The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 672: Brad Stulberg - The Neuroscience of Curiosity, Process vs. Outcome Goals, The Power of Consistency, Playing Like The Beatles, Focusing on Your WHO, and The Way of Excellence

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Go to www.LearningLeader.com to learn more This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader My guest: Brad Stulberg is a bestselling author and leading expert on sustainable performance and well-being. He's written for The New York Times, Outside Magazine, and The Atlantic, and his previous books include Peak Performance and The Practice of Groundedness. His latest book, The Way of Excellence, is great. Brad's writing combines cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, and stories from world-class performers to help people do their best work without losing themselves in the process. Notes: Never pre-judge a performance. When you're feeling tired, uninspired, or off your game, show up anyway. Remember the Beatles scene—they looked bored and exhausted, but Paul still wrote "Get Back" that day. You don't know what's possible until you get going. Discipline means doing what needs to be done regardless of how you feel. As powerlifter Layne Norton says, we don't need to feel good to get going... We need to get going to give ourselves a chance to feel good. Stop waiting for motivation. Start moving and let the feeling follow. Audit who you're surrounding yourself with. The Air Force study is striking: the least fit person in your squadron determines everyone else's fitness level. If you sit within 25 feet of a high performer at work, your performance improves 15%. Within 25 feet of a low performer? It declines 30%. Your environment isn't neutral... Choose wisely. Treat curiosity like a muscle. It's a reward-based behavior that gets stronger with use. When Kobe said he played "to figure things out," he was tapping into the neural circuitry that makes learning feel good and builds upon itself. Ask more questions. Stay curious about your craft. Excellence isn't about perfection or optimization... It's about mastery and mattering. It's about showing up consistently, surrounding yourself wisely, and staying curious along the way. To the late Robert Pirsig - one of the greatest blessings and joys and sources of satisfaction in my life is to be in conversation with your work. He's the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance— "gumption is the psychic gasoline that keeps the whole thing going." Arrogant people are loud. Confident people are quiet. Confidence requires evidence. The neural circuitry associated with curiosity is like a muscle: it gets stronger with use. Curiosity is what neuroscientists call a reward-based behavior. It feels good, motivates us to keep going, and builds upon itself. Kobe didn't play to win. He played to learn and grow. Kobe Bryant said he didn't play not to lose, and he didn't even play to win. He played to learn and to grow. He said the reason he did that is because it's so much more freeing. If you're really trying not to lose, you're going to be tight. If you're really trying to win, you're going to be tight. But if you're just out there to grow, you're going to be in the moment. When you're in the moment, you give yourself the best chance of having the performance you want. The word compete comes from the Latin root word com, which means together, and petere, which means to seek, rise up, or strive. In its most genuine form, competition is about rising together (Caitlin Clark's story against LSU). Love: The Detroit Lions had just won their first playoff game in 32 years. Following the game was a scene of pure jubilation. During a short break from the celebrating, the head coach, GM, and quarterback all gave brief speeches. Which collectively lasted about 2 minutes. During those 2 minutes, the word LOVE was repeated 7 times. Homeostatic regulation -- Sense it in the greatness of others and when you're at your best. What Brad calls "excellence." Surround yourself with people who have high standards. When things don't go your way, when you're inevitably heartbroken or frustrated, it's the people around you, the books you read, the art around you, the music you listen to, that's the stuff that speaks to you and keeps you going. It keeps you on the path even amidst the heartbreak. Process goals work better than outcome goals for most people. If you're an amateur, you should be process-focused. When I train for powerlifting, I don't think about the meet that I'm training for. I think about showing up for the session today. If I think about the meeting, I get anxious, and my performance goes down. But if you're Steph Curry and you've been doing your thing for 20 years, you can think about winning the gold medal because your process is so automatic. For 99% of people, focus on the process. "Brave New World" turns fear into curiosity. When you walk up to a bar loaded with more weight than you've ever touched, there can be fear about what it's going to feel like. If you go up to the bar with fear, you're going to miss the lift. If you're convinced you're going to make it, you'll make it, but your nervous system knows when you're lying to yourself. The middle ground is curiosity. Instead of saying "that's heavy, it's scary," I say "Brave New World. I've never touched this weight before. I have no idea what's going to happen, but let's find out." It splits the difference. I'm hyped, I'm giving myself a chance, I'm not lying to myself, but I'm also not scared. Curiosity and fear cannot exist at the same time in the brain. There are seven pathways in the brain defined by affective neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp. Two of those pathways are the rage/fear pathway and the seeking/curiosity pathway. These pathways cannot be turned on at the same time. They compete for resources. It's a zero sum game. You cannot simultaneously be raging and curious. You cannot be terrified and curious at the same time. If you get into a mindset of curiosity, it's extremely hard to be angry or terrified. By being curious, we turn off the fear deep in our brains and give ourselves a chance to perform our best. Practice curiosity in lower-consequence situations first. Curiosity is like a muscle. If you're about to do something absolutely terrifying and you're really scared and you say, "I'm just going to be curious," you know you're lying to yourself. You have to practice in lower-consequence situations first. When you, as a paren,t get really upset with your kid, try to be curious about their experience. Watch your anger calm down. When you as a leader, have a board presentation where you're feeling anxious, try to have that mindset of "Brave New World." When you're an athlete going into a big game obsessing about what could go wrong, try to be really curious instead. The best competitors have emotional flexibility. As a competitor, you would know that in the confines of the game, you're not singing Kumbaya, you are trying to kill them. Then you have the emotional flexibility the minute that game ends to respect them as a person. That is the best way to compete. That's when our best performances happen. It's not either/or, it's both/and. It's playing really hard, giving everything you can for the win, seizing on your opponent's vulnerability, at the same time as having deep respect for them. You don't have to be miserable to be excellent. There are people like David Goggins or Michael Jordan who seem motivated by anger and a chip on their shoulder. But Jordan would put his tongue out like this primal expression of joy when he was about to dunk. And Jordan won all his championships while being coached by Phil Jackson, the Zen master of compassion. There are the Steph Currys of the world, or Courtney Dauwalter (best ultra marathoner to ever exist), or Albert Einstein (total mystic who had so much fun in his work). There are two ways to the top of the mountain. For 99.999% of people, you end up performing better with fun and joy, and you have so much more satisfaction, which contributes to longevity. The best leaders take work seriously but laugh at themselves. The best leaders I know in the corporate world, they take the work so seriously. They are so intense. But my God, do they laugh at themselves and their colleagues and have fun. Reflection Questions Brad says, "The things that break your heart are the things that fill your life with meaning." What are you currently holding back from caring deeply about because you're afraid of getting hurt? What would it look like to step fully into that arena despite the risk of heartbreak? The Air Force study showed that sitting within 25 feet of a low performer decreases your performance by 30%. Honestly assess who you're spending the most time with right now. Are they raising your standards or lowering them? What specific change could you make this month to shift your environment? Brad uses "Brave New World" to turn fear into curiosity before big challenges. Think of something coming up that makes you anxious. Instead of trying to convince yourself you'll succeed or dwelling on the fear, what does it feel like to approach it with pure curiosity: "I've never done this before. Let's find out what happens."

Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to LearningLeader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to LearningLeader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader. My good friend Brad Stolberg is back, best-selling author of Peak Performance. The Practice of Groundedness in its latest book is called The Way of Excellence.

I love the intensity that Brad studies and writes about excellence. That's why we get along so well. During our conversation we discuss goal setting, process or results based, which is better. And what does Brad do for himself? What should you do for yourself? And then what we can learn from the scene and the Beatles documentary when they created the song, Get Back, a really, really cool story that I think is applicable well outside the realm of creating music. And then why the phrase, quote, brave new world is helpful.

And Brad talks about that story in his life. And we go deep on the importance of curiosity, discipline, and consistency. So good. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Brad Stolberg. This episode is brought to you by. Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you want to learn more about the CEO, Bert Bean and Chief Revenue Officer Sam Kaufman, check out episode 424. We had a fantastic conversation talking about my partnership with the great people at Insight Global.

