Mark: I'm going to say something that sounds crazy: Winning the championship might be the worst thing that ever happens to your team. The trophy on the shelf could be the very thing that stops you from ever being truly great. Michelle: Hold on, what? How can winning be bad? That’s the whole point of competing, isn't it? To win? You sound like you’re trying to make me feel better about my tragic fantasy football record. Mark: I promise, I'm not. It's this central, mind-bending idea in a book that’s been rattling around in my head, The Pursuit of Excellence by Ryan Hawk. And it makes sense when you know who he is. Hawk has this incredible background—he was a professional quarterback, then climbed the ladder to become a VP of Sales in the corporate world, and now he hosts one of the most respected leadership podcasts out there. Michelle: Okay, so he’s seen high performance from मैदान, the boardroom, and the studio. That’s a rare trifecta. He’s not just an academic. Mark: Exactly. And because he’s seen it from all those angles, he’s obsessed with this question: what’s the difference between just being successful, and achieving true, sustainable excellence? The answer is what we're diving into today. It starts with throwing out our old definition of winning.

Michelle: I’m listening, but I’m skeptical. If excellence isn't about winning, what on earth is it? Mark: Hawk tells this great story about a high school basketball coach named Brook Cupps. Cupps was asked this exact question, and his answer is the foundation of the entire book. He said, "Success is based on a comparison with others. Excellence is measured against your own potential." Michelle: Huh. Okay, say more about that. One is external, one is internal. Mark: Precisely. Success is "Did I beat you?" Excellence is "Am I better today than I was yesterday?" It completely reframes the game. Think of the legendary runner Steve Prefontaine. He famously said, "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." He wasn't just trying to beat the other runners; he saw every race as a sacred duty to test the absolute limits of his own body and spirit. The other guys were just part of the landscape. Michelle: That’s a beautiful idea for a world-class athlete. It’s very poetic. But in the real world, my performance review, my bonus, my promotion—it’s all based on me beating my colleagues on a sales chart or outperforming last quarter's numbers. How does this internal benchmark of 'excellence' actually work in a world that only rewards external 'success'? Mark: That's the perfect question, because it highlights the trap. When you only chase external success, you’re on a treadmill of comparison. You win, you feel good for a minute, then you need the next win. It’s fragile. But when you focus on excellence, on the process itself, you build something durable. Hawk uses the Wright Brothers as an example. Michelle: The airplane guys. Mark: The airplane guys. Their neighbors in Kitty Hawk thought they were nuts. They’d just stand on the beach for hours, flapping their arms, watching the gulls. One resident, John Daniels, was quoted saying, "We thought they were crazy, but we just had to admire the way they could move their arms... just like the gannets." They weren't just trying to build a machine that flew. They were obsessed with understanding the principles of flight. They were pursuing mastery of the craft. The final airplane, the 'success,' was just the inevitable outcome of their relentless pursuit of excellence. Michelle: I see. So focusing on the process, on getting 1% better at the craft every day, is what leads to the big win, but the win itself isn't the point. The point is the mastery. Mark: You got it. The success becomes a byproduct, not the sole objective. That shift in focus is what protects you from burnout and the emptiness that can come after a big win. You're not left asking "what now?" because the answer is always the same: "get better."

