Win Today

#237 | The Way of Excellence: How To Build A Life Of Meaningful Mastery Ft. Brad Stulberg

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What if excellence isn’t a finish line—but a way of living that shapes who you become?

In this episode of Win Today, I sit down with Brad Stulberg, bestselling author of Peak Performance and The Practice of Groundedness, to unpack his brand-new book, The Way of Excellence.

We explore how excellence has been hijacked by hustle culture—and how to reclaim it as a value-driven practice rooted in meaning, consistency, and personal integrity.

Brad breaks down the core framework from The Way of Excellence, including:

  • Why true excellence starts with engaged involvement, not performative effort
  • How to choose worthwhile pursuits that energize you instead of draining you
  • The role identity plays in sustaining long-term mastery
  • Why values—not vanity metrics—should guide your goals

We also dive into:

  • “Zombie burnout” and why it often comes from too little meaningful challenge
  • How to design systems that favor consistency over intensity
  • Protecting focus from “attention vampires” in a noisy world
  • Holding outcome goals without letting them define your worth
  • Letting failure sting just long enough to learn—and then returning to the craft

Brad shares practical tools you can apply immediately: monthly and weekly goal setting, guarding deep focus, revisiting values at the right cadence, and reframing winning as giving your full effort in a way you respect.

If you’re tired of hustle theater and ready to build excellence that actually lasts, this conversation will reset how you think about success.

Thank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.
Keep in touch below!

SPEAKER_00:

Reflect on your values. Reflect on your goals. See if they're aligned. And if they're not, ask yourself, have my values changed or do I have the wrong goals? And if you don't have a goal that aligns with your values, don't freak out about that. The world is overwhelming. It's chaotic. The subtitle of this book is literally a guide to true greatness and deep satisfaction in a chaotic world. Don't feel bad if you don't have a big goal. But maybe consider having one. Maybe consider what that would do for your physical health, for your mental health, for your spiritual health, and try to find something that aligns with those values where you care about the outcome on the scoreboard, but even more so you care about being a different, better kind of person.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Win Today. This show is crafted for those who want to win in every aspect of their lives. Every week you will learn from a renowned thought leader that will share a piece of a winning playbook that you can incorporate into your life. If this show has a positive impact on you and you see value in it, please share it with somebody and leave a rating in review so we can help more people win. What if excellence wasn't an outcome, but a process and a journey? We have Brad Stahlberg back with us today, who is exploring that very note as to what excellence actually is. He recently came out with his newest book, The Way of Excellence, and it's an honor to have him back with us. Brad, so stoked that you're here with us two years later since our first interview. Ryan, it's a pleasure to be back. Thank you for inviting me. It appears that you have impeccable timing in that our last discussion in 2024 was right as Master of Change was coming out. And during that time frame, the world was still shortly recovering from COVID. We were entering an election year as a country, and there was a lot of variability in our world and our lives. Now, with the way of excellence, I'm curious as to the impetus for coming out with this topic now. Why, what's stirring up in you that had you focus on excellence and defining that better for us?

SPEAKER_00:

Think a couple of things. Personally, in my own little world, this book very much feels like the culmination of really my last two decades work, which started out trying to understand human performance and then from there broadened to explore health, flourishing, what it means to do well beyond just the scoreboard. And to me, excellence is really the coming together of all of these ideas. So, how do you establish a rhythm where you are firing on all cylinders, uh, where you are working towards meaningful, worthwhile goals that light you up? And in the process where you're becoming a better person. Uh so personally, it feels like, again, this kind of um this peak to use a mountain metaphor for my own intellectual journey over the last two decades. What's going around us culturally that led me to this idea right now is I think that we've seen an enormous rise in what I've come to call pseudo-excellence. And I define pseudo-excellence as uh people that are interested generally in selling some sort of product uh with the appearance of being great, um, without actually doing the work to be great. Um, this is also often seen in something that people refer to as hustle culture. Uh so grind, grind, grind, never stop, have the perfect protocols, have the perfect routines, uh, make sure you're posting from you know your cold plunge, showing your six-pack every morning at 4 a.m. and on and on and on. And it seemed like what was happening was there was so much of this kind of um pseudo-excellence hustle culture that people would hear the term excellence and they'd be turned off by it because they'd think, like, ugh, I don't want that. Like that's what all the, that's what all the bros are doing. Like, that's not for me. Um, and uh a big part of this project is really to reclaim what excellence actually is, uh, which is an utterly humanistic pursuit of caring about something deeply, of giving it your all, and of pursuing it in a way that aligns with your values and allows you to express your potential. And that is so much more than the hustle culture version.

