If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard this sentence time and time again. There’s good reason for that. It’s backed by data.

Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse in Australia, sat at the bedsides of patients in their final weeks. She noticed that the same regrets surfaced again and again, regardless of the person’s background, career, or circumstances. She eventually compiled them into a list.

Ware found that one of the most common regrets expressed was this: “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”

That’s the regret we talk about. The one we warn each other about. The executive who missed every recital. The founder who built the company and lost the family. The person who looked up at 65 and realized the people who mattered most had stopped waiting for him. We know those stories.

But here’s what almost nobody mentions. That was the second most common regret.

Number one was something entirely different.

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Read those side by side.

• Regret #2: I worked too much and missed what mattered.

• Regret #1: I never became who I was capable of becoming.

The first regret is about doing too much of the wrong thing. The second is about never doing enough of the right thing.

I’ve been researching and writing a book about ambitious men who want to be exceptional at work and home. I’ve talked to more than 70 people about how they navigate this tension. In my research, I found both regrets alive and well.

The “worked too hard” regret is easy to spot. One man told me his biggest regret was taking a job in a different country. The damage to his family was too great. He told himself he was doing it for his wife and kids. He later admitted his reasons were more selfish.

The other regret is harder to find. In my interviews, only a handful said, “I wish I had been more ambitious” or “I regret playing small.”

That’s not because the regret doesn’t exist. It’s because this particular regret has no socially acceptable way to surface. A man can say “I wish I had spent more time with my family” and the room fills with empathy. A man who says “I wish I had pursued my career more aggressively” sounds self-centered. So he stays quiet. The regret goes underground. It comes out as restlessness, as judgment of peers who took bigger swings, and as a vague discontent that something was left on the table.

Additional research confirms this. Psychologists at Cornell found that when people were asked to name their single biggest regret in life, 76% pointed to a failure to fulfill their ideal self. The person they wanted to become but didn’t. The study concluded, “People are haunted more by regrets about failing to fulfill their hopes, goals and aspirations than by regrets about failing to fulfill their duties, obligations and responsibilities.”

Daniel Pink found the same pattern across tens of thousands of people in more than 100 countries. Regrets of inaction outnumber regrets of action. We are most likely to regret not doing something than doing it and realizing it wasn’t worth the shot. In Pink’s words:

Here’s what I’ve learned as I’ve researched my book. You are vulnerable to both regrets simultaneously. You can work so hard that you miss your family. And you can play so small that you miss your potential. Most advice only warns you about the first one. But it’s the second one that leads to the biggest regret.

The goal isn’t to pick which regret you’d rather live with. It’s to pursue a life where neither one defines your ending. This is what I’m tackling in my book. I continue to research and write, and I’m excited to share more insights along the way.

I invite you to consider this question. Which regret are you closer to right now: doing too much of the wrong thing, or too little of the right thing?

What I’m Learning

• I stumbled on this post about relationships and thought it was worth sharing in its entirety:

  • Every marriage problem has been faced before by people for all time, and they’ve gotten through it.

    • Except for one problem: social media. Inoculating yourself against its pernicious influences is crucial to protect your love.

  • Like a whispering demon, social media will hiss in your ear that you are perfect, but any flaw in the other person is impermissible. That you “deserve better” when at your lowest point. It’ll reward you for airing dirty laundry and for showing how you’re “choosing yourself now”. These are not benevolent messages.

    • To love someone is not just to love them when it’s easy, convenient, or obvious.

    • It’s “for better or for worse”. Not “so long as it feels nice”.

  • Social media is a constant stream of negative propaganda, and if you don’t have the personality constitution and critical thinking to resist that, it’s better to protect your family and stay far away from it.

• I rewatched Moneyball on a plane last weekend and decided to reread the book by Michael Lewis.

  • Moneyball tells the story of Billy Beane and the 2002 Oakland A’s, a low-budget team that couldn’t compete financially with big-market clubs. Beane ignores traditional scouting wisdom about what a good player looks like and instead targets players the market undervalued.

    • The core message is that conventional judgment often mistakes what is impressive or familiar for what is effective, and that rigorous evidence can beat tradition and intuition.

    • Beane’s success came from finding value where others weren’t looking and having conviction to do what he thought was right even when people said he was crazy.

  • The same lesson applies beyond baseball, whether you’re deciding where to work, who to hire, or other critical career decisions.

    • The A’s budget forced Beane to think differently. That’s what constraints do. They make you question the expensive assumptions everyone else can afford to keep.

  • The book and movie are exceptional. Highly recommend both.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful for air conditioning. It’s been a consistently hot summer here, and there’s no end in sight to 100-degree days. The weather will cool eventually. Until then, I’m grateful for A/C.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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Fair question. Early in my career, I found his life story fascinating and read two of his biographies. What stuck with me wasn’t the politics, but how far he’d come from where he started.

I was talking with a client last week. His company was acquired, and he’s now part of a much larger organization. New leaders, new politics, and new acronyms. He’s good at the work, but in this new world, that’s not enough. At his old company, everyone knew him. At this one, he has to build that from scratch. Relationships have gone from a nice-to-have to a non-negotiable.

That conversation is why I’ve been thinking about Clinton.

We like to explain success by pointing to what someone started with. The connections. The pedigree. The doors that were opened by their parents or their rich uncle. For many, networks are inherited rather than built. But Clinton had none of those advantages.

His father died in a car accident three months before he was born. He grew up in Arkansas with a stepfather who was an abusive alcoholic, in a house where things were less than ideal. His mother worked as a nurse and left him with his grandparents while she trained. His younger brother would later be convicted on cocaine charges. Clinton wasn’t born into a network. He built one, deliberately, from nothing.

Here’s how.

Step 1: Build the System

Starting in college, Clinton kept a notebook. Every night, he wrote down the people he’d met that day. A fellow student once walked into Clinton’s dorm room around 11:00 PM and found him furiously typing on index cards. When asked what he was doing, Clinton replied that he was cataloging every person he had met that day, where he met them, and what they talked about.

The student laughed and asked, “Why are you doing that?”

Clinton looked up and said, “Because I intend to run for Governor of Arkansas, and I want to make sure I never forget a friend.”

Clinton was relentless with post-interaction touchpoints. He wrote dozens of handwritten letters, birthday cards, and short follow-up notes every week to people he had met. He rarely asked for anything. Instead, he would send a clipping of an article with a note saying, “Saw this and thought of our conversation in Little Rock,” or simply a congratulations on a family milestone.

By 1980, a full 12 years before running for president, Clinton had cataloged over 10,000 personal contacts on index cards.

Step 2: Be Sincere

If his index cards were the engine, his emotional intelligence was the fuel. The phrase most commonly used by people who’ve met Clinton is that he made them feel like “the only person in the room.”

My aunt met Clinton once, several decades ago. She still talks about it. She said he was the most charming person she’d ever met, and that he listened to her like he had nowhere else in the world to be.

That’s the part you can’t fake with a notebook. When Clinton talked to you, he actually looked at you. He asked about your life instead of talking about his. He listened with his whole body and reached out afterward when he needed nothing at all. His index cards told him who you were. His attention showed you that you mattered.

I think that’s the real lesson, and it’s easy to get half of it. Plenty of people are warm in the moment and forget you by morning. Plenty of others keep meticulous records and make you feel like a line item. Clinton did both. The system without sincerity looks like manipulation. The sincerity without the system fades when life gets busy. You need the discipline to keep track and the genuineness to mean it.

Underneath both is something simpler. As Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” I’ve found this to be true. Having a system and being sincere lets you help people at scale, and ultimately benefits you in the process.

Build It Before You Need It

Which brings me back to my client, and maybe to you. When the work stops being enough, when you land in a bigger room where nobody knows you yet, the instinct is to work harder at the work. Sometimes the answer is to do the other thing. To pay attention. To write it down. To reach out before you need something.

Now, there’s a line between building relationships and using people, and I think it really comes down to intent. You can keep a notebook full of names and still care about every one of them.

Networking gets a bad name because we picture the transaction. Clinton reminds me it can be a practice instead.

System + Sincerity. That’s the formula.

What’s one thing you can do today to build stronger relationships?

What I’m Learning

• I’ve been heads down working on my next book. I finished a draft of the Introduction and the first six chapters. I sent it to several people for initial feedback. It’s already much better because of them. We all need people who tell us the truth.

  • Also, everything about this book has taken longer than I want it to. I guess that’s the case with most things that are important.

• I finished reading A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer. The book is part memoir, part meditation on curiosity from the man who produced Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, 8 Mile, and 24.

  • Its central idea is that curiosity, backed by a readiness to pay attention and then act, is what fueled his career and can improve anyone’s life. Grazer shares his “curiosity conversations,” where he sits down with renowned individuals to learn about their lives.

  • I really enjoyed his stories and was able to look past a “look how cool I am for rubbing shoulders with famous people” vibe.

  • Reading this book was an important reminder to be more curious and ask better questions.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful for those moments of flow while working. The hours pass, and I don’t notice. My sole focus is whatever’s in front of me. I’ve had a few of them over the last month, mostly while writing. I love the energy and the calm that come with it. I’m grateful for flow.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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The announcement came minutes before the start of the race. My wetsuit was already on. I was confident. Focused. Locked in.

But a new range of emotions surged through me. Anger. Confusion. Disappointment. Disbelief.

I had signed up for the Boise Ironman 70.3, a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run. That was the deal. And my strength is swimming. So when they cut it, Ironman didn’t just shorten the race. They took away the one thing I was counting on.

Then it got worse. With no swim, they used a time trial start, sending athletes off in order of bib number. Mine was near the end. So I’d be starting late, in the full heat of a 102-degree day, on a course already clogged with slower riders I’d have to dodge and pass for miles. Unbelievable.

I had signed up for one race and been handed a harder one. The thought flashed through my mind: I should just go home.

There were more than two hours between the announcement and my actual start. Two friends who were supposed to race with me had pulled out, so I’d driven 10 hours to Boise alone. Now I was standing in the heat, by myself, watching the race I’d trained for get rearranged, with nothing to do but stew.

Going home was never a real option. The day still deserved my full effort. I didn’t drive all this way and do all this training just to mail it in. So I waited for my number and got ready.

Eventually, my race started. The bike was more frustrating than I expected. Packs of riders made it hard to pass, and I spent miles working around them. I pushed hard the whole way, fighting the heat by dumping water bottles over my head at every aid station.

I transitioned to the run. It was almost 90 degrees, and I went out at a pace I wasn’t sure I could hold. Mile after mile, it got hotter and harder, but my body held up. I maintained my pace and crossed the finish line with a personal best half-marathon. I’d given it my all, but still felt dissatisfied.

The Hard Things We Don’t Choose

Here’s what I got wrong about doing hard things.

I’m good at doing hard things I want to do. I’m good at doing hard things I can anticipate. I train for them. I prepare for them. I know exactly how much effort they’ll ask of me, and I’m ready to give it.

I’m much worse at hard things that show up unannounced and feel unfair. The ones I don’t sign up for. And those hard things come for everyone, whether you’re ready or not.

Andrew Huberman put it this way:

“The reason to deliberately do hard things is so that when non-self-elected challenges arrive (and they will), you can tell yourself: ‘I don’t know how this is all going to turn out, but I am certain I can do hard things.’”

That phrase stuck with me. Non-self-elected. Because standing there in my wetsuit, I realized that almost every hard thing I’d chosen had been self-elected. I picked the race. I picked the distance. I picked the suffering, on my terms, on my calendar. And I’d quietly come to believe that made me resilient.

You know the Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Standing by that reservoir, my prayer was something closer to: God, give me hard things, but only in the way I want them. Give me trials, but at this exact time, in this exact form, playing to my exact strengths.

That may be better than no hard things at all, but it’s a different kind of fragility. It looks like strength until the hard thing you face isn’t the one you ordered. Then it cracks.

Three days later, I’m still dissatisfied with the Boise race. I still can’t believe Ironman cancelled the swim. I trained months for something I never got to do. I gave that day everything I had and still raced a duathlon instead of a triathlon. Part of me keeps waiting to feel resolved about it.

But maybe that’s the point. The discomfort I can’t shake is the exact thing I signed up for. I just wanted it to come in a nicer package.

What I’m Learning

Punting on this section as I’m scrambling to finish this before a family hike. See you in two weeks!

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful for my friend Chase Weed. Chase unexpectedly showed up at the race to cheer me on. Seeing him with a quarter mile left gave me the boost I needed. It really meant a lot.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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I loved the question. Not because I had a perfect answer, but because I had to think about which moments truly altered the direction of my life versus the ones that were simply hard or memorable.

A few came to mind quickly. One was serving a church mission in Oklahoma, where I spent two years in people’s homes, witnessing every version of how life can go, and came home knowing what I wanted mine to look like.

Marrying Whitney was another. She’s been a steady partner through every step. Without her, everything else on this list either wouldn’t have happened or would have felt empty.

Leaving LinkedIn for DoorDash also stands out. I left a comfortable job to take a more senior role at a scrappy startup. I faced the steepest learning curve of my career and discovered I was capable of more than I’d given myself credit for.

Those three decisions were significant. But the inflection point I keep coming back to is one that didn’t look like much at the time.

New York City

I was a sophomore at BYU when I stumbled into an Investment Banking Club event one evening. I didn’t know much about the career, but I was intrigued. A few weeks later, a professor announced he was organizing a trip to New York at the end of the semester. Something told me to go.

