3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

See my brand new solo live show in the UK & Ireland this October 🚀

​​G​et your tickets now.​

I’m in Northern California on a meditation retreat. This will probably be the longest time I’ve gone without any screens in probably 20 years.

May come back insane or enlightened, stay tuned to find out which.

Anyway, onto what I've been thinking about this week...

How much should you try to optimise your life?

How much should you be thinking about ways to improve?

How much should you care about things?

For many people, perhaps even most, the answer to all of these questions is “more”.

Indeed the world largely belongs to the intense optimisers, not the laissez-faire guy chilling in a hammock who hit snooze 3 times this morning.

Telling people to optimise more is a reliable way to improve the lives of most people because most people need to be tightened up, not loosened off, and being more obsessive will tend to deliver better results in worldly success.

Most advice is charitably given to people who need to think more carefully, be more deliberate and work harder.

The problem is when this message lands with the wrong audience.

The perennial perma-optimisers.

Then it creates a world where overthinkers are convinced to think even more.

These people need loosening off, not tightening up.

Given that you read this newsletter, I’m going to guess you fall into this category.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be obsessive and pay attention to detail.

The problem arises when you can no longer delineate between the very small number of things that matter enough to obsess over, and *everything else*.

Assuming you have a small bucket of pursuits which are important, you’ve probably learned that a very deliberate, effortful, optimised approach is a successful strategy

This obsession and addiction begins to bleed into all other areas of your life.

Turning off the tap of optimisation is hard and soon the entire map is flooded with the same desire to always push for perfect.

Your brain tells you “Look at how effective your perfectionism has been in your professional life! Why don’t we try to apply that to your sleep routine and training plan and love life and house cleanliness and toenails?”

One solution I learned about recently is Deliberate Deoptimisation.

Purposefully letting areas which could be dialled in further fall by the wayside in order to give your brain capacity to focus on the ones that really matter.

Focusing on your pounds, not everyone else’s pennies.

Sure, you could have 5 credit cards with special cashback bonuses and capture all the points for your air miles, but given that you’re already close to capacity on Things To Give A Shit About, is it wise to add yet another to the list?

Sure, your intra-workout nutrition could probably be dialled in more with some pre-digested grass-fed whey & dextrose, but what if this takes your energy away from the key area of just hitting the gym 5 times this week?

Sure you could spend all day watching the stock market instead of just investing in an Index Fund but how much damage will this new candle-graph-addiction do to your relationship?

Oliver Burkeman’s line from a few weeks ago keeps echoing:

Not everything is a life or death situation.

Even if you know this cognitively, you still behave implicitly like it is.

Deliberately letting go of certain areas is a good way to give overthinkers like you a bit more space to regain some sanity.

MODERN WISDOM

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

This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Alex Hormozi - 4+ hours of straight fuego. Don’t miss it. Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
Rabbit Hole - Tim Ferriss, Tim Urban & George Mack on how to get infinite Japanese handjobs (and more).

Saturday.
Vittorio Angelone - what happens when an Irish man goes out in Nashville? He gets roofied. Find out how.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​Divorce is contagious.

“People are 75% more likely to become divorced if a friend is divorced and 33% more likely to divorce if a friend of a friend is divorced.

The contagion of divorce can spread through a social network, affecting friends up to two degrees removed.” — Rob Henderson

2.
​In life, you must choose your regrets.

“You'll regret it if you get married. You'll regret it if you don't get married. You'll regret it if you have kids, and you'll regret it if you don't.

Kierkegaard said this 200 years ago as follows:

‘Whatever you choose, you'll regret it. Because the problem isn't in your choices; it's in romanticizing a life you haven't lived.

A person always finds an untraveled path alluring and mysterious.

That's why the issue isn't making the right choice.

It's choosing and deciding which regret you'll live with.’

What have you decided?” — Salih Guney

3.
​When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

“Their final gift to you was repeating their pattern one more time so you could finally see that despite their potential, this is who they’ve chosen to be.”

LIFE HACK

Northern California.

Does this count as a life hack? No idea. This place absolutely rules though. Could totally see myself living here.

Gualala, Santa Rosa, all this area is insanely beautiful, peaceful and so underrated.
​

Big love,
Chris x

Try my productivity drink Neutonic.
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PS
I really hope you enjoy the Hormozi ep. Long time coming and we both put a lot of ourselves into that one.