**I Spent 20 Years Studying Excellence, Here’s What The Best Have in Common | Brad Stulberg — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/studying-excellence-what-best-have-common-brad-stulberg/

Brad Stulberg, a 20-year excellence researcher, joins Tim Gallwey on The Inner Game Podcast to discuss how true excellence comes from consistency, presence, and getting out of one's own way.

## Key Takeaways

- Excellence comes from consistent daily fundamentals, not from complex routines or biohacking.
- Accountability means showing up and doing the work, even on days when it doesn't feel great.
- Interference from self-doubt and overthinking blocks natural excellence; trusting the body and getting out of one's own way unlocks flow.
- Measure your excellence against your own standards and expression, not other people's evaluations or metrics.

## What the video covers

- Brad Stulberg, author of The Way of Excellence and The Practice of Groundedness, has spent 20 years studying excellence and coaches pro athletes, surgeons, and founders.
- Stulberg criticizes 'pseudo-excellence' and hustle culture, where complex routines, biohacking, and tracking metrics can become a way to avoid accountability for simply showing up and doing the work.
- He argues that people at the top of their crafts keep the main things the main things, focusing on fundamentals and repeating them consistently.
- Tim Gallwey explains that the Inner Game of Tennis is about quieting the 'little teacher' in the head and letting natural excellence and the body's instincts express themselves.
- Stulberg's introduction to the Inner Game came from a triathlon coach; he found the book transformed him as a person, though over-tracking had made him a champion of training but not of racing.
- Stulberg describes writing as driven by feel and gut rather than pure intellect, especially in editing, and emphasizes daily consistency over streaks, accepting that some days are off.
- Both speakers stress that self-doubt, fear, and overanalysis are the main obstacles to excellence, and that letting go of interference allows flow states to emerge.
- The conversation touches on balancing career and family, where minimum effective doses sustain relationships and companies over the long term.
- Stulberg notes that many mindfulness practices downregulate the nervous system, which is necessary but not sufficient for being ready to perform.
- Gallwey reflects on teaching kids to compete in a way that is fun and rooted in personal growth rather than external evaluation.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Pseudo-Excellence and Complex Routines
2. 03:34 Introducing Brad Stulberg and His Work
3. 10:44 Excellence as Natural Self-Expression
4. 19:57 Discovering the Inner Game of Tennis
5. 32:14 Consistency, Fundamentals, and Flow
6. 44:40 Writing by Feel and Daily Practice
7. 59:40 Balancing Career, Family, and Coaching
8. 77:00 Competition, Kids, and Looking Ahead

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is the main critique of 'pseudo-excellence' in this video?

Stulberg argues that complex routines, constant optimization, and biohacking can become a way to avoid the real work of showing up consistently. He says no one awards medals for having the most complicated routine.

How did Brad Stulberg first encounter The Inner Game of Tennis?

A triathlon coach gave him the book shortly after graduate school, when he was training seriously for long-course triathlon but struggling to perform on race day. He says the book transformed him as a person, helping him relax his over-tracking.

What does Tim Gallwey mean by the 'little teacher' in your head?

Gallwey describes it as the internal voice constantly trying to correct and control how you play, which interferes with the body's natural instincts. Quieting that voice allows excellence to emerge.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

Optimize this efficiency of that.

00:09

Speaker A

Creatine maxing, life maxing, vitamin B12. There's no gold medal for having the most complex routine. No one gives a [ \_\_ ] how complex your routine is. I call it pseudo excellence in the books.

00:20

Speaker A

Wake up at 4:00 a.m.

00:29

Speaker A

avoid accountability for actually showing up and doing the work. Today's episode, Brad Stolberg. Brad has been [music] studying excellence for 20 years. He's written incredible books like The Way of Excellence and The Practice of Groundedness. He coaches proathletes, surgeons, and founders

00:44

Speaker A

47-step routine.

00:54

Speaker A

over and over again. But if you're constantly comparing yourself or your work to other people and other work that you don't know or maybe you don't even respect, it's like what are we even doing here? What is the value of

01:04

Speaker A

Cold plunge, sauna.

01:12

Speaker A

[music] I'm Tim Gway, the author of the inner game of tennis. Tennis is about excellence. And if you find out that excellence is natural, is part of my being, let it show you.

01:34

Speaker A

Only breathe through your nose.

01:50

Speaker A

So, one, there's a little teacher in your head that's trying to figure out the right way to play tennis.

02:02

Speaker A

Only breathe through your mouth.

02:16

Speaker A

Yeah, it's so powerful. Um my main reaction is that excellence is very much within us. Um it is how we evolved. It is what we are here to do is to aspire toward excellence. And excellence ultimately means your full selfexpression and

02:37

Speaker A

Take these supplements.

02:53

Speaker A

And it's only when we get out of our own way that we can really be oursel and go all the way. Reading your book just uh I could feel uh uh Tim inside of it, right, in in the best possible way. I

03:06

Speaker A

Creatine maxing, life maxing, vitamin B12.

03:19

Speaker A

more importantly easy to implement or not easy but um reduces the complexity between understanding and implementation which is where I think most people get lost including myself. I mean, you you read the first chapter of the book, The

03:34

Speaker A

There's no gold medal for having the most complex routine.

03:39

Speaker A

Um, and it's neat to hear Tim, how old is Tim now? 80 75 easy.

03:45

Speaker A

No one gives a damn how complex your routine is.

03:59

Speaker A

Brad, I would love to know a little bit about your introduction to the inner game of tennis. How did it come into your life? Did someone give it to you?

04:06

Speaker A

I call it pseudo-excellence in the books.

04:16

Speaker A

their life that they needed it. And I would just love to know a little bit background on on on when you got the book and how you got it.

04:22

Speaker A

And part of the reason that people love pseudo-excellence and hustle culture and complexity is because it gives you all these ways out.

04:37

Speaker A

book was given to me from a triathlon coach. And I was fresh out of graduate school. So I would have been what 26 maybe 25 or 26. And was training pretty seriously for long course triathlon. And I had become completely engrossed in all

04:57

Speaker A

Like, if you're constantly having to switch things up and try new things, you avoid accountability for actually showing up and doing the work.

05:11

Speaker A

training was great. It was very methodical. In some ways, it was robotic in all the best ways. But on race day, I just couldn't put it together. And this coach told me, "You should read this book. It's about tennis, but it's not

05:22

Speaker A

Today's episode, Brad Stolberg.

05:34

Speaker A

transformed me as a person. Um, but as an athlete, I I I very quickly realized that the things that work work until they get in the way. And for me, all the tracking and analyzing made me the champion of training, but not the

05:48

Speaker A

Brad has been studying excellence for 20 years.

06:02

Speaker A

some of those metrics a little bit more loosely and sink into the present moment. Um never became a pro triathlete, but I became a pro writer.

06:13

Speaker A

He's written incredible books like The Way of Excellence and The Practice of Groundedness.

06:24

Speaker A

the other is um Zen in the art of motorcycle maintenance. And it wasn't until about a week ago that I realized that both those books came out in 1974.

06:33

Speaker A

He coaches pro athletes, surgeons, and founders alike.

06:46

Speaker A

80s to to late 80s early 90s period. Um and they're really riding the wave of these books that are part philosophy, part I guess you could call them personal development, part spiritual. Um that really just got a lot of things

07:04

Speaker A

Brad thinks that we've been chasing excellence, or this idea of excellence, the wrong way.