It was inconvenient. The trip would cost $500. For a college student, that was real money. And I didn’t even know if it would be worth it. On paper, it didn’t make much sense. I was a sophomore with no network, no experience, and no clear reason to think a few days in New York would change anything. Part of me worried I might come home feeling like I’d wasted my time and my savings.

I went anyway.

That trip completely opened my eyes to what was professionally possible. I met people I still stay in touch with today. One person in particular, a guy named Colin who worked at Lehman Brothers, took me seriously in a way that surprised me. He expressed genuine confidence that I could do this. Others reviewed my resume and did mock interviews with me. The level of support I received from people who had no obligation to help is something I’ll never forget.

I came home with something I can only describe as a breath of confidence. I didn’t have a mapped-out career plan. But I had a direction. I had enough clarity to take the next step. That trip set off a chain reaction. It led to an internship at a small bank, which led to an internship at Lehman Brothers, which opened doors I couldn’t have anticipated. It even played a role in Whitney and me getting together after she previously told me things would “never ever work out between us” (a story for another day).

I just don’t think any of that happens if I don’t go on that trip.

Three Takeaways

When I look across these moments, three things stand out.

1. The biggest inflection points don’t always announce themselves.

I knew my mission and marriage would be life-changing. The NYC trip was different. I genuinely didn’t know if it would be worth the money. It could have been forgettable. The fact that it turned out to be one of the most consequential decisions of my career is part of what makes it stick.

2. You don’t need the whole plan. You need enough clarity to take the next step.

I didn’t come home from New York with a ten-year plan. I came home knowing which direction to walk. That was enough. The biggest shifts in life don’t always come from grand revelations. They come from seeing just enough of the path to start walking.

3. You don’t get through pivotal moments by yourself.

Friends and family encouraged me through the hardest months of my mission. A professor pointed me toward a trip I almost skipped. Someone I met in New York made a career on Wall Street feel possible. My manager at DoorDash gave me simple advice that saved me from burning out. My wife, at every stage, was willing to carry more when the work demanded it.

As I look to the future, I can’t help but wonder: what opportunities will I miss by avoiding discomfort or being unwilling to take a small step into the unknown? The NYC trip cost me $500 and a few days. Yet it changed the trajectory of my life. How many moments like that are ahead of us, waiting on the other side of a hunch we’re tempted to ignore?

I invite you to answer the same question my friend asked me:

Looking back on your life and career so far, what pivotal decisions, transitions, or experiences most changed the trajectory of your life?

I’d love to hear your response.

What I’m Learning

• I recently finished Jonathan Eig’s Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. Gehrig is now a hero of mine. In an era of big personalities and egos, he just showed up and played the game the right way. He set a record by playing in 2,130 consecutive games. He didn’t chase attention. He let his consistency speak for itself.

  • The author does a remarkable job telling the full arc of Gehrig’s life, from his childhood in New York, to his record-breaking career, to his diagnosis with ALS and everything that followed. Candidly, I got emotional near the end. It’s a heartbreaking story about a man who gave everything he had to the game and the people around him.

  • If you love baseball, history, or stories about people who embody quiet greatness, this one is worth your time.

• Earlier this year, I wrote a two-part essay titled, I Finally Changed My System in 2025—Here’s What That Unlocked.

  • In it, I documented my path to achieving big goals I’d set at the beginning of 2025. These included finishing a Half Ironman under 5 hours and beating my rival, Jeff.

  • I recently joined Nathan Northcott on the Racing Time Podcast to discuss triathlon and the lessons learned from that year.

    • Here’s a short video clip that highlights my thoughts on beating Jeff and the question I continually ask myself.

    • Here’s the full podcast conversation.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. Last week, we joined my parents and siblings in Newport Beach, CA. I loved being with family, celebrating our country’s 250th, going to the beach, and disconnecting from work. I think this is the 10th year we’ve spent the week of July 4 there. I’m grateful for my country and my family.

If there's anything I can do to help you, please don't hesitate to reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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Bill leaned fully into this identity. He gave commencement speeches on morality. He shared insights on what it means to be a present, intentional parent. He was the archetype of a man who had successfully balanced an elite career with an exemplary home life.

But the reality inside his actual home ran on a completely different script. Behind closed doors, his real children experienced a father who was cold, controlling, and deeply detached. For decades, these two parallel realities coexisted.

It wasn’t until years later that the performance finally came to an end. When the mask came off, the world didn’t just lose a beloved sitcom character. We realized that America’s Dad, Bill Cosby, had left behind a legacy that was the exact opposite of the one he had spent a lifetime selling.

Sadly, we see this pattern repeated. Men who present themselves as the ideal father and husband but act completely differently behind the scenes. The loudest voices on fatherhood are not always the most credible ones.

My Research for “Do Both”

For the past several months, I’ve been writing a book about ambitious men who want to be great at work and great at home. As part of my research, I’ve interviewed more than 30 CEOs and execs about how they navigate this tension.

Here’s the most surprising thing I’ve found.

Every single one of them opened with some version of the same disclaimer: “I’m not sure I’m the right person to talk to about this.”

Every one of them, without exception. The most thoughtful, intentional, and successful fathers and leaders I spoke with all started by hedging. They worried they weren’t doing it well enough to be worth interviewing. They pointed to specific failures before sharing any wins. They deflected praise before I’d even offered it.

Think about what this means. The men who are most thoughtful about being great fathers are the ones who feel most uncertain about whether they’re pulling it off. Meanwhile, the men who project the most confidence about their parenting (the Bill Cosbys of the world) are often the ones hiding the biggest gap between performance and reality.

The Domestic Dunning-Kruger

There’s actually a scientific explanation for why the best dads feel the worst about it. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect. Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger found that people with limited competence tend to overestimate their ability, while people with genuine competence tend to underestimate theirs.

You know what this looks like. Counting the ball games and bedtimes you missed. Comparing yourself to the dad who seems to have it figured out. Sitting on the floor with your kids and realizing your mind never left the office.

Applied to fatherhood, the Dunning- Kruger effect creates a painful irony. The dad who never thinks about whether he’s doing a good job probably isn’t. The dad who lies awake wondering whether he’s sufficiently present, patient, or intentional is almost certainly doing better than he feels.

The self-doubt isn’t a sign that you’re failing. It’s a sign that you care enough to notice the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

The narrative around modern fatherhood is relentlessly negative. But the data tells a different story. Today’s fathers are now spending about as much time with their kids as baby boomer moms once did. Men’s child care time has quadrupled in the past few generations. Today’s fathers are showing up in ways their own fathers never did, and most of them still feel like they’re coming up short.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me earlier. If you’re a man who is genuinely trying to be great at work and great at home, you’re almost certainly doing better than you think. The fact that you worry about it is the clearest evidence that you’re in the fight.

The men who should be worried are the ones who aren’t.

What I’m Learning

• Eric Barker has long been a favorite writer of mine, and his post on self-sabotage was excellent: The Uncomfortable Reason You Keep Self-Sabotaging: 6 Secrets From Philosophy’s Most Honest Madman

  • Self-sabotage is a fascinating topic, and I often observe it in the clients I coach. Here are two quotes from Barker:

    • “We like to tell ourselves that we’re innocent victims of our circumstances, and we sometimes are. But often there’s a greasy emotional satisfaction in our own misery.”

    • “Some people enjoy being overworked because it makes them feel important. Others enjoy being wounded because they get to be The Noble Victim. We have conflicting desires and we’re not willing to acknowledge the darker ones, so we call the problem ‘self-sabotage.’”

  • Seriously, do yourself a favor and just read the article.

• Are actual books better for you than audiobooks? I’ve long asked myself this question. Of the 30 or so books I read a year, about 60% are audio. Would I be better off reading them?

  • This neuroscience study found that reading and listening to the same content produce virtually identical brain activity. The “which format is best” debate turns out to be a distraction.

  • What actually drives retention isn’t the medium. It doesn’t matter whether you read or listen. What matters is whether you’re engaged while consuming and whether you apply what you’ve just learned.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. This week, I’m grateful to see my kids overcome setbacks.

Last Saturday, my 13-year-old son’s team reached the championship game of a baseball tournament. They led 3-1 with two innings left when our pitcher walked the first two batters. My son was brought in to relieve him. The next batter crushed a three-run homer. The other team’s fans erupted as they took the lead. Our fans groaned as we were now down a run.

I felt terrible for my boy. I know it stung, but he stayed composed and got three outs with no further damage. Our team came up next and tied the game. My son went back out to pitch the final inning. If the other team scored, it was over. He shut them down, and we went on to win in extra innings.

Two years ago, giving up a home run in that situation would have wrecked him. We’ve worked on resilience. We’ve worked on bouncing back when things don’t go our way. Focus on the next pitch. Focus on the next play. That’s the moment all the work was for, and I’m grateful I got to be there for it.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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A majority of respondents said something similar about work-life balance. Without coordination, they rejected the entire premise.

“Balance is not balance. There are times where I’m all in on my family, and there are times where I’m all in on work, and there’s nothing balanced about it.”

“Work-life balance is a lie that’s been sold by the media.”

“I don’t believe in a work life and a home life. I believe it’s all life.”

“Work-life balance is a false dichotomy in and of itself, and it’s actually life that we’re optimizing for, of which work and life need to integrate.”

“Work-life balance is a dumb debate from first principles. It’s like saying, ‘how do I balance food and water?’ You need both.”

“I long ago abandoned the idea of being able to structure my life in a very rigid way where I balance work on one side and family on the other.”

“Good lives are lived in tension... they’re going to feel like they tug against each other. And I think the good life is recognizing that tension is okay.”

What’s striking isn’t just that they agreed. It’s how quickly they got there. The word balance landed wrong for all of them. Almost as an insult to the complexity of what they were actually trying to do.

Here’s the problem with work-life balance, and it runs deeper than semantics.

Brooks is right. The goal isn’t to separate these worlds with strict boundaries, but to recognize how they naturally feed into each other. There isn’t a “work self” and a “home self” negotiating a peace treaty at the end of every day. When done well, these two parts of your life are complementary.

I’ve seen this in the leaders I coach. One client told me that coaching his son’s basketball team makes him more fired up at work. Another told me that closing a big deal makes him a more confident and loving father.

When done well, your work life energizes your home life, and your time spent with your family pushes you to higher performance in your career.

Work fuels home. Home fuels work.

This isn’t something you create overnight. “Doing both” requires hard work. But I’m more confident than ever that it’s possible. And I’m excited to share more insights as I continue writing the book.

But for now, stop balancing work against your life. Start building a life your work belongs to.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. How do you win at work and at home? Email me or take a few minutes to complete this survey. Thanks for your help.

What I’m Learning

• This post from Becky Thomas hit hard and reminded me to focus on what’s right in front of me rather than worrying about things I can’t control.

  • “Somewhere along the way, we’ve convinced ourselves that having strong opinions about global problems is more important than handling the responsibilities sitting right in front of us.

  • It’s easier to argue about what politicians should do than to go for a walk.

  • It’s easier to repost a cause than to have a hard conversation with your spouse.

  • It’s easier to rage about society than to clean out the garage, make a budget, meal prep, call a friend, or volunteer in your own community.

  • Because if your own house is neglected, your performative ‘caring’ isn’t making the world better. It’s just giving you a distraction from the work that’s yours to do.

  • Start with your body. Start with your family. Start with your children. Start with your own house.”

• I recently finished The Power of Regret and really enjoyed it. In it, author Daniel Pink teaches that the whole “no regrets” mindset is actually a huge mistake.

  • Instead of running from our past missteps, he explains how we can use them as fuel for growth by breaking regret down into four basic types: foundation, boldness, moral, and connection.

  • Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

    • “The purpose of regret isn’t to make us feel bad. It’s to make us think better. If we have no regrets, we are essentially refusing to learn.”

    • “Comfort is a terrible metric for a good life. The moments that teach us the most are almost always wrapped in the sharp, uncomfortable sting of our own mistakes.”

    • “We overestimate the risk of boldness and underestimate the risk of playing it safe. Safety has a compounding cost that we rarely calculate until it’s too late.”

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful I got to see Les Miserables at Tuacahn. I went with my oldest, and we found great seats at the last minute. If you’ve ever been to that red rock amphitheater, you know how awesome it is. But the weather added its own special effects.

The skies opened up. At one point, it rained hard enough that I worried they might pause the show. Instead, the cast just kept rolling, and hearing “One Day More” belted out in a literal downpour was a highlight.

The rain paused during intermission. But right as Marius started singing to a dying Éponine, the rain started up again—perfectly hitting the lyric, “A little drop of rain can hardly hurt you now.” It couldn’t have been scripted any better.

I’m grateful for that night and the memory I shared with my oldest.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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“Have we saved enough money? I can still go back to college. I don’t want you to go back to work. Can we live off what we have?”

Halladay glanced out the window of their second-floor apartment. “I’d jump,” he told himself. “But with my luck, I’d probably just break my leg and still have to go to the field tomorrow.”

So much had changed in the last few years. Halladay, nicknamed Doc, was one of the most promising pitchers in Major League Baseball. The Toronto Blue Jays had drafted him 17th overall. He immediately showed why he’d been drafted so high. In his second big league start, he came within one out of pitching a no-hitter.

Expectations were loftier the next year, but he couldn’t live up to the hype. He struggled. No, he didn’t just struggle. He was awful. Halladay finished the 2000 season with an earned run average (ERA) of 10.64. It was the highest ERA ever for a pitcher who threw over 50 innings. Said differently, Halladay had just pitched the worst season in the history of Major League Baseball.

