Brad Stulberg

They meditate for 30 minutes.

They do their five-bullet journal.

And all of this happens before 6.30 a.m.

And the implicit message, sometimes also explicit, is if you want to be great, this is what you have to do.

But that's not actual greatness.

That is performance art.

If those individuals are great at anything, what they're great at is attracting attention on the internet.

So pseudo excellence, again, in its simplest form, it is a whole bunch of elaborate kabuki.

Masquerading is the real thing, but it's extremely enticing because it offers people a sense of agency and a sense of control.

Let's provide a really clear example.

Yeah, pseudo excellence, you see it all the time.

So pseudo excellence for deadlifting would be spending so much time every single day on forums, just trying to hunt down the one perfect training program.

It would be needing a special kind of protein powder.

So not just any protein powder, but a kind with the right enzymes that break down a certain way.

It would be waking up at a certain time and drinking coffee within 10 minutes of waking up and sun gazing because I have to get my circadian rhythm right to deadlift.

It would be going into the gym and perhaps doing a cold plunge or a sauna before I lift because now there's some data that shows that if you do the cold plunge after, it gets in the way of your adaptations.

I'd spend 45 minutes on a foam roller because my fascial connections have to be completely fine-tuned to deadlift.

And by the time I actually get to deadlifting, I'm going to be so exhausted and wiped that

that I might spend 15 minutes with the bar, truly.

So it is an obsession on the minors.