Hustle culture stole the word excellence and gutted its true meaning | Brad Stulberg: Full Interview

Genuine excellence is 'involved engagement in something worthwhile that aligns with your values,' focusing on the person you become through the process, not just the achievement. It's a deeply human pursuit, distinct from the superficial metrics and routines of hustle culture.

Stulberg states, 'Excellence is involved engagement in something worthwhile that aligns with your values. That simple.' He contrasts this with 'elaborate kabuki' like 4 AM routines, cold plunges, and obsessive tracking. He emphasizes, 'It's actually less about getting to the top of the mountain and more about the person that you become on the sides.'

Modern environments present 'disevolution' traps that exploit our hardwired drives for connection and satisfaction. These traps offer short-term gratification (e.g., social media likes, fast food) but are discordant with long-term values, leading to emptiness and frustration.

Stulberg explains Daniel Lieberman's 'disevolution,' where our ancient hardwiring (e.g., craving high-calorie foods) clashes with modern abundance. He cites confusing social media with genuine community, and pornography with intimate relationships, as examples of easy, frictionless experiences that lack fulfillment.

Obsessive tracking and 'optimization culture' (e.g., monitoring sleep, calories, heart rate variability) can turn individuals into 'robots,' stifling the human, felt experience of excellence and making them fragile. This mindset assumes perfect conditions are necessary for performance, ignoring life's inherent messiness.

Stulberg warns that building a life around 'row optimization' 'sucks the feeling out of life.' He tells the story of golfer J.J. Spahn, who won the U.S. Open despite a sleepless night caring for his sick child, demonstrating that 'we don't always need to feel our best to perform well.'

While 'flow' states can be powerful, they are values-neutral. 'Shitty flow' describes immersive experiences (like rage scrolling or gambling) that provide temporary aliveness but are discordant with one's values, leaving feelings of regret, anxiety, or exhaustion afterward.

Psychologist David Pizarro coined 'shitty flow' for experiences where 'we're in flow, but it's shitty.' Stulberg notes that while scrolling X can be immersive, 'when two hours has passed and you've just been rage scrolling and you come out of that, you tend to feel restless, impatient... aggravated.'

Beyond conventional burnout from overwork, 'zombie burnout' arises from a lack of meaningful engagement. Individuals feel exhausted, apathetic, and dread-filled even with low work hours if they are merely 'going through the motions' and lack 'meaningful friction' or challenge in their lives.

Stulberg coined 'zombie burnout' to describe feeling 'numbed out' and exhausted from 'not doing enough of what lights you up.' He contrasts a 40-hour week of engaged, values-aligned work with a 40-hour week of passive, uncaring work, where the latter can lead to burnout.

The 'happiness industrial complex' mistakenly promotes happiness as life's ultimate goal. Happiness is an ephemeral emotion and a byproduct, not a direct pursuit. True flourishing comes from chasing satisfaction, meaning, and fulfillment, which often involve discomfort and challenge.

Stulberg argues, 'Happiness is never the result of aiming for happiness. It's always a byproduct of doing something else.' He uses the 'happiness tube' hypothetical (euphoria without meaning, akin to heroin addiction) to illustrate why most people choose a life with hardship over constant, artificial happiness.

Achieving big goals and finding satisfaction requires a 'process over outcomes' mindset. This involves setting an aspirational goal, breaking it into micro-milestones, and then focusing intently on the small, consistent daily steps, recognizing that the joy and growth reside in the journey itself.

Stulberg outlines a five-step process: pick a big goal, break it down, focus on daily steps, re-immerse in the process when stressed, and get back on track after setbacks. He cites Ray Allen's post-championship disorientation and 'post-marathon blues' as examples of the 'arrival fallacy' when the process is undervalued.

Lasting progress in excellence is built on consistency—stringing together many 'very good days' over long periods—rather than optimizing for short-term, heroic bursts of intensity. Overdoing it acutely leads to burnout and injury, hindering long-term development.

Stulberg states, 'The goal of excellence is not to have a heroic day. It's to string together many very good days over long periods of time.' He explains that increasing acute training load by more than 10% of chronic load 'skyrockets' injury rates, advocating for a '5 to 7 out of 10' effort level daily.

Patience is a critical factor because progress is non-linear and includes inevitable plateaus. These periods, where observable progress slows, are not failures but essential phases for building underlying experience, discipline, curiosity, and commitment, often preceding breakthroughs.

Stulberg highlights that 'plateaus are a feature' of progress, not a bug. He shares the story of world champion powerlifter Lane Norton, who added only 8 pounds to his deadlift over 10 years, sustained by 'curiosity about the craft,' 'commitment,' and 'discipline,' rather than daily progress.