3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

Come see me live in NYC, Boston, Denver, Austin, Salt Lake City & Chicago - https://chriswilliamson.live

Here are some rules about overthinking:

You can’t think your way out of a feeling problem. Overthinking is underfeeling. Trying to think your way into feeling emotions is like trying to drink your way sober.
Trying to think your way out of overthinking is like trying to sniff your way out of a cocaine addiction.
“Overthinking invents more problems than it solves.” — Gurwinder Bhogal
Your brain ruminates because it hates uncertainty so much that it would rather fantasise a catastrophe than deal with not knowing what the future holds.
Unpopular opinion: your brain ruminates because you are getting something out of the rumination. Finding out how it secretly serves you is the first step toward overcoming it.
You never get paralysed by overthinking positive outcomes, you only overthink about terrible outcomes. Fear does not keep you safe, it keeps you trapped. Whatever you fear establishes the boundaries of your freedom. If you’re afraid of heights you stay low, if you’re afraid of people you stay alone.
Most people don’t think about things enough. You are probably not one of them.
In my experience, the more you think about yourself, the harder it is to access happiness. In this way reflection and personal development is a double-edged sword - you need to self-assess to know what to work on, but intense self-assessment is super restrictive to your quality of life.
The amount you overthink is directly inverse to how much you live life. Do not trade the thing you want for the thing that is supposed to facilitate it.

MODERN WISDOM

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

This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
Simon Sinek - where does meaning come from in life, how can you find more purpose, what is Simon’s best advice for handling low mood, what do Gen Z need to learn from Millennials and where does resilience come from? Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
Rick Beato - the best music commentator on YouTube breaks down the current pop scene, AI bands taking over Spotify, why Coldplay needs 15 song writers on a single, the state of rock music, what TikTok has done to song writing and more. So so good.

Saturday.
Dr Scott Eilers - a psychiatrist who helps people with clinical depression and also suffers with clinical depression gives his best personal and professional advice on overcoming low mood. Really great holistic insights here.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
Your guy friends are attracted to you, and they think you’re attracted to them too.

“A study of Americans finds that in platonic couples, the men are far more likely than the women to find their friend sexy, and far more likely to think she finds them attractive, too.

Indeed, a man's assessment of how much his female friend fancies him matches how much he fancies her, and is unrelated to how she really feels.

Clearly men are prone to wishful thinking.” — The Economist

2.
Your brain is a machine gun at overthinking.

“It’s been found that we can talk to ourselves at the equivalent of 4,000 words per minute, which is the rate an M-134 assault rifle shoots bullets.” — Will Storr

3.
You can just go and do things.

“The permission you are waiting for does not exist.” — Jack Butcher

LIFE HACK

Get your bloodwork done.

You need to know what’s happening inside of your body.

My favourite bloodwork company does a single test that allows you to check everything including; your cortisol levels, heart health, hormone levels like testosterone, screens for 50 types of cancer and even detects AMH levels in women which indicate ovarian reserves.

It’s the most comprehensive, simple and quick way to get bloodwork done.

This is the exact test I get every 6 months.

Get $100 off Function's bloodwork analysis and only pay $399 at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom

Big love,
Chris x

Try my productivity drink Neutonic.
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PS
I’m in Vienna, this place is so beautiful. And a new Neutonic flavour drops this month. So so good.