David Epstein

National Bestseller "In Do Hard Things, Steve Magness beautifully and persuasively reimagines our understanding of toughness. This is a must-read for parents and coaches and anyone else looking to prepare for life's biggest challenges." -- Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Talking to Strangers and host of the Revisionist History podcast From beloved performance expert, executive coach, and coauthor of Peak Performance Steve Magness comes a radical rethinking of how we perceive toughness and what it means to achieve our high ambitions in the face of hard things. Toughness has long been held as the key to overcoming a challenge and achieving greatness, whether it is on the sports field, at a boardroom, or at the dining room table. Yet, the prevailing model has promoted a mentality based on fear, false bravado, and hiding any sign of weakness. In other words, the old model of toughness has failed us. Steve Magness, a performance scientist who coaches Olympic athletes, rebuilds our broken model of resilience with one grounded in the latest science and psychology. In Do Hard Things, Magness teaches us how we can work with our body – how experiencing discomfort, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action can be the true indications of cultivating inner strength. He offers four core pillars to cultivate such resilience: Pillar 1- Ditch the Façade, Embrace RealityPillar 2- Listen to Your BodyPillar 3- Respond, Instead of React Pillar 4- Transcend Discomfort   Smart and wise all at once, Magness flips the script on what it means to be resilient. Drawing from mindfulness, military case studies, sports psychology, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, he provides a roadmap for navigating life’s challenges and achieving high performance that makes us happier, more successful, and, ultimately, better people.

"Should we throw everything to the wind and follow our passions? Or should we strive for balance and let our passions cool? This book offers the surprising, nuanced, and research-backed answer." - Daniel H. Pink, Bestselling author of When and Drive. "I feel like this book was written for me. I had to resist underlining every sentence."- Shalane Flanagan. New York City Marathon Champion, Four-Time Olympian, and New York Times bestselling author. The coauthors of the bestselling Peak Performance dive into the fascinating science behind passion, showing how it can lead to a rich and meaningful life while also illuminating the ways in which it is a double-edged sword. Here's how to cultivate a passion that will take you to great heights--while minimizing the risk of an equally great fall. Common advice is to find and follow your passion. A life of passion is a good life, or so we are told. But it's not that simple. Rarely is passion something that you just stumble upon, and the same drive that fuels breakthroughs--whether they're athletic, scientific, entrepreneurial, or artistic--can be every bit as destructive as it is productive. Yes, passion can be a wonderful gift, but only if you know how to channel it. If you're not careful, passion can become an awful curse, leading to endless seeking, suffering, and burnout. Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness once again team up, this time to demystify passion, showing readers how they can find and cultivate their passion, sustainably harness its power, and avoid its dangers. They ultimately argue that passion and balance--that other virtue touted by our culture--are incompatible, and that to find your passion, you must lose balance. And that's not always a bad thing. They show readers how to develop the right kind of passion, the kind that lets you achieve great things without ruining your life. Swift, compact, and powerful, this thought-provoking book combines captivating stories of extraordinarily passionate individuals with the latest science on the biological and psychological factors that give rise to--and every bit as important, sustain--passion.

Wall Street Journal bestseller “A welcome revelation.” --The Financial Times Award-winning Wharton Professor and Choiceology podcast host Katy Milkman has devoted her career to the study of behavior change. In this ground-breaking book, Milkman reveals a proven path that can take you from where you are to where you want to be, with a foreword from psychologist Angela Duckworth, the best-selling author of Grit. Change comes most readily when you understand what's standing between you and success and tailor your solution to that roadblock. If you want to work out more but find exercise difficult and boring, downloading a goal-setting app probably won't help. But what if, instead, you transformed your workouts so they became a source of pleasure instead of a chore? Turning an uphill battle into a downhill one is the key to success. Drawing on Milkman's original research and the work of her world-renowned scientific collaborators, How to Change shares strategic methods for identifying and overcoming common barriers to change, such as impulsivity, procrastination, and forgetfulness. Through case studies and engaging stories, you’ll learn: • Why timing can be everything when it comes to making a change • How to turn temptation and inertia into assets • That giving advice, even if it's about something you're struggling with, can help you achieve more Whether you're a manager, coach, or teacher aiming to help others change for the better or are struggling to kick-start change yourself, How to Change offers an invaluable, science-based blueprint for achieving your goals, once and for all.

