The Coaching Lab: Evidence-Based High Performance & Wellbeing Brad Stulberg: The Way of Excellence
Jan 29, 2026
Brad Stulberg, bestselling author and performance coach focused on sustainable excellence, offers a fresh take on mastery and meaning. He explores how excellence is a practiced process, the feel-based path from novice to unconscious competence, balancing obsession with engagement, protecting relationships while pursuing greatness, and habits like digital sabbaths that preserve focus and joy.
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Protect Relationships With Physical Boundaries
- Use open conversations and clear self-imposed constraints to maintain relationship presence.
- Remove phone temptation during key family times and set rules like 'phone away 6–8pm' to enforce attention.
Mastery Plus Mattering Drives Fulfillment
- The pull toward excellence combines mastery (earned skill) and mattering (significance).
- That combination satisfies deep human drives to grow, create, and contribute beyond mere survival.
Heartbreak Bonded Caitlin Clark's Team
- After losing the national championship, Caitlin Clark and teammates cried together and found that heartbreak became the most memorable bonding moment.
- Clark says those relationships mattered more than any championship ring she didn't win.
