Performance Podcast W/ Patrick Bronn

Patrick Bronn

Welcome to the Performance Podcast! In a world flooded with infinite information and cheap dopamine, the ultimate competitive advantage isn't knowing more, it's executing faster. Trying to cut through the noise, give my opinion on the state of things, advice on what's working, high-performance systems, fitness lessons I've learned, performance psychology, history and book reviews. Take consistent action on your main thing & don't stop.

Episodes

  1. 11h ago

    10. Is Creatine A Scam

    A new study came out saying creatine doesn't build muscle — it just makes you retain water. And the internet ran with it. But here's the thing. One study means almost nothing. And when you look at the full body of research — the dozens of studies that came before this one — the picture looks completely different. In this video I break down what the study actually found, why it's not the full story, and what the real evidence says about whether creatine is worth taking. Spoiler: it still works. Here's why. #creatine #gymscience #fitness

    7 min

  2. 1d ago

    Ep. 9: Fake Dopamine: Why Your Brain Prefers the Simulation Over Reality

    I've spent a significant amount of my life living in a version of reality I made up in my head. Replaying conversations that already happened. Rehearsing ones that never will. Imagining what success feels like in enough detail that my brain gave me the dopamine hit without me having to do anything. And the problem isn't that it feels bad. It's that it feels good. That's the trap. This video is about the hidden cost of living in your head, why overthinking becomes identity, and the shift that actually moves things forward. #overthinking #takingaction #selfawareness

    6 min

  3. 2d ago

    8. The 10% Friction Rule

    We’ve been sold a massive lie that high-achievers have infinite, unbroken motivation every single day. The reality is much more mechanical. When you commit to a major target—whether it’s a 365-day daily content challenge, an intense athletic regimen, or building a business infrastructure—you are inevitably going to run into a wall. You get sick, an urgent fire pops up, or your mental energy hits absolute zero. In this video, we break down the reality of the 10% Friction Rule. Out of every 70+ days of execution, there will be a baseline of 5 to 7 days where you absolutely do not want to show up. The goal isn't to erase that friction; it's to build a reliable micro-momentum system that forces you past the starting line anyway. Inside this video, we cover: The 10% Friction Rule: Why wanting to quit 8% to 10% of the time is a completely normal, predictable metric you must account for in your planning. The Jason Capital Word Count Hack: How reducing your daily target down to an absurdly small micro-step triggers immediate momentum 99% of the time. The "End of the Driveway" Trigger: How to design physical, non-negotiable pre-game rituals that override your brain's comfort governor. The "Carry-Over" Reality Check: How to treat a low-energy day as a data entry, carry the unfinished tasks over to tomorrow, and protect your momentum without guilt. Building Free Value Ecosystems: Why shifting focus toward structured, high-value free courses beats fragmented playlists when looking at real user data. Stop waiting for optimal conditions. Find your version of putting on the shoes, get to the end of the driveway, and execute. take consistent action on your main thing & don't stop.

    6 min

  4. 3d ago

    7. The Biggest Lifting Mistake Most People

    There is a glaring, universal mistake happening on every single commercial gym floor right now. It has nothing to do with your exercise technique or your diet. It comes down entirely to how you structure your very first set. If you walk up to a compound movement, load up your heavy working weight, and immediately drop into a set of 10, you are making yourself a prime target for a nagging injury that could stall your progress for months. Even worse, you are leaving massive strength gains on the table because your nervous system is entirely asleep. In this video, we break down the high-performance dynamic warm-up system inspired by Dorian Yates' legendary training style. This isn't about sitting on a yoga mat or doing random band distractions—it's a calculated, mathematical ramp-up method designed to prime your central nervous system, lubricate your joints, and give you an exact reading on your strength capacity before you ever touch your heavy top set. Inside this video, we break down the bulletproof warm-up matrix: The Static Stretching Trap: Why holding static positions before a heavy lift is proven to reduce total force output—and what to do instead. The 50/75 Math Formula: The exact calculation to run on your target weight to build your two mandatory, non-fatiguing "feeder" sets. The Central Nervous System Gauge: How to use your 75% feeder set as an early warning system to catch an off-day before it turns into a physical tweak or a failed lift. The Back-Off Execution: Why dropping 10% to 20% of your top weight for a secondary high-volume set is the ultimate catalyst for dense muscle hypertrophy. The Sticking Point Audit: How to immediately pivot your accessory work if your main compound lifts hit a two-week plateau. Stop wasting your energy going into your main lifts cold. Learn how to safely command the bar, gather your data, and protect your joints. take consistent action on your main thing & don't stop.

