Member Platform - Brian Johnson

Brian Johnson, Philosopher & CEO of Zaadz, a company merging spirituality, capitalism and technology to change the world by inspiring and empowering people to live at their highest potential while using their greatest strengths in the greatest service to the world.

Areté and the Entrepreneur

“Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills – against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. ‘Give me a place to stand,’ said Archimedes, ‘and I will move the world.’ These men moved the world, and so can we all.”

If we--as enlightened entrepreneurs--are going to change the world, we must start with ourselves. We must strive to live at our highest potential while using our greatest strengths in the greatest service to the world.

The classic Greek philosophers had a word for the process of self-actualizing and striving to reach your highest potential. They called it ‘Areté.’ (pronounced ar-uh-tay)

In fact, Areté was one of the most important values in classic Greek culture. Guys like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle taught that the meaning of life was happiness and that the way to achieve happiness was to live with Areté (aka excellence, striving to reach your highest potential).

I believe that by looking at the universal truths taught by philosophers, religions, and current psychological research, we can find the keys to self-actualizing, happiness and creating businesses that can “move the world.”

With that, I offer you a quick overview of the universal truths that I have discovered in the course of my studies and that I strive to apply in my life as I create Zaadz, Inc. I hope you enjoy.

“Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; for the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. Soak it then in such trains of thoughts as, for example: Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible.”

Marcus Aurelius, 2nd century Roman emperor-(stoic) philosopher

The Attitude Principle

It all begins with accountability. Unless you’re willing to take absolute responsibility for your life, there is no hope. Seriously.

If you’re going to blame a bad economy or a bad childhood or bad whatever for your problems, then you won’t come close to reaching your potential. Sorry to break the news.

Having said that, if you’re willing to quit being a victim and to start taking control of how you think about and interact with the world, then you’re on your way to doing anything you set your mind to.

Open up The Dhammapada, the core text of Buddha’s teachings. Flip to the first lines. The very first words are “Our life is shaped by our mind. We become what we think.”

That sums it up pretty well, eh?

And, scientists have done all kinds of research on this. They talk about “locus of control”—aka, where you place control.

Do you put control outside of yourself and have what they term an “external locus of control”? Or, do you take responsibility and have an “internal locus of control”?

Not surprisingly, you can test rats and humans and you’ll find that, to the extent you place control outside of yourself, you will be significantly less happy, less successful, less all the things you want to be, than if you internalize control.

Philosophers have commented on the subject exhaustively as well—from ancient Greek philosophers like Epictetus to Buddha to more recent guys like James Allen and contemporary gurus like Steven Covey. Of course, we can’t always control what happens in our lives, but we can always control how we perceive and respond to what happens. And, oh, what a difference that makes.

“Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born.

And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy—that he live in accordance with his own nature.”

Seneca, 1st century stoic philosopher

The Vision Principle

Ok. You’ve assumed control. No more whining from you.

Now that you’ve taken that step, what are you going to create for yourself? What’s your ideal life? What’s the ideal you? What are you doing on a daily basis? Who are you around? How much money is in your bank account? What kind of physical shape are you in? What do you look like and feel like?

Sounds simple, eh? Of course, it sounds simple, but in my experience, people have a pretty hard time with this because they lack clarity in terms of who they are and what really fires them up.

We’re so used to doing what we think other people want us to do that we haven’t taken the time to truly understand who we are and what we want. In short, we lack self-awareness. We’ll get you thinking more about what you want and create a vision of your ideal.

“Only by much searching and mining are gold and diamonds obtained, and man can find every truth connected with his being if he will dig deep into the mine of his soul.”

James Allen, 19th century philosopher

The Self-Awareness Principle

Self-awareness. Our third step. Remember Socrates? The Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece? What did they teach us?

“Know thyself,” of course. Well, how well do you know thyself?

What are your greatest strengths? What are you most passionate about? When are you most naturally yourself? What are you most proud of? What gives you goosebumps? If you were absolutely guaranteed to succeed, what one thing would you dare to dream?!?

I can’t begin to stress how important self-awareness is. Again, all kinds of scientific research has been done on this subject. Psychologists have often wondered why IQ isn’t that well correlated with success and happiness in life and several authors have explained the keys to what Robert Sternberg calls Successful Intelligence: In its simplest form, he says that the most successful people in the world know their strengths and know their weakness; they create a life around their strengths and spend enough time on their weaknesses so that they’re not liabilities.

Basically, they “know themselves.”

Martin Seligman, the past President of the American Psychological Association, Professor at Penn, one of the most preeminent psychologists alive and the founder of the current positive psychology movement, recently wrote a book called Authentic Happiness. In it, he boils down Aristotle’s good life to a simple formula (ridiculously simple but backed up by some impressive philosophical and scientific data).

