Christmas Special | Hacks, Fails & Lessons From 2019 | Modern Wisdom 129

Chris Williamson 0:00 (jazzy Christmas music plays) Because it's Christmas and I can use whatever (censored) words I want, all right? So, today, we are gonna go through some of our favorite hacks, lessons, fails from 2019, do a year-end review.

Yusef 0:26 So I dropped med school, which was actual-

Jonny 0:28 Became a doctor.

Yusef 0:29 Became a doctor.

Jonny 0:30 Became a doctor.

Yusef 0:31 Ah. Otherwise, it's been probably the hardest year of my life.

Jonny 0:35 (laughs) The main thing that didn't go well was I started the year snapping my hamstring underneath 255 kilos.

Chris Williamson 0:45 As you're moving into the new year, if I could give you one piece of advice, one piece of advice would be go sober, second piece of advice would be sleep with your phone outside of your room, but third piece of advice would be get a morning routine.

Jonny 0:53 I spoke to someone this week who said to me that they got a dog because I said to get a dog.

Yusef 0:59 Ooh, that's a responsibility.

Jonny 0:59 So we should be careful. (whoosh)

Chris Williamson 1:05 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. A very merry Christmas from us here at Modern Wisdom. Johnny and Yousaf have joined me. Uh, anyway, it's Christmas. Merry Christmas. Hope that you've had a fantastic year. We're gonna be going through-

Jonny 1:17 Can I open that now? (clicks jumper opening)

Yusef 1:22 (laughs)

Jonny 1:23 (laughs)

Yusef 1:23 (Clicks jumper opening) Oh, bollocks. (clicks jumper opening)

Chris Williamson 1:24 What are you doing?

Yusef 1:25 Oh, there we go. (clicks jumper opening)

Jonny 1:27 Dean, just cut this. (static sound)

Chris Williamson 1:28 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. A very merry Christmas to you. I'm joined by Johnny and Yousaf from propanefitness.com.

Jonny 1:36 Welcome back to us.

Chris Williamson 1:37 Welcome back, indeed.

Yusef 1:38 This is actually take two 'cause we were being naughty.

Jonny 1:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:40 They were being naughty. They were being Christmas elves. Um, as you can see, Johnny's wearing a familiar jumper, except for the fact it's broken. You've got an indicator.

Jonny 1:48 I don't think it's broken fully.

Chris Williamson 1:50 Better.

Jonny 1:51 Some would say better.

Chris Williamson 1:52 Better. Anyway-

Jonny 1:53 It's more surprising.

Chris Williamson 1:53 If you are only listening, I suggest that you head to YouTube to check out our Christmas jumpers in all of their splendor.

Jonny 2:00 Yours is lovely. It's really nice, isn't it? Yousaf's is far too small for him. You can't really see that 'cause he's sat down.

Chris Williamson 2:05 That's- that's your girlfriend's jumper, isn't it?

Yusef 2:07 I think so.

Chris Williamson 2:07 "Take it slow in the snow," and it's a sloth (laughs) with earmuffs on her.

Jonny 2:12 Like a cautionary notice, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 2:14 Yeah, it is. You could stand by the side of the road just waving.

Yusef 2:18 Like, festive warning.

Jonny 2:19 Festive but very sensible.

Yusef 2:20 "Take it slow." Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:21 So, today, we are going to go through some of our favorite hacks, lessons, fails from 2019, do a year-end review, what it is that we've been getting up to. Um, Johnny, hot lump of coal for Christmas.

Jonny 2:36 Lump o' coal.

Chris Williamson 2:37 Bup, there you go.

Jonny 2:38 What would you like to know?

Chris Williamson 2:39 Well, what have you... Okay, here's one. What have you dropped within the last year in terms of sort of routine or product consistency?

Jonny 2:45 That's a great question.

Chris Williamson 2:47 That is a surprise to you.

Jonny 2:49 Uh, ROMWOD, mainly 'cause

Yusef 2:52 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 2:52 ... it was utility.

Chris Williamson 2:54 And how do you feel having-

Jonny 2:56 Uh, so no different, I would say.

Yusef 3:00 Why have you dropped ROMWOD specifically?