In an effort to help him improve, the Blue Jays sent him back to the minors. But they didn’t send him down one level to Triple-A like they usually do. Instead, they sent him all the way to Single-A, three levels below the majors. This was an unprecedented move that rocked Halladay’s confidence.

Now, sitting with his wife in their small, second-story apartment, Halladay had hit rock bottom. He didn’t know how to proceed. Halladay was desperate.

The Man Who Changed His Life

And that’s when Mel Queen stepped in. Queen was the former pitching coach for the Blue Jays and was still on the team’s payroll. He had a unique role, serving as a roving pitching instructor and special assignment scout. He was creative and curious. Bringing in someone like Queen to help a struggling pitcher wasn’t standard protocol. It was a Hail Mary.

Queen didn’t waste time on small talk. He immediately jumped in. “You’re wasting talent, Doc.” Queen proceeded to break Halladay down mentally and emotionally. He called Halladay naive. He called him stupid. He called him every name in the book.

Halladay took it all in stride. He didn’t say a word. Once a promising star, Halladay’s confidence had been shattered. He had become humble and teachable. He was willing to try anything. Queen dug in on Halladay’s pitching motion and diagnosed the problem—his release point was too high. Halladay’s fastball had no movement, which is why so many hitters had been crushing him.

Queen came back with a simple suggestion: “Throw sidearm, Doc.”

Throw sidearm? You’ve got to be kidding me? But Halladay tried it anyway. The change worked. His pitches now had movement. Over the next 10 days, Halladay practiced his new throwing motion. The Blue Jays brought him up one level to Double-A, and he made an immediate impact in his debut.

After a few weeks in Double-A, Halladay moved up to Triple-A. In less than three months after his first meeting with Queen, the Blue Jays brought Halladay back to the big leagues. Halladay never pitched in the minors again. He became the star many predicted he would become.

In his first full year back in the majors, Halladay had the best season of any pitcher in the National League. He’d go on to make eight all-star teams and win two Cy Youngs, the award given to the best pitcher each year. He threw a no-hitter in the playoffs, a feat that had only been done once before. In 2019, Halladay was inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

The Power of Feedback

It’s wild that something so small unlocked Halladay’s potential. Mel Queen gave him direct feedback on his throwing motion. Halladay was humble enough to embrace the feedback. He lowered his release point, which gave the ball greater movement. That simple change propelled him from struggling minor leaguer to all-time great. The lesson is clear—direct feedback given at the right time can be life-changing.

Often, there’s a gap between our perceived reality and the reality others see. That’s why we all need feedback. And if we’re not humble enough to hear and embrace the feedback, our personal growth will be halted. We’ll never become the best version of ourselves.

Most of us have more talent than we realize. What we’re missing is the humility to unlock it. The most dangerous place to be is succeeding just enough that the hard feedback stops coming, and you never know what you’re leaving on the table. This is how good performers stay good and never become great.

Don’t let ego be your undoing. Seek honest feedback. Here are three questions that can help:

• What’s one area of your life where your self-perception might not match reality?

• Who in your life will tell you the truth about what’s holding you back?

• What would you do differently if you actually believed their answer?

What I’m Learning

• My daughter is on her high school drill team. My son plays competitive baseball and basketball. We spend a lot of time at practices, games, and performances. I do this intentionally. Not because I think they’re going to be elite, but because there are important life lessons that are hard to learn elsewhere:

  • How to lose, then show up the next day.

  • How to bounce back after getting cut from a team you thought you’d make.

  • How to be ready for a 6 am practice nobody’s waking you up for.

  • How to compete and still stay friends.

  • How to set a goal that takes years.

  • 👉 These aren’t just sports skills. They’re leadership skills. Every time I drop my kids off at practice, I’m reminded why we show up. I can’t think of a better classroom.

• I absolutely love this two-minute clip of NBA star Victor Wembanyama. His Spurs just pulled off the unexpected by eliminating the Thunder, one of the most dominant teams in the league. 22-year-old Wembanyama is in tears, clinging to his teammates. The hard work, the sacrifice, the effort—it’s all written on his face. This is what it looks like when it pays off.

  • This reminds me of what Brad Stulberg said in The Way of Excellence: “You are not going to be the best anything—including the best version of yourself—with an attitude of nonchalance. Try hard and give a damn. Caring is cool.”

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. Speaking of people who care, I’m grateful for Miss Jessie. She runs a local musical theater group for kids. In the fall, my ten-year-old signed up for her first play—The Wizard of Oz—and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Miss Jessie manages three groups of 20+ kids, and it’s a little chaotic, but she made a spot in the play for each one. Play practice was a weekly highlight for my daughter. Miss Jessie made every child feel seen and included.

Over the past year, I’ve watched my daughter’s confidence grow as she’s stepped outside her comfort zone. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because Miss Jessie created an environment where it was safe to try. The impact she’s left on my child and others is hard to measure. I’m grateful for Miss Jessie.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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After a few years of college, I was starting to catch a glimpse of what my life could be like, at least what I wanted it to be like. Things were going my way. I was nine weeks into my internship at Lehman Brothers. The girl of my dreams, who once told me things would “never, ever work out between us,” had expressed renewed interest.

In one week, the internship would come to an end. In one week, I’d find out if I had a full-time offer. In one week, I’d be returning to Utah. In one week, I’d know if there was a future with this girl.

To unwind, Mike and I walked a few blocks from our Upper West Side apartment to Blockbuster Video. We settled on a DVD: The Family Man.

The movie tells the story of Jack Campbell, a high-powered Wall Street exec living a glamorous bachelor life. He has the Ferrari, the penthouse, and the expensive suits.

But on Christmas Eve, a strange encounter thrusts Jack into an alternate reality. He sees a glimpse of the life he would have lived had he stayed with his college sweetheart rather than pursuing his dream internship in London more than a decade earlier.

In this glimpse, he wakes up in suburban New Jersey, married with kids, working as a tire salesman.

Jack is initially horrified. His day is a chaotic whirlwind of carpools, playdates, and modest dreams. His work is mind-numbing. This wasn’t the life he wanted. But as the movie progresses, his heart changes. He discovers a depth of love and meaning he never found on Wall Street.

And then, suddenly, it’s over. He’s pulled back to reality. The suits, the Ferrari, the corner office. All of it waiting for him. None of it enough. His real life now feels empty. The movie closes with him scrambling to find Kate, hoping to create the family he refused years before.

The False Choice

As the credits rolled, I sat in silence. Most people watch The Family Man and think: How sweet. He learned a timeless lesson. Love is more important than money. Family is more important than career.

But a different, more unsettling thought took hold. The movie presented a beautiful sentiment while selling a message I found disconcerting. It frames Jack’s life as a rigid, binary choice:

• In one world, he has a great career, but an empty home.

• In the other, he has love and connection, but a soul-sucking job.

The message was clear. You cannot have both.

If you want to be great at work, your home life will be a disaster.

If you want to be great at home, you have to settle for a mediocre career.

The entire film hinges on that tradeoff, and it presents it as an immovable fact of life. This troubled me.

I thought, Really? Jack found his love, but still spends the majority of his waking hours at a job he hates. That’s terrible. I didn’t want to live alone in the penthouse. But I also didn’t want the tire shop. I wanted a great job and family.

I looked at my own life. 23 years old. One year left of college. I didn’t exactly know what my future would hold, but I was ambitious. I sought an exciting and meaningful career. But I also wanted what Jack had glimpsed—the loving wife, the children, the deep roots. The movie was telling me to pick one.

I put the DVD back in its case and stood there for a moment. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the movie offered was a false choice. I didn’t know if having both was actually possible. I wasn’t sure anyone had figured it out. But something about accepting the choice the movie offered—career or family, success or love—felt like giving up before I’d even started.

How do I Do Both?

Now, almost 20 years later, I still think about the question I asked in that Manhattan apartment. How do you build an exceptional career and family? It’s a topic many of my clients grapple with. I believe it’s one of the most important questions we can answer. And I just started a project where I’ll be deep-diving into this.

If this topic interests you, please reply to this email, and I’ll let you know how you can help.

What I’m Learning

• AI is making lazy people lazier and high-agency people more effective, according to David Epstein and this MIT study.

  • Researchers ran a simple experiment. Students wrote timed essays using only their brains, their brains plus Google, or their brains plus ChatGPT.

  • The ChatGPT group didn’t just do worse. They couldn’t remember a single accurate quote from what they had just written. Easy effort led to poor thinking.

  • But here’s the twist. When students started with their own brains first and ChatGPT second, their essays improved, and they remembered what they had written.

  • A good rule of thumb we probably already knew: do the hard thinking first, then use AI for support.

• Molly Graham’s new WorkLife podcast featured an episode with Adam Grant. Grant runs every big project through four filters:

  • 1) Is it interesting to me? 2) Does it matter to the world? 3) Do I have something unique to contribute? 3) Is it timely AND timeless?

    • These are great questions to answer before determining where to spend your time and energy. Answering them led me to finally go all in on the Do Both project I mentioned earlier.

• Luke Falk shares a story Coach Mike Leach would tell every training camp when they were at Washington State University.

  • It’s the story of two kids—the rich kid and the poor kid. Both had a choice. They could take ownership and use what you have as fuel.

    Or they can have a victim mindset, look for excuses, and blame their circumstances.

  • The line that stuck with me: Greatness does not come from starting with more or less. It comes from which person inside of you that you choose to feed.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. We celebrated my dad’s 70th birthday over the weekend. All my siblings were able to be there. We played in a pickleball tournament and ate good food. My older brother made a 15-minute video sharing highlights of his life and family memories over the years. It was a special weekend that reminded me how grateful I am for family.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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He sold the company at 43. And by 44, he couldn’t get out of bed. He was planning to end his life.

His story is sad and surprising. How could someone who’s done so much good and built something so important feel so empty? But it happens more often than you’d think.

A leader hits the milestone they’ve been chasing for years—the big exit, the promotion, the financial target—and instead of fulfillment, they find emptiness. The achievement they thought would change everything changes nothing. In many cases, high achievers just move the goalpost and keep grinding. In Blake’s case, the goalpost disappeared entirely.

Achievement Addiction

Blake recently reflected on what he learned from that experience:

• Tying your worth to what you achieve will ultimately leave you feeling hollow.

• Purpose can become armor that hides the wounds you refuse to face.

• Your body will tell you when something is wrong, long before your mind admits it.

• Asking for help isn’t a weakness.

These are hard-won insights. And I agree with every one of them. But what he did next gives me pause.

Blake’s answer? To simply remind people that they are enough. Wear it. Say it. Believe it. The idea being that once you internalize that message, you can find peace. In fact, he recently launched an apparel company that drives home this message.

Here’s my concern. In my coaching work, I’ve sat across from some of the most accomplished people in business. Leaders who’ve built enduring companies, led thousands, and achieved peak performance. Almost universally, the ones who struggle most aren’t struggling because they forgot to tell themselves they’re enough. They’re struggling because they’ve spent years chasing achievement without ever getting clear on their why.

I’m all for affirmations. I wrote a whole chapter on them. But affirmations are not a strategy. Telling yourself you’re enough, without doing the hard internal work underneath it, is like putting fresh paint on a cracked foundation. It looks fine until it doesn’t.

Billion or Bust

One of my clients, Amir, was a founder who’d built a promising company and was on the path to success. But Amir was miserable. In one of our early sessions, I asked him to define what success would need to look like for him to finally feel like enough. He thought about it for two weeks and came back with his answer: I need to build a billion-dollar company. Nothing less will do.

I told him something he didn’t want to hear. Even if he hit that number, he wouldn’t feel any different. He’d move the goalpost. He always had. The cycle would continue because the problem wasn’t his achievements. The problem was that he had never separated his identity from his outcomes.

After years of coaching leaders, I’ve learned that the antidote to achievement addiction is to get ruthlessly clear on what you actually care about and why. It starts with values. Not fake hyperbole. Not LinkedIn buzzwords. Your actual values. Values are the foundation. Everything else, including your goals, your decisions, and your definition of success, should be built on top of them.

Getting Amir to the place where he felt like he was enough took months of work. It wasn’t a t-shirt or a bracelet. He didn’t find peace by simply affirming his self-worth. He found it by getting clear on his values and building a life around what genuinely mattered to him.

I applaud Blake for what he’s doing. He’s building a business that aligns with his purpose. He’s creating something that matters to him. We’d all be wise to do what he actually does rather than just do what he says we should do.

Saying “I’m enough” is a fine place to start. But it’s not “enough.” If you repeat words without behaving in a way that aligns with those words, eventually they’ll ring hollow. You have to act. Find a problem you can solve or a person you can serve.

Don’t ask yourself whether you’re enough. You are, inherently and unconditionally.

Instead, ask yourself whether the things you’re spending your life on actually reflect what you value most.

What I’m Learning

• Should You Develop Your Leadership Strengths—or Fix Your Weaknesses? The answer? It depends. It’s a conversation I regularly have with clients. This HBR article poses four questions to consider when deciding whether to double down on strengths or shore up weaknesses:

  • What does success require in my role? Identify what’s actually needed to perform well.

  • What are my current capabilities? Map your strengths and weaknesses against role requirements. Then get unfiltered feedback to identify blind spots.

  • What is or can be compensated for? Determine which weaknesses can be managed by delegating to others or hiring new people.

