55. BRAD STULBERG: The Heart of Excellence

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio or video for exact quotes.

[00:00:00] Brad: No robot can give me the feeling of what it’s like to get a heavy weight to move off the ground. No robot can give me the feeling of working really, really hard, grinding away at a paragraph, and then finally getting the right turn of phrase. And it’s those feelings that really, like, are core to our humanity.

[00:00:20] Michael: Hi, I’m Michael Hyatt.

[00:00:21] Megan: And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller.

[00:00:23] Michael: And you’re listening to The Double Win Show.

[00:00:24] Megan: And today, we are so excited to share with you our recent conversation with Brad Stolberg.

[00:00:30] Michael: Let me tell you just a little bit about him. Brad’s a researcher, a writer, and a coach focused on performance and sustainable excellence.

[00:00:37] He’s the author of The Way of Excellence, that’s his most recent book, Master of Change, The Practice of Groundedness, and co-author of Peak Performance and the Passion: Paradox. His books have sold more than a half a million copies in 20 different languages. He’s on the faculty at the Universversity of Michigan’s Graduate School of Public Health.

[00:00:57] His coaching clients include executives, entrepreneurs, physicians, and elite athletes, and his writing has been featured in all the right places. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorkers, Sports Illustrated, and Outside, and he co-hosts the Growth Equation Podcast, and he lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

[00:01:16] And this was an amazing conversation.

[00:01:18] Megan: It was such an amazing conversation. First of all, we interview a lot of people, and it’s really fun to find out how much values alignment you have.

[00:01:26] Michael: Yes.

[00:01:26] Megan: And particularly toward the end of this conversation, or this, or the second half of this conversation, we have a whole conversation functionally about human flourishing and about how to discern what to give to AI and delegation in general, um, whether to humans or machines and what to keep for yourself and why.

[00:01:45] I thought that part was so great. Uh, you’re gonna, I think, just love this conversation. But kind of the big idea is he says that we’re hardwired for excellence, and yet in modern life, you know, we have all these endless optimizations and digital distractions and just, you know, the shallow measures of success that systematically cut us off from the very pursuits that make us feel the most alive.

[00:02:10] And I think that is a real key ingredient in human flourishing. The question is not how to do more or achieve more, but how to reconnect with the kind of deep, intimate engagement that sustains both performance and meaning over the long haul. And he really talks about those two things, performance and meaning or performance and virtue and, and excellence.

[00:02:32] Like, just some really novel relationships between those that I think are very timely for right now that you’re gonna love as you think about your work.

[00:02:40] Michael: 100% resonated with me.

[00:02:41] Megan: Yeah. So good. Can’t wait for you to hear it.

[00:02:43] Michael: Let’s get into it.

[00:02:47] Brad, welcome to the show.

[00:02:48] Brad: Thanks so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

[00:02:50] Michael: We’re excited.

[00:02:51] Megan: We’re so excited to talk to you today. And I have to start by asking you, you know, in the way of excellence, you open with a bear encounter in your garage gym which is not exactly what people would picture when they hear the word excellence.

[00:03:08] So tell us about that moment and the significance of it.

[00:03:11] Brad: Yeah, this was shortly after my family had first moved to Asheville, North Carolina from Northern California. So while there are bears in Northern California, a little known fact is Asheville has one of the highest bear rates per capita. So there are many more bears- Where?

[00:03:27] Michael: Who knew?

[00:03:27] Brad: In Asheville. Yeah. We lived in Northern California for 10 years and I’d never seen a black bear. Fast forward to moving to Asheville. We’ve been here for all of a month and I am doing a workout in the garage. I’m doing a bent over row and I’ve got the garage open so that the breeze can come in.

[00:03:44] It’s in the summer. It’s quite hot. And I’m very much just locked in to completing the exercise. And in a bent over row, you’re hinging at the hips and you’re glancing down, maybe your gaze is slightly forward, but you’re really looking at the ground and then you’re lifting a heavy barbell to your chest.

[00:03:59] I finish the exercise and I, I drop the bar and I look up in, directly in my face, like two feet. I could feel the warmth of its breath is this enormous black bear.

[00:04:12] Megan: Oh my gosh. Just

[00:04:13] Brad: incredible. Like full mouth of teeth, big, hanging, panting tongue because it’s hot and it’s in the summer. And I really don’t know what happened next.

[00:04:23] All that I can tell you is that the next thing that I remember was being on the stairwell, back into the house in the garage, in the bear being about 10 feet away from me and starting to head down the driveway. I have no idea how I got from the middle of the garage to the stairwell. I was completely on autopilot.

[00:04:42] There was no thinking involved. There was no planning involved. It was just my nervous system knew exactly what to do, which was get away from this bear’s mouth as quickly as possible. And I, I even had time to pull out my phone once I was safe and get a video of it lumbering down the driveway so that if anyone ever fact checked me on it, I’d, I’d have the video to back it up.

[00:05:03] And that’s the story of, of my encounter with the Black Bear. And, and it’s funny because I remember calling my wife and just being like, “That was the most exhilarating experience of my life.” And I can now understand why people like Alex Honold, the free solo climber, do the things like they do because the adrenaline rush and just the mind, the, the conscious minds totally turning off and just your body doing what it’s meant to do is an absolutely incredible feeling.

[00:05:32] How does that relate to excellence? How did that work its way into the book? I think at the Zenith, at the peak of excellence, we get those kinds of moments where our thinking mind is no longer on and we are just doing completely by feel moving forward, taking the next best step. We’re all evolutionary programmed to escape being eaten by bears.

[00:05:55] But if we practice at a craft, we can have a very similar experience in writing a book, in composing a song, in a deep conversation and recording a podcast like this. I’ve talked to so many surgeons who talk about when they’re in the middle of a complicated case, that’s how they feel. It can be an athlete on the basketball court or in the gym, a musician taking stage, and these are the experiences that we, we really live for.

[00:06:16] And while our, our thinking minds are so powerful and we can never get by without them, it’s an incredible feeling when they take a backseat and we just go completely by feel on autopilot.

[00:06:27] Megan: Yeah, that’s so fascinating because I think, when I think of the word excellence, I think of trying really hard to do something well, you know, incredible intention behind something.

[00:06:38] And so this is such a counterintuitive way to think about the idea of excellence as not being primarily your executive function, you know, planning and executing tasks toward an end, but rather something else that’s like maybe deeper or more primal or more hardwired than that. Can you just talk a little bit about that?

[00:06:59] Brad: So we as a species are wired to move towards things that support our values. And this drive traces itself all the way back to the very beginning of life. So even bacteria, right? The first life forms that, that scientists are aware of, they have this innate capacity called sensing and responding. And they can sense when an environment is conducive to their survival and move toward that environment, and they can sense when an environment is not conducive to their survival and move away from that environment.

