This week on The Living Experiment, as part of our live-edition episode series, Pilar welcomes a special guest — Brian Johnson, the creator of Optimize and the Founder + CEΦ of Heroic Public Benefit Corporation (Heroic).
Brian has spent half of the last twenty-five years as a Founder/CEO and the other half as a Philosopher, creating hundreds of his PhilosophersNotes — summaries of all sorts of brilliant books worth reading.
As a Founder/CEO, he’s built and sold two market-leading social platforms. As a Philosopher, he’s served tens of thousands of people from every country in the world with his Optimize membership, and he has also trained over 3,500 people from 90+ countries with his Optimize Coach program — a 300-day program scientifically proven to change lives for the better.
Most recently, in March 2021, with the support of 2,500+ Founding Investors from dozens of countries around the world, Brian’s new business — Heroic — made history. And just recently, Brian has begun giving away a big chunk of his life’s work — for reasons he explains here.
Along the way, Brian and Pilar talk about what it means to be a “living experimenter,” about the inner voices and instincts that help each of us find our own way, and about the exciting paths Brian sees ahead as he embarks on the most ambitious project of his life and career — training heroes for a world that needs them more than ever.
As always, we wrap up with some fun experiments to help you connect with your own most inspired and heroic self.
“Optimize” Episode Highlights
- Brian’s personal and professional career arc, built on his low tolerance for doing things that just don’t feel right and his willingness to experiment
- Getting comfortable with failure as a necessary stop on the road to success, and overcoming the creatively paralyzing aspects of perfectionism
- The origins and evolution of PhilosophersNotes and Optimize
- Making important life decisions through experimentation — with self compassion and a sense of our common humanity
- Learning from mistakes, using challenges as fuel for growth — and ultimately enjoying the process
- How Heroic grew from Optimize
- Brian’s decision to give away his Optimize content and temporarily lower the price of his Optimize Coach program, and the amazing response to that
- Brian’s goal to prove with Heroic that virtue and benefiting the greater good can be a competitive advantage
- Defining the word “hero” — a protector with the strength to protect themselves, their values, and the people they care about, with love rather than violence
- Measuring Heroic’s success using “annual recurring virtue” rather than revenue — and creating a more virtuous world, one act, one person at a time
- Optimize Coach — a 300-day program for individuals who want to live their most heroic lives by mastering themselves and serving the world around them
Experiment of the Week
Become an Optimizer by signing up for a free Optimize by Heroic account.
Resources
- The Optimize by Heroic website — where you can access summaries of Pilar’s and Dallas’s books, plus hundreds more (PLUS Brian’s “101” master classes, and more)
- Become a Founding Member of the Heroic social training platform and express the best version of yourself
- The Heroic Coach (formerly Optimize Coach) program
- Learn more about the Heroic Public Benefit Corporation on Wefunder
- Pilar’s live video interview with Brian (where this episode was recorded)
- Brian’s favorite book, Tal Ben-Shahar’s The Pursuit of Perfect, and Brian’s Conquering Perfectionism 101 course
Like this podcast? You’ll love our books!
ORDER FROM AN INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLER
ORDER FROM AMAZON
ORDER FROM AN INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLER
ORDER FROM AMAZON
Plus …
Sign up for The Living Experiment newsletter so you can stay up to date with us, and receive notifications when new episodes are released.
Subscribe to The Living Experiment on Apple Podcasts to have fresh episodes delivered to your podcast feed as soon as they’re released.
Sponsor Love and FREEBIES
Thanks to our sponsor, Optimize by Heroic, for supporting this season of The Living Experiment. Now you can get Optimize membership (formerly $250) for FREE just by signing up here. And check out the Heroic social training platform, with a goal of creating a world in which 51% of the world’s population is flourishing by 2051 — starting with YOU!
Share the Love!
Have you told your friends and family about The Living Experiment? If you dig the podcast, please share it! And leave a review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you subscribe. Every recommendation from you means a lot!
We’d also love to have you connect with us on Facebook. Tell us about your experiments, and share your thoughts, stories and reflections there.