excellence, actually
Steve Magness, Brad Stulberg, & Clay Skipper
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Recent Episodes
The Olympian's Guide to Handling Pressure, with Lilah Fear
We're going to go ahead and say that today's episode is more densely packed with wisdom than any episode we've ever released. We are joined by Great Britain's Olympic ice dancer Lilah Fear…
How to Pursue Excellence Without Sacrificing Your Values
Why do so many people sacrifice their values to make it to the top? People in business who commit fraud; writers who plagiarize; athletes who dope — the list goes on and on. At the core of…
How to Get Out of Your Head and Into the Zone
This past weekend, when Alex Honnold climbed Taipei 101's 1,667-foot tower without ropes, he wasn't thinking his way up; he was doing what elite performers across disciplines—from musicians to…
The Way of Excellence: Inside Brad's New Book
Clay interviews Brad about his new book, The Way of Excellence, which releases January 27th and is a culmination of 15 years of research, reporting, and coaching on what it means to live a truly…
Why Your Routine Might Be Working Against You
Routines are powerful tools for peak performance—until they become the performance itself. In this episode, we explain the important difference between routines that serve you and routines you serve.…
New Year, Same BS: How to Build Habits That Actually Stick
91% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. That’s because behavior change is really hard. Which means that the only real way to make new habits stick is to build them in the right way. Today, we’re giving…
26 Lessons on Excellence to Jump Start 2026
We're ringing in 2026 by bringing you 26 lessons that will help you achieve excellence in whatever it is you do. These are the the habits, practices, and mindsets that we revisit so often in our work…
Best Of: Courtney Dauwalter — Inside the (Joyful) Mind of an Elite Ultrarunner
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…
How to Push Your Limits, with World-Champion Climber Sasha DiGiulian
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…
"It's Never All Bad:" How to Suffer (with Matt Fitzgerald)
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…
The Talent Episode: Is Greatness Born or Built?
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…
Q+A: On Bad Habits, Post-Race Fitness, and “Boring” Work
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…
The Mental Fitness Playbook: Resilience, Regulation, and Flexibility
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…
Doing it All: The CEO Who Ran a 2:29 Marathon (with Nick Thompson)
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,…
The Optimization Trap — and How to Escape It
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…
The Marathon Mindset: How to Endure, Actually
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…
Everything You Need to Know About Managing Fatigue
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…
7 Lessons to Help You Unlock an Elite Competitor's Mindset
We talk a lot on this podcast about the principles that underlie true excellence, so we’re especially excited when we see those core ideas exemplified in the real world. On today’s podcast, Steve,…
How Curiosity Can Take Your Performance to the Next Level
Today, we're exploring the transformative power of curiosity, which is one of the most effective tools elite performers use in high-pressure situations. We'll explain how shifting from a mindset of…
Is Self-Improvement Just Making Us More Selfish?
Is personal development and self-improvement making us better—or just more self-absorbed? In today's episode, we wade into the debate sparked by a recent New York Times article (link below) about…
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excellence, actually has published 340 episodes since August 2020, covering topics in Education, Health & Fitness.
excellence, actually is currently highly active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 41m.
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