[00:07:31] Anyone that’s ever had a stubborn bacterial infection or strep throat knows that bacteria, they like to go in moist places, and that’s where they like to cultivate. From bacteria evolved more complex organisms, single cellular organisms, multicellular organisms, and long before any of these life forms had any executive function, have any consciousness, had any nervous system, just deep within them is this sensing and responding capacity.

[00:07:58] And throughout the course of evolution, it’s that sensing and responding capacity that has moved us towards what is good for us. And for the longest, longest time, that’s meant two simple things, right? It meant survive and procreate. But we humans, we have evolved these big brains with big prefrontal cortices and we have goals and values that extend beyond just surviving and procreating, but we have that same innate drive to move towards those values.

[00:08:24] And I think excellence is about figuring out what our values are and then channeling that drive to move towards what is good and what is right for us.

[00:08:31] Michael: One of the things you were talking about is sort of like with the bear story, it wasn’t conscious, you just did it and I’m certain probably with a certain amount of elegance and it just happened.

[00:08:42] I, I was thinking about public speaking. Like I love it now. I love stepping on stage. I love communicating, but for the first 30 years I did it, I hated it. I like had to force myself to do the reps and every experience was just exhausting and it was a real struggle psychologically to kind of overcome the fear and get on stage and not ever think about that.

[00:09:05] So do you think in most pursuits of excellence, there might be a period where you kind of have to put in the reps till it becomes second nature, and then it becomes hardwired into your brain and your body.

[00:09:18] Brad: 100%. And I’m, I’m really glad that you’re bringing this up because I, I was gonna go back here. As I mentioned, that bear experience, that is like the zenith of excellence, but excellence also encompasses all of the practice and the effortful trying, and the doubt, and the fear, and the overcoming setbacks, and resilience in practice that leads up to that point.

[00:09:40] So researchers that study talent acquisition, they have this really nice model called the four levels of competence. And the first level of competence is unconscious incompetence. So it means exactly what it sounds like. You don’t know that you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re just kind of stumbling about, and nothing is gonna help you with this phase.

[00:09:58] You need coaching, you need to read a book, you need to learn. The second phase of competence is called conscious incompetence. So this is when you know that you don’t know what you’re doing.

[00:10:08] Megan: Hmm.

[00:10:08] Brad: So you still are clueless, but at least you’re aware that you’re clueless. This is when you’re going on the stage, you’re new to speaking, and you kind of know that it’s not going well, but at least you’re aware of it, it’s not going well.

[00:10:17] The third phase of competence is called conscious competence. And this is where you know that you’re doing well. You are effortfully trying. You are thinking about your cues in your notes, and maybe you’re using devices if you’re an athlete to help you measure your heart rate. If you’re a writer, maybe you’re constantly pulling out the dictionary over thesaurus, but like you’re really trying hard and it’s working.

[00:10:38] And then the final phase of competence is what researchers call unconscious competence, and this is where you’re not even aware that you’re doing great, you are just in the moment doing great. And what’s fascinating is you cannot get to that final phase without the prior three. So nobody just has the experience of being 30 years into public speaking without putting in the reps, putting in the work and being disciplined for those 30 years.

[00:11:02] Hmm. And even masters of craft cycle between the fourth and third rung of the ladder. So nobody stays in unconscious competence forever. We all go back into those modes where we’re practicing, we’re trying new things, we’re really effortfully trying, and, um, excellence requires all of it. And oftentimes, you spend the vast, vast, vast majority of your time, not in the zone escaping the bear, but doing the tedious, sometimes mundane discipline work of practicing.

[00:11:26] And the reward is when things come together, you do have those super special moments when you’re just in the zone.

[00:11:31] Michael: Yeah, and I think it, it’s an important distinction you’re making. Like I, I’m not always in the zone when I step on stage, but thankfully, you know, I’m conscious of what it takes to be competent so I can go through the mechanics on stage.

[00:11:43] It’s not as enjoyable for me because I l- I like it when I can step up there and things come to mind that I didn’t prepare to say and it’s just, I don’t even know where it’s coming from, you know, but I can tell that it’s winning with the audience. And so all that’s really fascinating.

[00:11:58] Megan: In the practice of groundedness, you diagnosed heroic individualism, the never-ending drive to optimize, improve yourself.

[00:12:06] So you were living that way before your OCD diagnosis, you know, where you were just like pushing, pushing, pushing, kind of nonstop, never enough. How did that experience reshape how you think about ambition?

[00:12:21] Brad: I love this question and this topic. I don’t love talking about OCD because it’s extremely, um, like a terrible experience.

[00:12:28] So I, I was pushing really, really, really hard. And then when I was 30 years old, so still in the, the, hopefully the first third of my life, I had very stark onset OCD and secondary depression, uh, and it was just utterly debilitating. Hmm. For a solid six months, I was extremely, extremely ill and thanks to a great psychiatrist and a great therapist, I’ve been on the other side of that for quite some time, but that experience taught me that I really, really needed to step back and slow down a bit and cultivate more presence and also learn to be okay and accept where I was and not always be focused on getting to the next thing.

[00:13:08] However, as humans, we are very much programmed to be focused on getting to the next thing. It is in our nature. We are very much a striving species. So over the last decade, it’s kind of become a, a central question of mine is how do we reconcile this need for groundedness and this foundation of presence with our hardwiring, which is striving.

[00:13:29] And I’m a science nerd, so I’m just gonna go into the, the science of, of why we are a striving species, because I think it’s quite simple, but also fascinating. The earliest humans, the apes, the Neanderthals, that after a big kill on the Savannah became content, and they’re like, “Oh, this is good enough.

[00:13:45] We’re just gonna chill.” They all got selected out because the next time there was a famine, they didn’t have any food to eat. So the apes that passed on their DNA that eventually became early humans and eventually became us, they were the neurotic striving apes, the apes that were never content that said, “All right, we just had a big kill on this hunt, but there might be a famine, so we always need more because we grew up in a time of scarcity.”

[00:14:07] So much like this drive for excellence is hardwired into our DNA, so too is a drive to strive and to never be content. So that’s human nature and how do we reconcile these two things? And where I have come out is twofold, and I’ll say first the philosophical and then the practical. The philosophical is that unless you are going to go to a monastery and renounce all worldly pleasure, I think that so much of being a mature adult is just accepting that you’re always going to want more as a part of your nature, but learning to enjoy the process of striving, learning to find satisfaction in the hard work, learning to step back and smile as you’re doing the hard work.

[00:14:49] So it’s not just focus on the top of the mountain with your head up or your neck up, it’s actually dig where your feet are and stop to enjoy the view. So yes, climb, yes, be ambitious, but man, you better have fun in the process of climbing. You better experience joy. You better climb with the right people, you better pick the right mountains to climb, because the truth is the top of the mountain is so narrow anyways.

