How to Be Awesome at Your Job 1132: How to Find Deep Satisfaction While Pursuing Excellence with Brad Stulberg
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Feb 26, 2026 
Brad Stulberg, researcher and bestselling author focused on sustainable excellence, offers a mini roadmap to meaningful striving. He explores why chasing happiness fails and what to aim for instead. He explains how curiosity beats fear, how intensity plus joy fuels top performance, and practical ways to rebuild focus and care deeply about what matters.
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Deadlift That Shaped A Life
- Brad Stulberg learned life lessons from deadlifting, treating the lift as a microcosm for growth and resilience.
- His 530-pound PR at ~200 lb bodyweight taught him about vulnerability, patience, fear, community, and carrying gym lessons into family and work.
Curiosity Displaces Fear
- Curiosity defeats fear because the neural circuits for curiosity and fear compete, making them mutually exclusive states.
- Brad's training cue "brave new world" reframes uncertain challenges (PR lifts, childbirth, new jobs) as playful exploration.
Intensity And Joy Can Coexist
- Top performers combine intensity and joy, flipping a switch between focused edge and playful enjoyment to sustain high-level performance.
- Kobe Bryant's mindset was "I play to figure things out," prioritizing curiosity over playing to win or not lose.
