Today, Commander Divine talks to Brian Johnson about creating heroic technology to build a more virtuous world.
Brian Johnson (@optimize_brian) is the creator of Optimize and the Founder + CEΦ of Heroic. He’s spent half of the last twenty-five years as a Founder/CEO and the other half as a Philosopher. As a Founder/CEO, he’s raised $20M+ and built and sold two market-leading social platforms.
Key Takeaways:
- Our paths are not always obvious, but they can be found by following our bliss–however bliss is not to be confused with hedonism. If the path is too comfortable, you’re not on your path; you’re following someone else’s.
- Hero means protector in ancient Greek. Heroes are not born–they are created from the practice of showing up and choosing to act from a place of love and courage.
- The challenge we face today between hedonistic happiness and a true fulfilling journey is not a new challenge. Humans have faced these same struggles for thousands of years. The addition of technology has only amplified this battle, as well as increased temptation exponentially.
- The most crucial element involved in a hero’s journey is courage. Courage feeds all other virtues. It takes courage to show up every day, and show-up-every-day you must!
- Heroic technology is the antithesis of inhumane technology. It is an application of technology that empowers users to lead disciplined, focused lives, and show up for the important practices that feed their virtuous selves.
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Brian Johnson 0:03
You know, I thought about creative ways in my life, I couldn’t figure out how I would use this passion I had in a world that just seems so weird, you know that I got to go do this and had none of the skills that I’ve developed over the last 25 years, which is one of the reasons I’m such a big advocate for the fundamentals and all the things I talked about. I know what it’s like to be on the other side of it. Anyway, I coach this when we baseball team thankful you had the insight to continue on in an existential sense, you know, and it was a profound experience for me that, again, has really humbled me and I think given me an opportunity to say I know what it feels like to feel that and I’ve goosebumps right now.
Mark Divine 0:43
Hey, folks, this is Mark divine with the unbeatable mind podcast. Thanks for joining us today, super appreciate your time and your attention. If you like this podcast, please rate it at iTunes or wherever you listen and refer it to your friends. Once again, I appreciate your time. My guest today is my friend Brian Johnson. What an interesting guy this is. Brian and I, a long time ago worked at the same company not together but different times in places called Arthur Andersen, we’re in division called Special Services. Brian then went on to found a company called Eat teams, which he built and sold. And then a company called optimize, which is where I met. Optimize is a platform for bringing stoic philosophy and modern philosophy, I should say, to the general public in a digestible form, to Brian has created over 600 philosophers notes which are like six page synopses, of tremendous books. Great program. And you’re gonna learn more about that today and how you can actually get that for free. 2021 He made records for the largest crowdfund in history, he raised $11,000,000.24 hours for his new platform called heroic. So we’re going to have a lot of discussions about what it means to be heroic the hero’s journey. Brian, someone who walks his talk and Toxis hockey, he’s both a practitioner of stoic philosophy, and bringing philosophy to a modern world that’s desperately needed. Who Yeah, Brian, so good
Brian Johnson 2:09
to see you. It’s good to see you as well, here virtually thank you for anointing my pull up bar tree the other day, our Sunday,
Mark Divine 2:18
that was great to come down to Texas and to see you and to explore your beautiful piece of property and that heroic founding headquarters. Pretty exciting. Let’s go. Let’s talk about things that are important, obviously, want to talk about heroic and, and your mission, and you know, what you’re already accomplishing over there, which is pretty cool. But let’s talk about, you know, what made Brian Johnson Brian Johnson, what were the challenges of your life? And how did you shape yourself as a philosopher CEO, in the formative stages?
Brian Johnson 2:48
That’s a good question. And you know, the immediate answer that comes up is, well, we got to go all the way back. You know, often we do, we got to go all the way back to a really conservative Catholic upbringing. My father was an alcoholic, good man, hard worker, but struggle with alcohol. His dad’s struggle with alcohol ended his own life, you know, in just a really, you know, committed family, but just a lot of those challenges that arise in that environment, which certainly shaped me as the youngest of five. Again, good Catholic boy for 12 years. UCLA undergrad, thought it’d be awesome to work for the biggest professional consulting services firm in the world, which is why I loved you so much when I first found unbeatable mind if I get another guy that left. Yeah, for me, it was the big six at the time, you know?
Mark Divine 3:32
Which firm were you with?
Brian Johnson 3:34
Arthur Andersen before it imploded? Oh, yes, I was I Yeah, no way I thought your UI
Mark Divine 3:38
No, no, no, I was with Cooper’s which became Hooper PricewaterhouseCoopers for two years. I just don’t talk about this much because it’s kind of complicated, but I took a short sabbatical. I was gonna go skiing for a winter and work at a ski resort but it didn’t snow out in Tahoe that ran out of money. crawled back to Wall Street with my tail between my legs and got hired by Arthur Andersen. So I
Brian Johnson 4:00
worked for them. I did not know that and you were audit right and CPA with
Mark Divine 4:04
Andersen. I was an auditor with PwC. But with Andersen I was in something called Special Services. Yeah, just kind of cool because I became Special Forces later.
Brian Johnson 4:14
That’s so good. So I think I hold the record for most service lines in a year. I started an audit. Then I went to tax then I went to financial planning then I went to special services which was their take on consulting before Accenture. Yeah, well,
Mark Divine 4:26
I don’t know about you. But my my job is special services was basically photocopying a shitload of
Brian Johnson 4:31
a lot of fun, wasn’t it? Yeah. So I quickly left there and to put it in perspective on the way home from work. First week, driving on the 405 I pulled off on the shoulder and threw up I knew that was not what I want. So I immediately started studying for the LSAT and I thought that would be my escape valve and I’m first generation college student you know, this is all new for me, right? Yeah, you’re figuring this out alone, figuring it out. And so studying for the LSAT that was a sport for me. I love the logic percision got into a top 10 school went to the public school, you know, there’s the cheapest Berkeley, right? But I threw up when I moved in there, literally, I’m moving my gosh, this isn’t it, it’s really funny. There’s been three times, so
Mark Divine 5:12
you’re very intuitive person, obviously, your body tells you. That’s fascinating.