[00:15:10] So even if you reach it, you’re only gonna be up there for a day or two. All the life, all the meaning happens on the side. Practically, what I think is so important is to build periods of rest and renewal into your schedule. Don’t assume that they’re gonna happen unless you build them into your schedule, especially if you’re a type A driven pusher.

[00:15:28] And, and if you don’t do that, then what can happen is all too easily you kind of get into this go, go, go, go, go mode, which has a real inertia to it. And it often feels great at first, but if you’re not careful, it, it can creep up on you and, and, and really burn you out or worse.

[00:15:42] Megan: So what does that look like for you in terms of, you know, rhythms now?

[00:15:45] How do you practice that in your own life?

[00:15:47] Brad: Great question. I do a couple of things that I think really help. The first is a digital Sabbath. So once a week for 24 hours, I don’t use my smartphone or my laptop. Um-That’s

[00:15:59] Megan: awesome.

[00:16:00] Brad: Yeah. Well, you say wow, but also, and, and I say wow too, and it was very hard at first.

[00:16:04] But if you think about like 30 years ago, we took a weekend. Before the digital revolution, people would leave the office and on Saturday and Sunday, they couldn’t be connected because everything was at the office. We didn’t have laptops, we didn’t have smartphones. I mean, the Blackberry changed all of this.

[00:16:18] That was like the first device to kind of let you take everything with you everywhere. So I take a digital Sabbath where for 24 hours, and it’s not a religious thing for me. I, I’m a spiritual person, but this is disconnected from religion. It’s not like I don’t use electricity. I’ll still watch sports with my son.

[00:16:32] I actually have a little, uh, a little flip phone to use so that I can still coordinate logistics with my wife if we’re driving the kids to sports or if I want to call my brother, but I’m off of social media, I’m off of email, I’m, I’m away from my computer where I can actively be pushing. So that’s the first thing that I do.

[00:16:47] The second thing that I do is, um, I’m not perfect, but I’ve, I’ve gotten a lot better, is that I try to exercise four to five days a week. In the past, I would take my phone to the gym with me and like in between sets, I might pull up my email. And now I try not to use my phone at all while I’m in the gym.

[00:17:05] So it’s just periods away from being connected, away from all the devices that are constant stimulation and kind of encouraging us to go, go, go all the time. And then I think having kids has really helped. So my son is eight and my daughter is three and, um, there’s just a lot of activities that I wanna be a part of.

[00:17:23] I, I coach my daughter’s soccer team and my son’s basketball team and that’s a couple times a week where I’m just locked in because I’m, in the case of my three-year-old, I’m hurting cats and in the case of my eight-year-old, I’m coaching basketball. And I think that that has also helped quite a bit.

[00:17:37] Michael: Strangely, I’m thinking about fishing because- Yeah. … for me fishing is the kind of thing where like a friend of mine said, “You know, you’re doing something but you ain’t doing much.” And it requires you to be present, you know? So, and I think that that’s like the challenge of our age is to be where your body is because it’s so easy to become disintegrated and have your mind in one place where your body is somewhere else.

[00:18:01] But I think that act of like a digital Sabbath or something else that sort of forces us to be present is really healthy. I need more of that.

[00:18:12] Megan: That for me is what I get out of gardening and now I’m just, I’ve just started beekeeping, that’s my newest hobby.

[00:18:19] Brad: Oh, I love it.

[00:18:20] Megan: And it’s so immersive. I think that what I, what I’m looking for more of in my life are fully immersive, embodied, especially outdoor-

[00:18:29] Brad: mm-hmm.

[00:18:30] Megan: hobbies, you know, things that I can do that do reintegrate me and where I can’t, not only am I not on devices, but I really can’t think about anything else. You know, like that’s a gift. I mean, when you’re coaching basketball, I don’t imagine you’re thinking about your email, you can’t really do that. You know, you’re, you’re like, “What’s this kid doing?

[00:18:46] You know, what’s number 25 doing right now?” You know, and that’s such a gift. We need more of those things in our lives because we, we multitask and we know the human brain doesn’t like to do that.

[00:18:55] Brad: I think that’s it. There’s a line in the, the book where I essentially say that the reason that I deadlift in the same reason that I write books isn’t because a robot can’t lift more weight than me, or now AI can’t write more words more efficiently than me.

[00:19:13] The reason I do that is because no robot can give me the feeling of what it’s like to get a heavy weight to move off the ground. No robot can give me the feeling of working really, really hard, grinding away at a paragraph, and then finally getting the right turn of phrase. And it’s those feelings that really, like, are core to our humanity.

[00:19:33] In, in an increasingly digital age, I think we’ve got to protect things that help us feel alive and connected and, and integrated and situated where we are because you’re right. Otherwise, we just kind of become like these automatons floating on an ephemeral digital algorithmic pick your word conveyor belt to nowhere and, um, that’s a great risk of our times.

[00:20:00] Michael: Because of smartphones and all the technology and all the things, you know, you can basically work twenty four seven. And it’s, and it’s not like all these productivity devices have bought us back more time because now we can fill it with all kinds of things, but in a way of excellence, you talk about two kinds of burnout and the first one’s probably obvious to all of us is we’re trying to do too much and that’s not sustainable if we do it over a longer period of time.

[00:20:26] But I’m really interested in the second form of burnout that you talk about. Can you say more about it?

[00:20:30] Brad: I can. I call it zombie burnout. I define zombie burnout not as a result of doing too much, but actually as a result of not doing enough of things that light you up and, and make you feel alive. And this term came to me because I was doing a lot of reporting on overwork and burnout, and I noticed something really interesting.

[00:20:47] If you’re working 85, 90, 100 hours a week, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, it’s not sustainable, you’re gonna burn out. But I talked to a lot of high performers who are still working 55, 60, in some cases 65 hours a week, and I found something really interesting, which is not everyone burns out. And I started to look for cues and clues about what separates the, the two groups of people, those that burnout and those that don’t.

[00:21:08] And what I found is that it had less to do with how many hours someone’s working and more to do with what they’re doing in those hours. Hmm. In people who felt like they had autonomy, so they had a sense of control over how they’re spending their time and energy, people who felt like what they were doing was valuable, it had meaning and purpose, and people who felt like they had competence, like they were using their skills, they were operating at the scope of their, their powers, they didn’t burn out.

[00:21:34] Whereas people who felt like they were cogs in a machine or who weren’t really connected to the values or the mission of what they were working on, those people burned out even though they worked the same number of hours. Hmm. Uh, so I think when we talk about burnout, so often we just think it’s purely about the quantity of hours, but there’s a whole other part of it, which is about the quality of what you’re doing in those hours and how it aligns with your values and how you wanna spend your time.