If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit Insightglobal.com slash learning leader today to learn more. That's Insightglobal.com slash learning leader. So I went to the acknowledgement section of your new book, The Way of Excellence. The book is so killer, dude. It's amazing. But anyway, in the acknowledgement section, Robert Persig, you said, one of the greatest blessings and joys and sources of satisfaction in my life is to be in conversation with your work. So when there's someone I admire and look up to like you, one of the things I like to

try to find is who inspires them. So when I saw you write about him inspiring you, I'm like, I got to ask this, man. So what is it about his work and how does his work inspire you? I first read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is Persig's seminal work back in undergraduate school. So the first thing that I would say is as I was a junior, I distinctly remember this. And I read that book and I decided that, wow, like there is such an intellectual spark within me. And I can get so engrossed in ideas and then how ideas become reality that I don't need to party and smoke so much weed anymore. So if nothing less, like it got me off of one path, and it kind of helped me mature into the adult I am today. Number two, I read that book,

and it sparked a love for reading. And now I'm a writer, and I don't think I would have been a writer had I not read that book. And then number three, the idea at the heart of that book is what Persig calls quality. And he says that quality is what happens when an actor in his or her act gets so intimate, gets so close, gets so in rhythm and in touch with each other, that they become hard to separate. And when you have quality, it shapes who you are as a person, but it also shapes the outcome of what you're doing. So a woodworker who works with quality, her table is going to be magnificent, it's going to be elegant, and her experience of building that table is going to be magnificent and elegant. A coach who has a quality relationship with his or her craft and his or her team,

they're going to grow and mature and find so much satisfaction as a person, and that team is going to shine. So he doesn't define quality in the person or in the thing, but in the interaction, between the person and the thing. And ever since then, that's really shaped my own thinking on what excellence means and how to strive toward it. It makes me think of the word care.

I feel like, and in our conversations both recorded in, and just on the phone, one of the reasons why I think we get along so well is because I think we have a mild obsession with excellence, maybe sometimes a big time obsession with it, but also just that you deeply, deeply care about your work and the quality of your work,

and you care about the people you surround yourself with. The one potential issue with caring a lot is you kind of have to be vulnerable. It's just like a relationship with a person. If you're going to love somebody, you've got to truly, truly love somebody. You've got to be vulnerable and you've got to be willing to be hurt. And I find that dynamic fascinating to think about and to live. Can you tell me more about this idea of just the way you live your life of caring deeply about your work and about excellence and about quality and studying it and then trying to live it out

as well as help others live that out. Well, you're spot on. The first thing that I would say is that the things that you care about are the things that break your heart are also the things that fill your life with texture and meaning. So it is just the price that you pay for stepping in the arena and caring deeply is that eventually you're going to get hurt. And even in the best of circumstances you're going to get hurt. The parent that cares so deeply about their child, well, someday, if things go well, their child's going to grow into a mature adult and move out of the house. That's going to break your heart. The athlete or the artist who cares so deeply about their craft, at some point, you're going to retire. Or the game that you just put your all into winning

isn't going to go your way and you're going to take a loss. And that's going to break your heart. But if you don't care deeply, then you don't have any chance at excellence, at quality. Because our best performances live on the other side of that deep caring. So in my own life, what does it mean? I mean, you kind of summed it up. I try to be super intentional about the projects that I take on and the people who I work with so that when I get into the zone, I'm doing it in a way where I'm really throwing all of myself into what I'm doing. And it's so important to surround yourself with good people because when things don't go your way, when you're inevitably heartbroken or frustrated, it's the people around you, it's the books that you read, it's the art around you,

It's the music that you listen to. That's the stuff that speaks to you and it keeps you going and it keeps you on the path even amidst the heartbreak. I think we know it's important to be surrounded by excellence, by high standard, get after it type people that don't make excuses. We know this. Why don't more of us do that, though? Why do people settle? Why are they okay with like, yeah, my friends are all right? You know what I mean?

Like I feel like you're intentional about this and you've studied it. I try to be the same way. I know how those people really rub off on me. And so it sometimes can be even brutal of saying, that's not it. I'm going to go over here with those people because of their standards and their quality and their care and their discipline and their work ethic. I'd love to hear how you design your life that way, specifically with the people. Well, you don't always get to choose, right?

You've got certain people in your family who you love because they're your family. perhaps they raised you or you were raised with them or in a community with them. And maybe they're just kind of going through the motions and coasting through your life, but they're good people and they mean something to you. And those people, of course, should be in your life. When it comes to a work context or to a creative context or to a sporting context, so now when we're talking not necessarily just about community or family, but about the people that you are aspiring toward goals with, here the research is unequivocal, that the motivation and the energy of the people around you often have more,

to do with your own performance than your own motivation and energy. So as you think about accomplishing a goal or striving for some sort of characteristic, you shouldn't just think about what's your plan to achieve it, whatever things that you as an individual are going to do, but you also want to think about the people around you. Now, as to why it feels like this is a rarity or perhaps there's not so much of it, I have a theory here. And in a big part of the book is really to try to reclaim excellence and put it back in its proper place as a personal and cultural aspiration. And the reason I say this is I think what happens is you've got these two extremes when it comes to the word excellence or also greatness. One extreme is what I call performative greatness or

pseudo excellence. And these are the people who are more concerned with appearing great than actually being great. So they might have 44-step elaborate routines and they might talk about all their hacks and fads and they might cycle from one thing through the next. Oftentimes they build like really big followings. But what they're actually great at is getting attention on the internet. They're not a master of their craft. They're not a great writer. They're not a great artist. They're not a great athlete. They're not a great leader. What they're great at is making post on the internet about the performance of the thing. And that can be really exhausting. So people see this and they see if our LinkedIn feed or their Instagram feed or whatever it is just full of kind of this elaborate kibuki

that masquerades is the real thing. And then they start to associate excellence or greatness with these cringe bros that don't really know anything about excellence or greatness. These are like your cold plunge guys. Yeah, you're kind of like turned off by the term. And that's one extreme. And then you have another extreme, and I'm painting in broad strokes, but there's a lot of truth to these strokes, I believe. And these are just people that are allergic to the idea of hard work because they're scared to fail. So instead of care, as we talked about, and put themselves in the arena and really try to give something their all and try to give their life they're all, they have like this too cool to care attitude. Or they say, well, like, you know, the world's falling apart. Everything's burning.

Don't tell me to try to be great at sport or to try to write a great book. Like, everything sucks always. Can't you just be more frustrated? And I actually think most of these people, they don't really even care about the world. It's just a cop out for their own fear of stepping into the arena and making themselves vulnerable. So then you've got this middle, which I think is kind of like the silent majority of people. Because I talk to people. And once you get people out of their shell, most people are lit up by excellence. And like, oh, you're talking about the real thing. I want that in my life.

I want more of that. Even if I'm never going to play in the NBA or publish a bestselling book, I want to join a men's league or the women's volleyball club and like actually get good at something. I want to master the art of gardening. It doesn't matter what it is. People get lit up and they feel alive by caring and by giving their all to something. And I really think that most people feel that way. And what ends up happening again in kind of like the more broad cultural conversation is

these two extremes are the loudest, especially on the end of the end. internet. So what happens is genuine, heartfelt, true excellence in the pursuit of it gets crowded out. And that's why I love talking to you. And that's why I feel so aligned with you. Like, I think that our joint mission is to kind of reclaim this. And unfortunately, the loudest voices often say the dumbest things. But I think there's like this small, mighty movement of people who actually get it. It's the people that are coaching youth sports, that are coaching collegiate sports, that are coaching professional sports. It's the artists who are in maker space and who are really like trying to bring their work to people as an inspiration during these hard times. And we need that. The number one

complaint I get from people is I feel so numb. They're like, what's the antidote to my numbness? Like, excellence. I can't be excellent. I don't want a cold plunge. Oh, I didn't think you're a bro. You're a bro. I'm like, no, not that kind of excellent. And then they're like, well, I can't be like Steph Curry. I'm like, you're missing the point. It's not about the result. It's about the process and about throwing yourself into something and like figuring out your unique gifts in trying to maximize those. And regardless of what happens on the scoreboard, you're going to feel good and you're going to contribute in your own way to the world. Yeah. And to get back some of the science that you cite in your book about surrounding yourself wisely, this landmark study involving the

United States Air Force, let me make sure I get this right. Psychologists tracked a cohort of cadets for over four years. This was the fitness among squadrons. And there wasn't that much variability among them, however, and they were randomly assigned, right? What did they learn, the determining factor? was the fitness level of the least fit person in the group. Wait, tell me more about this science, man. All right. So what this means is that we often think that a rising tide lifts all boats. So if you are in the presence of greatness or a superstar,

it's going to bring up the rest of the unit. It's going to bring up the rest of the team. And that was the hypothesis that these researchers had going into the study. But what they ultimately found was that these squadrons, they sunk to the level of the lowest performer. And I want to be careful because it's not even performer. That's the word that they use in the paper. But then you read the methods,

it's actually the person who had the least motivation and the least energy. So even if someone's not incredibly talented, if they care and they give it their all, that squadron performs really well. But if a squadron had a quote unquote bad apple or someone who was just kind of dogging it all the time, the entire squadron was pulled down by that person.

