A short, first-person reflection by Brian Johnson (Heroic) on the morning after the Super Bowl. Using a conversation with his son Emerson, Brian contrasts entertaining distractions (watching others’ successes) with pursuing one’s own goals—advocating "creative before reactive," deep work, and discipline as central to winning the "ultimate Super Bowl" of life. The piece closes with a personal shout-out to a friend who attended the game.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. I'm typing this at 6:51am the morning after the Super Bowl. Emerson and Eleanor and I stayed up a little late. 7:30pm Watching the first half of the game. It was awesome. Now, Emerson just came into my office after waking up. I was meditating, and although I was curious about who won, I hadn't checked the score yet. Why? Well, one of my top work targets is creative before reactive. And that heroic target along with focused on what's important now and deep work combine to help me show up with heroic levels of productivity. In short, I am more interested in winning my ultimate super bowl than worrying about other people's little Super Bowls. So Emerson cruises into my office. He's now wearing his mom's heroic T shirts and looks like he grew a fucking foot overnight. Him. Hey, Daddy, who won the Super Bowl? Me. I have no idea. Him. I want to know who won. Me. So do I. We'll check it out after we dominate some creative work. Me. Most people stayed up late last night and then woke up tired and spend too much time thinking about other people's Super Bowls. We want to enjoy watching other people do great things. But remember what our Super Bowls are all about and focus on that. Right? Him. Yeah. Me. You've got a big tournament coming up this weekend. That's your Super Bowl. Go put in some deep work on that. Then we'll have fun seeing who won. Him. Okay. Five minutes later, he comes back in. I'm in the middle of writing this. Him. I did five minutes. Let's check me. Dude, nice work. I go do another 10 minutes and we'll check. Him. Why can't we check now? It won't matter. Really? Me? It will matter. Your brain will be distracted by thinking about that. And we want to work on your discipline, which will always be the biggest predictor of your success. Him. Okay. And that's today's plus one. Let's enjoy the wonderful opportunities to entertain ourselves in the modern world. And let's not get so distracted by all that entertainment that we fail to win the ultimate game of life. It's time to activate our heroic potential by focusing our energy on what's important now. All day, every day. Especially today. P.S. shout out to my friend Jeff, a big heroic investor and supporter who went to the game with his wonderful wife and created some lifetime memories in the process. Remember, we have bright lines so we know when to cross them.
