Reclaim Your Excellence: The Path To A Meaningful & Joyous Life w/ Brad Stulberg

We’re a few weeks into the new year.

You’ve pondered your goals. Put pen to paper. Maybe even started putting in a little work around the changes you want to make.

But this is also the time of year when people start falling off a cliff, abandoning the resolutions they were so committed to just a few weeks prior.

So how do you set yourself up for sustained success? Not just in January, but for the long haul? And what does genuine excellence actually look like—stripped of the hustle porn and performative flexing that’s come to dominate the conversation?

Here to help us find our footing is Brad Stulberg, returning for his fifth appearance on the pod (last time we discussed Master of Change). 

Brad is a writer, coach, and researcher who has devoted his career to understanding sustainable high performance. He’s a fellow at the University of Michigan’s Graduate School of Public Health and co-founder of The Growth Equation newsletter and podcast alongside friend of the pod and elite coach Steve Magness. His previous books include Peak Performance, The Passion Paradox, The Practice of Groundedness, and Master of Change. His latest, The Way of Excellence, picks up a thread we’ve been pulling at for years now.

One of the things I appreciate about Brad is that we share daylight on something important: so much of this landscape—with respect to change and transformation and personal development—is fraught with dualities. Yin-yang push-pulls between opposing forces that on the surface appear incompatible but are in fact fundamental. Effort and rest. Discipline and self-compassion. Striving and surrender. Intensity and joy. The question becomes: how do you hold all of these things at once?

Today we discuss:

• The “Humble Badass” Archetype
• Excellence vs. Hustle Culture
• Building Resilient Identities
• Curiosity as the Skeleton Key
• Zombie Burnout & Finding Meaning
• Childhood Wounds & Vulnerability
• The Discipline of Completion

For those who prefer a visual experience, the conversation is available on YouTube. As always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Peace + Plants,