The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World's Most Productive Achievers

by Ryan Hawk, Patrick Lencioni - foreword

Millions of business professionals aspire to become effective leaders. But for hardworking, growth-oriented top performers who are always looking to improve and for rigorous thinkers who are never quite satisfied with the status quo, the true goal is the lifelong pursuit of excellence.

Leadership advisor Ryan Hawk has interviewed hundreds of the most productive achievers in the world on his acclaimed podcast, The Learning Leader Show, to discover the best practices for pursuing and sustaining excellence. He found a pattern of uncommon behaviors that set these stellar individuals apart. By following their examples, you will learn how commit to yourself and the process - and build purpose, focus, and discipline; develop resilience to face new challenges - and find inspiration for the long haul; seek guidance - and lead others to new heights; meet the moment - and make the most of every opportunity to excel; and create a trusted group of advisors - and become a lifelong learner. Packed with specific actions to take, experiments to run, and tools to analyze what works best for you, this uncompromisingly practical guide will inspire, challenge, support, and empower you to become your very best. Put mindsets into action and turn behaviors into habits with The Pursuit of Excellence.

Genres: Nonfiction, Leadership, Personal Development, Business, Self Help, Personal Growth, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Published January 25, 2022

Reviews

[Joshua Bowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Ryan, his books, and his podcast. I’ve been following him for several years.
I fully enjoyed this second book of his. It is JAM packed of fantastic insight throughout. I highlighted and reflected on much.
My issue, however, is that there is so much actionable things throughout that I feel overwhelmed to think of where to even begin. Lot to consider and process, not in huge ways, but in lots of small actionable habits to try to live and lead better.
Definitely a great read to get challenged and inspired to live and lead more intentionally. Glad I pre-ordered and read this as soon as it came in the mail.

[Synthia Salomon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This month’s mantra is, “you’ve got the power.”

This books message is right on time. I’m not chasing success. I’m in pursuit of excellence. “According to Hawk, the pursuit of excellence is different from the pursuit of success. It’s focused on lifelong self-improvement and setting small goals that you can achieve on a daily basis. By adopting a purpose mindset, you’ll begin to respect the process by keeping the big picture in mind – and not letting temporary setbacks get you off track. 

The purpose mindset is focused on internal factors that you can control, such as creating a lifestyle and environment that is conducive to your goals, and surrounding yourself with mentors and positive relationships. It also involves maintaining a growth mindset, where you constantly test and push your limits to new heights.” With this book, I have been reminded to focus on my daily habits and take baby sets. I want to achieve progress daily:
As a teacher
As a mother
As a wife
As an American 🇺🇸

[Jung]

According to Hawk, the pursuit of excellence is different from the pursuit of success. It’s focused on lifelong self-improvement and setting small goals that you can achieve on a daily basis. By adopting a purpose mindset, you’ll begin to respect the process by keeping the big picture in mind – and not letting temporary setbacks get you off track.

The purpose mindset is focused on internal factors that you can control, such as creating a lifestyle and environment that is conducive to your goals, and surrounding yourself with mentors and positive relationships. It also involves maintaining a growth mindset, where you constantly test and push your limits to new heights.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be one step closer to pursuing excellence.

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Achieving excellence requires a Purpose Mindset which focuses on the process.

Before we get into the three key habits, let’s look at how the pursuit of excellence rather than success can lead to the kind of rewards that make life truly fulfilling. When we shift our focus from success to excellence, we get more personal. We’re not in competition with some external factor we have no control over. The pursuit of excellence is all about becoming better at what you do – becoming more skillful, more knowledgeable.

The other big difference is that success is generally a finite game. You set a goal, hit it, and are then left to wonder what’s next. The pursuit of excellence, on the other hand, is an infinite game. As such, it’ll keep you focused on growing, getting better, and achieving your greatest potential. In other words, the pursuit of excellence is always there to provide purpose and meaning, no matter where you find yourself. And this is exactly what a fulfilling and satisfying life needs: purpose.

Now, you’ve likely heard the old advice that says all you need to do is follow your passion. When your work involves doing something you’re truly passionate about, then it won’t even feel like work at all. Or so the saying goes.

