9 Rules for Living an Excellent Life in a Chaotic World
Cutting through the noise and nonsense
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 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!
The list reads like nine separate rules, but it’s really one idea restated nine times: stop measuring against an outcome and start measuring against your own continuation.
What actually ties caring, joy, consistency, and showing up together isn’t willpower. It’s that you removed the exit ramp. Most people don’t fail at excellence because they’re missing a winning principle. They fail because they leave themselves permission to quit the moment intensity fades. Take that permission away, and joy and intensity stop competing for the same seat.
After 35 years of watching people try to perform their way into a sense of worth, the ones who actually lasted weren’t the ones who found the secret. They were the ones who stopped looking for one.
You named this same mechanism years ago in Groundedness, when you wrote about patience as slowing down to go faster. The Way of Excellence isn’t a new discovery. It’s that idea finally given nine names people can use on a hard Tuesday.
#4 is the one that resonates with me in terms of fitness. After 40+ years training, I've watched people's "super motivated - this time I'm doing it" plans collapse over and over, because the person kept confusing a short term heroics with long-term success.
Fitness is like walking up a down escalator. The moment you stop moving, you go backward.
Building a system that keeps you moving without relying unsustainable effort is the whole game.