[00:21:59] I know personally, I can work a, a 60 hour week where I’m doing great reporting and great researching and I’m writing and I don’t feel burnt out at all. I can work a 60 hour week where I’m just promoting a book and I’m on social media trying to come up with viral posts and I feel so burnt out. Mm-hmm.

[00:22:14] Same 60 hours, it’s just how am I filling those hours.

[00:22:17] Michael: What do you say to a person that has less agency than maybe the three of us, you know, they’re in a job because I gotta earn a living. It’s not something they really love, but how did they experience that and avoid zombie burnout?

[00:22:31] Brad: I think there’s, there’s two ways to do it.

[00:22:33] The first is something called job crafting, which essentially says, can you take a current job that you’re in that you don’t really enjoy and can you craft it so that you’re doing more things that you do enjoy so that you’re developing skills that you find interesting, so that you’re working on projects that you’re curious about, so that you’re working with people that you enjoy working with.

[00:22:52] The second route is to say, “All right, this job is just gonna be soul sucking, and I’m not gonna like it, but it pays really well, and I work at nine to five, and I’m a mature adult, and I’ve gotta put food on the table and pay rent.” In that case, I think that so often we put all our eggs in the work basket when you can get those sources of agency, of mastery, of meaning outside of work.

[00:23:14] I think this is a tale as old as time, right? This is the person who has an extremely tedious, boring job, but then is a phenomenal dancer, or a phenomenal gardener, or is the strongest guy in his gym, or becomes a, a certified yoga teacher, so on and so forth. So I think that too often we just think about this professionally and not across our entire lives, because I know lots of people that, that have jobs that are kind of going through the motion jobs, for lack of better terms, but they don’t have zombie burnout at all because they, they get off of work and they have all of these in- incredible hobbies and activities that they care about and they pursue with everything that they have.

[00:23:49] Michael: You know, this may be related to the second way to do this that you, you explained, but I wonder if, if for some people who are doing those sort of monotonous, tedious things, if they can connect to something transcendent that exists, and I’m not talking about like in a spiritual sense, but something that’s beyond the work that they’re doing, it’s kind of like the classic story of, you know, are you laying bricks versus you’re building a wall versus you’re building a cathedral?

[00:24:14] You know, and I wonder if that perspective can also help with that kind of burnout.

[00:24:18] Brad: I think so. I think it depends on the job. So I think a brick layer is a great, great example because I think you could view laying bricks or carpentry, you know, if that’s maybe more latable. You could view carpentry as very repetitive, very tedious, manual labor, and not really like that job.

[00:24:35] You could also view carpentry as a chance to be a master builder and to just perfect the feeling of a hammer stroke on a nail and to have everything so symmetrical and to have the finishes really elegant and both carpenters are essentially building a stairwell in the back of someone’s house. One might be going through the motions and, and, and feeling very exhausted and zombie burnout, and the other could take great pride in their craftsmanship.

[00:25:00] So I think that that’s one difference is kind of how you approach what you do. I think another difference is, especially if you’re, you’re lucky enough to be in a job where there is some greater impact, is just remembering that greater impact. One of my favorite studies followed, uh, hospital janitors. And there were two groups of janitors and one group, there was no change the control group.

[00:25:20] They just went about their work as janitors and their, you know, cleaning bathrooms, emptying trash cans, picking up vomit. It’s not very exciting work. The other cohort of janitors, the experimental group, nothing about their work changed, but they went through a couple classes where they were educated on how the cleanliness of the hospital has a direct impact on outcomes and survival rates for patients because a clean hospital means less MRSA, less infections.

[00:25:44] They also were told about how they interact with patients and how when you’re in a hospital, you don’t know whose parents or whose child, God forbid, is so ill. And every interaction, you could be touching someone at their most vulnerable time. And then the researchers followed these janitors for a year.

[00:25:58] And the first group, they found the same amount of turnover, lots of turnover, lots of people quit that job. The second group had hardly any turnover. The quality of their work was better, so the quadrants of the hospital they were responsible for cleaning were kept more clean, and most important, subjectively, when they were interviewed, those janitors took great pride in their work.

[00:26:17] So two groups of people doing the exact same work, one group was reminded of the importance of that work, the other group was disconnected from the importance of that work, and you have extremely different outcomes.

[00:26:27] Michael: So

[00:26:27] Megan: good. Wow, I love that. I think that’s a great word for leaders.

[00:26:30] Michael: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:30] Megan: You know, so many people who listen to our show are in some kind of leadership, for- profit, non-profit, whatever, and I think this can be make or break in terms of the culture of your company, in terms of getting performance, the ideal performance out of people- And

[00:26:46] Michael: by that, you mean the leader needs to articulate-

[00:26:48] Megan: Yeah.

[00:26:49] Michael: what the mission is.

[00:26:50] Megan: The impact we’re having. Why? Like, what’s the impact we’ having? ‘Cause I think for all of us- Yeah. And, you know, I mean, even if you’re at the highest levels of leadership, we can all kind of get sucked into the day-to-day of our work and we can lose touch with the impact of what we’re doing.

[00:27:04] But if you’re a leader, particularly for the rest of your team, it’s so important to draw those connections and say, “This is what you made possible for people. ” Because it’s not always obvious. Right. You know, if you’re, if you’re, like, on a customer support team and you’re answering tickets and you’re talking to all the angriest customers or whatever, you know, if you’re a police officer and you’re dealing with the worst parts of humanity, it’s easy to see, like, that, that becomes your perspective and not that you’re keeping a city safe or not that you’re, you know, helping to give these people a transformation, you know, if you’re the customer support person, I think it’s just connecting those dots is the job of a good leader.

[00:27:39] Brad: I couldn’t agree more. It’s the job of a good leader. And even for jobs where you have full autonomy and they’re very purpose driven, those people lose sight of the purpose too. Yeah. I can’t tell you how many doctors I spoke with in reporting for this book that said that, like, often they just get so hung up in the electronic medical record or the politics of their department or confrontations with nursing staff versus doctors and all the petty stuff that happens at any organization and they forget that at the end of the day, they’re saving lives.

[00:28:09] So I think it behooves all of us to, especially if we’re fortunate enough to be in an organization that has some broader impact to remind ourselves of that impact often and to really try to channel that for our own satisfaction with what we do.

[00:28:21] Megan: I love that. And I love the connection between that and excellence.

[00:28:23] I think that’s a, a great takeaway.

[00:28:25] Brad: The simple definition that I have for excellence is involved engagement and caring deeply about worthwhile pursuits that align with your values. And what you’re saying correctly is that this is the part of that definition that says that align with your values. And remember, we have this innate drive to move toward our values, and for the longest time, those values were just two things, right?