This advice is well-intentioned, but it’s also problematic. Many of us have followed our passion and run into the kind of setbacks that lead to doubts and second-guessing. Wait, wasn’t it supposed to be effortless once we found our passion? That’s why the better advice is this: don’t let anyone tell you it’ll be easy. Excellence, and achieving great results, requires hard work. It takes the kind of focus and determination that will test your boundaries. There are no shortcuts, cheats, or hacks that will allow you to avoid the hard work. But don’t let this get you down. Once you shift gears and adopt the purpose mindset, you’ll find that the rewards are constant and can propel you forward – even when times are tough.

A purpose mindset is one that is focused on the process. It’s about achieving steady, constant growth rather than finite results. And this is one of the first keys to pursuing excellence: respect the process.

What does this mean? Well, the process is about long-term results. That means you don’t let setbacks or mistakes derail you. Even better, when you focus on the process, you’ll find that the results take care of themselves. In a way, this can provide a welcome sense of freedom. Your responsibility is to create the plan and then stick to it. This is what you can control; the rest doesn’t matter. You can let it go.

In mathematical terms, this concept is described as freedom equals discipline. This was one of the big conclusions the author made from looking at the career of Eliud Kipchoge. Kipchoge was born in Kenya, grew up in a modest household, and went on to become what many consider the greatest marathon racer of all time.

As Kipchoge puts it, “If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and passions.” Not only that – you’re also a slave to outside factors like your competitors, politics, or what other people are saying or doing. If you’re disciplined and focused on a daily process of improvement, then you don’t have to worry about these external things. You can rest easy knowing that you’re following your plan and doing the hard work.

Kipchoge is blunt about it. He says, “To win is not important. To be successful is not even important. How to plan and prepare is crucial.” When you plan and prepare well, success and winning will follow. In other words, when you respect the process, the results will take care of themselves.

Respecting the process also means that you don’t have to come out of the gate like a champion. Your only expectation is in doing something today that will make you better than you were yesterday. It doesn’t have to be big. In fact, planning out a series of small, doable steps is the better way to go.

This is the first of the three big tips the author learned from his conversations with James Clear, the best-selling author of the book Atomic Habits. The second is to turn positive behaviors, the kind that will help you reach those goals, into rituals or habits. The third is to remove obstacles from your environment.

Let’s look at a few examples of how these three tips go hand-in-hand.

Say you want to write a novel. Which plan sounds more likely to succeed: setting one big end-of-the-year deadline, or setting a series of goals to write a minimum of one hundred words per day? The latter one, right? It’s all about establishing a process – or, as Clear calls it, a habit or ritual – that guarantees progress.

There's a good quote from the nineteenth-century journalist Jacob A. Riis – which is still so relevant today, in fact, that it can be found in the locker room of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team. It reads, “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” This is respecting the process. Your job is to chip away a little bit each day, knowing that your persistence is the hard work that will pay off in the end.

Unfortunately, results don’t come just from setting goals. But they do come from forming new habits and rituals, which only happens when you adopt a new lifestyle. Changing your lifestyle is basically another way of saying you’re starting a new plan and adopting a new process. And this is what gets results.

You might say, From now on I’m going to eat better, get in shape, and waste less time watching television. Well, that’s great – but in order for it to happen, you’ll need to establish a new lifestyle that supports these goals. If you keep following your old one, it’s extremely doubtful that you’ll get the results you’re after. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Along with your new lifestyle, removing obstacles in your life will help as well. You might change your habits by getting up a little earlier in the morning to make time for a prebreakfast workout ritual. But it’s also a good idea to remove temptations from your environment. If you want to eat a healthier diet, why not make it easier by removing the sugary snacks from your cupboards? If you want to watch less television, then remove the TV from your workroom. Make your environment conducive to your plan. It may sound simple, but it’s very effective. Lots of things are out of your control, but you can control your lifestyle, your habits, and your home environment.

All of these tips are about taking action. It’s easy to make plans. Many of us do this at the start of every new year. In order to follow through, you need to actually make the change and then keep at it day after day. This slow and steady determination – a commitment to gradual improvement – is what separates excellence from mediocrity.

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Reframe failures as progress and never stop learning and growing.

Surrounding yourself with the right people will have transformational effects in terms of self-improvement, but it’s not going to remove all the speed bumps on the road to excellence. There are going to be mistakes, setbacks, days when you want to throw the plan out the window and go back to the comforts of your old habits.

How we meet these moments makes all the difference. Simply put, those who embrace the struggle are the ones who excel in their pursuit of excellence. Again, it all comes back to that purpose mindset and how it allows you to reframe setbacks as being part of the process. Here are some more tips on how you can keep yourself on the right track, reframe your failures as progress, and resist the urge to give up when times get tough.