Mark: And of course, that internal benchmark, that daily grind of getting better, needs fuel. It's not just about gritting your teeth and using willpower. Michelle: Oh, I know that feeling. My willpower runs out by about 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. Mark: Right? Hawk shares this fantastic conversation between Jerry Seinfeld and Howard Stern. Stern was arguing that you can achieve anything with will. And Seinfeld stops him and says, no, will is finite. The real driver is love. He says, "When you love something, it’s a bottomless pool of energy. That’s where the energy comes from." Michelle: I like that. But then you hear લોકો like Professor Scott Galloway say the worst advice you can give a young person is "follow your passion." He argues you should get great at something, and the money and prestige will make you passionate about it. Mark: And Hawk addresses that exact tension. He shares his own story. He was a quarterback, but he wasn't good enough for the NFL. His dream died. He ended up in a telephonic sales job, which he wasn't passionate about at all. But he applied his athlete's discipline to it. He got good. Then he got great. And he says, "The passion came after the performance." He fell in love with the mastery, with helping his team, with solving problems. Michelle: So it’s not about waiting for a lightning bolt of passion. It’s about finding something you can commit to mastering, and the love for it grows from there. That feels much more accessible. Mark: It is. And that's the internal fuel. But there's also the external fuel, which Hawk calls "Building Your Band." You can't do it alone. Michelle: Your network, your mentors, your crew. Mark: Exactly. He talks about Benjamin Franklin’s "Junto," which was this club he started in his 20s with other tradesmen. They met every Friday to debate ideas, share knowledge, and help each other improve. It was a formal structure for mutual growth. Michelle: So a 'Junto' is basically a high-level mastermind group. That sounds amazing, but also intimidating. How do you even find these people? It's not like you can just call up your heroes and ask them to be in your club. Mark: You'd be surprised. Hawk tells this incredible story about a high school football coach named Ron Ullery. In 1982, he was told he had to coach the offensive line, a position he knew nothing about. He was terrified. So, what does he do? He looks up the number for the Cincinnati Bengals. Michelle: The NFL team? No way. Mark: Yes. He calls the main line, asks for the offensive line coach, Jim McNally, and a receptionist who happened to have babysat one of his students puts him through. McNally, this legendary NFL coach, gets on the phone, hears Ullery's story, and says, "Can you be in my office tomorrow at 9 a.m.?" He then spent four hours, for free, drawing up plays on a whiteboard and teaching this high school coach everything he knew. Michelle: That's incredible. Just because he asked. Mark: Just because he was humble enough to ask. That's building your band. It’s not about networking; it’s about genuinely seeking to learn. And Hawk has this great phrase for how to interact in that band: "Listen like a trampoline." Michelle: Listen like a trampoline? What does that mean? Mark: It means you don't just passively absorb what the other person is saying, like a sponge. A good listener is like a trampoline. You bounce ideas off them, and they amplify your energy, clarify your thinking, and send you higher. They actively support and build on your ideas. That's the kind of person you want in your Junto.

Michelle: Okay, so you have your internal definition of excellence, you have your fuel, and you've built your trampoline-filled band. But then comes the hardest part: the actual, day-to-day work. The resistance. The part where you just don't want to do it. Mark: The part where the couch looks really, really good. This is what Hawk calls "The Chase," and it's all about mindset and discipline. The perfect story for this is Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute mile. Michelle: The impossible barrier. Mark: For decades, it was considered a physiological impossibility. Doctors and scientists said the human body would literally break down. It was a massive psychological wall. But Bannister, a medical student, approached it like a scientist. He trained his mind as much as his body. He visualized it. He believed it was possible. And on May 6, 1954, he did it. Michelle: And what happened next is the most important part of that story. Mark: You know it. Just 46 days later, his rival John Landy also broke it. Within a year, a dozen more runners had done it. The barrier was never physical. It was mental. Once Bannister showed it could be done, the mental resistance for everyone else crumbled. Michelle: That gives me chills. It shows how much of our limitation is self-imposed. Mark: It's almost all of it. And breaking through that resistance requires what the author Chase Jarvis calls "ruthless discipline." There are no tricks. There are no shortcuts. It's about honoring the process. It reminds me of the Jacob Riis quote about the stonecutter. Michelle: Oh, I love that one. Mark: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before." Michelle: That’s excellence. It’s the 100 blows that nobody sees. It’s the daily, unglamorous work. But that can feel overwhelming. What's one small, practical thing someone listening can do tomorrow to start building that discipline? Mark: Hawk shares a simple but powerful idea from Leo Babauta: "Make it so easy you can’t say no." If you want to start working out, don't commit to an hour at the gym. Commit to putting on your workout clothes. That's it. That's the win for the day. You can almost always talk yourself into that. Michelle: And once the clothes are on, you're halfway to the front door. Mark: Exactly. Hawk also tells a personal story about his Sunday morning workouts. He does the hardest part—the running and sprinting—first. An older woman at the park asked him why he doesn't walk first to warm up. He replied, "I just try to do the hard stuff first." By tackling the most difficult task right away, he builds momentum, and the rest of the workout feels like a reward. It’s a small mental shift that changes everything.

Michelle: It seems like all these ideas really weave together. It’s not just a collection of tips. Mark: It's a complete philosophy. It starts with fundamentally redefining excellence as your own personal journey, measured only against yourself. That’s the compass. Then, you fuel that journey with the internal fire of what you love and the external support of your 'band'—the people who act as trampolines for your growth. Michelle: And finally, you honor that commitment with the daily, disciplined action of the stonecutter. You embrace the resistance, you do the hard stuff, and you trust that the 101st blow is coming. Mark: That’s it perfectly. You stop chasing success and you start building excellence. The success, if it comes, is just a happy accident. The real prize is who you become along the way. Michelle: It really makes you ask yourself a question, doesn't it? What's the one thing you're doing today just to be a little better than you were yesterday? Not for a promotion, not for praise, but just for you. Mark: That's the ultimate question. And we’d love to hear your answers. Find us on our social channels and tell us about your one small act of excellence. What's your first swing of the hammer? Michelle: We'd genuinely love to know. It’s about building our own little Junto, right here. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.