SPEAKER_01:

I appreciate the definition you've put around it. And I went back and listened to the first rebranded episode of the podcast Excellence Actually. So that's Brad and Steve Magnus and Clay Skipper's podcast. And you define it in a way that I've I've never seen before, and it's three parts: involved engagement in worthwhile pursuits that align with your values and goals. We're in a new year, Brad, where this is a topic that a lot of people are starting to research. How do I achieve my goals? How do I become a better person, more focused? So, with that definition in mind, how can we craft a meaningful relationship with excellence and even perhaps create our own definition of it that's not the pseudo-excellence version that you were just talking about?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that it comes down to really all three of those facets of the definition. Um, so the first is this notion of involved engagement. And what I mean by that is a level of concentration and presence and caring for some sort of pursuit or activity in your life. Um, this often means protecting time, space, and energy to enter a place where you don't have external distractions, but also ideally where you don't have internal distractions. And there's so much research that shows that we humans, we thrive when we are having full concentration towards something that we care about. So that's the involved engagement. Then the the second component is the worthwhile pursuits. And that's essentially figuring out like, well, what is something that you deem worthwhile? I mean, if you deem making paper airplanes worthwhile, great. Then you could be excellent in making paper airplanes and you could devote tons of time to that craft. Uh, but most people want to do more than just make paper airplanes. They want to train for a marathon, they want to learn an instrument, they want to learn a language, they want to rise to a leadership role in their organization and become an excellent leader or an excellent coach. They want to be able to deadlift more weight than they had in the past. Uh, they want to make beautiful woodwork and tables and chairs and on and on and on. And worthwhile is in the eye of the beholder, right? But everyone's gonna have a different definition of activities that are worthwhile. But that's the second part, right? You could be completely involved in something that you think is not worthwhile, and that would not be excellence. And then the the third part that aligns with your values and goals is so important because my rendering of excellence is not just about the outcome. It's not just about the table or your marathon time. It's also about the person that you become along the way. So I firmly believe that when you are pursuing something with involved engagement, with that level of concentration and respect and even intimacy, not only are you working on the activity, but the activity is also working on you. So you're working towards running your three and a half hour marathon, but you're learning all of these things that are making you a better person in the process. So ideally, the worthwhile pursuit that you engage in is also shaping you in a way that, again, aligns with the person that you want to become. And when all three of those elements are there, you unlock this incredible feeling and this incredible performance. And that's what excellence really is. And the last little bit of framework I'll give is that the result of that are these two fundamental attributes that are just so important to human flourishing and life satisfaction. And that is mastery and mattering. In decades of research, hundreds of studies show that when we have these two attributes in our lives, we feel really good and we perform our best. So, what does mastery mean? It means making concrete progress on skills. So getting better at something, feeling like we are improving. That is like a deep-seated human need. What is mattering? It's feeling like what we are doing actually is important. It has some impact.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. And I appreciate how you frame it really as a process of becoming. Because when we focus purely on an outcome, like when I'm talking about people setting goals, don't just write down run a marathon because it sounds cool. But if there's some meaning associated with it, such as, hey, I want this to, I want to run a marathon so that I can become healthier, or so I can set an example for my kids, that health is important, and that's something that can then exist in our family for decades to come. Now we've created actual meaning to that, to that goal. Uh, can you talk more about the first piece of research that you alluded to? That when just by having something that is meaningful to us, research shows that uh we have increased levels of satisfaction in life. Anything really particular that stands out that you would want people to know regarding, hey, this is really why this is important and why you should focus on it in this new year.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that um the main reason is that there's this incredible risk in the modern world that we essentially just numb ourselves to death. So you can spend an entire day scrolling social media, um, listening to podcasts on Forex speed, um, just kind of like going through the motions in the name of productivity or in the name of staying up on current events or what's happening, or comparing yourself to other people. Um and then that can become a week. And then that week can become a month, and then that month can become a year. And everybody that's listening to this, I know for a fact, because I've had it, I know you've had it, that hangover feeling where you just are like doom scrolling. And when you're done, you're like, ugh, this feels terrible. But it's a rut that we can fall into. And I think that excellence is such a like an antidote in opposing pursuit to really like make you feel like you're fully alive. Uh, it takes you out of this mode of maybe where you're just like existing in the world to really living in the world. And that comes again from these three things, right? From finding a goal that lights you up, giving it your full involved engagement, and then doing it in a way where it's also shaping yourself as a person. And when you have those three things, my God, like you just feel so much better. And you also just you live up to your potential that way. I mean, it's the name of the podcast, right? Like you win today, and if you win today over and over again, then you win this week, then you win this year, and then you win this life, and that's kind of the goal that we all have.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it continues to to compound. So, what what's your process, Brad, in terms of we just entered a new year, but at the time of recording, we're still in 2025. So a lot of us are about to start taking inventory on how this year went and what we want the next year to to look like. So, taking taking this framework into account, if we're gonna apply that into okay, I'm taking this for my 2026 goals now, I'm gonna have the most meaningful year of my life, and I'm not gonna chase outcomes, but I'm really gonna become this ideal person that I ultimately envision. How can we put that into application, or what does that look like for you as you got your 2026 goals ready?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, um, I think the first thing is it it starts with understanding what your values are. Um, so example values could be integrity, strength, health, mastery, uh, respect, kindness, compassion, wisdom, intellect. Uh, there's a list of a hundred in the book itself of commonly held core values. So those are just a handful of examples. And before even thinking about goals, I would encourage you to think about your values, like really have a keen sense of what your values are, and then how do you define it? So let's say that one of your values is um strength. Well, what does strength mean to you? Or one of your values is presence. Well, what does presence mean to you? Once you define your values, then you can ask yourself, what are some goals that allow me to sharpen these values? So if a value of yours is health, then maybe there's a goal around the food that you ate. Maybe there's a goal around physical activity. If one of your values is presence, maybe there's a goal around mindfulness, maybe there's a goal around having a device-free digital Sabbath. Um, but you start with the values and then you use those values to help select the goal. So running a marathon, like you said earlier, just for the sake of being able to say I ran a marathon, is a pretty shallow reason to run a marathon. Running a marathon because one of your core values is health and you think it will make you healthier is a great reason. Running a marathon because one of your core values is curiosity and you want to explore what it's like to push your physical limits, is another great reason. Running a marathon because one of your core values is community or relationships, and there's a great running club in your town is another great reason. But I think a trap that people often fall into is they just start with the goal instead of starting downstream with what do I value, and then trying to have goals that that help you practice your values. Because in any goal that we set, there's like a there's an a finite outcome and an infinite outcome. And the finite outcome is time bound and we either win or lose. So you either finish the marathon or you don't. You start the business or you don't. Um, you know, you you get the 2000 tress rating or you don't. And that's very important. Those results matter. However, at the same time, there's this infinite game that we're playing where the outcome is ongoing and the whole point is just to learn and grow. And that is, well, did it make me a more caring person? Did it make me a braver person? Um, did it stoke my curiosity? And anytime we pick a goal, we just want to make sure that we're working towards both of those finite and infinite outcomes at the same time.