  • Where is my untapped potential? Explore capabilities you’ve yet to discover. Where might you have hidden strengths?

• Dealing with the temporary frustration of not making progress is an integral part of the path towards excellence. This quote comes from an email former US gymnastics coach Chris Sommer sent to Tim Ferriss, urging him to be patient. Here are a few more lines that resonate.

  • A blue collar work ethic married to indomitable will. It is literally that simple. Nothing interferes. Nothing can sway you from your purpose. Once the decision is made, simply refuse to budge. Refuse to compromise.

  • The secret is to show up, do the work, and go home.

  • Throw out a timeline. It will take what it takes.

• Here are several lessons I pulled from Orson Scott Card being told why the Ender’s Game manuscript got rejected.

  • When people reject you or your work, they’re often reacting to an instinct they can’t quite name. Often, they invent a “logical” reason after the fact.

  • The business version: if a customer tells you there’s a problem, believe them. If they tell you what the problem is, don’t believe them..

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. My wife and I recently started a new show. We love it. We both look forward to every new episode that drops. There’s a simple delight in that sense of anticipation. We know how we’re going to end the day. I’m grateful we have a show we both enjoy.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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Garfield’s Unconventional Path

In the summer of 1880, the Republican National Convention in Chicago was deadlocked. The two frontrunners—former President Ulysses S. Grant and Senator James Blaine of Maine—had battled each other to exhaustion across ballot after ballot. Each commanded a passionate base, yet was unable to gather the 379 votes needed for the nomination. The convention grew restless and frustrated. Then, on the 36th ballot, the delegates turned to a man who had done zero campaigning for the nomination.

James A. Garfield arrived in Chicago as a delegate from Ohio, there to support his friend and Treasury Secretary John Sherman. He had given a nominating speech for Sherman so impressive that it drew more applause than Sherman himself. But Garfield had no designs on the nomination. He deflected suggestions of his own candidacy, redirected conversations back to Sherman, and insisted, sincerely, that he was not a candidate.

When his name began appearing on scattered ballots in the later rounds, he actually rose on the convention floor to object. He asked whether a delegate could be nominated against his will. He was told the convention was sovereign. Garfield sat back down.

What followed is one of the stranger and more illuminating moments in American political history. The very qualities Garfield had spent a lifetime developing—his integrity, his eloquence, his ability to earn the genuine admiration of people across factional lines—conspired without his orchestration to make him the only acceptable choice.

He had not sought for position. He had not accumulated political debts by promising things. He had simply spent decades becoming someone worth trusting. And in a room full of exhausted delegates who could agree on almost nothing, they could agree on Garfield.

Garfield’s path to that moment was not an accident, even if the moment itself felt like one. He had grown up in profound poverty on the Ohio frontier. His father died when he was an infant, and his early years were marked by hard physical labor. He worked his way through college as a janitor. He became a teacher, then a college president, then a Civil War general.

Eventually, Garfield moved into politics, yet refused to let ambition dictate his moves. He was uncomfortable with the transactional nature of politics, with the horse-trading and back-room dealing that defined the era. He believed, perhaps naively but sincerely, that a man should earn influence through the quality of his work and the strength of his character.

The 1880 Republican Convention

At the convention, Garfield’s reputation became a political asset. The Sherman delegates trusted him because he had advocated honestly for their man. The anti-Grant forces trusted him because he was not Grant. The Blaine supporters could accept him because he was not their enemy. His long history of straightforwardness meant that every faction could believe he would deal with them fairly. He had built, over years of consistent behavior, a credibility that could not be faked or bought.

But Garfield did not win the nomination on strength of character alone. He had allies who moved on his behalf. These men had watched him over the years and concluded that he was the right man for the moment. It was these advocates, not Garfield himself, who worked the floor in the final hours. They persuaded reluctant delegates, having conversations that Garfield would have found distasteful to have himself.

There’s something in Garfield’s story that cuts against modern assumptions about how power is obtained. We tend to think of ambition as necessarily aggressive—as something that must be displayed, announced, and pursued with visible intensity.

But Garfield’s life suggests a different possibility: that the most durable form of influence is built not through the pursuit of position, but through the accumulation of genuine competence and genuine trust. The convention came to Garfield because the people who knew him best were willing to stake their own credibility on his.

He won the general election that fall, but his presidency lasted only six months before he was assassinated. We’re unable to assess what kind of president he might have been, but his path to the office remains a case study in a particular kind of leadership. A leadership built on the patient development of character, the willingness to advocate honestly for others, and the trust that comes from years of consistent behavior.

So Good They Can’t Ignore You

The lesson Garfield’s story offers is not that ambition is wrong, or that successful people should pretend indifference to outcomes. It is something more specific: that there are moments when the best thing a person can do for their own prospects is to be so genuinely good at what they do, and so reliably trustworthy, that the right people take notice and act on their behalf.

Garfield’s path to the presidency wasn’t the result of ambition or maneuvering. It was the result of decades spent becoming someone others were willing to trust. And that, in the end, was the only campaign that mattered.

What I’m Learning

• On Friday, I spent the day in Walnut Creek, CA, at the annual Collective Wisdom Coaches offsite. An entire day dedicated to introspection and personal development. Two quick takeaways:

  • Community matters. This is my fourth year attending and I love spending time with this group. We’re eight independent coaches who have each other’s backs. They push me to do better and support me through challenges.

  • Take time to sharpen the saw. I spend most of my time focused on growing leaders. But it’s critical to pause, take a step back, and focus on my own growth. I walked away with several new ideas to become a better coach.

  • Change your geography. It’s hard to change your thinking when you’re in the same daily pattern. Changing your geography can provide new perspectives and shift your thinking.

• I really enjoyed reading Walter Isaacson’s book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. It’s a deep dive into a single line from the Declaration of Independence:

  • “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

  • Jefferson drafted it, but Franklin and Adams were heavily involved. Isaacson goes word by word unpacking where each idea came from and why it was so radical at the time.

  • It’s a short read, but it punches well above its weight. A good reminder of what the founders wanted when building the United States.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful I get to see my parents so often. They live just outside of Las Vegas. My dad’s regularly in town for pickleball tournaments. My mom comes up to take the kids shopping on their birthdays. I stayed a night at their house after my recent trip to California. I feel fortunate to have my parents so close.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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At the start of this year, I decided to hold myself to that same standard. I chose ‘Excellence’ as my North Star—the one word that would define decisions I made throughout 2026. I was striving to be a world-class coach, a present husband/father, and a disciplined triathlete. But as time passed, challenges arose.

Today, I want to share why excellence is so important and why it’s worth the sacrifice.

Three Days in Mexico

My family went on a three-day cruise to Mexico over spring break. The kids absolutely loved it. The unlimited food. The pool. The flowrider. The soft serve. There was something for everyone.

One thing I love about cruises is the people watching. You tend to see the same people repeatedly. The frazzled mom constantly annoyed by her family. The kid carrying a stuffed pikachu everywhere. The dad claiming the same pool chair every day with the same tropical drink in hand.

There’s no better place to see how decisions lead to consequences. Overeating. Gambling. Excessive drinking. My daughter told me she saw an old woman three nights in a row at the same slot machine, mindlessly pumping quarters into it.

I showed up to the cruise feeling fatigued, ready for a physical and mental break. I’d been pushing hard in my business and Ironman training. My first race of the season was the Oceanside Half Ironman. It was three weeks away, and I was on the edge of burnout. I’d consistently banked 12-hour training weeks, but I questioned whether it was worth it.

Is all this training really a good use of time? Should I be focusing on other things? Should I pull back at work? Should I find a more chill hobby?

Why You Must Pursue Excellence

The cruise proved to be a needed break. Leaving town and visiting a new geography shifted my perspective. It gave me time to think.

I kept coming back to two quotes.

“Excellence is one of the most authentic and human experiences there is, and it must be earned. The payoff is a deep internal satisfaction, a genuine self-respect based on effort and competence, a sense of aliveness and resonance that you won’t find anywhere else.” —Brad Stulberg

“As far as I can tell, the only thing more difficult than the emotional toil of pursuing true excellence, is the emotional toil of not pursuing true excellence.” —Steven Kotler

Three days later, I got off the ship with clarity. I had renewed energy and focus. I had to keep pushing myself to become a better coach and build a strong business. I knew that, at least for now, I needed to stay committed to my triathlon goals. Striving to be a great husband, father, and Christian were important, but so were these two areas of my life.

Kahlil Gibran once said, “The significance of a man is not in what he attains, but rather what he longs to attain.” Now wasn’t the time to pull back. I had to keep pursuing excellence. There was no alternative.

Oceanside soon arrived, and I had a great race (more on that below). I crossed the finish line having given it my best. I left it all out there. No excuses. 11 days later, I’m focused on the next race. I know where I need to improve. There’s still untapped potential.

Where Will You Be Excellent?

I invite you to identify what’s important to you and pursue excellence in that thing.

Maybe it’s your current job. Maybe it’s your marriage or your family. Maybe it’s your health. Maybe it’s developing a new skill. Pick something! Without a clear aim, it’s easy to settle into a rhythm of passive existence—a life that eventually feels like that slot machine: repetitive, draining, and hollow.

I’ve found that excellence is the antidote to the default life. It’s the remedy to the dullness of mediocrity and half-efforts. We have two options: the difficult path of growth or the easy path of comfort.

The path of excellence will be hard. But as I shared earlier, the only thing more difficult than pursuing true excellence, is not pursuing true excellence. Make the choice that matters.

Identify your path. Commit to the work. Don’t look back.

Pursue excellence.

What I’m Learning

• The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni is one of the best leadership books I’ve read. I finished it last month and have shared its principles with several of my clients.

  • Lencioni argues that organizational health is the single greatest advantage any company can achieve, but it gets ignored by most leaders.

  • What is org health? It’s the behaviors that lead to:

    • Minimal politics

    • Minimal confusion

    • High morale and productivity

    • Retaining key employees

  • Lencioni breaks org health into four disciplines, with the first focused on how to build a cohesive leadership team.

  • The Advantage isn’t a page turner, but it’s excellent. Here’s the summary I’ve been using in coaching sessions.

• My main takeaway from the Oceanside Ironman 70.3 is that clear goals always beat vague desires.

  • This is why I named my AirPods 30-8-5.

    • 1.2 mile swim in < 30 minutes

    • Half marathon in sub 8-minute pace

    • Overall time under 5 hours

  • I swam a personal best 29:25, but my bike was slower than hoped. To have a shot at breaking five hours I’d have to run 10 seconds per mile faster than planned. It was painful, but I did it. Finish time - 4:58:48

  • For the full recap, click here.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. When we bought our home, the family who lived there before us ran a dance studio from the basement, complete with a dance floor and wall-to-wall mirrors. I initially planned to remove them.

However, those mirrors have become a blessing in disguise. Three of our children are in dance, and my oldest has used the space to run dance camps. Over the last few weeks, she and her friend spent hours in the basement prepping for drill team tryouts. What I once saw as a design flaw turned out to perfectly fit our family’s needs.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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If you aren’t familiar, that’s a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run. It’s roughly five hours of voluntary suffering. At 4:00 AM, when it’s pitch black and the air is biting, the motivation I had when I signed up six months ago will be nowhere to be found.

I’ve done 25 triathlons. This will be my 10th Ironman 70.3. You’d think it gets easier. But the 58-degree water still feels cold. The legs still ache with five miles to go. Your body still screams at you to stop. And the stomach pain that hits me exactly one hour after the finish line still feels like a betrayal.

So, why do it again?

I recently came across a quote that perfectly explains why athletes—and high-performers in any field—keep showing up:

“I’ve noticed people who were athletes carry something different in how they approach hard things. Not because sport builds character exactly. But because they have a physical memory of being uncomfortable and continuing anyway. Shaking legs. Burning lungs. Every reason to quit. And they kept going. That’s not discipline. That’s stored evidence.”

Motivation Fades, Evidence Endures

We spend a lot of time searching for motivation. We watch videos, read quotes, and wait for a feeling to strike us. But I’ve found that motivation is a fair-weather friend. It disappears when things get uncomfortable. Motivation is easy to find when a goal feels fresh, but it inevitably evaporates during the long, unglamorous middle where the novelty fades and only the work remains.

My son once had a baseball coach who’d yell “confidence!” over and over during his at-bats. I thought this was funny. Like this would somehow transform him. But confidence doesn’t come from a “vibe.” It comes from past successes.

Remember that time you had a crazy hard deadline but finished the project on schedule? Or the time someone said you couldn’t do something and you proved them wrong? Or that time you desperately wanted to give up, but you endured?

Inevitably, there are moments in your life where you’ve thought, how on earth did I get through that? Yet you did. There’s your evidence.

When I’m on mile 10 of the run on Saturday, and my legs feel like lead, I won’t be looking for a motivational speech. I’ll be thinking about evidence. I’ll be reminding myself of the work I put in to get to that point. I’ll be telling myself to just keep going because I know the pain will soon end. I’ll be focused on the beautiful, unparalleled feeling of crossing that finish line.

Create Your Greatest Hits Folder

One of my favorite coaching tools is what I call the “Greatest Hits” folder. In short, it’s a curated archive of your wins, awards, positive feedback, and professional milestones stored in one accessible place. Rather than relying on fleeting motivation, it serves as a grounded reminder of your actual capabilities. This allows you to draw on the energy of past successes and navigate moments of low energy or self-doubt.

