3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, I had a conversation this week about the challenges that men and women face in the modern world. It’s interesting how rarely pro-male or pro-female activists are prepared to genuinely accept that the other sex may encounter difficulties without measuring it against their own suffering. There is an assumption that any attention paid toward men takes it away from women, or some other minority group who is more-deserving, and vice versa. It’s a zero-sum view of...
12 days ago • 2 min read
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, The Neutonic America restock finally goes live tomorrow!! God this has been such a long time coming. All 3 flavours available with free next day delivery. Get first access before everyone else by signing up here. Anyway, onto what I've been thinking about this week. I am certain that most capable people don’t believe in themselves enough. A lack of confidence killed more dreams than a lack of competence ever did. Self-doubt often seems to be bundled into a package...
19 days ago • 3 min read
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, I have another new man crush. Aimo Koivunen was a Finnish soldier, assigned to a ski patrol on 15 March 1944 along with several other Finnish soldiers. Three days into their mission on 18 March, the group was attacked and surrounded by Soviet forces. They had insufficient numbers to fight back and were forced to flee. Koivunen became fatigued after skiing for a long distance but couldn’t stop, despite the ruthless difficulty of trailblazing in unpacked snow. They...
26 days ago • 4 min read
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, I'm bringing my solo live show to Australia this November! Brisbane - Wednesday 6th November at Fortitude Music HallMelbourne - Friday 8th November at Palais TheatreSydney - Saturday 9th November at Darling Harbour Theatre Presale goes live on Tuesday June 25th at 9am AEST. Get access to presale tickets here. In other news I’m in Nashville for a few days recording, back to Austin for one day, then Charlotte, Gatlinburg, Nashville again for July 4th, New Orleans and...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, 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...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, During my end of year review I asked myself two new questions: 1. What do I do that I think is productive but isn’t? 2. What do I do that I don’t think is productive but actually is? These were surprisingly easy to work out. 1. Sitting at my desk when I’m not working, being on calls with no actual objective, keeping Slack notifications at zero, sitting on email trying to get the Unread number down. 2. Saying yes to a random dinner when someone is coming through...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, I’ve been thinking about overthinking recently. Probably overthinking about overthinking to be honest. And I came across a tweet: “This is your annual reminder that you don’t need to resolve your issues, you don’t need to deal with your emotional baggage, you don’t need to process your trauma, you don’t need to confront your past, you don’t need to figure yourself out, you can just go ahead and do the thing.” — Eliezer Yudkowsky We believe we need to prepare much...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, “I struggle to believe I’m worthy of moments of joy and peace without first putting myself through a brutal schedule, monitoring my productivity levels down to the minute. Perhaps some people apply this “earn your cookie” mindset in ways that lead to healthy achievements. Not me. Mine is a mutation whereby joy and self-compassion are regularly outlawed by an internal tyrant who decides when I’ve been flogged enough for one day. Just when I’m about to collapse, a...
2 months ago • 3 min read
3 MINUTE MONDAY Hi friend, Here’s how to get Stoicism wrong: 1. Become emotionally immune to your successes but castigate yourself for your failures. This is Reverse Stoicism. It bestows all the downsides of indifference to your wins without any of the upsides of being immune to your losses. I think it's how many people operate - forgetting the victories but remembering the shortcomings. Reverse Stoicism is worse than no Stoicism at all. 2. Use it exclusively to benefit yourself. Stoicism was...
2 months ago • 2 min read