SPEAKER_01:

And taking that into account and connecting with our values, so we've done that. We've developed something that we really hold dear to our heart. And then we also know that once I complete this thing or along this journey, I believe it's going to make me a more caring person. We've got that. Now, one thing as it relates to our goals now, value-driven goals, is that's still awesome to have, but really we've got to form a system around it and form the habits and discipline now that support us actually arriving at that destination. One of the one of the things that's called out in this book is a way to develop habits and focus unlike we ever have before. So if we've already taken this step, now it's the habits and focus component. What insights do you have there, Brad, that can allow us to reach that destination because now it's we're on the value-driven side?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's there's so many different places to start here. Um I think the most important is once you have that goal, that big goal that aligns with your values, to break it down into its component parts. Um, what I mean by that is every goal has these kind of objectives that might fall into here's what I need to do this month, here's what I need to do this week, here's what I need to do today to work toward the goal. And the more specific that we can get, the more micro we can get, the more it keeps us present because instead of focusing on this big overwhelming goal if it's down the road, we just focus on what we need to do today. The more we stay patient, because instead of saying, oh my gosh, running a marathon is such a big goal, it's so far off. I just know that today I did my two mile run. So like I got the win today. It keeps me on the path. And it also helps us stay consistent. Um, and I think that so often what happens with uh this like pseudo-excellence or hustle culture greatness is people really celebrate intensity. Uh, so like these go see God efforts where you just destroy yourself. Um, and that makes for great social media content, but that doesn't make for a champion of anything. And champions are born from consistency, from showing up day in and day out, from developing a rhythm where any acute day might not be the hardest thing you've ever done in your life, but the chronic load of what you're doing is unimaginable for where you were when you started. Um, and I think that this notion of like having a mindset and a practice that allows for consistency over intensity is just so, so, so important. Uh and again, I think that like anyone can go out and kill themselves for a day. It's really not that hard. Uh, if you told me that you wanted me to go do push-ups until I puke, I could get on the ground and be done with that in 25 minutes. What's actually hard is figuring out a program, a system that allows you to stay consistent over the next year so that you can really build something that is meaningful and lasting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. There's a new topic that you introduce in this book, which I haven't seen before, but on that notion of consistency over intensity, there's another thing that I'd love to explore, this topic of zombie burnout. Yeah. What are the insights that you have with zombie burnout and how do we stay away from that in this new year?