07:15

Speaker A

someone who wanted to compete, someone who wanted to push themselves and how that training helped you land you I mean you're still an athlete but land professionally as a writer.

07:25

Speaker A

People who are at the top of their crafts, they keep the main things the main things, and they focus on the fundamentals and they do it over and over again.

07:44

Speaker A

comes to mind is just the importance of consistency in how everybody talks about the peak moments when you enter a flow state or you're completely in the zone.

07:56

Speaker A

But if you're constantly comparing yourself or your work to other people and other work that you don't know, or maybe you don't even respect, it's like, what are we even doing here?

08:09

Speaker A

any chance at having those transcendent peak moments where everything is clicking, you have to show up and be consistent on all the days when it's not. Um and I think that sport really taught me that. Sport taught me that you

08:21

Speaker A

What is the value of coaching today?

08:30

Speaker A

stick to your process, the magic takes care of itself. It happens on its own time. You can't force it, but you can usher it in. Um, so that's the first first big lesson. And then the second big lesson, because this is the Inner

08:42

Speaker A

There's a couple of things.

09:02

Speaker A

argue it's the most intellectual activity. Like you're just using your head, right? But that that's not really true. At least not for me. The way that I write is very much by feel. And particularly as I'm editing my own work,

09:16

Speaker A

The first is, welcome to the Inner Game podcast.

09:33

Speaker A

depending on tweaks that I make. But it's very much driven by feel. So yes, okay, writing is intellectual when you're learning how to write. You have to get the grammar right. You have to construct complete sentences. There has

09:43

Speaker A

I'm Tim Gallwey, the author of The Inner Game of Tennis.

09:57

Speaker A

something that's happening in my mind. It's more based on what's happening in my gut and in my heart. Um so that's pretty cool actually. Like it's it's very similar to being in the pocket of the a deadlift or um really just kind of

10:11

Speaker A

Tennis is about excellence.

10:14

Speaker A

your body just does what it's meant to do. Uh I hear this from swimmers all the time. Like it's they're just in the zone of a workout. And when I'm when I'm editing, editing is just happening. It's not like Brad is editing. Editing is

10:26

Speaker A

And if you find out that excellence is natural, is part of my being, let it show you.

10:31

Speaker A

What's your process around where you write, when you write, do you write when you travel?

10:36

Speaker A

Self-doubt is the enemy of excellence.

10:47

Speaker A

So, like I really need to have the consistency of I'm waking up in the morning, I'm working from 6:00 to 9:00, I'm going to the gym, I'm walking the dog, and then I'm working again from 1 to 5. Um when I'm not in the midst of

11:00

Speaker A

Are you going for excellence?

11:09

Speaker A

that every day. It's more just like I have to write every day. And yes, sometimes that's the manuscript of a book or a piece that's going to be published in a massive newsletter, but sometimes that's also just like a good

11:19

Speaker A

Your excellence, what's in me, not somebody else's evaluation.

11:32

Speaker A

Um, it's not like I'm on this streak, you know? I think most days I write a good sentence, but when I don't, that's fine. and you just you get back to it um the next day. You mentioned about

11:42

Speaker A

So, one, there's a little teacher in your head that's trying to figure out the right way to play tennis.

11:54

Speaker A

to see my first draft, you you'd be like, "How do you get from here to there?" Um and and the answer is like the biggest inner block is trying to write a perfect first draft. And once you kind of word vomit on the page,

12:06

Speaker A

And me interferes with the natural instinct of the body.

12:16

Speaker A

Being in the moment, easy to say, hard to do, and it counts. So, here's a question. Do you know what gets in your way? You know your mile time. You know your handicap. You know how much you lift. What's your number on the thing

12:30

Speaker A

Any reactions to that?

12:44

Speaker A

or performers never get this kind of look at themselves. Link is in the description. Some people would say that the first thing you write is actually like sort of the purest thing. How do how do you do you find purity in that

12:57

Speaker A

I'm sure you have, I'm sure you have a few.

13:12

Speaker A

inside. And maybe my readers even already know this, but they don't yet have words for it. Like I'm giving them a name for something that they feel deeply and I'm making it concrete. Uh because once something is concrete, you

13:25

Speaker A

Yeah, it's so powerful.

13:32

Speaker A

So the job of my first draft is to get that feeling out of my body onto the page.

13:38

Speaker A

My main reaction is that excellence is very much within us.

13:52

Speaker A

better and better and better job expressing it um until I've got it. and and and the greatest compliment that I can be given as a writer and I'm so I'm so um I just get stoked whenever I hear

14:03

Speaker A

It is how we evolved.

14:13

Speaker A

that that's my job and that is the pure part and that does come out in the first draft. Uh, but then you refine and you refine and you refine and you try to get as specific as possible to name that

14:22

Speaker A

It is what we are here to do, is to aspire toward excellence.

14:33

Speaker A

I don't always do that, by the way. Like, I wish I wish every time I wrote I did that, but that's when I'm at my best. The thing that uh we always come back to with it is this idea that that

14:45

Speaker A

And excellence ultimately means your full self-expression and attaining your full potential.

14:58

Speaker A

what they already know. I think that's right. And I think that there's not a lot that's net new. Um certainly not when it comes to performance. I mean, there are ways to write a program for strength training.

15:09

Speaker A

I like to think of it as being yourself and going all the way.

15:22

Speaker A

the pool. Like, there are technical aspects of every craft in vocation. Um, but it's very actually simple and easy to understand what those technical aspects are. What's hard is actually doing it. in doing it is when that self

15:36

Speaker A

And generally speaking, there are external barriers to that pursuit, but the biggest barriers tend to be internal.

15:48

Speaker A

because if you think about the experience of reading a good book at least the experience that I have reading a good book is I'm reading with my mind and my intellect is what is ultimately understanding the words and the

16:01

Speaker A

Fear, self-doubt, the thinking, ruminating, analyzing mind.

16:07

Speaker A

And I feel like reading, you know, reading the way of excellence or reading the inner game, like what makes it so special is just the the act of reading the book is kind of like putting mind and body in concert. Um, and then when

16:18

Speaker A

And it's only when we get out of our own way that we can really be ourselves and go all the way.

16:27

Speaker A

You know, one one of my um wisdom teachers, a guy named Jud Brewer, once said that there's a difference between knowing something in your head and knowing something in your bones. And I think that any book, you know, a book

16:39

Speaker A

Reading your book, I could feel Tim inside of it, right?

16:55

Speaker A

relevant and you talk about it in your book. I think some people including myself feel like this AI thing is sort of net new and therefore it's thrown a lot into a tail spin. How do you see it?

17:10

Speaker A

In the best possible way.

17:25

Speaker A

think it's all hype. I think it's a really powerful tool. And I think just like any tool, if you use it with intention and thoughtfully in for the right causes, it can be extremely helpful. And if you start to use it

17:39

Speaker A

I could feel all the different influences, some of which you referenced in the book and some that I feel like I've read and felt over the years, put in a modern context that was just easy to understand.

17:57

Speaker A

just about everything. And then the industrial revolution happened and we had all of these machines. And it's a great thing that the industrial revolution happened. There's no doubt about it. Um, however, as a result of having all of these machines to do

18:12

Speaker A

And, probably more importantly, easy to implement, or not easy, but reduces the complexity between understanding and implementation, which is where I think most people get lost, including myself.

