We'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 something short to think about each day keeps us focused on today's choices, instead of waiting for one big leap forward.

By building this habit of daily attention, we hope to help you build awareness around the small decisions that add up, intention around showing up consistently, and action toward a life of health, happiness, and purpose—instead of drifting through another week waiting for change to happen all at once.

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About the Hosts

Patrick Cummings is the author of two kids' books and has been building and making things inside the health and fitness world for two decades. Find him on Instagram.

Ben Bergeron is the founder of CompTrain, a longtime gym owner and coach, and the author of the bestselling book, Chasing Excellence. Find him on Instagram.

About the Show

Chasing Excellence is a show dedicated to the daily pursuit of health, happiness, and living with our hearts on fire. Episodes drop Monday through Friday.

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What 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 Nutrition Book) joins us to explain why calories, macros, and micros — not keto, paleo, or intermittent fasting — are the real levers that decide your results.

We break down her Three Pillars Method — the 800-gram fruit-and-vegetable challenge, a simple protein target, then a calorie baseline built from your real life instead of a calculator — and why it builds freedom instead of restriction. You'll also learn where cravings actually come from, and how to know when you've done enough and it's time to go learn guitar.

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Plateaus, 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, Jamison and Ben explore why fitness follows the stock market (not a straight line), how to use the leaderboard as a tool instead of a verdict, and why the law of diminishing returns is actually proof you're advancing — not stalling.

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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 frameworks behind recovery, pacing, and strength training that separate athletes who keep getting better from those who keep spinning their wheels. Health, performance, and the Awareness → Intention → Action cycle are all in play.

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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 life.

Good relationships don't just feel good — they're stress regulators that protect your body from chronic inflammation and cortisol overload, directly affecting your Health and Happiness. We explore the concept of social fitness, the powerful difference between hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, and how to take small, intentional steps to strengthen the connections that matter most.

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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 fitness is: in private, repeatedly, often without immediate reward. And you'll hear Christine on the discipline required to prepare for moments you can't anticipate. Together, they make the case that what most people see on the podium is the smallest part of what it took to get there.

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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

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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 speed and convenience are actively working against our happiness, and how 21 days of focused attention can start to change that.

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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 that actually helped, and why the fitness buffer matters more than you'll ever know in the moment.

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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 how six key areas of life and four time horizons — daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly — give you a system to catch drift before it costs you months. Plus: why James Clear is right that you're not changing your habits as much as you're changing your identity.

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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 your mental fitness is trending in the right direction.

You'll learn why the sickness-wellness-fitness continuum applies one-for-one to mental health, how the language "I have anxiety" is quietly keeping you stuck, and what twenty questions — grouped across Oblivion, Storytelling, Suppression, Fear, and Stagnation — can tell you about where you actually stand.

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