Overview of RWH065: Joyful Excellence w/ Brad Stulberg
William Green interviews Brad Stulberg about his new book The Way of Excellence and a life philosophy that centers on sustained, soulful excellence. The conversation blends philosophy (Robert Pirsig’s notion of “quality”), modern behavioral and performance science, and practical routines. Brad argues that excellence is an embodied feeling—“involved engagement”—rooted in care, aligned values, disciplined practice, and recurring rest. The episode catalogues mental frameworks, rituals, and environmental designs that help people do consequential work without becoming alienated, exhausted, or joyless.
Key themes and takeaways
- Excellence = involved engagement + something worthwhile aligned with your values. Both parts are necessary.
- Quality (Pirsig): intimacy with what you do dissolves the separation between actor and act; that intimacy is evolutionary and deeply human.
- Alienation is a primary modern problem; algorithmic distraction and pseudo-excellence (hacks/grift) feed it.
- Excellence is humane and joyful: love, care, and fierce self-discipline paired with fierce self-kindness.
- Consistency, compounding small steps, and process focus beat heroic one-off efforts.
- You must design your environment, calendar, and social world to support deep work and values-aligned life.
- Rest and renewal are not optional add-ons—they’re integral to high performance (micro-breaks, walks, Sabbaths, vacations).
- Obsession has two faces: controlled, value-driven obsession supports excellence; reckless, addictive obsession degrades performance and wellbeing.
Notable quotes and insights
- Robert Pirsig (quoted): “The machine that appears to be out there and the person that appears to be in here are not two separate things. They grow toward quality or fall away from quality together.”
- Brad’s definition: “Excellence is involved engagement.”
- “True success is living a life that is in alignment with your values.”
- “If you want to be a maximalist, you have to be a minimalist.” —Mike Joyner (on trade-offs)
- “Fierce self-discipline benefits from fierce self-kindness.”
- “What you do on your bad days is arguably more important than what you do on your great days.” (raising the floor)
- Avedis Donabedian on quality (paraphrase): “Quality is love.”
Barriers to excellence
- Algorithmic mass distraction: devices and platforms engineered to hijack attention (validation via likes, messages).
- Pseudo-excellence / hustle-grift: faddish life-hacks, 37-step routines, quick-fix promises that distract from deep practice.
- Trying to be “balanced” in the naive sense—attempting to do everything equally—creates mediocrity and burnout.
- Reckless obsession/addiction to work that you can’t step away from or regulate.
Practical frameworks & tools (actionable)
Values: pick and define 2–5 core values
- Start with a broad list (100 common values), select ones that resonate, cluster similar terms, reduce to 3–5, then define them concretely so choices reveal alignment (e.g., where does your phone live during family dinner?).
Identity house (trade-offs > balance)
- Treat identity as a house with multiple rooms (e.g., investor, parent, athlete). You can deep-focus in one room for a season while maintaining minimum effective doses for others so they don’t “go moldy.”
Minimum Effective Dose (MED)
- Decide the least action needed to keep essential identity-rooms healthy (e.g., one date night a week, three 30-min workouts/week). MED prevents collapse during intense seasons.
Process mindset: break goals into nested timeframes
- 4-year cycle → 2-year blocks → yearly → quarterly → monthly → weekly → daily. Focus on the workout/step in front of you (the day’s task).
Three-by-three routine (simple, durable framework)
- Three daily practices: (Brad’s example) 60–90 minutes of deep work; ≥45 minutes movement; don’t fight evening sleepiness (prioritize sleep).
- Three weekly practices: digital Sabbath (12–24 hours offline); one longer creative walk; social time with friends.
- Three monthly practices: spiritual / reflective practice; community engagement; time in nature (half-day or longer).
Deep work & environment design
- Block undistracted calendar time; remove devices from the workspace; make the physical environment support values (art, reminders, absence of digital temptation).
- Use micro-breaks: 10-minute walks can boost creativity 40–60%.
Rituals & completion
- Build rituals to mark milestones (celebrate, grieve, reflect). These prevent achievement from becoming an endless, joyless treadmill.
Mindsets for sustained excellence
- Care deeply (vulnerability required): to truly engage you must be willing to risk failure and humiliation.
- Practice “soft strength” / humble badass: rigorous striving plus kindness and humility toward self and others.
- Control obsession: differentiate healthy high investment from compulsive, destructive work addiction.
- Joy is not the enemy of intensity—serious, focused work can and should feel joyful.
Representative examples Brad cites
- Robert Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (quality, intimacy).
- Nick Sleep & Nomad/Fund investors: building investment practice as a quality-driven life practice.
- Jerry Seinfeld: pleasure in mastery—the joke either lands or not.
- Athletes & performers interviewed in Brad’s work: Hilary Hahn (violin), Alex Honnold (free solo climbing), Kate Courtney (mountain biking), K.T. Humphries (bobsled), world-class powerlifters and endurance athletes—illustrate intimacy, structure, and trade-offs.
- Greg Popovich: team dinners as seasonal completion rituals.
- Lin-Manuel Miranda: vacation + reading sparked Hamilton (value of strategic breaks).
- George Saunders: craft + warmth—model of excellence + kindness.
Concrete next steps (a short to-do list)
- Pick 2–5 core values; write a one-sentence definition for each.
- Audit your calendar for one week; identify where time contradicts those values.
- Establish your identity house: name 3–5 rooms and choose MEDs for each.
- Block one daily or several weekly deep-work sessions (no devices) and protect them on your calendar.
- Add one weekly restoration ritual: 10+ minute walk daily, plus a weekly digital Sabbath.
- Introduce at least one completion ritual for a current project (celebrate, reflect, document lessons).
Recommended reading (from the conversation)
- Brad Stulberg — The Way of Excellence (new); The Practice of Groundedness; Masters of Change.
- Robert Pirsig — Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (quality).
- Cal Newport — Deep Work (and forthcoming The Deep Life).
- George Saunders — Lincoln in the Bardo (example of craft + kindness).
Final synthesis
Brad Stulberg reframes excellence as an accessible, humane way of living—rooted in care, alignment, discipline, ritual, and rest. The path isn’t about instant hacks or relentless hustle; it’s about designing your environment and calendar, sustaining a process mindset, protecting what matters, and cultivating the interior qualities (kindness, curiosity, resilience) that make excellence durable and joyful.