Jonny 3:02 So Chris went to see Mr. McGill, came back and was like, "Don't do ROMWOD, Johnny, otherwise you'll snap yourself." So, um, I think I probably didn't... 'Cause I was doing it and it was taking a long time, and I was still getting injured, and I was still feeling tight, and I was still feeling, um, you know, pain, discomfort, like, as you would normally expect from f- from training. So tried dropping it, also noticed n- no change, really. So I do miss it, but not for the right reasons.

Chris Williamson 3:36 Well, yeah. No, I, I agree. I agree completely.

Jonny 3:38 No?

Chris Williamson 3:38 So my, my reasons, ROMWOD I still think is a, a fantastically useful tool and it's a beautiful way to start your morning. Um, there's just certain physiologies, mine being one of them, the, um, changes that the stretches elicit, it doesn't agree with. Um, so ROMWOD's gone. Yousaf, what have you added or taken away this year that's been surprising to you?

Jonny 4:00 'Cause you do, like, watered-down ROMWOD, don't you? Like, all the gymnastic stuff.

Chris Williamson 4:03 Yeah.

Jonny 4:03 Like, all the...

Yusef 4:03 Watered-down, do you mean ROMWOD?

Jonny 4:05 Yeah, you do like... Yeah, yeah. It's not-

Yusef 4:06 As in, the sport-

Chris Williamson 4:07 Like beginners.

Jonny 4:07 (laughs)

Yusef 4:08 ... the, the sport of gymnastics.

Chris Williamson 4:10 (laughs) The sport of ROMWOD. It's competitive ROMWOD, isn't it?

Yusef 4:12 Yeah.

Jonny 4:12 'Cause it's, they don't have seated straddle, they have, like, other things that aren't as ROM.

Chris Williamson 4:15 Yeah.

Yusef 4:15 Some, other, like, proper names for the things, positions.

Jonny 4:18 (laughs)

Yusef 4:18 Um, so I dropped med school, which was-

Chris Williamson 4:21 Became a doctor.

Yusef 4:23 Became a doctor.

Jonny 4:23 Became a doctor.

Chris Williamson 4:24 Proper doctor.

Yusef 4:25 Oh, God. So, and as far as habits, like, I think there's quite a big shift with having to go from, like, pressurizing yourself for a certain point-

Jonny 4:35 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 4:35 ... on assessment to just doing the job. So that's been quite a big shift and I think quite a lot of challenges with time management and just juggling a lot more in terms of energy, time, sleep, that kind of thing.

Chris Williamson 4:51 You've entered... You, after... You're, like, finally in the real world after-

Yusef 4:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:57 ... 10 years of being a student.

Jonny 4:57 You went, you went in for a bit and it was like, "Mm-mm, no, not for me."

Chris Williamson 5:00 "It's not for me."

Jonny 5:00 Wrong bit, wrong bit, and then back in again.

Chris Williamson 5:03 Yeah, no.

Yusef 5:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 5:03 Fuck training.

Jonny 5:04 Well, there's all... There's just loads of blood and poo, isn't there?

Yusef 5:07 Quite a lot.

Jonny 5:08 How much body fluid do you see?

Yusef 5:11 Luckily... So we were saying this before, that, um, you were kind of insulated from it a little bit, whereas nurses, God bless them-

Jonny 5:19 They're on the front line.

Yusef 5:20 They just get-

Jonny 5:21 Taking fire.

Yusef 5:22 Oh, they, they, like, they get punched. Um-

Jonny 5:24 Really?

Yusef 5:24 ... one nurse got punched last week by someone and, uh, and they al- it's always, like, the first port of call for, like, "Nurse, I've shit meself." 'Cause-

Jonny 5:32 (laughs)

Yusef 5:33 And, and, like, sometimes it's, it's absolutely excusable, you know, someone who can't help it, but sometimes you just get people who-

Jonny 5:42 Lazy.

Yusef 5:42 ... are just a bit... Lazy or a bit just vindictive and, like, there's a, there can be a sense of, "I've, I've paid for this, so I'm gonna-"

Chris Williamson 5:51 Who has?

Yusef 5:52 You sure you don't... You don't shit yourself because-

Jonny 5:54 (laughs)

Yusef 5:54 ... you pay taxes.

