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3 Minute Monday

by Chris Williamson

Podcaster with 1bn+ plays. I write about the most important lessons from the best thinkers on the planet. 300,000+ people read my free newsletter. Press subscribe to join.

Posts
Person walks on a bridge with an umbrella.
Featured Post

3MM: Criticism, Facts & Marriage

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, It is a sad fact that it’s more socially acceptable to be your own biggest critic rather than your own biggest cheerleader. This creates a fertile environment for external criticism to make you doubt yourself more than it should. Here are some strategies you may have used to try and avoid the pain of criticism with varying degrees of success: Get bitter and think of any critic as a hater just throwing envy and shade; recite the quote “Don’t take criticism from...

6 days ago • 3 min read
A man sitting on a window sill looking out the window

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, Some advice on how to support men. Men want to aim high without feeling insufficient if they fall short. Men want their suffering to be recognised and appreciated without being pandered to or patronised and made to feel weak. Men want to believe that they can be more without feeling like they’re not enough already. Men want to be able to open up without being judged. Men want support without feeling broken. Men want to be loved for who they are not for what they do....

13 days ago • 2 min read
The sun is setting over a field with animals

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, “20 years from now you’d give anything to be this exact age, exactly this healthy, in this exact moment. Take a second to enjoy it.” — Richard Webster We trade the thing we want (time) for the thing which is supposed to get it (money). We give up time to make money so that we can finally have more time when we have enough money. We give up happiness to achieve success so that we can finally enjoy happiness when we achieve enough success. “However much you feel you...

20 days ago • 4 min read
The sun is setting over a lake with mountains in the background

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, “Dopamine is not about the pursuit of happiness, it is about the happiness of pursuit.” — Dr Robert Sapolsky So true. So much of life and enjoyment is about the anticipation of things coming. In fact, the anticipation is often actually more enjoyable than the experience itself. Tim Ferriss used to book week-long holidays years and years in advance so he could get as much enjoyment out of the anticipation as possible. This puts a new perspective on “it’s not the...

27 days ago • 2 min read
A yellow sign is hanging on a white line

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, The question “What makes a woman attractive?” is a unique type of framing known as a Milgram Question. In these situations, the social penalty for an unflattering answer is much higher than the reward for telling the truth. Named after the famous Milgram psychology experiment where electric shocks were administered for wrong answers. Because of this, we simply can’t trust the answers we receive, even if they’re coming from friends. Other famous Milgram Questions...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, “Neediness occurs when you place a higher priority on what others think of you than what you think of yourself. Any time you alter your words or behaviour to fit someone else’s needs rather than your own, that is needy. Any time you lie about your interests, hobbies, or background, that is needy. Any time you pursue a goal to impress others rather than fulfil yourself, that is needy. Whereas most people focus on what behaviour is attractive/unattractive, what...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read
An office chair sitting next to a desk in a parking lot

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, There is a very painful transition that everyone eventually needs to make in their career & productivity journey - from operator guy to idea guy. At the beginning of your career, the only advantage you have is your work rate because you have no experience to draw on, and any natural talent is capped by your inexperience, so you just work hard to get ahead. You answer all the emails, take all the “would love to connect” calls, you send the invoices, write the copy,...

about 2 months ago • 4 min read
A herd of cattle standing on top of a grass covered field

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, “Fuck-you money” is a meme but it’s also a truth. There is an amount of wealth you can achieve when typical restrictions and conventions no longer apply to you. You don’t need to suck up to the gatekeepers. You don’t need to do things you don’t want to do. In extreme situations you don’t even need to follow the law. Similarly, “fuck-you freedom” is kind of downstream from fuck-you money, but also can be achieved through cultivating a lack of reliance on other...

about 2 months ago • 2 min read
A close up of a flower with a blurry background

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, “Living an examined life is just one insult after another, you have to maintain a sense of humour. Your mind has absolutely no shame, it will think anything. The person you meet when you look in the mirror is not one person. It’s a congress of selves, and many of them are total assholes. And ultimately you can’t take it personally, you didn’t create yourself, or your culture, or your consciousness. You find yourself here in this circumstance, and the question is;...

2 months ago • 2 min read
A group of people sitting in front of a blackboard

3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, I’ve been thinking about a special category of lesson - one which you cannot discover without experiencing it firsthand. There is a certain subset of advice that for some reason, we all refuse to learn through instruction. Unteachable Lessons. No matter how arduous or costly or effortful it is going to be for us to find out for ourselves, we prefer to disregard the mountains of warnings from our elders, songs, literature, historical catastrophes, public scandals and...

2 months ago • 3 min read