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 people tell you how fortunate you are to deal with it.

Barry Schwartz in the Paradox Of Choice talks about the process of buying jeans 60 years ago.

You went to the jeans store and there was one type, one colour, one cut.

You found your waist size, paid and walked out.

Now you may have wanted a slightly different style of jeans, or length, or colour, but you had no choice other than what was given to you.

So your total utility from the jeans may not be maximised but your satisfaction with the decision is pretty high, knowing you got the best you could given the circumstances.

Compare this to today.

You go to a jean store and look around.

Do you want skinny or bootcut? Straight legged? Cropped? Ripped? Blue? Grey? Acid wash? With contrast stitching or without?

The options are endless.

Hurray! You can finally select exactly the pair of jeans you’re looking for.

But this also means that any suboptimal decision is entirely your fault.

If you were unhappy with your jeans in 1960 - it’s the fault of the crappy jeans store.

If you’re unhappy with your jeans in 2024 - it’s the fault of your research.

Previously, your experience was largely out of your hands and limited by the world, today, it’s only limited by your choices.

This is how a constraint of options makes the decision making process easier.

The Curse Of Competence plays into this too.

If you only are good at one category of things, you sure might be unhappy that you can’t do something else, and that indeed is a rubbish situation.

But the constraint helps to narrow your choices down.

On the other hand if you’re good at lots of things, there are many paths open to you which is liberating but can also cause you to be scared, confused and frozen in place.

In one world your life options are constrained by opportunity, in another world they are constrained by discernment.

We could call this a Titanic Problem.

An issue that everyone says you’re in such a privileged position to deal with.

Having lots of competencies you could follow in your life is exciting, but it’s also terrifying and paralysing too.

Plus you have the added challenge of feeling guilty for your seeming ungratefulness even though the world is at your feet.

​

MODERN WISDOM

I 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.
Daniel Priestley - why is the UK struggling so much right now, what are the principles for launching any business, where do companies get stuck most during growth and how can solo entrepreneurs become more effective?

Thursday.
Scott Barry Kaufman - victim mindsets seem to be replete at the moment, so why are they so common, how do we all fall into the temptation of victimhood and why is the entire theory of learned helplessness incorrect?

Saturday.
Matt Abrahams - super strategic tips to become a more confident speaker, how can you calm your nerves before any type of presentation and how can you remove filler words to appear more fluent?

​

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​It’s a beautiful day to remember…

Your ex is ruining someone else's life now. You are safe.

​

2.
​Broken homes are bad for mental health.

“Regardless of family income, children in intact families are half as likely to be diagnosed with depression.” — Rob Henderson

​

3.
​Two questions to think about.

If we were making a movie about your life, what would the key scenes so far be?

And if people were watching up to this point, what would the audience be screaming at the screen telling you to do with your life?

​

LIFE HACK

The Brand new Pod 5 from Eight Sleep.

Upgraded everything from the most important sleep tool in existence.

A Pod Blanket which uses the same technology of the Pod’s Cover to extend temperature regulation across your entire body.

Speakers built into the cover for sleep sounds, meditation tracks and white noise.

Preventative health tracking: giving you deeper visibility into trends like abnormal heartbeats, disrupted breathing, and sudden changes in HRV.

30 night sleep trial with a money back guarantee, and international shipping.

​Get up to $350 off the Pod 5.​
​

Big love,
Chris x

Try my productivity drink Neutonic.
Share this article with your friends here.

PS
I finished a new version of my Reading List with 100 more books to read before you die. Launching soon.