3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

Humans have an asymmetry of errors.

We over-index exceptions - we use things that break the pattern we’ve come to expect as a serious learning opportunity.

But we tend to only learn much faster from errors of commission (things we do), not errors of omission (things we don’t do).

You only learn the sting of misplaced trust when someone betrays you, but when you refuse to trust and miss out on love, partnership, or help, the loss leaves no scar to remind you.

It’s obvious when quitting for a new career turns out to be a mistake, it’s far less obvious when staying put quietly drains years of your life that you’ll never get back.

We terrify ourselves with the thought of leaving a relationship and ending up lonelier, we almost never see the equal danger: staying forever with someone who never makes us feel fully alive.

We recoil from the humiliation of saying something stupid in a meeting, but we don’t clock the cost of never raising our hand at all.

We treat one bad investment as catastrophic, but rarely tally the unseen compounding of never investing in the first place.

We remember the awkward rejection that came from asking someone out, but never name the decades-long regret of not asking.

We dramatise the scandal of a a friend’s failed new habits, but forget the corrosive damage of decades of drift and inaction.

We exaggerate the embarrassment of publishing a bad piece of writing, but ignore the slower tragedy of never writing at all.

We catastrophise the risks of starting a company that fails, but ignore the equally large risk of letting someone else succeed at launching the idea you had a decade ago.

We obsess over the fallout from saying “yes” to the wrong opportunity, but rarely notice the quiet erosion of habitually saying “no.”

History makes the same mistake.

Kodak invented digital photography in the 1970s. An engineer showed executives a clunky prototype that could store photos on a cassette tape. They shelved the idea, afraid it would cannibalise their film business. For thirty years they sat on the future. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Their great failure wasn’t a wrong bet, it was never placing the bet at all.

Darwin had worked out natural selection by 1838 but kept the idea in a drawer for twenty years, too cautious to publish. It took another biologist, Alfred Russel Wallace, independently discovering the same thing to jolt him into action. Evolution itself nearly stayed hidden because of hesitation.

World War I was even at the mercy of this. After the assassination in Sarajevo, Europe still had off-ramps. Austria could have paused before declaring war on Serbia. Germany could have told Austria to stand down. Britain could have made its red lines crystal clear. No one acted decisively and everyone waited for someone else. That hesitation turned a local killing into a world war.

TLDR: We remember the noise of bad choices. We rarely count the cost of silence.

Commission teaches lessons in days. Omission teaches lessons in decades, usually too late to apply them.

I’m not saying you won’t regret the obvious agony of jobs you quit, loves you lost, or words you blurted out; I’m just saying you need to pay more attention to the unseen pain of the jobs you never left, the loves you never dared and the words you never spoke.

We wince at mistakes that make a noise, but it’s the silent mistakes that do the real damage.

Errors of commission bruise the ego, errors of omission starve the soul.

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MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent.
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This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Dr Rahul Jandial - why do humans dream? What do our dreams mean? How can we lucid dream? What can we do to enhance brain health for mental performance? Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
James Kimmel Jr. - the psychology of revenge and how it runs our lives, philosophies, human culture and legal system. Beyond fascinating. Don’t miss this.

Saturday.
Dr Tara Swart - the practical neuroscience of how to tap into your intuition and gut instinct more. Perfect for the perennial over-thinkers.

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THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​America’s moral hierarchy in 2025.

Gallup just released its latest survey on Americans’ moral compass.

Divorce, gambling, and same-sex relations are in. Polygamy, suicide, and infidelity are out.

Here’s how people ranked 20 different behaviours; morally acceptable vs morally wrong.

• Birth control: 90% acceptable, 7% wrong
• Divorce: 75% acceptable, 19% wrong
• Sex between unmarried man & woman: 68% acceptable, 29% wrong
• Having a baby outside marriage: 67% acceptable, 29% wrong
• Gay or lesbian relations: 64% acceptable, 33% wrong
• Gambling: 63% acceptable, 32% wrong
• Human embryonic stem cell research: 63% acceptable, 29% wrong
• Buying/wearing animal fur: 61% acceptable, 34% wrong
• Death penalty: 56% acceptable, 35% wrong
• Doctor-assisted suicide: 53% acceptable, 40% wrong
• Abortion: 49% acceptable, 40% wrong
• Medical testing on animals: 47% acceptable, 47% wrong
• Sex between teenagers: 41% acceptable, 51% wrong
• Changing one’s gender: 40% acceptable, 54% wrong
• Pornography: 35% acceptable, 60% wrong
• Cloning animals: 34% acceptable, 59% wrong
• Polygamy: 21% acceptable, 74% wrong
• Suicide: 21% acceptable, 71% wrong
• Cloning humans: 8% acceptable, 87% wrong
• Married men/women having an affair: 8% acceptable, 89% wrong

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2.
​The sex recession is real.

Americans are having a record low amount of sex - even less than they did during Covid.

Just 37% of adult Americans have sex weekly, down from 55% in 1990.

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3.
​Famous jerks are not role models.

“Some talented people are jerks, and this sometimes makes it seem to the inexperienced that being a jerk is part of being talented.

It isn't; being talented is merely how they get away with it.” — Paul Graham

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LIFE HACK

Strawberry Lemonade Neutonic just dropped.

A new champion has emerged. My favourite - sorry Tropical Ice.

Outrageously good and available now.

​Try Strawberry Lemonade.​
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Big love,
Chris x

Try my productivity drink Neutonic.
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PS
Thank you to everyone who came to my talks at Gymshark Lift London this weekend. ILY.