Below, Brad Stulberg shares five key insights from his new book, The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World.

Brad is on faculty at the University of Michigan. He is a performance coach and regularly contributes pieces about sustainable excellence to The New York Times. His work has also been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic, among many other outlets. He serves as cohost of the podcast excellence, actually.

What’s the big idea?

What if excellence isn’t about winning, talent, or perfect conditions? Lasting performance and real fulfillment live in our curiosity, resilience, and love of the process.

Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite—read by Brad himself—below, or in the Next Big Idea App.

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The power of curiosity to fuel greatness

Before Kobe Bryant’s tragic death, he was asked, “Do you love to win or do you hate to lose?” He responded, “I’m neither. I play to figure things out. I play to learn something.”

When you fixate on winning or losing or some other external outcome, it takes you out of the present. It makes it impossible to enter a flow state. It makes you fragile. But when you adopt a mindset of curiosity and growth, it relieves pressure and helps you stay anchored in the moment.

Kobe Bryant was known for his killer instinct—The Mamba Mentality—and yet, even he recognized the difference between the finite game and the infinite game. The finite game is time-bound; there are winners and losers. The infinite game knows no end; the only goal is to keep playing, keep learning, and keep discovering.

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