Jonny 5:56 You're like, "Well, I'm in hospital now. I'm gonna fucking make the most of this."

Yusef 5:59 Um, well, the... I mean, it's not common, but you occasionally-

Jonny 6:02 (laughs)

Yusef 6:02 ... find...

Chris Williamson 6:02 What was it? What's... I can't remember who the comedian is who says, um, "It's like h- it's like making a dirty protest against the standards in a hotel by shitting the bed then realizing that you've got to wake up in a shitted bed."

Jonny 6:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:13 Except for the fact that someone comes and done shits the bed for you in, in hospital, doesn't they?

Jonny 6:17 You have to shit in the bed, like-... as you leave the bed for the first time.

Chris Williamson 6:20 They take the, they take the poo away.

Jonny 6:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:21 The poo, the poo, it comes and then it goes.

Jonny 6:23 Yeah.

Yusef 6:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:25 Um, so you've changed a lot to do with that. And I guess that your sleep is gonna be a bit of a challenge and stuff now as well?

Yusef 6:32 I think I've learned a lot about myself with doing night shifts, um-

Chris Williamson 6:35 What have you learned?

Yusef 6:36 ... switching betw- so just how much it affects how stupid you are. So I, in fact, there we go. The, the, the big lesson has been if ... Hav- has anyone seen the Shane Parrish Stupidity Podcast?

Chris Williamson 6:49 Yes.

Yusef 6:49 Where he talks about the seven factors of stupidity, which are being in a group outside of your normal group, being outside of your domain of competence, being in the presence of an expert or being, uh, an expert yourself, um, being in a crowd, having sensory overload or being tired. I think those are the seven.

Chris Williamson 7:10 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 7:10 Or was like (whispers) I don't know.

Jonny 7:11 And, and are you saying that you (laughs) hit every single box?

Yusef 7:14 So-

Chris Williamson 7:15 It must be at least six of seven.

Yusef 7:17 The first couple of months you are just, you're like, "I- I'm so aware that I'm operating on 10% brain because everything is just, is designed to make you stupid." Like, a- a- an- and he defines stupid not as a lack of intelligence, but missing what is conspicuously obvious because of these factors.

Chris Williamson 7:33 Mm.

Yusef 7:34 And so slowly as you begin to mitigate those, you use more of your brain, you can think more clearly.

Chris Williamson 7:39 Mm.

Yusef 7:40 Uh, but yeah, very, very interesting experience.

Jonny 7:42 'Cause in corporate world, like the, the way that people rationalize something of like, "Don't worry, it's not that bad. It's not life and death." You know, that's the thing that everyone says.

Yusef 7:53 (laughs)

Jonny 7:53 And Zero's like, "Oh, yeah, you're right."

Chris Williamson 7:55 Well, you trade in life and death, don't you?

Jonny 7:56 It's just a spreadsheet.

Chris Williamson 7:57 Traded in it.

Yusef 7:57 (laughs) .

Jonny 7:57 Whereas you are in the only scenario really where-

Chris Williamson 8:00 It is life and death.

Jonny 8:01 ... it only ever is life and death.

Chris Williamson 8:03 And poo.

Yusef 8:04 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:04 Sometimes it's just the poo.

Jonny 8:05 But poo is, is just on the spectrum, isn't it, of life and death? Like, poo will happen at specific points-

Chris Williamson 8:11 On the way to death.

Jonny 8:12 ... on the spectrum of life and death. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:13 I understand. Cool.

Yusef 8:15 What about you Chris?

Jonny 8:18 Hold on, you didn't ask me- answer the question.

Yusef 8:20 I did.

Jonny 8:20 What have you dropped?

Chris Williamson 8:21 He's stopped being a student.

Jonny 8:23 Oh, right. Okay.

Chris Williamson 8:25 Dropped his medical degree.

Jonny 8:26 Is there, are there any habits or routines that you sort of volunt- like that wouldn't have happened anyway that you've stopped doing?

Yusef 8:33 So things like Anki, using-

Jonny 8:35 Right.

Yusef 8:35 ... all and all of the surrounding habits that you have around that. And I think it opens up a huge amount of RAM in one sense because you're not, like, trying to just stuff your brain with as much, like-

Chris Williamson 8:47 For, for, for people who don't know what Anki is, it's a spaced repetition flashcard software that helps medical students remember what they need to learn.

