Y’all—A new Atlantic cover story, “The Age of Reading is Over,” is, for lack of better terms, terrifying.

51% of adults read 0 books a year. Only 16% read daily.

Reading has declined by 43% over the last 20 years. The decline cuts across age, gender, and race.

No wonder it seems like all the serious people have disappeared.

The synthetic slop revolution is doing to our brains what the industrial revolution did to our bodies.

Save your brain.
Read a book.
Be the counterculture.

Reading a book is like going to the gym, but for your brain. You may be uncomfortable at first, but focus is a muscle you can rebuild. It’s hard at first (especially if you’re out of practice), but it gets easier with reps, just like any other skill. Eventually, it becomes enjoyable. Be patient and stick with it. It’s worth it.

Whether your a voracious reader who is out of practice or someone who hasn’t read many books before, now is the time to get as serious about reading books and your cognitive health as you are about your body and your physical health.

Refuse to doomscroll.
Read a book.

Reject AI slop.
Read a book.

F*ck the machine.
Read a book.

— Brad

P.s., If you want to read more books and also protect your brain and essential humanness—your ability to think your own thoughts and feel alive—then I’ve got a book for you!! It’s highly accessible; you can read it in a few days; and it’s currently $7 dollars off for a summer promotion. Get your copy here. I’m so confident you’ll like it that if you don’t, I’ll Venmo you you’re money back.

Entrepreneur and investor Will Mandis recently wrote, “‘It takes hard work to achieve anything great is a dangerous lie.’ Great output comes from finding an activity that feels as natural as breathing or walking and great work becomes the very substance of your existence. If it feels like a grind you’ve found the wrong expression.”

His statement garnered a strong response. I suspect that’s because while what he wrote is decidedly wrong, its underlying spirit is mostly right, and a welcome push-back against the pseudo-excellence and hustle porn that is widespread on the internet.

First things first: in the vast majority of fields, you absolutely must work hard to achieve anything great. Contrary to Mandis’s opinion, this is not a “dangerous lie.”

The psychologist Anders K Ericsson spent his life studying talent acquisition and peak performance. His work led to the Malcolm Gladwell-popularized ‘10,000 hour-rule,’ which states that to be world-class, you need to practice for at least 10,000 hours.

Dig a little deeper into Ericsson’s work, however, and you’ll see the story is more complicated. It’s not the sheer volume of hours practiced that underlies one’s rise to greatness in fields like music, medicine, chess, and sport. Rather, it’s what you do in those hours. Ericsson found that great performers across domains engage in a particular type of training, what he called deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is characterized by blocks of deeply-focused, hard work followed by periods of rest and recovery.

As Ericsson wrote in his original 1993 paper, “deliberate practice requires effort.”

Now just because you work hard doesn’t mean you’ll be great. You also need a baseline level of innate talent and the right environment. But barring rare circumstances—for instance, a genetically freakish athlete—hard work is always necessary.

My own decade-plus coaching, reporting, and writing on performance mirrors Ericsson’s findings. I’ve interviewed and worked with over 500 elite performers across domains. Every one of them has talent. And every one of them works very hard.

Hard Work is Not the Same as Suffering

David Senra, host of the popular Founders podcast, recently wrote that “excellence is the capacity to take pain.”

And yet, what others view as painful—going to bed and waking up early, clocking long hours, doing deep-focus work—elite performers often don’t mind, because they want to do it. Elite performers, at least those who are able to sustain their greatness over the long haul, come to enjoy working hard.

A problem with the kind of pseudo-excellence and performative greatness that plasters the internet (what Mandis calls “grindslop”—a term I adore) is that it portrays hard work as suffering and touts it like a badge of honor. Train until you puke. Pull consecutive all-nighters. Be fueled by anger and a desire to prove everyone wrong.

Hustle-culture grindslop makes you think that if you’re not miserable or bordering on burnout, you’re not working hard enough. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

One of the greatest competitive advantages is having fun. People love to romanticize the athlete, artist, or entrepreneur who has a chip on their shoulder, who is fueled by anger and resentment. It’s the David Goggins approach to greatness. Sometimes you’ve got to flip that switch. But the truth is that if you’re not having fun, you are not going to last long at whatever it is you do, and you certainly won’t get the best out of yourself. There’s this foolish misnomer that you either have to be full of intensity or full of joy. But that’s nonsense. Joy and intensity can coexist, and in the best performers, they almost always do.

We’re seeing this play out right now on one of the biggest stages in all of sport. Norway’s star soccer striker Erling Haaland is fierce, strong, and intense. He is also a total goofball, known for his big smile and cracking jokes after matches. It’s clear to anyone watching this World Cup that Haaland is not suffering for greatness. He’s having loads of fun.

Greatness doesn’t mean everything will always be lovely, or that en route to attaining your potential is a whole lot of hand-holding and singing kumbaya. Sometimes there will be legitimate pain. But if everything is always painful, if the pain is the dominant quality of your experience, then you are doing it wrong.

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First Fit, then Grit

Early in my career, I leaned on hard work and gritmaxxing to pursue corporate consulting. I was miserable. When I transitioned to becoming a writer, it required an equal amount of hard work and grit (if not more), but I enjoyed it.

I was a pretty good consultant, but I never accomplished anything great. A decade into my professional writing career, I’ve got a New York Times bestselling book that is a favorite among countless athletes, entrepreneurs, and craftspeople. All told, my work has been read by millions.

Both corporate consulting and writing demanded loads of hard work. But only the latter, to quote Mandis, “feels as natural as breathing or walking and great work becomes the very substance of your existence.” (And even so, it is still very, very hard!) I’m a lot closer to greatness as a writer than I ever was as a consultant, and I have a lot more fun as a writer too.

A study published in the journal Nature evaluated the careers of artists, film directors, and scientists. It found their best work followed a pattern of exploration, during which they tried multiple things, followed by exploitation, when they found something that worked and doubled down.

In other words, before doubling down on grit, first you need fit—a good match between your innate talent, temperament, and what you are doing. Without fit, hard work is tedious and painful. When you have fit, hard work is meaningful, satisfying, and enjoyable. Is this pattern true for every second of the path? Of course not! But is it true on the whole? Absolutely.

The Actual Truth About Greatness

Herein lies a hidden cost of grindslop: it makes people think that suffering is simply the price you pay for trying to be great—so people toil away working suboptimally for years instead of changing their approach. The result is that they feel and perform worse.

It does take hard work to achieve anything great. (And lots of it at that.) Everyone craves the transcendent moments when you become one with what you’re doing, and you’re effortlessly at your best. But those moments only occur after years of hard work. And even then, they don’t last forever. Unconscious competence requires conscious competence.

Mandis’s mistake is that he falsely equates hard work and suffering. But hard work is not the same as suffering. The real “dangerous lie” that Mandis speaks of is that greatness requires the latter. If anything, too much suffering is a strong indicator that your efforts ought to be adjusted or pointed elsewhere.

Work hard. Have fun. Keep going.

The enhanced, optimized self has fully arrived. We have metrics for everything: sleep scores, heart rate variability, glucose, recovery, and readiness. We track not only our biomarkers but also our social and professional markers: subscribers, followers, shares, views, likes. Investors compare deals on PitchBook. Athletes compare run paces on Strava. Authors compare sales ranks on Amazon. Everything is quantified in real time. Everything revolves around the self—and how it stacks up.

Our inclination to track and compare is nothing new. Uncertainty is uncomfortable. Metrics give us a sense of control over things like our health, however illusory that control may be. We’re also the most social creatures in the planet’s history. We crave benchmarks and reference points. We exist as individuals—and derive meaning in our lives—only in relation to others.

What is new, however, is the all-encompassing, technologically enabled, 24-7 nature of everything we track.

Until recently, you received health metrics once a year at your annual physical. You understood your social circle based on the number of people who showed up at weddings, birthdays, and holiday parties. Professional success was measured on yearly lists. Athletes knew where they ranked based on a few events they peaked for every season. We still measured and compared, but there were long stretches of time between those measurements and comparisons. And in those long stretches of time, we could forget about ourselves and how we stacked up. That is no longer the case.

To be fair, people must believe there is at least some utility to all this tracking; otherwise they wouldn’t do it. For instance, when it comes to biomarkers, people often claim you catch maladies that might go unnoticed between annual physicals. While this can be the case, it’s also true that biometric tracking generates false positives and plenty of noise, leading to anxiety and even medical errors. Research indicates that, for many, monitoring one’s sleep can worsen sleep quality and quantity, due to the stress of tracking. Scientists call this orthosomnia, the ongoing quest for perfect sleep metrics that produces the very insomnia it’s meant to prevent. While people are finally beginning to consider the unintended consequences of optimization on our bodies, the broader and more serious cost, as we’ll see, is to our psyches and souls.

How The Self Gets in The Way

In 1990, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi published the book Flow. In it, he describes experiences when we fully enter the zone and become immersed in what we are doing. You can enter a flow state in almost anything; common examples include playing sports, writing, creativity, conversation, making art, and sex. When you are in a flow state, the distance between you and your activity shrinks until you become one. You lose yourself in the moment. It’s an incredible feeling.

The initial question behind Csikszentmihalyi’s research was simple: What makes a life worth living? Across the tens of thousands of people he studied, the experience of flow was the top response. Csikszentmihalyi’s findings align with those of another giant in psychology, Abraham Maslow. Maslow used the term peak experience to capture transcendent moments of joy, awe, and deep fulfillment. He viewed these as profound states of optimal psychological health, “characterized by feelings of integration, egolessness, and deep connection to what you are doing.”

A hallmark of flow and peak experiences is that you transcend your ego—and all the self-evaluation, judgement, and thinking that comes with it—and become one with your activity. The inverse is also true: studies show that an excessive focus on the self is associated with choking, be it on the playing field, in the boardroom, or in the bedroom. Look more broadly across all of life, and research shows excessive self-focus is linked to unhappiness, anxiety, and depression.

Herein lies the great paradox of the enhanced, optimized self: it makes us less optimal people. We spend all of this time focusing on ourselves, and yet the states we long for—those that give rise to our greatest contributions and the experiences that make life worth living—all require the opposite. Our best performances (let alone our best lives) occur when we relax our grip on the self. Meanwhile, modern technologies and an obsession with optimization have tightened that grip more than ever.

Transcendence

Even the most extreme self-enhancer of all, longevity influencer Bryan Johnson, reports being most alive when he is taking massive doses of psychedelics or making love to his girlfriend. What both of these experiences have in common is that they obliterate the self he is otherwise so utterly focused on.