18:28

Speaker A

constantly driving everywhere in a car, if you're um never really having to exert your body, and then you're eating all this ultrarocessed food, uh it's very efficient and in the moment it's very easy, but ultimately it wres havoc

18:41

Speaker A

I mean, you read the first chapter of the book, The Biology of Excellence, that we evolved to do this, this is just our being.

18:46

Speaker A

That's where I see the risk. If um you use artificial intelligence for everything, if you use it to write music, if you use it to write books, if you use it uh to brainstorm, if you use it to come up with a business plan, uh

18:58

Speaker A

It's our most natural state.

19:10

Speaker A

a very distinct synthetic flavor to it, at least right now. That's like consuming Skittles for your every meal.

19:17

Speaker A

And it's neat to hear, Tim, how old is Tim now?

19:25

Speaker A

And I think the same thing will be true with our psychology and our souls. Um, I think AI will come with a lot of benefits, but I think if we're not careful about how we use it, then we're

19:34

Speaker A

80? 75?

19:47

Speaker A

weight than a machine. A forklift could pick up a lot more weight a lot more efficiently than I can. But what a forklift can't ever do is feel what it's like to get the heavy ass weight moving off the ground and to feel what it's

20:00

Speaker A

Easy.

20:10

Speaker A

I'm especially great. It's because I just don't think AI is a great writer. But, you know, AI is probably the worst it'll ever be. So, one day, let's pretend AI could write better than me.

20:18

Speaker A

No, he's 88, 89.

20:29

Speaker A

around and then it clicks. Um, that feeling is just like what makes life worth living. And when I was writing the book, I I I posed this this example to all of these Grammy-winning musicians, and I asked them, and I said, you know,

20:41

Speaker A

88.

20:51

Speaker A

the rest of your craft honor you for it and say it's the best. And then I'd ask them without warning, I'd say, "So tell me if if there was a machine that allowed you to press a button and when

21:02

Speaker A

So it's so neat to hear Tim at 88, 89 in his own way.

21:10

Speaker A

award. How would you feel? And they all said the same thing. They'd feel empty.

21:13

Speaker A

I mean, all these guys were onto what biologists later proved.

21:27

Speaker A

of Mont Blanc and have a beautiful view at the top, but you're not going to feel the same way as if you climb Mount Blanc. Um, now there's a time and a place to take the gondola, but if you're

21:37

Speaker A

But they knew it.

21:46

Speaker A

start to use it for everything always and then we atrophy our own abilities. But I also don't think we should demonize it because I I use Microsoft Excel as a spreadsheet to do my taxes and I'm really glad that that tool

21:58

Speaker A

They knew it spiritually.

22:15

Speaker A

outsource that email or that LinkedIn post or whatever it is or that copy to AI. I think that um I think there's two risks to the outsourcing. The one is that then your whole job just becomes outsourcing stuff to a machine and it's

22:29

Speaker A

It's really neat.

22:40

Speaker A

anywhere in the loop? And maybe that's maybe that's a dystopia. Maybe that's a utop utopia cuz maybe everyone's working 3 hours a week and playing guitar and playing tennis. Um you know who's to say? I think though that also if you

22:54

Speaker A

Brad, I would love to know a little bit about your introduction to The Inner Game of Tennis.

23:10

Speaker A

And the next most likely word is by definition the average next word. And as a result, AI homogenizes towards this soulless mean. So if you're a crappy writer, it's going to make you good. It might even make you pretty good, but it

23:25

Speaker A

How did it come into your life?

23:38

Speaker A

way to get noticed is to not do that is to be original. Um and that requires writing for yourself. So I think the best use case for your brain is that if you want to stand out, you're going to

23:48

Speaker A

Did someone give it to you?

24:03

Speaker A

psychology and um distilling it into something that will help people on a daily basis work with negative selft talk or what what Tim goway in the game would call self- one but AI can be used as a powerful tool for self-awareness as

24:20

Speaker A

So many stories I've heard is that the Inner Game was given to, like in my case, a coach.

24:34

Speaker A

the industrial revolution and I have um this book. Actually, I have a couple books on my desk that I always have on my desk, not because you and I are talking. One is the heart aroused by David White. And you mentioned David,

24:44

Speaker A

But I've heard stories of great athletes and performers who were given the book at a time in their life that they needed it.

24:54

Speaker A

Oh, I have not read that. Oh, it's great. Okay. I have not read that. I um uh my first exposure to David White was uh What to Remember When Waking, which is I think just an audio book. I don't

25:07

Speaker A

And I would just love to know a little bit of background on when you got the book and how you got it.

25:20

Speaker A

since I was like 22 or something like that or however along Audible's been around. And so I give you a sense for sort of where I what I gravitate towards um consistently. But I love seeing David White's um one him referenced in your

25:34

Speaker A

I can distinctly remember the first time that I read The Inner Game of Tennis.

25:44

Speaker A

talking about how when he's on these walking trips of Ireland, he's always taking pictures of the path, not ever the destination, but he's always taking pictures of the path itself. And so when he goes home and he looks at his camera,

25:54

Speaker A

I was in a coffee shop on Bryant Street in the South of Market area of San Francisco, right at the time.

26:04

Speaker A

the other book that I have on my desk by Robert Bllee, Iron John. Are you familiar with Iron John?

26:09

Speaker A

And the book was given to me by a triathlon coach.

26:29

Speaker A

and he goes through the history of of man and it is very much in the I he's not isolating to women in this book by any means but it's it's a book that's more directed towards towards men. Um

26:44

Speaker A

And I was fresh out of graduate school, so I would have been, what, 25, maybe 26?

26:57

Speaker A

he talks about the uh you mentioned the industrial revolution and how we were working with our hands. And he talks about it in the context of fatherhood and of sons and how before the industrial revolution, you as a son, as a young boy, would see

27:13

Speaker A

And was training pretty seriously for long-course triathlon.

27:21

Speaker A

Yeah. What what what uh there was no space between the two, right? He was just part of your life and part of the home and working with his hands. And there was no confusion about what your dad did. And

27:35

Speaker A

And I had become completely engrossed in all the numbers.

27:44

Speaker A

And a lot of those men would drink and uh fool around on their wives and gamble all their money away and do all sorts of, you know, stuff that men have been great for uh great at doing for for

27:56

Speaker A

I had a heart rate monitor, a power meter.

28:09

Speaker A

again or he's doing this or where is he, right? Even if the father was doing nothing, there was still this sort of anxiety probably because other fathers were getting caught doing bad things or whatever. But it would create this

28:20

Speaker A

I was tracking the number of grams of carbohydrates I had every hour.

28:40

Speaker A

time period to why there is a general mistrust of the male over 30 because oh if you're a male over 30 and I can't see what you're actually doing with your hands and with your work then you must be doing something bad

28:52

Speaker A

I had my workouts and my run paces dialed down to a split second.

29:04

Speaker A

fast forward and you had the the sort of 50s where the the the father would go and would go to work and drink martinis at lunch and uh no doubt fool around and come home and sort of be you know a

29:15

Speaker A

And my training was great.

29:40

Speaker A

Again, I'm not criticizing that. I'm just I'm just uh talking about the the the the the facts. And so if if the mother at home had a young son, um they would naturally start to feel like, okay, my dad is bad. And and that

29:56

Speaker A

It was very methodical.