And you often see this in a sporting context where, like, one kind of toxic, I don't like that term because I don't believe anyone's actually toxic, but one player who's just not with the program can really sink an entire team. And I think what this means is twofold. The first is to the extent that you can,

you want to surround yourself as we spoke about really wisely and intentionally with people who are driven and who are committed and who have integrity and who go about the path the right way. The second thing is, as a coach, you want to be very careful about those problem athletes, or if you're a teacher and maybe you're teaching dance or some other craft or music,

you want to be really careful about the problem players, the problem participants, on the one hand. But on the other hand, it's on you as a coach to bring those people up because, like, most people are not bad at heart. Most people are not evil. And I think the risk with this is a coach can kind of be lazy and say, oh, Brad and Ryan told me, like,

I can't have that player, so I'm just going to cut him from the team, caught her from the team. Maybe that's the case, but maybe actually, like, you need to lean into that athlete or that musician and figure out, like, what drives them and what's wrong, figure out what makes them tick and then try to turn it on. The other stat you said was, this is, I think, a knowledge work setting. And I remember this because, like, my first 12 years was a Lexis Nexus sales job, started in a cubicle, eventually got promoted. But basically, if you sit within 25 feet of a high performer, your performance improves by 15%. However,

if you sit within 25 feet of a low performer, again, you can define that, your performance declines by 30%. So it's a lot worse to sit by a low performer than even it is better to sit by a high performer. These were kind of scary stats, man. That's right. And again, the first study is out of the Air Force.

So, you know, they're constantly looking for any edge, very good science. And the second one you mentioned is from Northwestern and MIT. So, you know, these aren't, like researchers down the street, you know, the local high school running a sample size of 30. Like this is academic powerhouse findings. And it's kind of surprising for me, but really, like, the evidence converges around this fact that a lowering tide lowers all boats, more than a rising tide lifts all boats. So you really have to be careful and try to nip issues in the bud in a team

setting. And then personally, like, find those people who are committed to their own version of greatness and make them a part of your performance, community, your brain trust, your network. Thinking about excellent teams, I loved reading your part of the book about the importance of Greg Popovich's team dinners. That's when he was the coach of the San Antonio Spurs. And these things were like legendary. ESPN had a big story about it that you cite and you went a lot deeper. I think this could apply to any team, sports, business, anywhere. And some people oh yeah, we're just going to go out to dinner. And it's like, Popovich didn't think of it that way.

It wasn't like, yeah, we're just going to go out to dinner like most people do. Let's just go out to eat. Can you first tell the Popovich story? But then also, how could this apply to anybody who's leading a team anywhere, whether it's sports or business or anything else? All right, Greg Popovich, one of the greatest coaches across any sports ever, just absolute legend. Popovich was known for these team dinners.

And to set the context, NBA season's 82 games, and that's at the minimum, if you you make the playoffs, it's more. And it is a whirlwind of a season. So these guys in the coaching staff, they dream their entire lives of getting to this level. And then when they're at this level, it's a whirlwind of playing, being on a plane, playing, going to a hotel, being on a plane, doing an interview, trying to check in with your family if you've got a family and stay connected to them, playing, getting on a plane, and on and on and on. And what ends up happening is this thing that was the dream to play basketball starts to become a grind. Okay. And, part of the job of a coach and of a coaching staff is to constantly be looking ahead.

So there's not much time to look back and reflect. And that's good. You want to have that next play mentality, right? The minute the game ends, you take what you can, you learn from it, and then you're focused on the next one. On the plane, you're looking at the scouting report, the injury report for the next team that you're flying to go play. But what often gets crowded out amidst this is the personal, the human connection amongst

the organization. So what Popovich instituted were these team dinners that he had throughout the season, and they tended to come at fairly important junctures. So it might be after a really tough loss, or it might be after a big win. It might be after a playoff series. It might be before a playoff series. It might be right after a road trip where you played five games in seven days. And the Spurs would call the restaurant ahead.

They're the Spurs, is Greg Popovich. They'd have no problem renting out the restaurant. and he would plan these elaborate menus with his favorite foods, his favorite wines. He was a big wine guy. He'd have seating charts. So he was really intentional about where the coaches and the players were sitting. And then there would be no shot clock on these team dinners. So even if it was during the season, it would be the one excuse to break curfew.

So they could stay out till midnight till one in the morning. And throughout the season, throughout a series of, I don't know, five, six, seven of these team dinners, what happens is the players can step back from that whirl and from that ground. of go, go, go of always looking ahead and really be where they are and connect not just as player to player or player to coach, but as person to person. They get to know about each other's fears, about each other's vulnerabilities, about each other's families, about each other's pasts. And by creating those intense, those tight bonds off the court, the team started to feel more like a family and play better and establish trust on the court. And that's part of the enigma

and the paradox of Popovich that I think is at the heart of any great coach, which is, He is an intimidating figure. Like, I wouldn't want to mess up with pop coaching me. And he rides his players hard. But the reason he can do that is because it's all on this bedrock of trust and love. And those team dinners, that's what formed this bedrock of trust and love for the Spurs organization. Now, you can take this out of a basketball context. And this can be true for any coach or for any leader outside of a sporting context that so often we're so focused on push, push, push, go, go, move forward, move forward, move forward.

that the ability to stop and pause and be where we are and reflect gets crowded out. So the key takeaway I would say is even if it's just three, four times a year, try to schedule these moments of deliberate reflection and connection and do it in a setting that is separate than your traditional work setting. So it's not like the Spurs came to practice an hour and a half early and held hands in saying kumbaya. Like they got off the basketball court. They went to these restaurants and it incorporated so much personal touch. Like I said, Pop was a wine guy. So, like, he took great pride and picking the wine. And then the players got to know Popovich, not just as this coach, is this alpha,

but is this dude that, like, loves wine and it's kind of goofy. I love the human element. The showing, Brad, I mean, I think we both showed each other this over, I don't know, the last decade of talking. I think curiosity is one of the ultimate acts of love, being genuinely into somebody and their story and asking them questions. and listening and asking them better follow-up questions to truly get to know them and find their story fascinating. I feel like that's, when you see Pop just destroy somebody as a coach because he could be very, very demanding and tough.

But you're not seeing all of the deposits he's making in his players at those dinners, asking them questions, really caring about the small details. I think that's one of the biggest takeaways is you can't just be the one part where you yell and scream and demand without the other part. I mean, you can. I just don't think you're going to get the results that he has gotten in. That's the big part of the takeaway is it's curiosity, it's caring, it's love. It's being fascinated by each of those people as actual people, not just as this guy is my point guard and I need him to do whatever on the basketball court. Exactly. And underlying all of that is attention. And I mean, this is like such attention in modern life, right? We are more distracted than ever. There's study after study. Y'all don't need me to tell you that. And if you can't give someone your full attention, then it's really hard to love that person. And the same is true for a craft. We talk about quality. If you are trying to make great work and you don't have periods of time where you're giving it your full attention, where you're really getting curious about it,

then it's not going to be as good as it could be. So pursuing excellence is somewhat similar to pursuing love. And if we're saying and we're deconstructing this lofty goal of love and saying it's really about like deep attention and curiosity and care, well, then of course people are finding it hard right now because we're more distracted than ever. And a big part of reclaiming the pursuit of excellence is reclaiming that attention and that care for things that matter to you. And Popovich did it by stepping outside of this distracted whirlwind environment and creating the conditions to be able to do it as a team. And the other thing that I'd love about the Popovich story is his coaching tree leads right down to Steve Kerr. And Steve Kerr, a massive role model of

mine. What is Steve Kerr known for? What are the Warriors core values? Intensity and joy. And you better believe it. That comes right from Pop. And I get like chills talking about this because that's excellence, that's legacy. You know, Pop's health is declining. He's older. He had a big stroke. He's not coaching right now. But all of this lives on through Steve Kerr.