“I feel a lot more love, a lot more compassion immediately. Everything’s alive,” Johnson said 30 minutes into a Mushroom trip.

“We merge. Our brain signals collapse into synchrony, phase-locking. No longer are we distinct neural patterns, but one shared waveform,” Johnson writes of sex. “Rhythmic motion now resolves as music. Beads of sweat surface as we sway in concordance. Want washes over us, commanding all. Our egos are quiet as the frontal cortex dims; future, past, and death evaporate. Now is all that exists.”

Johnson is an extreme example (at root he’s a performance artist), but the tendency to get captured by metrics and optimization is very real and it affects us all, myself included. When I obsess over my Amazon sales rank, my writing deteriorates. When I wear a smartwatch, my athletic performance declines. When I obsessively track my steps, I lose the joy of taking them.

The center of attention in one’s life should not be on attaining certain metrics that supposedly represent self-optimization. Rather, it should be on losing oneself in meaningful projects, relationships, and pursuits. The latter is only attainable if you stop obsessing over the former.

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Loosening our grip on self-optimization comes with not only individual benefits, but also collective ones. At present, we are morphing into a society of narcissists, atrophying the ability to experience community and belonging. This trend is harmful to big things like democracy and civil society, but it begins by unfolding in the smallest of ways. For example, if everyone in the gym is focused on their watches, rings, and phones (and ruminating on whatever numbers are appearing on them), then what used to be a communal space filled with friendly interactions becomes a warehouse where we are alone together. It’s not good for anyone.

Stop Optimizing, Start Living

Sometimes I feel a mix of insecurity and existential anxiety. Are my books selling enough copies? Am I gaining followers? Did my deadlift lockout look okay? I relieve the anxiety by checking real-time metrics in each of these categories, but I rarely do anything differently as a result—certainly not on the seventh check that day. If anything, what I’m actually doing is stressing myself out and distracting myself from what is in front of me. If the numbers are good, I feel better, but only for a bit. If the numbers are bad, I feel worse. The dashboards and analysis may have a sheen of optimization, but nothing about this pattern is optimal. It’s like gambling on an existential slot machine.

My traps revolve around performance metrics in my two primary crafts: writing and training. For others, it’s health. But the solutions are the same. Either ditch the trackers altogether or design systems where you check them less frequently.

Throw away the ring or wrist-worn device (better yet, replace it with an analog watch that has a design you admire, one that pulls you into beauty and craft instead of away from it). Sign out of the real-time rankings portal. If you want to analyze the lift, film it monthly instead of daily. For each metric you track, ask yourself what benefits you are deriving and at what costs. Be brutally honest, and purge relentlessly. At first, these changes may lead to an increase in anxiety, but after a week or two, I almost guarantee you’ll feel better, and perform better too.

Being healthy, high-performing, and living a generally good life requires education and information, no doubt. But eventually, it’s wise to cut back on all the tracking and analyzing and be fully in the moment instead. Which is to say, stop optimizing and start living.

Norway is making a splash at the World Cup, with commanding victories over Iraq and Senegal. Perhaps it’s not surprising given Norway is home to two of the best players in the world: Erling Haaland and Martin Ødegaard. But when you consider that Norway’s population is just 5.6 million people, their success in soccer—and so many other sports—is astonishing.

Norway consistently wins the most medals at the Winter Olympics. In the most recent Games at Milano Cortina, Norway’s per capita medal rate was seventy-five times that of America’s. When I wrote about the medal gap earlier in the year, people were quick to say “it’s because Norway is a winter wonderland” or “they invest in sports nobody cares about.”

But this simply isn’t the case.

If either of those arguments were true, we’d expect Norway to be terrible at massively popular summer sports such as triathlon, cycling, and yes, the most popular sport of all, soccer. And yet, against all odds, Norway boasts world-beaters in all.

Now of course the country loves snow sports. And yes, it matters that Norway is a wealthy country and that the highest levels of Norwegian government invest in their Olympic pipeline. But it seems undeniable that a big part of Norway’s success is how they treat youth sports—and it’s the opposite of what we do in the United States.

Here’s what we can learn from Norway:

1. Scorekeeping

In the US: Youth sports tend to be hyper competitive even at early ages. Leagues almost always keep score.

In Norway: Scorekeeping isn’t even allowed until between the ages of 11 and 13.

Removing winners and losers keeps the focus on the process not outcomes. It keeps kids engaged longer because it minimizes pressure (and tears) and maximizes fun, learning, and growth. The goal isn’t to win a third grade championship. It’s to love sport and keep playing.

2. Trophies

In the US: If you give everyone a trophy, you’re feeding into a culture of snowflakes who will never gain a competitive edge.

In Norway: Whenever trophies are awarded, they are handed out to everyone.

If getting a trophy makes young kids feel good, we should give them trophies. Maybe they’ll come back and play again next year!! As for developing the next generation of snowflakes with no competitive edge—Norway’s athletes are tough as nails, and they keep winning. Give out trophies or not, but the argument that somehow giving everyone a trophy at young ages makes them weak as adults is utter nonsense.

3. Prioritizing Fun

In the US: Far too often, the goal is to win.

In Norway: The national philosophy is “joy of sport.”

Youth sports in the US are driven by adults, ego, and money. Youth sports in Norway are driven by fun. Only half of kids in the US participate in sports. The number one reason they drop out: because they aren’t having fun anymore. In Norway, 93% of kids participate in youth sports. Fun is the foremost goal.

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4. Playing Multiple Sports

In the US: There’s pressure to specialize early and play your best sport year round.

In Norway: Try as many sports as you can before specializing as late as college.

Norway encourages kids to try all types of sport. This reduces injury and burnout and increases all-around athleticism. It also helps promotes match quality, or finding the sport you are best suited for as your body develops, which is impossible if you commit to a single sport too early.

5. Affordability

In US: There is increasingly a pay-to-play model with high fees for leagues, equipment, and travel. This excludes many kids from playing.

In Norway: It’s a national priority to keep youth sports affordable and therefore accessible for all.

Kids aren’t priced out, which creates opportunities for everyone to participate (and develop into athletes), regardless of their parents’ income level.

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Norway’s sporting success isn’t just speculation or a nice story. A large body of research supports their approach:

• Studies show athletes who specialize later in life have a significantly higher chance of becoming elite.

• Soccer players whose motivation is primarily internal (versus external) have more than a 3x better chance of making it to an elite level.

• The number one predictor of whether or not kids stay in sport is are they having fun.

• Parents connect winning to having fun whereas kids say having fun is about being with their friends and learning.

We Could Learn a lot From Norway

I’m not writing this from an Ivory tower or with a removed Utopian view. I’ve got two young kids, and I coach them both. I understand the American system. I understand the urge to win because I feel it myself. I understand the feeling of not wanting your kid to fall behind. I am often the first coach to tell the eight-year-olds they need to do a better job focusing. I also understand how much fun it can be to go to a weekend tournament with a great group of kids and families. I’d much rather my kids be on a slightly too-competitive baseball team than in the basement on screens all day. I’d love for my kids to make high-school teams (if that’s what they desire), and I want to give them every opportunity to do so.

And yet, it’s undeniable that in the US, youth sports in the US has become a mess, with angry parents, outsized egos, and astronomical costs keeping kids from sticking with it long enough to see what they could become. Seventy percent of kids drop out of by age 13. This not only diminishes the pipeline of elite athletes, but it also creates a hindrance for healthy habits and all the character lessons kids can learn from sport.

In Norway, lifelong participation in sport is the norm. In order to compete on an international level with a country so small, you need to keep the talent pool as wide as possible for as long as possible. The goal isn’t to have the best 9-U team. It’s to develop the best athletes. Those are two very different things, and Norway has the medals to prove it.

The United Sates may never have the exact same model as Norway, but we can certainly move closer to it and adopt its spirit—keeping the emphasis on joy, intrinsic motivation, and developing a wide range of skills. Not only would we have more fun, build more character, and be healthier; but we’d win more too.

One of the best parts of writing a book is when it begins to take on a life of its own. The Way of Excellence has been out in the world for just under five months, and somehow, remarkably—thanks to all of you—it’s already sold more than 50,000 copies.

I’ve heard from countless readers across the world about how the book has impacted them. So I wanted to share 9 ideas that keep coming up again and again, using direct quotes from the book.

1. “Caring is cool. You are not going to be the best anything, including the best version of yourself, with an attitude of nonchalance.

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.

Try hard and give a damn.”

2. “Having fun is the greatest competitive advantage there is. People love to romanticize the athlete, artist, or entrepreneur who has a chip on their shoulder, who is fueled by anger and resentment. It’s the David Goggins’ approach to greatness.

Sometimes you’ve got to flip that switch. But the truth is that if you’re not having fun, you are not going to last long at whatever it is you do, and you certainly won’t get the best out of yourself. Not every day has to be great, but you’ve got to learn to find joy in the totality of the journey.There’s this foolish misnomer that you either have to be full of intensity or full of joy. But that’s nonsense. Joy and intensity, struggle and fun, can coexist, and in the best performers, they almost always do.”

3. “There is no greater illusion than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your inner life. What will change your inner life is who you become in the process of going for it. The top of the mountain is narrow. All the life is on the sides.”

4. “People overrate intensity and underrate consistency. Anyone can crush themselves and have a heroic day, a heroic week, or maybe even a heroic month. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to generate a heroic body of work.”

5. Confidence comes from evidence. Self belief is incredibly important, but you need to give yourself reason to believe. Do the work. Trust your training. Own your seat.”

6. “One of the most important skills for excellent performance—and honestly, for an excellent life—is showing up even, and perhaps especially, when you don’t really want to. Everyone focuses on the good days. But the days when you aren’t feeling great may be even more important. Just get started and give yourself a chance.”

7. “Do not worry about being the best. Worry about being the best at getting better. The best is ephemeral; you either get it or you don’t, and then what? But being the best at getting better is a path of mastery that lasts a lifetime.”

8. “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 and ruin their brains with an endless stream of fentanyl-like digital slop or if they are going to fight for their humanity, touch grass, challenge themselves, create, contribute, and love. With what agency we have left, each and every one of us can fight to step off the algorithmic conveyor belt to nowhere and take on meaningful challenges and big projects that make us feel alive.

9. “The secret is there is no secret. Consistency over intensity. Fundamentals over fads. Progress over perfection. Over and over again.”

Thanks for reading. Hopefully the brief piece spurred some good reflection.