The first is to remember that achieving excellence is primarily the result of stretching your boundaries and pushing yourself. With this in mind, you can start to see failure as a positive. If you’re not failing from time to time, that just means you’re not really pushing yourself as much as you could be.

This feeds into the next tip: study, learn, and grow stronger. Having a purpose mindset is very much in line with having a growth mindset. When you hit a speed bump, you discover where your current limits are. That doesn’t mean you can’t work to push that limit further back for the next challenge. You can get a little bit better every day by studying, learning, practicing, and strengthening. Kobe Bryant wasn’t born excellent and ready for the NBA. What made him excellent was his amazing work ethic – his dedication to stick to his plan and continue to improve no matter what.

It should come as no surprise that growing and learning is key to achieving excellence. Richard Feynman was someone who knew something about excellence. He pioneered the field of quantum electrodynamics and reached such impressive heights that Bill Gates considered him “the best teacher I never had.” Feynman’s life has been so thoroughly researched that we now have what’s known as the Feynman Technique, which is essentially a process for learning.

It’s a process that is centered around a pretty simple idea: Can you explain what you’ve learned to a child? The key here is to do enough research to cover all the gaps in your knowledge. This should allow you to organize the details into a clear story that even a child could understand.

If you’ve ever had to deliver a keynote address that explains a complex subject, you might be familiar with the general idea of the Feynman Technique. It’s not only useful for your audience; it’s also a way to ensure that you’ve fully learned and absorbed the information.

This technique can be useful in developing other habits that lead to success, like diversifying your skill sets and writing. The simple act of writing can be transformational – so put your plan in writing. Write down your small, daily goals to stay on track. When you learn a new skill or piece of information, write it down – and turn it into a simple story that a child could comprehend. When you make a mistake, write it down – and make a note of what you’ve learned from that mistake. Turn failures into new goals. Turn a daily journal into your ongoing memoir of excellence.

Hopefully these tips will help inspire some new habits of your own. Achieving excellence isn’t an easy task, but it is one of the most rewarding things we can do. A life well-lived is a life filled with purpose and meaning. And nothing ticks those boxes quite like the pursuit of excellence.

[j.j. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned much from this book. A book of compiled concepts and conversations from his Learning Leaders Podcast, there were many good takeaways to apply to what we’re trying to do at Korrect and in my own personal journey to becoming a better leader.

[Archit · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is the podcast host of "Learning Leader show". It's a one-time read, compiling various concepts scattered across non-fiction books.
books recommended
Think Like a Rocket
Scientist
On the Edge:
Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme
Environments
Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to
Empowering Everyone Around You
The Fifth Discipline: “
Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of
Work.
The
Charisma Myth

The only comparison I should be
making is with myself. Will I be better tomorrow than I am today? Will I
be more thoughtful, more intentional, more purposeful in the future than
I am right now? Do my habits, routines, rituals, and actions match my
intention to be better tomorrow than I am today? These questions are the
gateway to excellence because living a life of excellence is about the
fanatical pursuit of gradual improvement. I like the way author Darren
Hardy describes the compounding effect of gradual improvement: “It’s
the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart
choices. Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL
DIFFERENCE.”4

Why not be satisfied with the attainable goal of “success” rather than
opting for the hard road of continuous but never finished
“improvement”? Why pursue excellence when winning can be had for
less? The words of famed long-distance runner Steve Prefontaine
accurately capture how I feel: “To give anything less than your best is to
sacrifice the gift.”

A pursuit is a chase or quest for something. It’s a word that comes from
the Anglo-French purseute, which means “the act of pursuing or striving
toward goals.”6 Movement, action, effort, and exertion are all required
elements of a pursuit. Author and leadership legend John Maxwell told
me, “Action shows intention. Nobody ever wanted to follow me when I
was sitting my butt in the sand. That’s why I’m always moving.”7
Pursuing excellence requires that same mindset—one that is biased
toward action. It is the pursuit of getting better. It is not about the
achievement of climbing a mountain. It is about climbing the next taller
mountain. Without progress and growth, there is no life. Without
endurance in the pursuit, there is no excellence. The pursuit of
excellence is a form of what Simon Sinek calls an “infinite game”: one
where “there is no finish line, no practical end to the game . . . no such
thing as ‘winning’ . . . [where] the primary objective is to keep playing,
to perpetuate the game.”8 It is about pushing yourself beyond the edges
of your zone of comfort and competency.

