The Mindset Forge
In Season Five, The Mindset Forge focuses on helping men between 40 - 60 years old maximized this chapter of life by building strength, discipline, purpose and a proactive mindset.
During Season's one through four, you will fantastic content focused mainly on successful athletes and performing artists who've learned how to show up for the big moments of sports, performance and life.
The Mindset Forge
Embracing the Heroic Journey: Cultivating an Anti-Fragile Mindset w/ Brian Johnson
Discover the resilience that comes with an anti-fragile mindset as we celebrate the 100th episode of the Mindset Forge podcast with Bryan Johnson from Heroic Coaching. Our journey together has been nothing short of transformative, and today, we're taking it to new heights. You'll learn how to weave the principles of balance and consistency into the fabric of your life, aligning your health, relationships, work, and energy to lead a heroic existence. Bryan's insights from his book "Autitay" illuminate the path to building unwavering confidence through life's trials, a theme that resonates deeply with our own podcast's mission of personal growth and resilience.
As we sail through this episode, you'll grasp the significance of nurturing energy and relationships to foster personal growth. I pull back the curtain on my own life, sharing how a disciplined approach has sculpted my journey, from the fitness studio to the depths of parenting. Tune in to hear how the "win or learn" mindset isn't just a slogan—it's a lived reality within my own family, shaping a resilient and compassionate next generation. We'll also reminisce about the authentic transitions that life hands us, like my move to the Austin area, and how embracing change can be the catalyst for a richer, more grounded lifestyle.
Wrapping up this milestone episode, we delve into the essence of self-actualization and the joy that stems from relentless growth. You'll be inspired by personal tales from my Peace Corps experience in Mauritania, illustrating the profound impact of purpose, community, and personal transformation. The conversation will challenge you to reflect on your own journey, inviting you to reject mediocrity in favor of excellence. Whether you're forging your path in the wilderness or seeking a spark to reignite your inner forge, this episode is a celebration of the commitment to being your best self, with practical strategies and heartfelt wisdom to guide you.
Get Brian's Book Arete: https://www.amazon.com/Areté-Activate-Your-Heroic-Potential/dp/B0C75GW5X3
Email: Barton@bartonguybryan.com
Website: http://bartonguybryan.com
Use this link to get a 30 minute discovery call scheduled with Barton regarding the Team Bryan Wellness Concierge Fitness Program
https://calendly.com/bartbryan/conciergecoachingcall
My 3 Top Episodes of the first 100:
7 Essentials to Building Muscle after 40
3x Olympic Gold Medalist Brendan Hansen
MMA Strength and Conditioning Coach Phil Daru
You are listening to the Mindset Forge podcast and Barton Bryan, your host, as a personal trainer, been in the industry 20 plus years, have been an active athlete and performing artist my entire life. It's been a special moment hitting the hundredth episode last time and really just kind of looking ahead and going like, what do I want to do? How can I make an even deeper impact on people those of you out there listening. I got some great feedback from y'all Some congratulations, but also people wanting a little bit more people asking for some online coaching, things like that. That's fantastic. That's what it's all about. I want to be able to help more and more people and I am bringing on guests that are really going to help me do that by sharing their story, sharing their expertise, how they're helping people in their unique way, and allow that to just add a layer of understanding, knowledge and go deeper on one of those eight disciplines that are going to help us be masters of our life.
Speaker 1:In this 40 to 60 range, such an important time of life, most of us are dads leading the people work. We got to lead ourselves well. We got to show up in our relationships, in our work and in our health as best we can this interview here with Bryan Johnson. He's a founder and CEO of Heroic Coaching. He's got a book called Autitay. It's A-R-E-T-E it's an old word that we're going to find out exactly what it means, why. It's all about his philosophy, his mindset and how he's helping people not just get healthier but really align their relationships and love their work and their energy and their fitness. Those things go together to make sure they live the most heroic and best version of themselves through his practices and through his concepts. It's a great interview. Get ready, buckle up.
Speaker 1:Before I kick that off, I wanted to just shout out I got a new website. It's bartenguybrioncom. You can find that in the show notes. If you go to it, I have a concierge fitness services that I'm providing. You can look there. You can see online and in-person concierge coaching. I've got great coaches that I'm working with. I also provide options where you can hire myself. There's really a lot of great ways not just to handle the fitness aspect, but the mindset, the sleep, the recovery, the nutrition All the pieces that you're going to need to get figured out so that you can truly make sure that you're at your best and your healthiest and you're going to live a long and prosperous life. Check that out $200 off any of the programs If you sign up for any of my programs between now and February 15th, you're going to receive $200 off to whichever program you purchase.
Speaker 1:Also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter, which is going to be coming out once a month. The articles on a lot of the topics that we're dealing with in the podcast so you can dive deeper. Also links to videos about exercises, things that you can learn a little bit more about some of the concepts that we talk about here. All right, so, without further ado, brian Johnson, thank you so much for your time. Brian, first of all, congratulations on your book, all the things you're doing, the program, helping people really, in your way, max out and really create a life of anti-fragility, of just a heroic mindset around how you lead yourself, your community, your family and all the things, and so this is a fun interview. I feel like there's going to be a lot of things that you and I are meshing on with, what we're trying to help our audience and our people understand more of and that kind of thing. So, first and foremost, like the word anti-fragility Now it is tattooed on your arms. So go ahead and show people your new tattoo.