    8 min

  5. 4d ago

    6. How to Objectively Find Your Weak Points (Stop Guessing)

    https://strengthlevel.com/ Most lifters know they have "weak points," but they judge them based on mirror reflections and subjective feelings. This approach is inefficient and often leads to over-training the wrong muscle groups. To build a truly elite, aesthetic physique, you need to stop guessing and start auditing your data.In this video, we break down how to use strength percentiles to find the literal "limiting factor" in your development. By comparing your lifts proportionally—adjusting for your age and weight—you can identify exactly which muscle groups are lagging and preventing your overall progress.In this video, we cover:The Percentile Audit: How to use strengthlevel.net to see exactly where you stand against the global population.The Rep-Quality Trap: Why 125 lbs for 10 reps is often an objectively "better" lift than 135 lbs for 5, and how to pick the right data points for your audit.The Specialized Focus: Why you should consider adding an extra session or increasing volume for your lowest percentile lift until it catches up to your dominant groups.The 90th Percentile Goal: Why hitting the top 10% in your core lifts is the "sweet spot" for the superhero physique most people are chasing.The Strength Chain: How bringing up a lagging lower body can actually act as the catalyst to unlock new personal bests in your upper body lifts.Stop training blindly. Find the gap in your armor, fix the percentile, and the results will follow.take consistent action on your main thing & don't stop.

    3 min

  6. 5d ago

    5. Why You Need to Start Ego Lifting

    Most people in the gym are lifting way too light for what their bodies are physically capable of handling. They aren't lazy—they show up, they do the sets, and they hit their arbitrary target of 10 reps. But because they stay entirely within their comfort zone, they completely stall out their growth. In this video, we break down why a controlled form of "ego lifting" is actually the catalyst you need to break through lifelong plateaus. If you aren’t progressively overloading the weight or the reps week over week, you are just going through the motions. We dive deep into the mechanics of true failure, how the gym acts as a framework for handling setbacks in business and relationships, and how to use objective data to remove the mental "governor" holding back your strength. Inside this video, we break down: The Two Schools of Overload: Choosing between rapid weight progression based on a 5-rep threshold or hitting a two-set volume benchmark before moving up. The Bicep Trap: A personal reality check on how staying comfortable with the exact same dumbbell weights for years guarantees zero muscle growth. The Car Governor Analogy: Why your brain acts like a built-in speed limiter to protect you, and how to safely override it. The 5-Rep Max Warm-Up Matrix: A bulletproof, zero-injury protocol using 50% and 75% feeder sets to safely test your true physical limits without risking a injury. Stop stopping at moderate discomfort. You are stronger than you think. Find your physical limit, accept failure as data, and grow. take consistent action on your main thing & don't stop.

    11 min

  7. 6d ago

    4. You're Only As Strong As Your Weakest Metric

    Most lifters follow a generic training program that promises to increase their bench, squat, deadlift, and overhead press all at the exact same time. When you're a novice, this works flawlessly. Your recovery capacity is high, the absolute weights are light, and everything moves up linearly. But once you transition into the intermediate and advanced stages, that shotgun approach completely stops working. Trying to push heavy squats and heavy deadlifts in the exact same week wrecks your central nervous system, creates massive recovery deficits, and guarantees a plateau. In this video, we dismantle traditional periodization (macro, meso, and microcycles) and replace it with a specialized, high-agency system designed to systematically eliminate your weakest links. By auditing your current strength percentiles and prioritizing your lagging metrics, you can force new adaptations, prevent injury, and unlock rapid physical progress. Inside this video, we break down the 80/20 of upper body development: The Four Pillars: Why your upper body layout should center entirely around the Incline Press, a Lat Builder, a Heavy Bicep Curl variant, and a Shoulder Press. The Strength Percentile Audit: How to utilize objective data metrics to pinpoint the exact structural imbalances holding back your primary lifts. The Pivot Strategy: How substituting adjacent movements (like swapping a barbell bicep curl for a heavy preacher curl) allows you to bypass structural plateaus without losing momentum. The Power of Specialization: Why letting secondary lifts take a temporary back seat is the only sustainable way to add 50+ pounds to a primary target lift. Stop putting yourself in a theoretical box. Audit your data, find the weak link, and attack it. take consistent action on your main thing & don't stop.