Yusef 8:53 Yeah, so-

Jonny 8:53 Strong summary.

Yusef 8:54 Ver- yeah. Very, very good bit of software actually. Like, it's y- you create your own deck of flashcards except if you're making 10,000 like me, um, then- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 9:03 How many did you finish on?

Yusef 9:05 Uh, 10,000. So-

Chris Williamson 9:06 Really?

Yusef 9:07 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 9:07 If you are a medical student or an any student and you have a Anki flashcard deck with more than 10,000 flashcards in it and you send me a screenshot @chriswilex on Instagram, I will send you a case of Nocco for free.

Yusef 9:21 Wow.

Jonny 9:22 How are we gonna protect against people fudging that?

Yusef 9:25 It's a long process to... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 9:26 Oh, fine. (laughs) Fine. (overlapped by laughing) Are you still journaling?

Yusef 9:32 No, but you will be pleased to know that I unwrapped my Six Minute Diary. I've started reading through the preamble, which isn't long.

Chris Williamson 9:38 Okay. Yeah, it is. There's a big buy-in.

Yusef 9:40 I thought it would be like a couple of pages-

Chris Williamson 9:41 No, it's fucking legit.

Yusef 9:43 (laughs) Yeah. So I've not started the actual journal process, but-

Chris Williamson 9:47 Will you intend on maybe doing it for the new year?

Yusef 9:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:49 Wow. I ... Do you know what it is? I was gonna ask for it back.

Yusef 9:52 Really?

Jonny 9:53 Wow.

Chris Williamson 9:53 I was gonna say, I was just gonna say well, just give it to someone who's gonna use it.

Yusef 9:55 Who's gonna actually f- appreciate it. (laughs)

Jonny 9:57 So, hold on. Why have you stopped journaling? Is it 'cause you, you s- t- you don't want to, or-

Yusef 10:02 No, I, as in like, I've never really journaled as a consistent thing. I just do it as and when things come up and I just type them up.

Chris Williamson 10:09 Right.

Yusef 10:09 But I'm convinced now to try Six Minute Diary. D- I think pen to paper and having a physical, like, everything away and just sit, I think there's something to be said for just doing a, like, I mean, you're, you're a huge, like, y- you're the one that got me onto it, which is, like, doing a, a long form brain dump that's just total-

Chris Williamson 10:28 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 10:29 ... like-

Chris Williamson 10:29 Hands off.

Jonny 10:30 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 10:30 Rather than just, like, a partial one 'cause that's like having a partial poo, isn't it? Like, you might just relieve the pressure a little bit, but then you've not-

Chris Williamson 10:38 All the good stuff's still there.

Yusef 10:39 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:40 Still inside. Um, I'm, man, I'm, I'm really, really happy to hear that you're gonna use it. I, I, I'm genuinely excited for the fact that it, you might not think it's shit. (laughs)

Yusef 10:51 (laughs)

Jonny 10:51 I, I think-

Yusef 10:52 Yeah. And I'm, I'm not gonna lie, like, when I first saw it I was like, "Oh, it's just this, like, trendy little-"

Chris Williamson 10:55 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 10:56 "... thing that's-"

Chris Williamson 10:56 It's month ... So Dominic Spens- the guy that, the German dude that's written it, um, you can see by the number of, um, like, references that's in it and how thorough the style is. Uh, anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, Six Minute Diary, daily journaling, three minutes in the morning, three minutes in the evening, three questions that you get asked. I've just filled in my fifth.

Yusef 11:15 Wow.

Chris Williamson 11:15 So that's, like, nearly a thousand pages of writing, nearly a thousand days of journaling. Um, and-

Yusef 11:21 Is that how long you've had it for?

Chris Williamson 11:23 Well, the, I, you, I keep on getting more.

Yusef 11:25 That's flown by.

Chris Williamson 11:25 I keep on getting more, I keep on getting more. Two years.

Yusef 11:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:27 Two years of, like, consistent ... Sorry, two and a half years of consistent use. I think-

Yusef 11:30 You're so consistent with that stuff.

Chris Williamson 11:32 It's just my morning routine, man. Just m- like, my morning routine is...