Speaker 2:The newest addition to the left forearm. We've got anti-fragile confidence, preceded by Forge, by the way, in the book. So I knew we were going to hit it off when I saw the name of your podcast.
Speaker 1:I love it. So talk about the term anti-fragile, because I personally feel like there's something about the era we're in right now where that resonates more than it might have 20 years ago. So what is it about that term and the world we're in right now that makes so much sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, the word anti-fragile is a word coined by Nassim Talib, the great intellectual, in a book of the same name anti-fragility. But basically he says look, there's something that's more powerful than resilience. So if you're resilient, that's better than being fragile. When life hits you do you break, or can you withstand more pressure than you kind of break down and you bounce back faster. That's resiliency. But what would it happen if, when you got hit, you got stronger? What's the opposite of being fragile? It's not resilience, it's anti-fragility. And he says the wind will extinguish a candle, but that same wind will fuel a fire. So that's what it means to be anti-fragile. And forging anti-fragile confidence is the second objective in the book. It's what we do with the coaches. We train and all this to literally use those challenges as fuel to get stronger. And we can talk about how to do that. But that's kind of the theoretical frame for anti-fragility.
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah, that idea of the wind if the fire is big enough and there's force behind the momentum behind that fire, it's not going to go out, it's going to be pushed forward and have momentum. Yeah, it's great visualization of that. Talk about yourself. I mean, just from what I know about you, you have a large background in kind of philosophy and obviously fitness and things like that. How do you come to the place that you are right now and making that unique impact that you're trying to make on people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, really the last 25 years for me have been integrating kind of two parts of my personality the philosopher that just loves studying and reading and writing and teaching I've been a hermit, you know, just doing that for years on end. The other half of my kind of personality, which is as an entrepreneur and a founder and CEO I've built and sold two social platforms before Facebook. With heroic, I basically brought the two together. So it's the integration of those two personalities, which are kind of embodied in my two favorite heroes, that I book in behind me Epic Tito is my favorite teacher and philosopher, marcus Aurelius is my favorite leader. How do I bring those two aspects of myself together? Actually, what I'm doing these days with heroic public benefit, cooperation, the app again we train coaches and share more wisdom in the last time, integrating ancient wisdom and modern science with some practical tools. And then our big thing is you got to go from theory to practice, you got to go from knowing these ideas to actually doing them, and that's the essence of what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1:And what do you think it is for? All the ideas are out there, and now we have the internet and podcasts with people like yourself talking about these things. There's so many ways now that never before was possible for people to get the information, but something about taking the information, internalizing it and acting upon that information is, of course, the great conundrum. That's the great puzzle that we all need to figure out, and why people like you exist to help guide them. What is that? What have you noticed in your 25 years of just philosophy and now helping to shape people's mindset? That is a spark, and that is that thing that they have to figure out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think this is. It's a 2,500 year old challenge. So all great ancient wisdom traditions and faith traditions for that matter have talked about this. The modern science confirms it. The good news is there is an art and science to behavioral change and we need to study it and we need to practice it in order to master it.
Speaker 2:You know I talk about in the book, one of the early chapters that my coach, phil Stutz, with whom I've worked nearly 450 times, one on one coaching sessions. He quotes one of his favorite teachers, a guy named Rudolph Steiner, who says there's basically two things that get in the way of us living a good life fear and laziness. And I think that's about right. You know, we got to cultivate the discipline to do the things we know we could do and then have the courage to do the things that we know we need to do, in the face of not wanting to do it. And I think, simply recognizing that challenge and then putting in the effort to move again from theory to practice, to mastery, and know that you're never going to get there there's no there there in the story, that you should have already figured it out, or you're someday going to get to a point where you are again, as my coach, phil Stutz says, exonerated from what he calls the three inevitable of life pain, uncertainty and hard work.
Speaker 2:We all want to get to a point where those things go away. But you're never going to get there, especially if you're trying to live a good life, where you're constantly finding that new edge etc. And then it's just a matter of showing up doing the work, seeing if you can get a little bit better today. And, you know, keep the gains that you've created. Which is a big part of my work is you got to make your prior best, your new baseline. Quit giving up the gains you have, lock those in and then continue to see just how far you can go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean I feel like maybe 18 to 35, maybe even 40, like there's probably we innately understand that we have to do more. We have to. We're trying to become something right. And then after 40, and I really work with men, 40 to 60 is kind of my sweet spot, that truly helping them create the healthiest version of themselves in this chapter.
Speaker 1:But I think one of the things that comes around around the 40s and 50s is a place is that feeling of like hey, I've earned the right to be lazy, to not feel discomfort, or I've earned the right to have a beer and watch the football game and lounge on the couch and the entire weekend for college and pro football.