If you found the above ideas resonant and want to go deeper, you’ll love the book. Get your copy today. I promise it will help. And please share this post with people in your community who would benefit. Onward!

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In the moments after the New York Knicks improbable NBA Championship, their star guard, Jalen Brunson, was asked how he took over in the clutch.

His response: “My confidence comes from my work ethic.”

“Never be afraid to fail,” Brunson said earlier in the day. “You put the confidence in everything you do when the lights are on because of everything you’ve done when no one’s watching.”

Everyone is sending me these quotes and asking if Brunson read The Way of Excellence. I have no idea, but he’s a perfect ambassador for the book. He embodies what I mean when I write that confidence comes from evidence, and that in order to gain evidence, you’ve got to be willing to fail.

We live in a world of affirmations, manifesting, and belief that often borders on fantasy. The most popular self-help podcast hosts suggest that if you just wake up, look in the mirror, think positive thoughts, and say you can do it—then, well, you can do it.

Unfortunately this is bullshit.

The way you gain confidence, be it on the basketball court, in creative pursuits, as a leader, in relationships, as a parent, is through experience, through evidence. It’s not to say that self-belief isn’t important. (It is.) But it’s only as powerful as the reasons you give yourself to believe it.

The catch is that evidence isn't free. You only get it by putting yourself in positions where you might fail. If you are pushing yourself and taking risks, then it is inevitable that sometimes you will come up short. The inverse is also true. If you are scared to fail, then you will never push yourself or take risks. The virtuous cycle is getting comfortable with failure, putting yourself out there, amassing evidence, and gaining confidence. The vicious cycle is being terrified of failure, playing it safe, staying on the sidelines, facing overwhelming doubt.

Every area of my life where I have some degree of confidence followed a ton of work and a ton of failure. My writing has been rejected more times than I can count. My first serious relationship ended in heartbreak. I’ve missed more PR attempts in the weight room than I’ve made. I was terrified of becoming a parent but we did it anyway. Gaining confidence wasn’t a matter of days, weeks, or months. It took years, even decades.

One of my friends is a renowned surgeon. “Ninety-five percent of the time in the OR [operating room] things go smoothly,” he once told me. “But the other five percent, when the unexpected happens and you have to control excessive bleeding, change your plan when an implant fails, or fix an injury that is more severe than anticipated. I live for that. It allows me to bring all my years of training and experience to meet the moment.”

His confidence is based on evidence and years of deliberate practice and experience.

“When we are in training with our mentors it is great to see the cases that are effortless and learn the steps of how things should be done, but the ones the trainee appreciates the most are the cases that don’t go well because then we see the masters at their best and in turn learn for ourselves how to deal with those complex situations in the future,” he continued. “The most valuable cases that I saw in my training were the ones that went sideways and the best surgeons remained calm and knew how to get out of trouble.”

The ability to face challenges is a core element of what psychologists call self-efficacy: an evidence-based belief that you are capable of showing up and excelling in highly charged circumstances.

Decades of research show that individuals who score high on measures of self-efficacy are better able to work through the inevitable moments when they feel lost or stuck, be it in the operating room, on the playing field, when facing the blank page, or in the boardroom. If you are insecure about your process and abilities, then you’re liable to catastrophize when the path forward is unclear. But if you are secure about your process and abilities, if you have evidence to lean on, then not much can faze you. The best way to gain self-efficacy, the research shows, is through experience.

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There are no shortcuts, secrets, or laws of attraction. There is only putting in the reps. Shoot the 500 daily jump shots. Write the bad first draft. Study the greats. Change the diaper. Ask your crush out. Apprentice with a master. Reps. Reps. Reps. Confidence is really just doing the work and then having the faith to trust it.

Behind every game-winning jump shot, bestselling book, outstanding performance, comfortable relationship, or really anything good in life is a messy body of evidence. You don’t see it on social media, but it’s there. You’ve got to give yourself the permission and space to experiment, learn, fail, and ultimately grow.

In a 1987 interview for her popular daytime show Mavis on 4, Mavis Nicholson asked the poet and activist Maya Angelou how she arrived at her commanding confidence on stage. “I know theater. I write for it. I have studied it. I act for it now and again. So I know theater. And I am centered,” explained Angelou.

Earlier this year Sebastian Sawe became the first human ever to run under 2-hours in a sanctioned marathon. The morning after he broke the record, I received the following note from his coach: “confidence based on evidence has been a guiding principle in the days leading up to the race.” The reason Sawe was comfortable going out at a historic pace on race day is because he’d put in years of training that proved to him he had a shot.

Sawe’s approach is no different from Angelou’s is no different from Brunson’s. Their robust confidence comes from their robust evidence.

The same is true for all of us. The key to confidence is evidence. And the only way you gain evidence is by getting over your fear of failure and doing the work, over and over again.

The New York Knicks trailed the San Antonio Spurs by 27 points at halftime of Game 4 in the NBA Finals. The team, the crowd—perhaps every fan in the country—were shocked. The Knicks came out flat in one of the biggest games in franchise history. It didn’t help that they received questionable calls from the refs, or that the Spurs could not miss. The result: 76 to 49. A total blowout. No team has ever come back from such a deficit in NBA Finals history.

The Knicks had every reason to quit. They could have gone back to San Antonio with the series tied 2-2 and regrouped. But they simply refused. There were 24 minutes of basketball left to be played. And the Knicks never stopped playing.

At halftime, the team didn’t watch film. They realized as a group they could still compete, and perhaps the tides would turn.

As The Athletic reported, 25-year-old guard Miles McBride replayed the first half in his mind and realized that if you take out the wildly unlucky bounces, the Knicks only would have been down 14 points. “Fourteen,” he thought. “That is doable.

And so the Knicks committed to the game. And to each other.

Now you don’t erase a historic gap at once. That’s overwhelming and impossible. You need to chip away, possession by possession. The bigger the goal, the smaller the steps.

“You look at it when you’re down 29 as ‘OK, let’s get it to 20.’ There are three minutes left in the third quarter. We’re down 18, and you’re thinking, ‘Let’s get it to 10.’ In the fourth quarter, you’re like, this is winning time. Anything can happen,” Knicks wing Josh Hart said.

The Knicks chipped away. They closed the gap to 15 at the end of the third quarter. With 6 minutes left, Karl-Anthony Towns hit a desperation three-pointer, his first points in any fourth quarter of the series, to cut it to 9. With seconds remaining, the Knicks trailed 105 to 106. Jalen Brunson missed a 30-footer. OG Anunoby flew in from the weak side to tip it home with 1.2 seconds left to send New York to a 3-1 series lead and to the brink of their first championship since 1973.

Watching it was like nothing I'd seen before. Stunning. Electric. My jaw is still dropped.

“We’re a resilient group. We’ve been through a lot,” Anunoby said. “We’ve come back plenty of times when we’re behind. Just staying with it, weathering the storm, not being too down or angry or frustrated.”

An NBA playoff run is many things, but perhaps most of all, it’s a massive test of emotional regulation. You prepare. You practice. You visualize. And then stuff happens. The difference between those who collapse and those who rise is how they respond, especially when things don’t go their way. Here, what is true in basketball is true in life.

It’s easy when things are going your way. But then stuff happens. You’ll fall behind. You’ll catch bad breaks, bad calls, bad bounces. Most people check out when the odds are against them. But if you keep showing up, if you stay in the fight and stick to your process, you never know what can happen.

The Knicks never stopped playing hard. Not when they were down 29. Not when they were down 1. It’s an extraordinary testament to the team, and to the human spirit.

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In my new book, The Way of Excellence, I write about having a next play mentality: You can’t control what already happened. You can’t control the score. You can only control the next play. One stop at a time. One bucket at a time. One possession at a time. You show up and apply effort. Again. And again. And again. It’s how you erase a historic deficit in the NBA Finals. It’s also how you work through the biggest challenges in life.

“You’ve got to have some natural luck and some where you’re going to make your own luck, and that was probably the biggest message,” explained Knicks Coach Mike Brown following the game.

Sport is full of luck. (Life, too.) Sometimes it’s good. Other times it’s bad. By definition, you can’t control luck. But you can increase your surface area to get lucky. The only way to do this is by showing up and staying in the game, even, and perhaps especially, when you don’t really want to.

People often mistake excellence for control or perfection. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Excellence is messy because excellence is human. That’s also what makes it beautiful. It means caring deeply. It means refusing to quit on yourself when the situation looks hopeless. It means sticking with your process, even when nothing is falling. It means playing the game in front of you—not the game you wanted; not the game you hoped for; but the game that is happening right now. Because never know what can happen.

As the Knicks just showed us, sometimes it’s even magical.

I’ve been working my ass off to get The Way of Excellence out into the world because I believe in the book. It’s neat to see the hands it’s ending up in and the impact it’s beginning to have. I couldn’t do it without everyone who is reading and sharing, so thank you all for being a part of that.

1. America Has a Masculinity Crisis

The New York Times has a splashy new podcast and piece titled “America has a Masculinity Crisis.” Unfortunately, it’s full of jargon and hyper-intellectualized takes—and includes little, in plain terms, about the positive qualities of men.

This helps nobody.

Let’s start with the basics. On average, men have more testosterone than women. People think that testosterone is associated with aggression, but it’s actually most associated with a drive for status. There are two predominant routes to status: you can gain it through brute power or through competence and respect.

The grifters (i.e., insecure assholes) sell rote power as a quick and easy path to status for men. But bullying others and demeaning women (or worse) is no way to contribute to society, let alone live a fulfilling life. It leaves you empty.

Being a good man means pursuing status via competence and respect:

• Be useful

• Be a protector.

• Be honest.

• Be kind.

• Be strong.

• Respect women.

• Get good at something.

• Stay physically fit.

• Be a good husband, father, brother, and friend.

Many will say isn’t this just being a good person, irrespective of gender? The answer is yes! However, men and women may pursue these attributes differently, and that’s okay! When you pretend there are no differences between men and women, constantly choose to highlight the most terrible men, or frame chronically online streamers as the alternative, you are either utterly removed from many people’s reality or have no interest in actually addressing the problem and making it better.

Sometimes I feel like the people who write these think pieces on the left must live in such weird bubbles. Sure, there are real assholes with big platforms. But there are also plenty of good men. Come out to the Little League I coach in. Or my gym. Or the chess club. Or the public school. There are solid, normal men!

The answer isn’t to defect to the manosphere bullshit. That’s a junk-food version of masculinity. But the alternative cannot be “everything is men’s fault” or “let’s pretend women and men are biologically identical” either. Neither is true nor helpful.

