Do Hard Things

Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness

By: Steve Magness

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"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.

Refreshing content

A take on resilience that just isn’t out there. I agree with the author that I hope this is a small step to changing status quo.

The Audiobook quality was great as well!

Super informative

Just do yourself a favor and listen to it. It's not the easiest read but it's well worth it.

Great Aggregate of Research

Much like the author states in his final chapter… there is no formulaic way to look or instill toughness.

This book am aggregate celebration of a new view on toughness.

Great compliment or starting point for any research into team / personal development

Great book!

Very insightful and vehement opposition to what every man grew up with. As an endurance athlete I received tools to put into practice as well as to package with my private mental health practice.

Would have offered the author to read it

some really great parts and some parts a little bit tedious, but overall he gets it.