Brian Johnson 5:17
Yeah, and you know, in a subtle way, that’s obviously not subtle at all. But there was one other significant time where I almost took a opportunity to build something that I didn’t. But anyway, you know, I knew law school wasn’t for me, in dropping, I was really, really tough, you know, and I spun out and I was about 22 years old, maybe 23, at that time, moved back in with mom. And literally, the only two things I knew I wanted to do, were a coach who would have a baseball team. And then as I share in a documentary, finding Joe, where I talk about kind of my hero’s journey in this context, you know, I thought about creative ways in my life, I couldn’t figure out how I would use this passion I had, you know, world that just seems so weird, you know, that I gotta go do this and had none of the skills that I’ve developed over the last 25 years, which is one of the reasons I’m such a big advocate for the fundamentals and all the things I talked about, right. I know what it’s like to be on the other side of it. Anyway, I coach this, what do we baseball team, thankfully had the insight to continue on. And in the process, you may continue on with the human existence. Yeah, I mean, in an existential sense, you know, and it was a profound experience for me, that, again, has really humbled me, and I think, given me an opportunity to say, I know what it feels like to feel that, and I have goosebumps right now. And I
Mark Divine 6:29
pause for a second. And hold that thought, I’m really sorry. But you brought something to my mind, which I think is important. I don’t think you’re alone. Obviously, you’re not alone. But I think it’s a fairly common stage to go through that existential crisis, where you’re just questioning existence and why, why am I on this planet? Everything seems confusing and crazy. And what’s it all about? That kind of nihilistic stage really is common from 1617, to about 2122. I went through it myself, I think most listeners are probably like, Yeah, but we have these support structures around us to where you know, you don’t go all the way to the edge. And I think what’s challenging in our world right now, Brian, is that a lot of those superstructure has been torn apart. And so people are going to the edge, and they don’t have anything to pull him back. This is why suicide is such a problem these days, just wanted to talk about that. And I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole too much, but I’m putting that out there. That’s why what you’re doing and what I’m doing is so important.
Brian Johnson 7:24
You know, that’s why I have so much respect for what you’re doing with burpees for vets, you know, and just like we were honored to be able to support you in the last campaign. And it’s no joke, you know, and there are skills that we can engage in and practices of course, we can engage in to get those structures to help us navigate those tough times and come out stronger. And of course, that’s what we’re all about with unbeatable and optimizing Heroku. But specifically the challenges,
Mark Divine 7:47
specifically for this group, though, that 17 to 22, or 16, whatever age is probably getting younger and younger than when you know when you and I because people are maturing earlier, well or not. And so they’re all in these silos on tick tock and YouTube, which are kind of supporting their nihilistic tendencies. And so I think heroic is a big part of that, like, if we can capture these people or catch these people, young when they’re having these issues, then, you know, we can deal with it, we can help them out, because suicide rates amongst young people are skyrocketing, not just the United States, but globally. And it’s because it’s this kind of very philosophical underpinning of, they’ve got this existential crisis, which naturally happens, like we’ve all been there, as you’re growing out of the family structures, and you’re trying to poke your toe into the world of the unknown. And you just like, what’s it all about? That’s your first question. First time you’ve asked Who am I is about like 1819 years old. And if you don’t have a good structure, mentorship, you know, a coach, or even a family there to fall back on, and your only source of income or information is tick tock, right. It’s a real problem. Yeah, good. Yeah. So we’ve got to figure out how to help that stage of development, as you step out, or my next book is all geared toward that population is called uncommon, want to figure out how to really help them because, you know, helping you and I helping each other? Whatever? Right. We’ve got a lot of tools, you know,
Brian Johnson 9:16
yeah. And then bringing it back to the kind of writing it. So what brought me to this point was that those you asked me what my biggest challenges were, and those certainly are going to start framing that. But I always had this impulse to understand what it is that makes great people great. And that was kind of how I framed it when I was a young man and I was introduced to Stephen Covey. Arthur Andersen flew me to a leadership event before my senior year at UCLA. And as a conservative Catholic upbringing, kid, you know, I had no idea that you could actually consciously deliberately create a life of meaning. So being introduced to Seven Habits was literally transformative for me. And so I always wanted to understand at a, you know, level, there was subconscious and unconscious, what makes great people great, and at the time, UCLA You know, it’s focused on autism, not positive psychology, so literally chatting with Martin Seligman two nights ago about what he’s done and how he’s impacted me. But in 96, when I graduated, none of that stuff existed. So that’s why I went to Arthur Andersen that I went to law school, but I always had that Inkling. But what wound up happening was dropped out of law school, moved back here with mom at 23 coached a little league baseball team. Now at Arthur Andersen, in addition to photocopying reams of papers, I also did some database Consulting at a high level just like understanding scalable technology. And I can see then in a matter of time, every single literally baseball team anywhere so soccer game, this is 1997 would be online, like an ESPN for youth sports. And then I pushed on that idea. And I wound up creating a company we wound up winning the business plan competition at UCLA Anderson School, we wound up raising $5 million, we wound up hiring the CEO of Adidas replace me and then I share this in the documentary, we wound up hiring the law firm of Melvin Meyers that I would have wanted to work for, before I would have graduated. So there’s this Joseph Campbell, who’s one of my heroes in the back wall there. You know, he taught us that one of the jumping off points into enlightenment is, you know, the thought, chit ananda consciousness beingness and bliss, Ananda, to actually following your bliss is a 2500 year old path to enlightenment. So I knew law school wasn’t for me. And the only thing I knew I wanted to do was coach this little league baseball team. And by following that little bit of joy in my life, at that point, something miraculous happened that I never could have anticipated. And that was my first arc through the hero’s journey, which has now become my life’s mission to understand that and to become a guide for all of us, really, you know, but especially to your point, that younger generation, but frankly, all of us, as Campbell says, a good life is one hero’s journey after another. That’s right. So reframing those challenges that fuel for our heroic growth, as you know, as a big part of my work, and of course, yours, and you deeply inspired me and my kind of approach to things. But those are some of the challenges and kind of the origin story of what got me to this point. And why I’m so committed to these ideas.
Mark Divine 12:09
I love that. I love Campbell’s work and on archetypes and whatnot. And what you said is, is mostly true, right? Everyone’s life is one journey after another. But it takes intention and self awareness to make it a hero’s journey of good
Brian Johnson 12:24
Wi Fi said I did qualified Are you going to push on that Mark, I bought a good way good luck, good life is wild, I can push back
Mark Divine 12:31
on that, as everyone is a good person, you know, at their core. And self awareness is what brings that goodness to the surface to where their awareness aware of it, and then you can share it with others. But the semantics aside, I love that distinction. You know, there’s probably some sort of nomenclature we come up with to really define like the arc of a whole life as a hero’s journey, versus the small little journeys that we have to go through to get her you know, where we bloody our fingers and stub our toes and you know, fall back and gain the skills and knowledge to overcome the whatever current mission or whatever current perspective we have on our hero’s journey. So you’re right, there’s these symbols like linking micro goals to them to the macro goal, to the purpose to the vision, the human life is like that. And I think the hero’s journey is such a profound metaphor. Can you walk us through kind of your perspective, the hero’s journey, because we have ours and and there’s slightly different kind of ways you can look at the hero’s journey. And I love love to have your perspective and and how you teach it because you’re really grounded in stoicism and kind of philosophical frameworks that most people aren’t used to these days, because it’s not really taught anymore.