Speaker 1:I mean it's just and that's not that any of those things are inherently bad, but it's the idea that we keep putting ourselves at like I've earned it, I've deserved this, like this is okay to do, I can get back on the horse on Monday and I really challenge people to like see how those things are so insipid in the way that it kind of like just trains us to be weak, trains us to be and I don't mean physically weak, but I mean mentally weak like we get so comfortable being comfortable. We get so comfortable enjoying the fruits of our hard work that maybe we did 10 years ago. Talk about that in terms of whether they're whatever age. Just like helping people get out of the comfort and embrace the uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. I mean the 40 to 60 frame is perfect. I turned 50 in four months, so I know 50 is a milestone you know, yeah, maybe 40, it's like all right, I'm hitting my stride. 50 is like that's one of my buddies put it. Who's on the other side of it. You can no longer deny the fact that you're in the second half. You know longevity dudes. You know live forever aside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could say you're living to 100, but you're still 50, you're still halfway there, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's go. So I think there's a humility to embracing that fact. And then I think we just need to wake up. We all know this intellectually again. But what do you want? You know, and anyone who's this far into a chat like this and listens to your show and is into, you know, forging a mindset of the things we're talking about, knows they're capable of more. So then it's just wake up. This isn't a dress rehearsal, what do you want?
Speaker 2:And I'm more excited than I've ever been, because now I feel like I've finally figured out a few things. I was able to do, you know, a few different things in the first half of my life. Wow, what can I do now that I've actually, you know, again figured out a few things in my energy, in my work and in my relationships, et cetera? So, I think, rekindling that enthusiasm, enforcing the strength in our minds and our bodies, which tend to go together right, and then again, each of us is gonna have our own idiosyncratic expressions of what that means, but being honest with ourselves, and then, you know, lighten the fire and having fun creating some goals that drive us as we navigate. The next, you know, god willing, 510, 25, plus whatever years we got left right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what about? I mean, there is such a challenge with you know, especially if somebody's very driven, you know, to succeed, you know that can be a very singular path. So, whether that's you know being a great dad, which I know, you're a dad and I love the stories of you and your son and his you know chess pursuits and those were great stories in your book. I'm also a dad, but I think there's a lot of times when people choose one I'm gonna be really good at this or business for men specifically, business is a place where you can, like, put all your energy and let go and not prioritize health, nutrition, fitness, those the other things, and we get out of balance. And so, as you're talking to people about you know finding that fire and really going towards that anti-fragile place, like how do you also then get them to adopt the whole picture?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we get to a point in our lives when we know that you know just excelling and for the ambitious men among us, that tends to be in work, but a good life. You know Freud? I playfully say I don't agree with Freud on many things, but I do agree with him when he says that a good life comes down to your work and your love. If you can get your work and love relationships at a high level, you're doing pretty well. I say yes. And if your energy sucks because of poor lifestyle choices, good luck showing up in either your work or your love. So we call that our big three. So we've got to optimize our energy, our work and our love, and our challenge to our community is all right. Well, who are you at your best? Again, I'm in better shape today than I've ever been in my life because now I figured out a few things and I pulled that lever eating, moving, sleeping, breathing and focus wise. Now I can effortlessly maintain higher levels of sustained energy than I had 20, 30 years ago. You know I get, I was 20 or 30 years younger, but I didn't do the things I do now. You know, get excited. Who are you at your best in your energy, who are you at your best in your work? And then, for guys like us, it's and who are you at your best in law, and that's what I've gotten the most feedback on from the super ambitious guys in our communities. Oh, getting systematic about how I can shape my relationships, whether that's with my wife, if I have one, or my kids, if I have them, and deliberately Practicing those things. The same way you train in the gym to get your body right, you know, and the way you train your mind to get your mind right, and the way you show up at work Again, very obvious things that we just need to make the implicit, explicit commit to them. And then for us, it's do it every day. It's the consistency that is the exponentializer in our growth.
Speaker 2:But again, just stepping back and saying, oh, okay, cool, yeah, great life is going to integrate, I would say, those three things energy, work and love. Who am I at my best? What virtues do I embody, is a big part of my work. And then, what specifically am I going to do today to be an integrity with that best version of myself? And let me do that, oh, by the way, especially on the days I don't feel like it.
Speaker 2:That's the essence of anti fragility. When life hits you, what do you do Me at my less enlightened moments, and in my past certainly, when life hit me, I'd break and I'd go do all the stupid things I know I shouldn't be doing. But what if, instead, when life hits me, I slow down and I double down in my protocol? Those are the times in my life that I make sure that I'm integrating these ideas and showing up powerfully. That's the essence of anti fragility and how you build true confidence, which is intense trust in yourself to handle whatever life throws at you. But again, to bring it back, you need an integrated perspective. It can't just be one thing siloed here or there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's that's. I mean this is always kind of the challenge is getting somebody who might be more of a, you know, driven, focused person in one aspect, but they know that their life is kind of not. They're not, they don't have balance, and I don't mean like kind of perfect scheduled balance, but just like their health is falling apart or their relationships are not good and that kind of stuff. And Finding that that sweet spot where you're hitting all three and getting getting the most out of each, can I always tell people I'm like man the discipline and the confidence that you get from training every day, from doing physical activity, and the energy you get like is it goes into everything else you do, if you choose to use it Like you know, or you can just silo it and like learn nothing from it. But most, you know most people when you work out and you do that stuff and you and you and you start to realize, well, I could just do that same thing over here like the discipline it takes to do the work. It's a similar discipline it takes to do other things.
Speaker 1:Well, now I again come back to the dad thing.