SPEAKER_00:

So there's there's two kinds of burnouts. Um, what I call traditional burnout or type one burnout, or the burnout that is talked about a lot, is when you burn out from just doing way too much. Um, this is trying to work 80-hour weeks, week in, week out on limited sleep, or not making time for your relationships, uh, so on and so forth. It's just the workload is so high that it's unsustainable and you burn out. And that's the kind of burnout that has been, again, in the zeitgeist for the last five years. There have been books, academic articles written about it, on and on and on. But what I've observed over the last couple of years is like there's this other kind of burnout that is very different. And I call it zombie burnout or type two burnout. And zombie burnout doesn't come from doing too much. It actually comes from not doing enough of things that actually light you up. So zombie burnout is when you're just kind of coasting on autopilot and you're just kind of going through the motions, but you don't have anything in your life that really excites you or that lights you up. You're lacking that goal that aligns with your values. You're lacking something that allows you to push and explore your potential. And with zombie burnout, again, the fear isn't that you're gonna do way too much. The fear is that you're actually gonna burn out just from not having anything that really makes you feel alive, from numbing yourself to death. Um, I'm sure that we all know people in our lives like this. There can be two people, and both can work. I don't know, let's pick something very reasonable. Both can work a 45-hour week. And one person can be absolutely thriving and on fire and just in love with life, and the other person can be burnt out. But they're both working 45 hours. So it's not the number of hours they're working. One person is spending their days in a job where they feel like they're going through the motions, and then they come home and then they zone zone out in front of social media or the TV, and that's what they do. The other person might be in a job that they really like, they're challenging themselves with meaningful. Projects, maybe they're not in a job that they like, but then they come home and they have this robust goal that's outside of their job that lights them up. That person's not going to burn out. That person's going to be full of energy. Um, so I think when we talk about burnout, it's really important to remember this other kind of burnout, um, which actually includes injecting more into your life, more things that light you up, more things that make you feel alive.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it sounds like the the antidote to zombie burnout is really being connected to your to your values. So it's like we're coming back full circle in a way, in that our values and connecting to our values are the first key to excellence. And correct me if that's misstated at all.

SPEAKER_00:

No, not at all. I think that um you've got to know, you've got to know what is important to you. And again, you have to know like what what what kind of person do you want to be? Because when you're acting and living out of alignment with your values, there's this dissonance that just doesn't feel good. When you're acting and living predominantly in alignment with your values, um that dissonance goes away. And and and that's when things really can start to click. And it doesn't mean that it's easy, like it's still really hard trying to throw your all into something and to get the most out of yourself, whether it's a very objective, outcomes-based thing, like uh lowering your golf handicap, or whether it's something much more subjective, like being a phenomenal parent or a phenomenal leader or coach, um, it's exhausting. It requires sacrifice. You've got to make yourself vulnerable, you've got to step into the arena. None of this stuff's easy, but if it aligns with your values, then it's so fulfilling and so satisfying and so meaningful. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

It Brad, one thing that we discussed last time you were on was around was actually we had a values-based discussion. And how often or is there a recommended frequency in which we should visit our values? Because I remember asking, are your values always fixed or have they evolved over time? And I really love the brief discussion we had around that. And we've learned that, hey, our values can evolve. Certain things in our lives change. Perhaps we have a new family, we've entered a new environment, etc. But I would imagine that it's probably not conducive to update your values every single week or month. We want to become fixated on something so that we can start moving for a while. So any thoughts around, hey, connect with your values, but then what about how often should we revisit? Hey, is this value still something that I is in fact of value to me, or is it moved off to the side now?