It’s the opposite of good vibes. It’s a collection of tangible accomplishments. The beauty of this “stored evidence” is that it’s transferable.

Here are six questions you can answer to create a greatest hits folder for yourself:

1. What’s a project or initiative you’ve led that you’re most proud of?

2. When did you succeed at something really hard?

3. When did you keep going when you wanted to give up?

4. What’s the best genuine compliment someone has given you?

5. When was a time you put your strengths to work?

6. What’s a meaningful award, honor, or recognition you’ve received?

When I’m out on that course this Saturday, and the voice in my head demands that slowing down is the only option, I’ll reach into that folder. I’ll remind myself that I—just like you—have a 100% track record of getting through the things I once thought would break me.

This isn’t just about finishing a race. It’s about the quiet, unshakable confidence that comes from knowing your own history. You don’t have to wonder if you have what it takes when you are looking at the literal evidence that you already do.

My invitation to you this week is to stop waiting for the “right” feeling to strike and start documenting the facts. Open a note on your phone or grab a physical folder and label it “Greatest Hits.” Write down three moments where you were uncomfortable, exhausted, or certain you were finished—and then write down how you kept going anyway.

Begin building your archive today. Because when the “long middle” arrives and your motivation inevitably evaporates, you’re going to need evidence to remind yourself exactly what you are capable of enduring.

Stop looking for motivation. Start remembering what you’ve already done.

What I’m Learning

• Check out this Character Creation tool I built with AI

  • One of my clients challenged me to turn one of my favorite coaching frameworks into an app using Claude (thanks, Sarah).

  • In short, Character Creation is the practice of becoming the version of yourself that each moment requires. Rather than relying on mood or motivation, you deliberately define distinct “characters” for the key roles in your life.

    • This tool walks you through the Character Creation process, inviting you to identify three roles, descriptions, triggers, and more.

    • The final output is a PDF summary. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

• Here’s why you should never speak poorly of yourself. I’m amazed by how often I hear people say horrible things about themselves. Even jokes at our own expense (“I have the worst memory” or “I’m such a clutz”) takes a toll. Why?

  • Your subconscious mind is a literalist, not a comedian. It lacks a filter for irony, which means it processes self-deprecating “jokes” as factual data points for your identity.

  • When you jokingly call yourself “scatterbrained” or “not a math person,” you aren’t just making a quip; you’re issuing a command. Over time, these small verbal concessions stack up, forming a ceiling on your potential and turning casual ironies into concrete beliefs.

  • Stop being your own most convincing critic. Never speak poorly of yourself.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful for my wife’s example of service. On Sunday, she finished her church assignment of leading the young women in our congregation. She spent countless hours teaching, serving, and loving each of them. She went to their tennis matches and school plays. She celebrated their accomplishments and was there when they needed a shoulder to cry on.

I’ve found the words of Matthew 16:25 to be true: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

Her service didn’t just touch their lives. It was a blessing for my wife, for me, and our children.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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Almost five years ago, I read The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. The book argues that while it’s natural to seek comfort and convenience, doing so actually makes our lives worse.

But the part that struck me was a study by psychologist David Levari. In it, participants were shown hundreds of images of faces and then asked to rate each one as either threatening or non-threatening. Researchers had carefully designed the faces to range from very intimidating to very harmless. In Levari’s words:

“As we showed people fewer and fewer threatening faces over time, we found that they expanded their definition of ‘threatening’ to include a wider range of faces.

In other words, when they ran out of threatening faces to find, they started calling faces ‘threatening’ that they used to call harmless. Rather than being a consistent category, what people considered ‘threats’ depended on how many threats they had seen lately.”

Participants’ brains literally moved the goalposts. With the lack of threatening faces, they viewed neutral faces as threatening. Levari repeated this effect in subsequent studies.

The Science of Comfort

The technical name for the phenomenon in Levari’s study is a mouthful: Prevalence-Induced Concept Change. Essentially, when we solve a problem or remove a stressor, we don’t become more satisfied; we just lower the threshold for what we consider a problem.

This study changed my life. I literally think about it at least once a week. It applies in all aspects of our lives, from marriage and parenting to finances and fitness. Here are three observations I’ve made:

• When I don’t have meaningful problems to solve at work, little issues become bigger obstacles.

• When my kids aren’t regularly doing chores or have other responsibilities, they overreact to minor tasks, griping about how hard or unfair life is.

• When I skip a day or two of triathlon training, the next workout feels much harder.

I’ve learned that if you aren’t facing real challenges in your life, you begin to see problems where none exist. By eliminating genuine discomfort, we aren’t finding peace. We are just training our brains to be stressed by things that used to be neutral.

As Easter summarizes, “When a new comfort is introduced, we adapt to it and our old comforts become unacceptable. Today’s comfort is tomorrow’s discomfort.”

Find Your Hard

I first read Levari’s study after throwing a temper tantrum because my flight was delayed 45 minutes, and I wouldn’t see my kids before bed. I knew something needed to change.

I then learned about Misogi—a purifying ritual where you do something so difficult one day a year that it profoundly impacts the other 364 days. I decided to do an IRONMAN triathlon, which I wrote about extensively in The Unconquerable Leader. It was a miserable day that pushed me to my mental and physical limits. It was exactly what I needed.

But the goal isn’t just to bang your head against the wall or seek out mindless suffering. There is a profound difference between random friction and purposeful hardship. Choosing to be uncomfortable works best when that discomfort is aligned with your deeper values—whether that’s building a stronger body, becoming a more patient and present parent, or developing a critical new skill.

You have to find your own hard. If the challenge doesn’t have a “why” behind it, your brain will eventually reject it as a pointless tax. But when the discomfort serves a mission you actually care about, it stops being a burden and starts being the very tool that creates a more resilient, better version of yourself.

We often mistake a lack of friction for happiness, but as Levari’s study proves, a life without “threatening faces” only makes the harmless ones look dangerous. If we don’t choose our own challenges—our own Misogis—our brains will simply invent them out of the mundane.

If you find yourself reacting to minor inconveniences as if they were crises, it’s often a symptom of having too much comfort and not enough struggle.

Here are two questions to answer:

1. What ‘neutral face’ in your life have you started viewing as a threat?

2. What purposeful challenge will you choose today to regain your perspective?

Hit reply and let me know.

What I’m Learning

• This post from Erik Torenberg is gold. It’s advice given to his younger self, but it applies to all of us.

  • “There are going to be thousands of times that you get triggered—something happens that makes you feel insecure, anxious, jealous, or threatened. How you respond is going to determine the quality of your relationships.

  • “The more offended you are and the more you respond from that insecure or entitled place, the more you are going to push people away even though your desire is the exact opposite.”

• When I was a kid, my dad would tell me, “Everything in this world is designed to separate you from your money.” He’s since updated that maxim to include “or make you fat.”

  • I used to roll my eyes when he’d share this, but there’s definitely truth here. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

• If you’re battling phone addiction (who isn’t?), here are three good practices to consider.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful for the new perspective that comes from changing geographies. Last week was our kids’ spring break. We left town for five days. Being in a different location with new people brought several new insights and perspectives. I found clarity on things I’ve been grappling with. I came back refreshed and reenergized.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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Here’s how the opportunity stacked up against my job at LinkedIn:

• Compensation. Salary was $10k less, and there was no bonus. The startup offered equity, but it was private, and there was no IPO in sight.

  • At LinkedIn, my equity was liquid, and I could sell my shares every three months.

• Commute. Almost an hour and a half each way to SF. Drive 20 minutes to the train station. Walk for five. Train ride for 60 minutes. Then walk 20 minutes to the office. Do it all again on the way home.

  • At LinkedIn, I had a 25-minute commute.

• Benefits/Perks. Average at best for the startup. $75 gym benefit and free lunch.

  • At LinkedIn, the benefits were incredible. Top-notch health care. $2,000 wellness stipend. Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner at their gourmet cafe. More vacation time, plus two weeks when the whole company shut down.

• Safety. The startup sounded very risky. It was unprofitable and would need additional funding to keep growing.

  • If there ever was a sure thing, it was LinkedIn. Profitable and stable.

On paper, taking this startup job looked like a terrible decision. But I accepted the offer anyway.

Candidly, it was one of the easiest career decisions I’ve made.

I had no idea DoorDash would become what it is today. In fact, I remember having lunch with Chris—one of my mentors—shortly after I started. Chris had provided excellent advice over the years and influenced me to switch careers from finance to HR.

He was excited about my new job and reassured me that I made the right move. Then Chris said, “DoorDash won’t amount to anything financially for you, but don’t sweat. You’ll learn a ton. Just focus on that.”

The Challenge of Picking Rocketships

Molly Graham recently covered this topic in a piece, Picking Rocketships Is a Bad Career Strategy. Here’s the passage that resonated.

“Instead of trying to predict which company will win, you ask whether the work will grow you. Whether the problems are interesting enough. Whether the stretch is meaningful enough…

You can still believe in the mission. You can still hope for the best possible outcome. But you’re no longer betting your entire career logic on whether you’ve perfectly identified the next generational company.

So when you’re evaluating your next move, don’t just model the upside.

Model the downside.

If this company struggles or fails, will I still be glad I took the job?

If the answer is yes—because you’ll grow, because you’ll build real relationships, because you’ll sharpen skills that compound—then you’re betting on something you can actually control.

This is the exact conversation I had with my wife after I got the DoorDash offer. I knew what my future would look like at LinkedIn. It was a great company, but things felt stagnant. I wanted to learn and grow faster.

The role at DoorDash was more senior. I’d go from being one of several hundred members of the People team to owning everything in HR outside of recruiting. Stepping into a leadership role seemed exciting. It was also frightening. I didn’t know if I had what it took. But deep down, I knew I had to try.

I remember telling my wife, “Even if DoorDash implodes in a year, I’m better off taking the job because I’ll learn way more than if I stay put.” That was all she needed to hear. I signed the offer letter that night.

What Are You Optimizing For?

In hindsight, it’s easy to say accepting the DoorDash offer was the right decision. After joining, the company raised five additional private rounds of funding before an IPO in late 2020. When I joined, the valuation was ~$700m. After the IPO, DoorDash was worth $72 billion.

Yes, anyone can connect the dots in hindsight. But in the moment, I was extremely confident I made the right decision, even if DoorDash went under or I got fired.

I learned more in that first year at DoorDash than in any role I’ve had before or since. I was unprepared for the opportunity I was given, but I worked like crazy to rise to the occasion. I felt overwhelmed on an almost daily basis. I made a lot of mistakes.

I ended up staying at DoorDash for four and a half years. Eventually, I adjusted to the pace, and the learning curve stabilized. I was still growing, but the workload and stress became manageable.

The most important question you can answer in your career: What are you optimizing for? Answers to this question will vary wildly.

Back in 2016, I optimized for learning and impact. I was confident that joining DoorDash would create short-term risk while providing long-term career safety. Staying at LinkedIn offered short-term safety but increased long-term risk.

The most important thing is to know what game you’re playing. You must be clear about what you’re optimizing for in your career. This will likely change throughout your career. That’s okay.

Just remember that the only real mistake is spending your most valuable years optimizing for a prize you don’t actually want. Define your priorities, own the trade-offs, and let everything else be noise.

What I’m Learning

• I watched more Winter Olympics than I usually do and loved this summary from Brad Stulberg: 15 Lessons on Excellence the Olympics Keep Teaching Us. Here are a few that stood out:

  • Show up. Show up. Show up. You cannot control when the universe will gift you the latticework of variables that will bring out your best. All you can do is keep showing up and putting yourself in a position to receive it.

  • When you care deeply, you get the best out of yourself, but you also make yourself vulnerable. It requires courage and guts.

  • Having fun is one of the greatest competitive advantages there is. You can be serious, give something your all, and have fun at the same time.

• My younger-but-much-stronger brother talked me into doing a Hyrox event with him on Friday night.

  • For those not familiar, it’s a fitness challenge that sandwiches eight 1km runs between eight functional workouts like sled pulls, farmer’s carry, and sandbag lunges.

  • I walked in with no expectations. Everything was smooth until the 50-meter Sled Push. I gave it everything I had, but the sled barely budged. My triathlon training did not prepare me for this.

  • My brother made a recap video you can watch here. It was fun doing something different and having a beginner’s mindset.

Gratitudes

I’ve found joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. Two of my kids had birthdays this month. We now have two teenagers (!!!!), and our youngest is seven. These milestones led to pause and reflect. I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned from being a dad.

Raising kids is often inconvenient. They need things from me all the time. I have to show up for them even when I don’t feel like it. But that’s made me a better person. Being a dad makes me less selfish and more disciplined. I’m grateful to be a dad.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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Today, I’m taking a different approach. I’ll share my favorite tool for thinking clearly and avoiding self-sabotage.

Avoiding Self-Sabotage

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with my friend Walt. He’s the leader of a local congregation and spends a portion of his nights and weekends helping people at his church. As we spoke, Walt shared four or five stories of people whose lives were derailed by adversity.

This got me curious. I asked Walt how many of those challenges were the result of poor decisions versus people simply facing hard circumstances. He responded without hesitation: “Oh, 90% of the challenges I deal with were self-inflicted. People usually create their own problems. Adversity doesn’t just strike through happenstance. People do dumb things and invite adversity into their lives.”

This is consistent with my experience. Of course, bad things happen to good people. But sometimes good people just act like idiots. As I wrapped up my conversation with Walt, I reflected on times when my lack of self-control got the best of me. Let me share how I almost destroyed the most important relationship in my life.