Yusef 11:36 Was it not six hours at one point? Your morning routine. There was a point last year where you said that your total morning routine was six hours.

Chris Williamson 11:42 If I went through it full, like, dick and balls and included, I was including my training time in that.

Yusef 11:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:47 So, like, training, plus training time was, like three and a half.

Jonny 11:50 'Cause if it's six hours, that's just your day.

Chris Williamson 11:52 Just your day, yeah.

Jonny 11:53 Your day, isn't it? Yeah.

Chris Williamson 11:53 But that's ... So this is what I've been, something I've been thinking about recently, I love the fact that a morning routine is this hermetically sealed Petri dish for self-development, unencumbered and unmolested by everyone else everything else.

Yusef 12:05 That's the most Chris sentence I've ever heard.

Chris Williamson 12:07 (laughs)

Jonny 12:07 Why?

Yusef 12:08 Just to say i- what was it? A, a hermetically sealed Petri dish-

Chris Williamson 12:13 (laughs) Yep.

Yusef 12:14 ... of unencumbered inkubation.

Chris Williamson 12:15 Are you saying that I'm just being, like, verbose for the-

Yusef 12:17 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 12:17 ... for, uh, for, uh, for no reason? Because it's Christmas and I can use whatever fucking words I want, all right?

Jonny 12:21 Chris, this tastes caffeinated. I know it isn't...

Yusef 12:23 Oh.

Jonny 12:24 ... don't tell me that.

Chris Williamson 12:25 I, I believe you. New sponsor, we got a new sponsor everybody, (hand thud) Nocco. Shout out to Nocco, thank you. Johnny's terrified of the fact that the one that has in big capital letters caffeine free, sugar free carbonated.

Jonny 12:37 What's, what's a bit alarming is if you just glance at it, you see 5,000 milligrams.

Chris Williamson 12:41 (laughs)

Jonny 12:41 (laughs) So I tasted it and I was like ... 'cause it's just a BCAA.

Chris Williamson 12:47 Yeah.

Jonny 12:47 And then I looked at it and I saw five. Ugh.

Chris Williamson 12:50 Oh, that's okay. Yeah. (laughs)

Jonny 12:51 But it's okay. It's okay. You're totally correct that this is made in a factory which contains caffeine. Which may contain, yeah.

Chris Williamson 12:56 I mean, you were terrified it would have nuts in, weren't you?

Jonny 12:58 No, those are, those are okay. Uh, so-

Chris Williamson 13:00 No carbs company, isn't it? On the, on the morning time, you got your morning routine, it's, no one's getting in your way doing, stopping you from doing your shit. What I've realized is, if you become very, very anal about how you do your morning routine, you can work out exact- precisely how long everything's gonna take.

Jonny 13:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:16 E- es- especially when you're doing things that are quite discreet, so, um, the Stay app takes eight minutes. The meditation, over 20 minute session takes 20 minutes.

Jonny 13:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:24 Reading takes 20 minutes with a countdown timer. Da, da, dun.

Jonny 13:27 How long does six minute diary actually take?

Chris Williamson 13:29 So I tend to take a little bit longer, 'cause it's the first thing I do. So I'll be drinking water-

Jonny 13:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:35 ... probably settling into wherever I'm sat. I would say five minutes at most.

Jonny 13:39 (laughs) Okay, so it's not just like a-

Chris Williamson 13:41 That's in the morning.

Jonny 13:42 ... timeline then.

Chris Williamson 13:43 And then there's the evening bit as well.

Jonny 13:44 The e- evening one tends to be quicker for me.

Chris Williamson 13:45 'Cause it's supposed to be three minutes in the morning, three minutes in the evening.

Jonny 13:47 Three minutes in the evening, yeah. Um, but- I, I'm a bit worried that you'll ... just 'cause I've seen you sort of try lots of different things-

Chris Williamson 13:54 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 13:54 ... and typically you aren't brought in by ... Like Chris and I would read something or, like, hear something or try something new and be really kind of sold on it 'cause it's a bit fun and nice. I worry that you'll read the preamble and just be like ...

Chris Williamson 14:08 (laughs)

Jonny 14:08 And then you'll try it for a while and you'll be like- I joined a cult for- So I know you'll do it for a long time.