Professor Scott Galloway said, “The worst
advice given to young people is . . . follow your passion. If someone tells
you to follow your passion, that means they’re already rich. Your job is
to find something you’re good at. And then spend thousands of hours
and apply the grit and the sacrifice and the willingness to break through
hard things to become great at it. Because once you’re great at
something, the economic accoutrements of being great at something, the
prestige, the relevance, the camaraderie, the self-worth of being great . . .
will make you passionate about whatever it is. Here’s the problem with
believing you should follow your passion: Work is hard. And when you
run into obstacles and you face injustice, which is a common guaranteed
attribute of the workplace, you’ll start thinking, ‘I’m not loving this. This
is upsetting and hard. It must not be my passion.’ That is not the right
litmus test. Jay-Z followed his passion and is a billionaire. Assume you
are not Jay-Z .”3

The advice to follow your passion is frustratingly meaningless
if, like many people, you don’t have a passion to follow. The second
reason is that we don’t have much evidence that matching your job to a
preexisting interest makes you more likely to find that work satisfying.
The properties we know lead people to enjoy their work—such as
autonomy, mastery, and relationships—have little to do with whether or
not the work matches an established inclination

The lesson is one that remains with Kawasaki to this day, and one he
imparts to others from his perch as the chief evangelist at the free-to-use
online graphic design site, Canva. “When you figure out you’re doing
something wrong, don’t try to bluff your way, don’t try to perpetuate a
mistake. You’ll actually do yourself a favor, probably the organization
you work for, probably your boss, too, by changing your mind, by
reversing—by fixing what’s broken

Discipline = Freedom. “Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If
you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and your
passions.” I know it feels counterintuitive, but for Kipchoge,
discipline is his path to freedom. Some people have the tendency to
self-sabotage and let external influences (the media, politics, or other
factors outside of their control) impact their work. Staying
disciplined and sticking to the plan and the daily process of improvement creates real freedom. Kipchoge’s daily work frees him
from the limitations that would bind him, absent that work. The same
can be true for you.

Heading into the London Olympics in 2012, Michael Phelps was at the
height of his powers as the most dominant swimmer in history. Four
years before at the Olympics in Beijing, Phelps won gold in all eight
events in which he competed. In doing so, he broke Mark Spitz’s record
from 1972 for the most gold medals won in a single Olympics, as well as
setting the record for the most career gold medals by any single
Olympian, with 14. His performance in Beijing was not only perfect
from the perspective of the medal stand; it was record-breaking. Of his
eight gold medal swims, seven set new world records and the eighth
(100-meter butterfly) set a new Olympic record.9 Arriving in London in
2012, Michael Phelps was the personification of unbeatable.
Until he wasn’t.
In the final for Phelps’s signature event, the men’s 200-meter
butterfly, South African Chad le Clos shocked himself, Phelps, and the
rest of the world by out-touching Phelps at the wall for the gold. The
margin of le Clos’s victory was razor-thin: five hundredths of a second. It
had been over a decade since Phelps had lost in the 200-meter butterfly
event at the World Championships or Olympic level
The buildup for the Phelps–le Clos rematch in Rio was tremendous.
In the warm-up room before their semifinal event, the broadcast captured
Phelps staring intensely from under his hood and headphones at le Clos,
who appeared loose and at ease while shadowboxing in front of where
Phelps sat. The image quickly went viral as an instant classic meme: the
Phelps Death Stare. The finals race the following night did not
disappoint. The two competitors were in adjacent lanes: Phelps in lane
five, le Clos in lane six. At the halfway point, Phelps held a half-second
lead over le Clos, who was in third place. By the third and final flip turn,
le Clos was in second, but the gap between him and Phelps had grown to
two-thirds of a second. At the finish, Phelps had reclaimed his Olympic
title, barely holding off the second-place swimmer from Japan by four
hundredths of a second. Chad le Clos, the defending Olympic gold
medalist, finished off the medal podium, in fourth place.
As the swimmers came down the stretch for the last 25 meters,
photographer David Ramos captured an iconic photo. In it, you see le
Clos looking to his left, watching Phelps as he is pulling away. And
Phelps? He’s staring directly at his target: the wall. The time for Phelps
to be focused on le Clos had been the day before in the warm-up room.
At the moment of truth, there in the pool, Phelps’s gaze had a singular
focus: on getting to the wall first and winning the gold medal.
Le Clos, like many of us in our daily lives, divided his focus. Instead
of focusing singularly on his stroke and using it to get to the wall as fast
as possible, he gave away moments of focus to check on his rival
swimming next to him. The result? He went from second place to no
medal.

