Whether we like it or not, change is inevitable. In his book Master of Change, Brad cites research that the average human will undergo 36 major life changes in their time alive. Which means it's vital that we have the right tools to navigate disruption. Today, Brad explains how our understanding of and reliance on the concept of "homeostasis" has contributed to our inflexibility, and how a newer concept—allostasis—allows for a more adaptable version of stability. Want to learn more tools for...

This week's roundtable is a hodgepodge of good stuff. Brad and Steve share their thoughts on (and criticisms of) last week's interview with Evelyn Tribole on intuitive eating. The crew reacts to a clip of the actor Jesse Eisenberg talking about how he learned to use his fear and anxiety as motivation. And there's a discussion of the recent Apple iPad ad, and how to best protect our humanity from the ever advancing grasp of technology. (All of the referenced material is linked...

We live in an age where attentional well-being is more important than ever. In our increasingly noisy world, there are an infinite number of things vying for our attention—which means it's more important than ever to have some control over how we direct it. In order to be able to do that, we have to have a deeper understanding of how attention works. Today, Clay, with the help of Oliver Burkeman's book, Four Thousand Weeks, breaks it down, explaining why we're so easily distracted and how we...

Our diet has one of the biggest influences on how we feel and how we perform. But, particularly in the U.S., eating has become rather complicated, given that we have unbelievably easy access to ultra-processed foods and toxic, misleading fad diets (and all the disinformation that comes with them). So on today's episode, Clay talks to Evelyn Tribole, a dietician and one of the co-founders of Intuitive Eating, a framework for eating that is much more a mind-body practice than it is a diet. At...

Over many years of evolution, we've been wired to have very trigger happy alarm systems. Unfortunately, those alarms tend go off most loudly right before a big performance, creating a cascade of nerves that can derail our ability to run a race, deliver a presentation, or nail the interview. Today, Steve offers some of the best strategies he’s used (and coaches his athletes to use) for turning down the alarm and marshaling the energy of your nerves to work for—not against—you.  If you are...

Today's roundtable is all about building a more robust and more effective toolbox for handling the challenges life throws at you. After years of studying and writing about performance, Steve, Brad, and Clay highlight the practical tools that they have found most helpful when it comes to exercise & working out, productivity & work, diet & nutrition, and managing anxiety & mental health. If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people...

On the fifth episode of FAREWELL, Kate Bowler joined the show to talk about the ways in which the cult of wellness is failing us—namely, by making unrealistic promises about how limitless we are. We revisit that idea on today’s Coach Up, as Kate shares some thoughts on why the mandate to constantly live your “best life now” is particularly harmful, and why it’s okay to accept that, many days, we’re probably not feeling our best or making it through all (if any) of the things on our to-do...

We humans have a tendency to get in our own way. When it comes to starting new habits, changing our behavior, or making big decisions, we create all kinds of complications for ourselves. Fortunately, we’ve got Katy Milkman, a Wharton professor and expert on the science human behavior. Today, she gives strategies for beating our impulsivity (which she calls the “granddaddy” of obstacles to behavior change), making hard decisions, and why sometimes the best solution involves subtraction not...

Brad has been a performance coach for some time now, working with executives, physicians, founder, attorneys. Today, we're going to get a little insight into what that work looks like. Brad shares one of the strategies he uses with his clients to help them organize and more effectively mange their lives, and achieve their goals: his three-tiered coaching pyramid. If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too....

For the last couple decades, Cal Newport has been thinking about how to do quality work productively, effectively, and sustainably. His latest book Slow Productivity, a New York Times bestseller, presents a refreshingly sane idea: that we might be able to do more work and not be completely burnt out or exhausted doing it. Today, Clay and Brad sit down with Cal to talk through how that’s actually possible. Plus, as a computer scientist and productivity expert, Cal lays out his most effective...

Mantras are a good tool to have in your toolkit when life inevitably gets frustrating and difficult (to wit: in their FAREWELL interviews, ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter and triathlete Chelsea Sodaro both shared how mantras have helped them become world-class athletes). Today, Clay shares three of his favorite mantras, phrases that have helped him manage anxiety, work, and exercise over the years. If you are enjoying FAREWELL, do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so...

This week, NCAA March Madness wrapped up, and two teams were crowned National Champions—which means 134 other teams lost. This is the hard reality of any type of competition: the vast majority of people who compete will lose. But it's those who know how to lose well that can best set themselves up for a future win. On today's episode, Steve, Brad, and Clay discuss the best way to cope with the acute loss in a competition, and the more general loss of ability that comes with age: how can we...

