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

20:08Brad Stulberg: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 he took great pride in picking the wine. And then the players got to know Popovich, not just as this coach, as this alpha, but it's this dude that loves wine and it's kind of goofy.

20:24Ryan Hawk: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.

21:11I think that's one of the biggest takeaways is you can't just be the one part where you

21:17Ryan Hawk: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. And that's the big part. I think 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.

21:41Brad Stulberg: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 gonna be as good as it could be. So pursuing excellence is somewhat similar to pursuing love.

22:21Brad Stulberg:And if we're saying, and we're deconstructing this lofty goal of love and saying it's really about 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.

22:55Brad Stulberg: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 like 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.

23:23Ryan Hawk: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?

23:42Brad Stulberg:So I've always admired Steve Kerr since I was a little kid. Grew up watching him play for the Bulls and then the Spurs. And then as I got deeper into the study of excellence, started to learn more about him as a coach and him as a person, just a 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.

24:12Brad Stulberg:And 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 Kerr 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.

24:45Brad Stulberg: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 Don Levy and I said, Hey, I want to reintroduce myself. You read my book. And what a guy, Mike Don Levy 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, but like, I grew up.

25:18Brad Stulberg:Steve Kerr is my role model. I know how busy he is, but it's the off-season. You think if I got him a draft of the book, the manuscript, he might be interested in taking a read. Mike said, this sounds right up his alley. Here's his contact. Reach out. Told him I sent you. I reached out to Coach Kerr, and he got back to me. He said, this sounds like a great idea. Don't know if I'll have time to get to it, but send me the PDF. I sent him the PDF. Didn't hear anything for two weeks. Two weeks later, I get this email from Coach, and he'd clearly read like every page of the book. He comes back with all these notes and he essentially said like, this is it, you've done it.

25:53Brad Stulberg: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 wanna 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, you nailed it, that's probably a peak professional moment for me.

26:23Ryan Hawk:That's the juice, I feel like, is somebody you admire, you look up to, who gets value out of you. 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, 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.

26:54Ryan Hawk:I think those are important moments. Now, it actually gets to a part of the book that I'd taken a note on, which is defining milestones. 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 and 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 like 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.

27:33Ryan Hawk: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?

27:43Brad Stulberg: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. It was like a 30-minute inhaling of the food. So I struggle with this, too.

28:18Brad Stulberg:And I've still got a bottle of champagne from my first book. So I don't want you to feel guilty.

28:21Ryan Hawk:Must be like a book agent thing, I guess. I don't know.

28:24Brad Stulberg:There's a lot of nuance here. because I think that what often can happen or what sometimes happens is you spend so much time celebrating that 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.

29:00Brad Stulberg: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.

29:36Brad Stulberg:So a year before that thing's 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 Bayang 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.

30:10Brad Stulberg: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 should sit back with a bottle of wine 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.

30:41Ryan Hawk: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 LeBron James of lacrosse, 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 to time. And he said, you know, maybe you're not setting big ambitious results-based goals because you're a little bit scared. I knew 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.

31:21Ryan Hawk:You're probably not setting big enough goals. And so I was like, ah, 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?

31:57Brad Stulberg: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 99.9999 % 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 outcomes 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.

32:38Brad Stulberg: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 realized that I think I'm just scared to name a big number because maybe I won't achieve it.

33:16Brad Stulberg:So for this book, the goal is to sell over 10 ,000 copies the first week and 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 gonna stand on top of the mountain for a couple minutes, maybe a couple hours.

33:50Brad Stulberg: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 gonna 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 gonna force you to look back on your process and be like, wow, am I up to snuff?

34:25Brad Stulberg:Can I move 10 ,000 books in the first week? In my case, it was like, no, I need 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, 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 time bound.

34:59Brad Stulberg: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 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. 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.

35:52Brad Stulberg:But I did a lot of talking just now. I'm curious what you think. I think you're right.

35:56Ryan Hawk: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 missed 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?

36:37Brad Stulberg:Well, I've missed many big goals in my life. I had a goal of playing D1 football, and I wasn't good enough. I didn't play D1 football. That was a long time ago. And I think that how I handled that, though, 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.

37:09Brad Stulberg: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 and applying them towards academics, reading this book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and eventually applying them towards writing.

37:39Brad Stulberg:I mean, I 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 like what we're getting is that accountability moment is missing.

38:20Brad Stulberg: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 5 % or 10 % more and like really making yourself uncomfortable and then forcing yourself to try to live up to that standard.

38:51And if you don't, you're going to learn,

38:53Brad Stulberg:you're going to grow and you're going to find things to improve moving forward.

38:56Ryan Hawk:What is writing more like an athlete than an artist?

38:59Brad Stulberg: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? What am I? I'm probably the athlete too. I don't know. I have, maybe it's a false dichotomy. Like I think actually it is a false dichotomy. I mean, 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.

39:31Brad Stulberg: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. I try 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 2000 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.

40:06Brad Stulberg: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, right? 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. It's very systematic. It's very methodological. And it allows for those moments of greatness where I do feel like an artist.

40:27Ryan Hawk:This makes me think of the part of your book about discipline. You talk about a guy named Lane Norton, a powerlifter, 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, 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.

41:13Ryan Hawk: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.

41:24Brad Stulberg: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 and 103 fever, you should not try to work out.

42:05Brad Stulberg: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 Goggins 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. You don't try to force it because when you try to force it is when you get hurt, right?

42:38Brad Stulberg: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 than an algorithm. And it's true that if you never pay attention to your sleep, it can be really helpful to have that feedback.

