1st 1:1 with Brian Johnson - Heroic Mastery Live 1:01 - On Faith
BRIAN:
Bronson. Good to see you.
BRONSON:
Brian. There are no words really to say, to share time… the greatest gift we can have together. If there's just one word I'd like to express to you, it's “Aloha”. And Aloha to all of you, here from Hawaii. This is not my background. This is a zoom background. But there was a beautiful rainbow out the condo this morning.
It's just such a special day to share, celebrating Areté’s launch yesterday. Brian, you’ve just touched my life profoundly since I met you on YouTube over a decade ago, guided me and really came into my life even more profoundly last year. You know, 33 days on the Heroic app. I said, “I’m gonna invest in Heroic. I looked at what that meant, and I would be the 333rd investor and put in $3333. All-in. Well, you know the journey to this moment has just been incredible. I'm shaking right now because it took me several months just to show up live to this. But thanks to meeting Kimmy, Day One, January 1st this year, she supported me and pushed me off the cliff and said, "Do it," and so thank you, Kimmy. You're here with us right now. And I know that means so much.
I have really been trying to look for the right question to ask you in this moment. I'm just trusting that whatever comes through is what's meant to be. I'll skip all of the context and go straight to it, so we can spend some time together. And my question is, I'm so interested in the Areté compass, and I've been contemplating it a lot. The one thing that has just been moving a lot through me especially as I literally take off on a world adventure tomorrow with my family… eventually moving to Los Angeles, leaving Hawaii my home, so it's a very emotional day for that reason. My question is, “Where does faith fit into the compass?” And sort of “How do I practice faith as a virtue?” Really, with this idea of surrendering, emptying myself and just letting go of any need to control in order to truly flourish myself and everyone.
BRIAN:
Oh, bless you! Every single thing about you is your background, you know, and just Pure Aloha and love and presence. Thank you. Bless you for being here, for your support, honored to be part of your journey… and that Areté T-shirt looks fantastic on you, especially when complimented with the black hat. So so happy that you're here and that you and Kimi connected. You guys are twinning right now. We got 3 at least on my screen, we got 3 across. Areté, we got Nat, 4 across. That's amazing.
What a great question! I've never considered that frame for the question, and as you were describing it, as I was feeling into, how do we find that (faith) on the compass?
What arises for me is… First take on the response is, it's like an integration of all of them. I think faith, in that faith of course is at least related to trust, you know, but faith implies trust in something bigger than ourselves. So when we embody the wisdom, the discipline, the love, the courage, the gratitude, the hope, the curiosity, and the zest. What happens? Well, we live with eudaimonia. We have a good soul. We have a deeper, more consistent, and solid connection to that divine that's expressed within us. And I think that through that connection, at least for me, I feel and find that faith of “this isn't me”. My job is to connect to something bigger than myself, and to trust that as I strive to—however imperfectly and humbly—live with more wisdom, discipline, love, courage, gratitude, hope, curiosity, and zest, then I am creating a conduit to that bigger force, and then I can relax. It's a paradoxical, very effortful, effortless action, right? Where there's this diligence and this patience and this persistence, and being that good light bulb that's screwed in to let the divine light come through—to use Desmond Tutu’s and Richard Rohr’s metaphor. That's what arises for me.
And then it's still, I mean by definition to have courage, you must have fear, to have faith you must have doubt… like you don't need faith, if you don't have doubt. Although that's not a word that I use a lot. That's what I feel as I personally go through my own idiosyncratic cycles. Also just a deep trust in faith that if it isn't what we think it's going to be that we will find what it is.
So your home will always be there for you as you embark on this journey, and you may find that you are led back there on whatever time scale. I’ve certainly done that, we call that checking the boxes. It's like, “Oh, no, I thought that was a good idea, and then I go ahead and did it. And no, it's not”. But that's more tactical. But that's how I think about faith. What do you think?
BRONSON:
Yeah, it's interesting that I was able to ask a question that never was framed up that way. So I'm just really grateful that what came through to me was to bring that perspective. I like that idea of bringing all of the virtues into something. You know, my favorite virtue is wisdom, and it ends up becoming synonymous with so many other things like aloha, but you know what's in the middle of all that, maybe something like faith. It's that paradox of effortless effort and trusting. So I think as I look at the future, faith is really then practicing the philosophy.
BRIAN:
And it, yeah, goose bumps as you describe that. Then faith is at the center, I guess, on the compass, but it's also kind of the byproduct, the epiphenomenon. It's almost like the radiant soul force that comes out of it, you know. It’s the heart, and it's the expansion and the expression. You know, and then you can bring it all in, the wisdom that I literally was running late. Because, I answered the question of “What is virtue?” and “What is the most important virtue?” was actually the question. So, of course, there's no way to answer that question. But I started with wisdom, and saying that wisdom is knowledge of life, and knowing which virtue you need to embody a little bit more of in that moment. Is it courage? Is it love? Is it discipline? Is it gratitude, hope, curiosity, zest?
But I think that faith is like the epiphenomenon, the byproduct of practicing our philosophy, whatever the virtue is that's called forth in that moment combined with the practice of targeted thinking of “What do you want?” And then “What do you need to do?” But then you get data. Okay, “What do you want?” And then “What do you need to do?” And for me faith is certainly related closely to that sense of confidence and antifragile confidence that I trust, I believe, that I have what it takes to respond, and I also believe that I'm connected to something bigger than myself, and that when I get disconnected, which I will, I know how to reconnect.
And so bringing that. And oh! by the way, this [points at Areté t-shirt] would be the ultimate expression of that commitment to experiencing faith… is in this moment what does my best look like? Right? And asking our daimons as a conduit to the bigger force that allows us to be our best. And when we do that, there's no room. You'll still have what you have, but in that moment in which you are taking a breath and doing the next best thing, or reflecting on the lessons you may be learning there's a deep joy that integrates the whole experience of life.
What a great question. You have such a beautiful presence. And it's a pleasure to be with you, and I'm so grateful that you're part of our community.
BRONSON:
Thank you so much, Brian. I'm grateful. And this is just the beginning of so many beautiful possibilities in the future. And you know, thank you for blessing all of us.
BRIAN:
Day One brother! And I remember when you came in with that $3333 as investor number 333. You posted it on WeFunder, if I recall correctly. And I was like, “Yes Bronson!”.
BRONSON:
Oh one little fun thing. So you ended up sending me a voice memo. It ended up being 33 seconds, I don't know if that was intentional but… every time I need to activate my heroic potential… I just press it. So thank you for that Soul Force that propels my journey. I'll be taking this around the world along with the book.
BRIAN:
Honored dude. What a beautiful, beautiful, sacred thing. I wish I could reach through and give you a huge hug. You know you’re going on your trip, so I need to see you in LA, or if you make it through, Austin. Can't wait to connect in person.
BRONSON:
Thank you, Brian.
BRIAN:
Bless you, Bronson. Safe and happy travels. Oh, my goodness… faith, what a beautiful, beautiful frame.