It’s unfortunate that so many of the men who rise to prominence, especially in the most salient fields such as politics and media, are narcissistic sociopaths who lie and cheat. (It says a lot about what we value as a society, but that’s a longer piece for another day.) And yet there are also plenty of good men, especially at the local level. These ought to be the role models.

It’s not to say we should never point out what is wrong with certain parts of masculinity (we should), but we should also highlight men who are doing it right and positive ways of being and doing in the world.

2. A Hard Truth About Elite Performance

There is so much nonsense and bullshit out there—but if you actually want to work toward excellence at something, you need to be focused and committed and consistent. You need to nail the fundamentals and surround yourself with good people. You need to think in years, not days, and exit the hot-take, alpha bro (and sister) slop-stream in favor of studying serious people, working with serious coaches, and reading serious books. There’s never been a shortage of pseudo-excellence. The real thing will always be counterculture, offering a great opportunity for those willing to pursue it.

3. The Great Divide

Noah Kahan’s new album grows on me every time I listen to it—and I’ve listened to it at least 100 times. My two favorite songs are “Doors” and “Dan.” I think the latter is near perfect. The composition is next level, and the way he reps the lyric “most of the time” is such good writing. I can’t think of anyone who is into folk-pop and good singer-songwriter stuff who wouldn’t dig this album.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s roundup. I’ll catch y’all soon!

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Victor Wembanyama just led the San Antonio Spurs to the NBA Finals. He embodies a central idea in my new book, The Way of Excellence: he is not scared to lay it on the line; he cares deeply; he makes himself vulnerable.

You could see it throughout the entire Western Conference Finals series. In the way he played. In the way he processed victories and defeats. In the way he spoke to the media. This is the same player that, earlier in the season, took flak for crying following a hard-fought game. His response: “Personally, I refuse to carry the burden of having to hide my emotions.”

So it was no surprise that following Saturday night’s game seven victory, Wemby had big feelings—an enormous joy combined with a sense of release. All of this heartfelt effort finally paying off.

I love it when there are clear examples of the ideas I write about. So I thought this would be a good chance to share a direct excerpt from the new book.

Caring is cool.

“You are not going to be the best anything—including the best version of yourself—with an attitude of nonchalance.

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.

When you hold yourself back because you fear failure or looking uncool, you sacrifice growth and potential—and mastery and fulfillment and intimacy and love and all the other good stuff in life—for short-term safety and comfort.

It’s a trap. Get over it.

Fear, doubt, and insecurity are all 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.

Try hard and give a damn.”

Hopefully Wemby is an inspiration to you. He’s certainly a refreshing character to me. I can’t wait to watch him compete for an NBA championship.

And if you haven’t yet, get a copy of The Way of Excellence now. It’s a perfect time to read the book. It’s currently 23% off here.

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A popular podcaster recently said drinking a few glasses of wine “ruined the next three days of his life.”

He specified he “didn’t get drunk,” but “got worse sleep that night” and said that when he looked at his wrist-worn device it messed up his score and “dopamine system or whatever, the cortisol” and he podcasted worse as a result.

Y’all—this optimization stuff can make you super fragile.

Before I go any further, an important disclaimer: alcohol is not good for you, especially if you are someone who struggles to stop after a drink or two. If you have a substance-use disorder or family history of substance-use disorders then a few drinks can absolutely ruin your week (or worse). There is nothing wrong with choosing to abstain for any reason at all. And yes, of course, getting drunk can derail a day or two.

But that’s not what this post is about.

Rather, it’s the latest example in a long line of internet optimization culture: eat this way, sleep that way, wake at this time, do that single exercise, follow this guru, take that supplement... This content is more about the performance of being great than the actual pursuit of greatness itself. It can even lead to anxiety.

Here’s what’s at the root of optimization culture: life is uncertain, scary, and hard. There’s always a chance of illness, injury, or failure. It’s normal to have some level of anxiety, but trying to control every little thing doesn’t help. If anything it gets in the way. When you obsess over readiness scores and other data, you risk creating a fragility mindset. You start to believe that you must be and feel 100 percent to do great work. But this is nonsense. It’s not how life works.

I almost never drink, precisely because alcohol isn’t good for you and I don’t feel well after. I’m on the same page as the podcast host so far. Occasionally, however, I’ll have two drinks, maybe even three. It happens a couple times per year—weddings, anniversaries, other big celebrations. I enjoy myself at these outings but I don’t sleep as well afterwards. I often wake up the next morning with a dull headache and sloshy stomach.

But then, instead of tying my destiny to a black-box algorithm on a wrist-worn device, I make breakfast, walk the dog, and get on with my day. I don’t obsess over how I feel and convince myself that my dopamine and cortisol are out of whack (which, by the way, are biochemicals implicated in just about everything we do, including reading this post right now). I simply say oof, I’m not feeling so great and get going anyways. A few hours later I am fine. It certainly does not ruin three days.

It seems the massive and prolonged decline in performance is less about the glass of wine—or cheeseburger, or child waking you up in the middle of the night, or going a day without exercise, or any of the other vagaries of life—and more about the obsession with metrics and purity and the spiral that follows.

I interviewed over one hundred people who are the best at what they do for The Way of Excellence. Olympians, authors, musicians, and entrepreneurs. When I asked, “How often do things go according to plan?” No one has ever responded, “100% of the time.” Not once.

When you need to control everything always, you lose the ability to perform well when you can’t. The best performers keep the main things the main things. But they aren’t optimizers. That shit burns you out. You need to know when to lock in and when to let go. You can’t be so delicate that any small change to your routine throws you for a massive loop.

One of my favorite stories is that of the golfer JJ Spaun. In the span of 8 years, Spaun went from being ranked 584 and missing the cut in many big tournaments to capturing a major championship. But the night before he won the US Open, Spaun was awakened at 3 A.M. by his 2-year-old daughter Violet, who had fallen ill. She couldn’t stop vomiting. Spaun ran to CVS to get medication while his wife tended to his daughter. He was up all night. He described the situation as “chaos.”

The next morning, he outplayed the field and won the championship.

Human beings are not machines. Nobody cares if you have the highest sleep score or lowest biological age (which isn’t a real measure anyways). I never got less sleep than when I became a parent. My readiness score—if I had tracked it—would have been crap. But I still went to the gym, even though I didn’t feel like it. And I wrote a book that I’m incredibly proud of. It would have done me absolutely no good to pay attention and stress about arbitrary numbers from a watch or ring.

Living an excellent life is not about attaining a score on a screen or never having a glass of wine. It’s about showing up consistently over a long period of time, expecting the ups, downs, and messiness of life, and giving what you’ve got to give.

Control the controllables. But when you slip up or choose to enjoy yourself at the expense of being perfectly fine tuned always, don’t freak out. The irony is that the mindset of needing to be perfectly fine-tuned always is actually one of the greatest performance killers there is.

Don’t make yourself fragile.

Life isn’t meant to be optimized. It’s meant to be lived.

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I have an eight-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. My kids will be the first to tell you I’m no parenting expert. When I look at the world, I see a chaotic, uncertain place changing faster than ever. It’s hard to predict what skills will be relevant next year, let alone a decade from now. And yet there are two in which I have a high degree of confidence: how to shoot a basketball and how to read a book. Taken together, they comprise a large part of my parenting philosophy. Let me explain.

1. How to Shoot a Basketball

Slight bend at the knees. Feet and shoulders square to the basket. Elbow in tight. Lift through the hips and trunk. Extend the arm as the body rises. Finish with a flick of the wrist. Hold the follow-through. Some coaches may have minor objections, but this is more or less how you shoot a basketball. It is simple but not easy. You improve via repetition. The results are objective and concrete—the ball either goes in the hoop or it does not. It’s hard. It’s fun. There is a direct line between effort and result.

My son loves basketball, at least for now. It’s still a bit too early to tell for my daughter. Maybe she will, maybe not. And that’s okay, because there’s nothing particularly special about shooting a basketball. It could just as well be playing the violin. Or striking a soccer ball. Or painting. Or acting in the theater. Or learning how to dance.

What I’m getting at is the development of a real skill in the real world. Something that is challenging and at times uncomfortable. Something that forces you to push against limits; to overcome resistance, setbacks, failures, and keep going. Something with stakes. Something in which to build competence.

It’s never been easier to coast. You can sit around on screens all day and be a passive recipient of a homogenized, soulless algorithm. You can use AI to answer questions, write papers, and even date. You never really have to put yourself out there. You never have to risk failure. These are deeply concerning trends. Learning how to shoot a basketball confronts them head-on.

You can’t automate or fake shooting a basketball. As such, when you learn how to do it, you develop what psychologists call self-efficacy: an evidence-based belief that you are capable of showing up, navigating challenges, and excelling as a result of your own hard work. Decades of research show that individuals who score high in self-efficacy tend to have better outcomes across various measures of life satisfaction.

I don’t expect my kids to be wizards at everything. I want them to try a range of activities and find what they enjoy. But I do think it’s important that at least one of those activities is learning how to shoot a basketball—be it actually or metaphorically.

2. How to Read a Book

Recent research from University of California, Irvine professor Gloria Mark suggests the average adult attention span is currently 47 seconds. That’s pathetic.

Almost everything worthwhile—appreciating art, creating something novel, falling in love—requires sustained attention. The quality of your attention shapes the quality of your life.

I believe reading books is one of the best ways, if not the best way, to build your attentional muscle. Reading teaches you to experience distracting thoughts and feelings and to return to the text in front of you, again and again. Eventually, the distractions subside. Perhaps you even lose yourself in the narrative. This sort of deep focus is a wonderful feeling, a reward in and of itself. Experience that rewards enough, and eventually you start to choose focus over distraction in other areas of life too.

Yet learning how to focus is only a small part of what makes reading profoundly valuable. It exposes you to ideas across geographies and eras. Reading is far more active than listening or viewing. It is also slower and more imaginative. You have to create the mental imagery and tone of voice. You have to dictate the pace at which you consume the text, think about what you are consuming, make connections in your mind, and then continue on.

Reading develops agency—which is precisely why every totalitarian regime throughout history is eager to ban books. Learning how to read is learning how to create the conditions to think for yourself: slow, deliberate, contextual, and without interruption. It’s in direct opposition to the synthetic slop-stream that encompasses so much of modern life.

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None of this means my kids don’t ever watch television or play NBA 2K. (They do, within reason, at least most of the time, but sometimes it rains for hours in the summer.) It simply means that we rarely go a day without reading, and that working toward competency in an age-appropriate way—it has to be fun!—is an ever-present force in our lives. When you combine the two, you increase the odds that your kids will be fulfilled and successful in life.

