Chasing Excellence
by Ben Bergeron & Patrick Cummings
Latest episode
How to Actually Define Your Core Values
How to Actually Define Your Core Values
About this podcast
Most people aren't stuck because they lack information. They're stuck because they know what to do and can't quite do it consistently. The slow drift keeps winning.
Chasing Excellence is for people who are already trying — working out, eating well, staying positive — but find themselves in the one-good-week, one-bad-week cycle.
Ben Bergeron, Patrick Cummings, and a crew of authors, thinkers, and doers explore the five factors of health — how we eat, move, think, connect, and rest — and what it actually takes to crowd out the drift and build the life you keep almost living.
New episodes every Monday and Thursday.
Beyond the podcast: the Chase Club brings together a crew for daily lessons, monthly challenges, and the real work of crowding out the drift. The ChaseTracker app helps you track the Five Factors daily.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 562 episodes
- How to Actually Define Your Core Values · 18 min · Episode 560We're digging into how to actually stress-test our core values instead of just naming nice-sounding words on a wall.With author Robert Glazer, we work through the exercises and…
- Model a Life People Want to Move Toward · 11 min · Episode 564We're revisiting a conversation between Jamison and Athena Perez about the gap between what we say we believe and how we actually treat people when no one's watching.We explore…
- What to Do Before You Start a Business · 14 min · Episode 559We're unpacking what it actually looks like to prepare for a business we can't start yet - using the months before we have land, capital, or customers to test the real model…
- Telling Ourselves Better Stories · 23 min · Episode 558We're exploring the mindset continuum - the spectrum that runs from a victim mindset through pessimist, optimist, and realist, all the way to a competitor's mindset.We dig into…
- Zone 2 Training Isn't Magic, It's a Tool · 16 min · Episode 557We're breaking down zone 2 training - what it actually does physiologically, why elite endurance athletes build so much of their programming around it, and where it fits for the…
- Create a Clear, Compelling Vision For Your Life · 18 min · Episode 556We're building a clear and compelling vision for our lives - pulling apart values, purpose, mission, and the one big audacious goal that ties them together.By getting specific…
- Say This Before You Want to Quit · 12 min · Episode 555We're exploring how to mentally survive an endurance challenge so long and grueling that it can swallow your identity before you even begin.By breaking a daunting event into a…
- Rewrite The Belief, Rewrite The Result · 13 min · Episode 554We're exploring how our beliefs quietly set the ceiling on our actions - and why shifting what we believe is possible might matter more than any strategy we chase.By tracing our…
- Right Now, You're Good · 13 min · Episode 553We're answering a listener's question about letting go of anger after being wronged, without slipping into a victim mindset that keeps us stuck in the past.By leaning on the…
- The Confidence to Temporarily Train Less · 7 min · Episode 552We're answering a listener's question about staying consistent with training during a temporary stretch of long commutes and packed days.Instead of forcing early wake-ups or…
- Excellence Is a Direction, Not a Destination · 25 min · Episode 549We're exploring how to replace vague dissatisfaction with real clarity - naming not just who we're becoming, but who we refuse to become, and the values that guide the thousands…
- Turn Idle Time Into Mobility Time · 11 min · Episode 539We're digging into a listener question about why mobility and maintenance work is so easy to skip and so hard to prioritize.By treating joint and soft tissue care as something we…
- The Quiet Side of Toughness · 16 min · Episode 551We're exploring how real toughness isn't always about how much pain we can absorb - it's sometimes about restraint, facing down our own instincts instead of giving in to…
- Returning to the Gym After Injury · 7 min · Episode 541We're answering a question from a Chase Club member about returning to CrossFit after a serious wrist injury, three months away from training, and at 72 years old.We explore why…
- Behind the Scenes of CrossFit’s Chaotic Formative Years (w/ Calum Marsh) · 1 h 1 min · Episode 550We're sitting down with author Calum Marsh to trace the untold, complicated story behind CrossFit's rise - from Greg Glassman's fifteen quiet years before anyone noticed to the…
