Brad Stulberg

Am I ever going to win an Olympic medal for powerlifting?

Of course not.

But I take it seriously.

I make progress.

I give it my all.

And not only am I working towards that goal of lifting more weight, but that goal of lifting more weight is also working on me.

It's shaping me as a person.

And none of this is related to my day job.

it means a couple of things mike the first thing that it means is that you have to be okay with making yourself vulnerable in risking failure uh just about everybody can remember there were kids back in high school that were too cool to try right they phoned it in in gym class they sat in the back row they never tried in music and they did it because they were way too cool

But the truth is they weren't too cool.

What they were is they were insecure and they were scared to fail.

So instead of giving something their all and making themselves vulnerable to failure, they just never tried.

And I think so many adults have yet to outgrow this tendency.

So it's one thing to say that you care.

It's one thing to say you're going to give something your all.

It's another thing to actually put yourself in the arena and make yourself vulnerable and risk failure.

And you don't get excellence unless you're willing to do the latter.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing is really approaching what you do with an intentionality and a focus around it.

So excellence is the opposite of going through the motions.