"In Do Hard Things, Steve Magness beautifully and persuasively reimagines our understanding of toughness. This is a must-read for parents and coaches and anyone else looking to prepare for life's biggest challenges." — Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Talking to Strangers and host of the Revisionist History podcast
From beloved performance expert, executive coach, and coauthor of Peak Performance Steve Magness comes a radical rethinking of how we perceive toughness and what it means to achieve our high ambitions in the face of hard things.
Toughness has long been held as the key to overcoming a challenge and achieving greatness, whether it is on the sports field, at a boardroom, or at the dining room table. Yet, the prevailing model has promoted a mentality based on fear, false bravado, and hiding any sign of weakness. In other words, the old model of toughness has failed us.
Steve Magness, a performance scientist who coaches Olympic athletes, rebuilds our broken model of resilience with one grounded in the latest science and psychology. In Do Hard Things, Magness teaches us how we can work with our body – how experiencing discomfort, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action can be the true indications of cultivating inner strength. He offers four core pillars to cultivate such resilience:
Pillar 1- Ditch the Façade, Embrace Reality
Pillar 2- Listen to Your Body
Pillar 3- Respond, Instead of React
Pillar 4- Transcend Discomfort
Smart and wise all at once, Magness flips the script on what it means to be resilient. Drawing from mindfulness, military case studies, sports psychology, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, he provides a roadmap for navigating life’s challenges and achieving high performance that makes us happier, more successful, and, ultimately, better people.
Steve Magness is a world-renowned expert on performance, coauthor of Peak Performance and The Passion Paradox, and the author of The Science of Running. He is the co-host of two podcasts: The Growth Equation podcast, with Brad Stulberg, and On Coaching with Magness and Marcus, with Jon Marcus. He has written for Runner’s World and Sports Illustrated, and he has been featured in The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Men’s Health, The Guardian, Business Insider, and ESPN The Magazine, and he has been featured on NPR and CNN International. Magness has served as a consultant and speaker for NASA, the Houston Rockets, Murphy Oil, the Brooklyn Nets, the Cleveland Guardians, the Seattle Sounders, the New Orleans Pelicans, Athletics New Zealand, Canadian Athletics, New Zealand High Performance, and more. He lives in Houston, Texas.
Table of Contents
Introduction: How We Got Toughness Wrong and Where to Go
Chapter 1 From Tough Coaches, Tough Parents, and Tough Guys to Finding Real Inner Strength 3
Chapter 2 Sink or Swim: How We Took the Wrong Lesson from the Military 23
The First Pillar of Toughness: Ditch the Facade, Embrace Reality
Chapter 3 Accept What You Are Capable Of 41
Chapter 4 True Confidence Is Quiet; Insecurity Is Loud 59
Chapter 5 Know When to Hold 'Em and When to Fold 'Em 85
The Second Pillar of Toughness: Listen to Your Body
Chapter 6 Your Emotions Are Messengers, Not Dictators 115
Chapter 7 Own the Voice in Your Head 139
The Third Pillar of Toughness: Respond Instead of React
Chapter 8 Keep Your Mind Steady 163
Chapter 9 Turn the Dial So You Don't Spiral 193
The Fourth Pillar of Toughness: Transcend Discomfort
Chapter 10 Build the Foundation to Do Hard Things 229