Another important quality I want my kids to develop is kindness. Sadly, this too seems to be falling out of favor. Cruelty increasingly gets rewarded with attention, especially online. As Derek Thompson recently wrote, we’re in an era of vicemaxxing, where treating people well is framed as naive, as something that makes you a pushover.

But disregarding kindness is a path to nihilism; in the body politic and in the individual body, too.

The least kind people I know are also the most empty. Small kindnesses—saying thank you, holding open doors, paying attention to other people—enrich your life and fill your heart. Much like shooting a basketball or reading a book, kindness is a skill. You get better through practice and repetition. My job, as best I can tell, is to ensure my kids get enough reps—at home, with each other, out in public—so that kindness becomes a habit before society tries to wring it out of them.

Perhaps my parenting philosophy is countercultural, which is fine by me. The prevailing culture rewards the opposite of all three: passivity, distraction, and contempt. I’d rather my kids be out of step with that.

Get competent at something. Learn how to read. Be kind.

I want to try something new here—a brief weekly round-up that will include three parts: a timely story containing a practical lesson; a philosophical idea; and something I am personally digging.

Let’s dive in.

1. Don’t bet against the badass who is having fun

NBA star Donovan Mitchell just led the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first conference finals without LeBron James since 1992.

(As a Detroit Pistons fan, the way this series concluded pained me, but that’s besides the point.)

After falling behind 0-2 in the series, Mitchell was asked about pressure.

“I don’t feel pressure,” he said. Getting your next meal is pressure. Where am I going to live? That’s pressure. This is an opportunity. This is fun.”

Contrast this with podcast bros who say you’ve got to be angry, that if you’re not suffering, you’re doing it wrong. Smiling and having fun are weaknesses. Hate your opponents. Play like everything is on the line, it’s life or death.

Y’all—these “alphas” are unserious clowns.

Steph Curry. Alysa Liu. Victor Wembanyama. LeBron James. Aryna Sabalenka.

All world beaters. All badasses. All have loads of fun.

Some people were confused as to why I included a chapter about having fun in my new book on excellence. People generally don’t put the two together. But in my research and reporting, I found the opposite: fierce intensity and deep joy can coexist, and in the best performers, they almost always do.

Meanwhile, here’s what I think is at the root of the alpha bro, be-angry-all-the-time approach to greatness: These guys are generally not elite at anything other than attracting attention—so they make up for it with enticing, performative nonsense. People in the arena realize that if you want to last, you’ve got to learn how to have fun.

The best performers in the world are focused, determined, a little bit crazy, at times obsessive, and live mundane lifestyles that most people would find boring. All that is true.

But the best performers in the world also have a whole lot of fun.

2. Fear of Failure Shrinks Your Life

There’s an increasingly pervasive attitude where people are so scared of failure that they don’t even try. It’s really tragic. You’ve got to get over it.

Every good thing in life requires putting yourself out there.

Doing hard things that align with your values is one of the most underrated, satisfying things there is. You gain discipline, self-respect, and self-confidence. You gain evidence that you can navigate discomfort.

A good life requires choosing to put yourself out there, face discomfort, and risk failure. It’s the cost of entry. There’s no way around it.

I’ve come to think of it as a humanist manifesto:

I will care deeply.
I will take on challenges.
I will explore my potential.
I will build relationships.
I will put myself out there.
I will create.
I will contribute.
I will learn.
I will keep going.

It’s not always easy to uphold these commitments. But it is always important, and feels that way more-so now than ever.

3. The Best Writer on the Best Coach

Wright Thompson is my favorite magazine writer. Steve Kerr is my favorite coach. So as soon as ESPN dropped Wright’s massive profile on Coach Kerr, I dropped everything I had planned to read it. It’s an incredible piece of craft. Every time Wright Thompson does a profile like this, I say there is no way writing this well is possible. And then I wait 18 months or so, and he somehow outdoes himself.

The piece took me a little over an hour to read. I’ve been sending it to everyone I know. Savor it.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s roundup. I’ll catch y’all soon!

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been asked several times what books I’d recommend for new graduates. It’s a fun question because I’m about to turn 40, and it’s prompted me to go back in time and imagine 22-year-old me, but in today’s world. What would I find useful? What ideas and tools would help me to better understand myself? What would inspire and motivate?

What follows is a list of books I pulled from my shelves, along with brief descriptions of each. As I was finalizing the list, it occurred to me that I’d recommend all of these books to someone who is 30, 40, 50, or 60 too. So hopefully it inspires you to grab a few books to gift the new graduates in your life, and also to grab a few books for yourself.

We are living in an extremely serious time dominated by extremely unserious people. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: reading books is becoming a radical counterculture act, and it’s more necessary than ever.

Enjoy the list. Pick one or two books to gift and to read. Be the counterculture.

Written in 1985, this book argues we are getting so caught up in entertainment and performance that we losing sight of what’s serious, let alone the ability to act on it. Postman predicted a reality TV star would be president over 40 years ago. There’s a reason people call him an oracle. Amusing Ourselves to Death is must-read to understand some of the biggest problems of today, and also to protect yourself from getting swallowed by the slop-stream.

A comprehensive look at the difference between chest-thumping fake toughness, (which is pervasive these days) and the real thing (which is rare and desperately needed). Steve has been my collaborative partner for years, and Do Hard Things is his biggest idea—and his best book—to date.

My favorite book on how to do focused work in a distracted world. Cal Newport, who happens to be one of my best friends, coined the term “Deep Work,” and it’s never far from my mind. (I actually think about and use it almost every day.) I’ve come to believe that Deep Work is key to not only a productive life, but also a good one.

A philosophical exploration of the limited time each of us has on Earth, and how to ensure we are focusing on what matters most in that limited time. Four Thousand Weeks will help you reflect on what is worth doing, and just as important, what is not.

The book on the power of sticking with things—even, and perhaps especially, when they get hard. If you want to be the kind of person who can hang in there when the going gets tough, when you face setbacks and obstacles, Grit will help.

A great overview of how we think about money, biases and traps to avoid, and how to develop a good relationship with saving. The Psychology of Money is like financial literacy 101, only for the human psyche instead of a spreadsheet.

An ode to the power of the human spirit, resilience, and the skill of staying hopeful in trying times. Hope in the Dark shows how people can come together and do incredible things, even against the odds, even in trying times. It’s essential to understand and hold onto this, because once you lose hope, there’s not much left.

Being a generalist, amassing diverse experiences and exploring your interests, can be the greatest competitive advantage there is. It’s true even in unlikely places such as sports. Range shows you how and why.

A poignant reminder that each and every one of us carries doubts and insecurities; it doesn’t mean we are broken. It means we are human. We can use those doubts and insecurities to help lead us toward an authentic life of connection and meaning. Herein lies The Wisdom of Insecurity.

If grit is a crucial skill, so is knowing when to quit. This book, from a world-class poker player, explores when to hold em and when to fold em—and not just in cards but in all of life. A huge key to success is knowing when to grit and knowing when to Quit.

The Comfort Crisis was written ahead of its time. Over five years ago, Easter argued that if you engineer too much friction out of your life, you begin to suffer. A life of convenience and ease sounds nice, but it’s actually pretty empty. We need to struggle, albeit in the right ways.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include what I think is my best book. The Way of Excellence is an urgent call to reclaim the lost art of excellence and to aspire toward it in our own lives. Based on a decade of research and reporting, it outlines the mindsets, habits, and practices that give rise to an excellent life.

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Let’s start with two recent remarks:

“I hate this whole men’s mental health stuff that they talk about.1 Unfortunately, when you’re a man, you are the provider, you can’t be that guy posting on social media, oh I had a bad day and I’m so sad. It’s unattractive to other males, let alone women.” —Dana White, CEO of UFC

“If my mental health was a priority I wouldn’t be as successful as I am… I obviously never would have buried myself alive for seven days. There’s a reason no one makes videos like me, not even close. Because no one wants to live the life I live” — Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr Beast, the YouTube star.

White is worth north of 500 million dollars. Donaldson more than 2 billion.

Set aside whatever you think of White or Donaldson’s character. Both are channeling a now-familiar cultural script about hard work that insists there are two ways to live—and two camps you can belong to.

The first one is full of therapy-speak, talking about your feelings all day, downplaying ambition, still expecting to achieve success, wondering why you don’t, and then blaming other people. You can have it all, this camp says. You can be perfectly balanced.

The second involves suppressing your feelings, pushing through everything, and disregarding the toll it takes on your body, your relationships, and the people who depend on you. The missed birthday. The cot under the desk. Burnout, broken marriages, public meltdowns2, the occasional early death—these are just the cost of greatness, or so the story goes.

This is an overly simplistic dichotomy that plays great in short clips on a hyper-polarized, tribal internet, but that is utterly removed from the truth of actual greatness. The people who embrace this dichotomy—whatever side they identify with—are badly misinformed.

***

Here’s a useful metaphor: imagine there is a powerful force, an inner mongrel, a dynamic drive. If you channel that force in the right direction, it can fuel your greatest contributions and accomplishments. But to channel that force productively, you need to build a pipe that directs it and is durable enough to contain it. The materials that combine to create the pipe will vary from person to person, but include things like friends, intimate relationships, therapy, sleep, and exercise. The greater the force inside of you, the stronger the pipe must be. The pipe can withstand the occasional weak point—say, a three-week period of intensive work where you skip the gym, sleep less than usual, and cancel social plans. But if the pipe’s casing starts to rust or weaken more broadly, the force will burst it, degrade your performance, and potentially destroy your life.

The truth about hard work and aspiring toward greatness is that it is very hard! You absolutely have to make tradeoffs, sacrifices, and have some dog in you. It’s not for everyone. There is a certain kind of temperament that is driven, hard to satisfy, and not accepting of the default. You will not be balanced. There will be times in your life, perhaps especially when you are young, when you may be singularly focused on your craft. You will wonder how some people are content to work a traditional 9-5 and simply enjoy their life. You may even find yourself jealous of them. But you are wired differently, and no amount of meditation or yoga will compete with that wiring.

But what is also true is that if you don’t have any constraints around your drive, if you neglect relationships and health and the basic hygiene of being a functioning adult, if you try to white knuckle everything always, if you refuse to ask for help when you need it, if you never allow yourself to process your feelings, if you take pride in how worn down and psychologically broken you are, then not only will you be miserable, but eventually your performance will suffer and you won’t last very long at whatever it is you do.

