excellence, actually
Episodes
How to Save Your Brain (with Cal Newport)
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There's a good reason you can't concentrate. That's not just a statement; it's also the title of a viral piece that our friend Cal Newport (author of ...
What Every Athlete Can Learn from Elite Distance Runners
16 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, Clay taps into Steve's wisdom as a long-time running coach—which doesn't mean you have to be a runner to get something out of it. The episode...
How to Change, Actually (with Eric Zimmer)
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Once an addict, Eric Zimmer is now 26 years sober. He has made that one huge change through a series of many small, daily changes, or what he calls "l...
Use the “Zero-Zero Reset” to Perform Under Pressure
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This past weekend, in the men's NCAA tournament, Duke led UConn by 19 points and had a 99% chance to win and advance to the Final Four. Instead, Duke ...
How to Coach Anyone, Including Yourself
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
March Madness has given us some incredible moments between coaches and their players. Today, we use one in particular — the viral moment between Mar...
Stop Self-Sabotaging: How to Get Out of Your Own Way
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we unpack one of the most universal performance problems: getting in your own way. Drawing on the "Self 1 vs. Self 2" framework from The Inner ...
Unstuck Yourself: The Art of Building and Keeping Momentum
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What do success and failure have in common? They can both trap you. Success can lead to complacency or a plateau, and failure can render you so discou...
Beautiful Suffering: How Elite Athletes Find Joy in the Grind
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How do you have fun while working really hard? For many elite athletes, figuring out how to balance joy and suffering is the key to a long and success...
Back to Work: Navigating Success, A.I., and the Unknown
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we're trying out a new format: a monthly round-up. You can think of it like share and tell. At the end of the month, each of us will share a re...
Olympics Review: Lessons in Pressure, Courage, and Going All the Way
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The Olympics are the ultimate laboratory for human performance. So today we're diving into some our favorite moments from the 2026 edition—and the l...
The Olympian's Guide to Handling Pressure, with Lilah Fear
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We're going to go ahead and say that today's episode is more densely packed with wisdom than any episode we've ever released. We are joined by Great B...
The Olympian's Guide to Handling Pressure, with Lilah Fear
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We're going to go ahead and say that today's episode is more densely packed with wisdom than any episode we've ever released. We are joined by Great B...
Why Are There So Many Health & Wellness Grifters?
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Attia's name popping up more than 1700 times in the Epstein files has us wondering: Why do so many people sacrifice their values to make it to t...
How to Get Out of Your Head and Into the Zone
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
This past weekend, when Alex Honnold climbed Taipei 101's 1,667-foot tower without ropes, he wasn't thinking his way up; he was doing what elite perfo...
The Way of Excellence: Inside Brad's New Book
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Clay interviews Brad about his new book, The Way of Excellence, which releases January 27th and is a culmination of 15 years of research, reporting, a...
Why Your Routine Might Be Working Against You
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Routines are powerful tools for peak performance—until they become the performance itself. In this episode, we explain the important difference betw...
New Year, Same BS: How to Build Habits That Actually Stick
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
91% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. That’s because behavior change is really hard. Which means that the only real way to make new habits stick is ...
26 Lessons on Excellence to Jump Start 2026
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We're ringing in 2026 by bringing you 26 lessons that will help you achieve excellence in whatever it is you do. These are the the habits, practices, ...
Best Of: Courtney Dauwalter — Inside the (Joyful) Mind of an Elite Ultrarunner
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Merry Christmas! We're taking a little break, so we're bringing you an episode with an all-time great athlete, Courtney Dauwalter, whose interview, tw...
How to Push Your Limits, with World-Champion Climber Sasha DiGiulian
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Just last month, Sasha DiGiulian completed only the fourth ever free climb (and the first by a woman) of "Platinum," a route on El Capitan—a 23-day ...
"It's Never All Bad:" How to Suffer (with Matt Fitzgerald)
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At some point, we're all going to suffer. So what if you treated it as a practice—something to be done skillfully? This was the question Matt posed ...
The Talent Episode: Is Greatness Born or Built?
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we dive deep into the age-old debate of talent acquisition versus talent development, using the contrasting blueprints of top college basketbal...
Q+A: On Bad Habits, Post-Race Fitness, and “Boring” Work
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As a thanks you to you on Thanksgiving week, we're answering a handful of listener questions.1. How can I navigate periods of intense work where my li...
The Mental Fitness Playbook: Resilience, Regulation, and Flexibility
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Elite performers know: mental fitness needs the same intentional training as physical fitness. In this episode, we break down mental fitness into thre...
Doing it All: The CEO Who Ran a 2:29 Marathon (with Nick Thompson)
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How does someone become CEO of The Atlantic, run a 2:29 marathon at age 44, write books, make music, and still be present for their family? For the an...
