven is one of my heroes as a four star admiral. His final assignment was as Commander of all US Special Operations Forces. You may have seen his commencement speech at the University of Texas at Austin called Make youe Bed. He's written a number of great books, including one based on that talk called make youe Bed, a memoir called Sea Stories. In another great book called the Hero Code. In his most recent book on leadership, the Wisdom from the bullfrog, Admiral McRaven shares 18 military aphorisms that have guided his life. One of them is called when in Doubt Overload. Let's set some context and then we'll connect the wisdom from that book to the structure of this book. As you may know, when aspiring US Navy SEALs want to see if they have what it takes to join one of the most elite military forces in history, they have to go through what's known as buds. B U D S BUDS is short for Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training. Of course, that training is an extraordinarily challenging mental and physical trial. Only 20% of those who start, finish. Now a little more context. On June 6, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower led the invasion of Normandy that turned the tide of World War II. According to the Eisenhower Library, and I quote, the invasion force included 7,000 ships and landing craft manned by over 195,000 naval personnel from eight allied countries. Almost 133,000 troops from the United States, the British Commonwealth and their allies landed on D Day. Pause for a moment and imagine the extraordinary commitment of all those troops and their families willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect the freedoms that we enjoy today. And if you feel so inspired, pause for another moment and feel into the equally extraordinary commitment of military servicemen and women and their families who are currently protecting the freedoms that we enjoy today. Note it's easy to take those freedoms and the warriors who protect them for granted rather than as granted. As we'll discuss, the wisest among us and each of us in our wisest moments, appreciate the sacrifices these loving and courageous men and women make for us as we strive to give back in equal measure. Now, before the troops could get their 3,000 landing craft on the five beaches of Normandy, you know who showed up in the darkness of the previous nights to clear the way? Some of the very first U.S. navy SEALs. They were underwater demolition experts who found and and destroyed the underwater barriers that had been set up to prevent that landing. All of which leads us to McRaven's 16th leadership principle from his great book. And one more question. You know what U.S. navy SEALs are taught as they calculate how much explosives they need to use to blow up the underwater obstacles they're tasked with destroying? Well, as McRaven puts it, Whenever they were in doubt about the amount of explosives to use, they were told to, and I quote, always overload. Always put more energy, more focus, more power into the situation than seemed necessary. It was the only way to guarantee success in the face of uncertainty and doubt. End quote. And that's what I had in mind as I decided how I would structure this book. Now, I could have delivered a standard 200 to 300 page book with a few dozen or even 100 potentially life changing ideas. I decided to overload and give you a 1000 plus page book with 451 potentially life changing ideas. I want you to feel the explosive power of the ideas in this book as we get to work blowing up everything that may be in the way of us actualizing our potential so we can win the ultimate war between vice and virtue. We are all waging all day, every day. Remember, when in doubt, we overload, it's time to activate our heroic potential. I hope you enjoyed that. Arete plus one degree from my new book, Arete, Activate your heroic potential. The book will be shipped on November 14, right before Black Friday. In time to make it the perfect holiday gift. Perhaps. I wanted to let you know that we have some special giveaways if you think you might like to pre order the book, and even more goodies if you think you might want to give the book away this holiday season. Here's the deal. Pre order one copy and get a free advanced reader copy of the ebook today. Pre order three copies and get a free advanced copy of the ebook and the audiobook and a limited edition Arete coin that we'll send to you. Pre order 10 copies of the book. Bless you. And get all of that plus an autographed advanced hardcover reader copy sent to you immediately inside the fancy Arete VIP box, which is packed with other goodies including this Arete T shirt, a Heroic t shirt, and 10 free annual heroic memberships for your gift recipients. You'd be able to give them a book and a year's worth of Heroic for free. If you pre order 25 copies, you'll get all that plus a free ticket to our launch event party in Austin November 10th through 12th. And you'll get a personal voice memo. Thank you. And a high five from me if you're feeling inspired to order over 50 copies of the book. We've been blessed to have a lot of CEOs and corporations do that. We'll give you a huge discount. Just let us know all of this you can learn more about at Heroic U.S. book. Heroic U.S. book of course you can order the book on Amazon. Barnes and Noble Independent bookstores will be everywhere you can buy a book, Hudson's Airport stores, et cetera. And let us know of course when you've done that and purchased a copy or three or ten or more if you feel inspired to do so at Heroic Us Book. I appreciate you and I hope you love the book. I'm super excited about it, super proud of it, and I hope it helps you and your families transform your lives.