His axiom: Know what he calls your “signature strengths” and use these strengths as often as possible throughout your daily life. Sound simple? It is in theory. Tragically, most people don’t take the time to figure out what they are and even fewer actually consciously build their lives around them.

So, what are your greatest strengths? Are you creating a life around them? We’ll check out some more theory and walk through some assessments and exercises to get you knowing thyself more than ever before.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Socrates, 5th century BCE Greek philosopher

“Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.”

Morihei Ueshiba, 20th century philosopher-martial artist

The Goals Principle

Alright, so you’ve assumed control of your life, you’re creating a vision of your ideal self and you’re focusing on gaining greater self-awareness. Now what?

Now, it’s time to bring the theory down to reality. It’s time to set goals. Odds are you don’t have absolute clarity on exactly who you are and what you want in your life. Welcome to the club. Something like less than 5% of the US population actually sets written goals.

That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. It means you need to get to work. Start by setting goals. Your goal can be as “simple” as getting out of bed tomorrow morning when your alarm goes off—and before you hit snooze three times!! (why is that so hard sometimes?!?) or it can be more complex, like getting in shape, losing 10 pounds and running a 5k in four months.

The bottom line is clear: you need goals. I’ll tell you more about why goals are so grand and also teach you a thing or two about how to actually set goals and all that good stuff. For now, let’s assume you have goals…now it’s time for action…

“Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!”

The Action Principle

What’s the use of having absolute clarity of who you are and what you want if you lack the power to take action? It’s time to follow the advice of another prominent Greek entity, Nike, and “Just do it.”

Unfortunately, it’s not good enough to just do it. You have to get in the habit of just doing it impeccably. Impecc-a-what? Impeccably. The word literally means “without sin.”

And, that’s what you need to do. You need to do your best. Every single moment—from putting your socks in the hamper to putting a dish straight into the dishwasher.

Trust me. When you get in the habit of doing every little thing to the best of your ability, you will do some amazing things.

That’s action. It’s powerful. In fact, there’s nothing more powerful than having the ability to do what you need to do when you need to do it. That’s probably why one of my heroes, Leonardo da Vinci, said that “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.”

Imagine having absolute self-mastery aligned with absolute clarity of vision of what you want to manifest. If you’re willing to dream big enough, it’s the stuff legend is made of.  

“Be not afraid of going slowly but only afraid of standing still.”

Chinese Proverb

Energy: “The capacity for work or vigorous activity; vigor; power.”

American Heritage Dictionary

The Energy Principle

It’s hard to take consistent impeccable action if you don’t have that much energy. I like to say that you’re going to have a hard time reaching your potential if you have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

Now, optimizing our health isn’t rocket science. We all know what we should be doing (at least 90% of it!) but tragically few of us actually do it. Use your impeccability from above to master the fundamentals of nutrition and exercise. Build habits that will last you a lifetime and then put this part of your life on autopilot.

“The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them is a match.”

Will Rogers, 20th century cowboy and actor

“God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.”

Rumi, 14th century Sufi mystic

The Wisdom Principle

Alright, now you’ve got some momentum: you’ve taken control, got some more self-awareness and a game plan that you’re executing.

Whatever you do, don’t freak out the first time (or the hundredth time) you drop the ball. Of course you’re going to screw up. If you don’t, then something’s wrong! Don’t view every challenge as a life or death event. View every situation as another opportunity to learn, another opportunity to grow. Success and failure are much less important than what you’re learning.

Life is our classroom. That guy cutting you off and honking on the way to work? He’s just another teacher—teaching you how to remain cool when others are stressed out. Thank him for the lesson. Move on. Don’t get caught up in his issues.

And, you’ve gotta spend some time learning. Turn off the TV for an hour every night and open a book or open a journal. Learn. Write. Think.

“Everything in the universe is a pitcher brimming with wisdom and beauty.”

“Each and every master, regardless of the era or place, heard the call and attained harmony with heaven and earth. There are many paths to Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit—love.”

The Love Principle

Alright, so we’re well on our way to thinking and living Areté. Good work.

We’ve got to remember one very important thing: none of this is anything without love. It starts with loving ourselves. To the extent that we can realize that we’re not perfect and we never will be, we can forgive ourselves for our faults and have a little (perhaps even a lot?) more compassion for everyone else around us who is struggling with the same challenges.

We also need to remember to look outside of ourselves and think about how we can create a life that allows us to share our gifts with the world.

Remember Seligman? The guy who wrote Authentic Happiness? Well, he told us that if we want a happy life we need to know our strengths and use them as often as possible in our daily lives. We’ll be more happy if we can do that. But, if we want to have a truly meaningful life, we need to use our strengths as often as possible, and do so for something greater than ourselves.

We need to give back to the world. We’ve gotta show the love.

“It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.”