[00:28:46] Like survive and procreate, but now humans have lifespans in, in, in goals and dreams that extend well beyond just surviving and procreating. So if we can define those values and we can connect what we’re doing to those values, we perform better and we feel better and we have more sustainability.

[00:29:02] Megan: You know, you talk about excellence, not primarily as a performance strategy, but as a virtue.

[00:29:09] And, you know, that’s a word we don’t hear a whole lot anymore. And I, I want you to talk about that because I think a lot of people that are listening to our show when they think of excellence, they think of things like, “I’m hitting my numbers for the month, you know, I delivered X, Y, Z that I was responsible for and, you know, I did it well.”

[00:29:26] What kind of shift are you wanting people to make from performance strategy to virtue idea? What does that look like, practically speaking?

[00:29:34] Brad: I’ll say what it looks like practically speaking, and then I’ll, I’ll give a more romantic example, if that’s okay.

[00:29:38] Megan: Sure.

[00:29:39] Brad: So practically speaking, it just means caring deeply about what you do-

[00:29:43] Megan: Yeah.

[00:29:43] Brad: and putting your all into things that matter to you. So not coasting, not going through the motions, realizing that the things that you choose to pursue, those things shape you as a person. You can run a marathon and you can think that you’re working on a goal of completing a marathon, but guess what? But the marathon is working on you.

[00:30:02] It’s teaching you about resilience. It’s teaching you how to overcome setbacks. It’s teaching you about the power of community and discipline and consistency. It’s forcing you to be patient and to face self-doubts and vulnerabilities. And it’s not about their finishing time of the marathon, it’s about who you’re gonna become as a husband, as a wife, as a mom, as a dad, as a leader, as a community member.

[00:30:19] So I think far too often in just like rote achievement culture, we only think about ourselves working toward a goal. And what we don’t realize is that goal is shaping our character. The, the word character comes from the, the Greek root, um, caresis, which means to shape or to stamp. And what that means is like every action we take, we are shaping our character.

[00:30:39] We’re shaping ourselves. We’re stamping upon ourselves the person that we wanna be. So what this means to me is that, you know, you only live once. So to the extent we can, we should pick activities that are worthwhile and we should give them our all not only because we want to achieve and we wanna reach the top of the mountain, but also because we realize that the real transformation happens along the way and, and, and how it forms us as a full-fledged flourishing human being.

[00:31:02] So it’s not performance or character, it’s performance and character. The more romantic example is I want you to think about what you feel when you watch a, a basketball player like Steph Curry hit a three pointer and take over a game or you taste the, the creation of a master chef or you are at a concert acoustic where your favorite singer/songwriter is holding stage or, or you’re standing in front of a beautiful work of art.

[00:31:28] Most people, they, they feel aliveness, they feel electric, they feel awe, they feel beauty, they feel at peace. And all those feelings that we get to experience as witnesses and observers, we can create for ourselves when we throw our all into things. And it doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily gonna be Steph Curry or a Grammy winning musician or an award-winning Michelin star chef, but we can still feel that and create that ourselves and we can create that for the people around us.

[00:31:53] And I think that so often in, in today’s world, people go through life with kind of like nonchalants, right? Like in an arms length. They don’t really ever give anything their all because truthfully they’re scared to fail. And I think excellence is about genuine heartfelt effort in not only the performance that you get out of it, but also how it shapes you as a person and the impact it has on the, the people around you.

[00:32:15] And I think in an increasingly digital, automated, quote unquote, optimized world, I think that we just need like ultra human, genuine, heartfelt excellence more than ever.

[00:32:24] Megan: Well, and you know, you can feel that. Like I’m thinking of restaurants that I’ve been to or I love interior design, you know, and architecture, beautiful buildings that I’ve been in or something like that.

[00:32:36] And I was saying recently about a new restaurant that opened near us. You know, most restaurants are content with being somewhere between a five and an eight on a scale of one to 10. Like that’s pretty good, you know? And they’re trying. And like, you know, you would go back there in most cases, especially on the farther end of that scale, but almost nobody can get in the nine to 10 range.

[00:32:58] You know, like that last, you know, 10 to 20% requires so much heart and diligence and clarity about what excellence actually is and et cetera, that almost nobody does it. And when you get to encounter it on the receiving end, you know, you have that meal, you witness that performance, you see that piece of art, you go into that building, whatever, it’s just such an inspiring moment because I think those are rare.

[00:33:27] I think you’re right that most people are either satisfied with something less than or they’re not willing to be vulnerable enough to push to get the truly excellent. And I think I love that you’re drawing this connection between character because I really do think that, that the character is what it takes to go from, you know, a seven to a 10.

[00:33:49] There’s something about you and the person that you are that it takes to do that. Mm-hmm. And so that feels inspiring to me that that’s something that we can all become if we’re clear on it and we’re willing to put that kind of effort in and, and become the person we need to be.

[00:34:05] Brad: 100%. And there’s just such a satisfaction in giving something your all.

[00:34:09] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:09] Brad: Even if you don’t have the genetics to be a pro athlete or you don’t have the resources to open up a restaurant, but just within the own confines of your, your house, picking up a project and giving it your all, like there is such satisfaction that comes from that kind of meaningful effort. And I think whether you end up deadlifting 800 pounds and setting a world record or you deadlift 225 pounds, if you used to be not strong and you trained and you worked hard and you learned about yourself and you got strong, it doesn’t really matter where you end up for your character.

[00:34:41] What matters is that you gave something your all and, and you get the fruits of that. In the book, I, I talk about, because you mentioned vulnerability and, and I love that concept and how it relates to excellence, I talk about the, the kids in middle school or high school that everybody can remember. And these were the kids that were too cool to try.

[00:34:58] So they sat in the back row of class, they phoned it in during gym and music. And the truth is these kids weren’t actually too cool. What they were is they were scared. They were scared that if they tried and they failed, it would be embarrassing. So what did they do? They made fun of all the kids that tried.

[00:35:14] They called them try hards. But guess what? Trying is cool. The people that we admire most, they are all try hards because you cannot be your best at anything without making yourself vulnerable, risking failure and trying hard. And I think that that too is a really important part of, of this conception of excellence is character based.

[00:35:33] It’s asking you to have the guts to step into the arena and to risk failure and to give something your all. The truth is the things that you care about are going to break your heart because they’re not always gonna go your way. But I argue that like the benefits of all the richness and texture and satisfaction you get from giving things your all is big enough to hold the heartbreak of when things don’t go your way.

[00:35:53] Michael: One of the things in the way of excellence that I thought was fascinating was you say that excellence requires intimacy and not in the way that we normally think about intimacy, but it requires us to get close to our work, to get close to the craft and to reduce the distance between us and the work.

[00:36:12] What does that look like practically?

