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PODCAST

excellence, actually

Steve Magness, Brad Stulberg, & Clay Skipper

"excellence, actually" is a podcast from The Growth Equation, hosted by Steve Magness, Brad Stulberg, and Clay Skipper. Drawing on their years of working and corresponding with Olympians, coaches, executives, world-class physicians, and other elite-level achievers in their coaching practice and professional careers, they give you the mental and physical tools, practices, habits, and frameworks used by the best in the world in the pursuit of excellence. Each episode will give you concrete ideas and

education self-improvement

All Episodes

48:41

How to Know When to Grit vs. When to Quit

excellence, actually ·

2025/06/12

How do you know when to persevere through a rough patch—and when to give up entirely? And if you do decide to push through, what are the most effective tools to bolster your resilience and get you through to the other side? That's what we're breaking down on today's episode. We'll help you recognize when to continue striving despite setbacks and when it's wiser to avoid the sunk cost fallacy, stop, and pivot. Plus: we'll get into what we get wrong about quitting in today's world more generally

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40:55

9 Important Life Lessons We've Learned from Exercise

excellence, actually ·

2025/06/05

Exercise isn't just a way to better yourself physically. In fact, through our years of running, competing, and working out, we've found some of exercise's greatest gifts to be the lessons it teaches us about ourselves and about life. Here we are sharing nine of our favorites that you'll find useful whether you exercise or not: how to stay patient, how to relax when things get hard, how to create some space between you and your thoughts, how to take the long view, how to be curious, how to stay out

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36:50

120 - A 66-Year-Old Powerlifter with 71 World Records...

excellence, actually ·

2025/05/29

David Ricks first competed in a powerlifting competition in 1981, when he was 21 years old. At 66, he is still competing. Along the way, he's won 13 world championships, 32 national championships, and 71 world records. You might say he knows a thing or two about mastery, excellence, and sustaining both over a long period of time. Today, he shares his training routines, the importance of setting reasonable goals, and how he balances life, work, and lifting. Ricks emphasizes the necessity of listening

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44:54

119 - How to Turn Your Inner Critic Into a Coach

excellence, actually ·

2025/05/22

By some estimates, the voice in your head can spew up to 4000 words per minute, making it all the more important that we learn how to live with it. This can be especially hard when it's loud and critical, which (maybe you've noticed) it has a tendency to be at some of the most inopportune times: right before an important event. Today we discuss strategies for turning your inner critic into an inner coach before, during, and after a key performance. We discuss the neuroscience behind self-talk, its

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43:18

118 - How to Build Discipline

excellence, actually ·

2025/05/15

Why are some people disciplined and others aren’t? It’s not because of an innate character trait, but because disciplined people have simply trained the skill of being disciplined. Today we break down how to do that by discussing how motivation and inspiration can (and often do) get in the way of discipline, the power of routines and constraints, strategies to embrace the discomfort of just getting started, the difference between positive and negative freedom, and the role that identity plays in

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56:08

117 - The Masculinity Crisis, and Why It Matters for...

excellence, actually ·

2025/05/08

This is the second of two episodes we're devoting to the topic of masculinity. Last week, in part one, we spoke with Richard Reeves about how changing ideas of what it means to be a man have left many men feeling adrift. Today, Brad, Steve, and Clay discuss that episode, reflect on some clips from a few other voices who've thought deeply about this issue, and open a conversation about potential solutions or ways forward. They talk about why the masculinity crisis is really a crisis of meaning,

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54:56

116 - The Masculinity Crisis, and Why It Matters for...

excellence, actually ·

2025/05/01

Over the next two weeks, we're going to be exploring the topic of masculinity—more specifically, how changing ideas of what it means to be a man have left many men feeling adrift, and what a path to a more positive masculinity might look like, particularly amid a backdrop of hyper-productivity, optimization, and toxic influences like Andrew Tate. Today's show features an interview with Richard Reeves, author of "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About

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32:30

115 - Mailbag: Daily Health Checklist, Rut vs....

excellence, actually ·

2025/04/24

You've got questions, we've got answers. Today, we dive into listener emails and voicemails to answer some of your questions.1) Can you give me a minimalist daily health checklist?2) How do I tell the difference between a rut and burnout?3) What do "good" breaks actually look like?4) How do I stay committed to long-term goals when short-term stuff always gets in the way?If you have a questions for us, send an email to clay.growtheq@gmail.com or call our voicemail at ‪(646) 893-9503‬.Subscribe to The

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47:44

114 - Choke, Recover, Repeat: Mastering the Art of...

excellence, actually ·

2025/04/17

In the world of sport and performance, a lot is made of executing under pressure. "Don't choke," we often say. However, what is perhaps more impressive (not to mention realistic) is being able to bounce back from choking. (In some ways, this is what Rory McIlroy displayed in his Masters victory this past weekend, winning in a one-hole playoff after a couple of big misses—and, to be fair, many more great makes—on the back nine.) Resilience isn't about never crumbling under pressure, but about