And I can guarantee you there's going to be someone on the Warriors bench that when Steve ages out is going to carry that legacy down. I love last time we were talking on the phone. You mentioned the Steve Kerr story. And I love stories of going big of trying to get your book out there. I mean, Steve Kerr has the quote on the cover of the book. Can you tell me more about how that relationship got going between you and him? So I've always admired Steve Kerr, since I was a little kid.

I grew up watching him play for the Bulls and then the Spurs. And then I got deeper into the study of excellence, started to learn more about him as a coach and him as a person, just the fascinating human being, tons of integrity and tons of skill and tons of care for what he does. So I was talking with my literary agent after we had a draft of the book. And in publishing, there's blurbs. You guys probably know about this from Ryan's books. little people write things on the back of the book. And I had a list of the usual suspects,

like authors in this genre. In my literary agent said, like, you said your goal with this book is to like reclaim excellence as a cultural value. Like go big. Who really does this? And it didn't take me more than half a second. I said, well, Steve Kerr is my role model. And she's like, great. Like, why doesn't Steve Kerb blurb the book? I'm like, because I've never, Steve Kerr, like, he's a busy guy. You know, I don't think he knows me or my work. And then to the credit on my literary agent, she's like, you don't have any inroads. Then I started thinking, I'm like, you know what? When my book, The Practice of Groundedness came out in 2021, Mike Dunleavy Jr. was just being named the GM of the Warriors. And he somehow came across my book and shot me a message. And I replied,

I was so grateful. And that was it. There wasn't really anything else to do. And I still had Don Levy's email in my inbox. So I reached out to Mike Donlevy and I said, hey, I want to reintroduce myself. You read my book. and what a guy. Mike Donleaver responds within four minutes. He's like, that book was so powerful for me. I can't wait for your new one. What can I do to help? And I was honest with him. I'm like, I admire you. I said it in more elegant terms. Like, I grew up. Like Steve Kerr's my role model. Do you think I know how busy he is, but it's the offseason. You think if I got him a draft of the book, the manuscript, he might be interested in taking a read. And Mike said, this sounds right up his alley. Here's his contact, reach out, told him I sent you. So I reached out to Coach Kerr.

And he got back to me and he said, this sounds like a great idea. Don't know if I have time to get to it, but send me the PDF. So I sent him the PDF, didn't hear anything for two weeks. Two weeks later, I get this email from Coach. And he clearly read every page of the book. He comes back with all these notes. And he essentially said, like, this is it. You've done it.

This is a beautiful book. And he went ahead and endorsed it for me in just an awesome honor. It's funny because you and I both write in our work about like external. validation and it's pretty dangerous and you want to do it for the process and I still do. And that was a moment of having not external validation from the masses. I don't know how many copies this book is going to sell, but having someone that you look up to and you respect stamp their approval on your work and say like you nailed it, that's probably a peak professional moment for me. That's the juice. I feel like is somebody you admire you look up to who gets value out of you like you added value

to their life. That's the juice for me is when I feel like I've added value. to other people's lives. And especially, you know, there's a little more if I really, really look up to them. And I felt like I made their life a little bit better. Maybe our relationship is a little bit more mutual then instead of me just looking up to them. And now yours and his. I think that's an amazing feeling. And I don't know if that's a bad or a good thing that that's a thing, but it's real, right?

You just talked about it. I think those are important moments. Now, it actually gets to a part of the book that I had taken a note on, which is defining milestones. Okay. And again, we've talked about this privately. too. My book agent, my first book came out six years ago, and I was sent a bottle of champagne. He's like, hey, you know, on Pub Day, you know, pop this champagne with your wife or whatever. That bottle,

Brad, is still sitting in my cabinet, you know, it's six years ago. It's still, I just saw, we were cleaning out stuff getting ready for the holidays and stuff. And it's like, man, I'm not good at this yet. And I know it. We've talked about it. I know it. How can we be better when Steve Kerr says, this is the thing, man, this is it. Like, how can we be better at defining milestones celebrating every once in a while when we get to the top of the mountain before we start going for the next mountain? How can we be better about this? Me and you both.

So Steve Kerr blurbs the book. I'm like overjoyed. My wife is like, what happened? I tell her, she's losing it for me. My son is a diehard basketball fan. He was born in Oakland. So his earliest memories are going to Warriors games. We're all super stoked.

She's like, what are we going to do to celebrate? I'm like, well, I got to coach Theo's basketball team. I really like Gypsy Queen, which is takeout Middle Eastern. So we got takeout Middle Eastern, and that was it. And then the next morning, I'm grinding. Like, it was like a 30-minute, you know, inhaling of the food. So I struggle with this too, and I've still got a bottle of champagne from my first book. So I don't want you to feel guilty.

Must be like a book Asian thing, I guess. I don't know. There's a lot of nuance here. Yeah. Because I think that what often can happen or what sometimes happens is you spend so much time celebrating, then one, you get a little bit complacent, which I don't think dudes like me and you, and probably a lot of your listeners don't have to worry about this. But what can happen is the act of celebrating, it can kind of shift your mindset, even in unconscious ways, to, oh, I achieved. So now I am validated and now I'm worthwhile. And the good thing isn't the work itself. The good thing is

the achievement. So let's toast to the achievement. And I think that that is all true. However, if you never pause to celebrate and you never pause to have joyful moments, then you just miss out on so much of the richness and the texture of what you're going for. And those celebrations are fun and they are joyful. So I personally am trying to be a lot more intentional about celebrating success and celebrating good things when they happen. I'm also trying to be intentional about celebrating milestones that might not be connected to an external success, but are more connected to the internal success. So for you in that bottle of wine, maybe you never open it when your book hits the bestseller list, but maybe you open it when you send in your next manuscript.

So a year before, I think is even going to be published. But now you're celebrating that, hey, I did the work. I went on this writing journey, and I'm at this big phase, and now I'm onward. The philosopher Baying Shulhan, who I cite heavily in this chapter of the book, he talks about how without rituals and milestones and without these moments of celebration, life loses gravity. And I love that he uses the word gravity. He's a phenomenal writer

because it loses gravity in both senses of the word. In the first sense, it can feel like we're just floating from one thing to the next and like there's nothing to hold us down to the path. In these celebrations, these rituals, pops team dinners,

they are anchors. They literally make us pause and they provide gravity to hold us to the path. And then they also provide gravity in the sense that they fill the path with meaning. Now, this doesn't mean, that every night, you know, you should sit back with a bottle of line and celebrate a hard day's

work. What it does mean, and what I'm starting to see more and more is if you are a pusher, if you are someone that's listening to this and you're like, yeah, I also have a bottle of champagne like that, we probably should be more intentional about cracking that bottle. This relates a little bit to goal setting and we're internal scoreboard guys. But this is one thing that I've kind of gone back and forth on. Paul Rabel, the lacrosse guy, the LaRoy, the on James of the Cross. He actually really challenged my thinking here, and it made me,

I like to have an open mind, right? Maybe change my mind from time and time. And he said, you know, maybe you're not setting big, ambitious results-based goals because you're a little bit scared. And you'd say that.

Because you want to, you want to make sure you hit all your goals. And as you know, if you hit every single goal that you set, you're probably not ambitious enough. You're probably not setting big enough goals. And so I was like, man, it kind of cut right to my heart.