How I Almost Blew Up My Life

It was October 2007. On paper, everything was going my way. In the last 12 months, I’d moved to New York for an internship at Lehman Brothers, accepted a full-time offer, and gotten engaged to a woman who previously told me things would “never ever work out between us” (yes, she actually said that). I had two semesters left until graduation. My future wife and I would then enjoy a Summer in New York and move to Silicon Valley to start my job. Things had fallen into place far better than I could have planned.

I proposed in July 2007, and we set a date for January 2, 2008. During that 6-month window, she decided to spend a semester abroad in Jerusalem. I wasn’t excited about it, but asking her to stay wasn’t on the table. I was about to begin a grueling Wall Street career that would require her full commitment. We both wanted a marriage where we encouraged each other to pursue our dreams. I had to support her.

Her absence proved to be harder than expected. BYU can be a funny place. At the time, it seemed like there were only two groups of students—those who were married or those who were looking to get married. I didn’t fit in either group. My fiancée had a busy schedule, and a 9-hour time difference made coordinating phone calls challenging.

As time passed, I felt lonelier. Doubt started to creep in. I questioned whether she cared about me as much as I cared about her. In low moments, I told myself that if she really loved me, she wouldn’t have gone to Jerusalem. She would have stayed with me.

By mid-October, I was spiraling. Our conversations got more intense. In more than a few tear-filled phone calls, I questioned how she could have such a great experience while I was miserable. I thought about asking her to come home. But I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t fair to her. I was in a lose-lose situation.

My emotions were getting the best of me. We had many long talks that took her away from activities. I said things that damaged our relationship. I worried she might break off the engagement. I remember thinking, if I can just keep my mind straight for two more months, everything will be fine. We’ll be married and move forward with life.

My parents happened to be in town one weekend. They knew I was struggling, but they didn’t know the extent. I was feeling weak in every sense of the word.

I asked my dad if he’d say a prayer with me. During the prayer, he promised me that if I wrote down my thoughts and feelings each day, I’d find the strength to push forward. I wasn’t sure that would help, but he was my dad, and I trusted him.

I started writing in my journal every day. The first day, I wrote three pages. I had a lot on my mind and needed a place to pour my emotions. Most days, I only wrote a paragraph or two.

This exercise helped me process my feelings productively. I still missed my fiancée, but my raw emotions no longer clouded my view of the situation. I knew she loved me. It wasn’t her who needed to change. It was me. Within a few weeks, I’d grown mentally stronger.

She came home from Jerusalem a few days before Christmas. We were married on January 2. We recently celebrated our 18th anniversary. We’ve built a great life together.

And I almost blew it all up because I couldn’t keep my crap together.

The Power of Journaling

I recently re-read my journal entries from 2007. I barely recognized the person who wrote them. Some of the passages were painful to get through. I said things I know I didn’t actually believe. But that was the point.

We all need a place to process our emotions. For me, at that moment, it was a blank page. Journaling gave me a place to say everything I was thinking without consequences. Just because you think something doesn’t mean it needs to be said—especially to people you care about. Writing created distance between my emotions and my actions. It helped me see what was real and what was noise.

I often tell my clients that in our conversations, they’re allowed to say things out loud they don’t yet know if they believe. Journaling works the same way. It gives your thoughts somewhere to go so they don’t spill out in ways you can’t take back.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Most self-sabotage comes from unprocessed emotions, not bad intentions.

• Clear thinking rarely happens in the heat of the moment. You have to create space for it.

• Journaling gives you a place to be honest without causing harm.

• Just because a thought feels true doesn’t mean it is true—or that it deserves an audience.

Looking back, it’s clear that my raw emotions nearly cost me the most important relationship in my life. That season taught me that most self-sabotage doesn’t come from bad intentions, but from unclear thinking. Clear thinking rarely happens in the heat of the moment. Journaling gave me a place to slow down, to be honest without causing harm, and to separate what I felt from what was actually true.

The most important space you can create is the one between raw emotion and reaction.

What I’m Learning

• Over the weekend, I started reading Brad Stulberg’s new book, The Way of Excellence. I love this passage:

  • “Excellence is one of the most authentic and human experiences there is, and it must be earned. The payoff is a deep internal satisfaction, a genuine self-respect based on effort and competence, a sense of aliveness and resonance that you won’t find anywhere else.”

• There’s a lot we can learn from Sam Darnold’s journey. He went from being the No. 3 overall pick to being labeled a bust to ultimately becoming a Super Bowl champion. The lesson that stands out to me is owning your internal story.

  • Darnold was exposed to every kind of failure you can experience in the NFL. When asked about it after the Super Bowl, he said: “Those were part of my journey... there were some lows that sucked. But I learned so much from that.”

  • Lesson: The story you tell yourself and how you handle failure is far more important than any label. (Here’s the full post from Steve Magness.)

• I recently had two interesting conversations about books:

  • Friend 1: “Most authors can probably get their point across more efficiently in a long-form essay than in a book. I’ve read multiple books and later found a 45-min interview with the author that provided all the substance and would have saved me 10 hours of reading… Some people post about all the books they read as a flex. I often wonder, Was reading the whole book really the highest and best use of your time?”

  • Friend 2: “I have a goal of reading 50 books this year. For me, it’s less about the number and more about the time spent in solitude, learning from the greats. The more I read, the more stillness and peace I feel. Reading that many books creates a forcing function for me.”

  • Which friend do you resonate with?

Gratitudes

I’ve found power in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful for the chance I had to run with Conner Mantz. Mantz is an Olympian and the fastest American marathoner. This opportunity came at an event in Salt Lake City. We had a great conversation about the need to be a little delusional. Here’s a post I wrote about it.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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In Part 1, I shared my 2025 goals and the system I built to achieve them, including the 10 behavioral changes I made and non-negotiables. If you haven’t read Part 1, please go check it out first.

In Part 2, I’ll share the outcome of my change efforts, including my two main goals: beating Jeff and breaking five hours in a Half Ironman. As Paul Gustavson says, “Organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get.” Let’s see the results of my system, starting with St George.

Race 1: St George Ironman 70.3, May 10, 2025

The race continued, and I settled in on the bike, trying to balance pushing hard and not overdoing it. 40 miles in, I reached the iconic Snow Canyon climb, a five-mile stretch of pure pain. The heat didn’t make it easier. Eventually, I reached the summit and enjoyed the fast descent back into town.

The good news was that I still hadn’t seen Jeff. He was a superior runner. If he caught me on the bike, my chances of winning were near zero. I didn’t know how he was doing. In some ways, this was good—I could focus on my race. I was tracking toward a personal best, but sub-5 hours would be a long shot.

I pulled into the second transition, racked my bike, threw on my running shoes, and began the half-marathon. Three miles in, there was still no sign of Jeff. Four miles. Five miles. Still nothing.

Near mile six, I saw Jeff in the distance. He was running the other direction. As we crossed paths, he yelled, “I got a flat tire!” I could feel his frustration. Quick math showed I had at least a 30-minute lead. Two feelings shot through my body. The first, elation. I’m going to beat him! The second, disappointment. This isn’t how I want to win.

The finish line approached. I saw my family cheering me on. I gave it one final push. I finished in 5:13, a personal best and 12 minutes faster than the year before. It was 90 degrees out—15 degrees hotter than 2024. I was happy to be off the course.

After the race, I tracked down a frustrated Jeff. He estimated he lost 20 minutes fixing his flat tire. I had beaten him by 40 minutes. I was confident I would have won even if he hadn’t gotten a flat. We’d never know for sure. This felt unsatisfying. Yes, I’d won. But I didn’t want to win this way.

I stayed for the awards ceremony to see if I qualified for the 70.3 World Championships in France. I had a great race, but didn’t make the cut. I also didn’t hit my goal of finishing sub 5 hours.

That night, I enjoyed a bowl of ice cream—the first I’d had in months.

Recommitment

I recommitted to no sweets the next morning. Of the 10 behavioral changes I discuss in Part 1, I argue that cutting out junk food was the most important. It did wonders for my self-confidence. After years of telling myself I was going to clean up my diet, I finally did it. My words aligned with my actions. This made the other nine behavior changes easier. This commitment showed I was serious about my goals.

Within a few days, Jeff was back to his old self, suggesting my win in St George was a fluke. He said, “You’ve never beaten me before, and barring another equipment failure, you’ll never beat me again.” We’ll see.

My fitness had improved significantly since January, but three and a half months wasn’t enough. I still had one more chance to go sub 5 and beat Jeff. The Boise Ironman was 10 weeks out, and there was still time to see more gains. I increased my swimming volume. I worked on my biking technique. I practiced running in the heat. I improved my fueling.

One challenge was figuring out how to train while on vacation. My son had a baseball tournament in Cooperstown, and we made it an 11-day trip with stops in New York City and Philadelphia. I’ve learned that if something is important, you make time for it. No, our trip didn’t revolve around my training plan. But I made sure I had access to treadmills and a lap pool.

As the Boise race approached, I liked my chances of going sub 5. My training block was stronger than the build into St George. I was anxious to have another shot at Jeff. This time there would be no asterisk. No questions. No doubts.

Race 2: Boise Ironman 70.3 — July 26, 2025

Race day eventually came, and we toed the start line at Lucky Peak Reservoir. I went out hard, exerted myself more than in prior swims. But when I came out of the water, I was confused. A glance at my watch showed that my time was around 34 minutes, my slowest in years. What on earth happened, I thought.

Running through transition one, there was no time to analyze what went wrong. We were in the middle of a race. I quickly pulled off my wetsuit and jumped on my bike, trying to make up for lost time. Then I made a major mistake.

I was adjusting my helmet visor when it caught the wind and was ripped from my hands. I slammed on the brakes, laid my bike down, and clumsily ran in bike shoes to grab my visor. 60 seconds had passed by the time I was on the bike and moving again. I was still ahead of Jeff, but I’d lost precious time. And my chances of breaking five hours were dwindling. I was frustrated.

I needed to reset. I needed to pull myself together. The reality was, we were only 40 minutes into a 5-hour race. I couldn’t change what had happened. I could only focus on what was in front of me.

I felt strong on the bike. Unlike in St George, there’d be no major hills. Just a few short, punchy climbs. 15 miles in, my friend Tyler came flying by, screaming at me to pick up the pace. I pushed harder. I had told myself I’d finish the race with zero regrets. If I blow up, so be it.

My legs were tired as I came into transition two. My average speed was 22.8 mph, faster than anticipated. I’d seen Jeff 20 miles into the ride, but I struggled to estimate how far back he was. Four minutes? Eight minutes? I couldn’t tell.

The two-loop, 13.1-mile run began. My legs felt heavy. I ignored them. I finished the first mile in 8:00 but knew I couldn’t sustain that pace. I backed off slightly, but it still hurt. There were no signs of Jeff.

I finished the first loop, averaging just under 8:10 pace. Aerobically, I felt good, but my quads, hamstrings, and calves begged me to slow down. Halfway there, I told myself. Just 6.5 miles to go. I was on pace for five hours.

Shortly into loop two, I made eye contact with Tyler’s wife. She yelled, “You’re two miles ahead of Jeff!” It was the first time I’d heard an update on him since the race began. Two miles, I thought. Can’t catch me now.

Suddenly, the weight of the moment struck me. Tears filled my eyes. I’m going to do this, I thought. I’m going to win. Then it hit me: Don’t screw this up. You’re far from being done.

My pace slightly slowed as I balanced my desire to run fast and the risk of pulling a muscle. The miles ticked by. 4 miles left. 3 miles left. My calves ached. I prayed for them to hold up. 2 miles left. 1 mile left.

The finish line came into view. Jeff was still nowhere to be found. Game over. I gave it one final push, my body surging with adrenaline. I let out a primal scream.

Finish line. My name flashed on the screen. The time showed 4:57:04. No way. I’d broken five hours. This was 16 minutes faster than St George and well over two hours faster than my first Half Ironman in 2016.

Tyler was waiting on the other side. He shoved me in the chest and yelled, “Leave no doubt! LEAVE NO DOUBT!” I shoved him back and yelled in celebration, soaking in the moment. 15 minutes later, Jeff crossed the finish line.

All the work. All the sacrifice. All the pain. All the training. It all mattered. It all paid off.

I’ve written and rewritten this paragraph too many times to count, trying to describe how I felt at that moment. I can’t do it. My words fall short. Maybe that’s the beauty of it. Being able to experience something I can’t properly communicate. Some moments lose their power when we try too hard to define them. I know what I felt, even if I can’t explain it.

Hours later, I learned that my performance was strong enough to qualify for the 2026 Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Nice, France. What a day.

How Good Can You Become?

My friend Teddy Mitrosilis, a former college baseball player, writes about the burden he carried trying to meet others’ expectations. His career hadn’t gone as hoped. At a crossroads, he wrote the following.

You have never—not a single season in your life—played simply for your own satisfaction. Your own joy. Your own sense of accomplishment.

So, if this ends up being the last season you ever play, you owe it to yourself to play for yourself. Drop the external expectations. Stop playing for someone else’s approval.

And play just to see how good you can be.

This shift unlocked a new level of performance in him. Teddy would go on to have his best season ever and play for the University of North Carolina.

How good can you become? This is a powerful question that unlocks curiosity and taps into our potential. It’s an invitation to go all in. This question became my north star—not just in triathlon, but all aspects of my life.