John Chambers served as the CEO of Cisco Systems from 1995 to 2015
and as the company’s executive chairman from 2015 to 2017. During his
tenure, Cisco’s annual revenues ballooned from $70 million to $40
billion. Suffice it to say, he’s had one of the greatest CEO runs in the
history of business.
High achievers who hit what they are aiming at do so because they
fall in love with the process, not an outcome. If you don’t love the
process and the daily actions required to excel, your odds of achieving
what you’ve set out to accomplish are very low. Before setting a goal,
think about the daily actions it will take to achieve that goal. Are those
actions something you can fall in love with? If not, rethink your goal, for
down that road lies not excellence but drudgery.

Pursuing excellence is having the willingness to do the necessary
work to develop a deep understanding of a topic from a foundational
level. Having the desire to be a value-enhancer to the people around you
is what excellence is about. I want others to say, “I want him on my
team. He makes our team better. He makes everyone around him better.”

You can control two parts of your day today:
your attitude and your effort. Focus on showing up with a great attitude.
Bring positive energy to the rooms you enter. Be a value-add for the
others you’re with. And give maximum effort. You can control how hard
you try. You can control the attitude you have while doing it. If you’re
going to do it, then you might as well give it 100 percent. If not, then
don’t do it. Better yet, do it with a smile. Bring positive energy to the
room. If you focus on those two things, your attitude and your effort,
you’ll find yourself in a better position day after day.”

The San Antonio Spurs have been one of the model franchises in
professional sports, winning five NBA championships over the last two
decades. One of the main reasons why has been their leadership
consistency: Gregg Popovich has been their head coach since 1996. He is
the longest tenured active head coach of a single team of any of the
major American sports leagues.

from the beginning of recorded history through May 6, 1954, the
fastest any human being had ever run a mile was 4:01.4—four
minutes, one second, and four-tenths of a second. There was no reason
any person needed to run a mile faster than that. Nothing important in
life hinged on running 5,280 feet fast enough to turn that leading four
into a three.
The most remarkable aspect of Bannister’s barrier-breaking run of
3:59.4 was how unexpected it was for that runner on that day to be the
one. How did this happen, and why does it matter?
First: Rather than employ an all-out training push that would have
required him to sacrifice his studies, Bannister applied a scientific
approach to training. He treated each race like an experiment.
“Improvement in running depends on continuous self-discipline by the
athlete himself, on acute observation of his reaction to races and training,
and above all on judgment, which he must learn for himself,” he wrote.2
Second: He believed the impossible was possible. Bannister was
known to close his eyes and visualize the race, step by step. He would
create the image, see the finish line, and hear the crowd—all in his mind.

“The mental
approach is all important, because the strength and power of the mind are
without limit,” he wrote. “All this energy can be harnessed by the correct
attitude of mind.”4

A study by researchers at Scranton University found
that only 19 percent of individuals keep their resolutions. Most of these
decisions made with the best of intentions are abandoned by mid-
January.

“Who is Ozan Varol?” you may ask. He is a law professor at Lewis &
Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, who, prior to pursuing a law
degree, was a bona fide rocket scientist. A native of Istanbul, Turkey,
Ozan grew up in a family with no English speakers. He moved to the
United States by himself at 17 years of age to attend Cornell University
and major in planetary sciences. With his degree in astrophysics, Varol
was a member of the operations team that launched the two Mars
exploration rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, in 2003. He is the author of
one of Amazon’s Top 20 Business Books of 2020, Think Like a Rocket
Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work
and Life. Varol knows a few things about taking a leap of life-altering
change in the face of uncertainty.

Most of us can picture that boss who set outrageously unrealistic
goals for us at the beginning of the year, served up with a “Shoot for the
moon; even if we miss, we’ll end up in the stars” attitude. But the whole
point of the handstand coach’s wisdom for Bezos is that this approach is
foolish. If a leader is not honest with the team about what it takes to
achieve a goal, that can diminish the likelihood of achieving it.
“Unrealistic beliefs on scope—often hidden and undiscussed—kill high
standards. To achieve high standards yourself or as part of a team, you
need to form and proactively communicate realistic beliefs about how
hard something is going to be—something this coach understood well,”
Bezos wrote.

