Psychology & Counseling
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Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness
"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 RealityPillar 2- Listen to Your BodyPillar 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.
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 RealityPillar 2- Listen to Your BodyPillar 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.
Editorial Reviews
"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
"Steve Magness is one of the giants of modern thinking about high performance across domains, blending a broad knowledge of cutting-edge psychology with hard-earned practical experience from the world-class athletes and other experts he coaches. In his new book, he takes on an age-old question-who triumphs, and why, when the going gets tough?-and reveals that many of our cherished instincts and assumptions are wrong. A crucial read for anyone who cares about delivering their best when the stakes are highest." - Alex Hutchinson, New York Times bestselling author of Endure
"For too long, we have lauded stories of coaches and leaders who practice the ‘weed-out' school of toughness-subject a bunch of people to something unpleasant, and those who survive must have become high performers because of it. While those stories have grown in prominence, the body of scientific research has grown in a different direction, indicating that fortitude is not a trait that magically grows under extreme duress, but rather a skill that can slowly but surely be cultivated. It is time to bring the stories in line with the research, and I think Steve Magness is perfectly positioned to do just that." - David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of Range and The Sports Gene
"Steve Magness possesses an incredible range of wisdom and knowledge about the science, psychology and practical sides of sport performance. Do Hard Things is a master class in how to develop resilience, persistence and confidence under pressure." - Christie Aschwanden, New York Times bestselling author of Good to Go
"Steve Magness is one of the giants of modern thinking about high performance across domains, blending a broad knowledge of cutting-edge psychology with hard-earned practical experience from the world-class athletes and other experts he coaches. In his new book, he takes on an age-old question-who triumphs, and why, when the going gets tough?-and reveals that many of our cherished instincts and assumptions are wrong. A crucial read for anyone who cares about delivering their best when the stakes are highest." - Alex Hutchinson, New York Times bestselling author of Endure
"For too long, we have lauded stories of coaches and leaders who practice the ‘weed-out' school of toughness-subject a bunch of people to something unpleasant, and those who survive must have become high performers because of it. While those stories have grown in prominence, the body of scientific research has grown in a different direction, indicating that fortitude is not a trait that magically grows under extreme duress, but rather a skill that can slowly but surely be cultivated. It is time to bring the stories in line with the research, and I think Steve Magness is perfectly positioned to do just that." - David Epstein, New York Times bestselling author of Range and The Sports Gene
"Steve Magness possesses an incredible range of wisdom and knowledge about the science, psychology and practical sides of sport performance. Do Hard Things is a master class in how to develop resilience, persistence and confidence under pressure." - Christie Aschwanden, New York Times bestselling author of Good to Go
Readers Top Reviews
DisneyDenizenBrya
I needed this book. In this time of endless pandemic, I've discovered that the young adult I live with is more resilient than I am. You'd never know it in the moment, but she bounces back faster. A deep dive into how to cultivate my own resilience (and also help her improve hers) was definitely called for. Well written and engaging. It really draws you in. There's a reason Malcolm Gladwell likes it.
Jim S.Jim S.Disne
I loved everything about this book. There is so much wrong with conventional ways to think about toughness and this book completely turns those ideas on their head and offers a much better and more effective way. A must read for anyone looking to be genuinely tough, whether it is on the playing field, in the board room, or as a parent. These guys at the Growth Equation absolutely crush. This book is every bit as good as all their other stuff (The Practice of Groundedness, Peak Performance, etc.). Highly recommend to all. A must-read.
ToddJim S.Jim S.D
Old school toughness is outdated. It's not that toughness isn't important, but what we thought of as toughness really isn't. We shouldn't workout without water until we drop dead. We shouldn't workout to the point where we create a long-term injury. You shouldn't try to lift a massive weight you haven't trained for. The author does a good job of redefining toughness as something more around getting the most from yourself with the proper training - not simply seeing how long you can deprive yourself of the stuff your body needs. He gives you some of the tools to deal with stressful situations so you can gain real, positive toughness. He does reach back to Viktor Frankl's Man Search for Meaning quite a bit talking about the importance of purpose in order to be tough. I highly recommend the book. It's short and powerful. One tangent the author talked about that really resonated with me as someone who just threw out my son's participation trophies from the '90s and '00s is how misguided the effort was (thanks, California). The everybody gets an award program's intent was to create self-esteem by just giving people awards. It has since been demonstrated that to feel real self-esteem, you have to earn it. It's similar for toughness. It's something that has to be earned and can't be given.
CToddJim S.Jim S.
In the first part of the book Magness discusses “toughness”, and the things that our culture has associated with being tough. He uses the example of coach Bobby Knight, and how his style of coaching was indicative of and older generation's ideas of toughness. Magness also discusses parenting styles, and the differences between a more authoritarian style and a more permissive style. He uses a few different examples and analogies to demonstrate his main point: that our modern society has “a fundamental misunderstanding of what toughness is.” Magness then covers each of his “Four Pillars” of real toughness, with a few chapters focused on each one: 1) Detach the facade, embrace reality, 2) Listen to your Body, 3) Respond instead of React, and 4)) Transcend discomfort. Overall I enjoyed reading this book. Some of Magness's ideas about confidence and self-esteem were very insightful, and I appreciated his ability to use examples from many different fields to illustrate his points. His analysis of emotional responses was also profound, as he was able to articulate some ideas that I haven't seen conveyed so clearly before. I feel like I can use some of this advice to improve my interactions with other people; and perhaps I'll be a better parent and partner as a result.
PaxCToddJim S.Jim
This is an excellent book. The author uses current research to support the methods offered. The perspectives are unique yet familiar, helpful but not useless. There are nuggets of insight that made me rethink experiences I thought I understood. Worth reading!