Speaker 1:I love the way you talked about you know, you and your son and and coaching him as he kind of was hoping to win the, the chess tournament, and then just using your philosophy, your mindset, your approach to how he, how he, might see the experience differently, so if he learns, whether he won or lost, he's gonna learn from the experience. How does that relate to, like self-care and self guidance, like I? So I think people are hard on themselves when they fail at something or when they feel that they've made a Mistake or things didn't go the way they are. Like, how do you help people understand, you know, in this, in the way you might coach your son like you know, we it's like we don't want to be gentle, too gentle, because then we get away with you know, then it's like there's no accountability. But we want how, what's the frame that you try to help people understand, to to not fall back and and learn from mistakes and not Kind of just end up falling in the same cycles of behavior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great. I mean, there's a lot of different ways to answer that question, but what arises for me is the word parent and parenting. It means to bring forth. So to be a parent is to bring forth. So, with my son, my wife and I and my daughter we have an 11 year old and it's almost seven year old now we want to bring forth the best within them, which I believe is the best, most heroic version of themselves. And you do that by having high standards matched with warmth. If I have high standards and I'm cold, that's not going to work, right. If I have low standards and I'm warm, that's not going to work. And certainly, if I have low standards and I'm cold, then that's not effective parenting. So why is parenting as high standards and warmth? Well, guess what? We got a quote parent ourselves. We got to bring forth the best within ourselves. That starts with high standards, but then it needs to be followed up with warm.
Speaker 2:So the science of self-compassion is, first of all, when you struggle, you got to know you're not alone. When I used to really struggle, I used to think something was inherently wrong with me. I have a lot, you know, of issues to work with, but nothing was inherently wrong with me. Everybody's got those same challenges and me telling myself that it was just me. He wasn't helping the cause. They call that common humanities. That's rule number one. The second thing is you got to be nice to yourself. When you do fall short, inevitably treat yourself the way you would treat a beloved friend. You're never going to yell at your friend when they come to you and say they're struggling. You're gonna be like dude, you got this man. Look at all the times you've succeeded in the past. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Talk to yourself like that. And then the third step is notice when you aren't. Now I like to take the science of self-compassion and, you know, bring a bit of fierceness to it as well. So Shane isn't gonna help beyond the little Sprinkling of. You can do better, dude, but that needs to be a seasoning, not the main ingredient. Then you need to identify what needs work and do the work on yourself to actually change your behavior and To pull that a little bit more.
Speaker 2:With my son, you know everyone knows you win or you learn. This is peak performance, mental toughness 101. But it's been fun for me with him to operationalize that and to show him that every single time that he has lost, every single time, I take the time to celebrate something that went well in that match, to identify the thing he could have done differently and then to make a commitment to do it differently next time. And so, literally, he, when he first started playing competitive way in tournaments, he'd lose and he'd come out crying, you know, heartbreaking on one level, and I'm like alright, dude, well, what did we learn? You know, first of all, well, down your there, dude, we're competing. What did we learn? What are we going to do differently? And then, literally, like a tournament or two later, the thing that he did wrong, he would do right and he'd win.
Speaker 2:I. So I tell him I'd make the connection look, you lost but we learned and then you won. So we win or we learn. Learning eventually becomes winning. Therefore, we win or we win, dude. And now, every time he falls short, we do the quick one, two, three on it, we get clarity on it, I remind him of all the times that he got better, and then we celebrate it. And his ability to move through that with a growth mindset, to go Carol Dweck on it, is so superior to my ability even today. It's like a native operating system for him. I'm like dude that's amazing I got to get better at that.
Speaker 2:I want to be like you going through that fast.
Speaker 1:It's really special when you see your kids not struggle with things that you know you struggled with. Like my kid just auditioned for the solo in the school choir never told us until he came home. He's like, oh, by the way, I got a solo in the choir. I was like, oh my god, I would have like fretted over it, I would have done all these things in preparation and he just did it. He just did it and he loved it and he had fun with it. It was really cool. So, yeah, that's the wonderful thing about our kids is we get to see obviously there's so much, there's so many things about them that are like us, but they also surprise us with the way they can just leapfrog these anxieties that maybe we had when we were younger. That held us back. That's awesome. All right, so with the program and I know you live kind of it's just outside of Austin Just give me a little bit like how long you've been in Austin for in the Austin area.
Speaker 2:Almost four years, right before the big diaspora took the last flight out before COVID shut everything down.
Speaker 1:Where were you before this?
Speaker 2:California.
Speaker 1:Okay, me too I'm from California. I grew up in Davis All right, cool yeah. I grew up in.
Speaker 2:Southern California. So yeah, Orange County area went to UCLA in. Ojai before we moved out here, oh, Ojai, there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I graduated at Davis High School, went down to San Diego State, then transferred to Cal State Northridge to get my music degree, so I spent my early 20s in the Southern California. Awesome, yeah, yeah, so I understand. But yeah, covid happened. It was just like a mess, for I think it's still a mess kind of Probably a good move, yeah, moving out here. So, but you got some land and you're kind of enjoying this, this little bit more rustic version of your family's situation.
Speaker 2:Wife wanted less house, more land. Okay yeah, kind of decided this would be a good place to be. We love it. Makes been phenomenal.
