Brian JohnsonChairman & Philosopher in Residence at Heroic

Win or Learn: 3 Questions To Ask After A Performance (Heroic +1 #1,592)

17 Dec 2025 · 2 min

Episode

17 Dec 2025 · 2 min

0:00

Brian Johnson shares Lanny Bassham's three-question reflection practice for after any performance: What did I do well? What did I learn? How will I get better? Bassham won silver in the 1972 Olympics, then gold in 1976, by treating setbacks as data instead of defeats.

Questions this episode answers

November 30, 2023.

451 ideas.

1972 — silver; 1976 — gold.

Chapters

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Arete plus one degree. One of my favorite micro chapters from my new book Arete, Activate your heroic potential. There are 451 of my all time favorite ideas in this book. Hope you love it. Here's one of them Win or Learn three Questions to Ask After a Performance Lanny Basham won a gold medal in rifle shooting in the 1976 Olympics, but he didn't win that gold until after he fell short in the 1972 Olympics where he took home a silver. He used that disappointment to fuel his mental toughness training and bring home the gold in his next attempt. Since then, he's been teaching people how to show up as their best when it matters most. He wrote one of my all time favorite books on mental toughness called With Winning in Mind. Here's one of my favorite things he teaches his elite performers. After any performance, especially the ones where you fell short of your goals, ask yourself these three questions. What did I do well? What did I learn and how will I get better? We win or we learn. And learning is winning. So we win or we win our plus one degree. You learn anything awesome lately? Think about a recent disappointment and let's quickly run it through this process. What did you do well? Always start here and what did you learn well? What did you learn and how will you get better? Plus one degree baby. High fives and let's go hero.