The Optimization Trap — and How to Escape It
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we use the L.A. Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s gutsy back-to-back World Series appearances in Game 6 and 7 to discuss what we’re calling...
The Marathon Mindset: How to Endure, Actually
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In anticipation of the New York City Marathon this weekend, we (well, okay, mostly Steve) discuss the ins and outs of how to have your best race, buil...
Everything You Need to Know About Managing Fatigue
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For a long time, it was assumed that fatigue was a muscular phenomenon. It was thought be a set point and once you hit it, you couldn't go any further...
7 Lessons to Help You Unlock an Elite Competitor's Mindset
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We talk a lot on this podcast about the principles that underlie true excellence, so we’re especially excited when we see those core ideas exemplifi...
How Curiosity Can Take Your Performance to the Next Level
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we're exploring the transformative power of curiosity, which is one of the most effective tools elite performers use in high-pressure situation...
Is Self-Improvement Just Making Us More Selfish?
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is personal development and self-improvement making us better—or just more self-absorbed? In today's episode, we wade into the debate sparked by a r...
It's Time to Move Past Bullsh*t "Toughness"
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Forget everything you’ve been told about toughness. On today's episode, we're taking on many of the macho myths that dominate sports, business, and ...
The Sports Psychologist Who Taught MJ and Kobe How to "Manage the Moment"
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Before the 1993-1994 NBA season, coach Phil Jackson wanted to get his Chicago Bulls some help. They'd won the championship the previous year, but righ...
Fall Performance Syllabus: 3 Ideas to Help You Thrive
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As we transition into Fall, we've got a few ideas and strategies that we're trying to implement into our lives. Today we're sharing those with you, wi...
How Hard Should You Be Working?
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What role should work play in your life? How hard should you be working? And how can you do it in a way that's sustainable over years, or even decades...
How "Narrative Values" Can Change Your Psychology & Biology
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The stories we tell ourselves shape our reality, heavily influencing our decision-making, behavior, and ability to bounce back from challenges. Which ...
From Success to Mastery: The Art of Sustained Excellence
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about how to achieve success in your own personal pursuit of excellence, but we don't spend all that mu...
Build Better Work Habits, Manage Anxiety, & Quit Leaking Energy
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Since we launched "excellence, actually," we've gotten a bunch of questions from listeners and members of The Growth Equation Academy. So today we're ...
Restless Exhaustion: What to Do When You Just Can't Turn Off
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's the end of the day and you're finally ready to shut down, unplug from work, relax, or go to sleep—except your mind won't stop racing. You're wi...
Tools for Navigating Discomfort and Difficulty
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At some point, we will all face discomfort, be it psychological or physical, at work or in a workout. But we do often get to choose how to handle that...
How to Avoid the Achievement Trap and Find Lasting Fulfillment
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Just about everyone has been caught thinking that some big achievement would fulfill them—only to get there and realize it didn't. This is the Achie...
The Art of Doing Hard Things: Meaningful Challenge vs. Useless Suffering
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We believe it's important to do hard things. In fact, as your may know, Steve wrote a book with that very title. But there's a difference between taki...
Balance is a Myth: How to Build Healthy Obsession
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we're taking exception with a couple ideas you often see passed around in the health and wellness space: that balance is achievable (or even de...
How to Build a Meaningful Identity in a Status-Driven World
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Here's a phrase we often come across: “Comparison is the thief of joy.” This is absolutely true! Unfortunately, we’re biologically wired to seek...
How to Be Excellent, Actually
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the inaugural episode of our rebranded podcast "excellence, actually," Steve Magness, Brad Stulberg, and Clay Skipper discuss the rebrand of the sh...
How to Take Better Breaks: Mastering Rest & Recovery
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We all know we need to take breaks to allow ourselves to rest and recover, both physically and cognitively. But it can be especially hard to do when w...
How to Know When to Grit vs. When to Quit
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you know when to persevere through a rough patch—and when to give up entirely? And if you do decide to push through, what are the most effect...
9 Important Life Lessons We've Learned from Exercise
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Exercise isn't just a way to better yourself physically. In fact, through our years of running, competing, and working out, we've found some of exerci...
120 - A 66-Year-Old Powerlifter with 71 World Records on the Secrets to Long-Term Success (with David Ricks)
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Ricks first competed in a powerlifting competition in 1981, when he was 21 years old. At 66, he is still competing. Along the way, he's won 13 w...
119 - How to Turn Your Inner Critic Into a Coach
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
By some estimates, the voice in your head can spew up to 4000 words per minute, making it all the more important that we learn how to live with it. Th...
118 - How to Build Discipline
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why are some people disciplined and others aren’t? It’s not because of an innate character trait, but because disciplined people have simply train...