As a sales manager at LexisNexis, I was given an overall goal that my
sales team needed to hit to finish the year at 100 percent of plan. While I
didn’t always agree with the goal I was given, I was grateful that I
enjoyed the autonomy to choose how to allocate the responsibility for
hitting that overall number among the 16 people on my team. When I
started, the age-old advice shared by some of the long-term managers
was, “Oh, I see you have four superstars. Just load them up with a lot of
that number. They’ll hit whatever you set for them.”
This advice particularly struck a nerve with me because it was a
philosophy I had formerly resented when I was one of the topperforming
sales reps. While I was fortunate to usually be placed in a
“target-rich” sales territory, the goal I was given didn’t always
correspond to what was realistically achievable. I made a note to myself
that when I became a manager, I would not do this. I would not saddle
my superstars with a disproportionate part of the team’s total goal. My
reason was simple: I did not want to penalize high performers for their
skill, work ethic, and historical performance. That’s not how you build a
successful and sustainable business. Instead, I worked hard to create
sales territories that were reasonably balanced with opportunity, setting
similar goals for every person on the team.
Prior to giving my team their goals for the year, I would talk one-onone
with each person to explain my philosophy on goal setting. It would
go something like this: “I am very grateful to have you on this team. You
have shown that you are a high achiever. That said, your goal is going to
be very similar to all the others on the team. Why? Because I’m not
going to penalize you for your past excellent performances. In fact, I
want to reward you for it, and incentivize you to continue to
overperform. Also, I know you’re not going to slow down once you
exceed your monthly goal. You’re a person who gives it your all through
the end of each month, with the constant mindset of surpassing your
goal. This is good for you and good for our company. My hope is that
you’ll be inspired by this reasonable goal, strive to achieve it, and
ultimately exceed it month after month in the coming year.”

For the next 90 months, Stockdale suffered the horrific tortures and
deprivations of the famed Hanoi Hilton POW camp. As the highestranking
officer among the prisoners of war held there, Stockdale led their
cooperative effort to resist their captors’ plans of being used as
propaganda pawns. Stockdale was physically tortured over 15 times
(through a gruesome technique known as “the ropes”),18 subjected to
solitary confinement in a stark three-by-nine-foot cell for four years, and
bound in heavy leg shackles for two years. Through it all, Stockdale
managed to keep his fellow POWs motivated and focused on resisting.
He devised a means of communicating through their confined spaces and
enacted a code of conduct to which the fellow prisoners held each other
accountable.
He even went so far as to take a razor to his own head and to bash his
face with a stool to disfigure himself so badly that he could not be used
by the North Vietnamese in a POW propaganda photo. His treatment
finally improved after he nearly died by slicing his own wrists with
broken glass shards to show his captors he would rather lose his life than
cooperate. From that point on, the torture stopped. Nobody suffered “the
ropes” again. After his release and return to the United States, Stockdale
continued to serve in the Navy, retiring with the rank of Vice Admiral.
He remains among the most highly decorated officers in the history of
the United States Navy, with 26 personal combat decorations, and was
the only three-star admiral to wear both the wings of a naval aviator and
the nation’s Medal of Honor

This is the message Alison Levine delivers, whether from the stage of
a keynote address, from the pages of her bestselling book On the Edge:
Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme
Environments, or via Skype during my conversation with her for the
podcast. Alison is one of only 20 people in the world to have completed
what is known as the Adventure Grand Slam. This achievement, years in
the making, involves climbing the highest mountain peak on each of the
67
seven continents and reaching both the North and South Poles on foot.
She also served as the team captain for the first American Women’s
Everest Expedition. Even more amazing, Alison has spent almost 20
years doing all this, despite suffering from Raynaud’s disease, a
condition that “causes the arteries that feed her fingers and toes to
collapse in cold weather.”

