Brian Johnson explains the three disciplines of self-mastery—Structural Discipline (daily protocols/Big 3 Target Practice), Reactive Discipline (stepping between stimulus and response), and Expansive Discipline (choosing growth over safety). He ties these to Phil Stutz’s idea of emotional stamina and antifragile confidence, emphasizes practicing protocols and deliberate expansion, and prompts listeners to assess and act on each discipline.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic plus one. I've been thinking a lot about the three forms of discipline that make up self mastery here. They are Structural Discipline, Reactive Discipline, and Expansive Discipline. We talk about them in Objective 5 of basic training, and I'll be writing about them in the heroic book we're planning to launch in early 2024. Now, as I sat down to create this plus one, I thought this would be the first time I've written about the three disciplines. Then, as I was going through the archives, I found that in fact, we already chatted about the three disciplines. We chatted about them in plus one. 669 to be precise. Over two and a half years ago. Perfect. Let's dust that wisdom off and shine the spotlight of our attention on them again. Why? Because they're super important. First, a little more context. As we've discussed many times, Phil Stutz is all about helping us cultivate what he calls emotional stamina. How? By getting to a place where the worse we feel, the more committed we are to our protocol. Now that's become the foundation of what I now call antifragile confidence. And know this. Getting this one idea may in fact be the most life changing thing we can do together. What if, when we feel like a little poop emoji rather than spiral out, and let's be honest, folks, do all the stupid things we tend to do when we're tired and overwhelmed and all that, we could get ourselves to be even more intensely focused on doing what we know is best for us. What would happen? It's simple. Easier said than done. But if you can actually get yourself to do that, even 10 or, or 20 or 30% of the time, and then spiral up from there, then you change your life fundamentally and permanently. Now that's the essence of the first of the three disciplines, structural discipline. It's also why we spent so much time and money working with one of the best product development companies in the world to create the core experience of our heroic app, the Big 3 Target Practice Protocol. Who are you at your absolute best? What virtues do you embody? What do you actually do on a daily basis? When we have structural discipline, we dominate that protocol. We recommit to being our best selves in the morning. Then we hit virtuous targets all day, every day. Soul Force Score 101. Let's go. I repeat, good luck having a series of really bad days. When you do that, your highs will be higher and your lows will be higher and you will have earned the Trust in yourself to know that you can handle whatever life throws at you. That's how you forge antifragile confidence, by executing your protocol via structural discipline. Now, the second discipline is Reactive discipline. As I said in the old plus one, reactive discipline is just what it sounds like. Something triggers you. Can you step in between the stimulus and your normal suboptimal response with the discipline to choose a better response? Fantastic. That's Reactive discipline. Then we have Expansive Discipline. This is both the most important and the hardest of the three. Every single moment, we have a choice. Will we step forward into growth or back into safety? If we want to live our most heroically awesome lives and have a shot at experiencing all that we're capable of being, when we feel even a little niggle of fear, we must more and more consistently choose to expand, expand, expand. We need to make that expansion a discipline. How well Bring it on is a fantastic tool to practice, and that's today's plus one. The three disciplines of Self Mastery, Structural Discipline, Reactive Discipline, and Expansive Discipline. How are you doing with each? What's awesome, what needs work, and what's one thing you can do a little differently today? Here's to your disciplines, all three of them. Day one. All in. Let's go.
