3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

The brand new MW Merch is available for the next 3 days only - once the store closes, every piece is gone for good!

Big love to everyone who’s copped so far <3 I can't wait to see you all wearing these.

Outstanding.

Consider this.

What pains can you deal with more easily than everyone else?

This is a much more realistic version of “find what feels like play to you but looks like work to everyone else”.

Because any pursuit, even the most existentially aligned, will regularly feel like work.

I adore running the podcast.

If all I had to do at 2pm Central Time every weekday was speak to my boys or some dusty academic with an unpronounceable surname, that would be bliss.

But that's not all I have to do...

I don’t want to do 6 episode edits in a weekend just so I can have a week to myself over Christmas.

I don’t want to have to pack an entire recording studio with me to go to Guatemala so I don’t end up missing publish dates.

I don’t even ALWAYS want to read another book after going through 4 in a week.

But these are pains I’m prepared to have in my life.

I’m willing to struggle through them.

What I'm saying is, some pains I am suited for - like running the podcast.

And other pains, I am not suited for - like being married to Jada Pinkett Smith.

Any pursuit you love can become a labour.

If you want to keep the things you love as exclusively a pleasurable activity then that’s totally fine, but you can’t commit to Turning Pro with them.

As soon as you commit to give it your all, you also open the door to pain and struggle.

Let’s say you love pickleball and you’re good at it, maybe you’re an ex tennis player from your youth.

You can rock up on a Saturday afternoon with your mates and play and have a fantastic time with ease.

Want to miss a weekend? Want to stop to start doing interpretive dance or have a baby? No worries.

Straight love, no labour.

However, if you want to become the best pro pickleball player you can be, all that is off the table.

Pickleball no longer folds around your life, your life folds around pickleball.

Early morning training sessions, conditioning, watching game tape, technique sessions, uncertainty about your income, travelling to tournaments - that is your pain.

It’s a different pain to the author who is having to write proposals and meet with agents and get rejected by publishers and spend months doing research to release a book.

Or the father who has to get up throughout the night and read books about parenting and get stuck in traffic on the way to football practise in order to be an amazing father.

But make no mistake, if you want to become great at whatever you want to do, you will go through pain and struggle.

So what pain and struggle do you want in your life?

MODERN WISDOM

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

This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Peter Santenello - stories from one of my favourite YouTubers who journeys to the deepest, poorest and most rural parts of America. Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
Rob Henderson, Macken Murphy & Steve Stewart-williams - a 2+ hour roundtable discussion on everything evolutionary psychology, sex differences, mating & modern culture. So good.

Saturday.
3.4M Q&A - my favourite peptides, why am I not a dad yet, a health update, Red Rising, reviews from my 7 day meditation retreat and a ton more.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​Tax the rich.

“New IRS data finds that the top 0.1% of taxpayers (roughly 154,000 returns) paid $440 billion in federal income taxes in their most recent year.

The bottom 80% paid $350 billion.

Meaning the top 0.1% paid more than the entire bottom 80% combined.” — h/t IRS, Rothmus, ProfStonge

2.
​Young adults are more likely than older adults to say drinking alcohol is “morally wrong.”

— h/t Rob Henderson

3.
​Beards are dangerous.

In 1830s Massachusetts, beards were so uncommon and strange that a man named Joseph Palmer was mocked and shunned for wearing one.

Assailants tried to forcibly shave him, but he fought them off with a knife, and was imprisoned for assault. He refused to pay his fine or court fees, and so he remained in prison for over a year.” — Adam Mastroianni

LIFE HACK

Drizzilicious.

I have found the most insanely tasty rice cakes. Tons of flavours. 90 calories per serving.

Also come in mini packs.

Buy some now, you won’t regret it.
​

Big love,
Chris x

Try my productivity drink Neutonic.
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PS
Really, 72 hours left. Go.​