excellence, actually

Jim Ryun couldn't make his junior high basketball team, track team, or even his church baseball team. Two years later, he was the first high schooler to run a sub-four-minute mile. He'd go on to run a world record mile in 3:51, and compete in three Olympics. Now 79, he shares with us some of the best stories and wisdom: the time he ran a workout of four sets of 10x400 (doesn't recommend it), how he trained his mental discipline, how he handled the spotlight and media criticism, the best lessons he took from legendary coach Bob Timmons, why everyone needs "balcony people," and what he learned from being unfairly disqualified from the 1972 Olympics. It's a masterclass in excellence—actually.
- Get a free LMNT drink mix pack with any purchase: drinkLMNT.com/Clay
- To learn more about Jim Ryun's running camps, visit ryunrunning.com
- Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter
- Join The Growth Equation Academy
- If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!
iTunes and Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Android
PocketCasts

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We've all got those days: you can't seem to get started, your motivation is low, or something comes up and throws you off track. It happens to all of us! It only becomes a problem when a bad start to the day becomes a bad day, and then a bad couple of days, and then a bad week, and then a bad month... on and on. High-performers who have sustained success over many years are elite at getting something out of days when they're not at their best. Today is all about building your capacity to do the same. Because if you can squeeze a small win out of a day that might otherwise be a zero, those little victories add up into something big over time.
- Get a free LMNT drink mix pack with any purchase: drinkLMNT.com/Clay
- Click here for an AI-generated transcript (please excuse errors in grammar or spelling)
- Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter
- Join The Growth Equation Academy
- If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!
iTunes and Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Android
PocketCasts

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're all going to experience pain in some form or another. Unfortunately, our long accepted model for what pain is — and how to treat it — has been wrong. Today, we're breaking down the biopsychosocial model of pain, which presented a recent change in how researchers, doctors, psychologists, and performers think about why we feel what we feel. We discuss an important distinction between hurt and harm from pain psychologist Rachel Zoffness, discuss why two people with identical injuries can have very different experiences of pain, present a taxonomy of three different types of discomfort, and give you a practical toolkit for dealing with your own pain (including a balloon metaphor that might change how you think about recovery).
Get a free LMNT drink mix pack with any purchase: drinkLMNT.com/Clay
Click here for an AI-generated transcript (please excuse errors in grammar or spelling)
- Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter
- Join The Growth Equation Academy
- If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!
iTunes and Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Android
PocketCasts

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1960, A publisher at Random House bet a writer $50 that he couldn't produce a children's book using just 50 distinct words. That writer was Dr. Seuss, and the resulting book was Green Eggs and Ham, which has gone on to sell more than 200 million copies. Sometimes, limits aren't a bad thing. In fact, they often lead to unexpected breakthroughs in creativity, productivity, and satisfaction. This is the message at the heart of David Epstein's new book, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better. This is something elite performers know well. They aren't adding more and more or keeping their options open; they're whittling down to what matters most. So we wanted to ask David on to give us the lessons from his book and from his research that can most effectively help us do that too.
Get a free LMNT drink mix pack with any purchase: drinkLMNT.com/Clay
Click here for an AI-generated transcript (please excuse errors in grammar or spelling)
- Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter
- Join The Growth Equation Academy
- If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!
iTunes and Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Android
PocketCasts
YouTube
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Not just one, but two (!) men finished this past weekend's London Marathon in under two hours, a time that has never before been beat and was once largely thought to be impossible. Today, we unpack how it happened: the advances in running shoe and fueling technology that made this moment possible, the giant elephant on the podium (the ever present question of doping), and what we can all learn about harnessing the power of belief, confidence, and competition to push past our own perceived limits.
Get a free LMNT drink mix pack with any purchase: drinkLMNT.com/Clay
Click here for an AI-generated transcript (please excuse errors in grammar or spelling)
- Subscribe to The Growth Equation newsletter
- Join The Growth Equation Academy
- If you are enjoying "excellence, actually," do us a huge favor: text your favorite episode to three people so they can enjoy it, too. Thanks!
iTunes and Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Android
PocketCasts
YouTube

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.