3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

I fly to Australia for tour next week!!

Plus James Smith is supporting me.

Perth & Brisbane are fully sold out - tickets still available for Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Christchurch, Auckland & Bali. Come see me live.​

Adversity is a terrible thing to waste.

Almost all of the biggest periods of growth in your life have germinated from your lowest points.

Once shock, grief and sadness subside, much more energetic emotions arise - pain, resentment, bitterness, anger and a chip on your shoulder.

Change is hard, and deeply fundamental change requires an insane amount of activation energy, far more than is available by just *wanting it a lot*.

This is why people change so much after losing a parent, enduring a betrayal, losing a job or going through a breakup.

Not just because the past version of their world has been stripped away, but because they finally have enough fuel to get their new life off the launchpad.

In the mid 90’s there was a single mother living in near-poverty in Edinburgh.

When she left her first marriage, it wasn’t a quiet parting.

She’s described the relationship as abusive.

She fled Portugal with her baby daughter and a suitcase that contained the early chapters of a book she was working on.

At one point her ex-husband hid the manuscript, trying to prevent her from leaving with it.

She was clinically depressed and contemplating suicide.

She couldn’t afford to heat her flat properly so she pushed a pram to cafés to write while her daughter slept.

The manuscript was rejected by twelve publishers. That’s twelve people telling her, in different ways, that it wasn’t good enough.

The rejection wasn’t abstract - it was survival-level.

If the book failed, so did her last attempt at building a life.

The humiliation of those refusals became momentum.

J.K Rowling went on to sell 500+ million copies in the Harry Potter series globally and became richer than the Queen.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: not all adversity becomes growth. Some people are crushed by it.

Adversity is fuel, not destiny.

The difference is what you do with the surplus emotion.

If that energy isn’t directed, it curdles into rumination.

The same fuel that could power a transformation can just as easily power self-destruction.

There’s also a time window because pain calcifies.

The chip on your shoulder becomes your identity.

The story of what happened becomes the story of who you are.

Anger gets you moving but it can’t steer - it’s rocket fuel, not guidance.

Eventually the chip on your shoulder has to become purpose.

TLDR: The worst thing that’s happened to you might be the only thing powerful enough to change you.

Pain is temporary and fuel is rare.

So if you’re going through a hard time, don’t waste it.

MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent.
​

This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Dr Kathryn Paige Harden - how genetic is evil? Is antisocial behaviour inherited or caused in childhood? Fascinating. Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
Cal Newport - how to reclaim your attention in an age of social media, screens & AI. And what are the big opportunities as everyone becomes more reliant on LLMs.

Saturday.
Dr Peter Salerno - a fascinating breakdown of narcissists, psychopaths, histrionic disorder and lots more by a therapist who works with victims and perpetrators.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​Some stats about dating.

A survey of Gen Z found 67% would prioritise a good night of sleep over sex.

One in eight 26-year-olds are a virgin.

24% had no sex in the past year — about double the rate in 2010.

Among men from 18–24: Around 1 in 3 report no sexual activity in the past year.

26% of U.S. adults reported no sex in 2021.

37% of adults having weekly sex (down from 55% in 1990).

37% of Gen Z had no sex in the last month vs 19% of millennials.

48% of married couples had no sex in the past month.

In 2004, 78% of millennials said their friends commonly have one night stands; just 23% of gen Z said the same 20 years later, in 2024.

2.
​There is a shortage of straight men in New York.

Due to a shortage of male attendees, some dating events in NYC charged women $100 and men $0, yet attendance still ran 3:1.

3.
​Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs.

“The future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.” — David Brooks

LIFE HACK

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Get 35% off your first subscription from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom​
​

Big love,
Chris x

Try my productivity drink Neutonic.
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PS
Thank you for all the lovely birthday messages last week :)