30:00

Speaker A

Um we see that today in shows like Modern Family where the father is like the dunce, right? The father's like not the one that goes and and answers the door when the door when the doorbell rings. He's like the one in the sort of

30:10

Speaker A

In some ways, it was robotic, in all the best ways.

30:23

Speaker A

history of the modern male and sort of how we ended up today. And I and I think there are parts of the soft male which are really good because we're more in tune with with um with our our female

30:34

Speaker A

But on race day, I just couldn't put it together.

30:51

Speaker A

you have so many people, not everybody, but so many people working from home and but this time they're on their computer, on their phone. And so does that change the young son's sort of perception of the father? Is it

31:06

Speaker A

And this coach told me, "You should read this book.

31:15

Speaker A

you know, I'm texting or or I'm on Slack or email or something, then there's this gray area that's created for children who don't know, okay, what is it that their father is doing? And and so I more just wanted your opin I more just wanted

31:27

Speaker A

It's about tennis, but it's not really about tennis.

31:41

Speaker A

in your own daily life. I think it's very interesting. Um, I am skeptical of any like single variable explaining everything, you know, regardless of what topic we're talking about. However, I do think that in general, there are all of these

32:00

Speaker A

It's about triathlon, and it's about life."

32:15

Speaker A

field, the field is either tilled or not. If you are uh you know cropping corn, how many bushels do you have in your bucket? Like it is extremely real in concrete. In in some sense, the same thing is true for raising kids, right?

32:29

Speaker A

And I read The Inner Game, and my goodness, talk about transforming me first as an athlete.

32:41

Speaker A

In the corporate world and in knowledge work more broadly that feedback loop gets stretched out and for some jobs whether or not you did a good job that day, that week, that month, god forbid that year is totally subjective. It is

32:55

Speaker A

I don't think at the time I was mature enough to realize how it transformed me as a person.

33:09

Speaker A

to do a hard good day's work, they would just point to the field and they'd be like, I mowed that or I tilled that. If you ask the middle manager VP what a good day's work looks like, they're

33:21

Speaker A

But as an athlete, I very quickly realized that the things that work, work until they get in the way.

33:27

Speaker A

So I think that when we are alienated from the result of our effort, it's not good for the soul. I wrote a piece um I don't know maybe eight years ago about why white collar workers love endurance sports so much. And I argue that a big

33:43

Speaker A

And for me, all the tracking and analyzing made me the champion of training, but not the champion of race day.

33:55

Speaker A

subjective and I think it's really helpful to have these objective pursuits in your life. Uh again regardless of your sex or gender that's why sports and war analogies are so prominent in the corporate work space. Right.

34:08

Speaker A

If anything, it actually alienated me from my best performance.

34:20

Speaker A

kabuki that gets in the way of the work and the outcome. I think you have these some of these huge companies that have been on the Fortune 500 list forever and there's entire swaths of the organization where the whole point is to

34:32

Speaker A

It got between me and the direct experience of racing.

34:42

Speaker A

crushed. Um, so I I'm not against hard work as much as I'm against like mindless work. I actually think hard work is good. Um, especially if if the that reward cycle between effort in in what you get from the effort is clear. I

34:57

Speaker A

And that book gave me the mindset shift, and then later the confidence, to start to hold some of those metrics a little bit more loosely and sink into the present moment.

35:07

Speaker A

You you you stress I I talk about meaningful struggle like suffering for this yeah suffering for the sake of suffering is dumb. I don't think it makes any sense just to like you know make yourself suffer so you can make an

35:17

Speaker A

I never became a pro triathlete, but I became a pro writer.

35:23

Speaker A

Doing hard things that are really meaningful to you. Taking on challenges that align with your values and the person that you want to become is so much of what makes life worth living.

35:33

Speaker A

And I write very much the same way, and in no small part due to the influence of that book.

35:47

Speaker A

the inner game into a a modern context. It's [ \_\_ ] to think that you're not going to have stress. And in this entrepreneurial pursuit, frankly, I wake up every day and I'm like, what what brick wall am I going to run into? But

35:58

Speaker A

What's fascinating too, I cite two books extensively in The Way of Excellence.

36:09

Speaker A

Stress plus rest equals growth. It's like that that's the simple version of it. So if you want to grow anything, a muscle in your body, um an emotional capacity, a relationship, a company, uh a team, you have to stress the organism

36:26

Speaker A

One is The Inner Game of Tennis, and the other is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

36:35

Speaker A

atrophies. It doesn't grow. And if you never stress it, you get complacency. And if you stress it at the wrong dose and you stress it, you know, way too much, you risk burnout, injury or illness. So the key to growth is to find

36:47

Speaker A

And it wasn't until about a week ago that I realized both those books came out in 1974.

37:02

Speaker A

enough time to rest, recover and reflect because that's where the growth happens. And you just repeat this cycle over and over again. And you can do this in any domain of life. You can do this in sport, you can do this in business, you

37:13

Speaker A

Oh, I didn't know that.

37:19

Speaker A

You've got to stress the system and then it's got to be the right dose and then you have to let it rest and recover. So our life's work is figuring out what's the right kind of stress, what's the

37:27

Speaker A

Yeah.

37:38

Speaker A

stress. Um but then sometimes there's a temptation to put too much stress into the system without enough rest and then you start to feel off or your uh ability to think straight declines. You get brain fog, so then you rest a little bit

37:50

Speaker A

So what an interesting time.

38:02

Speaker A

same is true with how we grow as human beings. Um so that that that kind of shorthand stress plus rest equals growth um has been really important to me in my work and is um counter to this hustle

38:14

Speaker A

And then you look at the Pete Carrolls of the world, and they're all kind of coming up as young adults in this early-80s to late-80s, early-90s period.

38:26

Speaker A

There's just a lot of [ \_\_ ] There's a lot of [ \_\_ ] I I call it pseudo excellence in the book. So it's like you know optim optimize this efficiency that wake up at 4 a.m. 47step routine

38:38

Speaker A

And they're really riding the wave of these books, which are part philosophy, part, I guess you could call them personal development, part spiritual.

38:52

Speaker A

routine. No one gives a [ \_\_ ] how complex your routine is. Like I want to know what are you what's your work product and what are your relationships like and if you're doing good work and you're immersed in good relationships like

39:04

Speaker A

And they really just got a lot of things right.

39:18

Speaker A

always grumpy and exhausted from your routine, then it's a dumb routine. It's not a good routine. If you can't have friendships or relationships because you've got all these complex things you need to do and you're always focused on

39:28

Speaker A

So I'm so grateful that I read The Inner Game of Tennis when I did.

39:43

Speaker A

You're just you're you're you're you're just a doing bro science all day. Like I want I want to see people essentially, listen, I spent almost 20 years researching, reporting, thinking about excellence. And people who are at the top of their crafts, they keep the

39:57

Speaker A

I'm just curious to know about your journey a bit more, as someone who obviously wanted to get into your body, someone who wanted to compete, someone who wanted to push themselves, and how that training helped land you, I mean, you're still an athlete, but land professionally as a writer.

40:09

Speaker A

with it and try it. But it's very different than the pseudo excellence world where every month there's a new fat, every month there's a new supplement, every month there's a new three-hour podcast host that you have to listen to and you just go from fat to

40:20

Speaker A

Yeah, it's a great question.

