How Not to Become an Asshole: Do Hard Things in The Real World

Today is a special treat. I am running an excerpt from my long time collaborative partner Brad Stulberg’s new book, The Way of Excellence. I could not recommend this book more highly for people who care about performance. If you read one book this year, make it The Way of Excellence (get a copy here).

At one point or another, many of us have been frustrated by the out-­of-­touch actions or moral failures of prominent and conventionally “successful” people. I won’t mention specific names, though I’m sure you could easily come up with your own. A while back, after one such letdown, I reached out to an older and wise mentor in search of solace.

Me: I can’t believe there are so many egotistical jerks. Why do all these people just completely lose touch? What is it about money or power or status that turns you into an asshole? Is it unavoidable?

Mentor: I am getting more weight equipment.

We didn’t talk much further on the topic. We didn’t need to. I knew exactly what he was saying: Lifting weights offers a genuine source of satisfaction, so you don’t need to chase the superficial variety.

“The only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill. Good skill is the greatest possession,” Jerry Seinfeld once said in an interview with The New Yorker. “I know a lot of rich people. So do you. They don’t feel good, as you think they should and would. They’re miserable. Because, if they don’t master a skill, life is unfulfilling.”

Weightlifting and stand-­up comedy are but two of many examples. Others include running, cycling, swimming, gardening, hiking, painting, climbing, sculpting, writing, music, and woodworking. What all of these activities share is a path toward satisfaction that is not wishy-washy or contrived. These pursuits do not entail grandiose visions of changing the world or reinventing industry. They are neither politically motivated nor do they require schemes. What they are is simple and real.

When the barbell drops, it drops. When you want to run a marathon in under three hours but go 3:04, the result hits you right in the face. When the legs of the chair don’t fit into the base, the dilemma is as material as anything. The rhythm of the song cannot be faked. The blank page either fills with words or it does not. The tree either blooms or wilts. The joke either lands with raucous laughter or is met with awkward silence. It is hard to lose touch with reality or suffer narcissism when you are working with integrity on something concrete, when your successes are earned and your failures cannot be rationalized by technical jargon, corporate mumbo jumbo, or social media hot takes. Striving for excellence of this sort—­doing real things, in the real world, with real results—keeps you grounded, both literally and figuratively.

In his 2009 book Shop Class as Soulcraft, the philosopher Matthew B. Crawford writes that “despite the proliferation of contrived metrics,” many jobs suffer from “a lack of objective standards.” Ask certain white-­collar professionals what it means to do a good job at the office, and odds are they may need at least a few minutes to explain the answer, accounting for politics, the opinions of their boss, the mood of a client, the role of their teammates, and a variety of other external factors. But ask someone what it means to do a good job at their next marathon, on their next deadlift, or in their art studio, and the answer becomes much simpler.

“The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence has been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on,” writes Crawford.

Psychologists call this an autotelic experience. It represents the fulfillment and satisfaction that arise from doing a job well for its own sake—­something that is only possible when there is a clear standard for what doing a job well means.

One of the humblest, most understated people I know is Mark, a leader at a world-­class professional services firm. During fire drills, when his colleagues are roiled in stress, he shows calm and equanimity. He doesn’t let office politics keep him up at night. Whenever there is an ethical question, he does the right thing and makes it look easy. Mark is also a committed runner. It’s not a coincidence.

You can’t use power or money or relevance or fame or anger to make a shoddy table stand. Instead, you’ve got to put your ego aside, stay calm, adjust as you go, and work toward a solution.

When you are training for a marathon or half marathon or mile, you are going to be humbled over and over again. You either get faster and stronger or you don’t. You can’t use power or money or relevance or fame or anger to improve your performance. Instead, you’ve got to put your ego aside, focus intently, stay calm, adjust as you go, and work toward tangible, concrete progress. The clock doesn’t lie.

To be sure, there are still people who work toward concrete goals and are egotistical jerks nonetheless. But these people are rarely, if ever, going about it the right way. It’s the athlete who cheats. The writer who plagiarizes. The artist who engages in fraud. When you go about your pursuits the right way—­which, by definition, is what excellence is all about—­you tend to gain at least some measure of morality.

“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then to work outward from there,” writes [Robert M.] Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. “Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think what I have to say has more lasting value.”

Throwing yourself into real activities not only helps keep you grounded, but it is also good for your brain. Pursuing mastery, a kind of gradual progress where tangible results can be traced back to oneself, increases self-reliance and self-confidence. Decades of research in a field called self-determination theory demonstrates that mastery is a core input to mental health, overall well-being, and life satisfaction.

Doing real things also affords you the experience of living in a smaller and simpler world, if only for a few hours. Compared to the complex, frantic, frenetic, and interconnected digital environment that occupies so much of a knowledge worker’s life these days, a squat workout, mountain-bike ride, or trail run are a lot more manageable. In these pursuits, you are the main factor that determines the outcome, and whatever obstacles you face are directly in front of you.

Make no mistake, nothing here is a cure-all. There are still people who do real things in the world and yet are still miserable, egotistical jerks. But it seems increasingly likely that one powerful way to stay in touch with reality, especially as you rise, is to stay in touch—quite literally—with reality. Not by spending all day tweeting, or by attending Zoom calls, or by joining fancy board meetings. Not by endlessly refreshing your bank account or stocks. But rather by doing actual, real, hard things in the world.

This was post was excerpted from The Way of Excellence by Brad Stulberg. If you liked it you’ll love the book! Get your copy here. It’s currently 23% off!