I was thinking, maybe he's right. Maybe that's why I stick to only process-related goals and had no, at that point at least, no results-based goals. And so, as you can sense, I battle with this still. I'm not on one side or the other. I think it's more gray, not as black and white. I wanted to save this to talk about it with you because I'm unsettled. I don't know what's best here.

Process goals, results-based goals. Somewhere in the middle. Where are you at on this? I'm at both. So the answer to everything you just said is yes. I think it's process over outcomes. I think it's process and outcomes. To use a metaphor, you need a big peak of a mountain to climb. However, it's also true that 99.999% of your time is spent on the sides of the mountain. But without the peak, there's no mountain. There's nothing that defines the mountain. So, I do think that setting a big outcome's goal essentially defines the mountain that you want to climb. And if you're picking small mountains or you're refusing to pick any mountains, yeah, there's probably an element of fear in that. So I do think it's helpful to have a big outcome goal. And then once you have that big outcome goal to also be really cognizant that the thing that's going to give you the best chance of achieving it is climbing where your feet are on the side of the mountain. So let's make this really concrete.

we'll talk about me in this book because like you, I mean, there's tension in all this. There's nuance. So in the past, I would have said my goal is to sell as many copies as possible. Okay? Like you, it's very process focused. However, like you, I also realize that I think I'm just like scared to name a big number because maybe I won't achieve it. So for this book, the goal is to sell over 10,000 copies the first week

in over 100,000 copies the first year. Those are much bigger goals than I've ever set before. Setting those goals, they have been motivating and they have given me a process, and at least they forced me to really zero in on my process and make sure I can achieve those goals. However, that's still the top of the mountain. And if I hit those numbers, maybe based on the last segment of our conversation, I'll pop the bottle of champagne, but I'm only going to stand on top of the mountain for a couple minutes, maybe a couple hours.

All the life is on the side of the mountain. So what does that mean for me? it means now that I've set those goals, what are the day-to-day week-to-week, month-to-month activities, behaviors that are going to help me achieve them, and how can I make sure my focus is there? Because I think sometimes what happens when we set that really big goal is we focus on the big goal and we spend a lot of time thinking about it

instead of actually doing things to lead us toward it. So it's both and it's yes, set the big goal, get over your fear, be willing to fail. When you set that big goal, it is going to force you to look back on your process and be like, wow, am I up to snuff? You know, can I move 10,000 books in the first week? In my case, it was like, no, I needed to change my process. Insofar I did that, it's very valuable to have that big goal.

But now day to day, the focus has just got to be on the process. I think that's how to think about it. I think another kind of tension in goals where there's no answer, but it's just really helpful to have a framework for this is on the one hand, do you want to have these smart goals, right? So they're really actionable, they're measurable. It's, what is it, specific, measurable, actionable, very relative to what you're doing in timebound. So very concrete.

So a smart goal would be, I want to deadlift 400 pounds by the end of the year. There's a specific weight, a specific activity. It's related to what you're working toward, and it's by the end of the year. It's time bound. However, talk to a master power lifter that's trying to get from 650 to 660 to 660. pounds. A smart goal makes no sense because they don't know if that breakthrough is going to happen in six months or six years. So there, the goal kind of shifts to, I want to lift as much weight as possible. And that goal, it knows no end. Like, you're just constantly getting better.

So I now think it's helpful to have both these kind of smart, specific, big, ambitious results-driven goals, not in place of a process goal, but at the same time as a process goal. And to just try to hold both of them at your head in unison. which I think is like the Jedi level to approach this, but I did a lot of talking to stuff. I'm curious what you think. I think you're right. It kind of got me excited because I pretty much hit my goals

because they're not results based. And in a way, after a while, good things happen. Don't get me wrong. But it also is kind of boring. I think it might be more exciting to miss goals because you'll feel the pain, because you'll be upset, because you'll be forced to readjust.

And so I'm curious. about a time you've missed a goal. What was it? Or how could you anticipate feeling if you miss this big ambitious book sales goal? I think it's useful to think about missing in addition to think about hitting. What's your mindset when it comes to missing the big goal?

Well, I've missed many big goals in my life. I had a goal of playing D1 football, and it wasn't good enough. I didn't play D1 football. That was a long time ago. And I think that how I handled that, looking back on it is probably pretty similar advice to what I'd give myself now, which is you grieve the defeat. It's hard. You let it hurt. All these things are connected. It comes back to the vulnerability,

right? You care deeply. It breaks your heart. I care deeply about the sport. I wanted to play D1. I didn't. It broke my heart. And then eventually you've got to get back to work. You've got to get back on the bandwagon. Sometimes there's growth in meaning that happens after a few days, a few weeks, but sometimes it just sucks for a year or two to miss a goal. But as long as you get back to the process of actually doing the work, then eventually those learnings and those lessons kick in, and you move forward on the path. And for me, doing the work wasn't playing football. I'm not a pro football player, but it was taking those same qualities that gave me a chance to play D1 football in applying them towards academics, reading this books, and in the art of motorcycle maintenance, and eventually applying

them towards writing. I mean, I'd probably write more like an athlete than an artist. So in some ways, I did get back to work. It was just in a different domain. Let's see. A more recent miss of a big goal. I also have a podcast, and I do it with a couple other guys. And we had this goal of a big download number. We wanted to get to 20,000 downloads an episode by our first year. And we fell way short of it. And you know what? Like, it was helpful to set that goal. It was helpful to fall short because it led us to this process to, again, go and examine what we were doing to get there and what we could do better. And I think if we just kind of went into it and said, like, get as many downloads as possible, then what we're getting is that accountability moment is missing.

Now, if I were to say, I want to sell 50,000 books week one and a million books the first year, that's nonsense. Like, that's completely delusional. If you want to say you're going to be a championship team in the NBA, but you're a D3 college, like, delusional. It literally can't happen. So this isn't about, like, setting this big, you know, manifestation dream goal. That makes no sense.

But I do think it's about saying, what do I think is possible? and then maybe shooting for five or 10% more and really making yourself uncomfortable and then forcing yourself to try to live up to that standard and if you don't, you're going to learn, you're going to grow

and you're going to find things to improve moving forward. What is writing more like an athlete than an artist? Maybe I shouldn't have said that. All the artists are going to get pissed off at me. I mean, my curiosity is getting the best of me. I mean, I was like, wait, what am I? I'm probably the athlete too.

I don't know. I have, and maybe it's a false dichotomy. Like, I think actually, it is a false dichotomy. I think at their best, athletes are artists. And I think a lot of artists, like, we think they work, like, with this romantic sense where they're just struck by lightning and then they go. No, a lot of artists actually probably work like athletes.

So maybe it's one and the same. For me, what that means is very rarely am I, like, struck by inspiration. I sit down, I write for eight hours and I have a masterwork. I, like, show up to the weight room, to the gym, i.e., my computer or my notebook. I put in the reps. I try to write some good sentences. to do the research. I read a ton of good books, which is akin to watching film. You're learning from others. You're getting inspired by others. You're trying to learn things and adjust your process.

And then I just chip away, like day in and day out. And some days, you show up and it's just totally there. And I write 2,000 words and they're beautiful and it's magic. And that's like that great workout or that great game when you're in flow. Some days, it's just not there at all. And just nothing comes of it. That's like that shitty game. But most days are somewhere in between. And you're just chipping away and you're grinding. And over time, you're just trying to get a little bit better. And that's my entire approach to writing. Like, it's very systematic.