Speaker 1:So I was at the gym yesterday and I was wearing the heroic black t-shirt that you sent me. You know, it's part of your gift pack that your crew sends out and this guy comes up to me and he's like, why are you wearing that shirt? And I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to interview Brian tomorrow. And he's like, oh my God, I just signed up for his program.
Speaker 1:No he pulls out the app and he's like showing me all of the like you know the energies and what he's going to do today and like sticking with it. And I say, okay, this guy's name is Scotty. I said, scotty, what's one thing you would want me to ask, brian? And I'm like go work out, think about it, come back, right. And so a few minutes later he comes back and he's like he's like can you live a healthy life and still drink alcohol? And I thought, okay, I'm like, what do you mean by that? He's like well, you know, it's football. I end up these my friend's house and it's just like part of the deal. You drink, you watch football. And I just he's like, I don't know what, you know, I don't know what to do with that. I was like, well, I'll ask Brian, let me see what Brian has to say about that. Scotty, scotty subscribes to my podcast, so I'm sure he'll hear this until we get awesome, get the words right from you.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that is so sweet. First of all, that interaction is this classic Remind me where you are.
Speaker 1:I'm in Austin. I live in South Southwest Austin and I work at Lifetime Fitness Southwest oh my God, what a small world that's so good.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, I thought that, but I wanted to confirm. Well, first of all, high fives to you and Scotty and your connection and the heroic t-shirt. Obviously, we each need to find our own path and for many of us, you know, enjoying time with our friends, that may or may not include alcohol. Perfect, like that. I would challenge, scotty, your idea that you have to do anything. You have agency. You can choose to connect with your friends with or without alcohol, and in fact, you might be able to create some movement in relationships not drink in alcohol in those environments and kind of positively influencing your friends in a certain way.
Speaker 2:Now, I personally, my dad drank enough for me and him, and between him my brother and my dad's dad. Alcohol was. There's enough alcohol consumed in my family to last multiple lifetimes, you know. So that's never been my thing. And then again, the science is pretty clear alcohol is not helping you win the ultimate game of life. But again, asterisks choose to do what you want to do, and there are moments in which you know everything in moderation, including moderation like go enjoy yourself, you know. I think the most important thing is you decide what do you want? How are you going to show up? And then you're making trades either way, you know. But that's my main thing there is enjoy your life, figure out what that means for you, live in integrity with that, maintaining the agency and, you know, enjoying your own little idiosyncratic pathway through each of those experiences right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. My thought I was always. Everyone's so self-absorbed when they're drinking. Nobody even knows if you're drinking or not, like if you have a. If you just walked around with an empty beer bottle the entire football game, I don't think anyone would ever say are you drinking that bottle of beer?
Speaker 2:Have you finished that. And I know that you're going to be impactful about it, but like who cares?
Speaker 1:Who cares? I know it's so weird, really.
Speaker 2:Like that's something that I'm concerned about. Like there's a certain level of you earn your iconoclasm. You know you're the guy that goes there and you know, by the way, you're the guy that dropped five, 10, 15, 25, 50 pounds and all of a sudden, your buddies are looking at you and saying what is this guy doing? And again, the number of times we have had people come to us who say exactly that I lost 50 pounds and all of a sudden, everybody's saying what are you doing? Well, the woman with MS who's neurologist looks at her brain scan and says what are you doing? Because I've never seen this part of the brain actually heal itself. Oh well, this is what I'm doing. I'm committing to being my best self, and when we have a target that is worthy of us, those things are easy to say no to, like I'm not interested in waking up in any other state other than feeling really good. Now, of course, all make exceptions.
Speaker 2:Went to the Bulls. You know, spurs game on Saturday night stayed at three hours later than we ever do. We're at the start of the games. Our kids bedtime perfect. Yeah, yeah, walked over those bright lines. I like $8 of sleep. I got six, perfect, but you have bright lines to know when you go over them. But there's something about that willingness to be fully alive that it emanates and it creates the ripples that you may not be able to anticipate and positive change in those around us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting thing. I think that is. That is the the special thing about when you change, when you make that decision to like I'm not just going to do what I've done or all my friends are doing, like, and you don't have to lose your friends either. Like, you can just. You can just do your thing and let the results kind of like speak for themselves. And I think that's the special thing. When that happens, you don't do it for other people, but when you do it for yourself and once the results start to show up, other people look at you, be like hey, something's different, what's going on with that? That's cool.
Speaker 2:Let me find out more. Yeah, you know it's not awesome, but you're who you are as Ralph. What do I miss? And says speak so loudly, I can't hear what you say, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. All right. So 26 minutes in and you I've not mentioned your Arita shirt yet. I'm sure people watching this on YouTube are going to be like Bart, it's screaming at you. What is our team mean? They're probably googling it. Give us the scoop on auto and what it means and how it all plays into the mindset of the hero and and people you're trying to help.
Speaker 2:Yep, so our day is it's the name of my my book that came out recently. I've had a tattoo for a couple years on this arm for our tape. But our day is the one word answer the ancient Stoics would have given you on how to live a good life. And it's funny because I'm reading Stoicism for dummies right now by a dear friend of mine named Tom Morris and he talks about our day in the book and he has a picture of my tattoo in the book, which is hilarious, nice. But our day is the one word answer the Stoics would give on how to live a good life.
