Health & FitnessEducationSelf-Improvement

Chasing Excellence

Ben Bergeron & Patrick Cummings

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.

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26 episodes
a few times a week
Avg 47 min
English

Episodes 26

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#529
Monday · 54 min
Forever Fit | The 2 Signs You're Too Sore to Train
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. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here 🐾 Start your Free Trial of the ChaseTracker ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#528
September 7 · 1 hr 1 min
Why We Keep Choosing Work Over the People We Love (w/ Robert Waldinger)
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. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here 🐾 Start your Free Trial of the ChaseTracker ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#527
August 31 · 59 min
Annie Thorisdottir Talks Training Character, Consistency, & Collaboration (w/ Christine Bald)
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. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here 🐾 Start your Free Trial of the ChaseTracker ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#526
August 24 · 1 min
Our 21-Day Happiness Challenges Starts Today!
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.
#525
August 20 · 18 min
Chase Challenge | Happiness Is a Subtraction Problem We’re Solving All Wrong
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. 🐾 Start your Free Trial of the ChaseTracker ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#524
August 17 · 58 min
Ben’s Battle With Depression & What’s Helping Now (w/ Dr Rich Joseph)
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. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here 🐾 Start your Free Trial of the ChaseTracker ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#523
August 13 · 35 min
3 Simple Principles for a Life of Health, Happiness, & Hearts on Fire
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. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here 🐾 Start your Free Trial of the ChaseTracker ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#522
August 10 · 1 hr 16 min
20 Questions That Map Your Mental Fitness (w/ Chris Irwin)
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. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here 🐾 Start your Free Trial of the ChaseTracker ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#521
August 6 · 11 min
Individual vs. Class Programming: What Actually Matters
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 decision, and why the goal isn't a perfect workout — it's getting people excited to come back tomorrow. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#520
August 3 · 36 min
5x5 | Accepting Adversity & Eating Clean When Going Out
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 navigating a child's fear of the dark. Acceptance is not approval. When we stop spending energy wishing our circumstances were different, we free that energy for actual solutions. That's the thread running through all five questions — and the foundational move of the Awareness → Intention → Action cycle. 🖐 We love your questions! 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#519
July 27 · 55 min
Unconditional Love Isn't Soft. It's What Makes Our Kids Brave
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 tools, why unconditional love may be the single most important input a parent can offer, and why the real enemy isn't bad peers or broken environments — it's an ego that's never learned it's safe to struggle. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#518
July 23 · 13 min
When "Did You Work Out?" Feels Like an Attack
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 ourselves about it, why seasons of life demand fundamentally different things from us, and how to communicate your real needs clearly and without judgment. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#517
July 20 · 51 min
20 Simple Ways to Fight Drift — That Invisible Shift Away from Your Best Self
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 concrete checklist of daily behaviors designed to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#516
July 13 · 48 min
Raise | Screens Are Only 1 of 5 Causes of Anxious Kids (w/ Kim John Payne)
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 — not the kids — and how defining "enoughness" for yourself is the most powerful act of social activism a parent can make. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#515
July 9 · 25 min
Chase Challenge | You Don't Need Anyone's Permission to Be a High Performer
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 to the core belief that true excellence is something we pursue for others, not for ourselves. ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#514
July 6 · 52 min
5x5 | Building Real Friendships After 40 & Asking Questions That Connect
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 values divergence from a seasonal slump, why adult friendships require intention and initiative, how to create hope and agency in a loved one without becoming the health police, and which questions actually open people up. 🙋🏻‍♂️ Send us a Question 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#513
June 29 · 1 hr 16 min
Forever Fit | Learn to Breathe (+ 9 More Habits That Upgrade Your Training)
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-workout — these principles serve the Train factor in the Five Factors framework. The goal isn't to do more. It's to finally get what you came for. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#512
June 25 · 33 min
You Don't Owe Your Past More Than You Owe Your Future
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 knowing when it's time to move on — and how to do it with integrity. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#511
June 22 · 54 min
Raise | Receive Your Kids — Don't Just Shape Them (w/ Christina Watka)
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 openness transforms the way you parent: the role of noticing, the power of solitude, and what it means to receive your children instead of trying to shape them. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
#510
June 15 · 1 hr 59 min
The High Performer's Playbook: 2 Rules, 5 Habits, & 7 Traps
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 gap — this is the raw material behind our new 21-Day High Performance Challenge. 👉🏼 Get the full Listener's Guide here ❤️‍🔥 Free Newsletter & the Chase Club 👋 New to Chasing Excellence? Start here! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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