[00:36:14] Brad: Practically, to be honest, what it looks like right now is just removing attention vampires and all the things that get in between you and what you’re doing, which in today’s world tends to be the smartphone. There’s some fascinating research that shows that even if you have your phone in your pocket turned off or on the table face down next to you turned off, it still detracts from your experience and your attention by about 40%.

[00:36:37] Just because the mere sight of a cell phone has come to represent ubiquitous distractions, all the things that could be happening, all the emails you could be getting, all the text messages you could be missing. So I think intimacy is just creating times and spaces where you remove the attention vampires so that you can, you can lock in and, and give something deep focus.

[00:36:56] We’re having this conversation shortly after the master’s golf tournament just finished. And I think for all the incredible storylines of the masters, the most incredible doesn’t involve golf at all. And that is the course in the clubhouse where the tournament is played is called Augusta National. And they have a very strict rule that there are no smartphones, no cell phones allowed on the premise at all.

[00:37:17] And it’s not just ceremonial, this is strictly enforced. A former major champion was escorted out by security because he had a cell phone on him. And part of the aura of the masters of that tournament is the fact that you’ve got athletes trying their hardest to win a championship and you’ve got hundreds, thousands of people watching them and nobody has a phone.

[00:37:38] Everybody is locked in on the experience. And if you are ever at Augusta National, the word that describes it is intimate. You just feel so close and connected to the experience. And people always complain about the cell phone rule for about 15 minutes, and then truly, after 15 minutes, everyone is like, “Oh my gosh, this is the greatest thing ever.”

[00:37:57] Because we crave that kind of connection, we crave that intimacy. You know, we don’t have to go to the masters to experience it. We can have our own no phone rules in our own life. Maybe it’s during a family dinner. Maybe it’s when you go downstairs in the basement to play with your kids. Maybe it is when you work on your craft, you know, as a writer, I’m, I’m often writing without my phone anywhere near me.

[00:38:16] Maybe it’s like I said, you go to the gym and you don’t bring your phone with you. There are all kinds of ways that we can reclaim that intimacy. We just have to be deliberate and intentional about it because the default is just ubiquitous distraction always.

[00:38:27] Michael: You know, it’s always been amazing to me that people will stop a conversation to answer a phone call.

[00:38:34] And I mean, you know, some of it’s legitimate, but check their email or check the text message that just came in. You’re like, “What could possibly be more important than the conversation I’m having right now?” You know, and it can wait.

[00:38:44] Brad: Yeah. Here’s a great, really practical exercise that just helps, like, detach us from the need to constantly check and that anyone can do.

[00:38:53] So when you go out to dinner and maybe you’re at dinner with your husband, wife, your friend, and they get up to go to the bathroom, don’t check your phone. It’s as simple as that. Like the default is like, oh, like my wife’s going to the bathroom, I’m gonna pull out my phone. Just sit there. Sit with your thoughts, sit with your anxieties, sit with your boredom.

[00:39:12] Another way to do this is when you’re going grocery shopping and you’re in line waiting to check out, don’t pull out your phone. Observe what’s happening around you. Like get curious about the world. If you really wanna challenge yourself, try going on a walk without your phone. Mm-hmm. Just these little moments where we can kind of reclaim the ability to, to be in our own head and to be intimate with the experience that we’re having, it builds up that muscle so then that when it does come time to sit down and do meaningful work or have meaningful connection, we’re less kind of feeling that phantom vibration or that urge to always check.

[00:39:42] Michael: I think we’ve almost lost the agency of doing that. We’ve, we’ve forgotten that that’s an option. We don’t have to have our phone on. We don’t have to have it with us. You know, we think that, that somehow, you know, we’re obligated to the world and all the incoming messages to give them their proper due.

[00:39:57] And what I hear you saying is, no, we don’t have to do that. I love it.

[00:40:01] Brad: And I would argue that actually if you wanna be excellent, you need not to do that because excellence requires intimacy. If you wanna shape your character, if you wanna have incredible relationships, if you wanna be good at your work, you have to have time where you are unmediated, where there is no space between you and the person across from you or you are what you’re doing where you’re not constantly interrupted and distracted.

[00:40:22] So I am not a Luddite. I have a phone. My guess is that everyone listening to this conversation is probably listening through some kind of smartphone. Th- they’re incredible tools. They open up the world to us in so many ways. This isn’t about renouncing technology. It’s about saying what are the important activities and relationships in your life and how can you carve out time and space where you are doing them in a way where you are not distracted?

[00:40:44] How can you rebuild that muscle? And if you have the phone on you the rest of the day, that’s great. But if you carve out that one hour to work on your novel, or if you make sure that the phone is, you know, in the basement during family dinner so you’re not distracted, then that is winning.

[00:41:04] Megan: You know, one of the places where I think this also shows up, I’m curious of your thoughts here, is with delegation, intimacy with our work. And I think if you’re in a position where you have the ability to delegate, and actually that is becoming more democratized all the time with AI, right? Like we can, whether you have a, an actual physical human team or you have access to AI and you’re learning how to use it in ways that are more agentic or whatever, you know, you can delegate more and more tasks to AI.

[00:41:32] I think what can happen, there’s like so many good things about delegation we talk about all the time, you know, we love delegation, but your work can become very fragmented. And I think there is something that a friend of ours, Brian, has talked with us about the value of taking ownership of the end-to-end process.

[00:41:49] Not always, it’s not always important to do that, but that there are times where delegation actually creates a kind of fragmentation that undermines excellence because you don’t have the context of the whole thing anymore. You’re just doing some little part of it or you’re overseeing other people doing it and you lose that intimacy and therefore that ownership and it degrades the quality of your work unintentionally.

[00:42:13] Yes, it is more efficient, but the quality sometimes suffers. And that’s something for me that I think felt like a good corrective in a world where my impulses delegate all the time, there can be something that’s lost and I think we just need to weigh it carefully, especially as it becomes easier and cheaper, you know, labor costs become, you know, functionally zero around some of this kind of stuff that, that can remove the intimacy with our work and therefore undermine our excellence.

[00:42:41] What do you think about that?

[00:42:43] Brad: I think it is a phenomenal observation in a great discussion prompt is the first thing that I’ll say. We could record hours and hours of podcasts just on this question because I think it’s one of the biggest questions of, of our future. The way that I think about it is you wanna make sure that you are keeping the main thing the main thing and you are doing the main thing.

[00:43:03] So as a writer, if I start delegating my writing to interns or to Claude or ChatGPT or whatever, then that, it’s not gonna be excellent work and, and I’m gonna suffer as a result. However, if I delegate preparing my taxes as a sole proprietor to an agent, that is a phenomenal use of technology. If I delegate distribution to an agent, that is phenomenal use of technology or, or to another person.

