Brad Stulberg

My new book The Way of Excellence is out now. You can buy it here: wayofexcellencebook.com/ Writing it changed my life. I hope reading it does the same for you.

I mean I'm no political strategist but my goodness it seems like an Ossof/Cooper ticket in 2028 is a good choice for many reasons.

If you make a deal with the devil it tends to bite you in the ass. If you sacrifice your values it tends to bite you in the ass. If you surround yourself with terrible people it tends to bite you in the ass. If you sell your soul it tends to bite you in the ass.

Incredible story. A team made of second and third-chance players. “We're all players who haven't been believed in,” Williams said. “Coach Nakase lets me be myself and I think she does that with every single person on this roster. She lets every person know they're believed in.”

Shortly after TWoE came out, Coach Cori Close won the National Championship. I watched the tournament with my son, who had just turned 8 at the time. He said, “Dad, this coach is exactly like The Way of Excellence.” I told him it’s much harder to live than to write, and Coach Close is a top example. Half a year later, such a wonderful full circle moment taking my Son to hang out with Coach and the team this weekend. She’s the best. World-class leader.

Many of you asked for the context of the quote I shared yesterday. It's one of my favorite parts of the book. Here it is: "Caring is cool. Nonchalance is a cop-out. Pour your heart and soul into what you love. You don’t get unlimited chances. Try hard. Give your all. Give a damn. When you hold yourself back because you fear failure or looking ‘uncool,’ you sacrifice growth and potential (and mastery and fulfillment and richness and love and all the other good stuff in life) for short-term safety and comfort. It’s a trap. Get over it. Fear and insecurity are part of human nature. You can either go through the motions and be superficially cool (but actually boring). Or you can step into the arena, lay it on the line, care deeply, make yourself vulnerable, and fully live your one and only life. The world doesn’t need more mediocrity or going through the motions. The world needs more people putting themselves out there and giving it their all. The world needs more people who have the guts to care. The best athletes care deeply. The best artists care deeply. The best leaders care deeply. The best coaches care deeply. The best teachers care deeply. The best doctors care deeply. The best writers care deeply. The best scientists care deeply. The best parents care deeply. Caring deeply is the cost of admission to a big and textured life. Try hard and give a damn." —The Way of Excellence If you find this sort of thing resonant, you'll love the book: bit.ly/4uCzeQ7

“Caring is cool. Nonchalance is a cop-out. Pour your heart and soul into what you love. You don’t get unlimited chances. Try hard. Give a damn.” A central theme in The Way of Excellence: bit.ly/4uCzeQ7

A small-market team with fewer social media followers than most B-list influencers just won the World Series. In an age of big money and the enshittification of everything, the Milwaukee Brewers are exactly what we need right now. bradstulberg.org/p/in-an-age…

Stephen Wilson Jr quit his job as a food scientist for Mars to pursue his dream of making music. That was 10 years ago. Now, at age 47, he’s nominated for New Artist of the Year. Life is short but it’s also long. You never what could happen next. bradstulberg.org/p/its-not-c…

Ambition is not an excuse to be a sociopath. Be wary of people driven primarily by status and power. They will do terrible things and try to convince you, and even themselves, it was fine. Elizabeth Holmes is an extreme case, for sure. But her story is a tale as old as time. Success begets expectations. And if those expectations aren’t met, it’s easy to compromise your integrity. Don’t do this. Holmes is a profound example of what researchers call obsessive passion: It’s when you begin to love the fame, fortune, power, and status more than the integrity of the work itself. Study after study shows obsessive passion is linked to burnout, anxiety, depression, delusion, and insane levels of fraud. It’s easy to say “Elizabeth Holmes is so extreme.” But you see the same story in business and on social media, albeit on a smaller scale, all the time. Everyone wants to grow, myself included. But if growth is a higher value than “honesty” or “integrity” or “craft,” then you end up going down grifter highway. You don’t need to look far for examples. Power, fame, and fortune are intoxicating. Nobody is immune to it. But you, me, all of us have a choice. You can do your best to uphold higher values. To do the right thing, even when it’s hard. To support people who do the same. The moral order of the universe depends on it.