Chris Williamson 14:14 For potential gains.

Jonny 14:14 But, yeah, but I ... So I suppose, like, I was bought into it, or i- is it FOMO, wanting to-

Chris Williamson 14:21 Even the s- the fact that you were sufficiently concerned about potential gains to open it and read-

Jonny 14:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:27 ... 60, whatever it is, 60, 70 pages, it's the buy-in at the start-

Jonny 14:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:30 ... I think. But anyway, so you, you, you know exactly how long everything's gonna take on your morning, right? And this is, like, as you're moving into the new year, if I could give you one piece of advice, one piece of advice would be go sober. Second piece of advice would be sleep with your phone outside of your room. But third piece of advice would be get a morning routine. Um, and a- as you see this is how long everything is gonna take, blah, blah, blah. Um, what you realize is, if I was able to run my day forward like that, if I was able to do 12 hours of this at the same fidelity morning routine-

Jonny 15:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:02 ... imagine how much you'd get done every single m- essentially every minute to every-

Jonny 15:06 What, if you could live your life as if it was a morning routine?

Chris Williamson 15:08 Yeah, just that it's, it ... And by that-

Jonny 15:10 But that's g-

Chris Williamson 15:10 ... what I mean is, like, every minute is accounted for and is ... And during that minute you're doing precisely what you're supposed to be doing.

Jonny 15:17 S- so that's what I ... That's something I try and do in my morning routine. So that's a Cal Newport thing, of, like, try and plan out as much of your day as you possibly can on a bit of paper or, like, in your journal or whatever.

Chris Williamson 15:28 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 15:29 Um- In 15 minute blocks.

Chris Williamson 15:30 (smacks lips)

Jonny 15:30 I do it in 30 minute blocks. So, like, you know, how long does it take to get there? How long am I gonna be doing on this task? And, uh, there's something that Cal says which is like, he's convinced that a 9:00 till 5:00 window, perfectly planned, or, like, planned down to the minute, that person gets way more done than the 60 hour work week person who's just like ...

Chris Williamson 15:52 Yeah.

Jonny 15:52 You know, so-

Chris Williamson 15:52 Well, you can, you can much more easily control the intensity of your work than you can control the passage of time.

Jonny 15:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:59 I mean, you know, we get to, we get to do the second one, so.

Jonny 16:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 16:02 (clears throat) So, yeah, I guess for me, uh, doubling down on morning routine, probably one of them has been, um, focus on rest, the meditation technique from, uh, Shinzen Young's Five Ways, which is both of our meditation coaches, Brian's doing.

Jonny 16:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 16:17 To the people that don't know what I'm talking about, it's just a particular type of meditation focus. You're focusing on the absence of a, a visual, uh, auditory, or somatic experience in your head. Which sounds a bit woo.

Jonny 16:31 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 16:32 Um, but bottom line is, I've now managed to ingrain that and I did it for so long that it feels like getting a squeegee and wiping a, a window clean. And if there's something that arises, it must be similar to your releasing technique, or it must have a similar sort of effect. I can drill it, I've drilled it so much now that I can do see rest, hear rest, feel rest. And after that it genuinely feels like my mind's cleaner, after that little thing. But I did it for-

Jonny 16:59 Like a good old-

Chris Williamson 17:00 I did it for six months.

Jonny 17:01 Clean out the pipe.

Chris Williamson 17:01 Yeah. Like you're getting one of those, like, you know-

Jonny 17:03 Brush your brain. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:04 Every day.

Jonny 17:04 You should probably go brush your brain.

Chris Williamson 17:06 Uh, okay, so that's-

Jonny 17:07 Move your body.

Chris Williamson 17:07 That's o- that's one of them. What else? What have you done this year that you failed at, Johnny? Other than you just hurt your wrist at CrossFit.

Jonny 17:13 Yeah, so I've written down on my ... on a notes document what went well and what, what didn't go well. Um, the main thing that didn't go well was I started the year snapping my hamstring underneath 255 kilos.

Chris Williamson 17:30 Was it your IT band?

Jonny 17:31 It ... Well, I mean, it was like ... It was something here.

Chris Williamson 17:34 Okay.