40:32

Speaker A

to the triedand- trueue fundamentals. And part of the reason that people love pseudo excellence and hustle culture and complexity is because it gives you all these ways out. Like if you're constantly having to switch things up and try new things, like you avoid

40:44

Speaker A

I think there's so much overlap between sport and writing, in between the process of training for an athletic pursuit and the process of being a creative or a craftsperson.

40:55

Speaker A

The same same trap. Yeah, 100%. You're also a coach, Brad. where where's your gravitational poll in terms of coaching and and then what is the value of coaching today based on some of the things we talked about?

41:07

Speaker A

The first thing that comes to mind is just the importance of consistency.

41:22

Speaker A

situations where there are limbs in some cases lives on the line. Um, and then I coach uh founders, entrepreneurs, people like yourself. I'm not coaching, you know, a world-class climber on what to do on the rock face, right? That would

41:36

Speaker A

How everybody talks about the peak moments, when you enter a flow state or you're completely in the zone, your sense of self disappears.

41:49

Speaker A

that I write about. It's the application of everything that's in my book, to be honest.

41:53

Speaker A

You just have these transcendent moments.

42:08

Speaker A

blind spots. And the person that says, "I don't have any blind spots," probably has the most blind spots. So, something that a coach does is it helps people identify those blind spots. Um, something else that a coach does is

42:21

Speaker A

And I've felt those as both an athlete and as a writer.

42:36

Speaker A

pulls me away from my family. Or, uh, back to our boy David White in the three marriages, I love my husband or wife. I love my sport. And often times those two loves are competing and I can't go to my

42:51

Speaker A

But the vast majority of the time, I actually don't feel that way.

42:56

Speaker A

Like that doesn't generally work well for a marriage. So you can come to someone like me and I can help you uh pull those things apart and wrestle with them. And again, I can never tell someone what to do because there's

43:06

Speaker A

And in order to have any chance at having those transcendent peak moments where everything is clicking, you have to show up and be consistent on all the days when it's not.

43:20

Speaker A

visualization and removing distractions to be able to focus and how to stay patient when you're on a plateau. Um, and I think that a lot of people can do these things on their own really well, but it's always helpful to have uh some

43:33

Speaker A

And I think sport really taught me that.

43:44

Speaker A

just helps you stay on the path and walks the path with you. And sometimes my job is to get up ahead of a client because I think I see where they're going in a way that they don't and kind

43:52

Speaker A

Sport taught me that you have good days, you have bad days, and you have in-between days.

44:03

Speaker A

relationships are when most of the time I'm just walking side by side with a client. It's the most gratifying job in the world.

44:09

Speaker A

And your job is just to show up and give the best effort that you can give on each of those days.

44:20

Speaker A

So this is something I'm glad you asked. This is something that that a coach that I worked with um and by the way in case it's not clear like coaches aren't just for athletes, right? They're for everyone. I I am not a pro alete and

44:30

Speaker A

And if you do that and you stick to your process, the magic takes ca

44:42

Speaker A

the practice of groundedness came out and I just had more and more opportunities to write for incredible outlets. I had another book deal come through and I care so deeply about the craft of writing. And then what would

44:55

Speaker A

happen is I'd have these Zooms come up for coaching clients. Um, and I started to resent coaching. And that is a really shitty place for everyone. It's bad for me. It's bad for the person that's paying me all this money to coach them.

45:08

Speaker A

Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Red flag. So, I go to my coach and I'm like, this is happening and I don't like it and I want to nip it in the bud. And she's like, well, walk me through like, let's

45:18

Speaker A

pull up your calendar for the last month. And she's like, well, this is dumb. Why don't you just coach one day a week and make that your coaching day?

45:26

Speaker A

And then the expectation is on that day you're going to coach and the other four days a week you're a creative, you're a writer, you're researching, you're reporting. And I'm like, well, I'm coaching all these like, you know, super

45:35

Speaker A

talented people that are professional athletes and they're running companies. Like, I can't make them bend to my schedule. She's like, just try. She's like, I guarantee you no one's going to leave you because you're only coaching, you know, one day a week. So, I I came

45:48

Speaker A

up with all these excuses, probably because I was ashamed at what an easy answer solving this problem was. And eventually, I started the next year and I said, "I'm making some changes and I'm I'm only going to be coaching on

45:58

Speaker A

Fridays." Um, so here's my here's my scheduleuler and you can book in. And I was expecting like half my clients to be like, "Oh, it's not going to work." No one said anything. Um, so the short answer is for the last four years, it's

46:10

Speaker A

great. I coach on Fridays. Um what that means is my expectation for Friday is that I'm not gonna I'm not going to research or write. I'm not going to make progress on those projects. Um those are just days to coach and Monday through

46:23

Speaker A

Thursday are days for creative work. And um what I found is like yeah like that's it like that that that strict compartmentalization did it. Um because the the cost of switching, you know, going from being in the zone

46:37

Speaker A

writing to a zoom, like it's high, but more than that cost was just like the psychic toll of um feeling like I like was doing two things at once in my brain. So much of how we feel in the

46:50

Speaker A

given moment is based on expectations. So when our expectations are aligned with our reality, we feel great. When we're [clears throat] expecting something that is better than our reality, we feel like crap. So, if I'm expecting to get into a creative groove

47:05

Speaker A

and write and then I have a coaching client, I'm not going to feel good. If I'm expecting to coach, but I don't have any clients that day and now I have like writer's block cuz I wasn't preparing to

47:15

Speaker A

write, I'm not going to feel good either. So, just aligning the expectation like, "All right, this is a coaching day. That's what I'm going to do today with what reality was like that that's the key thing that solved all my

47:24

Speaker A

problems." So, let me ask you something. What happens to your athletes in the hours you're not with them? You've got a plan for their body, sets, reps, rest, taper. What runs the plan for their head when you're not in the room? That's what

47:36

Speaker A

the Intergame app is and why it was built. Not just a book about it. The actual exercises, about a hundred of them and counting, highly customized to the athlete, all built on Gway's method.

47:47

Speaker A

Breath work, visualization, journaling, courses from Bob and George, where every idea is tied to a practical application.

47:54

Speaker A

Most mindfulness work [music] is downregulating, which is necessary but not sufficient. Calming down is not the same as being ready. If you coaches want in early, we're opening a founding coaches cohort. Coaches helping shape the next version of the intergame

48:08

Speaker A

alongside Tim and Bob. Full app access. Input on what we build. A private community [music] of coaches as well. It is an application, not a signup. Link is in the description. Um, you mentioned uh craft and family and I don't want to

48:21

Speaker A

turn this into, you know, a coaching session, but I just have to ask because it's something I'm personally struggling with. I've got this company that I've started. I think about it all the time.

48:30

Speaker A

I have two young kids. I have a four-year-old and a 2-year-old. So, I'm in the trenches at home.

48:36

Speaker A

Yeah. And I'm, you know, and I'm and I'm and I'm in it at home. I'm in it at work. And Yeah. You're there. You're there, but you're not there. Um, yeah. Or, yeah, like it's very hard to switch between

48:48

Speaker A

those roles. Um, yeah, I think that welcome to the club is the first thing I'd say.

48:54

Speaker A

Yeah. Um, thank you. Talk about supplements. If I had a supplement to solve that problem, I'd be a wealthy man. There no such supplement exists. You know, Andrew Hermaning can't give you a three-step protocol for this.