“Anything may be betrayed, anyone may be forgiven. But not those who lack the courage of their own greatness…It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man’s proper stature—and the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning—and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or “The Fountainhead” that they will betray: it is their own souls.”

Ayn Rand, 20th century Objectivist philosopher

The Courage Principle

Living with Areté starts and ends and is driven every moment by courage—by our willingness to grow, to evolve and to challenge ourselves to be who we are capable of being, moment by moment by moment.

Nothing is more important and nothing is more challenging.

Society does anything but support our growth, our individuality and our greatness. We’re told from the day we’re born that we need to behave a certain way, wear the right clothes, drive the right cars, live in big houses in the right neighborhood, get the right education and the impressive job and beautiful spouse and 2.2 kids and all that other nonsense. It’s enough to drive anyone insane.

You have to be willing to jump from the normal and risk looking like an idiot as you grow. As Maslow says, “You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.”

Which way are you headed?

“You’re packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been. A place that has to be believed to be seen.”

Now that we’ve covered some of the high level stuff, how about some tips on how to apply these principles to our day-to-day lives?

The Attitude Principle

• Smile. Isn’t that nice? It’s amazing what a smile can do. I once read about a study where depressed people were split into two groups—one group looked into a mirror and smiled for 30 minutes a day for 30 days. That’s it. Just looked at themselves and smiled. The other group didn’t. At the end of the study, the smilers were significantly more happy than the other group. Cool, eh?

Lesson: smile. Now. Tickle tickle. Gimme a little smile, will ya?!? There ya go! That wasn’t so hard now was it? :)

• Say Yes! Quick exercise: Take a moment and say “No!” out loud right now. Say it. Seriously. “No!” Say it again. “No!” Again. “No. No. No. No. No.”

Thank you. Alright. So, how do you feel?

Now, say “Yes!” “Yes!” “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Do you notice a slight difference?!? When you say “No” do you feel yourself almost shutting down, collapsing in? How about when you say “Yes!” Do you almost feel your whole body and spirit uplifting?

Amazing, isn’t it? Lesson: Say “Yes!” more today. Go for it. Live a little.

• Act “As If.” Who do you want to be? What’s your ideal? Are you enlightened? Are you wealthy? Are you in perfect physical shape?

Whatever it is, get that image. Then, on a moment-to-moment basis, ACT “AS IF” you already were that person...what would the enlightened being that you are do in this moment of tension? Perhaps breathe in, breathe out, gain perspective and maintain equanimity. Good. Then act like that enlightened person NOW.

How about that perfectly healthy person that you imagine. Good. What would (s)he do right now? What would they eat? How often would they exercise? Perfect. That’s what you do now.

Act as if. Moment to moment to moment. And, sooner than you think you won’t be acting anymore. How amazingly cool is that?

The Vision Principle

• Dream. In the words of one of my favorite teachers, James Allen:

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”

So, what are you dreaming of today?

• Know What You Want. What’s your intention? What do you want in your life? What do you want in this moment?

Quick tip: You’re a LOT more likely to get it if you know what “it” is.

So what is it?

• Regain Your Balance. Here’s an exercise I often use to capture the importance of having a clear intention to regain our balance:

Stand up. Put your arms straight out. Make sure you’re in an area that’s big enough so you can spin around. Alright. Now, spin. Give yourself a good 5-10-15 spins. Whatever it takes to get you a little off-balance. Alright. Now once you get there, I want you to stop spinning. Then, I want you to do two different things:

First, I want you to put your hands together like you’re praying and stare at your fingertips—it brings you back to balance AMAZINGLY quickly. Then, I want you to quit staring at your fingertips and instead I want you to look all around you—up, down, far away, to the right, to the left…just look everywhere. Notice how that makes you feel. If you’re like me, it probably makes you nauseous.

For me, this is a perfect metaphor for having a clear intention in our life. When things get stressful (i.e., we’re “spun around”), we have a couple of options: we can look all around us to get a sense of perspective (which usually leads to more confusion/nausea); or, we can focus on what we know to be true, what our intention in life is, what the purpose of that experience is, etc.—that clarity brings us back to balance as quickly as staring at our fingertips.

So, the next time you’re spinning—have a clear intention: know that your highest intention is to grow as a more enlightened, loving, balanced, growth-oriented human being (or whatever it is for you) and come back to that to regain your balance.

Try it out! Methinks you’ll dig it.

The Self-Awareness Principle

• Quit Worrying About What Others Think. That’s a big one. Really big. Really, really, really big.

First of all, let’s be clear about one thing: You’re worried about what someone else thinks of you, right? OK. Now, while you’re doing that, what do you think they are worried about?

Hah. Exactly. They’re worried about what you think of them. But you’re so busy worrying about what they think of you that you’re not even spending much time thinking about them. (You follow that? :)

To be honest, whether or not that’s true all the time is irrelevant (although I do think it’s true most of the time). In any case, if you’re going to live your life dependent on the good opinion of others for your happiness then, uh, I’ll put it to you bluntly: You’re screwed.