- Stop Doing Health, Start Being Healthy · 15 min · Episode 542We're revisiting the difference between doing health and being healthy - the gap between the supplements, gadgets, and biohacks we chase and the simple, sustainable fundamentals…
- Why Essentialism Really Means Embracing Trade-Offs · 11 min · Episode 548We're talking about Greg McKeown’s concept of Essentialism, exploring how choosing one clear focus over a dozen scattered priorities creates outsized results.Trade-offs aren't…
- Train Your Brain Like You Train Your Body · 18 min · Episode 540We're revisiting a conversation with best-selling author Cal Newport on cognitive health and exploring what happens when we treat our attention like an all-you-can-eat buffet of…
- Track Phone Pickups, Not Screen Time · 10 min · Episode 547We're exploring why counting how many times we pick up our phone each day matters more than tracking total screen time.By paying attention to that one number — and setting a…
- The Practice of Noticing in a Busy Life · 16 min · Episode 546We're talking with installation artist Christina Watka, to explore the quiet practice of noticing — meeting life as it is, without judgment, right in the middle of the noise and…
- Two Daily Habits for More Focused Days · 21 min · Episode 545We're exploring two practices that turn scattered effort into focused work - planning the day before it starts, and reviewing it before it ends.By building our plan around what…
- Dopamine Culture Is Quietly Hijacking Your Focus · 16 min · Episode 544We're exploring Ted Gioia's idea of "dopamine culture" — how so many parts of life have drifted from slow, traditional pursuits through faster, modern versions into addictive…
- You Can't Unsee This Food Insanity · 9 min · Episode 538We're exploring why our modern food environment is insane - and why once you see it, you can't unsee it.With our friend EC Synkowski, author of A Good Nutrition Book, we build…
- You Don't Have to Quit to Feel Fulfilled · 10 min · Episode 537We're exploring how to find real fulfillment inside a job that already gives us balance and security, without needing to blow it all up for something new.By treating our work as…
- How to Know When to Change Course · 15 min · Episode 536We're exploring how to tell the difference between a challenge worth pushing through and a misalignment worth walking away from.By anchoring the decision in whether our values…
- Why Discomfort Means You're Growing (Not Failing) · 15 min · Episode 535We're revisiting a favorite conversation with Trevor Ragan to unpack his simple equation for discomfort: caring plus uncertainty.When we treat that discomfort as proof we're on…
- Am I Building Grit Or Burning Out? · 11 min · Episode 534We're exploring how to know whether we're building grit or slipping toward burnout when life leaves almost no room for training.By understanding allostatic load and finding our…
- Life Is a Frisbee Balanced on a Pencil · 12 min · Episode 533We're exploring why we can't maximize every goal at once, and how picturing life as a Frisbee balanced on a pencil - instead of a seesaw - changes the way we chase what…
- Person First, Process Second, Goal Third · 9 min · Episode 532We're exploring how to pursue ambitious goals without making our identity dependent on the outcome.By placing the person and the process ahead of the goal, we build awareness…
- Why Chasing Excellence Is Going Daily · 12 min · Episode 543We're kicking off an October Experiment, a shift from one longer weekly episode to short, daily episodes every weekday.Today, we explore why this change matters: showing up with…
- Why Smart People Keep Outsourcing Their Diet to Strangers (w/ EC Synkowski) · 56 min · Episode 531What if the problem with your diet isn't discipline — it's that you've never learned to think for yourself about food? In this episode, our friend EC Synkowski (author of A Good…
- Forever Fit | Why Your Fitness Feels Stalled (And Why That's Normal) · 50 min · Episode 530Plateaus, leaderboards, and the real reason most people stop making progress in the gym — we answer the questions you've been too afraid to ask.In part two of our training Q&A…
- Forever Fit | The 2 Signs You're Too Sore to Train · 55 min · Episode 529Ever wonder whether that soreness means rest—or push through? If one bad night of sleep wrecks your training? Or whether all those YouTube influencers are right that rep ranges…
