“Go all in, get it done, take the learnings, and know when to walk away.”
Hey Rollers,
Two of the people I read most on doing hard things are Cameron Hanes and Brad Stulberg. I’m a big fan of both. And on one question, they pretty much disagree.
Hanes puts it bluntly in his book Endure: “If you’re not obsessed, you’re going to be mediocre… If you have a healthy, balanced relationship with whatever dream you have, then nobody will ever know your name.”
Stulberg, writing with Steve Magness in The Passion Paradox, comes at it from the other side. When passion turns obsessive, “your sense of self becomes fused with the external results of your work. No amount of success is enough.” That road tends to lead to anxiety and burnout. What lasts, they argue, is harmonious passion, where you do the thing for the joy of doing it.
So who’s right?
I think a big part of what Hanes says is true. Anyone who’s achieved something of real significance has sacrificed a huge amount on the other side. Olympic gold, building a big business, whatever it is, it comes at a cost. There’s zero balance in doing that. Some people are wired that way, and some aren’t.
But I don’t think you have to pick a side for life. The way I’d put it is Hanes for a season, Stulberg for a life.
My ten marathons in ten days are probably my best example. For about six months it was a really big thing in my life, and I made sure it happened. That was obsession, for a season. It was a game changer for me, with a huge amount of insight and growth. And then I let it go. I’m not sitting here obsessing about running another ten. Go all in, get it done, take the learnings, and know when to walk away.
For me, that’s where Smart Toughness lands. Stulberg has a line in The Way of Excellence I keep coming back to: “Fierce self-discipline requires fierce self-kindness.”
I’ve had to learn that one myself. For a long time my alarm went off at quarter past four every morning, and I got a lot of confidence from it. But if I didn’t get to the gym at 4:15, even if I still got there later that day, I counted it as a failure. These days I try to zoom out. Three sessions in a week, one at 9am, one at 6pm, whatever it is, is a great week.
When I shared Stulberg’s line with a client earlier this year, he pushed back. Is that really kindness, he asked, or is it just self-awareness? Knowing what’s good for you and sticking to it. It’s a fair challenge. I think the question is whether discipline on its own always serves us, and I’m not so sure it does. I still wrestle with it. Some days I have to ask myself, honestly, is this an excuse, or is it a real reason? And when we’re hard on ourselves, everything ends up in the excuse bucket.
Until next week.
Keep rolling.
Justin 👊
Take Action in 3 Minutes:
Think about the hardest thing you’re going after right now.
👉 Is it a season, or is it a life?
If it’s a season, write down when it ends. If it’s a life, ask what would make it something you could keep doing for ten years.