There’s NO way you can please everyone all the time. Even someone who wins an election by a landslide still had 30 or 40% of the people who disagreed with her.

Further, and I’d say much, much, much more importantly, by worrying about what other people think of you and working hard to try to please them, you’re losing the essence of who you are—you’re expressing such a small fraction of who you truly are. That’s not cool. So, quit worrying about what other people think of you. Pretty please.

• Be Authentic. Authenticity. Did you know that the word “authentic” literally means to be your own author. Be you. Don’t pretend to be anything else. Pretty please.

(One of my friends and favorite teachers, Dan Millman, taught me that—along with a lot of other stuff woven through here. If you aren’t familiar with Dan’s work, you can check him out at www.danmillman.com and I recommend you start with Way of the Peaceful Warrior (which will be released as a movie starring Nick Nolte in June ‘06) and then go from there! Thanks, Dan!)

• Quit Comparing Yourself to Others. It’s really a pointless exercise. It automatically creates a strained relationship with whomever you’re comparing yourself—you’ve either gotta be superior or inferior to them, right? Neither is a good basis for a loving relationship.

If you need to do any comparison at all—do it with your potential self! In the words of William Faulkner, “Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

• Follow Your Bliss. Those three words capture the message of Joseph Campbell—the amazing mythology guru and mentor to George Lucas who based much of Star Wars on the classic archetypal journeys Campbell discovered.

It’s rather simple. Three words: 1. Follow. 2. Your. 3. Bliss.

Key words: “bliss” and “your.” Not someone else’s idea of your bliss. Not what you think should be your bliss. Not what you think would impress the crowd or appease the family. YOUR bliss. What truly gets you giddy.

Oh yah, “follow” is kinda important as well. Get out there and follow your bliss! (Pretty please. Thank you.)

The Goals Principle

• Step Forward. Abraham Maslow broke it down for us in simple terms. He told us that in any given moment you have two options: you can step forward into growth or you can step back into safety. Pretty simple, really. Become aware of your behavior.

Become aware of the decisions you are making every moment of your life—the decision to speak authentically (step forward into growth) or to say what you think you should say (back into safety). Pay attention to your decision to either go out for the run you promised yourself or to make up an excuse as to why you just can’t do it today.

Become AWARE. Become conscious of who you are, the decisions you’re making, how you’re expressing yourself and what you’re actually doing. Your destiny is shaped by your moment to moment decisions. Choose wisely. Step Forward.

• Push Yourself. In the words of William James, the 19th century US philosopher and psychologist, “You have enormous untapped power you’ll probably never tap, because most people never run far enough on their first wind to ever find they have a second.”

How bout we tap that power? The way to do it? Push yourself a little harder. Let’s take a quick look at the “Training Effect”—a concept used to build your body—and see how it applies to our lives.

The same principle that applies to building muscles in the gym applies to building excellence in our lives: In order to grow, we must consistently push ourselves just a little bit past our current comfort zone. In exercise physiology parlance, this is called the Training Effect. The principles involved?

Overload: You must “overload” your body with more stress than it can currently handle. (Not too much as this may lead to injury, but enough so you’re out of your current comfort zone.)

Overcompensation: Your body is smart. It doesn’t like to get its butt kicked. So, what does it do? It overcompensates and repairs itself so that next time it’s stronger–and capable of withstanding the level of stress you put on it previously.

The training effect explains how muscles grow, how your heart is trained to beat more efficiently, and how your lungs are trained to distribute oxygen more efficiently. It’s also the same principle that dictates growth in other aspects of our lives: from our ability to give presentations at work to our ability to have challenging conversations with our significant other at home.

Go out and “train.” Push yourself a little further today...

• Fill Your Water Pot and Hit the Rock. Every great teacher will advise you to build habits and to consistently train yourself to do your best.

The Buddha says it so beautifully when he reminds us that: “Little by little a person becomes evil, as a water pot is filled by drops of water... Little by little a person becomes good, as a water pot is filled by drops of water.”

I think the stonecutter is another perfect metaphor for the process of growing into our full potential. You may have heard the story:

A stonecutter hits a rock with his hammer. The stone splits. The casual observer sees this and thinks, “Wow. That guy is really strong. I can’t believe he broke that huge rock with a single blow!”

The reality (obviously) is that the stonecutter didn’t break it in a single blow—he’d been hammering away at that rock for a long time. Many, many blows went into the rock before it finally split.

Most people see someone who has achieved some level of success--whether it’s enlightenment or celebrity status or financial wealth--and think, “Wow, they sure must be lucky.”

Obviously, the stonecutter isn’t strong enough to break a rock in one blow and no one is “lucky” enough to reach any level of excellence without an equally diligent and