Brian Johnson 13:36
Yeah, appreciate it. And yeah, in such a rich conversation in a rich frame, like I’ve mentioned it now for the third time, but finding Joe is a great documentary that the documentary and put online for free now finding Joe the movie on YouTube, I happen to be with Deepak and LAIRD HAMILTON and Tony Hawk and guys like that. But you know, there’s a there’s a complex kind of frame for it. And again, to your point, you can interpret it a number of ways, but I think there are three central components of the hero’s journey. First of all, the hero feels a call, and they’re willing to enter the unknown. That’s step one. Step two is they go on the journey, right, so they fight the dragons, they battle the demons, and they hopefully win or learn and come back, which is the third part and they return, they return with a boon, they returned stronger than when they departed. But those are the three basic elements is obviously the hero’s journey, you’re willing to enter the unknown. And Campbell says, The only sure sign you’re not on the right path is there’s a path. If there’s a path and you’re following someone else’s Dharma, you need to be willing to go to the darkest point where you’re trusting yourself, and you have that self awareness to embark on it. And you got to pay attention to that phone, the train that’s telling you there’s something more for me in a few moments. It was very visceral, there’s a physical This is not right then, but it still took courage for me to actually pay attention that everyone told me you’re at a top 10 law school and to just stick it out, you know, two and a half more years. Come on, you can figure it out, but it wasn’t right for me. willingness to enter the unknown requires the virtue of courage of course. I mean, we can unpack this in terms of how my philosophy has evolved but then you go do the work. You show up you get a guide who helps you you are one of my big guys I blew up as you know a business eight, nine years ago and I literally remember reading unbeatable mind. This is exactly what I need right now baby, like give me that unbeatable mind to a hero good fit guide and the guide whether it’s Harry Potter getting Dumbledore or you know Neo getting Morpheus or Frodo and Gandalf insert your favorite story. All hero’s journeys follow the same arc. They also get travelers who go with them, you know, as Hermione, and Ron or whatever. But then you do the work, the hard work. Very importantly, this is what I love about Campbell and the good life again, we’re all good people unquestionably seduced by tick tock to think we should play the wrong game, which is why all my work starts with wake up. That’s the game to play, go put your virtues in action be the best version of yourself. And so you can live heroically my whole life and a few tattoos right are 10 heroic. Anyway, wait, pause
Mark Divine 16:03
there, because a lot of people aren’t watching this video. So yeah, pointed to your left arm and you had the word already. Right, which I think means excellence, right?
Brian Johnson 16:11
Are we living translated? So this super quick frame on that, and then we’ll come back to the specifics on the hero’s journey, although it’s related. So one of the things I teach is you got to know the game you’re playing in. So what I’ve done is I’ve studied ancient wisdom, modern science and you know, hopefully learned a few things. But what I like to say is, let’s invite Aristotle and Martin Seligman as proxies for ancient wisdom, modern science, and ask them, gentlemen, what’s the ultimate purpose of life? They will give us the exact same one word answer. Aristotle will say eudaimonia. This is assuming bonum the highest good what we should all aspire to you dialogue is good goal. Now, okay, that’s interesting. But while he says that Martin Seligman and I shared this story with him two days ago, shaking his head and holds up his book, his most recent book is called flourish, which is the English translation of eudaimonia. The ultimate purpose of life is to flourish to express the best version of ourselves. So then you say, okay, cool. Got it. coherence, one word answer. That’s interesting, ancient wisdom, modern science. How do we do that? Then Aristotle will answer in a single word, which is the word I tattooed on my right forearm, which is our attack. Now we translate art as virtue or excellence, but it has some deeper, you know, almost ineffable meaning, which is, Be the best version of yourself. And I like to represent it as if you’re capable of being this, I’m drawing a line with my hand right now. But there’s a gap and you’re being someone less than that. You are not living with art, and you will experience regret, anxiety, disillusionment, depression, if you close the gap, never perfectly, but more and more consistently, boom, you’re living with RK you experience eudaimonia. Now, again, Seligman would say exactly, he founded the positive psychology movement on virtue, the first thing they did was study every ancient wisdom tradition. And they really the bedrock of positive psychology is proving that wisdom, self mastery, courage, and love the cardinal virtues of ancient wisdom and modern science are the essence of a good noble, happy, in the deepest sense eudaimonic life. And then when you do that, you naturally live for something bigger than yourself. And that leads us to the second tattoo, which is your heroic. So the etymology of hero again, Hero doesn’t mean tough guy or killer bad guys. In ancient Greece, they picked the word for hero, that meant protector. So hero is a protector. An arrow has strength for two and their secret weapon according to Plutarch, is love. So it’s the love that gets you to have the courage to do what needs to get done, whether you feel like it or not, and self mastery to do and if you get down if you’re like it or not. And I offer that all of us are called to be heroes and the truest etymological sense. So whether it’s for our kids or our communities, or you know, the values we believe in, I think we need heroes today more than ever before. That’s why you’ll see two tattoos, you know, our heroic and that’s literally my entire life’s work into tattoos and everything that I’ve dedicated my life to.
Mark Divine 19:12
That’s awesome, you know, my definition of courage is to act with love. As opposed to No, no. Yeah, I think yeah. It makes sense. Because, you know, in order to act with love, you have to be in your heart and core in French is hard. And so it’s it’s feeding the courage Wolf is opening your heart and acting with love and that’s courage. Feeding the fear Wolf is staying in your head and being full of anxiety and not curiosity, but contraction around what’s the unknown, right and that discomfort stepping into that. So that staying in that not closing the gap, you know? Yeah, fascinating. Yeah. I love how the ancient philosophies really, there’s so perennial, you know, I was steeped in the yogic philosophies, but when I’m when I mirror them against, you know, the ancient Greeks, they fit And then the gloves, they all inform each other.