[00:43:30] So I think that it just comes down to asking yourself like, “What is your craft?” And by definition, your craft should be something that you are skilled in and that you see end to end and that you have a feel for. Not just knowledge of what’s happening, but a feel for. Back to excellence, right? Excellence is a feeling.

[00:43:47] It’s this innate drive in us. If you are outsourcing something to AI or to another person, intellectually you can know what’s happening, but you lose a feel for it. The only way you get a feel for what you’re doing is by actually doing it. However, if you try to have this intimacy and this feel for everything you’re doing in your life, that is a, that, that’s not a scale.

[00:44:04] Michael: Yeah.

[00:44:04] Brad: That very fun way to, to live. Exactly. Like I wear shoes, I don’t walk barefoot. I don’t need to feel the ground. Technology can be great. It’s just being really intentional and deliberate about what we outsource what we delegate and, and what we keep for ourselves. And then for leaders, I do think that there is often, and people don’t like to talk about this because it’s kind of taboo, there’s often a trade off between quality and scale.

[00:44:27] Not always. And some organizations can scale and, and keep quality, but, you know, when Starbucks was two coffee shops, Starbucks was the best coffee in the world. Most people would say Starbucks is great and they might be the best coffee organization in the world, but no one would say that Starbucks is the best coffee in the world anymore.

[00:44:47] Whole Foods. When it first started as a quirky grocery store in Austin, it was a world-class grocery store. There was no better grocery store in the world. Whole Foods, an incredible company. No one would say it’s the best grocery store in the world. So I do think that we’re constantly having to evaluate as business people trade offs between craft and quality and scale.

[00:45:07] And I want to be values neutral here because one is not better than the other. You know, Whole Foods is a multi-gazillion dollar company with locations all over the country, changes the world, but it’s different than a single store that you know end-to-end and that you are in full control over. And I think as entrepreneurs and leaders, we should just be aware of these trade-offs and make the ones that align with our values.

[00:45:29] Megan: Well, especially I think because to your earlier point, the work of our craft is shaping us. Like we’re shaping a thing, but, but in shaping a thing, we’re being shaped. Yes. And so, you know, I, as a writer, myself, I personally, I feel like the value of writing myself still, my, my weekly newsletter, for example, is valuable because it actually shapes my thinking.

[00:45:53] Yes. Like the thinking that I’m doing, I don’t know what I think until I start to go write, you know? And then it kind of- 100%. … advances my work, you know? Yes. As I’m doing that. And so, I mean, I could, I could crank out a newsletter, like words to go publish a thousand ways, including delegating it to another person or AI or whatever.

[00:46:11] There’s lots of options, but I wouldn’t be a better thinker at the end of that process. And that’s actually why I’m willing to put in a day every week to do that because I’m a better thinker week after week after week with that effort.

[00:46:23] Brad: I’m getting chills down my spine as you say that. I could not agree more.

[00:46:27] I was just having a conversation with someone yesterday about this very topic with my own writing. And I essentially said, like, writing is just such a big part of how I move through the world and how I know myself and my identity, that if I were to outsource it, I would kind of be like outsour- like losing a part of myself and my identity.

[00:46:45] And maybe that’s another way to think about it-

[00:46:47] Megan: mm-hmm. …

[00:46:47] Brad: is the things that we identify with are probably not things to outsource. So if I were to say, “I, I am a parent, I am a husband, I am a writer, and I am an athlete,” those are probably four domains where I don’t want, like, intermediaries between me and my work, whether it’s a machine or another person.

[00:47:06] Now, it’s not always because I’m a parent, but I’m happy to get a babysitter, right? That is essentially outsourcing caretaking for a period of time, but what I’m not happy to do is have someone else raise my kids. Mm-hmm. As a writer, I am happy to run a newsletter through AI and say, “Find any typos.” What I’m not happy to do is run a newsletter through AI and say, “Rewrite this newsletter so it’s better.”

[00:47:29] So I think that for the things that are a part of our identity, those are the things that we’re working toward, but they’re working on us. Those are the things to be especially wary about if we outsource it all and if we do, it, it, why and to what extent.

[00:47:41] Megan: Hmm.

[00:47:41] Michael: You know, I have kind of a fun example along these lines too.

[00:47:43] My team has been on me for years asking me, why as a public speaker do I insist on preparing my own slides? And I still to this day- mm-hmm. … because I could outsource, it wouldn’t cost that much. We’ve got our own team internally, but I insist on doing that because it’s how I think. Right. I don’t really know the speech is gonna work until I get the slides that go with it, and it’s just part of my process.

[00:48:04] Megan: Yeah.

[00:48:05] Brad: And you’re a craftsperson. I mean, my sense, and you tell me if I’m wrong, is like you approach public speaking as a craft. I do. Like it’s not a job. If it was a job and you just needed to be proficient, sure, outsource the slides. But like, it’s a craft. Understood. You care about it. You wanna be your best.

[00:48:20] You realize what it feels like when you’re your best, so of course you’re gonna give it your all. My guess is there are other things in your life that you don’t do that way. That’s right. And that’s totally fine. It’s about identifying what are the things worth doing that way and protecting them.

[00:48:32] Michael: This has been a very helpful discussion- Yeah.

[00:48:33] on the delegation part. I mean, feel like we say this every week because we get such amazing guests. But Brad, I feel like we could talk forever. And I wish we had forever. Maybe we go to the Joe Rogan format eventually three hours. But any rate, thank you so much for being a guest with us today. But I wonder if somebody wants to get into your work, what’s the best place to start?

[00:48:55] I know you’ve written several books, but how do you suggest people connect with you and how do you suggest, or where do you suggest they start?

[00:49:02] Brad: I suggest that you start with the, the latest book, The Way of Excellence. Okay. It very much feels like a culmination of my last two decades of, of thinking, researching, reporting, and writing.

[00:49:11] The book is available wherever you get books, you can get it hard copy, you can get it audio, and I think it’s my best work, and if you found this conversation resonant and interesting, there’s, there’s just so much more where it came from.

[00:49:22] Megan: Awesome.

[00:49:23] Michael: What’s your website?

[00:49:24] Brad: My website is just my name, www.bradstullberg.com.

[00:49:28] Michael: Fantastic.

[00:49:29] Megan: Awesome. We’ll have all that in the show notes. This has been so fantastic.

[00:49:33] Michael: It was so fun. Thanks,

[00:49:34] Megan: Brad. Thanks, Brad.

[00:49:34] Brad: Thanks, y’all. Thank you. I feel the same. It’s, I’m so glad that we connected and what a, um, what a pleasure and a highlight of my day to have this conversation.

[00:49:41] Megan: Likewise.

[00:49:42] Michael: Likewise.

[00:49:51] Well, that was fun.

[00:49:52] Megan: It was so fun.

