Chasing Excellence

Ever 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 don't really matter? In this episode, Jamison fires community questions at Ben, and the answers are exactly what coaches and athletes need to hear — clear, direct, and rooted in how the body actually works. We dig into the...

What 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 down with Dr. Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development — the longest-running study of adult life ever conducted — to unpack what 85 years of research reveals about what actually makes a good l...

What 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, Iceland Annie: The Evolution of a CrossFit Games Legend — five years in the making and built on a prologue Christine wrote before Annie ever agreed to write it. You'll hear why Annie believes character is trained the same way...

Short 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 ChaseTracker app 👊 Jump into the Chase Club See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

We’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 don't you have that you're grateful to be without? That single shift — from counting blessings to counting absences — sits at the heart of this challenge. We explore how modern culture, the "affluenza virus," and the pull of s...

What 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 why it changed everything he thought he understood about mental health. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Rich, Ben's physician and friend, to unpack the autoimmune response that attacked Ben's brain, the treatments...

What 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 framework behind it: drifting is the slow, often unseen move toward convenience, comfort, and conformity, while chasing is the daily decision to organize your time, energy, attention, and money toward what truly matters. Learn...

What 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, Patrick hosts Chris Irwin to build a practical self-assessment tool rooted in the Five Mind Killers: a set of diagnostic questions mapped across each mind killer that, asked honestly every three to six months, reveal whether y...

What 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 coaching a packed class or programming for a single athlete — and why the answer starts with one question most coaches never ask. Learn why compliance is the real metric, how logistical constraints shape every programming...

Hard 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 each of the five factors: dealing with a chaotic home situation with a napping toddler, chasing a federal special agent fitness standard, eating clean on the road, deciding whether to have more kids in your 40s, and navig...

How 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 from David about parental influence, the six factors that shape teenagers, and the three things fathers can genuinely control: modeling, connection, and agency. We explore why control and influence are two very different to...

What 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 Chase Club member Ashton, who's 31 weeks pregnant and navigating the emotional complexity of a husband who keeps checking in on her workouts. We explore the gap between what someone actually says and the story we tell ourselv...

Twenty 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 key areas of life — Move, Sleep, Eat, Think, and Connect — and unpack the why behind each one. Drift is the enemy of excellence, and this episode is one of the sharpest tools we've built to fight it. You'll leave with a c...

What 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 explore why children today are exhibiting what used to be considered trauma responses, and what parents can actually do about it. We explore the five causes of childhood overwhelm, why the antidote starts with the parents —...

Is 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 case that high performance isn't a status reserved for athletes and CEOs. It's a set of actions anyone can adopt. From Tony Robbins' "musts vs. shoulds" to Kobe Bryant's marathon gym session, we connect high performance t...

What 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 the CONNECT factor, from parenting across different households to rebuilding friendships in your 40s and 50s. You'll learn why kids become what they repeatedly experience (not what you tell them), how to distinguish a va...

What 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, regardless of what you're training for, where you train, or what program you follow. From intentional intensity and the recovery-adaptation curve, to learning to breathe, filming yourself, and never negotiating mid-worko...

What 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 it turns out, it's not really about gyms at all. We unpack the difference between loyalty (a choice) and guilt (a feeling), explore the three pillars that make any community worth staying in, and give you a framework for...

What if raising a child well means releasing your vision of who they're supposed to become — and learning instead to see who they actually are? Patrick is joined this week by Christina Watka, an installation artist whose entire practice is built around entering a space without a plan, noticing what's there, and letting the work lead. In this Raise episode, they explore how that same artistic openn...

High performance isn't a talent — it's a system. This week, we bring together three of our most foundational conversations to show you exactly what that system looks like in practice. From the two non-negotiables that underpin every kind of success, to the five specific characteristics we see in every high performer we've ever met, to the seven quiet habits that keep most people from closing the g...

What if high performance at work isn't a talent you either have or don't — but a system you can practice starting today? In this episode, Patrick introduces the 21-Day High Performance Challenge and walks through the five interdependent characteristics that, together, make up a practice for doing the right things at the highest level you're capable of. We connect this system to the Five Factors of...

What does it look like to go from 500 pounds to a CrossFit coach - not out of inspiration, but because fear was the only thing in the room? In this episode, Jamison sits down with Athena Perez : affiliate owner, coach, and author of a two-part memoir about identity, worth, and what fitness spaces get dangerously wrong. We explore how compounding habits shape who we become long before we notice, wh...

Every parent who cares about health eventually hits this wall: your kids don't want to do what you know is good for them — and the more you push, the harder they pull away. In this episode, we tackle Chase Club member Brendan's question about getting his 16-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter to move consistently, despite shared custody. We dig into why the modeling you do today isn't for the te...

What if becoming extraordinary isn't really about your own habits — it's about the habits you build that make everyone around you better? In this episode, we sit down with Jon Gordon, author of 33 books and 18 bestsellers, to explore seven habits that transform ordinary people into the kind of person others genuinely want to be around. We explore how the ratio of positive to negative interactions...

What if your triggers aren't random — they're a map back to yourself? In this close-out episode, Patrick reflects on the 21-day trigger challenge with two reframes that change everything: the tug of war between wants and reality, and the difference between surface triggers (your mental dojo) and the serious ones rooted in your own history. Learn why the fastest road to context-independent peace of...