Brian Johnson 20:02
Absolutely. And then two things on that Aristotle says the courage is the number one virtue. And to your point, it comes from the word that means hearts. So the way I’ve adapted that, as his take is that, you know, just as the heart pumps blood to all the other vital organs and your arms and legs, courage is the virtue that vitalizes all the other virtue. Because if when things get hard, you don’t know how to stand up and have that unbeatable mind and show up with that courage driven by love. And it doesn’t matter what you think, and what you know, to be true if you don’t have that ability to act in that moment. So yeah, super inspiring and exciting to imagine creating a culture in which that becomes the default. And that’s hard work in which is another reason why I love Campbell is, you know, follow your bliss, he wishes emphasize follow your grind. It isn’t just good times. And you know, it’s supposed to be hard when we get to that part of it, right? That the scraped knuckles aren’t part of a face. If you aren’t scraping your knuckles, metaphorically or literally, then you’re not doing it right. And when we get that mindset, you know, locked in, then all those things we used to be interpreting as signs, we’re doing it wrong, become a sign now we’re striving to be that next best version of ourselves. It’s supposed to be hard with use it as fuel for that next stage of our growth. And hopefully we get more graceful, you know, we’re not sinking down into the super lows anymore, but we’re allowed those inevitable, challenging times to be signs we’re on the right path, and challenges to step up and show up as our best selves rather than threats to our sense of self and all that good stuff.
Mark Divine 21:39
I’m excited to have script as a sponsor of this podcast. Yes, streaming content is a game changer isn’t it? I spent so much time searching for the next book to read. And then a ton of money, purchasing audio books and ebooks and having this stuff all over the place. And then I found Scribd with Scribd. I get instant access to millions of ebooks, audio books, magazines, podcasts, and more. You also get thoughtfully curated editor’s picks, which really helps me out with their recommendations on what to read next, based upon what my search history has been. It makes choosing my next book, much, much simpler. I love Scribd, I can’t believe that they have so much content for so cheap, one simple 999 subscription a month. Right now, Scripps is offering you a free 60 day trial. Don’t miss this go to try.scribd.com forward slash unbeatable to access the 60 day free trial. That’s trial dot SCR ibd.com forward slash unbeatable to get that 60 Day of Scribd for free, who ya Scribd. He gets fascinating that when left alone, right, unexamined, the inertia of our culture has been to backslide, or to stoop to the lowest common denominator, which is to basically say, yeah, the easy path is the way anything that makes you comfortable is good. Right? And to not struggle, you know, I believe that that is, has done so much damage in our culture, and is led to, you know, this incredible dystopian kind of state of fear and anxiety and doubt, and depression, and then victimization to be countered with dependency, right dependency on corporations and government. And so it’s almost like a form of slavery, I keep thinking about the movie Matrix the past year, and I’m like, wow, for practically living a version of that, if you think and so this is why it’s so important the work that you’re doing the work we’re doing, and others like us who were pushing back against that narrative, and saying, you know, what, it’s time for us to take control back, take control back first of yourself, and your mind, and then through discipline habits, take control back of your life. And then let’s do this with our families, our communities, until we have hundreds of millions and a billion people who have taken control back, not like the fight against some unseen force, but to take just take control back of your life. Because like you said, Campbell said, if you create the reality you want to see in your mind, it’ll happen at scale, you know, globally
Brian Johnson 24:11
100% Seven, there’s so many parallels there, of course, in how I see things, a few things came to mind. You know, I’m essentially strive to be a practicing stoic, so deeply inspired by that approach, as you know, but one of my favorite authors, Ward Farnsworth, who’s a dean of the University of Texas law school says you got to make a choice, the good life with a good mood in our society. It’s a nuisance to think that the heat Ganic pleasures are weird that the extrinsic stuff is stuff that makes you feel great right now, the Tick Tock video of used to be the deep practice of whatever it is that you know is best for you. So T Donek. Versus you don’t mind that’s the juxtaposition. And then you have your diamond in a diminutive of diamond, which is your soul is demon show again, this isn’t a new challenge, and this is what’s important. This is a 2500 year old challenge that the stoics like to talk about Socrates talking about Hercules, Hercules, you know, the mythological ideal of the ancient stoics. And Greeks, is said to have been on a path before he was Hercules. He’s walking down this, you know, literally a path like Campbell’s, you know, dark part of the woods or whatever. And two goddesses approaching, one rushes in front of the other kind of butts in front of them. She’s all made up and preening. You can almost see her on Instagram, taking yourself and she says, Hercules, follow me. And you’re gonna have a great life. It’s gonna be easy. You’re just gonna relax. It’s gonna be amazing. Goosebumps. My friends call me happiness. Right, and she lives her real name is vice. Right? Anyway, the other goddess sits there patiently, then she steps forward, she’s got a stern look to her. She’s beautiful, but unpretentious and stern, and she says, Hercules, you follow me and I promise you your life will not be easy. But those challenges will make you worthy of having the respect of the gods, boom, her name was RK. So she was the goddess of art. And of course, Hercules chose wisely in his life was unbelievably challenging. And that is what made him great. So this is a 2500 year old challenge that in our modern world is exponentially worse. Because you can subsume yourself in a attention economy, mind hacking virtual reality of TiC tock or Facebook or soon to be meta, which is a whole nother conversation. And that’s scary when we don’t have the structures to go to war against this. And I was getting mentioned your yogic background. I love the fact that Gandhi who is also on my wall back there, his Bible was the Bhagavad Gita, of course, the sacred texts in Hinduism. And of course, that sacred spiritual work is set on a battlefield, a real battlefield that metaphorically represents the battle within ourselves between one, the diamond and the demon, the best part of us in the worst part of us, but it’s a war. It’s a war between those aspects. And then if you look outside, I think we’re in an invisible war right now. 100%. And we’ve talked about it a little bit, I’ve got back and forth with mags on this, you know, in some ways, you got Franco and Churchill and Eisenhower on that side of my wall that reminded me of the last great war, this is even more pernicious, because it’s subtle, in the enemy isn’t identified. And to me, every single challenge we’re facing from the pandemic levels of, you know, whatever with COVID, and Pandemic levels of diabetes, and cancer and depression and anxiety and polarization politically, and environmental degradation. It’s very simple. It’s vice, versus virtue. And the fact that we can’t name it, I think, is one of the most dangerous thing. So I love the metaphor of the of the matrix. And I literally feel like that’s what we’re offering is blue pill, red pill, your call tastes, blue pill, your bag of sweets. Do something about scale
Mark Divine 27:55
with the globe, the human population, there is a lot of profit in advice. There is an extreme li intense motivation for many interests to keep people in vise because it’s profitable,
Brian Johnson 28:07
which requires heroic leadership that then led to having a challenge. If you look back and you look at the most profitable industry is 2500 years ago, I wasn’t burned to the Stoics and famous forever. Everyone wants to feel good and the stoic said, when you’re done listening to a lecture from me, you shouldn’t feel like you just got to went to the spa, you should feel like you just left the hospital I performed surgery on you. It should be painful. You should be stunned at the end of my talk, not like the, you know, rhetoric, ugly, you know, sophisticated sofas who they applauded at the end you made me feel good about myself. Wow. This stoic flower you
Mark Divine 28:43
just give me a new perspective on public speaking I’m gonna try that out. But you
Brian Johnson 28:52
know, I’m swear to God, I’m still almost nauseous from a row. I just did two hours thinking of your life. You know, that willingness to suffer than to experience pain. You made the point. We are so caught up we are so bubble wrapped in everyone in self help, and otherwise tells us it should be easy. It should be quick. That is the most pernicious lie. And that’s obvious. But we got to call that out. We do then we start reversing everything. And we get anti fragile about everything and we get to work. And then again, it’s an invisible war within ourselves. First and foremost, I got Lincoln up there as well. And each of my heroes I meditate for an hour every morning now and then, you know, 1520 minutes each of them speaks to me. They give me a demand and kind of a kind of like Napoleon Hill. Yeah, you know, my take with the heroes Exactly. I’m channeling them my board of heroic advisors that, you know, Lincoln tells me every morning when the civil war within and outside. So there’s this, you know, battle that’s going on moments or moments a moment and I believe it’s only one VR to and a fierce commitment to playing the ultimate game well All noticing where cultures to do stuff, when we take that red pill is often a junior job, you know, and get to that level of clarity where you’re stepping up.
