Podcaster with 1bn+ plays. I write about the most important lessons from the best thinkers on the planet. 300,000+ people read my free newsletter. Press subscribe to join.
3MM: Churchill, Platonic Guys & Adults
3 MINUTE MONDAYHi friend, I’m taking my solo live show on tour around the US & Canada! Presale Tickets go live next week. Get first access to Tickets, VIP and Meet & Greet by signing up at https://chriswilliamson.live/ I can’t wait to see you all there. Anyway, onto what I’ve been thinking about… In September 1893, Churchill was admitted, on his third attempt, to the Sandhurst military college. He wrote to his father, “I was so glad to be able to send you the good news on Thursday.” His father, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, wrote back a week later: “You should be ashamed of your slovenly, happy-go-lucky, harum, scarum style of work.
Never have I received a really good report of your conduct from any headmaster or tutor.
Always behind, incessant complaints of a total want of application to your work.
You have failed to get into the 60th Rifles, the finest regiment in the army.
You have imposed on me an extra charge of some 200 pounds a year.
Do not think that I am going to take the trouble of writing you long letters after every failure you commit and undergo.
I no longer attach the slightest weight to anything you may say.
If you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle, useless, unprofitable life you have had during your school days, you will become a mere social wastrel, one of the hundreds of public school failures, and you will degenerate into a shabby, unhappy and futile existence.
You will have to bear all the blame for such misfortunes.
…
Your mother sends her love.”
Churchill was 19. This story hurts to read. I don’t know the inner texture of Churchill’s mind but I’d bet that even after defeating Nazi Germany and winning WWII he probably still didn’t feel good enough. What is the point of success if there’s no satisfaction in the succeeding? Beware of envying successful humans. The price you would need to pay to be the people you admire is often one you would not foot the bill for. MODERN WISDOMI do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. This week’s upcoming episodes: Monday. Thursday. Saturday. THINGS I'VE LEARNED1. William Costello polled 527 heterosexual/bisexual people. “Are opposite-sex friendships ever truly platonic?” 81% of women said yes. Only 58% of men said yes. Women were 3× more likely than men to say their friendship was purely platonic. 2. “Every time you show up as someone else to please another person you’re rejecting yourself.” — Joe Hudson 3. “Steve Jobs? Delayed 9 months of medical treatment of pancreatic cancer to try a carrot juice diet and acupuncture. Mozart? Overspent his income, lived miserably in mountains of debt and regularly wrote letters to friends begging for money. Friedrich Nietzsche? Lost his virginity in a brothel and caught syphilis. He only saw his work sell 300 copies in his lifetime. Martin Luther King? Had extra-marital affairs with over 40 different women including spending his last night alive with 2 women and physically attacking another. Isaac Newton? Spent 30 years of his life writing 1 million words on the pseudoscience of alchemy. (Hidden for years by his heirs because they were too embarrassed to publish it) Don't put any adult on a pedestal. Kill your gurus. A more useful belief: The "adults" aren't going to save you they don't even exist.” — George Mack LIFE HACKDrive without music or a podcast on. Revolutionary I know. But it’s a great time to think through problems and reflect while not feeling like you’re doing absolutely nothing. Big love, Try my productivity drink Neutonic. PS |
3 Minute Monday
Podcaster with 1bn+ plays. I write about the most important lessons from the best thinkers on the planet. 300,000+ people read my free newsletter. Press subscribe to join.
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, Come see me live in NYC, Boston, Denver, Austin, Salt Lake City & Chicago. I’ve been thinking about presence this week. Blaise Pascal explains the problem… “We never keep to the present. We anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that...
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, My US & Canada live tour is getting close to selling out - LA, Vancouver, Toronto and Nashville are all gone. New York City, Austin, Boston, Denver, Salt Lake City & Chicago - limited tickets left. Come and see me live. “The worst thing that’s ever happened to you is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.” — Joe Rogan The saddest you’ve ever been is the saddest you’ve ever been. The hardest you’ve ever worked is the hardest you’ve ever worked. Tough times...
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, You’re probably pretty competent. You can do things. You’re prepared to try new stuff. And when you try new stuff, you don’t suck that much and you seem to make progress more quickly than most people. This is another Curse Of Competence. Your options for life-direction are less constrained by your abilities, and more by your choices. This sounds like a blessing. Indeed it’s better than the alternative. But it’s a unique category of problem, one which occurs while...