That's probably true of pubs, but if you want to go somewhere with a good cocktail or whisky selection, for example, it's very hard to find somewhere with low volume music.
> A less productive person, like the author, measures against the top performers. But the top performers measure against themselves.
I think that is doing the author a disservice. My read is not that he measured his self against top performers per se, rather he happened to observe his performance relative to others and it was a wake up call that allowed for the self reflection that is necessary to improve.
https://www.americanscientist.org/blog/the-long-view/the-sci...