Speaker 2:We translated into English as excellence or virtue, but it has a deeper meaning, something closer to being your best self.
Speaker 2:And I like to say moment to moment, to moment.
Speaker 2:So if in any given moment, you're capable of being this and I draw a line in my eye height and you're actually being this, and there's a gap, you know foot below that you could have been this, you're actually being this. In that gap is where regret, anxiety, disillusionment, depression exists. Close the gap, live with orate and there's no room for that negative stuff. You feel a deep sense of joy and meaning and purpose that the ancients called eudaimonia. It was the summum bonum of a good life to experience that sense of deep joy and meaning and purpose which you experience when you live with orate, expressing the best version of yourself, and that's a moment to moment thing and I like to say, the moment you do that, you are heroic, you're showing up as your best self, ideally in service to something bigger than yourself, and that's kind of the quick connection between both forearms orate and heroic is the central tattoo on that arm and you know I've dedicated my life to striving to understand how to embody those ideas and helping others to do the same.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense and I love the idea and I heard it first, probably from Ed Milet. You know Max out podcast and what he was always talking about is like at the end of your life, he imagines that, like you go and you meet the person that you were destined to be, and he would hope that the person he is and the person he was destined to be are the same person. You know, that kind of completion of your life, the legacy of who you are, who Brian Johnson is, at the end of your life is what God has intended you to be, right, and that's a beautiful thought goosebumps.
Speaker 2:I just read Ed's book. I hadn't heard him make that connection before. But then you go one step past that and some people say and this is one of the exercises I do to wake people up and, frankly, put the beer down and the step up, dust the Cheetos off the old shirt and see what you're capable of in your life right, it's to me. You're about ready to die. You're on your deathbed and right before you die, in walks the version of you. You could have been right when you couldn't do anything about it. That's, some people say, one definition of hell. So who are you at your best? Are you being that moment to moment to moment? Because to the extent you're not, you're going to feel something within you that's tugging at you.
Speaker 2:Abraham Maslow says that need is a need to self actualize. It says real as your need to breathe. Anyone this deep into a conversation like this has that need. To the extent you aren't paying attention to it, you feel the pain. You don't need me to tell you you feel the pain. You feel the pain. I feel the pain when I fall short. Then what do you do about it? Do you step back and then step up, or do you numb yourself, you know, and each of us has our own mechanisms to try to avoid that pain, whether it's binge drinking or binge watching or binge eating or whatever other distractions we have. But that need to express our best selves is real. We want to pay attention to it and then live an integrity with it. I love Ed's take on it, and then that kind of definition of hell has always been a poignant way to make the point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, man, it's just, you know, I mean, I think there's this weird place where you can chase self actualization in an unhealthy way, right, like you, because there's a not enoughness that is in everybody.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm not enough, I need to be this, I need to get this to fill that space right. And you know, growing up in a home where my father and my brother to too much alcohol very similar story I, you know, I struggle with a lot of that feeling of not enoughness, and self improvement became a way to kind of to hopefully, like you know, ameliorate my situation or get myself better. But it was actually what it was early on, as a very selfish pursuit of. That wasn't really like a actual self actualization of my life, it was more of just like pursuing selfish things. That made me feel for a moment slightly better. Right, how do you help somebody who feels not enough, you know, to truly like, kind of broaden their perspective and be about, you know, yes, becoming the best, most heroic version of themselves, but also within the space of like community and others around them.
Speaker 2:It's a great question. This is objective one in the book, now in our coach program and everything else is you got to know the ultimate game. So, at least in my own development, I think, for most of us and perhaps for you and others listening, I think when we are in any circumstance we tend to go after the game we've been told we should win, which is the extrinsic stuff. It's the fame, the wealth and the hotness. So you go after that like a good you know whatever American kid and young man etc. And this is David Brooks's second mountain. 40 to six year olds have most of us have achieved a certain level of success on the first mountain, yeah, you get to, and Stephen Kelby said the same thing. You get to the top of a ladder and you look around and you realize you put the ladder up against the wrong wall, oops, okay, well, that's the second mountain. So you the first mountain versus second mountain. So you want to know the ultimate game. The ultimate game is not accumulating fame, wealth and hotness Nothing wrong with those things per se, but if you're predominantly going after them, you will be psychologists say less psychologically stable than people who are focused on the intrinsic motivators of becoming a better person, deepening relationships and making a contribution. Now there's a hedonic treadmill, the you know what I mean. You don't get anywhere. You're running but you're not getting anywhere, going for the fame, wealth and hotness. There's actually not a eudaimonic treadmill. When you get on that treadmill and you're truly trying to be a better person, to deepen relationships, to make a contribution, you're coming from what Mazl would call being needs versus deficiency needs. You're not trying to be someone to impress other people. You're trying to be your best self in order to give yourself full way to the world. Huge difference between those orientations.
Speaker 2:Now, again, all of us are going to rub up against perfectionistic tending seas where we have the high standards and we don't have the warmth and we don't embrace reality. You and I are never going to be perfect. Another rule from Abraham Mazl there are great people that he studied, but not one perfect person. So now I laugh with my kids. Same thing I make a stupid mistake and I will laugh and say oh my God, I was almost the first perfect person. It's a running joke in our family. They giggle and I say oh, shoot, no, I've made 1,272,468 mistakes. Ha, you know.