More personal bests would come in 2025. Six weeks after Boise, I raced the Brineman triathlon, finishing first in my age group and winning the state championship. A few weeks later, I finished first overall at the Kokopelli triathlon, a local race. In October, I set my PR in the marathon, beating my 2021 run by 73 minutes.

All of these performances were evidence that the 10 behavior changes I made at the beginning of the year had paid off. My system was working. And we were just getting started.

The Jeff Effect

Throughout this piece, I’ve cast Jeff in a negative light. Yes, he took a cheap shot by publicly embarrassing me in New Zealand. Yes, he made several conceited comments ahead of St George and Boise. But the reality is that he’s a good dude.

I turned Jeff into what I needed. I needed a rival. I needed fuel for my fire. I needed something external to sharpen my focus. So I gave Jeff a role he never asked for. I turned Jeff into a villain.

Early on, the goal of beating Jeff gave me clarity. Competing against him forced me to raise my standards. But as the months passed, my focus shifted. By the time I lined up in Boise, the race wasn’t really about Jeff anymore. It was about reaching my potential. How good could I become?

Candidly, I’m grateful for Jeff. He’s a competitor and a friend. He set the bar high. He brought out the best in me. In that sense, Jeff played his role perfectly.

The Goal Is Never the Goal

If there’s one thing 2025 showed me, it’s this—our limits are far beyond what we think. There’s a popular saying: “We overestimate what we can accomplish in a year, and underestimate what we can accomplish in a decade.”

I disagree. 365 days is a very long time. You’d be amazed at the progress you can make in a single year. This journey taught me something I see repeatedly in leadership and in life. Potential is rarely limited by talent. It’s limited by a lack of commitment.

Real change doesn’t come from waking up on January 1 and setting a vague, hollow goal. Real change happens when you define who you want to be, build your system, and make daily progress.

Some people never find out how good they can become. This is because they never fully commit. They want progress without consistency. They want results without obsession. They want massive outcomes without massive effort.

In the end, this wasn’t about triathlon. Or Jeff. Or five hours. It was about finding out what’s possible when you stop hedging and go all in.

I didn’t want to wonder anymore.

So I’ll leave you with the question that changed everything for me:

How good can you become?

Nathan

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Candidly, I’ve been wanting to write this since July. I’ve stopped and started several times, but the timing never felt right. I’m still concerned that what I say will come off the wrong way. Some of it will sound petty and obsessed. But I’m publishing anyway. I’m confident that by sharing how I made meaningful change in 2025, I can help you make the progress you’re looking for in 2026.

“New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work”

But first…I can’t stand it when people say, “New Year’s Resolutions don’t work.” That phrase excuses resignation and reinforces a story that change is unrealistic or reserved for other people. Everywhere you look, there’s a narrative suggesting change is too hard: online, at work, even at home. And too often, the loudest voices belong to people who tried, failed, and now find comfort—even glee—in watching others do the same.

I’ve failed at more change efforts than I count. I’d start with a bold commitment only to fail a few days later. One thing I’ve learned: change is really hard. And the data is not in our favor. 91% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. The second Friday of each year is dubbed Quitters Day, the day most people have given up on their goals.

But that doesn’t have to be you. As an exec coach, I’m in the self-improvement business. There are few things more beautiful than seeing someone change their life for the better. I love helping people grow. I believe we have an obligation to maximize our potential and become the best versions of ourselves. If we’re not improving, we’re regressing. Stagnation is death.

That’s enough ranting. Let’s get started.

January 1, 2025

I woke up early and energized on New Year’s Day. It was time to get after it.

2024 had been rewarding in many ways. My coaching business was thriving. I had a strong relationship with my wife and kids. Much to be grateful for. But something was nagging at me.

A few weeks earlier, I competed at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships. My wife and I left the kids behind and enjoyed nine days in New Zealand. The trip was incredible. But the race hadn’t gone as hoped. I wasn’t in peak shape, and raced with a below-average bike (I opted to leave mine at home). I’d barely qualified for Worlds and finished in the bottom 10% for my age group. But that wasn’t what was bothering me. Racing with so many great athletes was inspiring.

It was something else. My triathlon buddy, Jeff (not his real name), also went to New Zealand. He’d beaten me every time we raced and I didn’t expect to win that day. But I didn’t just lose, I got smoked. Despite starting 27 minutes behind me, Jeff passed me with a mile left in the run.

To make matters worse, Jeff posted a picture of himself, gloating that he’d lapped me.

Wow. That hurt. For me, the Ironman World Championships was less of a race than a celebration of being able to qualify for the event. But there Jeff was, taking shots at me. Publicly. It left a bad taste in my mouth. As Michael Jordan said in The Last Dance documentary, it became personal with me.

I came home from New Zealand knowing I hadn’t reached my potential. I was motivated to be better. I identified three clear goals for 2025:

1. Get in the best shape of my life

2. Finish a Half Ironman under 5 hours

3. Destroy Jeff

Achieving these goals would not be easy. I didn’t just need a minor tweak. I needed a complete overhaul. And the third goal was likely harder than the first two—I’d never been close to beating Jeff in a race.

As I looked to the new year, I’d have two opportunities to test myself and compete with Jeff. Both were Half Ironmans. The first was May 10 in St George, Utah, and the second was July 28 in Boise, Idaho. (Note: I use Half Ironman and Ironman 70.3 interchangeably as they’re the same thing—a triathlon consisting of 1.2 mi swim, 56 mi bike, 13.1 mi run).

10 Changes to Reach My Goals

To reach my goals and become the person I wanted to be, I had to make some big changes. Here are 10 of them.

Change 1: Increase Volume and Consistency

Triathlon training is simple but not easy. Generally speaking, the more you train, the faster you’ll get. So I did the obvious and increased training volume in all three disciplines: swim, bike, and run.

Change 2: Find a Training Partner

Until January, almost all of my training was done by myself. I like the solitude of training alone. It’s time for me to think. To meditate. But when you’re putting in heavy volume, it can get boring and lonely.

So I found a training buddy—Tyler. The good news is that Tyler only lived a few miles from me, and we already swam at the same pool. The bad news is that he was a much faster biker and runner. I was self-conscious of this at first. But it really helped. Training with someone faster showed me I could get faster. It raised the bar.

Training with Tyler also provided additional accountability. While I don’t struggle with motivation, he pushed me to think bigger. He had high expectations. And it was easier getting out of bed to put in a hard run, bike, or swim when I knew someone was waiting for me.

Change 3: Train Smarter

Training with Tyler showed me I still had a long way to go. His approach to triathlon was superior to mine. I didn’t just need to train more; I needed to train smarter. I became a student of the game. Being around Tyler made me more knowledgeable and methodical. I created a clear system for improvement.

I made my hard workouts harder and my easy workouts easier. I recovered better. I started mixing in intervals and sub-threshold workouts. Training smarter made me stronger and more resilient.

Change 4: Cut out Junk Food

A few weeks into my new training plan, I started noticing improvements. I felt stronger, and I was getting faster.

But I knew my diet was holding me back. I woke up the morning of New Year’s Eve and vowed to stop eating sweets. That night, I went to a New Year’s party and couldn’t resist the chocolate fondue. I gave in to temptation. Disappointingly, I couldn’t even make it one day.

Looking back, I can think of a dozen times I’ve sworn off sweets/desserts. Once, I even made it a week. But the cravings persisted, and I was back to my old ways. My kids teased me for sneaking into the pantry to grab treats. My youngest once wrote on my whiteboard, “Dad can’t live without chocolate chips.” I chuckled, but she was right.

It’s hard to say you’re doing everything in your power to improve your fitness when you’re slamming your third bowl of cookie dough ice cream. Yes, I was burning a ton of calories each day, but that was offset by my high quantity, low quality diet. My goals were to get in great shape, go sub 5 hours in a 70.3, and beat Jeff. My food decisions suggested otherwise.

Actions are more important than words. Don’t tell me something is important to you; show me. I said I cared about my goals, but the evidence wasn’t there.

On January 20, I decided enough was enough. I woke up heavier than I’d been in the past 6 months. I was ready to commit. During my morning workout, I texted a few friends and family members. Drawing a line in the sand, I told them no sweets until after the St George Ironman. That was May 10.

I was largely inspired by my dad, who had completely stopped eating sweets a month before. His doctor delivered a hard truth: “Your health markers are trending in the wrong direction. You needed to lose weight.”

The doctor prescribed a GLP-1. On the drive to the pharmacy, he had a moment. I don’t need a pill. I can do this myself. He turned the car around, went home, and cleaned up his diet. He cut out sweets entirely. I told myself, if he can do it, so can I.

The first day was the hardest. Days two and three were easier as I was traveling. By day four, I had some momentum. What differed this time around was that I had a clear why. I wasn’t doing it just to “be healthy” or some vague reason. I had specific goals that really mattered.

It’s been said, he who has a why can bear almost any how. My why was clear. I wanted to complete a sub-5 Half Ironman. I wanted to finally beat Jeff. I needed my diet to be an asset, not a liability. So I locked in. No more junk food.

I stuck to my plan. The cravings never totally went away, but I had a streak. One week became two. Two months became three. In the process, my self-respect increased. When you consistently tell yourself you’re going to do something and you don’t, that takes a toll. By making this change, my actions now matched my intentions.

Change 5: Better Fueling

It wouldn’t be enough just to cut out sweets and desserts. Overall, I needed to eat higher quality food. I targeted 150 grams of protein and a bag of veggies every day. My thinking was that if I ate enough high quality food, there’d be less room for low quality.

Timing also mattered. In the past, I waited until after my workout to eat a big meal. But I was thinking about it the wrong way. I redesigned my relationship with food. Calories weren’t bad; they were fuel. I started eating more carbs before and during my workouts. Doing so gave me more energy during and after workouts.

Change 6: New Bike

After racing exclusively on a road bike, I bought a new tri bike. This was before the 70.3 World Championships, but I decided not to take it to New Zealand. The St George Ironman would be my first race with the new bike.

Change 7: Creatine

I started taking creatine in April. I’d read that it would improve power output, enhance recovery, reduce inflammation, and support both muscle endurance and strength. I was concerned about gaining weight, but now in my 40s, I decided to give it a shot.

Change 8: Character Creation

In The Unconquerable Leader, I dedicate an entire chapter to Character Creation. Character Creation is a framework for becoming the version of yourself each moment requires. Rather than relying on mood or motivation, you deliberately define distinct “characters” for the key roles in your life.

So I created one for triathlon—Killer Nate. This character differed significantly from my roles of husband, father, and coach. Killer Nate is a disciplined and relentless competitor. He executes every workout to perfection and shows up every day. His feelings don’t matter. Other people’s feelings don’t matter.

Killer Nate is a machine. An unstoppable force. A cold-blooded assassin who seeks and destroys. He ignores emotions and comfort. No one is mentally tougher than him. He gives everything on race day. No hesitation. No excuses.

Change 9: Writing Goals, Reminders, Visualizations

I’m a big believer in writing your goals every day. When you keep them front and center, you’re consciously and subconsciously thinking of ways to achieve them.

I wrote my goals on sticky notes and posted them in my office. I regularly looked at Jeff’s Instagram post where he mocked my New Zealand performance. I envisioned myself crossing the finish line ahead of him. I picked a theme song for my training block and listened to it at the end of every run. I pictured in my mind how that moment would feel, finishing the race, knowing I’d given my all and accomplished my goal.

Leading up to the St George Ironman, I changed the name of my AirPods to “Beat Jeff.” Every time I put in my AirPods, my goal of beating Jeff popped up. My goals were everywhere. I couldn’t avoid them if I wanted to.

Change 10: Accumulation of Marginal Gains

Finally, I made several minor changes to shave seconds off my time here and there. These include calf compressions, arm sleeves, an aerodynamic bike helmet, carb loading before the race, fueling during the race, bike technique, and improved transitions, among others.

Individually, each change wouldn’t make much of a difference. But cumulatively, their impact would be significant.

Non-Negotiables

Achieving my fitness goals was important, but not the most important thing in my life. I have an obsessive personality. In the past, I’ve become consumed by hitting goals. Heading into 2025, I couldn’t let progress in triathlon come at the expense of my faith, marriage, relationship with kids, and coaching business. During this training block, I made commitments to keep myself on track, including coaching my son’s baseball team, trips for work, and a vacation over spring break. I also tracked key activities that would help me stay focused on the bigger picture.

Candidly, balancing it all was a challenge. I tried to keep the main thing the main thing. It’s hard to objectively measure some aspects of life, but I’m happy with where I closed the year. Identifying and clinging to my non-negotiables allowed me to fight the battle without losing the war.

Building My System

Leadership expert Paul Gustavson says that “Organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get.” In other words, if you’re getting bad outcomes, you must change the underlying system.

The 10 changes I’ve outlined (and the non-negotiables I’ve listed) weren’t created haphazardly. They were chosen deliberately. They became a part of my system. I knew that if I didn’t achieve my goals, it wasn’t a flaw in me as a human. It was a flaw in my system.

I was confident in the system I designed and executed it for four straight months. Heading into the St George 70.3, I was in the best shape of my life. That was goal one. But I still had two more goals. I wanted to finish a Half Ironman in under five hours, and I really, really wanted to beat Jeff.

The time for preparation was over. It was time to perform.

4 Lessons From 2025

This story isn’t really about triathlon. The same principles apply whether your goal is career growth, better health, a stronger marriage, more energy at home, or anything else.