[00:49:54] Michael: Some podcast interviews feel like work, and some of them, and thankfully, we have a lot of guests that make me feel this way, that it feels effortless. It truly does feel like a conversation.

[00:50:05] Megan: I know. Well, especially that bit kind of toward the end about, I think what he said was, when something is tied to your identity, that that is something you shouldn’t give away in delegation, whether to a person or to a machine.

[00:50:24] And I think one of the things we talk about a lot at Full Focus is this tension of we have a finite amount of time, both in our days and in our life as a whole. None of us have all the time we want. We are not eternal beings on this earth, you know, and our days are not eternal, like 24 hours in a day.

[00:50:43] And so we have to think very carefully about where we’re gonna invest our time and our energy- Yes. … and our attention. And I think right now, that question has become much more complex with AI, especially because now we can delegate things that I think the world is waking up to the possibilities here.

[00:50:59] It’s just like endless, really. And yet, there’s such discernment needed for what do we delegate and why? Like what’s our criteria?

[00:51:07] Michael: Well, I think the challenge also with AI is that the distance between the vision and realizing the vision has been so truncated- Yeah. … because A- AI makes it possible to do so many things so much faster.

[00:51:20] Megan: Right.

[00:51:21] Michael: But it doesn’t buy us back time. What it does is it just fills any productivity gains that we get-

[00:51:26] Megan: Right. …

[00:51:27] Michael: with more work that’s not necessarily human flourishing.

[00:51:30] Megan: Yeah.

[00:51:31] Michael: But I, I love that conversation too about identity and I, I felt vindicated on creating my slides. Because that’s really one of those places where I feel, for me, it’s a kind of art.

[00:51:40] Megan: Yeah.

[00:51:40] Michael: You know, and I really enjoy it. And I feel like it’s the finishing touch that lets me know that, that, uh, that speech is, is done and ready to present.

[00:51:50] Megan: Well, and I think it’s easy, especially if you constantly feel like you have more to do than you have time to do, to be frustrated that things take a long time.

[00:51:58] Michael: Yeah.

[00:51:59] Megan: Like just annoyed, like, I gotta figure out how to do this faster, instead of accepting that the things, as he said, that are, are craft, you know, and that’s not everything. I mean, I think he was very clear about that. You can’t have, like, everything you do be your craft that’s not realistic, but the things that are your craft probably are gonna take you a long time.

[00:52:16] Brad: Yep.

[00:52:16] Megan: I mean, the speed does not necessarily have any relationship to mastery or excellence. And so how do we figure out how to go deeper and give ourselves more time for the things that are inherently slow and then ultimately eliminate the things that are peripheral to that? You know, I think that’s the big question that we’re asking at full focus on behalf of our customers and clients, really, is how do you have more time to spend going deep on just a few things that are really your needle movers in your life, both in terms of the results they produce, yes, but also your satisfaction, your contribution to the world, all that kind of stuff.

[00:52:50] Yeah. Like, that’s where the juice is, and then get rid of the other stuff that keeps that from happening because if you just try to make everything on your plate more efficient, your excellence is gonna suffer.

[00:53:00] Michael: You know, I, I think to that point, we’ve unconsciously assigned a high value to novelty, new things-

[00:53:08] Megan: Right.

[00:53:09] Michael: and a high value to speed-

[00:53:11] Megan: Yes. …

[00:53:11] Michael: and to optimization.

[00:53:12] Megan: Yeah.

[00:53:13] Michael: And I think some of the most powerful, most important things in life are inherently slow-

[00:53:19] Megan: Like literally everything. Like anything that’s important, can you think of that is, is also measured in efficiency?

[00:53:24] Michael: Well, and, and think, you know- Nothing. Think of the crafts like winemaking.

[00:53:29] Megan: Right.

[00:53:30] Michael: Or literally painting. Like if you’re a fine art painter-

[00:53:34] Megan: Right. …

[00:53:35] Michael: you know, it’s, it’s not about speed, it’s about, you know, creating something with excellence. I think the same thing is true for writing.

[00:53:42] Megan: Yep.

[00:53:43] Michael: Honestly, you could be true for anything that you define as your craft.

[00:53:47] Megan: Right.

[00:53:47] Michael: And I think it’s kind of up to us, and for those of you that are listening, you know, you don’t have to be a creative to have a craft.

[00:53:54] Megan: Right.

[00:53:54] Michael: You know, your craft could be spreadsheets, elegant spreadsheets, or it could be designing customer support systems or marketing funnels. Any of those things can be craft if you say it’s part of your identity and part of your craft.

[00:54:09] Megan: Mm-hmm. You know, I’ve been working for months now on s- kind of an updated articulation of our vision at Full Focus.

[00:54:19] Michael: Well, I read it this morning-

[00:54:20] Megan: Yeah. …

[00:54:21] Michael: and was pretty blown away by it.

[00:54:22] Megan: I can’t wait to talk to you about it. Yeah. And I’ve been thinking about it for about 18 months, and I’ve written parts of it here and parts of it there, and then I go work on it here and there. And one of the things that … And, and we actually have used AI some in the development, like, kind of as a thinking partner in that, although most of the, the end work has ultimately been done by humans, either me or, or by Joel, and it has benefited from being a very slow process.

[00:54:49] Michael: Yes.

[00:54:50] Megan: It would not have been helped to do that in, like, a, you know, two-day workshop. Like the quality and the clarity that we have gotten has taken a very long time, and I think that that’s appropriate. It’s the most important work we’ll probably ever do here at the company, because it’ll inform everything else downstream.

[00:55:07] Michael: You know, it’s a, it, it’s kind of the difference between a Crockpot and a microwave.

[00:55:11] Megan: Yeah.

[00:55:11] Michael: And some of the most flavorful things are cooked slowly over time.

[00:55:16] Megan: Yeah.

[00:55:16] Michael: And can you get the same result? If all you’re looking for is fuel, you know, a microwave will do.

[00:55:21] Megan: Right.

[00:55:21] Michael: But if you’re looking for an experience, that’s a slow process inherently.

[00:55:25] Yeah. You know, you go to a really fine restaurant and you’re gonna be there a couple of hours.

[00:55:30] Megan: It’s not fast food.

[00:55:31] Michael: It’s not fast food.

[00:55:32] Megan: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:32] Michael: Yeah, I love this conversation and- Good. … I’m gonna be interested to follow Brad’s work, uh, going forward. Guys, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, I wanna ask you to do something for us, and it’s not rate or review the show, which we would appreciate if you would do that as well, but I wanna ask you to share with a friend.

[00:55:48] There’s probably somebody that you know, or maybe somebody’s that you’ll know, maybe you’re, you have a team that would benefit from this, but just share it with them. That’s all we ask. Look forward to seeing you next time.