Speaker 2:So, embracing the constraints of reality. You and I won't be the first perfect, perfect people, but then living for something bigger than ourselves, holding the high standards with the warmth and then getting at it and then make the connection because you're, I say to myself, because the times when you fall short of your own standards are the times in which you tend to feel a bit of shame and beat yourself up. Now again, sprinkle it on, look at what needs work, decide what you're going to do a little differently than get back at it. We don't need to get into a spiral of shame and do more negative things. But it's a beautiful, delicate, yet empowering frame. You know that when we shift from the extrinsic to the intrinsic, hold the high standards with self-compassion and the constraints of reality, and then do the basic things, my whole work comes down to the fundamentals. I'm John Wooden about it. So John Wooden taught his players how to put on their socks and tie their shoes.
Speaker 2:I want to know how you're showing up. Are you eating, moving, sleeping? Well, because those basic physiological fundamentals will drive your psychology, building confidence and controlling the controllables, while getting your psyche where it needs to be. And then life becomes a lot more fun when you get an extra hour of sleep every night Another reason why I don't drink, you know. I'm not interested in feeling that. I want to feel great when I wake up tomorrow morning. Therefore, what can I do to create that? And again life becomes fun. These aren't chores, these are gifts and blessings we're giving our future selves. And again it shifts. Never perfectly, you're going to wobble back into the oh my God, I'm not enough state, but you'll notice that you'll have the wisdom to see it, and then you'll practice whatever appropriate tool to get that thing righted before you go off the rails, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great, great point about just like when you really are like seeking your purpose or seeking that self, self-acquisition that's truly in line with you know you're the best version yourself. It. It shouldn't feel like a perfectionist thing. It should feel you know. It should feel like something that in the striving you're you're, you're finding joy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when it does. And when it does which it inevitably will, because again it will feel that way at times but then you notice that you just got a little bit too perfectionistic about it. You let the tension back a little bit, you calibrate it a little bit and you go perfect, dude, I'm doing my best, what am I learning? All right, cool back at it. That becomes part of the practice. So it's not that you get to apply certainly haven't and we will never get to a point where it's just again exonerated from the pain, the uncertainty, the hard work, the perfectionism, all the other things. But then that becomes indicative of we care, we have high standards, we fell short, what can we learn, and we'll get a little better next time. And then you aggregate and compound those things over the extended period of time and again it becomes a more joy filled, you know, fun, creative expression.
Speaker 1:No, so you wrote this book very in a very special way, like release short chapters. Four, was it 451? Small chapters and what's the significance of 451?
Speaker 2:Yes. So the subtitle of the book is activate your heroic potential. If you want to create a fire, you need to get to 451 degrees Fahrenheit. It's called activation energy point, where one thing becomes another thing. You want to boil water 212 degrees. Nothing happens until you get to 212. Same with igniting a fire, igniting paper on fire. So 451 degrees is an activation energy point and we got to be willing to be intense, stay grounded. But it's become cool to become a bit cynical, critical, cynical, boarding on, nihilist, you know. But we got to show up with a level of intensity like we mean it, and 451 is symbolic of that. And then the microchapters are just in and out, you know. So, page two, three, can I give you a little bit of wisdom from hundreds of my favorite teachers Ancient wisdom, stoicism's my preferred kind of flavor there. And then the modern science, which often is this common sense that needs to be made into common practice. But yeah, that's the basic idea of this structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a fun read or listen. So definitely listeners. You're out there, Arte, and where should they go to get it? Can they website?
Speaker 2:Anywhere you buy a book, from Hudson to Amazon, everywhere in between.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ok, awesome, yeah. And then what's next for you? So I know you have the coaching program. You're working. Obviously, these coaches are working with clients. What's your kind of big vision for helping the world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, tattooed my body with it. So heroic I got a 30-year mission. Basically there, 51% of humanity flourishing by 2051. Is the goal that Martin Seligman, the founder of the Positive Psychology Movement, started that movement. Can we help create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by 2051? My joke is most people writing down your goals is a good idea. It increases the odds of success by 42%. If you write down a goal, most people put it on a post-it note, put it on their bathroom mirror. I put my life's mission on my forum so I can't miss it. But that's the ultimate mission. We train heroes who become guides. Who train heroes who become guides. That's the archetype of the hero's journey. We train coaches. We have the app Heroic. We train coaches 10,000 people from 100 countries. We do stuff with military, corporate work, education, sports. So we're really excited about the foundation we have and taking it to the next level.
Speaker 1:I love that man, I love the big vision and it's the audacity of this big idea like 2051. 51% that fires me up, because I feel like for anything that's going to make a true change, you really have to think beyond just a small community, and with things like podcasts, books and the global internet, that's actually possible these days, and so 100% it's what you're doing, fantastic, I mean.
Speaker 2:It's why I'm here. I wanted to be with you. Can we help one person, boom, all right, cool, job done. And can that person? Even the guy drinking the beer at the Scotty, it's like all right, dude, I got it.
Speaker 1:And to be fair to Scotty, he signed up like two days ago. So he's just dipping his toes in. He's like I love it.
Speaker 2:Well, scotty will decide how deep he wants to go and he'll find his own pathway, but you've got to have a deep enough. Yes, you have to have a soul aching.