It's very methodological. And it allows for those moments of greatness where, like, I do feel like an artist. This makes me think of the part of your book about discipline. You talk about a guy named Lane Norton, a power lifter, 723 pound deadlift. And basically, if you're going to sit there and wait until you feel good, you're going to be waiting a long time. you got to get going in order to get good, get going to feel good. And that feels to me like writing like an athlete. And I think, again, this could apply to all different types of work of basically the willingness

to get up and get after it, regardless of how bad you feel. I think this is, as a dad, I think about this, if one of my daughters sleeps in, it upsets me. But I also realize they're still young and growing and I can't put my discipline on them yet, as much as I want to. But talk to me about discipline and this willingness to get up and put in the reps and get after it and get going in order to get good. Yeah, that's right. So the simplest way to think about this is that we often think that you have to feel really inspired and motivated to get started. But what the research tells us is it's almost always the opposite that's true. So we need

to get started to give ourselves a chance at feeling motivated or feeling good. So what this means in practice is you have to become the kind of person who is known for your consistency, who intimately links consistency to excellence, and who says that I am going to show up and get started regardless of how I feel. Now, if you've got the flu in 103 fever, you should not try to work out. That is not smart. I'm not talking about when you're genuinely sick or you're genuinely injured. What I am talking about is not expecting yourself to wake up out of bed every morning ready to just crush the day, David Gagin's style. Most people, they wake up and they don't feel like that. And what comes next is really important. Are you going to get started? Are you going to give yourself a chance?

And the reason I say give yourself a chance is if you get 30 minutes into the writing session or 30 minutes into the training session and it's just not there, then you downregulate. Like you don't try to force it because when you try to force it is when you get hurt, right? So you downregulate. You shift the workout, you make adjustments, but you still make a deposit in the bank. But what often happens is once you get going, it is there. And it just took a little bit longer to find. This is one of the things that concerns me about the recovery industrial complex. And what I mean by this is all the wrist and the rings with recovery scores and all this focus on recovering and needing to have a readiness score that is really high to be at your best.

And I think human performance is so much more complex in an algorithm. And it's true that if you never pay attention to your sleep, it can be really helpful to have that feedback. Don't get me wrong. But I think that we run a risk of becoming fragile because we need our watch or we need our ring to spit out a certain number if it tells us that we're quote-unquote ready, when so many elite performers, they end up having their best days when they're not feeling good at all that morning or when they're not feeling good at all during the warm up.

Again, like human performance is so complex. No algorithm is going to break it down. So it's not to say do away with all that information, but I think that you can't become dependent on feeling great or even worse on having a watch tell you that you're ready to go out there and give it a shot. Like you've got to get in the practice of giving it a shot regardless of how you feel. And then also, because that takes discipline, but also have the discipline to shut it down if it's not there.

You know, if you go to back squat 500 pounds on a day where you tweaked your knee. And your knee is telling you don't do this. It's not discipline to do it. The discipline is actually shutting it down and not doing it. But you don't know that until you get started until you give yourself a chance. Do you use trackers and stuff? I'm a no-trial. I don't wear a watch or any of those rings. I personally don't want to study my sleep. I know. Yeah, I don't, we're kindred spirits in this regard, man. I don't use any trackers. Maybe I'm wrong. I just don't think that would help me. You know, I know I'm getting up to work out in the morning. Like, that's what I'm going to do. Now, yeah, you're right.

If you're sick or something bad, don't be an idiot. But for the most part, it doesn't matter what happens. I get woken up in the middle of the night or one of my kids. I'm still waking up early to work out because that's how I like to start my days. That's like my medicine. That makes me feel good and productive and helps with the rest of the day. I don't know if having an Apple Watch or a ring or whatever would be that helpful. Me, just me.

I don't know. Yeah, this is very individual-based. So I don't want to, like, throw the whole tracking out. you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater. Here's where I've seen it really helpful. People who are regular drinkers, but not alcoholics, no substance use disorder, but, you know, two beers a night.

They start to wear these trackers and they're like, whoa, you know, maybe two beers a night isn't the best thing for my sleep. And then maybe they only have one beer a night and then maybe they only drink three times a week. And I think that's really beneficial. I think for people who are so chronically sleep deprived, just having it right in their face to be like,

hey, like, you're really not sleeping well and what you've kind of adapted to feeling like is not a great place to be in. That can be helpful. However, if you are genuinely pretty healthy and you're doing a pretty good job, and especially if you've got like kids or anything that might keep you up at night, what good is a tracker that it tells me that like, you know, my sleep quality was 74 instead of 84. I just don't see any benefit. It's not going to change anything about my day. It's not going to change anything about my life. And I keep coming back to here. And I keep coming back to human performance is so freaking complex that I just don't believe that any algorithm can possibly predict when the magic's going to happen. A story I tell in my book is of the Beatles, the legendary

band, and the song Get Back. So the history, the genesis of the song Get Back is the band shows up at the studio. Okay. And presumably they were out doing hard drugs the night before. They look miserable. There's live footage of this in the Beatles documentary. And none of them want to be there. They're yawning. George Harrison has this look on his face where he's just like, I would rather be anywhere else in the world. McCartney's half asleep. Like, it's a total mess.

And then they start strumming and just jibber jabber. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then suddenly get back, get back. It like comes out. Get back to where you were before. And then they all wake up. Okay? And out of that moment, we get the song, get back.

maybe the most iconic Beatles song of all. Imagine if they would have been wearing whoops or aura rings that told them that the recovery score is zero and that they need to get back in bed. We might not have that song. So I think like that is what we lose when we become too dependent on needing to feel a certain way to get going. However, we all have personal biases and I want to be really vulnerable. My sport is powerlifting.

And my biggest training error came on a day when I probably could have acted like someone that cared a lot about his or her whoop score. So I wasn't sleeping great. My kids had been sick. I had been sick. I was up at night. And I was supposed to attempt a single rep max, like a huge lift in the gym. And instead of being smart and saying, wow, like, it's not that I can't train today,

but I probably shouldn't try to deadlift more than I ever have in my life before when I'm coming down with some kind of virus. and I was up for three hours in the middle of a night, I had this mentality, and I'm going to be like the Beatles. Like, I'm just going to send it. And the warmup wasn't great, and I sent it, and I tweaked my back. And immediately, I'm like, what an idiot, Brad. Now, again, there's nuance.

I could have trained to 80 to 85% that day and had a good workout and just push back the PR attempt a week or two. That would have been the smart thing to do. I'm not suggesting I should have stayed home, but there are times in places where you actually do want to pay attention to the signals that your body's giving you. And maybe it's just helpful to know, and this is what I wrote down in my little diary,

that you've got to know where on the spectrum you are. So if you're listening to this conversation right now and you're like, man, Brad and Ryan are making me realize, like I'm so dependent on my whoop or my aura ring. Maybe you shouldn't look at it. Maybe you should go a month without wearing it and see what happens. If you're listening to this and you're like, I'm just like Brad. Sometimes I'm boneheaded and I just send it.

In those moments, it's helpful to imagine what it would be like to be someone that is a little bit more neurotic about how you feel. and maybe look in that direction. Another thing about lifting that I think could apply outside is you use a phrase, brave new world. How does that phrase help you when you approach a big lift in the gym? Oh, it's everything.

So for people that lift, you're going to know this, for people that don't, essentially when you walk up to a bar that's loaded with more weight than you've ever touched, there can be a sense of fear. And not so much fear that you're going to miss the lift, at least not for me, because I'm a pro-writer. I'm not a pro athlete. No one cares if they make or miss the lift. But fear about what it's going to feel like.

To pressurize your body and to have 450 pounds on your back as you sink down into a squat or to try to break 550 pounds off the ground for a deadlift, it's a really uncomfortable feeling. And if you've never done it before, it can be a little bit scary. I think everyone that competes at a high level in the sport admits that. Now, if you go up to the bar with a sense of fear, you're going to miss the lift. So here's the conundrum. It's totally normal to fear of it.

but if that's your mindset, you're not going to make the lift. If you go up to the bar and you're convinced you're going to make the lift, you're going to make it. However, your nervous system knows when you're lying to yourself. So if I go up to a bar with 560 pounds on it and I tell myself, I'm absolutely going to make this lift, my nervous system's going to be like, Brad, you haven't touched more than 535 before. That's a big jump. You might not make it. Okay?

So you can't lie to yourself. So the middle ground that I found is a mindset of curiosity. And instead of saying, whoa, that's heavy, it's kind of scary, I say brave new world. I've never touched this weight before. I have no idea what's going to happen. But like, fuck it if I'm not going to try, let's find out. And it splits the difference because I'm hype. I'm giving myself a chance.