SPEAKER_00:

I like to revisit my values annually. Um, and I think around the new year is a great time to do it. Uh, I focus less on resolutions and more on doing an inventory of my values and goals, as we've discussed. Um, I think another good time to revisit your values is during a major life event. Uh, so a marriage, a divorce, the birth of a child, uh a new job, a graduation from school, uh the death of a parent, like these things that kind of zonk us to life and say, like, whoa, you know, mortality is is a real thing, or like, wow, like life can change on a dime. Um, those are also good times to do values inventory. So I think no more than uh three times a year, no less than once a year.

SPEAKER_01:

I want to get some insights on the people who sustain excellence versus those that maybe they get little tastes of it or they've touched it once and then now they've they've gone back down. Through your work, Brad, and and working with elite athletes and studying high-performing organizations. What have you found in those that sustain excellence and it's truly ingrained in their DNA versus that gap for those that get little tastes of it?

SPEAKER_00:

There's a couple of factors that I think really move the needle most. The first is uh care. And you have to care deeply about what you do. Um you can chase status or a trophy or points on the scoreboard and be really good for a couple years. But if you don't really care about what you do, if you don't fall in love with the game, whatever the game may be, then it's gonna be somewhat short-lived. And when you care deeply about something, you expose yourself, you make yourself vulnerable because you you lay it all on the line, right? Giving something your all is scary because sometimes you fail. And then there's no excuse. There's no saying, like, oh, I didn't try my hardest, that's why I failed. It's like, no, I let it out there and I failed. Um, so caring deeply not only requires um some self-awareness to make sure that your your pursuits are aligned with your values, but it also requires some courage to like really step in the arena and lay it on the line. But caring deeply is just integral to that long-term encoding excellence in your DNA. Another factor that I think is really important is the ability to focus and to get really clear on the attention vampires in your life. So what detracts from your intention and concentration, and to create, set aside times and spaces where you remove those to focus on your craft. Something else that I think is integral to encoding excellence in one's DNA is the importance of discipline, um, of being able to make choices that might make you a little bit uncomfortable in the short term for better long-term outcomes, setting constraints around the things that you do in your life to make sure that you're protecting that time and energy to care deeply and to focus on your primary craft. And then something else that I'll mention that came up again and again in the reporting on this book is the marriage of intensity and joy. So people often think that you're either having fun or you're super intense. But what I found in individuals who really sustain excellence is they do both at the same time. So they have this ferocious drive and this fierce intensity about them. And they also have tons of fun. And I think that the chip on your shoulder, David Goggin's always be angry approach is like burning coal. You can get an enormous fire out of it, but it's not very sustainable, right? Like it leads all kinds of pollutants in its wake. Whereas elite performers on balance who are able to do it for a long time, they also have fun. And it's a lot easier to come back to something and to do something that's really hard if you're having fun while you do it. And make no mistake, it doesn't mean every day is going to be fun. Doesn't mean it's gonna be pleasurable. I didn't say like prioritize hedonic pleasure, but you got to be able to smile and say, like, this is crazy. And even on the days that suck, you kind of have to be able to laugh at yourself and have fun with it. And um, fun is just one hell of a longevity maker.

SPEAKER_01:

Is there a particular person that you would say is a is a champion of what you just described there? So we'll say that David Goggins is a champion of purely intensity, but yeah, the joy does not exist, does not coexist. But to is there a particular person or leader that stands out that, hey, if you want to see what this looks like in practice, this is the person that you should go take a look at.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, no shade to Goggins. Goggins is incredible at voluntary suffering. I think he's world class at voluntary suffering. And I think for a lot of people that um just need to expose themselves to doing something hard, I think his message is great. Um, but Goggins has never performed anything in an elite level. He's not an elite runner, his times aren't very good. Um, he's just good at lasting. Let's look at actual elite performers. Steph Curry. You want to talk about someone who has the biggest freaking smile on his face during practice, during games, who's just out there looking like a kid in middle school. And Steph Curry is not the most naturally gifted basketball player. He's, you know, he's six foot two, he's not very tall. He wasn't drafted super highly, he didn't go to a huge time school. So he works his ass off. He has every bit as much intensity as someone like David Goggins, and he also has a shit ton of fun and joy with what he's doing. Another example of this, Shohei Otani, world's best baseball player in the world. He obviously is a unicorn, he's super gifted. Watching him play baseball, he is never angry. He's always smiling. A pitcher throws at him and his team gets angry. He pushes them back and he smiles. He says, Guys, we're out here playing a game that we dreamed about. Let's have some fun. Performing artist, someone that I interviewed for the book, a guy named John Morland, phenomenal singer-songwriter, one of the best in the business. You know what I asked John Moreland? I said, like, tell me about your process. And I'm not encouraging anybody to um to do drugs on this podcast. That's not my goal, but I'm just talking about how someone can be elite and have fun. He told me that he gets zoned in during the songwriting process. And like he he he is a crafts person, right? He chips away at every single lyric like it's a brick. And then I'm like, well, what do you do when you leave the studio? And he's like, I go smoke a joint. And then I do it again. And again, I'm not encouraging that, but it's it's the opposite of like the nothing can ever be, you know, nothing can ever be loose. And I think that in a lot of truly excellent people, it's not that they're loose all the time. If all you do is smile and all you do is smoke the joint, you're not gonna be very good. And again, I'm not condoning smoking a joint here. But if you can have that intensity when you're in the studio or when the game's on the line and at the same time have that lightheartedness that keeps it fun, I think like that's the key to excellence. And the truth is this there are two roads to the top of the mountain. There's the David Goggins road, there's the Michael Jordan road of anger and you know, suffering in pure intensity and no joy. And there's the road of Giannis Anta de Cumpo, who I didn't mention, Steph Curry, Shohei Otani, John Moreland, Courtney DeWalter, the best ultra runner in the world, Aliad Kimchogi, the best marathoner in the world, that has a ton of joy. And the truth is, both roads work. And it's really hard to get to the top of the mountain regardless. So you might as well choose the road that also allows you to smile and have fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. It was, I love that. And I love the excitement coming out there, and I want to have a conversation about each one of these people because they're so incredible. As a matter of fact, I was just at the New York Marathon on Sunday and for the first time spectating instead of running. And there was something unique about Kipchoki in that at mile seven, we're he came by, and of course, I'm I'm going nuts. You know, you get to see the goat right in front of your very eyes. And I watched the video, I recorded it, I watched it in slow-mo over and over and over again. Of course, I'm studying the form, wanting to become a better runner myself, but then Kipchogi's face.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Everybody else's face, very focused, which as as as it should be, but then Kipchogi. There's this slight smile and smirk that nobody else has. And that was, I really appreciate you bringing that up because I just thought, wow, I got to see that in real life just a few days ago.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And again, I'm not, this isn't like sing, you know, sing kumbaya and hold hands. Like Kipchogi runs 120 miles a week, definitely doesn't smoke joints, lives like a monk. Um, you know, has told me before when I was reporting for this book that he says no to so many parties and galas and marketing deals and all these things he could do because he's so focused on his craft. So that intensity is absolutely there. And he finds deep joy in it. Like it's not born out of anger or proving someone wrong. It's born out of like joy and curiosity and self-discovery. And I think that is a big misnomer, right? That's like pseudo-excellence or hustle culture excellence is like gotta be out to beat everyone, got to have a chip on your shoulder, got to prove everyone wrong. Genuine excellence is you got to work your ass off. And sometimes there are people that you want to prove wrong and use for motivation, but my God, like you better have fun while you're doing this because you're not gonna last otherwise.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. Brad, just before we brought up that third component of the intensity and joy, you talked about when we as we were talking through the people that sustain excellence, that they choose discipline and are also aware and cognizant of, I believe you coined it, attention vampires. For you as an author, how have you built a system or how have you worked to incorporate that into your own life so that you can stay ultimately focused on producing the work that we have in our hands today, this this very book that we have in our hands? Uh, how does that apply in your life in terms of discipline and focus and things you need to remove or what's worked well so that you can ultimately move forward at the rate that you want to?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's it's it's an ongoing practice and it is a challenge, especially in today's environment where there's so many distractions. Um, I think a couple of things. The first is when I'm in the writing process of a book, I tend to do my best work in the first part of the day. So between 6 a.m. and noon, let's say. That starts the night before. So I don't drink when I'm writing a book, right? Not a single beer, because I got to wake up early and I got to be sharp. Uh I go to bed pretty early when I'm in the process of writing a book and trying to wake up at six because sleep is really important. It's important to creativity, it's important to focus. I have to be really cognizant of the devices in how I structure my time with them. And by devices, I mean my smartphones, social media apps, these things. Um, when I'm writing a book, I physically don't have my phone in the room with me when I sit down to write. And I don't have my internet browser open. And if I'm doing research, uh, I'll do the research before I sit down to write so that I can reference the research in an outline, but I'm not essentially on the internet because it's just, it's, it's like a candy shop of distractions. I don't want to subject myself to that. Um, the other thing that's really important to me is going on long walks. Uh, and doing some of these walks either without my phone or doing walks where I don't allow myself to pull out my phone and use it. So I just pick an album or I pick a podcast, I hit go on it, and then I just walk. I'm not checking my text, I'm not checking my email, I'm not checking social media. And those walks for me are like such an incredible uh time for creative ideas to come, to come flowing. Um and then I think that also I'm really cognizant of the inputs. Uh so reading other books of authors that I admire, uh, music is a big inspiration for me. So like listening to my favorite singer songwriters, especially like when I'm deep in writing a book, just trying to surround myself with like other examples of craftspersonship that I admire, because I do believe like there's this absorption or this osmosis. Um, so if I'm watching, you know, Shohei Otani or Yashinobu Yamamoto play baseball, and I'm listening to Jason Ispo uh in one ear, and um I just feel like that that inspires me then to do my best work.

