I knew I was doing it all wrong.
Silly me, thinking that the point of grad school was actually learning something that no one knew before.
As an aside, having a 4.0 as a PhD grad student isn’t very impressive. At least in the sciences you need a 3.5 just to stay enrolled. The expectation is that you are capable of excellent work in your chosen field, if you’re not, have a masters and go home.