The most common objection: What about Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant? Both are known for their fierce intensity and ruthless ambition. Surely they’re proof that grinding yourself into dust is what greatness demands? I actually think they are perfect examples—only for my argument, not against it.

Both Jordan and Bryant worked with the same renowned psychotherapist, George Mumford. And both were coached by Phil Jackson, basketball’s resident mindfulness guru. I’m not trying to take anything away from how incredibly talented and driven they were, but it seems possible, perhaps even likely, that each would have self-destructed without Mumford and Jackson. At the very least, I don’t think they would have won as many championships. You also can’t help but wonder if their metaphorical pipe-coating had been just a little stronger, might they have still been world-beaters on the court without all the personal turmoil off of it?

Put simply, Jordan and Bryant are maniacs. Their drive for greatness is otherworldly. They outworked everyone around them. They made next-level sacrifices. They also had just enough constraints on their drive to keep it productive. If you don’t sacrifice enough, you’ll never be great, but if you sacrifice too much, the force underlying your greatness is likely to turn into anger, depression, and despair.

This is the truth about hard work. It’s why I can’t stand takes like Dana White’s and Mr Beast’s, and it’s why I also can’t stand people who say you can have it all, be perfectly balanced, and achieve great things. Both are selling lies to audiences that want to be lied to.

The truth is harder than either lie. You have to figure out what you can sacrifice and what you can’t. How long can you push, and when must you pull back? What buffers do you need to protect yourself from yourself? What values are integral to your character? These aren’t questions you answer once. Wrestling with them again and again is the actual hard work.

1. The best way to stay sane is to find the people and activities you love and give them your all. Distraction, attention vampires, and rage bait are lurking everywhere. But you still have some agency to choose where you focus your attention. Do everything you can to stay locked in on what matters.

2. Challenge yourself. Do hard things. It’s how you grow. It makes you feel alive. Suffering for the sake of suffering is dumb—that’s not what I’m advocating here. I’m talking about meaningful struggle, where you step outside your comfort zone and prove to yourself you are the kind of person who can overcome and find a way.

3. Move your body every day. Eat your fruits and vegetables.
(And when you forget, simply begin again.)

4. You don’t find your passion and then get good at something; you get good at something and then find yourself passionate about it. Competence breeds caring.

5. Stop worshipping status. Lots of famous people are totally unhinged. Know your values, the things you stand for, and live in alignment with them. If you do this it’s easier to fall asleep at night.

6. Become known for your consistency. Some days are better than others. Show up. Give what you’ve got. Rinse and repeat. Small steps really do compound for big gains.

7. It’s better to be kind than clever.

8. We are all mirrors reflecting onto one another. The people with whom you surround yourself shape you. You don’t always have a choice, but when you do, choose wisely.

9. Do what you can to respond, not react. You can’t always control what happens to you but you can control what you do about it. Responding not reacting is a muscle you can strengthen with practice. Like it or not, life gives you plenty of reps.

10. Set aside time to focus deeply on work that is important to you. Put the phone in the other room. Turn internet browser off. Periods of deep-focus work are key to a good life.

11. Confidence comes from evidence. If you want to be confident about something, put in the reps and give yourself the evidence.

12. Just. Get. Started. If you wait to feel 100 percent certain and fully ready you’ll spend your entire life waiting. Lower the bar to ready enough, step into the arena, and learn as you go.

13. Do not worry about being the best. Focus on being the best at getting better. Being the best is ephemeral, it comes and goes. You either get it or not, and then what? But being the best at getting better—that’s a pursuit that lasts a lifetime.

14. Better is more than just objective results and points on the scoreboard. It also means becoming stronger, kinder, and wiser. The world needs better performers and the world needs better people. These things need not be exclusive.

15. It is impossible to be happy all the time. Focus on living a meaningful and textured life. (The irony is you’ll be happier as a result).

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16. Everyone faces anxiety, fear, and doubt. Try not to let these emotions shrink your life. Take them along for the ride. Do what enlarges you.

17. Start where you are. Not where you want to be. Not where you think you should be. Not where other people think you should be. But where you are.

18. Life is hard and nobody is coming to save you, which is why you need to practice self-discipline; it’s also why you need to practice self-kindness.

19. Having fun is the greatest competitive advantage there is. Intensity and joy can coexist, and in the best lives, they almost always do.

20. Strength without flexibility is rigidity. Flexibility without strength is instability. You need both.

21. There is no such thing as an overnight breakthrough. Be patient. Play the long game. The bigger the goal, the smaller the steps. Almost everything good in life requires effort and takes time.

22. Sleep when you are tired.

23. Motivation is overrated. You don’t need to feel good to get going, you need to get going to give yourself a chance to feel good. Show up. Get started. Give yourself a chance.

24. Doing the hard thing today often makes tomorrow just a bit easier.

25. When it comes to your career, think about money, lifestyle, and challenge. It’s almost impossible to have all three, but most good jobs can give you two.

26. Don’t stress if you aren’t “balanced.” It’s impossible to do all the things. Part of being a mature adult is making tradeoffs. It’s okay to have different seasons of life for emphasizing different activities.

27. People who say that money doesn’t matter are full of it. People who obsess over money are miserable. Money is a thing. But it’s not the only thing.

28. Don’t compare your actual life to someone else’s fiction. Most of what you see online is not real. Let’s call it The Influencers Law: The more someone feels the need to post how great their life is the less likely they are actually satisfied with their life.

29. Curiosity is an antidote to fear and boredom. Never stop learning. Find mentors. Read books. Be interested in things.

30. The best relationships and pursuits make you forget about yourself. It’s actually true for pretty much everything. We are stuck in these bodies and selves and yet we feel the most alive when we forget about it. What a wild paradox.

31. Nobody escapes life unscathed. Everybody faces periods of pain, hurt, and feeling lost. Don’t be scared to ask for help. What comes around goes around.

32. Keep the main things the main things. It’s true in craft and it’s true in life. Define your priorities. Pursue them relentlessly.

33. Being nonchalant is lame. Risk something. Care deeply. Give a damn.

34. You are going to fall off the path. Everyone does. When this happens, do what you can to learn from it and get back on. Over and over again.

35. Life is long. You never know what’s going to happen next. Keep going.

Thanks for reading. If you found this post valuable you’ll love my new book, The Way of Excellence. It’s currently 23% off here. (It makes for a great graduation gift too!)

Mental health challenges affect so many people, myself included.

My experience with anxiety, depression, and OCD isn’t something I love writing about. Revisiting my darkest days still isn’t easy. Part of me always worries that somehow even just writing about it could pull me back. But a piece of my own recovery is facing that fear, and I promised myself I wouldn’t shy away, especially when I’m in a place solid enough to reflect. With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, I think it’s important to talk about.

My Story, In Brief

In 2017, I was blindsided by intense anxiety and depression. Eventually, I was diagnosed with OCD.

Intrusive thoughts and feelings took over my life. I was debilitated for the better part of a year. I had just published a bestselling book called Peak Performance, and yet here I was, struggling even just to leave my house.

I felt like a fraud. Worthless. Crazy.

After nine months, I wrote about my experience. It was not easy, but I learned that I was far from alone. I received hundreds of messages from others sharing their own experiences with depression, anxiety, and OCD. What surprised me at the time—but doesn’t anymore—is that many of these people are world-class at what they do.

For many, depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses are as real as the seasons. Not everyone faces these challenges, but for those who do, the experience is vexing, scary, and above all, isolating.

Mental illness does not make you less of a person. It does not take away from your accomplishments or expertise. It does not make you permanently weak or broken.

It is also not something to romanticize. When you are in it, it f**king sucks.

And yet to this day, so many people suffer in silence, confusion, and shame.

Ideas That Have Helped Me

In the early months of my mental health crisis, I was mainly focused on surviving.

But as I progressed in my recovery, I began to explore anything and everything that could help. It broadened my view of the human experience. It also changed my perspective on my job. It’s shown me that it’s important to have practices and tools not only for minor setbacks and when everything is clicking—which is generally the focus of my writing—but also, and perhaps especially, for when it’s not.

1. Reach out.

If you are experiencing a level of distress that feels abnormal for you, find someone you can share it with and don’t be scared to get help. It’s the most important thing you can do. You may feel deeply embarrassed or ashamed but please have the guts to ask for help.

2. Be patient.

Navigating mental illness is a nine-inning game. You may desperately want to be in the bottom of the eighth inning when, in reality, you are in the top of the third. Do everything you can to hold onto that long view. When you’re in it, a year or two or maybe even three feels like forever, but on the other side looking back it doesn’t seem so all encompassing.

3. Make a promise to yourself that you will keep showing up.

And when that feels uncertain, make a promise to yourself that you’ll share those feelings with someone who can support you in that moment.

4. Know that your brain is playing tricks on you.

It will tell you this is forever, that you never had a past without feeling this way, and that you’ll never have a future. Do everything you can to remember these thoughts and feelings are not facts, and they are impermanent.

5. Be kind to yourself.

It takes massive self-discipline to show up and navigate mental illness. You’ve got to learn self-kindness too. This is what’s happening right now. It’s really, really hard. I wish I weren’t feeling this way, but I am. And I’m going to do the best I can.

6. Resist dogma.

Explore all the evidence-based tools available to you: therapy, medication, exercise, and support groups. Stigma around each of these is flat out stupid. All can be effective.

7. Try to accept what you’re going through.

I know, at first the word “acceptance” sounds crazy. But anxiety, depression, and OCD resist control. Acceptance isn’t passive resignation—it’s acknowledging what’s happening, taking skillful action, and letting it move through you. One of the biggest paradoxes of anxiety, depression, and OCD is that obviously you want to try to make what you’re feeling go away, but if you try hard, the feelings just get sticker.

8. People want to help, and yet they may not understand.

Don’t hold it against them. I used to think depression was like sadness and anxiety was like worry. It wasn’t until I experienced these things firsthand that I realized they are in a different universe. Keep being vulnerable. It will help you find others who have undergone similar experiences. Lean on these people.

9. Just Hold On.

It takes time for therapy to work. It takes time for medication to work. It takes time for the seasons to change. What feels like forever now won’t in the future. Keep trudging on.

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You Aren’t Alone

Part of why I share my story is simple: maybe it helps someone feel a little less alone.

The hardest parts of depression, anxiety, and OCD? How time seems to freeze, and how isolated you feel. Both are tricks of the mind—hallmarks of the conditions. But what feels endless isn’t. And however alone you may feel, you aren’t. People have gone through something similar. People are going through something similar. People will go through something similar.

