A short motivational micro-episode by Brian Johnson emphasizing persistence and resilience. He revisits Latin aphorisms (e.g., "percussus resurgo") and a passage from Harvey Dorfman's Coaching the Mental Game about athletes 'hanging on with suction cups', weaving in references to Vince Lombardi and the 1936 Dorothy Fields/Jerome Kern lyric to underscore the message: when struck down, rise again and again.
Questions this video answers
Coaching the Mental Game by Harvey Dorfman.
percussus resurgo (translated 'struck down, I rise again').
Dorothy Fields (lyrics) for a Jerome Kern tune (1936).
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plos One. In our last plus one, we mined some old school Latin wisdom and applied it to our modern heroic quests. As you may recall, destitis ventus remos adibe, percussus risurgo esse quam videre and salvatur ambulando. Translated into our modern lives. As if the wind will not serve, take to the oars. Struck down, I rise again. To be rather than to seem, and it is solved by walking. To which I inquired, is today a good day to take to the oars, rise again, solve by walking, and be rather than seem? Well, is it? Now, today I want to go back to that Harvey Dorfman inspired percussus resurgo wisdom. We pulled that gem from our notes on his great book Coaching the Mental Game. But somehow I missed featuring the big idea from which I got that gem as a one, which is surprising because it features heroes hanging from suction cups. So without further ado, that'll be the focus of today's one. Now, in a chapter on the importance of persistence, Dorfman tells us, I quote, I've seen athletes who battled through adversity working to find a way to get it done. They appeared to be hanging on with suction cups. Japanese athletes described the quality as gambate, working hard, never giving up. Sometimes the suction cups don't hold. But as Lombardi was fond of saying, it's not about how many times a person falls, it's about. It's about how many times he gets back up. Dorothy Fields wrote the lyrics for the 1936 Jerome Kern tune that I first heard on the radio when I was a very young boy. The song begins. Now nothing's impossible I have found. For when my chin is on the ground, I pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. And it's at the end of that passage where Dorfman mic dropped the whole section with our new beloved Latin phrase, precursus resurgo. Struck down, I rise again and again. And that's today's plus one. Struck down, rise again and again and again. Remember, pretty much nothing is impossible when you know you have the antifragile confidence to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. Today's the day. Grab your suction cups, hero. Hang in there. Let's go.