49:05

Speaker A

Um, this is the cost of caring very deeply about two big facets of your life in wanting to be a great parent and a great partner in wanting to do something entrepreneurial and creative. Um, and what I found is that you're always going

49:23

Speaker A

to feel like you're sacrificing somewhere and you just kind of have to take those feelings along for the ride as best you can. I think it's also helpful to have minimum effective doses.

49:36

Speaker A

So like even when things are absolutely crazy at work, what's like the minimum effective dose for connection with your wife and kids? Is it doing three bad times a week? Is it coaching soccer? Is it one date night a month with your

49:52

Speaker A

wife? not optimal, but like what's like, you know, for a one-year season of life where, you know, a company's got limited cash runway and it's either going to make it or not. How do you define these kind of more rigid rules about this is

50:04

Speaker A

family time? And then the flip side is true. When things are crazy with family, what's the minimum effective dose for work? Is it that I'm going to log on, you know, for an hour? Like, I'm going to go on vacation with my family and I

50:15

Speaker A

need to be there for my family, but I'm an entrepreneur. I don't work for, you know, uh, AT&T or Verizon. and I can't just check out for 2 weeks. So maybe the minimum effective dose is I'm going to

50:25

Speaker A

I'm going to wake up an hour before the family and I'm going to clean out my inbox or um every day uh my wife knows cuz I communicate with her. My husband knows cuz I communicate with him that uh

50:37

Speaker A

I'm going to take an hour in the day to find a coffee shop and check in with the team. Um because that's the minimum effective dose while I'm focused on family that I need to keep, you know, the work ship from drowning. Um, so I I

50:49

Speaker A

I think trying to get essentially blow up this notion of balance between the two. It's never going to be balanced.

50:54

Speaker A

It's never going to be pretty. Um, it's constantly a conversation between these two areas of your life that you care deeply about. And I think what saves marriages, what saves companies, what saves relationships with kids is when you have these minimum effective doses

51:08

Speaker A

that you never go below. And those are in conversation with the other important people in your life.

51:12

Speaker A

I asked this question of Tim Gway when I interviewed him for the first time two years ago. What's been your biggest heartbreak in life?

51:18

Speaker A

At the time or in hindsight? Because at the time, my biggest heartbreak in life is when the girl that I thought I was going to marry was essentially cheating on me and broke up with me in my senior

51:31

Speaker A

year of undergraduate school. Um, that was devastating. I was distraught. It was probably like my first real love. Like I, you know, I dated girls in high school, but nothing serious. A girl I'd been with throughout like shaped my undergraduate school

51:44

Speaker A

experience. Um, that was heartbreaking and in hindsight the best thing that ever happened to me because like there, you know, taught me so much about what I did want in a partner, what I didn't want in a partner. And then I go on to

51:57

Speaker A

meet my wife and we've got kids and like, you know, I can't imagine um what life would be like otherwise. And I don't think I don't think I would have ended up with my wife had I not gotten

52:08

Speaker A

my heart broken in that way because it taught me certain things about like what what what to look for and what not to look for in a partner. Um, but at the time I was like I was gutted. I mean it

52:18

Speaker A

was it was really bad. Um, so that's probably the biggest heartbreak in my life. I suffered a pretty bad depression at age 30. And um, maybe it's not conventional heartbreak, but it's it's heartbreaking in the sense that like

52:30

Speaker A

life just becomes so painful and you don't know why. Um, and that kind of breaks your heart to be in that. Um, so yeah uh those those two come come to mind.

52:42

Speaker A

Yeah. Thank you. On the um on the when you were 30, it um if you if you want, I would love to know what what what do you what what was contributing to that and how did you how did you get yourself

52:57

Speaker A

through it? I probably lived for a long time with undiagnosed uh obsessivecompulsive disorder, OCD, and just was able to harness that in ways that were productive enough. Um, and for whatever reason at that moment of my life, like

53:17

Speaker A

the the pipes that were channeling this temperament just totally exploded and it took a really dark turn. Um, and the depression was very much like secondary to the OCD. These are syndromes, right?

53:28

Speaker A

This all came out at once. Um, no specific trigger though. Um, I remember telling my wife like, you know, yesterday my brain was fine and today my brain is broken and I need help. It was very, very stark. And for that, I'm

53:42

Speaker A

fortunate as [ \_\_ ] vexing and terrifying. But because there wasn't like this slippery slope, it was like so clear to me like I need to see a psychiatrist like ASAP. Um because it was just like my brain broke.

53:54

Speaker A

Um how'd I get better? Um through years of therapy, three years of therapy with a phenomenal therapist that subsp specialcialized in OCD um and a psychiatrist uh that put me on the right medication. How did that inform your

54:10

Speaker A

your your career as a writer, your what you're innately interested in and curious about? Did did that have a did that have a major impact or was that sort of a blip?

54:19

Speaker A

No. No, it wasn't a blip at all. Um, listen, like I I I was very fortunate. I I grew up middle class, maybe even upper middle class, lived in a suburb of Detroit, went to public schools, was captain of the football team, went to

54:34

Speaker A

University of Michigan. Couldn't Couldn't tell by your accent, you know. uh but like had like a very nice Midwestern life and you know my biggest heartbreak was the the college girlfriend breaking up with me. I didn't lose a parent. I didn't have a parent in

54:47

Speaker A

jail. Like I faced challenges but I I was fine. Um and I thought I knew what it was like to to um to be in pain. I thought I knew what it was like to be sad. Um I thought I knew what it was

54:58

Speaker A

like to deal with hardship. And uh you know I knew all I could before this. And then this kind of like really reset the reference point of what pain is, of what hardship is, of what challenge is. Um,

55:12

Speaker A

and it certainly was hard one wisdom and I wouldn't wish it on myself. If I could go back, I I wouldn't wish this experience on myself. I'd rather have lived without it because it was really really bad. Um, but it definitely I

55:27

Speaker A

gained uh a fair amount of compassion towards myself and towards other people. Um, I think I softened up quite a bit.

55:36

Speaker A

Um, and uh, and that's still an ongoing practice. I have a very easy time being hard on myself. Um, it's hard for me to be kind on myself or to be kind to myself. Um, but that's something that

55:49

Speaker A

um, that that experience definitely definitely showed me. Um, yeah. And and I think that like just don't take good days for granted. When I interviewed Tim Gway and I asked him that question, not because I had preconceived it, but

56:03

Speaker A

because it felt appropriate in the moment, and he paused, he sort of looked off camera at his wife and he looked up at the ceiling and he and he got he got he got quite inward and he said, you

56:14

Speaker A

know, there heartbreaks and there are heartbreaks and he said, when I he said, most people think that um after uh graduating Harvard and captaining the tennis team, which he which he was, um that that he that that he came home and

56:29

Speaker A

sat down at the kitchen table and wrote the inner game of tennis and you know became a fabulously wealthy and successful guy who's credited with you know starting multiple industries. Um but he said the truth was that I came

56:39

Speaker A

home and I was a absolute shell of myself. I was stricken with severe anxiety and depression. So much so that he tried to take his own life multiple times. And he after a series of events of um just heartbreaking encounters with

56:59

Speaker A

himself and others uh he he had to become an empty shell in order to receive the the wisdom of the inner game and and his his his parents didn't really know what to do with him. So um they they got him a job at the local

57:16

Speaker A

tennis club and this guy was captain of his freaking Harvard tennis team. Okay. got him a job, but he was so not himself. I don't want to say catatonic.