Mark Divine 30:09
So I love that distinction right there, like, awakening is taking the red pill, and you can never go back. That’s awakening. But then you take on a great responsibility, because then it means you got to show up every day and do the work. Or else then you become almost, you’re like a double loser because you’ve awakened, but now you’ve not done anything about it. You know, the problem, and you know the answer, but you’re not doing anything about it. And I’ve seen that so often because it’s hard work. And many people don’t, you know, they shirk from the hero’s journey, they collapse back into limitation and, and lack and they play the victim, they say, oh, maybe it’s just not me, or I’m not ready, or I don’t have the skills or maybe next lifetime. And that’s a shame. We need people to not just wake up and like Wilbur says, to grow up show up there, though.
Brian Johnson 30:59
So I was just gonna go to Wilbur and I was just gonna say, I know that we both adore Ken and his work of Ken Wilber, Kate, and stages, it’s easy to go to a weekend event, walk on fire, twist yourself into a pretzel yoga, and then come home. So your experience this state of peak, you know, experience or enlightenment per se, perhaps 10 Day Vipassana meditation, we’ve all done whatever we’ve done, then you come back to your life. And the question is, what stage of development are you at? Now most of the self help and personal growth world is not telling you that you need to ruthlessly focus on the tiny mundane things they’re telling you need to retreat for another psychedelic or another State experience. And what I think we’re telling them and what we architected the entire heroic app on is show up not once in a while when you feel like it, and then on New Year’s Eve, for after the weekend event, but moments a moment to moment, day by day. So one of the stories we have that I haven’t shared with you yet that we’re really excited about is we’ve got this thing where it’s theory to practice. That’s the entire heroic app. So again, somewhat briefly, how do we move from theory to practice? You don’t need to read another book. You don’t need to listen to other podcasts, you need to do what you already know you need to do to be at your best, which you’ve done in the past. Life isn’t hard. What do you do when you’re at your best? Guess what to do that more often? Don’t do the things you don’t do. We have a two step process. The first is every morning you need to recommit. So we have a one minute recommitment process. And the way I’m going to tell the story in the app is, you know, David, I don’t think I told you this right when you’re around David Michelangelo’s statue, right? So the frame is what’s happened a time traveling machine and go back in time to September 8 1504. We’re in Florence. We’re outside, right? There’s a 17 foot statue that’s about to be unveiled the great young artists Michelangelo, his David broom, the sheets pulled off, you can see what has become the most iconic hero in history right there. Boom, there’s David. But the question is, what moments did Michelangelo choose to capture in David’s life? No one’s knowing the answer. I’ll pose that rhetorically. But do you have a thought on that?
Mark Divine 33:05
Oh, so the look on David’s faces a particular moment? Well, that makes sense, I imagine is probably when he chooses to confront the fact that he’s been complacent. And to go forward first
Brian Johnson 33:15
hero, the first true in the trenches hero to whom I’ve asked that question, he answers the question correctly. That’s absolutely right. So the way I usually say answered is I don’t know. And then I say, well, it wasn’t as moment after he slew David and Goliath. When he was, quote, officially a hero. It’s almost,
Mark Divine 33:34
I have to do this. And I light
Brian Johnson 33:36
up, I light up right now. And if you look at it, scholars say that there is incomparable intensity, ferocious intensity, and David’s poise is the moment at which he decides he is going to step up in strive to, without guarantee, serve heroically again, full body goosebumps or I’ve got energy
Mark Divine 33:54
flowing in my body, but I want to just hear our hole that we’re putting myself into his body right there. And his mind being like, holy shit, I’ve gotten Oh,
Brian Johnson 34:03
my God, he’s going with that. And he literally is going to die, or succeed. No other way about it. And his entire I mean, it was a one on one confrontation or so his entire community, he stepped up tiny little David with his slingshot against David, and said, I’m going to stand up in the face of that enormous challenge. And so our heroic challenge is, we need you to do that. Each and every one of us is inspired by a story like that, or Harry Potter or matrix because you are the hero we’ve been waiting for. Quit looking outside yourself, look in the mirror, and then don’t commit at the end of a weekend that inspired you every single morning while your aura score data is sinking. We have this process where we’re going to help you commit Tap Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap, I should I commit to showing up as this energy best version of myself, this work in love and these virtues. I’m going to do this today. We call that our heroic commitment process. And the idea is you can’t do that once in a while. You can How to show up every single day earn your trident. I mean, I got bags every day, when Matt gave us a tour Emerson and I, my son, you know, he gave us you know, the car that you may have gotten in the new graduates kit. Congratulations, you just went through the hardest training on Earth. I didn’t get to go through it every day. I got it. I didn’t get the car like, I know you did, and you got pinned, but that Trident represents you know, and obviously you you’ve got to earn it every day. No, I literally have a card in my wallet. That mags gave to me that says burn your Trident every day. And it’s the first thing I see when I pull out my credit card. And right behind it, I’ve got Max’s business cards, where he says the deed is all about the glory, the humility of the bowed head in your eagle, the only place to my understanding of the American Eagle ever shows up with about had the humility of the hero is I need to be worthy today, I need to be worthy today, I need to be worthy today. And I need to serve as ropeways I can’t I need to channel my inner David not once in a while, or when I feel like it. But every single day is especially when I don’t feel like it. And that’s the source of true confidence, obviously, but importantly, but that’s the ideas. Commit right now today to being that best version of yourself. got me fired up there,
Mark Divine 36:15
mags is Mike MANDARAKE, who’s a good friend of ours, and is the mental toughness mentor weren’t really, you know, leadership mentor at Budds. And he was a force Master Chief of the seals just an incredible guy and fully bought into you know, RNA and the principles and teaching those at Budds and mentoring them and mentoring some of the things that we do with unbeatable mind. So it’s really neat to see our warriors, picking up on the ancient philosophies and becoming whole warriors again. And that’s been my mission from the very beginning, when I started seeing as like, I want to create a whole warrior, I don’t want people to come in and just go downrange and play whack a mole and not understand the full context of this battle that’s going on between the Daymond and demon and, and even spiritual warfare, you know, we’re gonna send people in harm’s way to represent good then let’s create people who understand what that is and can reflect that and bring it and show up for that. Now, I wanted to shift focus here because you had your David moment, at the election of 2020, you had a David moment where you looked at where you were at. And you looked at the future and said something’s something momentous has to change. You had like a second awakening and you woke up and said, Screw it, I’m going to do this, I have to do this, I have to stare down like Goliath. And you transformed your successful business very successful business that I invested in optimize into this new heroic platform. So tell us about that awakening and kind of the journey that you’ve been on here.