The word "compassion" comes from co (with) and passio (to suffer). Compassion means to suffer with. Mental illness is brutal. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But if there’s any consolation, maybe it’s that it deepens our compassion—for others, and hopefully for ourselves.

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned: if you are struggling with mental illness, there is no need to be ashamed or embarrassed, no need to keep it to yourself. Talking to others who have had similar experiences can help. Therapy can help. Medication can help.

If you or a loved one is in any kind of deep hole, please seek out the support you need, especially from trained professionals.

(You can talk to someone right now at the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988.)

I know it may feel harder than there are words to describe. Even though it may seem impossible, it can get better. Keep going. ❤️

Which brings me to what happened this past weekend.

On Sunday, April 26, Sabastian Sawe became the first person ever to run a marathon in under two hours—1:59:30 in London.

The following morning, I woke up to this message from his coach, Claudio Berardelli:

It’s extraordinary to see the book being read by (and helping) people at the highest levels of their crafts. All the credit goes to Sabastian and Claudio, who did the work. It’s a truly groundbreaking and inspiring performance. If my ideas and words played even the tiniest part, well, that’s so cool.

What’s also so cool is another message I got later that day:

There’s something about the timing of these messages hitting me in such close succession. To be honest, it actually makes me pretty proud. (It’s not often I feel this way, but I’m working on it.)

I wrote the book to argue that the pursuit of genuine, heartfelt excellence is the ultimate human endeavor—and to show people of all ages, crafts, and skills that getting on the path is one of the most satisfying and fulfilling things there is.

That the book is inspiring and being used by the greatest athletes on the planet and also 84-year-old Nanas is everything I’d hoped for.

If you haven’t already, please get the book. I promise it will help. It’s currently $7 off here. If Claudio and Sabastian don’t inspire you to order a copy, maybe Nana will.

I. Shitty Flow Is All Around Us

In 2021, the psychologists David Pizarro and Paul Bloom coined the term shitty flow to describe the experience of being in a flow state, but in ways your higher self does not desire. Examples of shitty flow include: doomscrolling on X, mindlessly swiping reels, making one prop bet after another, or constantly checking news sites for the most shocking headlines.

During these experiences, you may undergo certain hallmarks of flow, such as becoming fully immersed in what you are doing, losing a sense of time, space, and perhaps even yourself. But afterwards, you’re left with the sobering reality that your attention and energy could have been better spent. You feel anxious. You feel empty. You feel shitty.

A particularly stark example of shitty flow comes from the anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll, who studied people playing slot machines in Las Vegas. She found the stickiness of gambling addiction is less about the potential for winning and more about the trancelike state gamblers achieve while using the machines. She coined the term machine zone to describe the experience of daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness slipping away.

Modern life is increasingly becoming one big machine zone.

II. Everything is Automated

With the click of a button, you can: order groceries; buy a car; sell a car; find a date; cancel a date; make millions of dollars; lose millions of dollars; fall in love with your favorite influencer; come to hate your favorite influencer. For $20 per month—the current cost of many AI models—you can also write essays, receive an answer to any question, and have a silicon data warehouse indulge your wildest fantasies, all within seconds.

It’s a wild time. And a weird one.

For over 99 percent of our species’ history, we lived in scarcity. Abundance is a recent phenomenon. Even more recent is the engineering that underlies ultra-processed food, ultra-processed entertainment, ultra-processed information, and ultra-processed connection. Evolutionary biologists use the term dysevolution to describe the disconnect between our hardwiring and our modern environments—and that disconnect is larger than ever.

We evolved to conserve energy and effort, to crave convenience. This is for good reason. Our early ancestors had no choice but to do hard things all the time: hunting, foraging, forming alliances, building shelter, making tools, finding mates, starting fires, and protecting children from early death. Today’s world is very different, and that’s a good thing. Nobody wants to go back to the life of a caveman.

However, if we cease to have any struggle in our lives, then our lives become empty. Because much like we evolved to crave convenience, we also evolved to exert ourselves on meaningful pursuits. The best lives contain a tension between both of these drives. Not everything should be hard. But not everything should be easy.

It’s the difference between the good kind of flow and the shitty kind. By design, you enter shitty flow without any real effort—you simply click a few buttons and numb out. Attaining the good kind of flow, however, requires effort: first, the effort to discern if it’s a worthwhile activity; and then, the effort to actually pursue it. It’s the difference between falling in love with an actual human versus falling in love with a programmable sycophantic machine. Getting into the zone writing an essay versus telling Claude or ChatGPT to write one for you. Catching fire in a basketball game versus gambling on one.

Shitty flow leaves you feeling like shit precisely because it requires no effort. Good flow leaves you feeling satisfied because it is earned.

III. Meaningful Struggle

I could wake up every morning at 4 AM and cold plunge alone on my back deck, and that would be very hard, no doubt. But I’m not sure I’d get anything out of it, aside from being very cold. For some, a regular cold plunge is life-changing. For me, not so much.

Meaning lies in the eyes of the beholder. It manifests when what you do aligns with your innermost values. I value craft, integrity, excellence, and love. The hard things I aspire toward—writing well, telling the truth, being there for my wife and my kids, increasing my deadlift via training hard—align with my values. I am happy to automate, outsource, and follow the path of least resistance in other parts of my life, but if I used AI to write for me, told people lies they wanted to hear, let screens raise my kids and replace my marriage, or used a forklift at the gym, my life would be decidedly worse. I’d have extra time, extra energy, and a dearth of meaning in my life—all of which I’d probably fill with shitty flow.

Herein lies a modern paradox: Life is easier. Life is emptier. There’s a reason Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a dystopia, not a utopia.

In 2022, a team of neuroscientists at McGill University in Montreal showed that when we apply effort to challenging tasks, it boosts activity in brain regions that respond to rewards. Essentially, the researchers looked under the hood and found the neural networks underlying the contentment and satisfaction we feel after a hard day’s work on something we care about. But here’s the catch: The neural activity associated with reward, along with the accompanying real-life feelings of accomplishment, was significantly greater in participants who viewed their effort as worthwhile. The more you believe your hard work matters, the more rewarding and satisfying you’ll find it.

There’s a difference between suffering for the sake of suffering and building meaningful challenges into your life. You can do a random hard thing because everyone else is doing it. Or you can do a hard thing with deliberate intention because it tracks with the person you are and want to become. Sometimes you need to do the former to jumpstart the process of figuring out the latter, but it’s the latter that leads to a good life.

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IV. The Fight Against Diabetes of the Soul

What I dislike most about AI writing is that it converges around a homogenized mean. The whole thing has a synthetic feel to it: It’s not this. It’s that. It’s real.

What it actually is is soulless.

No doubt, in the short term it feels great to generate a fairly polished 1,000-word essay with the click of a button. But in the long term, it erodes your ability to write, and honestly, to think, for yourself. You become conditioned for convenience and ease. Your tolerance for effort declines. You trade the potential for genuine flow, and all the satisfaction it brings, for shitty flow. This theme explains much of the ennui that accompanies modern existence.

Arguing with anonymous idiots on social media instead of meaningfully disagreeing with a real person over a beer. Obsessively gambling on sports instead of actually trying to get good at one. Dating a robot instead of a human. Scrolling from one short-form video to the next instead of reading a book or watching a feature film. In all of these instances, not only are you surrendering to shitty flow, but you’re also eroding your ability to work toward and experience the real thing.

I’m not trying to be a moral purist. I gambled a ton my freshman year of college—that is, until I met a girl. A serious girlfriend, and all that came with it, was way more exciting than gambling. So much of our addiction to shitty flow stems from the fact that it fills the holes that, at one point or another, all of us share. The difference between my college gambling experience (over twenty years ago) and today is that now, gambling is at our fingertips and more enticing than ever. The same goes for nearly all the other common sources of shitty flow.

Studies show heavy consumption of short-form videos (e.g., TikTok) leads to a significant decline in frontal lobe brain activity, focus, agency, and self-control. Sports betting delivers anticipatory dopamine on demand, no effort required. Over time, the brain builds up tolerance to dopamine, requiring higher risks and bets to achieve the same satisfaction. As this tolerance builds, research shows it becomes harder to find enjoyment in sport for the sake of sport, and eventually, in all of life. This is the neurological mechanism of shitty flow: you’re overwhelming your reward circuitry without doing anything, all the while making it harder to exert effort on the types of pursuits that actually lead to a meaningful life.

If all you eat is Skittles and M&Ms, eventually you mess up your entire metabolism and get diabetes. Our collective addiction to shitty flow is giving us diabetes of the soul.

The treatment for diabetes of the soul is similar to the treatment for diabetes of the endocrine system. For the latter, you’ve got to replace ultra-processed shitty food with more nourishing whole foods. For the former, you’ve got to replace ultra-processed shitty flow with the real, more nourishing variety.

The average American is overweight and unhealthy. Yes, it has much to do with our system. In an ideal world, the environment would be designed to encourage and facilitate a nutritious diet and physical activity. There wouldn’t be fast food establishments on every corner. There wouldn’t be poverty. But while we work toward a more ideal world, we also need to acknowledge that we don’t live in one, and we don’t have magic wands to wave to create one.

The same is becoming true with the average American soul. It, too, is increasingly unhealthy, and I fear it will get much worse before it gets better. No policymakers are coming to save us. The systems profiting from shitty flow are the same ones lobbying against regulation. Not to mention, many of our legislators have already had their own brains turned to sawdust by shitty flow. Which means, at least for the time being, each and every one of us needs to fight this battle ourselves and in our local communities.

It’s not easy, especially when you are surrounded by shitty flow—when it’s on your phone and in your browser and sold to you at every commercial break. But just like you still have some agency to drive past the fast food restaurant instead of entering the drive-through, you still have some agency to bypass shitty flow in favor of the real thing. And the prescription is not complicated.

Train for a marathon. Learn an instrument. Join a choir. Make art. Coach a team. Read 30 books in a year. Play rec league sports. Write using your own brain. Get involved in a local theater group. Go on hikes. Watch sunsets. Train to deadlift three times your body weight. Grow tomatoes. Meet people in the real world. Put yourself out there. Challenge yourself.

None of these things requires a policy solution or a technological breakthrough. They require you to close your laptop, put down your phone, and maybe delete certain apps. The shitty flow will be waiting when you get back. It always is. But you might find you don’t miss it as much as you thought you would.

Thank you for reading. If you found this resonant, you’ll devour my new book, The Way of Excellence. It’s an instant New York Times bestseller that goes deeper on all the above.