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34:56

113 - Playing the Long Game in a Quick-Fix World

excellence, actually ·

2025/04/10

As we often say, people have a tendency to drastically overestimate what they can do in a day and drastically underestimate what they can do in a year, particularly these days when so much of our world is oriented towards instant gratification. So today we're talking about the art of sustainable success and how to play the long game. We discuss how to overcome the difficulties of setting (and sticking to) big goals, strategies for staying disciplined and trusting your plan, ideas about how to build

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39:51

112 - Building True Confidence: The Practical Path...

excellence, actually ·

2025/04/03

Today we're breaking down confidence. We discuss what it is (earned self-belief) and what it isn't (bravado, arrogance, positive thinking, or the absence of doubt and insecurity); how to build and maintain it; the cons (and some surprising pros!) of delusional confidence; how to keep from tipping over into complacency or arrogance; and practical steps to get your mojo back after a slump.Join The Growth Equation Academy today. 40% off for a limited time!https://the-growtheq-academy.mn.co/If you are

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33:33

111 - How to Better Manage Stress

excellence, actually ·

2025/03/27

Today, we talk about how to navigate life and athletic performance amidst stress. We discuss the impact of mental and emotional stress on physical performance, and share personal anecdotes and scientific insights on the interplay between cognitive stress and physical endurance, including effects on the immune system and cortisol levels. We've also got some practical advice on adjusting training intensity, work tasks, and daily routines during high-stress periods, and break down how to set realistic

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45:15

110 - Bracketology: Who is the World's Top Performer?

excellence, actually ·

2025/03/20

March Madness is back! In honor of its return, we put together a special edition FAREWELL bracket with sixteen of the world's best performers, across sports and entertainment. Following a random seeding, we broke down each matchup until we had our lone champion. So give it a listen and find out who took home the title of World's Top Performer. And then please let us know what we got right, and what we got very, very wrong. Email us at clay.growtheq@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at (646)

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53:32

109 - How (and Why) to Spend Some Time Alone in Your...

excellence, actually ·

2025/03/13

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." The French philosopher Blaise Pascal said this in 1654. A study published in 2014 found this to be true: many subjects chose to administer an electric shock to themselves rather than sit alone with their thoughts. It's a universal difficulty being with the discomfort that sometimes bubbles up out of our own brains, be it boredom or anxiety. But it's often on the other side of this difficulty that we find our most

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1:14:51

108 - Musk, Chalamet, and Real vs. Fake Greatness...

excellence, actually ·

2025/03/06

A couple of recent events—Elon Musk parading onstage with a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference and bragging about DOGE's 120-hour work weeks, and Timothée Chalamet saying he wanted to be one of "the greats" in an acceptance speech at the SAG Awards—ignited a conversation on the Growth Equation text thread about what role work should play in our lives. In a society that sometimes overly valorizes busyness or performative productivity, and also sometimes overly critiques the type

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32:53

107 - Wise Words: 16 of Our Favorite Quotes to Live By

excellence, actually ·

2025/02/27

Today we're sharing our all-time favorite quotes we've collected over the years. These are words about everything from performance to spirituality to decency that we keep coming back to when we need inspiration, a thought-provoking prompt, or a tidy bit of wisdom. Message us at clay.growtheq@gmail.com with a few you liked from today's episode, or some favorites of your own.Join The Growth Equation Academy today. 40% off for a limited time!https://the-growtheq-academy.mn.co/Now offering up to $5 for

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54:52

106 - Mastering Mental Performance with Sports...

excellence, actually ·

2025/02/20

From years of experience working with NBA players, CEOs, para jumpers, and Olympians, performance psychologist Alex Auerbach has learned about the most effective strategies for giving some of the world's most elite performers a mental edge. Today, he walks us through how to use those tools in our own life: how to manage pressure, performance anxiety, and impostor syndrome; how to think through setting goals (including the difference between outcome, performance, and process goals—and which you

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34:52

105 - Building Resilience and Finding Resonance: How...

excellence, actually ·

2025/02/13

Two topics for you today. On the back of the Super Bowl, Brad shares a message of resilience inspired by Eagles' quarterback Jalen Hurts. Then, a discussion, inspired in part by Hartmut Rosa's book "The Uncontrollability of the World," about the role of technology in helping us achieve peak performance and live a meaningful life. How can we use devices in such a way that they aid our objective performance without becoming so obsessed with control that we lose touch with our subjective experience

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48:55

104 - How to Win the Inside Game, and Move from...

excellence, actually ·

2025/02/06

When we think of "choking," we usually think of a field goal kicker missing a clutch kick, or someone freezing up during an important speech. In those moments, the mind is overcome with fear, doubt, and anxiety, and the body, sensing danger, shuts down, overriding ability and preparation. In his newest book Win the Inside Game, Steve Magness makes the case that many of the aspects of modern living make us feel similarly threatened and frozen. It can underlie why we feel burnt out at work, stuck in a

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31:23

103 - Steve's 5 Essential Rules for Training Physical...

excellence, actually ·

2025/01/30

On today's episode, Steve breaks down his five foundational rules for building a training practice that he's used to coach world-class athletes to success. These five core principles provide a useful template for athletes of all experience levels, whether you're hoping to train in running, sport, or beyond (including outside the realm of physical exercise). We cover how to think about building a foundation, maintaining a broad base while sharpening specific skills, individualizing and customizing,

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327 results

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