Brian Johnson 37:39
Right on and thank you again for introducing mags and I and for supporting me throughout the years and yeah, woke up middle the night which I never do. You know, I sleep is a sport for me that aura score, you know, we’re totally in politics aside, and earnestly politics aside, woke up and I’m like, Really, I got a nine year old kid, a four year old kid, and I’m a proud American, you know, as a kid, I got my Ronald Reagan button on and it’s like, look what we can do better than this. You know, and it’s time to do something about it. And as you know, I’ve been a hermit. All I did was read and write and teach in my past life, you know, I built and sold through social platforms. And I have waited 15 years for someone to build an alternative to Facebook. If you’ve watched the social dilemma, you know, the unintended catastrophic consequences of the attention economy. And I decided in that moment, I have this philosophy that I practice. It’s called targeted thinking. So frankly, I was appalled. I looked at it, I’m like, really?
Mark Divine 38:35
This is the best we can do now. Right? Yeah,
Brian Johnson 38:38
I mean, seriously, it was one of those, like, I really get really kind of knock it. It was a minute or two or three, but it was one of those like, just almost shocked and like rageful Wow, really, you know, and then my practice is two parts. A third part really, but targeted thinking. So I’m a big fan of Aristotle and teleological thinking our heroic icon is the most taught point in a bowstring, representing a Paulo, who was the patron god of philosophy, who was an archer, though a good philosopher takes aim at what they want. So I said to myself, What do I want? Step one? And the immediate answer was, I want to create a more noble and virtuous world principally for my kids, nine and four years old. Perfect, step one, step two, what are you gonna do about it? In the immediate answer was getting out, it’s time for me to step off and show off create an answer to the social dilemma and heroic, I knew the name in it was heroic, we’re going to create heroic public benefit corporation. And so in that moment heroic was born, which will be a social trading platform. So in terms of Facebook, that’s all about moving from theory to practice to mastery together in community. So we can talk about that. But then three days later, I saw that the crowdfunding regulations were changing from a million dollar max to 5 million. It was another cascading epiphany moment. I didn’t think about it. I just had a hit. We’re going to be the first company ever raised $5 million from the crop. Fast forward six weeks we filed with the FCC. We sent out a long letter you never know until you send it out. virtue of courage was exercised. You know, of course you have a moment you should pause before you do something like that, you know, boom, Sam. within 24 hours, we had over $5 million of Express commitments. within 100 hours, we had over 11 million, we wound up raising $11 million and made history as the first company ever raise 5 million via the new regulations. And then I immediately hired the best product development company in the world, a company called Metalab that created slack, Tinder, God bless Tinder, I’ve been with my wife for 15 years, but they invented this swipe right, swipe left, right, and they did Uber Eats and a bunch of other companies and they’re architecting at a beautiful level, what we intend to make an answer to the social dilemma, that social trading platform and I really appreciate the way you framed it, because frankly, I hadn’t put myself in the David moment in that context. But that was very much the sense of what I felt of. I personally need to play my role. Well, however humbly, yet, hopefully heroically well, but I never see
Mark Divine 41:08
So we’re fiercely intense in your gaze. In all the years I’ve known you. So that fierce intensity in your mission. Everything was crystallized in that moment, like you said, everything came together an entire life’s work both as a entrepreneur, and you know, business leader, as well as, as a philosopher, and teacher, and an all came together, and then boom, it crystallized into this laser beam focus, which you’ve maintained and will continue to maintain. So that’s cool. It’s been fun to watch. But
Brian Johnson 41:38
I’ll tell you what, you know what I do every day, I simplify my battlefield. And I upfront I focus, you’re in my DNA, you know, in our souls, DNA. And I appreciate that means a lot to me in all when I feel like this is the moment, literally that I’ve been training for. And again, my job now is not about me, it’s about being the guy who then invites the other guys to train the heroes. It’s our whole mission is we train heroes. So this is it, we train heroes, a global movement, where personal transformation leads to massive social change is the first thing when you look at our website, you know, we train here, a global movement where personal transformation leads to massive social change. And then I’ve also embraced that ambition, you know, of Lincoln, he was fiercely ambitious. And thankfully he was, but for something bigger than himself. He wasn’t Instagram followers, he was being worthy of being remembered by his fellow men and women, for leading them and serving them profoundly true heroic leadership. Again, I aspired to embody some of those ideals, which is why I’ve got him up there, and why, you know, I have such deep respect for you and for our communities to go out and, and more than anything, what it did, we had 2500 investors from 75 countries. And what I think it speaks to one of my advisors said is, the world is hungry for heroes, the world wants to see something different, you know, for ourselves, our kids, their kids, and, and then my final thing is, quit looking outside of yourself. Look in the mirror, who are you at your best, and what do you need to do to close that gap? Not once in a while, not someday, but literally moment, to moment to moment. And again, that’s what we aspire to create that community of people training together and doing the hard work, celebrating and learning from one another, and truly going out and changing the world.