Winner of the 2018 Audie Award for Best Business/Personal Development Audiobook "A transfixing book on how to sustain peak performance and avoid burnout" ― Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Option B, Originals, and Give and Take "An essential playbook for success, happiness, and getting the most out of ourselves." ― Arianna Huffington, author of Thrive and The Sleep Revolution "I doubt anyone can read Peak Performance without itching to apply something to their own lives." ― David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of The Sports Gene A few common principles drive performance, regardless of the field or the task at hand. Whether someone is trying to qualify for the Olympics, break ground in mathematical theory or craft an artistic masterpiece, many of the practices that lead to great success are the same. In Peak Performance, Brad Stulberg, a former McKinsey and Company consultant and writer who covers health and the science of human performance, and Steve Magness, a performance scientist and coach of Olympic athletes, team up to demystify these practices and demonstrate how everyone can achieve their best. The first book of its kind, Peak Performance combines the inspiring stories of top performers across a range of capabilities - from athletic, to intellectual, to artistic - with the latest scientific insights into the cognitive and neurochemical factors that drive performance in all domains. In doing so, Peak Performance uncovers new linkages that hold promise as performance enhancers but have been overlooked in our traditionally-siloed ways of thinking. The result is a life-changing book in which readers learn how to enhance their performance via myriad ways including: optimally alternating between periods of intense work and rest; priming the body and mind for enhanced productivity; and developing and harnessing the power of a self-transcending purpose. In revealing the science of great performance and the stories of great performers across a wide range of capabilities, Peak Performance uncovers the secrets of success, and coaches readers on how to use them. If you want to take your game to the next level, whatever "your game" may be, Peak Performance will teach you how.

Join readers from all over the world and learn about a powerful antidote to today's epidemic of burnout—and a path to achieving success with deeper satisfaction—from the bestselling author of Peak Performance. "A thoughtful, actionable book for pursuing more excellence with less angst." --Adam Grant, author of Think Again "Ambitious, far-reaching, and impactful" -- David Epstein, author of Range Playing into the always-on, never enough hustle culture ultimately takes a serious toll. While the high of occasional wins can keep you going for a while, angst, restlessness, frayed relationships, exhaustion, and even substance abuse can be the unwanted side effects of an obsession with outward performance. In The Practice of Groundedness, bestselling author Brad Stulberg offers a path from which peak performance and well-being and fulfillment can emerge and prevail for a lifetime. At the heart of this model is groundedness—a practice that values presence over rote productivity, accepts that progress is nonlinear, and prioritizes long-term values and fulfillment over short-term gain. To be grounded is to possess a firm and unwavering foundation, an internal strength and self-confidence that sustains you through ups and downs  and from which deep and enduring success can be found. Groundedness does not eliminate ambition and striving; rather, it situates these qualities and channels them in more meaningful ways. Interweaving case studies, modern science, and time-honored lessons from ancient wisdom traditions such as Buddhism, Stoicism, and Taoism, Stulberg teaches readers how to cultivate the habits and practices of a more grounded life. Readers will learn: *  Why patience is the key to getting where you want to go faster--in work and life--and how to develop it, pushing back against the culture's misguided obsession with speed and "hacks." *  How to utilize the lens of the wise observer in order to overcome delusion and resistance to clearly see and accept where you are—which is the key to more effectively getting where you want to go *  Why embracing vulnerability is the key to genuine strength and confidence *  The critical importance of "deep community," or cultivating a sense of belonging and connection to people, places, and causes. Provocative and practical, The Practice of Groundedness is the necessary corrective to the frenetic pace and endemic burnout resulting from contemporary definitions of success. It offers a new—and better—way.