Brian Koppelman has been writing great films and shows for 30 years — Rounders, Ocean's Thirteen, and Billions, to name a few. Now 60, he's working with as much energy as ever. He'll be back in the role of "Computer" on the hit show The Bear when it returns later this month, and he's three years into a powerlifting journey he began at 57 after almost fainting on a tennis court. When we think about the type of longevity worth aspiring to, we think of Brian Koppelman. Today, he talks about how his undiagnosed ADHD and curiosity shaped his successful career, tells the story of discovering Tracy Chapman while still a college student, and discusses making it through the painful writer's block that almost kept him from writing Rounders. Plus: what Michael Jordan can (and can't) teach us about greatness, separating success from external validation, and staying creative — and excellent — for a lifetime.

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Today, we discuss three moments from the past week that highlight a few of the key habits of truly excellent performers: what Victor Wenbanyama teaches us about caring deeply and being yourself; how the failed Enhanced Games highlights the importance of showing up to put in the work; and why a three-glasses-of-wine hangover proves being antifragile trumps optimization.

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Jim Ryun couldn't make his junior high basketball team, track team, or even his church baseball team. Two years later, he was the first high schooler to run a sub-four-minute mile. He'd go on to run a world record mile in 3:51, and compete in three Olympics. Now 79, he shares with us some of the best stories and wisdom: the time he ran a workout of four sets of 10x400 (doesn't recommend it), how he trained his mental discipline, how he handled the spotlight and media criticism, the best lessons he took from legendary coach Bob Timmons, why everyone needs "balcony people," and what he learned from being unfairly disqualified from the 1972 Olympics. It's a masterclass in excellence—actually.

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We've all got those days: you can't seem to get started, your motivation is low, or something comes up and throws you off track. It happens to all of us! It only becomes a problem when a bad start to the day becomes a bad day, and then a bad couple of days, and then a bad week, and then a bad month... on and on. High-performers who have sustained success over many years are elite at getting something out of days when they're not at their best. Today is all about building your capacity to do the same. Because if you can squeeze a small win out of a day that might otherwise be a zero, those little victories add up into something big over time.

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We're all going to experience pain in some form or another. Unfortunately, our long accepted model for what pain is — and how to treat it — has been wrong. Today, we're breaking down the biopsychosocial model of pain, which presented a recent change in how researchers, doctors, psychologists, and performers think about why we feel what we feel. We discuss an important distinction between hurt and harm from pain psychologist Rachel Zoffness, discuss why two people with identical injuries can have very different experiences of pain, present a taxonomy of three different types of discomfort, and give you a practical toolkit for dealing with your own pain (including a balloon metaphor that might change how you think about recovery).

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In 1960, A publisher at Random House bet a writer $50 that he couldn't produce a children's book using just 50 distinct words. That writer was Dr. Seuss, and the resulting book was Green Eggs and Ham, which has gone on to sell more than 200 million copies. Sometimes, limits aren't a bad thing. In fact, they often lead to unexpected breakthroughs in creativity, productivity, and satisfaction. This is the message at the heart of David Epstein's new book, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better. This is something elite performers know well. They aren't adding more and more or keeping their options open; they're whittling down to what matters most. So we wanted to ask David on to give us the lessons from his book and from his research that can most effectively help us do that too. 

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Not just one, but two (!) men finished this past weekend's London Marathon in under two hours, a time that has never before been beat and was once largely thought to be impossible. Today, we unpack how it happened: the advances in running shoe and fueling technology that made this moment possible, the giant elephant on the podium (the ever present question of doping), and what we can all learn about harnessing the power of belief, confidence, and competition to push past our own perceived limits.

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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 Deep Work and Digital Minimalism) recently wrote for The New York Times. Cal argues that we're at a precarious moment in the history of thinking. The ease and convenience of technology and digital media (think: junk food for your brain) have negatively impacted our cognition, which means we need to start taking our cognitive health as seriously as we take our physical health. So today we're talking about what that means for all of us: what this change in thinking portends for the future of society and culture, and, perhaps more importantly, how to design an effective workout program for the brains of adults and children. We think it's one of the most important episodes we've ever done.

"There's a Good Reason You Can't Concentrate" by Cal Newport: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/opinion/technology-mental-fitness-cognitive.html

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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 covers the most efficient type of aerobic training for any athlete (hint: it's not Zone 2 or HIIT), the mindset and mentality that sets elite runners apart, what makes for a great coach-athlete relationship, how much mileage you need to maximize your performance, super shoes, and, yes, even running influencers. Plus: Steve talks about his truly unhinged high school treadmill workouts.

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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 "low resistance actions done consistently over time in the same direction." His theory of behavior change is at the heart of his successful coaching practice, his wonderful podcast, The One You Feed, and his great new book, "How A Little Becomes A Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life." Today, he joins Brad and Clay to share the three practices that have most helped him in 26 years of recovery, how to pursue change without becoming self-obsessed, how to stop looking for answers on how to change and actually get down to the work, advice on updating your limiting stories and beliefs, and what healing from addiction can teach us about smartphone use.

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