Mark Divine 43:27
I am stoked to have 10,000. As a sponsor for this podcast. 10,000 makes simply the best tactical workout clothing that I’ve ever found. His high quality fit super well, super comfortable. rucking to Olympic lifting obstacle course running their tactical shorts. Stand up to the challenge helped me perform better. So I use them in the gym, out in the backyard on the course or in the woods, and on the beach. Also, 10,000 is a direct to consumer company, there’s no middleman. So you get premium fabrics, trims and techniques that other brands can’t afford. They have a collaborative product development team of over 200 athletes, many of them SpecOps members, and teammates of mine. They’ve got over 10,005 star reviews, how’s that? And they offer free shipping and returns and a lifetime guarantee. You got to check out 10,000 They’re offering you 15% off of your purchase if you go to 10 thousand.cc Remember that 10 thousand.cc Enter the code unbeatable to get 15% off your purchase. That’s 10 thousand.cc use the code unbeatable. Whoa, yeah. What else it love is your generosity, generosity of spirit and sharing. But also, if you’re looking at this podcast on the show notes, you’ll see a couple links. And what Brian has done is he’s taken his whole entire optimize catalogue of philosophers notes and masterclasses. I know there’s philosophers notes on my books in there and all these Great luminary leaders, and you’re giving it away for free. That’s awesome. So if you want to get this incredible repository of wisdom, then go, you know, check out the notes and go claim it for free. That’s extraordinary. And the other thing is, people who join your coaching program, you know, they’ve got an incredible experience and knowledge. And of course, coaching means I own this knowledge and not from a proprietary standpoint. I mean, I own it internally, and to the point where I can bring it to someone else, that’s the first step of real mastery is to be able to teach and your coaching program, you know, you’re basically discounting that by over 70%. So you can get more coaches who can then bring this news to the world. So we’re really democratizing access to wisdom. And that’s how we’re going to reach scale, because ultimately, all information is free. But courage, wisdom, temporary justice are not free, they have to be earned. And so, free knowledge, what knowledge is skin deep, but to work with that knowledge every day, and then to coach it, teach it, mentor it, live it.
Brian Johnson 46:00
That’s for the juices that we’re trying to do that at scale. Yeah, beautifully said. And thank you. And yeah, so the Optimize used to be a premium membership. 10s of 1000s of people from nearly every country in the world has signed up for it, we just made it free, we unlocked it. And it’s been you know, 70,000 people signed up in the first 45 days before we really even did anything that we actually you know, optimize.me/mark devine is where we park your free now so you can go to my right there AMI slash mark. Is that the same URL that someone can go sign up for free? Or how does that work? Yeah, exactly. So go there and you’ll be able to sign up for free but you’ll also get we have three nodes on your books, we’ve got unbeatable mind we’ve got staring down the wall, we’ve got the way of the seal. I believe we also might have a snip cuz you’ve been part of our mass we’re calling a coach program. Mastery. Now the Mastery program, everything is free to 600 philosophers notes, three of Mark’s grade books distilled into six page PDF, 20 minute mp3, all of ancient wisdom, dozens of stoic books, like 70 Positive psychology books, I went through and I’m like, wow, I was nervous. Go, you know, so grit and you know, all of Martin Seligman and all that stuff. Yeah. Anyway, 600 philosophers notes, a bunch of classes and other stuff all free. And optimized.me/mark devine, then we have what is a scientifically proven 300 Day Mastery program. And again, nod to the Spartans. Everything we do is no this is tough. He was priced at $1,000, which was market wise, we were told under, you know, price and astonishing value. But we always said, Yep, you’re not going to pay you know, as much as you would in other programs. But you’re gonna pay, you’re gonna pay because, you know, to get through this, you’re gonna need to do the work and do the reps to move from theory to practice to masters. Anyway, 300 day program, Sonja Lyubomirsky, a leading well being researcher, conducted scientific research on it. And she said that if she didn’t do the research herself, she would have thought the data was fake. The changes were so profound, in a sense of purpose and connection to your best self and confidence and energy, etc. Anyway, that will be at the URL as well. It’s called the Mastery program used to be 1000 bucks. It’s now $300. And you can bring a friend. And the idea is unlock optimized, catalyze heroic, and we’ve gone through a tough two years, it’s been tough, obviously, probably buddy, let’s go make 2023 the best year of our lives. And I mean that earnestly years, all those challenges as fuel, what’s been working in your life, what hasn’t? It’s time to step up. And hopefully our content, more wisdom in last time as one of our sayings can help guide you in the process of you becoming the best, most heroic version of yourself. Who Yeah, you got me fired up half a dozen times a day mark. This is good.
Mark Divine 48:50
And what’s the launch date for heroics? And the app itself,
Brian Johnson 48:53
all that stuff is now optimized. And then the launch date for heroic is April 9, we’ve got a launch party, we’re live streaming my favorite band called the score. And you can sign up for that as part of the process for 35 bucks. So we’re doing $70 a year but half off for the first year founding member of APR nine, giddy and then the social platform, when we launched, it’s just a training platform. You’re going to come in you’re going to commit to hitting targets and then you’re going to hit them and you’re gonna get a splash of dopamine boom, Metalab designs, etc. But in kind of like a calm for heroes. We’re not trying to get you to reduce your throats we’re teaching you how to eat it like an energy bar meets masterclass for heroes meets habit tracking for heroes, because there isn’t really one app out there. That’s like the best habit tracking app, because that’s the thing we aspire to do with a 10x or to use your words 20x level that launches April 9, the social side of it launches in October. So we’re really excited about both of those things.
Mark Divine 49:56
Are they going to be integrated those platforms are they b2c? Different things,
Brian Johnson 50:01
they’re going to be complimentary. Certainly, we’re not going to integrate. What we’re going to do with heroic is I’m the guide for what we’re calling basic training, unapologetic, we went dark mode with heroic, you know, Tesla for personal growth is our star, literally dark mode, black with some splashes of red just like your chair right now. And then we’re going to invite you, Cal Newport, you know, all my other, you know, favorite friends and teachers to be guides for your domain of expertise. And to create a community where you’re helping lead us in your formative habits that, again, you write all your books to get us to do certain things, not to consume more information. So how do we do those things? In community? It Cal Newport actually called them battle group was about a group of people going out and doing more deep work and deep living and all those things. So anyway, that’s the basic idea. You know, you got the guide, leading the heroes, and all of us going out and hitting it hard together.
Mark Divine 50:54
And the social platform is the answer to Facebook, is it going to be algorithmic that prevents kind of negativity from seeping in?
