Brian Johnson summarizes Phil Stutz’s “Laws of Action” from the book Lessons for Living, arguing that wisdom is gained by doing rather than thinking. He highlights three practical principles—speed (act quickly), density (take many actions in concentrated time), and a nightly written review—and illustrates them with a personal anecdote (his first session notes from January 13, 2017). The piece closes with an app-focused call-to-action encouraging daily micro-wins.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In our last one, we talked about Phil Stutz and his new book, Lessons for Living, what Only Adversity can teach you. As you may recall, we discussed wisdom from the very first words of the book as we took a quick look at the five truths of reality. Here they are again. Number one, life includes pain and adversity. Number two, the future is uncertain. Number three, accomplishment of any kind requires discipline. Number four, you are not special. No matter what you did, you cannot avoid these aspects of life. And number five, this will never change. Today I want to chat about Phil's Laws of Action. Let's get straight to work. Phil tells us, and I quote, if wisdom is out there, then the only way we can gain it is by taking action. The will is more intelligent than the process of thinking. Thinking. Let's say we're planning to open a donut shop. We could spend hundreds of hours debating what percentage of donuts should be chocolate and what percentage should be vanilla. If we take the action of opening the shop, we will learn more about how many of each flavor to make in one day than we could in a year of abstract thinking. The world of donut eaters will give us the information we need. He continues by saying, to act in the face of the unknown brings up a primal fear in most of us. You can overcome this fear if you learn to look at action in a new way. Now, that's from a chapter called Knowing by Doing. Phil and I have talked about that donut shop many times. As I read that passage, I thought of my very first session with Phil on Friday, January 13, 2017. In fact, I just reached over to the left corner of my desk where I keep my stack of my most recent notes for my sessions with Phil. On the top of the stack, I have a photocopy of the first page from that first session. You want to see my notes from that first session? We got a link to check them out. At the very top of the page, in huge bold font, I wrote action. Below that, I wrote rules of action. Then I wrote down rule number one, speed. Which just so happens to be tied for first as the most important thing Phil has ever taught me and the first principle he teaches us. In this chapter in the book, he tells us, and I quote him again, once you determine to do something, the less time you allow to elapse until you act, the better. A failed action done quickly will improve your confidence. More than one done after great procrastination. Even if it succeeds in my notes I wrote speed equals conceive to action. Do it now. Confidence erodes the longer you wait to take action. And it's possible to make an impact right now. And I said to myself, the bias is always to make the call. I got goosebumps typing that out, feeling into the life changing power of that wisdom. Below that section on speed, I wrote a few other things, including the next principle Phil teaches in the book Density. In the book, Phil says, and I quote, dynamic. People take more actions in one morning than most people take in a month. The goal is to take many more actions in a given time period than than you normally do. Start slowly. Try to take even just two actions in a day and increase from there. In my notes at the bottom of the first page, I wrote, density equals attitude toward time. Utmost, indescribably valuable. Gulp. Pack it in. Courage equals overflow of life. Now the final principle in Phil's philosophy of action is a nightly review. He tells us, and I quote him again, reserve 10 minutes before bed to review in writing the actions taken during the day and the ones you want to commit to for tomorrow. Anything written down becomes more serious and you are less likely to lie to yourself about how much you've done. Now that reminds me of Pythagoras PM review. I love that practice. And we architected the entire heroic app to help you start your day with a clear set of targets and celebrate all your micro wins all day, every day. Here's to embracing the laws of action. Today's the day, hero. Let's go.
