In this episode of the Being Well Podcast, top performance coach and author Brad Stulberg joins Forrest to reframe and reclaim excellence. Brad explains how real excellence – involved engagement with something you care about – is the healthy middle path between over-the-top hustle-culture and detached nonchalance. They discuss the current culture of pseudo-excellence, the risks and rewards of caring deeply, how modern life can derail us, and how the real prize is the person you become while trying to reach your goals. Brad shares practical tools to build the habit of excellence: clear aims, micro-milestones, consistency over intensity, constraint-based discipline, and connection.
About our Guest: Brad Stulberg is a regular contributor at the New York Times, the co-host of the Excellence, Actually podcast, and on faculty at the University of Michigan’s Graduate School of Public Health. He’s also the author of a number of books, including The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World.
Key Topics
- 0:00: Life feels better when we’re “trying well”
- 1:56: What does Brad mean by excellence?
- 3:42: What excellence is not
- 5:06: Staying on the path: how to keep going when results are slow
- 11:56: Excellence vs. skill
- 21:10: The Nonchalance Epidemic
- 27:29: Building your “identity house”
- 35:29: Specific tools for excellence
- 44:12: Excellence vs flow
- 50:10: Finding the enjoyable aspects of hard things
- 1:01:11: Gumption
- 1:03:57: “See the ball go through the net”
- 1:05:56: How to finish a process that never ends
- 1:13:22: Recap
Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there.
