3 Minute Monday
Hi friend,
I’m back in Austin and dear god I’ve been ill this weekend.
I can’t remember the last time I was hit by a virus like this. I absolutely have not missed it.
In other news – it’s been a long time coming, but the product that me and James Smith have spent 12 months working on is now finished.
You’ll be seeing a lot more about this over the coming weeks.
I’m genuinely so proud of what we’ve created and I can’t wait to show you.
Anyway, this week I’ve been thinking about the problem of taking advice from super successful people.
There’s a trend of people who’ve “made it” explaining how work-life balance is actually what’s most important and how you can’t be powered by resentment or a sense of insufficiency or a chip on your shoulder.
It’s a failure on the part of the guru to understand that the tools you need to get from 0-50 are not the same to get from 90-95.
It’s also a basic failure of memory.
When you look at what got them to where they are, it’s precisely the traits they’re now castigating.
Almost everyone has more pain and resentment and fear in the beginning.
Which is why they use it.
Once you’ve achieved enough success and validation from the world to not be fuelled by that any more, that’s great.
But that doesn’t mean that people who are just starting out can achieve the success you now have by using strategies which you only accessed after becoming successful.
It could almost be seen as a kind of Luxury Belief Of Success.
“Defund The Police” was pushed heavily by people who live in communities that didn’t need a massive police presence.
“You need holistic balanced drive” is pushed by people who already benefitted from their resentment-fuelled obsession for half a decade.
The best question to ask is not “how does my favourite guru say people should behave to achieve success?”
Instead ask “what did my favourite guru actually do when they were at my stage?”
MODERN WISDOM
I do a podcast which has had 280 million+ downloads. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
This week’s upcoming episodes:
Monday.
Rich Roll – the ultra-endurance racer, ex-addict and fantastic podcaster joins me to talk all things work-life balance, personal growth, resilience, motivation and more.
Thursday.
Gad Saad – 8 strategies from evolutionary psychology for avoiding a life you hate. How does happiness work through an evolutionary lens? Very good.
Saturday.
Steven Bridges – a real life card counter on how him and his team take casinos across the world for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like the movie 21 in real life. Super cool.
THINGS I’VE LEARNED
1.
The Libido Gap must be fixed.
The Libido Gap describes a discrepancy in sexual desire between men and women. Here are 10 pieces of converging evidence:
“1. In marriages, wives report desiring sex less than their husbands across all age ranges – even into the late 30s when male libido declines and female libido sees an increase.
2. When asking men and women “how many sexual partners do you desire,” men consistently report wanting more lifetime sexual partners than women do.
3. Men cheat in relationships more than women, a well-observed sex difference. But additionally, men who cheat in relationships cheat more: of unfaithful husbands, 25% had more than one affair partner, only 5% of women had multiple affair partners.
4. When analysing male and female sexual fantasies, male fantasies are: more varied, involve more sexual acts, and include more new sexual partners than female fantasies.
5. Men experience substantially more spontaneous physical arousal throughout the day.
6. Men masturbate more than women: this sex difference begins in adolescence and continues into old age. Across every age range.
7. Men are the primary consumers of most sexual content and services (porn, sex work).
8. Women report low sexual desire substantially more than men when being treated in clinical settings for sexual dysfunction.
9. fMRI shows higher activation in areas of the brain associated with sexual response for men than women when viewing erotic images. We also see the same with attractive faces; men show higher responses than women.
10. In visual attention tasks (eg eye gaze), men pay more attention to erotic images than women. Men spend more time looking at erotic images and disengage from looking less quickly.” — Alex DatePsych
2.
Reminders of status can have real-world effects.
Flights that have a First Class cabin have 4x increased rates of air rage.
On planes where you need to walk through First Class to get to economy, it’s 9x. — h/t Michael Easter
3.
Growth is not a panacea.
“It doesn’t necessarily ever get easier. You just get better at managing what’s hard.” — Mark Manson
LIFE HACK
Fix your testosterone levels.
I had my bloodwork done by Marek Health at the start of the year, my testosterone was at 495.
That’s not outside the normal range but definitely not where I would like it to be.
6 months later after following their suggestions and supplementation protocol, it’s now at 1006.
I was so impressed with their service that I reached out to the CEO to partner with them.
You should stop guessing when it comes to your health. These guys are the highest quality service I’ve ever come across.
Get the best quality bloodwork in the USA here – 10% discount with code MODERNWISDOM.
(Sorry UK people, I’m still trying to find a good option for Britain)
Big love,
Chris x
Tell your friends they should read this Newsletter.
PS
I’ve been thinking about starting a WhatsApp and an Instagram Channel for a while. Gonna do some more research but these may launch soon.