- Why We Keep Choosing Work Over the People We Love (w/ Robert Waldinger) · 1 h 1 min · Episode 528What if the single greatest predictor of your health at 80 isn't your cholesterol or blood pressure — but how satisfied you are in your relationships?In this conversation, we sit…
- Annie Thorisdottir Talks Training Character, Consistency, & Collaboration (w/ Christine Bald) · 59 min · Episode 527What if the most important training you'll ever do happens nowhere near a barbell?Annie Thorisdottir and her co-writer Christine Bald join Patrick to discuss their new book…
- Our 21-Day Happiness Challenges Starts Today! · 2 min · Episode 526Short and sweet this week: Our latest challenge is kicking off today, and we don't want you to miss it.❤️🔥 More information on the Happiness Challenge🐾 Join us inside the…
- Chase Challenge | Happiness Is a Subtraction Problem We’re Solving All Wrong · 18 min · Episode 525We’re kicking off our new 21-Day Happiness Challenge — and it's probably not what you expect. Instead of focusing on what you have to be grateful for, we flip the lens: what…
- Ben’s Battle With Depression & What’s Helping Now (w/ Dr Rich Joseph) · 58 min · Episode 524What does depression look like when nothing in your life is actually wrong?Ben shares his first real experience with depression — not born of circumstance, but of chemistry — and…
- 3 Simple Principles for a Life of Health, Happiness, & Hearts on Fire · 35 min · Episode 523What if every day you could see — in real time — whether you're drifting or chasing?In this solo episode, Patrick unpacks the rebuilt ChaseTracker app and the foundational…
- 20 Questions That Map Your Mental Fitness (w/ Chris Irwin) · 1 h 16 min · Episode 522What if you could assess your mental fitness the same way you track your lifts, your miles, and your macros — with honest data, asked on a regular schedule?In this episode…
- Individual vs. Class Programming: What Actually Matters · 11 min · Episode 521What if the most important question in programming has nothing to do with the workout itself?In this episode, Ben breaks down how to design training that works — whether you're…
- 5x5 | Accepting Adversity & Eating Clean When Going Out · 37 min · Episode 520Hard things don't get easier when we pretend they aren't hard — they get easier when we stop wishing they were different.In this solo 5x5, Ben answers one listener question from…
- Unconditional Love Isn't Soft. It's What Makes Our Kids Brave · 55 min · Episode 519How much responsibility do we actually carry for where our teenagers end up — and how much is simply out of our hands?In this episode, we dig into a powerful listener question…
- When "Did You Work Out?" Feels Like an Attack · 13 min · Episode 518What do you do when the person who loves you most says something that makes you feel shame — even when they don't mean it that way?In this episode, we answer a question from…
- 20 Simple Ways to Fight Drift — That Invisible Shift Away from Your Best Self · 51 min · Episode 517Twenty tactics. Five factors. One episode worth pulling back from the archives.In this replay, we walk through the four highest-leverage actions you can take in each of the five…
- Raise | Screens Are Only 1 of 5 Causes of Anxious Kids (w/ Kim John Payne) · 49 min · Episode 516What if the thing overwhelming your kids isn't screens — it's a culture of too much?In this episode, Patrick sits down with Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting, to…
- Chase Challenge | You Don't Need Anyone's Permission to Be a High Performer · 26 min · Episode 515Is the label "high performer" quietly holding you back from becoming one?In this episode, Patrick unpacks four lessons from the 21-day High Performance Challenge — and makes the…
- 5x5 | Building Real Friendships After 40 & Asking Questions That Connect · 53 min · Episode 514What does it actually take to connect — with your kids, your partner, your community, and the strangers you meet every day?In this episode, Ben answers five listener questions on…
- Forever Fit | Learn to Breathe (+ 9 More Habits That Upgrade Your Training) · 1 h 16 min · Episode 513What if the problem isn't your program — it's how you're showing up for it?In this episode, Ben and Jamison break down 10 training hygiene habits that can transform your results…
- You Don't Owe Your Past More Than You Owe Your Future · 33 min · Episode 512What if the guilt you're calling loyalty is the very thing keeping you stuck?In this episode, we answer a question from Chase Club member Mike about whether to switch gyms — and…