I'm not lying to myself. I'm not trying to convince myself of something I know might not be true. But I'm also not scared. And what I found when I started researching for this book is that so many of the greats rely on this mindset of Brave New World, of curiosity. There's this great quote from Kobe Bryant who talks about he didn't play not to lose, and he didn't even play to win. He played to learn and to grow. And he said, the reason he did that is because it's so much more freeing. Because if you're really trying not to lose, you're going to be tight. And if you're really trying to win, you're going to be tight. But if you're

just out there to grow, you're going to be in the moment. And when you're in the moment, you give yourself the best chance of having the performance that you want to have. So now, whenever I face a big challenge. Brave New World. When our second daughter was born, I've been saying this for a long time, three years ago. I looked at my wife right when she came out and I shit you not. I'm like, Brave New World. Here we go. Two's a lot more than one. I mean, you're a parent. One plus one equals nine. Brave New World. I was scared, but I was also curious. I take on a big writing assignment on a topic that maybe feels a little bit outside of my comfort zone. Brave New World. Let's find out what's going to happen. How did you come up with that phrase? Why was it that phrase?

I got to give credit to where credits do. I didn't come up the phrase. It was my training partner. Justin Bosley. This was, I don't know, maybe eight, nine years ago now, we were, maybe even 10 years ago now. We were at the YMCA in Oakland, California. And it was a deadlift day. And it was a big deadlift day. He looked at me. He's like, how are you feeling? I'm like, good? And he probably saw my face. Like, you don't look so good. And he's like, yo man, like brave new world. And it just clicked. And now, again, any big challenge in life when there's a little bit of fear, I just get into that mindset of, I don't know what's going to happen, but let's find out. I love the sticky language.

I think great teams have sticky language. Danny Meyer writes about it. Dan Coyle talks about it, having it for yourself, having it for your team, thinking about those little mantras, ethos, those sayings really,

really big. You mentioned about having an idea of, it's like a mindset of curiosity. And I love reading about the neural circuitry associated with curiosity. It's actually like a muscle, right? It gets stronger.

You know, curiosity is the ultimate way to show me love as well as the way I show others love quite a bit. It gets stronger with use, though, and it's what neuroscientists call a reward-based behavior. It feels good, and it motivates us to keep going, and it builds upon itself.

So I'm all in on curiosity, man. It's like my life. Tell me more about the actual science and the brain elements of curiosity. So there are seven pathways in the brain. And these pathways were defined by the affective neuroscientist, Yakponsky. And affective neuroscience is just a fancy way of saying. It is a look under the hood to describe what's happening in our brains when we feel a certain way.

And two of those pathways are what he calls the rage fear pathway, and then the seeking or the curiosity pathway. And what he found and has since been replicated is that the rage fear pathway, cannot be turned on at the same time as the seeking curiosity pathway. They compete for resources. It's a zero-sum game. And this sounds utterly fascinating, and it is. However, everyone knows this.

It is the reason why you cannot simultaneously be raging and be curious at once. You cannot be terrified and curious at the same time. It's why Brave New World is so powerful. If you get into a mindset of curiosity, it is extremely hard to be angry or terrified of what you're about to do. So by being curious, we turn off the fear deep in our brains and our neural circuitry, and then we give ourselves a chance to perform the best. And it is like a muscle, because if you're about to do something absolutely terrifying, if you're about to free dive off a cliff and you're really scared and you're like,

I'm just going to be curious about what's going to happen. Again, you know that you're lying to yourself. So you have to practice in lower consequence situations first. So when you as a parent maybe get really upset with your kid, try to be curious. Try to be curious about their experience. Try to be curious about what's going on with them and watch your anger calm down. When you is a leader have a board presentation where you're feeling a little bit anxious, try to have that mindset of brave new world.

Try to be really curious. Try to go into it saying, all right, I've never presented this topic. If this is a new board member, they have this reputation of being like a real hard ass, but I'm going to try charm them. Let's find out what happens. Is an athlete, when you go into that big game and you're obsessing about what could go wrong, try to be really curious instead. Try to have the mindset of, I've never played in stakes this high.

Let's find out how I'm going to show up. And it shifts you out of that fear state, out of that rage, out of that anger, and into a state where you're much more primed to perform your best. So good. The word compete comes from. from the Latin root word calm, C-O-M, which means together. And Pater, it's probably pronounced that right, which means to seek, rise up, or strive. So in its most genuine form, competition is about rising together. And you got a great story about Caitlin Clark in the book about this.

Can you go deeper on the root word of the word compete? You nailed it. The root of compete comes from with or together and rise up. So the Greeks who defines competition, literally and figuratively, they defined it as rising up together. So often when we compete in the modern world, we think the whole point is to destroy your enemy. Again, this is pseudo-excellance, is what you hear in the internet. You've got to crush them. You've got to do it alone. I'm not going to name names, but they're people that have these great sales funnels and they're world-class digital marketers, but I don't think they're so excellence. And they're all like, you know, everyone's jealous of your success and you've got to have

everyone hate you and you've got to compete and do it alone. You don't understand what the word compete even means, man. Compete means to put yourself in the arena with formidable opponents and go after each other and in the process of going after each other, you get so much better. That's compete. And yes, you can want to win and you can want to tear their heart out on the court. No doubt about it or in the boardroom or whatever atmosphere, whatever environment you're in. And you want to have deep respect for them. In the minute that the clock

expires, the minute the buzzer goes off, of course, your friends, one of the dumbest things in the world is all these couch armchair people, they always are morbidly obese smoking a cigarette. It's not like it was in the old days. You know, now the playoff game ends and the players go and hug each other. You know, they should hate each other. It's not like it was in the old days. It's like, dude, first off, if you were ever in the arena playing anything at a high level, you would know exactly why they're hugging each other. It's because they have such deep respect for what they've just been through together, for how hard they laid it on the line.

Second, as a competitor, you would know that in the confines of the game, you're not singing kumbaya. You are trying to kill them. And then you have the emotional flexibility as a good competitor. The minute that that game ends to respect them as a person. And that is the best way to be. compete, that's when our best performances happen. So it's not either or, it's both and. It's playing really hard. It's giving everything you can for the win. It's seizing on your opponent's vulnerability

at the same time as having deep, deep, deep respect for them. How about the Caitlin Clark story after they lost? I love this story. So this is when Caitlin Clark was on the Iowa Hawkeyes, and they lost to LSU in the finals of the women's basketball championship. And Caitlin Clark was just completely redefining the women's side of the sport, not just at the college level, but really across the game. Just phenomenal freaking superstar. After that game, they went back to the hotel, and then they immediately went out to a bar by the arena. And they ordered shots together. And I think it was a round of 22, Caitlin Clark's number. The girls, they threw back a couple shots. I think the quote was that, you know, they had a good time. And even,

after that loss, what all those players say, this is reporting that Wright Thompson did, phenomenal profile writer for ESPN, what those girls remember is that night after the loss and the word that comes up, we keep coming back to it, is love and how much they loved each other and how much they loved going to the mat together. And even though they came up short, the relationships that they forged along the way and how they'll never forget that. So they don't remember the loss. They remember the night after the loss, the commiserating, the kind of slap happiness that sometimes comes after you give something you're all and you fall short. And they did it together. They did it as a team. And what is the research show? Shows the exact same thing.

When people are interviewed on their deathbeds, they almost never say, what made my life meaningful was the gold medal or was the promotion to general manager or the regional vice president or having the best-selling book. What they always reflect on is the relationships that they forged along the way, the people that they worked with and the people that they competed against. So the formidable rival, the opponent that made them better, that yes, they wanted to kill, but they also had such deep respect for. That is excellent competition. I love it.

It's about the love, man. It's about the people. It's doing hard things or doing competitive things or doing big things with great people. You're going to remember the people and the action of doing it. Another time love came up. The Detroit Lions had just won their first playoff game in 32 years following the game was a scene of pure jubilation in the locker room. And during like a short break, the head coach, the GM, and the quarterback all gave brief speeches roughly about a total of two minutes in length.

