Brad Stulberg

We're all on a continuum between heroic individualism and groundedness.

The point of this book is just to help people shift a little bit more towards groundedness.

I know this myself.

The week that my book comes out, I am spending more time than I want to admit in heroic individual mode.

I'm checking my sales rank.

I'm trying to get app ads placed in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and I'm constantly checking to see if I got emails back from editors.

I did it for a week, but then I put this really hard boundary on it because I know that that's ultimately unhealthy.

And I'm using myself as an example to elucidate that A, it's very hard to be like 100% on this.

And if you get it 60% right, it's good.

And then B, so much of heroic individualism is the environment that we operate in.

So it's all fun and good to say, be where you are, so on and so forth.

But then when you try to sell sponsorship for a podcast and they're like, how many downloads do you have?

Well, that number matters.

So it's not saying that these end results, these peaks don't matter.

It's just trying to help us feel a little bit better as we strive and have our self-worth be something more than an external result, which again, the big paradox is that gives you the best chance at getting the external result and actually enjoying it when you do.

Yeah, I think that and the pandemic, which has helped people evaluate their priorities in life.

And I think what's really nice about words like profiting or success is you get to define what they mean.

And I think a part of the problem is people hear profiting and they think more money or a fancy watch or a bigger house.

And people think success and they hear promotion.

Whereas profiting can also mean knowing your core values and crafting a life that is in alignment with them.