57:24

Speaker A

I don't know what the right word was. He was not himself. He could he could he he couldn't be on the tennis court. So, they got him a job stringing rackets in the clubhouse. And he was and he he said

57:33

Speaker A

he found beauty and rhythm and actually doing this with the strings if you were strung a tennis racket. But there was something sort of um uh soothing about it. And then the tennis pro, the tennis director at the club was caught

57:46

Speaker A

embezzling money, I guess. And so they fired him and they were like, "What are we going to do? but we don't have a we don't have a tennis pro to teach all of our members lessons. And so they're

57:54

Speaker A

like, well, Tim freaking went to Harvard was the captain of his tennis team, put him on the court, but Tim was like, you know, not in that right state, but they did it anyway. And Tim was just out

58:05

Speaker A

there with a couple clients and just sort of watching from almost outside of himself and watching and had seen how the other pro and pros that he's probably seen his whole life would teach someone. And then he describes it as

58:19

Speaker A

then like a melon like fell out of the sky and he caught it in his arms. And that was that was that was what he that's when he wrote the inner game. He had to become an empty bathtub in order

58:30

Speaker A

to receive this this this this um this ancient wisdom that he then translated and you know into into modern form. But I just thought I would you would appreciate knowing what his background was and and the the fact that

58:45

Speaker A

he had to overcome death in order to birth this work into the world that's had so much impact.

58:50

Speaker A

Yeah, I did not know that. Um thank you for sharing. I think it is um it's not an uncommon story. Um and and I think that I struggle with this because I I I don't think it's good to romanticize

59:05

Speaker A

depression and anxiety. Um, and some people do that and that doesn't make sense. But I also think that um, when you're in it, it just sucks and like you don't know that there's going to be anything meaningful and you don't think

59:18

Speaker A

that you could possibly grow from it because it just sucks and like your whole job ought to just be on getting through. Um, however, if you are able to show up and hang in there and get help and get through, there tends to be all

59:31

Speaker A

of this growth and wisdom on the other side. And that's not speculation. That's just that's my story. That's Tim's story. That's David White's story.

59:38

Speaker A

That's Robert Persig's story. That's Eric From's story. Um that's Mary Oliver's story. That's Tara Brock's story. It's tough cuz like the the the last thing you want to say to someone who's in the throws of depression or panic or anxiety is like, oh, you know,

59:52

Speaker A

you're going to get so much wisdom out of this experience. Like no, it just there's no you feel like you that that's impossible to even imagine, right? I think the thing to say is like keep showing up, hang in there, and like

60:06

Speaker A

life life has a way of of of working out if you just stick around. Uh when I was in my early 20s, I was working in my first startup and I work really closely with the CEO and I I he was he he helped

60:23

Speaker A

me he mentored me in a in a wonderful way. He he read all the emails I was going to write to to customers and edited them and then sent them back like and he really taught me how to write how

60:32

Speaker A

to communicate externally, how to communicate professionally along with a number of other things. But I told myself, I'm never going to be a CEO. I never want to do that. I never want to never want to be a CEO. I was I I didn't

60:47

Speaker A

feel like I didn't feel like it was the full embodiment of what I was able to express as a person. I'm an athlete. I I'm I'm creative. I love to write. I am a writer. I'm I'm good in the business

61:02

Speaker A

world. I have good instincts. I'm a hard worker. I, you know, I I learned as a competitive tennis player, you know, the grit that's required to be good at something. Um the, you know, the the fantasy about, you know, talent versus skill and all

61:16

Speaker A

that stuff feel I got a good handle on, but I felt like I I told myself if you if you told me I was the CEO of the best company in the world, I'd say no thank you. And I think because it put me in a

61:26

Speaker A

box and I kept telling myself that throughout my 20s and I eventually met on the tennis court somebody who um was an acting coach and a and a theater teacher. What I think I started to realize just in the

61:42

Speaker A

last couple years and what your book really helped me understand and put words to is that this concept of excellence is not is not bound to a specific identity or one part of your identity. This is this is something that

61:56

Speaker A

runs in me that I feel strongly. This pursuit of fulfillment and storytelling and that storytelling can can come in the form of a a tennis court, a a stage, a company, a conversation. And it's that it's the pursuit of excellence in that

62:12

Speaker A

it's it's it's trying to be or actually that pursuit is excellence is actually what I'm getting at and and and and framing it that way just took a huge load off my shoulders in a way. So thank you for that.

62:27

Speaker A

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Um I think that's it. I think that listen people confuse sometimes an excellent result with the process of excellence.

62:39

Speaker A

And an excellent result is determined by a community of practice, by a lineage, by a field, by a tradition. The process of excellence is simply giving the meaningful things in your life, everything you've got in caring deeply, in expressing your full potential, in

62:55

Speaker A

learning along the way, in continuing to grow and get better. And the best chance that anyone has at an excellent result is by walking the path and by pursuing the process of excellence. But even if you don't end up a gold medalist in the

63:11

Speaker A

Olympics or uh CEO of an IPO unicorn, you still get the most out of yourself and the most out of life by the pursuit of excellence. Um cuz people often ask me, well, are you saying that anyone can

63:24

Speaker A

be excellent? And it's like, no, I I I'm never going to be an excellent basketball player. Uh, but I can bring a mentality of excellence to the game and I can get as good as I can possibly be

63:38

Speaker A

and I can have so much fulfillment. And you know what? You don't know until you try. Um, and I think that like there there there's this um, yeah, kind of like the inner game. I mean, that's why I'm on the show. That's why we're

63:50

Speaker A

kindred spirits. That's why the books feel like they're in conversation with each other. Like the inner game is about tennis, but it's not about tennis.

63:56

Speaker A

Excellence is about performance, but it's also not about performance. It's really about like living a good full life and in in unearthing your gifts um in contributing the the most you can and the best you can in finding satisfaction

64:09

Speaker A

and love along the way. Tim has a um has a formula that he wrote in the first book uh P equals P minus I. Performance equals potential minus interference. I actually think that formula is a little misleading because as we talk to so many

64:26

Speaker A

mental coaches and athletes and and and and coaches across sport, music and business etc. It's not that you you don't you don't remove you don't minus interference. You don't remove interference, right? Interference, negative selft talk uh for example

64:43

Speaker A

doesn't go away. it actually gets louder. And it's really the act of working making yourself aware of those interferences, choosing to accept that they don't go away. They're going to get louder and then to trust yourself sort of when it

64:55

Speaker A

matters most. So to say to say minus interference is actually misleading. It's actually plus interference, right?

65:01

Speaker A

It's like interference and accepting interference and working with it and knowing that it's not going to go away.

65:06

Speaker A

Uh but I want to ask you what is what is what is your interference? you you Brad as a writer or a person or you know father husband what's your interference I think my self- one interference um tends to be thinking instead of doing

65:25

Speaker A

and what I mean by that is like playing scenarios out in my mind um and kind of like you just not being present like when I'm with my kids thinking about work when I'm at work instead of doing

65:37

Speaker A

the work thinking about what I need to do in the future It's a lot of like future thinking um instead of present moment thinking. Yeah. Broadly speaking, it's it's thinking is the main interference and I'm at my best in

65:50

Speaker A

everything I do whether it's as a parent, as a husband, as a writer, as an athlete. Um when I'm not thinking very much at all. Um now, as I talked about earlier, you can't force those states, but you can try to usher them in. Uh, so

66:04

Speaker A

for me it's been really helpful to identify when I'm in my head, not in the present moment, and just like use a couple breaths to like regground me where I am. Um, and then just like begin again. I mean, that's that's mindfulness

66:17

Speaker A

practice in a nutshell, right? It's like you realize those thoughts, feeling, and urges and then you you you you name them. You don't try to force them away.

