Merry Christmas! We're taking a little break, so we're bringing you an episode with an all-time great athlete, Courtney Dauwalter, whose interview, two years later, still delivers some all-time great advice on excellence. Here's the original intro...

01/04/24: Last summer, ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter did something that had never been done before. She ran three of the sport's most iconic 100-mile races... within 10 weeks of each other... and won all three. (She also set the women's course record on two of them.) It was an incredible achievement, even for someone who has long established herself as one of the greatest ultraunners of all-time. How does she do what she does? Through a rare mixture of joy, curiosity, and intensity that will change how you think about competition and ignite your own self-belief. Here, she talks about what she calls "the triple," why she goes in search of the pain cave, the unique visualizations and mantras that she uses to help her solve problems on the trail (like the time she went 98% blind), and how she manages to always keep "joy in the front seat."

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

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Just last month, Sasha DiGiulian completed only the fourth ever free climb (and the first by a woman) of "Platinum," a route on El Capitan—a 23-day feat that tested her physical and mental boundaries, including nine days of being stuck in a hanging portaledge 2600 feet above the ground to wait out inclement weather. Sasha opens up about overcoming fear, handling adversity with grace and patience (she underwent five hip surgeries to reconstruct both her hips that kept her out of climbing for a year), and the mindsets that have fueled her success both on and off the rock. She discusses why she climbs, how she uses fear and risk, and what she's learned about finding "an attitude of gratitude" for the intense pain that accompanies rock climbing.

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

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At some point, we're all going to suffer. So what if you treated it as a practice—something to be done skillfully? This was the question Matt posed to himself when he came back to running in his late twenties, after quitting the sport following his senior spring season of high school track. He said he'd become fearful of the pain of racing. He was scared to suffer. He's spent the last two and a half decades mastering his mind. In the time since, he's become a successful run coach, an endurance athlete, and a writer. And he's learned many valuable lessons about what it is to suffer. (Most recently, while dealing with a particularly bad bout of long Covid that left him incapable of exercise for long periods of time, he suffered through a 100K in 90-degree heat on minimal training.) Today, he talks about the mantra he uses to get himself through difficult moments, the most common mistakes he sees athletes making over and over again throughout his years of coaching, why never being satisfied is a good thing, and his practice of what he calls "benevolent shaming."

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

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Today, we dive deep into the age-old debate of talent acquisition versus talent development, using the contrasting blueprints of top college basketball teams as a springboard. We discuss the complex interplay of genetics, opportunity, motivation, and grit—not just in sports, but in every domain of life—as well as challenge the binary of nature vs. nurture, discuss the pitfalls of applying the "talent" label at too young an age, and offer practical advice for parents, coaches, and anyone looking to harness or develop talent. Whether you’re a late bloomer, a prodigy, or just looking to get a little better every day, this conversation will challenge how you think about talent.

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

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As a thanks you to you on Thanksgiving week, we're answering a handful of listener questions.

1. How can I navigate periods of intense work where my life is out of balance without developing bad habits?

2. If I truly internalize that achievement won’t make me happy, won’t I lose my drive?

3. How can I manage the tedium of doing a job that’s meaningful but involves a lot of boring day-to-day work?

4. How can I distinguish between normal training fatigue and chronic exhaustion from overtraining?

5. After a race/performance, I often come back too quickly without being fully recovered, or wait too long and lose fitness. How should I think about timing my return to training? 

Thanks to everybody who has sent along a question — and thanks for being a part of the The Growth Equation and excellence, actually community. If you'd like us to answer something that has been on your mind, email [email protected] or call our voicemail at 646-893-9503.

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

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If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!

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Elite performers know: mental fitness needs the same intentional training as physical fitness. In this episode, we break down mental fitness into three trainable components: resilience (your mental strength), emotional regulation (your psychological endurance), and psychological flexibility (your mental mobility). Drawing from meditation research, disaster psychology, and ultra-running wisdom, we explore what often gets confused for mental toughness (toxic positivity or stoic repression) and discuss what it actually takes to respond skillfully to life's inevitable storms. Learn practical tools for processing difficulty, the critical role of community in resilience, and why your values become the roadmap when emotions narrow your world.

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

If you have a question for us, send an email to [email protected] or call our voicemail at ‪(646) 893-9503‬.

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter

If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!

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How does someone become CEO of The Atlantic, run a 2:29 marathon at age 44, write books, make music, and still be present for their family? For the answer, we turned to Nick Thompson, who, conveniently (and impressively), does all of those things. On today's episode, we use the release of Nick's new book, The Running Ground, to discuss his systematic approach to productivity and running, including how he organizes his day for maximum impact, why he has "non-goals", the best lessons running and writing have taught him, and how he pushes past limits, in running and in work—including the revelation that helped him break through a decade-long performance plateau after cancer.

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

If you have a question for us, send an email to [email protected] or call our voicemail at ‪(646) 893-9503‬.

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter

If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!

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This week, we use the L.A. Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s gutsy back-to-back World Series appearances in Game 6 and 7 to discuss what we’re calling the optimization (or protocol) trap. This is when you become so tethered to a specific routine or “optimal zone” of performance that you become fragile. You trade self-efficacy for hyper-control or neuroticism. There are plenty of times when you have to perform and you’re not at your best, or the external conditions aren’t ideal. Being able to send it anyway—much like Yamamoto did in Game 7—is the sign of a truly elite performer. So today’s episode is all about training and building anti-fragility. We discuss how to differentiate between wisdom and fear when you hear the voice telling you to pull back; how to use “safe-to-fail” experiments to train self-efficacy; how to distinguish between faith-based confidence and delusion; and how to build routines that are flexible rather than rigid.

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

If you have a question for us, send an email to [email protected] or call our voicemail at ‪(646) 893-9503‬.

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter

If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!

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In anticipation of the New York City Marathon this weekend, we (well, okay, mostly Steve) discuss the ins and outs of how to have your best race, building you a complete toolkit to help you get through 26.2 miles. BUT! It’s not just for runners. As the legendary marathoner Eliud Kipchoge once said, “Marathon is life, and life is marathon.” So we're explaining how each of the tools you can use for the marathon—and the lessons we’ve learned from running them—apply to life. This is about expectations, handling nerves, goal-setting, doing hard things when they get hard, working through difficulty, managing disappointment, learning how to surrender, letting go and much, much more—in running and in life. 

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

If you have a question for us, send an email to [email protected] or call our voicemail at ‪(646) 893-9503‬.

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter

If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For a long time, it was assumed that fatigue was a muscular phenomenon. It was thought be a set point and once you hit it, you couldn't go any further—like running into a wall. However, more recent research has showed that it's actually much more of mental phenomenon. Our brain shuts us down before our body does, in order to protect us from injury, exhaustion, or even death. (See: Tim Noakes's central governor theory and Samuele Marcora's model of fatigue, both of which we discuss in today's episode.) This presents us with an interesting conundrum: We have to get to know our fatigue extremely well, so that we know how to navigate all the signals it's sending us. Knowing when to ignore your brain's warning signs, and when to heed them, has far-ranging consequences for everything from endurance sports to creative work. So today we're teaching you the steps to help you learn how to dance with your fatigue.

Click here for an AI-generated, unedited transcript

If you have a question for us, send an email to [email protected] or call our voicemail at ‪(646) 893-9503‬.

Click to pre-order Brad's new book, "The Way of Excellence," which Steve Kerr, nine-time NBA Champion, is calling "an absolutely beautiful book"

Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter

If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.