And the word love was said seven times during those two minutes by three different people. Love. That's what it's all about, man. Yeah, and the reason I love that story so much, and I decided to include it in the book, is, you know, this book's coming out at a time where, like, it's been termed the crisis of masculinity. And it's true. Like, men are struggling, and a big part of it is loneliness and isolation. What is underlying it is this tough guy.

You know, you got to be a tough guy. It's that you got to go at it alone mentality. If you have that mentality towards everything, you're going to end up a little bit lonely and resentful. Definitely. And you go into the locker room of an NFL football team. No one is more conventionally masculine and tough than a bunch of NFL football players. And they're talking about how much they love each other. Jared Goff is crying, crying with a bunch of dudes because he was this underdog.

The Rams didn't want him. Now he's with Detroit. They're winning. They all believe in each other. Like, I get chills down my spine telling the story. Seven freaking times. They didn't say kill. They didn't say victory.

They didn't say win. they said love. And there's different kinds of love, right? There's love for your child, kind of protecting love. There's love for your romantic partner. It can be a deep respect. It can be an erotic love, passionate love.

But there's also brotherly or sisterly love. And this is a love for your comrades, for your teammates, for the people in your community, for the people you are climbing with. And regardless of what you're aspiring toward, if you can do it with good people, if you can cultivate that kind of love, you will have a much better chance

of reaching the top of your respective mountain and you're going to enjoy the climb so much more. So if there's two routes to the top of the mountain, of course you want to take the route that is full of love. Like you only live once. That's the point. Sometimes, I bet you get this too, after a keynote and you know,

you're talking about high standards and getting after it and climbing up the mountain and stuff like that and using analogies and stories, sometimes somebody, and I like it when this happens. They'll pull me off the side of the stage and they'll say, dude, you need to chill out. Why is so serious or why push so hard? Why not just try to enjoy your life? And I'll usually say, this is how I enjoy my life.

Like, this is how I like to live my life and I like to be surrounded by others. But sometimes like I'm on the flight back and I'm like, yeah, maybe that guy was right. But maybe not, you know, do you ever get that? And how do you feel or what do you think when you get people who say, God, these two guys seem like a little too intense. Why don't they just chill out a little bit? I think intensity and joy can coexist. And I think that you can find joy in the intensity. The myth of Sisyphus. The protagonist Sisyphus is damned by the gods. I forgot exactly what he was punished for to essentially roll a boulder up the hill. And then the boulder reaches the top of the hill and the gods push it back down. And he was

condemned to do this for his entire life. Just roll the boulder up the hill, push it back down. Roll it up, push it back down. And there's many interpretations. of this myth. But the one that I hold is in many ways, we're all Sisyphus. We live and we have these mountains that we want to climb and we push the boulder up and hopefully we get to the top. And then the boulder rolls back down. We've got to start again. We're on to the next goal. And a good life is being able to push that boulder up the hill with a smile on your face. Right. I think the quote comes from the French philosopher Camus, who said, the mark of a good life is can Sisyphus be happy, Can Sisyphus enjoy the struggle?

And to me, that's what it's all about. Just because you are an intense person doesn't mean you can't experience joy. Oftentimes, we have the most joy in moments of intensity. I go back to Steve Kerr. What are the two core values in the Warriors or two of their core values, right? Intensity and joy. And you watch them play. And you see it maybe most in Steph Curry.

That guy is so locked in and so locked in with a smile on his face. And Steph Curry wouldn't be happy sitting on the couch playing video games all day or in a boring job that he doesn't like. He'd be miserable. He is happiest when he's out there working his ass off. That is what it means for intensity and joy to coexist. Yeah. I think it's also about like taking the work really seriously and caring deeply, but not necessarily yourself. Like with my best friends who work really, really hard, the coaches on my team, I think we are joking.

and making fun of each other, 90% of the time. I mean, you know, we're working hard and we take the work very seriously and we really, really try to help people. We have a saying we're going to pour our whole heart and soul into everything we do for the people we work with. But we're also going to be smiling and laughing almost all the time. That's part of the fun is that I'm going to bust your balls, especially if you make like a mistake. Oh, you're going to hear about it.

We're all going to kill you. obviously in good fun and we're trying to get better and we're going to review it, right? But what's the point, man? Like, what's the point of like doing all this hard stuff and not trying to make jokes, laugh, have fun, not take yourself too seriously while you're taking the work very seriously? I think there is no point to do it another way. You've got to have fun. And it's not going to be sustainable if you don't have fun.

There are outliers, okay? So everyone is going to mention David Goggins or Michael Jordan. two guys who have never met personally, either of them, but they certainly seem motivated by like anger and chip on their shoulder and always a grimace on their face. What I would argue, though, is that Jordan would put his tongue out, like this primal expression of joy when he was about to dunk, and Jordan won all his championships while being coached by Phil Jackson,

who was like the Zen master of compassion. And I think that Phil Jackson really balanced Jordan out. There are people that are wired like that. too often, I think, they get held up is like the example of how you need to be because it's like a really kind of, I don't want to say sexy, bright and shiny object, but it makes for a great story. Whereas there are the Steph Currys of the world or the Courtney DeWalter, best ultramarathoner to ever exist, or the Albert Einstein's, who probably the best scientist, who is total mystic, had so much fun in joy in his work. And I think that, again, there's two ways to the top of the

mountain, you might be listening and you might say, screw this guy, I'm never going to have fun. If I have fun, I get complacent. I'm not motivated by fun. And you might be the 1%. Then this isn't for you. This part of the conversation is not for you. But the other 99%, it's like, hell yeah, we should have fun. This is permission to have fun. You don't always have to have a grimace on your face. You can be like Steph Curry, the greatest player of a generation in Slay with a massive smile on your face. And I would argue that for the vast, vast majority, probably 99.999%. people, you end up performing better that way, and you have so much more satisfaction, which contributes to longevity. The best leaders, I know, in the corporate world, they take

the work so seriously. They are so intense. But my God, do they laugh at themselves and their colleagues and have fun? Man, this is awesome. The book's called The Way of Excellence, a guide to true greatness and deep satisfaction in a chaotic world. Thank you, man, for sending it to me. It is so well done. Not surprising. All your work, the quality bar has been high since I met you a long time ago, and it just keeps getting better, which is really, really cool, really cool to see. I highly recommend this book. I love it as a fellow studyer of excellence. It's just awesome, dude. I think if you implement the stuff you learn, it's very practical, too, in addition to the great storytelling and obviously the great science, which you've been known for for a while. But it's also

extremely practical. You could take it, implement it. It'll make your life better in all different areas. So, man, thank you for writing. Thank you for sending to me. And thanks for being here. I know we're going to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. All right. I appreciate you. What a joy. Talk about intensity and joy. I felt very intense and joyful during this conversation. So we're practicing what we preach. I appreciate you. Thank you. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. if you are, send me a note, Ryan at Learning Leader.com. Let me know where you learn

from this great conversation with Brad Stahlberg. A few takeaways from my notes. Never prejudge a performance when you're feeling tired, uninspired, or maybe off your game. You've got to show up anyway. Remember the scene in the Beatles documentary. They all look super bored

and exhausted, but then Paul kind of kept at it and you look and he plays these new riffs and then it sounds a little bit, yeah, like the song, Get Back. And that That's how that song was written that day. You don't know what's possible until you get going. Similar to Lane Norton, when he's powerlifting,

we don't need to feel good to get going. We need to get going to give ourselves a chance to feel good. Do not sit around and wait for motivation. Start moving and the feelings will follow. Then that audit you should be doing of who you're surrounding yourself with. That Air Force study is striking the least. fit person in the squadron determined everyone else's fitness level. It's hard to believe. Same with the corporate environment who you sit around really matters. Sit within 25 feet of a high

performer and your performance improves 15%. However, within 25 feet of a low performer, it declines 30%. Your environment is not neutral. Do your best to choose widely. And one more, the curiosity. Treat it like a muscle. It's a reward. behavior that gets stronger with use. Like Kobe said, he played to, quote, figure things out. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Brad Stolberg.

I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you subscribe to the show and you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review by doing all of that. You are giving me the opportunity. to work with joy and to do what I love on a daily basis and for that I will forever be grateful. Thank you so so much. Talk you soon. Can we?