Brian Johnson reflects on cosmic perspective during a morning run, drawing from Michael Singer's two truths: we live in a vast universe and our lives are extraordinarily brief. The sun is 93 million miles away. There are more stars than grains of sand on every beach on Earth.
Questions this episode answers
About eight and a half minutes.
Approximately 93 million miles.
About 1.3 million times.
About four and a half light years.
Seven and a half times (≈7.5 times).
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. I typed this from the trail on our Property. I was 12 minutes into my morning workout. I just finished my first loop and my first set of pull ups in my tree pull up bar. I do six on the first loop and five on the second to target swipe 11 pull ups a day. Now as I was walking to start the second loop, I felt the sun on my face and it immediately thought about the fact that the sun's rays took about eight and a half minutes to reach me after traveling at light speed for 93 million miles. Then I thought of the podcast Alexander shared with me the previous day and that's what we'll talk about today. As you know, if you've been following along, I'm a big fan of Michael Singer. It's very clear the man has been very diligently practicing his philosophy for for a very long time. Check out our notes on the Untethered Soul, Living untethered and the first book he wrote over 40 years ago, Three Essays on Universal law, all of which are linked in the plus one. Now Alexandra is a huge fan of singers as well. In the podcast she shared yesterday, Singer talks about the freedom one gets Contemplating Truth. That was the name of the podcast, Contemplating Truth. I've got a link to it. In the plus one he talks about two fundamental, non negotiable truths. First, we live in a vast universe, and second, our lives are extraordinarily brief. To establish his first truth, Singer walks us through the best way to gain perspective. He reminds us that our tiny little planet can fit into the average sized star we call the sun a staggering 1.3 million times. Then he tells us that the next closest star is four and a half light years away. For those keeping track, in a single second, light can travel around the Earth seven and a half times. Imagine going that fast for four and a half years. You'd travel over a quadrillion miles. Then he reminds us that there are 300 billion stars like ours in just our galaxy. Imagine that for a moment. I find it nearly impossible to even start to imagine that. Then he reminds us that our galaxy, with its 300 billion stars that are all over a quadrillion miles away from each other, is just one of trillions of such galaxies. Imagine that for a moment. If your head doesn't explode immediately thinking about that, I don't know what will make it do so. Then he tells us to come back to Earth with that cosmic perspective and revisit our huge problems. And that's today's post war let's have the wisdom to hold the ultimate truths and the discipline to remember those truths in the moments in which we might be making things a bigger deal than they actually are. When, as always, all day, every day. Especially today.
What's up? This is Michael, President and head Coach at Heroic. One quick note before we go. I just think it's so amazing that Brian keeps reading all these books and distilling them into more wisdom and less time. By the way, thank you Brian for continuing to read the books distill them for us. I love not having to read the book, just getting them more wisdom in less time to the plus ones of Philosopher's Notes. And if you're into this kind of thing, expressing the best version of yourself and using your greatest gifts make a positive impact on the world. Make sure you head to Heroic Us to check out all the other resources that we have available to you. You can download a bunch of free goodies including Philosopher's Notes, masterclasses and our scientifically proven Heroic app. You can also explore advanced resources to help you go next level, including live and virtual workshops, we working one on one with a Heroic Performance coach or even becoming a certified coach yourself as you master heroic performance, the fundamentals of coaching excellence and Heroic coaching prosperity. Again, head to Heroic Us to get the ancient wisdom, modern science and practical tools you need to activate your heroic potential and change the world together. And please do hit subscribe, Appreciate you have a fantastic day and see you again soon.