117 - The Masculinity Crisis, and Why It Matters for All of Us (Part 2)
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This is the second of two episodes we're devoting to the topic of masculinity. Last week, in part one, we spoke with Richard Reeves about how changing...
116 - The Masculinity Crisis, and Why It Matters for All of Us (Part 1)
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Over the next two weeks, we're going to be exploring the topic of masculinity—more specifically, how changing ideas of what it means to be a man hav...
115 - Mailbag: Daily Health Checklist, Rut vs. Burnout, & Taking Good Breaks
24 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You've got questions, we've got answers. Today, we dive into listener emails and voicemails to answer some of your questions.1) Can you give me a mini...
114 - Choke, Recover, Repeat: Mastering the Art of Resilience
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the world of sport and performance, a lot is made of executing under pressure. "Don't choke," we often say. However, what is perhaps more impressiv...
113 - Playing the Long Game in a Quick-Fix World
10 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As we often say, people have a tendency to drastically overestimate what they can do in a day and drastically underestimate what they can do in a year...
112 - Building True Confidence: The Practical Path from Bravado to Belief
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today we're breaking down confidence. We discuss what it is (earned self-belief) and what it isn't (bravado, arrogance, positive thinking, or the abse...
111 - How to Better Manage Stress
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we talk about how to navigate life and athletic performance amidst stress. We discuss the impact of mental and emotional stress on physical per...
110 - Bracketology: Who is the World's Top Performer?
20 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
March Madness is back! In honor of its return, we put together a special edition FAREWELL bracket with sixteen of the world's best performers, across ...
109 - How (and Why) to Spend Some Time Alone in Your Head
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." The French philosopher Blaise Pascal said this in 1654. A study...
108 - Musk, Chalamet, and Real vs. Fake Greatness (with Cal Newport)
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A couple of recent events—Elon Musk parading onstage with a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference and bragging about DOGE's 120-h...
107 - Wise Words: 16 of Our Favorite Quotes to Live By
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today we're sharing our all-time favorite quotes we've collected over the years. These are words about everything from performance to spirituality to ...
106 - Mastering Mental Performance with Sports Psychologist Alex Auerbach
20 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From years of experience working with NBA players, CEOs, para jumpers, and Olympians, performance psychologist Alex Auerbach has learned about the mos...
105 - Building Resilience and Finding Resonance: How to Embrace Life's Chaos
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Two topics for you today. On the back of the Super Bowl, Brad shares a message of resilience inspired by Eagles' quarterback Jalen Hurts. Then, a disc...
104 - How to Win the Inside Game, and Move from Surviving to Thriving (with Steve Magness)
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When we think of "choking," we usually think of a field goal kicker missing a clutch kick, or someone freezing up during an important speech. In those...
103 - Steve's 5 Essential Rules for Training Physical Fitness
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On today's episode, Steve breaks down his five foundational rules for building a training practice that he's used to coach world-class athletes to suc...
102 - The Art of Attention: Breaking Free from Digital Distraction
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Last week we heard the ways in which our fractured attention was keeping us from connecting and negatively impacting our society. So this week we're t...
101 - From Solitude to Social Fitness: Rethinking Connection in the 21st Century (with Derek Thompson)
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Americans are spending more time alone than we have in a long, long time. That wouldn't be such a big deal if we weren't also reporting feelings of in...
100 - Badwater 135 Finisher on Lessons from "The World's Toughest Foot Race" (with Kelaine Conochan)
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Badwater 135 is a 135-mile race across Death Valley, where temperatures reach 125 degrees, runners cover an elevation gain of more than 20,000 feet, a...
099 - 25 Lessons (in 25 Minutes) for 2025
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Happy New Year! To celebrate, we've put together a special edition of The Coach Up, looking and highlighting 25 of our favorite learnings from a year ...
098 - Farewell, 2024: The Year's Best Tools, Lessons, Performances, & Books
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We use the last episode of the 2024 calendar to reflect on the year, discussing the tools or mental frameworks we found most useful, the biggest lesso...
097 - Healing Internet Brain Rot: Tips for a Healthier Information Diet
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Oxford's 2024 word of the year is "brain rot" (which appears, to us at least, to be two words). What does it mean? "The deterioration of a person’s ...
096 - "Go See God" Workouts and How to Stop Procrastinating
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On today's episode, we discuss the role of intense workouts ("Going to see God" as Steve calls it): the physical and psychological benefits and how yo...
095 - Strategies for Overcoming Bad Days
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We all have bad days, when we can't get motivated, perform in the way we were hoping to, or adhere to the schedule we had planned. Contrary to popular...
094 - Hard Conversations & Gratitude That (Actually) Works
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The holiday season brings with it many traditions, two of which we're covering in today's episode: Navigating contentious conversations or disagreemen...
093 - How We Can ACTUALLY Make America Healthy Again
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In conjunction with this week's Growth Equation newsletter, we're diving deep into the deteriorating state of public health in America. As the wellnes...