Of all the great storylines from the recent Masters golf tournament, the one that is most relevant doesn’t involve golf at all.

Augusta National has a simple rule: no phones allowed anywhere on the property for the entire week of the tournament. The course, the driving range, the clubhouse—all of it is off limits.

The rule isn’t just ceremonial either. During this year’s tournament, former major champion and four-time Ryder Cup participant Mark Calcavecchia was escorted off the premises by security. His offense? Having a cell phone on him.

When Golfweek reached out to Calcavecchia, he didn’t deny the allegations or even complain about the punishment. He simply explained: “I’ve got nothing negative to say about Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters, so I think we should literally hang up right now.”

A Deep Life Requires Intimacy

Traditionally, people think of intimacy in terms of a relationship with another person. While that certainly can be the case—and is a beautiful thing when it happens—you can also develop intimacy with an activity, craft, or community. It is a sense of familiarity, respect, and attention that helps you feel connected to what you are doing and to yourself. It requires minimizing distractions and getting as close as possible to your pursuit. It’s being in the pocket of a deadlift, song, or painting; it’s being immersed in developing an idea, leading a team, or learning a new skill; it’s sharing an experience with a group during which everyone is present.

I have no doubt that a big part of the aura at the Masters is its intimacy. This would be impossible if everyone had their phones.

The Master’s no phone rule is in stark contrast to how many of us navigate the world.

You try to read a book and can’t focus. You’re out to dinner with loved ones and find yourself checking your phone under the table. You don’t even have your phone on you, and yet you still feel it buzz in your pocket.

The result of our compulsive phone use is what psychologists call digital dementia or brain rot. It describes the forgetfulness, foggy thinking, and fatigue caused by the chronic overuse of our phones. Our brains become so accustomed to fractured attention that they lose the ability to focus deeply on anything.

Multiple studies show structural changes in the brains of heavy cell phone users—which is to say, nearly all of us. A 2024 systematic review found reduced gray matter volume in brain regions associated with decision-making, emotional processing, and self-control among problematic smartphone users. The prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for complex thinking and impulse regulation—shows reduced activity the more someone uses their phone. Persistent cell phone use also messes with your nervous system. It puts you in a constant state of alert and low-grade stress. As a result, you’re never really off, but you’re also never fully on. You’re constantly in this middle-ground state, leading to a (very modern) feeling of restless exhaustion.

Compare this to the Masters, where you can feel the depth of focus and attention in the air. Greatness requires it.

Fortunately, a 2025 study found that restricting smartphone use for just three days—which is essentially what the Masters does—altered brain activity in regions linked to reward processing and cravings, showing patterns similar to those seen in substance addictions. The tournament lasts a week. Augusta National is accidentally running a mass neurology experiment every April. And the results are startlingly positive.

I’ve been told by people who attend the Masters that the first day or two can be hard, but then they quickly ease into the phone-free experience. They stop feeling phantom vibrations or even thinking about their phones. It’s no surprise that come mid-tournament, everyone is utterly locked in. Instead of trying to capture an experience on a phone, they are fully experiencing it. People feel fully present and alive. It’s a powerful antidote to modern feelings of disconnection, dissociation, and numbness.

There’s Much to Learn from the Masters

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 digital slop or if they are going to fight for their humanity and touch grass and challenge themselves and create and contribute and love.

Research consistently shows that people are most fulfilled when they care deeply about meaningful projects and experience presence in relationships and community. Nobody feels or performs their best while mindlessly scrolling. The things that make life worth living—deep work, physical intimacy, creative expression, genuine connection—all require the type of sustained attention that our phones are systematically eroding.

Perhaps the greatest risk of the modern world is that we go wherever the current takes us, like automatons floating along a pixelated conveyor belt to nowhere. The only thing that separates us from this dystopia is ourselves. Our agency—our attention, our capacity to think, create, and love—must be fought for. When you work with deep focus on an activity or craft, or when you throw yourself fully into an experience, you feel the opposite of existential longing. You feel situated in yourself and the world.

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If we want to perform our best, feel our best, and experience depth, meaning, richness, and texture—essentially all the good stuff in life—then we need to create our own versions of the Master’s no-phone rule.

If we value education for our children, there should be no phones in schools. If we value intimacy with our partners, there should be no phones in the bedroom (at least at night). If we value books, we should turn our phones off and put them in another room while we read.

These are three of many examples, but I give them because there have been stark declines in scholastic performance, sex, and literacy—all of which have coincided with the rise of smartphones.

On education: The 2024 Nation's Report Card shows that American students' reading scores are at their lowest point since the early 1990s. Around 40 percent of fourth graders now score below the basic level in reading—the largest percentage in over two decades. Eighth-grade reading scores have been falling in a straight line since 2017.

On sex: According to the General Social Survey, 55 percent of American adults reported having sex weekly in 1990. By 2024, that number had fallen to 37 percent. Among young adults ages 18 to 29, the share reporting no sex in the past year doubled between 2010 and 2024, from 12 percent to 24 percent. This isn't just a young person's problem either: among married adults, weekly sex dropped from 59 percent to 49 percent over the same period. As sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas put it, "The smartphone is generating new and interesting content, which is slowly but surely supplanting the people around us."

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On literacy: Only 14 percent of 13-year-olds reported reading for fun almost every day in 2023, down from 27 percent in 2012. A 2025 study using 20 years of American Time Use Survey data found that reading for pleasure has declined by about 3 percent per year.

All three declines map onto the same timeline: the mass adoption of smartphones, which reached saturation among American teens around 2012-2013—precisely when test scores peaked and began their slide, when sexlessness among young people began its sharp rise, and when reading for pleasure started its accelerating decline.

The point isn’t to be a purist. After all, many of you are probably reading this article on a phone right now. Digital devices are a part of modern life and for all they disrupt, they also carry many incredible benefits. Regardless, they aren’t going away, which is all the more reason to carve out times and spaces where we don’t use them.

There’s a reason the Masters feels different from every other sporting event. It’s not just the stunning azaleas, or the history, or the green jacket. It’s that for one week a year, thousands of people put their phones away and actually watch. They listen to the ping of a driver, follow the arc of a ball against the sky, and erupt together in real time, in real life, shoulder to shoulder.

It’s crucial to ensure the Master’s isn’t the only experience like this, because focus and intimacy are necessary not only to excellent golf, but also to an excellent life.

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love my new book, The Way of Excellence. It’s a practical guide to the pursuit of deep focus and personal excellence in a chaotic world, and an instant New York Times bestseller. You can purchase it here.

When shots are falling—focus on the process.

When shots aren’t falling—focus on the process.

So much of success comes down to showing up, weathering storms, staying in the moment, trusting your training, and making the next best shot.

In golf. In sport. In life.

After last year’s roller coaster victory at the Masters, Rory McIlroy came out in the 2026 version firing on all cylinders. After 36 holes, he led by 6 strokes, the biggest margin at that juncture in 90 years of tournament history. It appeared as if he’d finally put his doubts and limits and ghosts behind him. He was taking big swings and playing to win. It was a joy to watch.

But then, on day three, he played a terrible round that included 3 bogeys and a double bogey. His entire lead was erased. He entered the final round tied for first place with an extremely tight race behind him, including many of the best players in the world.

McIlroy began the final round with more erratic play and by hole six was multiple shots back. As a big fan of McIlroy, it was genuinely hard to watch.

And yet, throughout it all, McIlroy stayed calm and collected. No thrown clubs. No screaming or shouting. No poor body language. Just a relentless focus on the next shot—whether it was from the sand, wood chips, gallery, behind a tree, or whatever other predicament he found himself in.

He hung in there. He stopped the descent. He prevented his bad holes from becoming awful holes. And then, stroke by stroke, he slowly began to turn things around. He started making pars and reclaimed the lead on 11. He made birdies on 12 and 13 to go up two shots. He never looked back. The rest is history.

McIlroy won the Masters for the second year in a row, becoming only the fourth golfer ever to do so, along with legends Nick Faldo, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus.

“One of the things that I love is focusing on the process over the prize... I would say to myself a lot: ‘Process over prize. Process over prize. Process over prize, just to take myself away from the outcome,” McIlroy says. “I can get real caught up in the outcome. I just really need to remind myself that the outcome will ultimately happen if you just focus on the process. It takes care of itself.”

McIlroy’s instinct is backed by research.

Multiple studies find that those who focus on outcomes—winning, rankings, scores—experience more anxiety and reduced engagement. People who focus on the process—technique, the next action, what’s in their control—perform better under pressure.

The reason is that outcome goals activate threat responses in the brain. Process goals keep you in the present moment. Researchers call it the difference between a threat response (scared and doubtful) and a challenge response (revved up and ready for the next action).

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What’s true in golf is true in life

Anyone can show up when everything is clicking. But things will inevitably go wrong. You’ll make a great effort and still fall short. The winds will blow one way, then another. You’ll face moments where your emotions flare and things fall apart.

What matters most isn’t the adversity. It’s how you respond. Again and again and again.

There’s a reason so few people repeat at the Masters. There are so many variables. It is so hard to stay focused and play to win with history riding on the line. When you think you’ve got it in the bag, you’re almost always wrong.

In today’s final round, there were four different leaders and every single one fell off, except for one: Rory McIlroy, who maintained his lead for the last 9 holes.

It’s not that outcomes don’t matter. (They do.)

It’s that what gives you the best shot at achieving your goals is focusing on the process and digging where your feet are. When you focus on the process you put the shot that could have been or should have been or might have been behind you. You play where you are. Which is the best way to play.

You can’t just call upon a process mindset when you are down three strokes on the final day of the biggest golf tournament in the world and expect it to work. It needs to be an ongoing practice.

We cannot control how someone receives our work, the weather on the day of the big event, the judge’s mood during a competition, or all manner of other factors that impact outcomes, in work and life. Sometimes we do everything right and the outcome still doesn’t go our way, even in spite of our deepest desires. All we can control is our process. How we show up in the next moment. The next action we take.

People often think excellence is about control or perfection. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Excellence is about stepping into the arena. Caring deeply. Giving your all. Beginning again. Responding instead of reacting. Laying it all on the line. Falling short. Bouncing back. Exceeding expectations.

It’s doing all this while staying firmly grounded in the process, which means trusting your training, showing up, and meeting the moment.

Thanks for reading. If you found this resonant, you’ll love my new book The Way of Excellence. Parts of this post were excerpted from it. The book goes deep into the science and practice of a process mindset, and how to cultivate one yourself.