I am a longtime admirer of Brian Johnson. I first came across his Philosopher’s Notes, which were multipage summaries of great books. I like them because they were not too short, but also not too long and easily digestible. He eventually started a business called Heroic which aims to have at least 51% of the world flourishing by 2051. The dude is smart, compassionate, and driven to improve both himself and the world. Indeed, I’ve recommended his products before on my blog.

The reason I am revisiting his work is because Heroic just re-did their Philosopher’s Notes web experience and it is very cool if you are are type of person who is interested in great ideas. The site has 718 sets of book notes as of today (they generally add them consistently). The site also has 61 videos of Brian breaking down books.

A new feature that I think is cool is their Quests (see pic below). The Mental Toughness Quest has 9 books selected to work through. When you click on a note, you can access a pdf (which is downloadable) or an audio file, if you’d prefer listen.

The site also has an ‘AI Brian’ tool, where the user can query Brian about anything. I asked what it was trained on and it said: Here’s the rundown:

  • Heroic +1s: Daily audio nuggets (like 1,700+ episodes) on everything from journaling to epic challenges—bite-sized wisdom to level up moment to moment.

  • Areté and Optimize: Deep dives into Brian’s experiments in living at your highest potential, with journaling prompts, challenges, and frameworks like Basic Training.

  • Podcasts and talks: Heroic Wisdom Daily, live workshops, keynotes—hours of riffing on purpose, habits, relationships, energy, and creating a flourishing world.

  • Books and courses: Stuff like A Philosopher’s Notes (distilling 1,000+ ideas into 10 principles), Optimal Living 101 classes, and the Coach program.

I am a lifetime member of Heroic, so I’m not sure what it costs now to access this amazing resource. However, it is high quality and especially if you want to learn without spending all the time reading the entire books, Heroic’s Philosopher’s Notes website is worth exploring.