Frances is an award-winning professor at Harvard Business School
and author of the book, Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to
Empowering Everyone Around You. In

Legendary comedian Jerry Seinfeld described this well in a conversation
with radio icon Howard Stern. Howard said, “I thought, you know, it is
possible to will yourself, maybe not to be the greatest in the world, but
certainly to get what you want.” Jerry responded, “I’m going to adjust
your perspective a little bit. That was not will. What you were using,
what Michael Jordan uses, and what I use is not will. It’s love. When you
love something, it’s a bottomless pool of energy. That’s where the energy
comes from. But you have to love it sincerely. Not because you’re going
to make money from it, be famous, or get whatever you want to get.
When you do it because you love it, then you can find yourself moving
up

[Ms. Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book with clear examples. Remember everyone the pursuit of excellence is not a destination but a continuous journey! :)

[Zohreh Avatefi hafez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delicious book with wisdom test

[Abdulhakeem Hamza · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to give this book a five, but as the author said excellence is a work in progress - there is no end in sight. I like how the author made it very easy to read for the reader by having 3 sections (The Build, The Fuel, The Chase). Each section is filled with insights and wisdom on how to go through the journey of excellence. The author added stories of top people in various industries, such as the former CEO of Cisco who achieved a remarkable feat while being the CEO of Cisco. Overall, I like the book and will definitely read it multiple times. I look forward to reading more of Ryan Hawk's books.

[Leonardo Alfonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has a lot of great information, but in really short snippets. I believe that for ideas to stick and for people to truly learn they need longer and more robust presentations of concepts. Because this book does not force the reader to delve deep and labor a lot of the ideas will be forgotten pretty soon after reading.

I suggest people read book and maybe take specific subjects, go to the source, and read more. This is probably a great use of a book like this, as a primer. Overall, I enjoyed reading it.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryan Hawk’s podcast is a must-listen and as an emerging author, his books are becoming a must-read. This book takes the principles learned every week and distills them down in a way that applies to everyone. It’s a great build off of his first book that appeals to a wider audience than just business leaders. It’s been refreshing to see authors and thought leaders move beyond hustle culture and into seeing success in being excellent consistently while growing the relationships that matter most.

[Beverly Hallfrisch · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay and I wouldn't not recommend it. It was one quick thought after another; approximately 1 idea per page or so. That makes it easy enough to read but not really a thought provoking read. It leaves no room for context, nuance, or background. Without deeper dives, numerous sections come across as incredibly privileged.
I'd rather read about a handful of concepts in greater depth than a 100 quick tips.

[Marlena Oechsner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad I listened to this book; narrated in such a way that it really motivates you. The first part of the book was stuff I felt I could apply to my daily life but the second part seemed to be geared more towards managers and office type work. Several snippets that I can keep in front of me to motivate me all day long.

[Jens · Rating 5 out of 5]

He almost lost a star due to the disconnected storyline and overly used title-dropping of books. Yet, in the many titles mentioned lies also the strength of the book; it draws on countless hours of study and interviews on the author in his dayjob for his podcast. A book that dares to formulate how you should approach life for the most satisfaction, is one that will always hold my interest.

[Joseph Mckenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focusing on incremental life long progress and building habits for growth and improvement, Ryan Hawk differentiates from typical success focused books.

There is some solid messaging here but a reliance on the usual trope of athletes and messianic businessmen subtracts rather than adds from the message.

[Nikolaj Grove · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much to learn from this book. Every page is packed with insight and wisdom from many of the worlds top performers. This is a book I can read over and over and still be inspired to grow and take action.

[Tsinoy Foodies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pursuit of Excellence (growth/purpose mindset - process, deliberate practice, internal, infinite ) v. success (fixed mindset - goal, comparative/external and finite)

A compilation of other self help concepts.
1. Atomic habits (deliberate practice) by James clear

[Katie Ralston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent leadership book. Worth the read and filled with motivation to continue growing, learning, and leading.

[Dom Pera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy read and motivating. Full of tangible ideas, habits, tweaks, and practices to help elevate yourself. Really liked the conversational feel and simplicity of messages/advice.

[Kathleen Messmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should aspire to excellence. Read it.

[Shyanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A typical "leadership" book--didn't find anything life changing.

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much to say about the text that made it stand out. General principles and ideas related to excellence.

[JW · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75
Some really good advice for early to mid-career

[Fetcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do the hard stuff first!

Confidence - preparation, execution, performance, string together wins

When presenting - practice, going with confidence

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick, easy, and inspirational read. Many famous names are included along with some of their keys to success. This book could be helpful to anyone from high school age on up.

[Harper Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version of this book narrated by Ryan, and it's freaking fantastic. So. many. gems.