What is excellence? In his new book, The Way of Excellence, Brad Stulberg makes the case that excellence is not merely excelling at an activity, but a biological imperative that is also a knowable feeling.
“Excellence is less a destination and more an energizing process of growth and becoming — an ongoing path that yields our best performances and, every bit as important, our best selves. We are made to move toward excellence as a tree is made to move toward the sun.”
After setting that philosophical foundation, the rest of the book describes characteristics of excellence journeys, including care, discipline, renewal, goals, curiosity, failure and community.
What struck me from this part of the book was the paradox of excellence, where we must instead embrace the complexity of “both and”.
— When should I push myself and embrace grit and discipline?
— When should I rest and recover and be kind to myself?
— When should I keep going in the face of failure?
— When should I take failure as a signal to quit and find something else which fits me better?
This is where we return to the physical feeling of excellence. Stulberg claims that you will know what choice to make based on how your body feels aligned to the task. When you have learned to listen to that biological signal, you will know when you have more to give, and when you need a break. You will tune into that feeling of aliveness to push deeper when others would quit. As he ends the book, “Excellence is core to who we are. When we reclaim excellence, we reclaim our humanity.”
This book is not going to be useful to somebody seeking a how-to guide for excellence. It is more of a philosophical musing on the characteristics of excellence, and the foundations on which excellence can be built.
I enjoyed Stulberg’s perspective because he put into words some things I had experienced in pursuing excellence across many different activities, including trusting that internal feeling to push myself to expand the limits beyond what I thought I could do.
You might like this book if you are a high achiever who enjoys that feeling of excellence and wants to read how somebody else describes it.
More thoughts and reflections in my longer blog post review at https://lnkd.in/gAEQSd4Z