66:24

Speaker A

You're curious about them, and then you're back to the present moment. Um I think a more specific interference for me can sometimes still be um the and this this is very similar to thinking but the analysis of the thing instead of

66:37

Speaker A

the thing itself um so spending a lot of time if I'm being totally honest like how am I doing as a writer how am I doing as a dad how is this stacking up versus other books um a lot of comparison comparison to old

66:52

Speaker A

versions of self comparison to others other dads all of Um, and it like I'm never better is I shouldn't say never. Listen, comparison is great. If I'm comparing myself to people who I actually know and who I admire, great. Like I compared The Way

67:07

Speaker A

of Excellence to The Inner Game of Tennis many, many times and and made The Way of Excellence a much better book.

67:12

Speaker A

But if you're constantly comparing yourself or your work to other people and other work that you don't know or maybe you don't even respect, it's like, what are we even doing here, right?

67:20

Speaker A

Um, but we all for that trap, myself included. So comparison is another um another interference that I I I I try to manage as best I can.

67:29

Speaker A

Is there something that you're working on that that is either in the back of your head or the back of your heart that that is sort of brewing and growing? Is there an idea or something that that you've wanted to work on for a long time

67:42

Speaker A

that is sort of taking shape? Something you haven't talked about or with yourself or anybody else? I don't know.

67:47

Speaker A

Is there is there is there something lingering? So there'll be hopefully there'll be more books. You know, you never know what's going to happen. But there are definitely other topics I want to explore and I want to write about. Um

67:59

Speaker A

something that is lingering and slowly becoming uh real is uh just more involvement in local youth sports. I think youth sports have the potential to be so incredible. Um I think they're more needed than ever. I think especially with loneliness and kids just

68:16

Speaker A

kind of getting lost in the dark corners of the internet. Uh, I'm very fortunate, right, that my work has been wellreceived and that I've spoken in, you know, essentially across all four pro sports to players, athletes, coaches, front offices. Um, it's a

68:33

Speaker A

thrill and I've got an 8 and 1 half-year-old and a three and a halfyear-old. Um, so I'm just coaching.

68:38

Speaker A

I'm coaching everything. I coach basketball, which I know something about. I coach baseball, which I don't know much about. I coach soccer, which I don't know anything about. Um, and I live in a place, Asheville, that's small enough where like a couple good coaches

68:51

Speaker A

working together in the community can really make a transformative impact um, absolutely on an entire generation of young athletes.

68:58

Speaker A

And it's easy to sit here and complain about all the ways that youth sports are broken and parents are batshit crazy and travel sports are insane and on and on and on, but I actually want to do something about it. Um, so trying try

69:10

Speaker A

trying trying to get more involved beyond just even coaching with creating a youth sports environment in my local community um that that will hopefully give to kids more than it takes and and prepare kids and build positive character traits. I've heard uh a lot of

69:26

Speaker A

people say that over the last year, whether not not all writers like you um and athletes, but but but um uh uh professional athletes, coaches, agents of of of big athletes talk about this need to probably stemming from like you,

69:44

Speaker A

their their involvement in their kids sports and wanting to really uh make a difference and knowing how important it is right now given all the things you just said and how the intensity of youth sports and and and how the goalpost has

69:58

Speaker A

has has moved a little bit also with like how how fast you can make money, you know, as a young athlete going in college.

70:04

Speaker A

Man, your kid your kids your kids are still a little bit younger, but like in a few years, you'll see you'll see parents yelling at referees. You'll see parents yelling at their kids.

70:14

Speaker A

You'll see 8 8U, you know, people being like, "This is an elite 8U team." It's like, elite, your kid's eight, man. Come on. Like, [ \_\_ ] off. give me a break, right? Like nothing's elite about this. And and and

70:26

Speaker A

they're like, "Well, I'm just pumping my kid up." It's like, "No, by calling your kid elite, you're now setting this expectation for yourself and your kid that they have to live up to. There's all this pressure." Like, youth sports

70:36

Speaker A

should be first and foremost fun. And they should teach kids how to compete, which the definition of compete or the idmology of compete comes from the Latin root co, which means with and Petrier, which means to rise up. So, it literally

70:49

Speaker A

means to rise up with or to rise up together. So it should be about fun. It should be about competing and it should be about losing learning how to win and learning how to lose and developing character and

71:00

Speaker A

amen. That's it. And and but it's not. And like then you have like these private equity groups are coming in and buying up tournaments and leagues and it's just a total [ \_\_ ] disaster.

71:10

Speaker A

And it doesn't need to be that way. And I think that you know rarely do I sit there and swing around a Steve Kerb blurb on my book. But when it comes to you sports, it's like everyone in this

71:19

Speaker A

small town is going to listen to me because I actually know a thing or two about this.

71:23

Speaker A

Yeah. And um we're going to try to get this right. [ \_\_ ] yeah. I think that is awesome. I love that. All right, last question. Is there anything else that anything else that that we haven't talked about that

71:32

Speaker A

you think we should talk about or that is that is unique that we could talk about or touch on that you think we haven't? We're increasingly in a world where we're gonna have to choose if we want to go wherever the algorithmic

71:44

Speaker A

conveyor belt takes us and um kind of like sleepwalk through efficiency and optimization and autom automation and all the all the uns that we don't like and we turn into like automatons, right?

71:57

Speaker A

uh or we can choose to touch grass and create and contribute and coach and teach and take on meaningful challenges um and ultimately love. And I really think like at its heart that's what genuine excellence is about. It's about

72:11

Speaker A

giving a damn. It's about caring deeply um and in and getting the best out of yourself on the things that matter to you most and making a contribution. And with whatever agency we have left, I think like now is the time to to to to

72:25

Speaker A

choose excellence and to aspire toward it. I think it's more important than ever. Um because there's there's a lot of mediocrity and that soulless homogenized mean is just going to continue to take up more more share of everything. Um and uh you know we need a

72:41

Speaker A

counterforce. So I I guess that's my that's my hype speech. All right. All right. My last question is knowing knowing where I am in my journey as an entrepreneur as a young dad. Um any other parting guidance or or or um words

72:56

Speaker A

of wisdom is given how given the kind of people you work with and and and the excellence you you you know you you um you work on and towards every day.

73:07

Speaker A

Yeah. Keep showing up and be patient. um what what feels really hard and impossible now probably won't feel that way in the future. So much of success in performance is showing up and being patient. Um and it's not to say show up

73:24

Speaker A

blindly. You know this, you're smart. Like you make adjustments, you tweak. Um but things just take things take longer and they require more persistence than than we'd like. Um and there's no such thing as an overnight breakthrough. Like

73:37

Speaker A

you got to be patient. [music] [music]

Topics: excellence Brad Stulberg Tim Gallwey Inner Game of Tennis consistency flow state self-doubt performance psychology pseudo-excellence mindfulness

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