Speaker 2:Yes, you have to see that best version of you at the end of the life and you want to be that version of you. It's Ed Mylet. I mean one more, give me one more. The intensity that he shows up with is inspiring and that's.
Speaker 2:You know there's mediocrity, which is literally it means to be stuck in the middle of a rugged mountain. Medius auchris is what the word mediocrity means. So that's where most people live is stuck in the middle of a rugged mountain. You know, they don't even dream to go to the peak of the mountain. But if you want to go to the peak you have to move through mediocrity, the antonym.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of synonyms for mediocrity Average, ho, hum, middling, et cetera, run of the mill. There's one antonym the antonym to mediocrity is excellence, which again is the one word answer to a life well lived or a day Show up as your best summit, the mountain of your potential, get fired up about that. And then these little things become really easy to say no to when you have a deep David Brooks soul aching. Yes, you know, to something bigger than yourself and it's like well, I don't care. Ryan Holliday says I couldn't care less. What's on Netflix? I don't know. Frank Mampania, what a bit too much attention to the NFL playoffs right now relative to my own standards, but I don't care.
Speaker 2:You know, like what's interesting in my life than these pseudo heroes on the TV? You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. It's like you know, we almost like give away so much of our life to the people on, whether it's the stories on TV, the heroes on these in the football basketball. I mean, it's great to watch that stuff. I love basketball, so I'm a fan. But, like man, if I obsess too much I'm just giving too much of my energy and my soul to like the ups and downs of some team that I don't. You know that I can't affect in any way, shape or form. My life does not affect whether or not they win or lose, and so why am I putting so much energy into it? That's a great way to see it.
Speaker 1:Before we wrap up, I do want to share a quick story on why this is called the mindset forge, because you mentioned the forge resonates with you, and so I was in the Peace Corps in Mauritania, west Africa, which most people don't know where Mauritania is, but it's the kind of the Sahara Desert of French West Africa, and I lived on the kind of lower area near Senegal, and I was in this little village called Jajibine and it's a Soninke village and I live with the Blacksmith family, and so I first day they brought me to Kome Kante. And they said Barton, your name is now Guy Kante, you're a blacksmith. Kome is your father. Who judges your mother. These are your brothers and sisters. I lived there for two years and I became a blacksmith and my father, kome, would go to the forge every day, which was a hut made of mud, and he'd use the billows and the anvil and the hammer and he would just sharpen tools and build the hose and axes. For two years I watched him do it and the greatest compliment you could give to that family of blacksmiths was Kante Bambangana Samangurtige Simbondonthanikama, which means you are Kante of the great Samanguru Kante, who led the great Malian Empire like 400, 500 years ago.
Speaker 1:It's like this whole lineage of Samanguru, this great leader, warrior, who is instilled in all of the Kante family, and it never left me of how important it is to be connected with a community, a purpose, and people around the village are like why don't you call yourself a Gandega? Because that's the name of the nobles of the village. There's nobles, the Gandega, the Kebe, these are the noble leaders of the village. The Kante were the servant class. Well, why do you call yourself a Kante? You should be a Gandega. I'm a Kante Bambangana Simbondonthanikama, and that was just, and so it never left me. I tattooed my shoulder, kante Brian, with the blacksmith Anvil, for the same exact reason you stuck, you know, arete on one side and Heroka on the other, because you never want to forget it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome dude, beautiful, super inspiring and a forge, of course. 451 degrees is what it takes, right, right, 2255, you know, is that all right? Now we're talking forge heat. If you really want to shape your life and craft your best self, you can't just activate the fire. You've got to billow it and you've got to get the intensity up and enter the forge of true transformation.
Speaker 1:So I love it.
Speaker 2:We appreciate you sharing that Super inspiring.
Speaker 1:Man, love having you on. This is fantastic. I love what you're doing, your unique perspective on the philosophy and the history of Arete and all this really brings a unique way for people to understand themselves, the direction changing their mindset, changing their health, their fitness, all those things and so I honor you in really carving out a unique and special place for people to find, to go on that journey with you. And I think I'm in the fitness space as a trainer. I have a company that we do transformational things, got a holistic but not so very different from what you're doing, and I just love all the different ways that people can find people like us, get a coach to help them make that change and really, you know, transfer them live. So, yeah, it's just a great meeting you, brian.
Speaker 2:Likewise, Bart, and I appreciate you and all the hard work you're doing and really enjoyed our conversation. I send my best to Scotty when you see him at the gym.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed that interview with Brian Johnson. Again, you can go to the show notes or just Google Arte Brian Johnson to find the link to purchase his book. I highly recommend it. So check all that stuff out. It's all available on his website or wherever you can find books. So, going back real quick, if you haven't been to my website, it's bartonguybrioncom. Go check it out. The whole bunch about me as a public speaker working with Iron Neck, my personal training in concierge fitness concept and services. So go check it out, Take a look, Give me some feedback. What do you think? It's brand new. We just launched it a couple of days ago. And, of course, if you'd like to set up a discovery call, I'd love to set up a Zoom call with you and just talk through what you're working on, where your goals are, how I might be able to support you with that. All right, Thanks again for listening to the Mindset Forge podcast. Have an awesome week. We'll be back next week for another great episode.
