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Most people chasing excellence are chasing the wrong thing entirely. Brad Stulberg argues that the 4am routines, optimization stacks, and recovery scores are just elaborate performance passed off as “excellence.”
Stulberg breaks down the biology, philosophy, and psychology behind genuine excellence and how to reach it.
0:00 Chapter 1: What is excellence
2:44 Values, mastery, and mattering
5:00 The hidden biology driving our need to improve
8:55 The four phases of competence
11:13 What excellence is not
12:09 Chapter 2: The barriers to excellence
12:43 Barrier 1: Dysevolution
14:35 Barrier 2: Optimization culture
17:22 Barrier 3: “Shitty flow”
21:22 Barrier 4: Zombie burnout
27:05 Barrier 5: Happiness industrial complex
31:01 Barrier 6: Excellence as a standard
32:40 Chapter 3: Three key factors in the pursuit of excellence
33:51 How to set the right goals that actually work
39:20 Why consistency beats intensity
46:42 The long game of patience, plateaus, and breakthroughs
Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/excellence-stulberg/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description
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About Brad Stulberg:
Brad Stulberg is the author of Master of Change, The Practice of Groundedness, and The Way of Excellence. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic, among many other publications. He is on faculty at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