Any time we are developing a new skill, hobby, craft, or practice, we have to go through various stages of development—these are called the four levels of competence. At the first level, you're learning and everything can feel difficult. At the fourth, you're in flow. By knowing what they are, you can identity where you're at on the progression, which, in turn, will help you figure out the tools you need to continue to grow, improve, and move to the next level. Today, Brad breaks down the...

Good news, bad news. The good news: in our modern world of endless entertainment, we have essentially solved the problem of boredom. The bad news: turns out boredom wasn't a problem, but a skill. The ability to do deep, creative work, to complete a long cardio workout, to avoid mindlessly falling into social media doom scrolls—these all require an ability to be bored. As Manoush Zomorodi, host of NPR's TED Radio Hour, lays out in her book "Spark: How to Free Your Brain From Technology and...

"A ritual is routine with intention," says Katherine May (author of Wintering and Enchantment) on today's episode of The Coach Up. Whereas routines are a set of steps you don't have to think about, a ritual is about performing an action that consciously allows us to work in harmony with the various rhythms of the day, month, and year. In this way, rituals can become important ways to mark the passage of time and keep us on track as the days fly by. Since we're already three months deep into...

Last week, ESPN's Wright Thompson wrote a wonderfully reported profile of Iowa's Caitlin Clark (link below), who is playing in her last NCAA tournament and capping off a career as one of college basketball's greats and it's all-time leading scorer. At the heart of that piece was a compelling question: What is the cost of greatness? How does someone like Caitlin Clark balance relentless hustle with joy and rest? Obsessional devotion with relaxation and play? Hyper competitiveness with teamwork...

Knowing how to be tired is a skill. If you don't know how to work with fatigue, you won't be able to push yourself when things get hard. On the other hand, if you only know how to push and can't understand your body's warning signals when it's overdoing it, you mind find yourself injured or burnt out. On this episode of The Coach Up, Steve Magness explains how to better walk that tightrope by getting to know—and making friends with—your fatigue. If you are enjoying FAREWELL, the best way you...

We’ve got voicemail(s)! On the last roundtable, we opened up our phone lines a you all answered the call with some great questions. So today’s episode is dedicated to answering three of the issues raised: how to know when a relationship to exercise becomes unhealthy; (2) the psychological downsides to gamifying your movement practice, and how to know when to use intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation; (3) how to think about exercising and fitness as you age. Enjoy—and thanks for the great...

The world can be pretty wonderful. It can also be pretty terrible. So we need a mindset that works for both of these circumstances. Unfortunately, these days, we often live on the extremes. On the one end of the spectrum, there's toxic positivity, which means remaining upbeat in the face of something that's really difficult, or hard, or sad, and needs to be experienced and processed as such. On the other , there's straight up hopelessness or nihilism, a sense that everything is so bad, we...

In his books The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain, Michael Easter explores two of the major complications of living in our modern world. The world is rife with comfort and convenience, which is great some of the time, but not all of the time since we need to discomfort to grow and become resilient. The world is also abundant, but humans have evolved to have a scarcity mindset, meaning that no matter how much we have, we're wired to crave more. This means we often struggle to do the necessary...

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear makes the point that it's your habits, multiplied over time, that create the person you become. That's because habits compound. The difference between the person who reads 20 minutes a day and the person who doesn't may not seem that big on a day-to-day basis. But over the course of a year, the person with the reading habit will likely have read 30 to 40 more books than the person without that habit. So building the habits that are going to get us closer...

Health and fitness is in a weird place these days. On one hand, there’s a lack of foundational health literacy in society (as evidenced by a recent Exercise I.Q. Quiz in The New York Times that left us with more answers than questions: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/27/well/move/fitness-workout.html). On the other hand, we’re overloaded with fancy-sounding jargon that can leave even high-level exercise enthusiasts feeling like they need to do and learn more. Today, Steve, Brad,...

"You need to feel like a pot of water on the stove that's just about to start boiling over," says Molly Seidel, in describing what it feels like to run the marathon pace that won her the bronze at the last Olympics. "You just hold it there, right on that line." This is as draining mentally as it is physically, she says. In fact, Seidel says so much of what holds athletes back is their brain telling them to pull back because their going into the danger zone. The antidote? Learning how to be...

In October 2022, many people witnessed triathlete Chelsea Sodaro, in her first time running the race, become the first American woman to win the Ironman World Championship in Kona. What they didn't see was that, in the months leading up to the race, she was learning how to balance motherhood and training, and struggling with intense OCD and anxiety. Today's episode is about that: the things we don't see. Because, in the world of performance, a lot of the focus goes to success and...