Brian Johnson 51:01
How are we going to? Well, there’s a lot of things there. So the first and you know, longer strategic chat. But the brief take on that is the problem with Facebook principally, and others like them, is there any attention economy, so they make money, you think Facebook’s the product? If not, you’re the product, right? So you are your consciousness. Now that’s dangerous, especially dangerous when the individual is running, these companies have what some can call moral bankruptcy, which is a whole nother job. So they don’t have your best interests in mind, to say the least, they want to sell your attention to the highest bidder. And again, I’m a capitalist. So I have zero issues with the idea of creating profitable businesses at scale, etc. But what I want to do is prove that you can do it at scale, and outcompete businesses like that, when you run it with Arca, this is again, it’s our mission that we’re committed to. Now, when you get out of the attention economy, we don’t make money hacking your attention, you as a prospective community member will pay us only if we help you become the best most erode version of yourself, there will be no ads, we need to earn your trust, we need to earn our our Trident with you every single day, we’re either worth 3570 bucks, or we’re not. That changes everything. Because now we’ve got to architect something at a world class level that is worthy of you using it for a minute in the morning and coming back and hitting it throughout the day. Because you know, it makes you better. So yeah, that’s the first most important thing in the moment, someone’s paying $70 for it, okay, things have changed. And then we’re gonna have a zero, no a holes allowed policy. Now, again, that needs to be defined, and we will with the community support, but it’s not that hard to tell that Stuff People Say on social platforms, these are good generally, quote, unquote, good people who are nice if you’re mowing your lawn, and wave and Adam, but when you get online, you’re anonymous, and you’re polarize, all of a sudden, you become a troll. So I think when you create an environment in which we’re committed to the same ideals, you can bring out the best in the same person who might be that guy or gal on a social network in a different environment. But our tolerance for that is going to be precisely zero. The moment you are that troll, you are not allowed in our community, it’ll be very easy for us to technologically, we will make you invisible, we don’t need your toxic stew. And that will mean need to be nuanced on this. So it’s not obnoxious and you know, oriented in one slant or another. But we’re gonna have to figure this out. It’s a huge challenge for us to figure out how you do it. But the thing we want to do is create intimacy. So the first connections with my wife, I want to see what she’s doing, you know, and I want to support her that me and you as, as brothers in this with others who are really committed. And then, you know, the optimized community, the unbeatable community, there’s a certain shared ethos there, where your guys and gals when they get together, aren’t they bring their best selves, but we want to bring it off line. That’s the trick. So we want you to spend as little time on our app as possible and then push you back into your real life. So you know, Zuckerberg, I finally am willing to pick a fight with metaverse. I haven’t called him out or pick the fight. But Metaverse, that’s some scary stuff. Virgin, my kid not living in that world created by Zuckerberg, I’m sorry, full stop. So our juxtaposition is, what do you want a virtual reality or a virtual reality. So we want to bring you offline, connect you to your family, connected your communities, we’re gonna do a ton of stuff to get together offline and real world connections, etc. But it’s gonna be a huge lift for us. But I’m really, really excited to give it our best shot and create something, hopefully truly great.
Mark Divine 54:31
You got your slingshot at the ready. So let’s go confident that you’ll land your mark. And I love this idea. And I share it using technology for virtue, because technology is just technology. So you know, it’s not technology, that’s the problem. It’s the human use of it. And so we want to use it for virtuous things and give people an alternative that is every bit as exciting, but is going to bring them along the path of righteousness and eudaimonia.
Brian Johnson 54:57
Yeah, we call that heroic technology. so inhumane is what Tristan Harris is trying to deal with. So if you’ve watched Joe Rogan’s recent show, in humane technology getting worse and worse and worse, so his nonprofit is called humane technology. So what would humane technology look like? And I say that’s fantastic. But it’s kind of like the psychology movement moving from horribly depressed to not depressed. Okay, so inhumane visa be humane is better. But my question is, what’s the other end of the spectrum from inhuman? It’s heroic, so inhumane humane, what would heroic technology look like? So I hired and we spent several million dollars for Metalab to create our product. We’re doubling that next year, we will be their biggest project next year. So we want to show the world what heroic technology looks like we’re you use the absolute best of behavioral design. We’re unapologetic Yes, I’m going to smash you with the most addictive dopamine, you can imagine that Tinder swipe I mentioned, I knew the moment I heard of Metalab, another fictional moment, they’re going to come up with our bowstring moment, we’re not gonna have a slingshot, we’re gonna have a bowstring. So when you commit to a target, you’re going to light up an archery target, you’re going to tap it. Little dopamine, yep, you said you’re going to meditate today or show up with your kids today. Then when you do it, you come back, touch the target with your finger, drag it back, like Angry Birds haptic tension, but it will be a bowstring. And then solutions, you get your
Mark Divine 56:18
people to virtue.
Brian Johnson 56:20
This is it. This is heroic technology, where and again, Seneca talked about this 2000 years ago, he said, How much better to pursue a straight course. Such that you arrive at a point where doing what is best for you is what you most enjoy, where the good life becomes the good mood, and doing that virtuous act, you couldn’t pay me not to meditate, or to be present when I’m connecting with you or my kids or whatever, that’s just when I feel best is when I’m being my best. So that’s the ark, that, again, ancient wisdom has agreed with modern science on get your neuro chemistry firing on doing what’s best for you and feel best when you do that. That’s the ultimate challenge. And what I’m most excited to, you know, architect a platform that can, again, be a demonstration of that at scale, as a counterpoint to a lot of other technology platforms out there that are doing precisely the opposite.
Mark Divine 57:15
We out of that, Brian? Well, it’s been a real joy to talk to you a great work you’re doing and it’s fun to be part of it and to know you, and we offer your support, of course and on your journey. So anything we can do to help out excited to see the future as it unfolds.
Brian Johnson 57:30
Joe, create a great one together, man. Appreciate you brother.
Mark Divine 57:33
Yeah, that’s Brian Johnson, Founder CEO of heroic checkout optimize.me forward slash mark Devine to learn more about his currently generous offer to give you an entire library for free. And, you know, try command heroic and Brian Johnson are we you know, where should people go to learn about your project? Right?
Brian Johnson 57:50
Yes, so that’s exactly right. optimized.me/mark devine, the best place to jump straight into my work through you. I mean, that’s absolutely the best way to start. And then heroic.us is where he relatives we’re launching that really excited it’s gonna be a clean you know, April 9, we’re launching a clean kind of landing page. They’re in the early part of the year so it’s a little rough right now. But that’s the what’s coming down the pipe. Optimized AMI slash mark Devine is probably the best place to start for now. Awesome, Brian.
Mark Divine 58:20
That’s the unbeatable mind podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. found value in that and incredible work that Brian is doing. So let’s support him as back him up, especially with this launch. So we can push back against the evil behemoths, right, who were trying to control our attention and to keep us in a suboptimal state for profit is no winner. So we’re going to take control back. So thank you for being part of that mission and thank you for your support of me and Unbeatable Mind. Till next time, this is Mark Devine.