092 - How to Get Off the Achievement Treadmill
18 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today's episode draws on conversations with an Olympic gold medalist, an ultrarunner, and a Buddhist author to discuss a potential way to think about ...
091 - Keep Calm and Practice On: Buddhist Lessons on Performance (with Stephen Batchelor)
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Two skills that will be helpful to anyone trying to master a craft or achieve excellence (or, frankly, make it through life): the capacity to be with ...
090 - Use the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) to Simplify Your Life
11 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of The Coach Up, you'll learn how the Pareto Principle can be used to help you get clarity on what's most essential in your life — f...
089 - Marathon 101 with Steve Magness: Insights & Strategy
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, Clay asks Steve to answer all of your most pressing marathon questions: what to know before signing up; what he thinks the Boston Marathon shou...
088 - Flow: The 8 Factors of Optimal Experience
04 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In his 1990 book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi laid out the ideas that would give birth to the idea...
087 - Training Tips for the Aging Athlete
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We are, each of us, getting older every moment. (Scary, we know!) So how should we think about adjusting our training as we age, particularly if we're...
086 - The Coach Up: Should You Do "All-Out' Workouts?
28 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Steve Magness is back on The Coach Up to discuss the nuances of doing "intense" or "all-out" workouts. Since the explosion of High Intensity Interval ...
085 - Quitting: When to Give Up (and When to Push On)
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Knowing when to quit, and when to push on, is as much an art as a science. Where is the line between normal fatigue or difficulty, and harmful discomf...
084 - The Coach Up: How to "Practice Your ABC's"
21 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this week's Coach Up, a lesson from the book "Everyday Zen" by Charlotte Joko Beck about expanding the upper reaches of your comfort zone.Join The ...
083 - The Science, Art, & Mystery of Hot Streaks
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
After a brief discussion of Ruth Chepng'etich's world-record marathon from this past weekend, Brad and Steve get into the science of the "hot streak" ...
082 - Thinking Beyond the Brain: Exploring the "Extended Mind" (Part 2)
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is the second episode of a two-part Coach Up where we're diving into the work of science writer Annie Murphy Paul and her book "The Extended Mind...
081 - Picking Goals, Pushing Through Plateaus, and Navigating Post-Race Blues
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, Steve, Brad, and Clay discuss three stages of tackling a big, ambitious challenge: (1) How do you find the right goal for you? (Particularly if...
080 - Thinking Beyond the Brain: Exploring the "Extended Mind" (Part 1)
07 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over the next two weeks of Coach Up's, we'll be diving into the work of science writer Annie Murphy Paul and her book "The Extended Mind," which explo...
079 - Supplements 101: A Sports Dietician Goes Deep (with Meredith Parmley)
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the performance world, there are a lot of supplements, a lot of questions about supplements, a lack of great data on supplements, and a lot of peop...
078 - The Coach Up: Don't Be a Day Trader
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A quick story about the 2021-2022 Golden State Warriors, a conversation with then General Manager Bob Myers, and how to apply some wisdom from finance...
077 - Peak Performance: 10 Rules for Sustainable Excellence
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing on a recent talk that Brad gave to his hometown Detroit Tigers of the MLB, the guys discuss 10 of the core principles that have come out of ye...
076 - The 3 P's: A Simple Tool to Be More Optimistic
23 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The stories we tell ourselves about what happens to us are powerful. Today, drawing on the work of psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman, we discuss a simp...
075 - Mastering the Mind: Layne Norton on Pain, Motivation, and Success
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Layne Norton, a successful powerlifter, coach, nutritionist, and respected performance expert, joins Brad and Clay to talk about his evidenced-based a...
074 - The 85% Rule and the Art of Hard Effort
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Getting the most out of yourself isn't about simply going all out. Performing your best requires an ability to give maximum effort while still staying...
073 - Sleep Science: What Actually Matters
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Not that long ago, it was considered a badge of honor to "hustle" or "grind" off of only four or five hours of sleep a night. Thankfully, we've come t...
072 - Navigating Our Inner Selves: A Lesson from George Saunders
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On today's episode of The Coach Up, Clay revisits a conversation he had with the award-winning author George Saunders, about navigating the different ...
071 - Debunking Masculinity Myths & Redefining Modern Manhood
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, the idea of masculinity has undergone a cultural and societal shift. Though the evolution was much needed and long overdue, it has le...
070 - "Don't Shoot Yourself with The Second Arrow"
02 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." You've probably heard that one. It's not the most useful phrase. There are a lot of really difficult or t...
069 - What Dying Can Teach Us About Living (with Dr. BJ Miller)
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We're all going to die. (Gulp.) We know this—and we all share it—but death remains taboo, as do so many of its accompanying experiences: grief, su...