Mental toughness is not about always feeling good. It’s about staying anchored when you don’t. You can feel nerves and still perform at your best. You can feel down and still support a loved one. You can feel insecure and still step into the arena. Your brain is plastic. Your mind is adaptive. You are not fixed. Every time you sit with discomfort, approach challenges, and return after setbacks, you’re building capacity, you’re building mental toughness.

1. Dig where your feet are. 2. Care deeply. 3. Intensity and joy can coexist. 4. Confidence comes from evidence. 5. The secret is there is no secret. 6. Show up, show up, show up. 7. Live life in seasons. 8. Only doing the thing is doing the thing. bradstulberg.org/p/8-all-tim…

This interview is incredible. Devin Cooley is essentially reading directly from TWoE: having fun as a step toward flow states, turning off the conscious mind for unconscious competence, the utter satisfaction of full immersion. You can learn this too: bit.ly/4uCzeQ7

Loved appearing on the Inner Game podcast to talk all things excellence. Check it out here: youtu.be/Jerof3QRbgc?is=clEn…

A small market team with less Instagram followers than most B-rate influencers is going to the World Series. In an age of money and the enshitification of everything, the Brewers are exactly what we need right now.

It’s great we are paying more attention to mental health but big a problem with therapy-culture is so many people think they need to “fix” a feeling before they can act and this sort of belief is severely limiting and not at all true: bradstulberg.org/p/one-of-th…

In defense of human excellence: We are at a point in history—not nearing it, but here—where everyone is going to have to decide if they are content to numb themselves with an endless stream of fentanyl-like synthetic, digital slop or if they are going to fight for their humanity and touch grass and challenge themselves and create and contribute and love. The enter-a-prompt, press-a-button lifestyle removes texture, satisfaction, and fulfillment from life. A life of ease and immediacy is not the same as a good life. Prompting a song is not the same as writing a song. Watching a robot go sub-2 hours for the marathon is not the same as watching a human do it. A machine that scours the internet, rips off other people’s work, and then makes a statistical projection about what comes next is not an embodied being any more than a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet is. The whole point of music and art and sport and craft and love is that it’s filled with heart and soul. You gain satisfaction and make meaning not from the result of your pursuits but from the process—from facing resistance, overcoming setbacks, and struggling to create something worthwhile. This shared experience is also what connects us as humans. To outsource this process to machines would be a tragedy. AI is fine as an advanced version of Google search or as a way to clean up and analyze massive data sets. But the more AI encroaches on our essential humanness—our ability to exert effort, to struggle, to create, and to connect—the flatter our experience will be. And so it is on us—people who care about craft, quality, and human excellence—to resist and hold the line: • Do not outsource to AI anything that is core to your craft. • Do not replace meaningful effort with AI. • Be skeptical of grand proclamations from tech overlords. • Eschew AI-generated slop. • Celebrate and support human work. It’s not hard to imagine a world with much more AI and much less soul. The massive valuations of companies like Anthropic depend on us surrendering to this world. But it is not inevitable. You can be the counterculture. You can be ultra-human.

The Pope is right: F*ck the machine. Defend human excellence. On how to protect your brain, mind—and yes, your soul—from AI slop. Be the resistance. Be the counterculture. Be ultra-human. bradstulberg.org/p/in-defens…

We worry about machines becoming more like humans but I think there is a greater, and certainly more immediate danger of humans becoming more like machines. We’ll feel less. We’ll strive less. We’ll understand less. We’ll care less. We’ll love less. It would be a tragedy.

The pope is right. A central theme in my new book is that the pursuit of human craft, quality, and excellence has intrinsic value and is an essential part of what makes life worth living, and we must protect it from machines: bit.ly/4uCzeQ7