Just Manageable Challenges, with Brad Stulberg – [Invest Like the Best, EP.49]
This week’s conversation is about performance. More specifically, it is about the ins and outs of steady progress and growth. My guest is Brad Stulberg who coauthored the book Peak Performance, which combines research from many fields into a description of how athletes, creatives, and others continue to push boundaries in their respective crafts.
As someone who is intermittently lazy, the growth equation framework that Brad and I explore has impacted me often since I first read the book several months ago. I hope you enjoy this conversation, which isn’t about investing, but which is, at its heart, still about the power of compounding.
Books Referenced
Outliers: The Story of Success
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
Online References
Show Notes
1:32 – (First question) – How Vick Stretcher influenced the book, Peak Performance
4:32 – Looking at some of the preliminary research at the science of purpose
7:58 – The idea of a growth equation and the components that can lead to success
11:47 – How the introduction of stress can help in all sorts of creative and entrepreneurial pursuits.
13:39 – The ratio between physical and mental as an impact on this formula
14:56 – Just manageable challenges and the role that they play in the growth equation
18:06 – The idea of just manageable challenges through the example of an athlete
22:19 – Favorite example of a crazy feat of physical performance, stress on older athletes operating at high levels
23:30 – Thoughts about outside influences like mentors/coaches and how they help high performance individuals advance
25:51 – Describe catabolic and anabolic states and why anabolic is so important
29:13 – How the relationship of catabolic and anabolic states also helps the mind
30:47 – How does the idea of practice play into the growth equation
32:49 – Exploring the nuances of practice and why you don’t go all out
32:56 – Outliers: The Story of Success
33:00 – Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
34:24 – The idea of designing of a day
42:06 – What role can environment play on us
43:40 – How far is it healthy to run
46:25 – How does ego play into all of this
48:06 – The idea of camaraderie and study of Air Force Cadets highlighting this
49:28 – Fatigue and why it is believed to happen in the mind and not the body
54:00 – Most memorable day
55:43 – Method for finding purpose
56:29 – Jool Health
58:26 – Kindest thing anyone has ever done for Brad
Learn More
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
