How to Get Breakthrough Results

in Life and Business No Matter What

By Sterling Hawkins No. 1 Bestselling Author ·

Featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, and Inc.

Big Ideas, Real Impact.

Hunting Discomfort is the book that proves the obstacle between you and what you want isn't external… it's the identity you've been defaulting to.

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Most books about growth tell you to work harder, build better habits, or change your mindset. Hunting Discomfort argues that none of that is sufficient, and explains why.

The real barrier to breakthrough results isn't strategy, effort, or circumstance. It's identity. The version of yourself that was built in an earlier moment, running the show in a new one. Until that changes, everything else: the habits, the frameworks, the intentions, defaults back to baseline.

Sterling Hawkins learned this the hard way. As a leader of a multi-billion dollar startup that collapsed catastrophically, he walked away with six figures of personal debt and a deeper question: why do capable, committed people keep hitting the same ceiling no matter how hard they try?

The answer he found, after years of research, field-testing, and working with leaders and organizations across six continents, became the No Matter What philosophy. And Hunting Discomfort is where it's fully laid out.

WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT

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Growth Doens’t Come from avoiding Discomfort

Growth doesn't come from avoiding discomfort. It comes from understanding what discomfort is pointing at: the threshold between who you've been and who you're capable of becoming.

Discomfort isn't the obstacle. It's the signal. When you learn to read it correctly, it stops being something to manage and starts being the most reliable indicator of where your next level of growth actually lives.

Hunting Discomfort gives you the framework to do exactly that: to move from defaulting to who you've been, to declaring who you're becoming. No Matter What.

Behind the book

When Hunting Discomfort was written, the central argument was that growth lives on the other side of discomfort and that learning to move toward it rather than away from it is the fundamental skill of high performance.

That argument is still true. What the years since have revealed is the deeper mechanism underneath it.

Discomfort was never the point. It was always the signal, directly at the identity that needed to change. The reason growth lives on the other side of discomfort is that crossing toward it requires becoming someone who does. That's identity work. That's No Matter What.

Hunting Discomfort is where the journey started. The No Matter What philosophy is where it leads.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR.

Hunting Discomfort is for leaders, entrepreneurs, and high achievers who:

Have done the mindset work, read the books, and built the habits but still feel like something is holding them back
Are navigating a significant transition — in career, leadership role, organization, or identity
Lead teams that are capable of more but keep defaulting to old patterns
Want a framework that works not just when circumstances are favorable but No Matter What

Key ideas In the book

The No Matter What Declaration No Matter What isn't a motivational phrase. It's an identity position: the moment you stop negotiating with who you've been and commit to who you're becoming, regardless of what circumstances try to tell you otherwise.

The Five Types of Discomfort Not all discomfort is equal. Hunting Discomfort identifies the five distinct types — intellectual, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual — and shows how each one points to a different dimension of identity growth.

The Default vs. The Declaration The central distinction of the book: most people lead from default — the identity that was built for a previous moment, running on autopilot in a new one. The No Matter What shift is from default to declaration — consciously choosing who you are No Matter What.

The Discomfort Muscle Like any muscle, the capacity to move toward discomfort rather than away from it can be trained. The book gives you the specific practices to build that capacity — not as an act of suffering, but as a deliberate path to identity transformation.

The Identity Behind Your Results Every result in your life — personal and professional — is downstream of identity. Change the habit without changing the identity, and the habit doesn't hold. Change the identity, and everything built on top of it changes permanently.

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WHAT READERS AND LEADERS SAY

Shared Language for our team

"Hunting Discomfort gave our entire commercial team a shared language for growth. Three months after Sterling's keynote, we had new customers, new distribution, and record bookings — and the #NoMatterWhat culture was the reason."
— John Castillo, Executive Vice President, Husqvarna
Change the world, change your world and false perceptions first. Great Book. Reality.

Loved the book. Just finished it. Many dog-ear corners, underlines and a must read 2x through. Very inspiring and really pushing letting go of old ideas and move past your own obstacles by learning what the are first, dive deep, burn the ships. Be a better version of yourself and continue to inspire, look inward while helping others help themselves, many times by surrendering to yourself and not changing them, change yourself, change the world. It all comes from within. Many books out the like this of course but I would regard this as one of the better ones. I will keep this around for a few more reads then give it to a friend who could use it. Must give it away to keep it. #surrender
– KURT
Great book! Very useful and actionable advice from a vulnerable author who's been through a lot.

