Do Hard Things

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

By: Steve Magness

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2022 Steve Magness (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Fantastic!

Amazing, fantastic, informative, and well done. The narrator was easy to listen to and spoke very well. I just hands down, love everything that Steve Magness wrote about in his book. I learned so much and want to actually get this book now and read it in my hands. There was a huge amount of info that I needed to absorb and take in again. I wished I had known about a lot of this info years and years ago. Excellent audible and book - that I have to now own the book.

More helpful than the last 10 books I read

I don’t finish a lot of the books I start. I finished this one. Love the simple techniques and maxims in each chapter. Lots of helpful stuff for parents who want to create a stable family with emphasis on growth and development being intrinsically motivated. Definitely recommend this one.

it's just a repackaged ideas from the military

There are better books on this topic. Don't waste your money or time reading or listening to this book.

Misleading Name

Overall, the book was an easy read, and I did learn a couple things. However, I don’t think it was really much about doing hard things. He goes very into detail about mindset and toughness, but the act of doing and accomplishing, and what you should strive to actually build towards was not discussed, if at all. I was looking more for something to explain what actions one can take going forward, and this book did not provide that.

Also, I really was not a fan of the narrator. I normally give audiobooks a four or five, and for some reason, I just found myself wandering off with his voice. I’m not saying he’s not for everyone, but he just could not hold my attention the way other narrators can.

Good advice

I enjoyed this book and the advice. It is one of those books that reflects my own style in life so it makes it easier to buy in but I feel like there’s a lot of good advice.

I like the approach of expectations over punitive actions. Building camaraderie instead of using fear to lead. There was a lot I’ll take away. I especially liked the tone that you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself or others.

One thing I loved was reframing things to not make negative thoughts permanent.

highly recommend

Great book for anyone to read, but especially a must if your participate in endurance sports.

Excellent book

The author does a very good job reading his own book. I enjoy his examples, I wish he given examples of political figures, or military figures, or more athletic figures. Other than that it is well worth your time to read. I took away some good lessons.

Amazing Insight to True Toughness

Steve does a masterful job of uncovering the truth behind true toughness. He gives tangible examples of how we as parents, coaches, teachers, and leaders can change the perception of old school toughness and lead our children, students, and followers through meaningful leadership.

Must Read for Athletes / Coaches

Stop believing that the old way of developing toughness is actually accurate or valuable. This book will give you the tools to understand how to better coach and lead players to being tough

Esoteric

Based on the reviews I didn't realize this was going to be more of a sports psychology read, so I was pleasantly surprised. Steve Magness did a fantastic job conceptualizing mental toughness by highlighting the past, present and future of not only athletes but, individuals, co workers, and teams alike. As a former collegiate and pro athlete much of this resonated with me. What I liked though was instead of feeling bad about the coaching I endured, he provided hope for future coaches and leaders by giving practical suggestions to get the best out of an individual. So many nuggets of wisdom.