Brian Johnson introduces Alexandra’s new 30-day Heroic community challenge, "Complain Less, Celebrate More," inspired by Will Bowen’s Complaint Free World. The game asks participants to notice each complaint/criticism/gossip and immediately try to turn it into a celebration (example: convert annoyance about a messy roommate into a celebration of that person). Brian explains the wristband origin, gives examples, and points listeners to Heroic Social for details and community participation.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic One. Alexandra loves to create challenges for our heroic community. She creates these 30 day games in which she and members of our community get together and challenge one another to dominate a particular facet of their lives. For example, she's done games on optimizing your energy, simplifying your life, and activating your heroic potential. People love them. Now, we were just chatting about her newest 30 day challenge. It's called Complain Less, Celebrate more. It's inspired by Will Bowen's Complaint Free World book in which he challenges people to go 21 days without complaining, criticizing or gossiping. He has people start the challenge by wearing a wristband on one wrist. Then he has you move it to the other wrist every time you complain, criticize, gossip, etc. Millions of people have participated, including me and Alexandra, and we did it forever ago and neither of us got past 10 days. Now, as Alexandra was creating the rules for her new game, she wanted to make it so people were challenged but could win. Here's what she came up with. Every single time you criticize someone, complain about someone or something and or gossip about someone, notice that you're doing it. Which, to be clear, is always the hardest and most important first step. Then, rather than ignoring the fact you're doing something you know you really don't want to be doing, then simply continue doing it. See if you can turn it around. See if you can go from complaining about someone to celebrating that person. For example, let's say that you think someone is super messy. Maybe they leave the breadcrumbs out on the kitchen counter and that annoys you. Or they leave the dishes in the sink or they rip the toilet paper roll off the little handle and send it flying across the bathroom floor. Rather than complain about that, use that as a trigger to celebrate something about him. And know this. That's a great way to operationalize Phil Stutts idea of catching turnarounds. As we've discussed, he tells us that the most creative act in the universe is being able to turn a glitch into a moment to practice your philosophy. We want to have fun seeing just how fast we can do that all day, every day, especially today. Little P.S. you can learn more about the game via the link in this one. Check it out and via the hashtag. It's a long one. Complainless Celebrate more. Check it out. It's linked in the plus one. It will take you to Heroic Social where you can meet some other people committed to playing this game and committed to playing the ultimate game.