Hunting Discomfort is a different kind of personal development book. The author is refreshingly vulnerable and open about his own failures and difficult experiences. The truths he learned on his journey aren't easy to hear but there is no alternative. Thankfully, the author explains how to apply them in your own life from start to finish in a compelling and thoughtful way.
– TREY RYAN
Finally a book that can actually unlocks your real potential when it matters the most

Everyone has their boundaries to explore and right at the moment when you start hesitating to take the next leap, Sterling's idea is a powerful way to unlock your path forward. A must-read book.
He not only offers a guide to rewiring your internal thinking, but he also offers a blueprint to approach it as a team or group of people. Super helpful!
– KASHIF ZAMAN
The Key to Life

If you want to know the key to getting the most out of life, read this book! It is very well written and walks you through how to get breakthrough results… No Matter What. Sterling is honest and connects with the reader by letting us into his life experiences while teaching us how to achieve great things. I have found the greatest success in my life by applying these principles. It’s great to read a book that really delves into these concepts and provides the science behind it too. Love! Love! Love this book!
– AMAZON CUSTOMER
The distinction that changed everything

"This isn't a book about pushing through pain. It's a book about understanding what the pain is pointing at. That distinction changed everything for me."
— Senior leader, Fortune 500 organization
the most actionable leadership book I've read in a decade.

"The most actionable leadership book I've read in a decade. Not because it gave me new things to do — because it changed who I am while I was doing them."
— Executive, global technology company

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sterling Hawkins is a global keynote speaker, entrepreneur, and the founder of the No Matter What movement. After the catastrophic collapse of a multi-billion dollar startup — and the personal collapse that followed — Sterling spent two decades building and field-testing the methodology that became Hunting Discomfort.

He has brought this work to Fortune 500 leadership teams, the United Nations, and stages across six continents. More than a million people worldwide have engaged with the No Matter What philosophy.

LEARN MORE ABOUT STERLING

FOR ORGANIZATIONS

Hunting Discomfort is frequently bundled with Sterling's keynote engagements as a pre-event primer and post-event reinforcement tool.

Bulk copies are available for events, leadership programs, and organizational distribution.

Organizations that have used Hunting Discomfort as part of a broader No Matter What engagement include Fortune 500 companies, leading associations, and global leadership teams across healthcare, technology, financial services, retail, and manufacturing.

INQUIRE ABOUT BULK ORDERS →

THE NO MATTER WHAT PHILOSOPHY

"No Matter What is not a statement about circumstances. It's a statement about identity."

— Sterling Hawkins

"The ceiling you keep hitting isn't a skill ceiling or an effort ceiling. It's an identity ceiling."

— Sterling Hawkins, Hunting Discomfort

"Discomfort is the signal that the threshold is close. Most people turn around right before the breakthrough."

— Sterling Hawkins, Hunting Discomfort

"You don't have a performance problem. You have an identity problem. And performance problems don't solve identity problems."

— Sterling Hawkins

"The No Matter What moment is the moment you stop negotiating with who you've been."

— Sterling Hawkins, Hunting Discomfort

"Change the habit without changing the identity and the habit won't hold. Change the identity and everything built on top of it changes permanently."

— Sterling Hawkins, Hunting Discomfort

Frequently Asked Questions

Hunting Discomfort is about the gap between where you are and where you want to be — and why that gap almost never closes through harder work, better habits, or new information. The book argues that the real barrier is identity: the version of yourself that was built for a different moment, quietly running the show in this one. It gives you a framework — the No Matter What methodology — for confronting that identity and crossing the threshold to who you're actually capable of becoming.
Leaders, entrepreneurs, and high achievers who are committed to growth but keep hitting a ceiling that effort alone won't break through. It's also widely used by organizations as a leadership development tool — particularly alongside Sterling's keynotes and workshops.
Most leadership books work at the level of behavior — new habits, new frameworks, new skills. Hunting Discomfort works at the level of identity. The distinction matters because behavior built on an unchanged identity always defaults back to baseline. The book doesn't just give you new things to do — it changes who you are while you're doing them.
No Matter What is both the title of the movement Sterling founded and the central philosophy of the book. NMW is the declaration that who you are — your identity, your values, your commitment to who you're becoming — doesn't change based on circumstances. It's not a motivational stance. It's an identity position.
Yes. Bulk copies are available for events, leadership programs, and organizational distribution. Contact the team directly for bulk pricing and logistics.