SPEAKER_01:

Hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love the I appreciate the the references there. One last piece with research. Now, one piece of one thing that I really admire about your work is that it is so well researched. And I also love that you bring up so many different concepts of, like we talked about last time, non-dual thinking, that we can have multiple things that coexist that may be made to the normal person, not to the normal person, but to the uh traditional way of thinking seem counterintuitive. What's one really compelling piece of research that you can't stop thinking about as it relates to this book, or that maybe just really stopped you in your tracks as you are getting ready to uh put this, put this out?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it comes from a study out of the University of Virginia uh where a researcher had a group of study participants um sit in a room for 15 minutes with nothing to distract them. So no phone, no book, no notebook, uh just them in a chair with a white wall in front of them. And they were given the option just to sit still for 15 minutes or to shock themselves with an electrical circuit. And 67% of men chose to shock themselves. 25% of women chose to shock themselves. It's interesting there's all these theories on the discrepancy, but still, a vast majority of men and a sizable minority of women chose to shock themselves with an electrical shock. Think of like a shock collar that sometimes people will use to train their dog. Human beings decided to do this just instead of sit for 15 minutes. And I think that that shows just how conditioned and how habituated we've become to the need for constant novelty, constant stimulus, how addicted we've become to being distracted, that we would literally rather inflict the pain of an electrical shock than just sit. And then I can't help but think that we all do the equivalent of shocking ourselves throughout the day. So you're trying to play with your kid and you pull out your phone to check social media, you've just shocked yourself. You're sitting down to write or to work on a big presentation, and you pull up a browser to go to the latest uh, you know, quote unquote breaking news story that you've already looked at 42 times that day. You just shocked yourself. Uh, you're pursuing a big goal that really matters to you. And instead of staying focused on the goal, you drift to whatever gossip or conspiracy or tribalism, you get super angry about it, and then you shortchange your workout or your practice session. You just shocked yourself. So on the one hand, we look at the study and we're like, I would never do that. These people are insane. That can't be me. But then on the other hand, think about all the times that we essentially shock ourselves instead of sit with some boredom or sit with uh some lack of novelty.

SPEAKER_01:

Hmm. I want to say I'm surprised by that research, but I'm not, especially in the time that we live in now. Brad, one thing that I've been very curious about this year, I launched a newsletter called Winning Is. So win today. Now I'm curious, what does winning actually mean? And I'm gonna make that a point in every discussion that I have on the podcast. Because just like excellence isn't an outcome-driven destination, I don't believe that winning is either. And a former version of me would have. But if I ask you, what is winning to you? How would you describe that?

SPEAKER_00:

Winning is giving something your all, leaving it out there, laying it on the line in a way that aligns with your values, in a way that you're proud of. And sometimes the scoreboard's gonna be in your favor, hopefully, more often than not. Sometimes the scoreboard's not gonna be in your favor, but if you keep coming Back and stepping to the arena and playing again, then ultimately you're winning the infinite game, which is you're becoming a better person.

SPEAKER_01:

If I asked Brad one or two decades ago that same question, would that have been the response that you gave?

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe one decade ago. Two decades ago, I'm not so sure.