    10 min

  8. May 31

    Why Having Nothing Going On Is Making You More Stressed

    We’ve been sold a massive lie about how human stress actually works. Most people think that if they could just empty their to-do list, clear their schedule, and remove all responsibility, their brain would finally go quiet. They think reduction equals peace. But the reality is exactly the opposite. The most stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed people aren't the ones juggling a business, a strict training regimen, and a packed creative schedule. They are the ones with the least going on. When you have no clear target pulling you forward—no project with real stakes, no discipline to maintain, and no momentum—your brain doesn't rest. It fills that empty space with vague anxiety, endless rumination, and low-level catastrophizing. When you are in motion toward something real, problems simply become tasks. When you stop moving, minor tasks transform into existential problems. In this video, we break down the mechanics of the stress paradox: The Context of Discomfort: Why a runner is perfectly fine with sore calves and exhaustion, while the same physical tiredness feels like a medical crisis to someone without a goal. The Permanent List: Why trying to "finish" your to-do list is a mental model designed to make you miserable—and how to view a permanent list as proof that you are actively in the game. The In-Between Trap: Why the hardest periods of life aren't the high-pressure seasons, but the empty, directionless gaps where the small stuff becomes enormous. Mastery vs. Fragility: Why avoiding responsibility makes you fragile, and why the real goal of self-improvement isn't to reduce the volume of stress, but to become someone who can handle heavier loads without breaking. Stop waiting for your life to get easy. Start building the capacity to make harder things feel like a normal Tuesday. take consistent action on your main thing & don't stop.

    6 min

  9. May 29

    The Day You Realize Nobody Cares… You Become Dangerous

    Most people spend their lives terrified of judgment — overthinking every word, replaying every mistake, and chasing approval from people who were never really paying attention.In this video, we break down the brutal Stoic truth that changes everything:Nobody cares about you… and that’s your power.Using principles from Stoicism, Carl Jung, and Machiavellian psychology, you'll learn why emotional detachment creates freedom, why most social fear is an illusion, and how powerful men stop performing for validation and start building real internal strength.This is not motivation.This is psychological liberation.Inside this video:• Why nobody is actually thinking about you• The psychology of the spotlight effect• Why seeking approval destroys confidence• How emotionally detached men become magnetic• The brutal truth about relationships and validation• Why self-reliance creates power• Stoic philosophy for modern men• How to stop overthinking and fearing judgment• The dark psychology of emotional independence• Why stillness is powerful in social dynamicsIf you're tired of anxiety, overthinking, people-pleasing, and living for approval… this video will change how you see yourself forever.Subscribe to The Machiavelli Laws for videos on:Stoicism, Dark Psychology, Human Nature, Masculinity, Carl Jung, Emotional Mastery, Power Dynamics, Self-Improvement, and Psychological Warfare.#stoicism #darkpsychology #selfimprovement #carljung #machiavelli #menspsychology #stoicmindset #psychology #motivation #masculinity #philosophy #psychologyfacts #selfimprovement

    5 min
  10. The LinkedIn Humiliation Ritual (Why the Job Market is Broken)

    May 29

    The LinkedIn Humiliation Ritual (Why the Job Market is Broken)

    You spend 17 years in school, graduate with a mountain of debt, and walk directly into an entry-level job market that demands 3 to 5 years of experience. You upload your CV to a platform that looks like a cross between a dating app and a corporate dystopia, only to be filtered out by an AI algorithm before a human being ever sees your name. And somewhere along the way, we were told to call this a career path. In this video, we break down why the traditional "safe" path is structurally broken in 2026 and why the math behind it no longer adds up. The deal that worked perfectly for previous generations—30 years of loyalty for a pension, a house, and a comfortable retirement—has officially expired. Salaries haven’t kept pace with a cost of living that has magnified 8 to 10 times over, while a college degree has effectively become the new high school diploma. We dive deep into the real numbers of the modern labor market: The 300x Filter: Why getting a job today requires an average of 1,200 applications compared to just two back in 1995—and the reality of "ghost jobs" used to manipulate investor sentiment. The Power Leak of Time: Why trading 40 to 50 hours a week in your 20s and 30s—your years of peak energy, lowest responsibility, and highest risk tolerance—for a capped salary ceiling is the ultimate gamble. Specific Knowledge vs. Curriculums: Why the market pays a massive premium for an unreplicable combination of skills (like automation, systems, persuasion, and content) that can’t be standardized in a classroom. Permissionless Leverage: How to utilize code and media to build digital assets that duplicate, distribute, and work for you while you sleep, completely bypassing the credential gatekeepers. This isn’t motivational poster advice to quit your job tomorrow. It’s a practical, dual-track blueprint to build your own leverage, systemize your skills, and take control of your asset distribution before the window closes. If you don't sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice. Take consistent action on your main thing and don’t stop.

    15 min
  • 10 Episodes

About

Welcome to the Performance Podcast! In a world flooded with infinite information and cheap dopamine, the ultimate competitive advantage isn't knowing more, it's executing faster. Trying to cut through the noise, give my opinion on the state of things, advice on what's working, high-performance systems, fitness lessons I've learned, performance psychology, history and book reviews. Take consistent action on your main thing & don't stop.

Information