Here are four lessons to consider as you think about your own progress:

1. Change requires a system, not good vibes. Results don’t come from willpower on January 1. They came from building a system that makes the right behaviors inevitable.

2. Specific goals beat vague intentions. “Be healthier” didn’t move me. A sub-5-hour Half Ironman and beating Jeff were far more motivating. You need clearer goals that actually matter to you.

3. Accountability accelerates progress. Training partners, public commitments, and visible reminders raise the standard. Don’t go at it alone.

4. Self-respect grows when we do what we say we will do. One of the most powerful outcomes wasn’t speed—it was confidence born from keeping promises I made to myself.

Conclusion

As shared earlier, right now your life is perfectly designed to get the results you’re getting. Maybe that works for you. But if you want 2026 to look different, start by stepping back and asking a few honest questions:

• What result am I hoping for?

• What am I currently doing—day to day—that makes that result likely or unlikely?

• What system changes do I need to make?

Progress comes when your calendar, habits, and commitments begin to reflect what you say matters most. That might mean adding accountability. It might mean removing friction. It might mean letting go of something that’s been quietly working against you.

And if you’ve already stumbled this year, you’re not behind. I intentionally avoided writing this on January 1. Why? Because you can always start over. You can begin today. Last year, my change efforts were slow. Then it finally clicked on January 20.

Real change happens when you 1) Define who you want to be, 2) Build the system, 3) Make daily progress. That’s it. Simple, but not easy.

We’re almost at 2,800 words, so let’s wrap here. In part two, I’ll share the results of the system I’ve built, including performances at the St George and Boise Half Ironmans, and how I fared against Jeff. I’ll also share lessons learned and additional insights to help you unlock your potential.

Thank you for reading. Here’s the link to Part 2.

Nathan

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As I reflect on the past year, I think about the blessings in my life, including relationships, health, and work. Many of these blessings are undeserved and based on luck or circumstances beyond my control. Yet some are directly tied to the law of the harvest: you reap what you sow.

An example of this is a commitment to continual learning. One of my best personal development decisions came in 2014 when an MBA professor challenged me to read 30 books a year. I accepted his invitation and still haven’t missed a year.

This forced me to build the habit of consistently reading books. I’ve read 457 during this period. These books have taught me how to get in better shape, be a better husband and father, become a better manager, launch a coaching business, become a better disciple of Jesus, improve my writing, manage my finances, compete in triathlon, and more.

But there’s no magic in the number 30. It’s less about how many books you read and more about being curious and continually investing in your personal growth.

I’ll share two lists of books I’ve learned from. The first includes five personal favorites and how they can help you jumpstart your new year. The second lists the 10 best books I read in 2025.

5 Books to Jumpstart Your 2026

1. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

   1. An excellent book that teaches how to do less while accomplishing more. This book will help you re-evaluate your priorities and find things you need to say “no” to so you can say “yes” to things of greater importance.

2. Amp It Up by Frank Slootman

   1. Perfect for leaders looking to scale their company/team by raising expectations and increasing urgency and intensity.

3. The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

   1. Looking to be a more effective people manager? Then start asking more and better questions. I first read this book when I was at DoorDash and used it as the foundation for an entire leadership development workshop. It’s that good.

4. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

   1. I first recommended this in my debut newsletter back in March 2016. Cialdini shares seven psychological tools to influence people to say yes. A must-read if you want to be more persuasive and influential.

5. The Unconquerable Leader: Mastering the Internal and External Game

   1. Yes, I’m including my book. Most leadership books take what could have been 20 interesting pages and turn them into 200+ boring pages. I tried to do the opposite. The Unconquerable Leader details my coaching philosophy—how I help leaders win at work and beyond.

      1. Parts 1 and 3 are about mindset and mastering your own psychology (the Internal Game).

      2. Part 2 teaches the tactical skills required to lead others (the External Game).

   2. If you haven’t read it yet, grab your copy now.

Overall, I read 31 books this year. Here are my 10 favorites (in order of when I read them).

The Best Books of 2025

1. Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working by Dan Heath

2. The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life by Sahil Bloom

3. I’m Here To Win: A World Champion’s Advice for Peak Performance by Chris McCormack

4. The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life by Todd Herman

5. 1776 by David McCullough

6. Juggling Glass and Rubber Balls: One Dad’s Approach to Raising Great Kids by Joel Peterson

7. I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression by Terrence Real

8. Words to Wonder: 100 Quotes with Reflections and Stories to Inspire the Life You’ve Imagined by Kevin Delaney

9. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen

10. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

As you look to the new year, I invite you to read one of the books mentioned above.

What I’m Learning

• Looking to improve your life in 2026? Here are Nick Saban’s 5 Enemies of Greatness:

  • Entitlement: The belief that past success or status guarantees future rewards, leading to a sense that success is owed rather than earned daily.

  • Lack of Discipline: Talent without the consistent, hard work and focus to do things right every time, leading to wasted potential.

  • Circumstances Over Vision: Allowing conditions (score, weather, opponents) to dictate effort and attitude, instead of sticking to your high standards and mission.

  • Self-Pity: Focusing on “why me?” and playing the victim, which stops progress and prevents taking responsibility for your path forward.

  • Complacency: Becoming comfortable or satisfied with current success, leading to a decline in hunger, effort, and performance because you think you’ve “arrived”.

• Achieving greatness also requires taking stock of external things that influence you. This quote from The Compound Effect was a needed reminder.

  • “You alone are responsible for the choices you make and the actions you take… (But) everyone is affected by three kinds of influences: 1) Input (what you feed your body and mind), 2) Associations (the people you spend time with), and 3) Environment (your surroundings).”

    • As you look to 2026, do you need to change what you feed your mind/body, who you spend time with, or your environment?

  • Last call: if you’re looking to recap 2025 and set goals for the new year, make a copy of Reflections and Actions and complete it for yourself.

Gratitudes

I’ve found power in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. Today I’m grateful for new beginnings. They aren’t reserved for the start of a year. They can show up on birthdays, seasons, and moments of clarity. No matter where we are, we can choose to begin again—and take intentional steps toward the person we’re becoming.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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Christmas 2003 was the first one I spent away from family. I was feeling a little homesick. I’d been serving a church mission for almost a year. I recently moved to Wichita Falls, Texas, and was paired with Elder Richards.

A week before Christmas, I got a letter from my dear Grandma Hobbs. Enclosed was a $100 bill with a note inviting me to use that money to buy presents for those I was teaching. It was a thoughtful gift, and I should have been excited. But it was a sad reminder that Elder Richards and I weren’t actually teaching anyone. To that point, I’d mostly felt like a failure as a missionary. What was I supposed to do with the money?

Eventually, I made a plan. Elder Richards and I went to Walmart and bought $100 worth of Pillsbury cookie dough and Hershey Kisses. We spent the afternoon baking peanut butter kiss cookies. When our cookies were done, we called Andy, a friend from church, to see if he wanted to come caroling with us. He was in.

That night, we visited 15 homes. As we approached the door, we’d sing, “Angels We Have Heard On High.” The door would open, we’d finish the song, and hand them a plate of cookies. We’d speak for a minute or two, then sing “Silent Night,” and be on our way. It was so much fun.

Now, I should be clear that I’m not a singer. This was confirmed in high school when we put on a church pageant, and midway through singing practice, I was invited to be a narrator. But I set aside my singing insecurities and gave it my all with each song.

One family stands out—the Petersons. They opened the door, and the mom immediately invited us in. The dad was sitting on the couch. You could see the anguish on his face. We learned that he had recently lost his job. His wife and three kids left the room.

He opened up to us. He was frustrated and didn’t know where he’d be able to find work. He was feeling hopeless. The weight of the world on his shoulders. Later in life, I’d come to know exactly how he felt in that moment, but 20-year-old me didn’t know what to say. We listened. We tried to offer words of encouragement.

We invited his family back into the room and said a prayer with them. We asked God for help. We asked that he be able to find a job. We asked that he’d be blessed with courage and strength.

After the prayer, he hugged me and said ‘thank you.’ I could see newfound hope in his tear-filled eyes. His wife expressed appreciation. Elder Richards and I sang Silent Night as we walked back to our car.

My heart was full on the drive home. I knew we did some good that night. It’s been more than 20 years, and I still look back with fondness. It may be my favorite Christmas. I missed my family and our special traditions, but that year was special. By setting aside my needs and focusing on others, I felt the Savior’s love stronger than ever.

Merry Christmas.

What I’m Learning

• This post from my friends Austin and Jason hit me hard—The Diderot Effect: When New Things Can (Accidentally) Make Us Unhappy

  • The Diderot Effect is what happens when buying something new causes a chain reaction of buying more and more things because the new item makes you feel like you now need other things to go with it.

    • The piece goes on to describe how the Diderot Effect shows up in our careers.

    • It reminded me of the line from Fight Club: The things you own end up owning you.

  • Austin and Jason have a newsletter called Unwritten Business Guide that shares unique business and career advice. I highly recommend.

• Several years ago, I created Reflections and Actions to help my clients with year-end introspection and new year goal-setting. This year’s version has a few minor tweaks and is much shorter.

  • I invite you to make a copy and complete it for yourself.

Gratitudes

I find joy in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful for the Christmas season. Last night we went to Tuacahn to see a live nativity. Last week, our congregation had a Christmas party. We heard beautiful musical performances, and I was asked to be the narrator (I told you). I love Christmas. Regardless of your beliefs, I hope this season brings you peace, joy, and hope.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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But objectively, everything was looking great. I had already hit my 2025 business goals and was on track in other areas of my life. I was struggling to stay in the moment. As I too often do, my focus was on what’s next. I was looking ahead to 2026, thinking about the effort required to hit goals I hadn’t even set.

I had more questions than answers. Should I set a higher revenue goal? How much higher? Are there better ways to measure my success? How can I grow my business while continuing to prioritize health, family, and faith?

Here we were in early December, and I was already stressing about next year. I discussed this with my wife. After listening politely, she challenged me: Why are you even thinking about 2026? It’s a great question.

Reflections and Actions

Three years ago, I created a tool to help my clients with year-end introspection and new year goal-setting. It’s called Reflections and Actions. There are five steps to it:

• Step 1: 2025 Key Wins, Moments, and Milestones

• Step 2: 2025 Lessons and Reflections

• Step 3: Current Life Snapshot

• Step 4: 2026 Intentions

• Step 5: 2026 Goals & Action Plan

When my wife told me to chill the heck out and live in the moment (my words, not hers), I remembered this tool. I realized my problem wasn’t that I was thinking about 2026 goals (Step 5). My problem was that I completely skipped over Steps 1-4.

Realizing this, I hit pause on goal setting and made a list of my key wins, moments, and milestones from 2025. I celebrated my wins. 20 minutes later, I was feeling energized.

The Gap Vs. The Gain

I’ve written several times about the Gap versus the Gain. It’s one of my favorite frameworks. In the words of authors Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy:

“Most people, especially highly ambitious people, are unhappy because of how they measure their progress. We all have an ‘ideal,’ a moving target that is always out of reach. When we measure ourselves against that ideal, we’re in the Gap. However, when we measure ourselves against our previous selves, we’re in the Gain.”

When one of the leaders I coach needs help shifting from Gap to Gain, I ask this question: Go back to the person you were one year ago. What would that person think of the progress you’ve made?

I invite you to answer that question for yourself. Pull out a paper or make a copy of this doc and get to work. Reflecting on the year’s key moments and milestones will remind you of matters most. Taking time to celebrate your wins will create positive energy and help you prepare for the coming year.

Yes, I think you should carve out time to complete all five steps of Reflections and Actions. But for now, let’s just focus on Steps 1 and 2.

Celebrate your wins. Soak in the progress you’ve made this year. Then we can tackle 2026 goals.

What I’m Learning

• How DoorDash Became an $85 billion Behemoth and Won the Delivery Wars. Very good article from Forbes about the rise of DoorDash. This passage really stood out:

  • Recalling DoorDash’s pandemic triumph, Matt Maloney (CEO of Grubhub) marvels aloud. “I kind of view their whole long bet on suburban delivery as, ‘Holy S***, I had a front row seat to witness this miracle. It was a Hail Mary pass in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.”

  • Xu, for his part, dismisses many industry views on why DoorDash blew away the competition in the U.S. as too simplistic. “Everyone else plays in the suburbs, everyone else cares about selection—and so it can’t just be a better strategy we had. Something else has to be true. I think it’s less about, ‘Did we choose this particular strategy or that?’” he explained. “It’s the consistent execution over time that has made the difference.”

  • I was at DoorDash from 2016-2021 and echo Tony’s sentiment. Having a good idea matters. Luck matters. Strategy matters. But relentless execution matters most.

• I’ve really enjoyed The Last Dance, a documentary about Michael Jordan’s final year on the Chicago Bulls. I’ve gotten some grief for waiting five years to watch it, but to my defense (yes, still working on being less defensive!), I read a 700-page biography about MJ the year before. Here are two of my favorite insights:

  • Greatness requires boring, consistent, daily commitments

  • People applaud you during your rise, but tear you down once on top

Gratitudes

I’ve found power in regularly expressing gratitude, so I’ll continue the practice. I’m grateful for my kids. We celebrated my birthday a few days ago, and they all worked together to make it special. The highlight was when they went around the dinner table and shared one reason why they’re grateful for me. These kids are my everything.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

Read The Unconquerable Leader | Learn about coaching

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