SPEAKER_01:

It's always interesting, especially those that that have a an athletic background, that I'll ask that question to. I had a I had a sports psychologist on from Minnesota a few weeks ago. She's a performance coach for the Minnesota Vikings and a former track standout athlete. She mentioned that winning to her a decade prior, based off her current age now, would have been the time on the track and whether or not she won that race because at the time she was the top track athlete coming out of the state of Iowa. So I always love to see just what is it to somebody now? And and I've not found a single person that has mentioned an outcome-based response. It's pretty, it's pretty fun asking this question.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a great question. I think that in high school, certainly, it would have been uh, you know, winning a state championship or getting a a scholarship to play football would have been winning. Um so I don't know, three decades ago, then yeah, it would have been something very different. Um I also think that back to things being able to coexist, you can have a secondary goal. So I answered what winning is, but then you could ask me, all right, well, then what are some outcomes that you want to see? And then I'd say, well, I want this book to be on the New York Times bestseller list. I want to deadlift 550 pounds. Um, I want to uh, I mean, those are really like the only two outcome goals, right? My goals around family and parenting. They're they don't have clear outcomes. And I still care deeply about those outcomes. But that's not how I define winning. Um, and I think that oftentimes what happens in sports psychology is like the pendulum can shift so far away from outcomes to like process, process, process, become a better person. And yeah, like that's at the top of the hierarchy, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to have more points than the other person on the scoreboard or wanting to get the promotion or wanting to hit the bestseller list or wanting to break 100,000 downloads, whatever the number is. Like it's good to want those metrics. I think sometimes if you don't want those metrics, it's because you're scared to fail. And it's better to really want them and risk failure. However, again, that's not at the top of the hierarchy. The top of the hierarchy is about giving it your all, becoming a better person. That's a level underneath that.

SPEAKER_01:

On the note of, and I appreciate that that you brought that up because at times I often wonder, should we even have so many outcome-driven, we'll call it secondary goals? Yeah. But I love that you mentioned, hey, that like if you you should. That means you care. That means it's really important. That's what I just heard. On the topic of failure, do you see failure for failure? Or is there an alternate definition in your mind for that as well?

SPEAKER_00:

It's the shortest chapter in the book, is the chapter on failure. Um, because I think all this stuff has been written on failure, and much of it's very good on failing forward, on learning from failure, uh, on failure being necessary, um, on nobody getting away without failure. And I agree with all of that. And I think that in the moment, failure hurts and it sucks, especially if you gave something your all. And it's okay to let it hurt, and it's okay to have it suck. And the love of the game, whatever the game may be, has got to be bigger than the pain of failure. And then you just keep going. And sometimes you keep going later that day, sometimes you keep going later that week. If it's a failure at game seven of the World Series or in the Olympic final, maybe it takes a month before you pick yourself up and get going again. But I think we overintellectualize failure a lot instead of just saying failure sucks, it's inevitable, learn from it if you can, let it hurt, let it sting, and then just get back to work.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, keep rolling. Brad, two more for you. One, what is the best way for us to support you, show you love, and be be evangelist of your of your mission in this coming year?

SPEAKER_00:

The the best way is definitely to grab a copy of the the new book, The Way of Excellence. Uh, you can get it wherever you get books, get it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Bookshop, your local bookseller, um, and just to please enjoy it, read the book, wrestle with it, try to apply it to your own life. Uh, if you find it resonant, share it with your colleagues, your teammates, your family, your friends. Um, I really think that yes, there's the book is really kind of like a process goal, but the ultimate goal is redefining excellence and reclaiming excellence. Uh, and that's got to be a lot more than me and a lot more than this book. It's gonna be everyone reading it, engaging with it, and sharing it.

SPEAKER_01:

Everyone get the book. And last one, Brad, as opposed to the three question rapid fire, one elevator question. What's how can how can we start our journey of excellence today? What's one step we can take? How many floors do I have in the elevator? You get you get one floor. Oh, one floor too. That's they're they're they're tall floors.

SPEAKER_00:

That's quick. Um I think reflect on your values and reflect on your goals and see if they're aligned. And if they're not, ask yourself, have my values changed or do I have the wrong goals? And if you don't have a goal that aligns with your values, don't freak out about that. The world is overwhelming. It's chaotic. The subtitle of this book is literally um a guide to true greatness and deep satisfaction in a chaotic world. Like, don't feel bad if you don't have a big goal, but maybe consider having one. Maybe consider what that would do for your physical health, for your mental health, for your spiritual health, um, and in and try to find something that aligns with those values where you care about the outcome on the scoreboard, but even more so, you care about being a different, better kind of person.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it. Brad, as always, thank you so much, not only for the opportunity today, but thank you for how you serve the world and how you are redefining, helping redefine what excellence really means, and so that we can craft our own definition and build a meaningful relationship with it and win today. Thank you so much.

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Ryan Cass

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