43:14Brad Stulberg: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 warmup. Again, 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.

43:49Brad Stulberg: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.

44:15Ryan Hawk:Do you use trackers and stuff? I'm a no track. 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 need to wear 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 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.

44:45Ryan Hawk: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.

44:57Brad Stulberg: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 two beers a night, they start to wear these trackers and they're like, whoa, 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, you're really not sleeping well.

45:32Brad Stulberg: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 kids or anything that might keep you up at night, what good is a tracker if it tells me that 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 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.

46:08Brad Stulberg:A story I tell in my book is of the Beatles, the legendary band in 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 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, blah, blah, blah, blah.

46:45Brad Stulberg: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.

47:23Brad Stulberg: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 of I'm gonna be like the Beatles.

47:57Brad Stulberg:Like I'm just gonna 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 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 and 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.

48:30Brad Stulberg:So if you're listening to this conversation right now and you're like, man, Brad and Ryan are making me realize 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.

48:54Ryan Hawk: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?

49:05Brad Stulberg: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, if it'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. Cause like I'm pro writer, I'm not a pro athlete. No one cares if make her 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.

49:38Brad Stulberg: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 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.

50:10Brad Stulberg: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.

50:49Brad Stulberg: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.

51:20Brad Stulberg: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.

51:39Ryan Hawk:How did you come up with that phrase?

51:40Brad Stulberg:Why was it that phrase? I got to give credit to where credit's due. I didn't come up with 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.

52:13Ryan Hawk: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, the 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. 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.

52:52Ryan Hawk: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.

53:07Brad Stulberg:So there are seven pathways in the brain. And these pathways were defined by the affective neuroscientist, Jachponsky. 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.

53:56Brad Stulberg: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.

54:40Brad Stulberg: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 as 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 or this is a new board member. They have this reputation of being like a real hard ass, but I'm going to try to charm them.

55:13Brad Stulberg:Let's find out what happens. As 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.

55:36Ryan Hawk:The word compete comes from the Latin root word, calm, C-O-M, which means together, and patir, probably pronounced it all right, which means to seek, rise up, or strive. thrive. 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?

56:02Brad Stulberg: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 excellence. This is what you hear on the internet. You've got to crush them. You've got to do it alone. I'm not going to name names, but there are people that have these great sales funnels and they're world-class digital marketers, but I don't think they're so excellent. 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.

56:39Ryan Hawk:You don't understand what the word compete

56:41Brad Stulberg: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. And 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.

57:18Ryan Hawk:It's not like it was

57:19Brad Stulberg:in the old days. Now the playoff game ends and the players go and hug each other. 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.

57:55Brad Stulberg:And that is the best way to 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.

58:11Ryan Hawk:How about the Caitlin Clark story after they lost?

58:13Brad Stulberg: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 they had a good time.

58:53Brad Stulberg: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 your all and you fall short.

59:32Brad Stulberg:And they did it together. They did it as a team. And what does the research show? It 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 bestselling 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.

1:00:04Brad Stulberg:That is excellent competition. I love it.

1:00:08Ryan Hawk: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

1:00:47Brad Stulberg:three different people.

1:00:48Ryan Hawk:Love. That's what it's all about, man.

1:00:50Brad Stulberg:Yeah. And the reason I love that story so much, and I decided to include it in the book, is this book's coming out at a time where it's been termed the crisis of masculinity. And it's true. Men are struggling, and a big part of it is loneliness and isolation. What is underlying it is this tough guy. 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.

1:01:31Brad Stulberg: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. 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.

1:02:06Brad Stulberg: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. You only live once. That's the point.

1:02:34Ryan Hawk: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 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 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

1:03:03Brad Stulberg:I like to live my life. And I like to be surrounded by others.

1:03:06Ryan Hawk:But sometimes like I'm on the flight back and I'll be 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?

1:03:20Brad Stulberg: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, okay? 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.

1:03:59Brad Stulberg:And then the boulder rolls back down. We 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. 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?

1:04:36Brad Stulberg: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 taking the work really seriously and caring deeply, but not necessarily yourself.

1:05:11Ryan Hawk: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.

1:05:49Ryan Hawk: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.

1:06:06Brad Stulberg:You 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 I've never met personally, either of them, but they certainly seem motivated by 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.

1:06:44Brad Stulberg:There are people that are wired like that. Too often, I think they get held up as 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 Curry's of the world or the Courtney DeWalter, best ultra marathoner to ever exist. Or the Albert Einsteins, who probably the best scientist, who is total mystic, had so much fun and 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.

1:07:22Brad Stulberg: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, and slay with a massive smile on your face. And I would argue that for the vast, vast majority, probably 99.999 % of people, you end up performing better that way, and you have so much more satisfaction, which contributes to longevity.

1:07:53Brad Stulberg: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.

1:08:04Ryan Hawk: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 really cool to see i highly recommend this book i love it as a fellow studier 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

1:08:54Brad Stulberg: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.

1:09:06Ryan Hawk: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 learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Brad Stolberg. A few takeaways from my notes. never prejudge a performance when you're feeling tired uninspired or maybe off your game you 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'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 power lifting we don't need to feel good to get going.

1:09:54Ryan Hawk: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.

1:10:37Ryan Hawk:And one more, the curiosity. Treat it like a muscle. It's a reward-based behavior that gets stronger with use. Just like Kobe said, he played to, quote, figure things out. Once again, I want to 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.

1:11:09Ryan Hawk: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 to you soon. Can't wait.