Jonny 17:34 But I call it ... I, I refer to it as my hamstring. I don't think ... Some people thought it was my sartorial ... Sartorius. Sartorius, yeah.

Chris Williamson 17:41 Sartorial?

Jonny 17:42 My sartorial. It sounds like a, a Roman guard, doesn't it?

Chris Williamson 17:45 (laughs)

Jonny 17:46 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:46 And then there's the phalanx.

Jonny 17:48 (laughs) So they call it sartorious because, you know, you say, "This is a sartorial piece of work."

Chris Williamson 17:54 Yes.

Jonny 17:54 Like, it's a tailor. 'Cause it's the tailor's muscle, 'cause it attaches-

Chris Williamson 17:57 No.

Jonny 17:58 It, it, it-

Chris Williamson 17:58 The inside seam.

Jonny 17:59 Yeah, so it- it's the ... basically is the inside seam. Is it that way? It's ... So it, it's what allows you to bring your heel up and in like that. Right. Which would make sense ... which is the position that you're in.

Chris Williamson 18:09 Started the year by knacking yourself.

Jonny 18:11 Snap. Yeah. Um-

Chris Williamson 18:13 Stopped power lifting.

Jonny 18:14 The worst thing that happened on that evening, was so that's just happened, I'm in the garage-

Chris Williamson 18:18 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 18:18 ... right? So get the bottom and there's like a (imitates snapping) and I hear it over my music.

Chris Williamson 18:23 You can see it on the video.

Jonny 18:23 Yeah. Um, so dump that forward. Um, and then, like, limp back into the house. Don't even unload the-... 255. Still there now, without joking.

Chris Williamson 18:34 (clears throat)

Jonny 18:34 Um, took Dexter, so like, Dexter was, was just a puppy at the time. Took him for a walk and he slipped out of his harness. So we're, like, on a roundabout, okay? Big roundabout. And Becca's picking up his poo and he had just, like, bolted in this other direction, like, slips out his harness. I'm like, "Fuck."

Chris Williamson 18:53 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 18:53 So I then had to run, like, 'cause I'm, I'm, he's running towards the, the center of this roundabout and I just, just big adrenaline dump. No pain for a couple of seconds. Just went full-

Chris Williamson 19:03 (hiccups)

Jonny 19:03 ... gas pedal after Dexter caught him. Picked him up and I was like, "Oh my God." And then just this area was just like red hot. Awful.

Chris Williamson 19:11 Wow.

Jonny 19:12 So tried to recover through that, tried to compete, didn't compete, it was like I've had it with powerlifting. Did six months of CrossFit and then hit my wrist.

Chris Williamson 19:20 And you're now considering going back to powerlifting?

Jonny 19:22 Well, I'm doing what I can. So, like, what I can do is basically the powerlifts. Like I can't even do a chin-up, can't do an overhead press.

Chris Williamson 19:29 Yeah.

Jonny 19:30 Bench is iffy. Um, but that was just from catching, uh, power clean on this side and missing it on my right and then the bar just jamming down.

Chris Williamson 19:41 Unfortunate.

Jonny 19:42 But, so injuries I think. But like I just, I mean, that's always -

Chris Williamson 19:45 So what went well this year? What did you put down as going well?

Jonny 19:47 Um, so the flip side of that was I experimented a lot in fitness. The mo- the most I have done probably since I was like 16.

Chris Williamson 19:56 Most since I've known you.

Jonny 19:57 Yeah. So like, did some 5K runs, timed them. Did obviously six months of CrossFit. Um, did a, I feel like I, it's the, probably the most amount of time I've taken away from barbell work.

Chris Williamson 20:09 Strength.

Jonny 20:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:10 Pure strength.

Jonny 20:11 Like traditional barbell work, so it's been really good. It's been fun. Um...

Chris Williamson 20:15 What about looking forward? What do the ... So you've got those two things, which are like kind of two sides of the same sword.

Jonny 20:20 Mm.

Chris Williamson 20:21 What does that mean for 2020?

Jonny 20:23 I don't know. I think, um, and th- this probably doesn't apply to everybody but I think the thing that keeps pulling me back to powerlifting is I feel like I'm, uh, I feel like I have unfinished business in powerlifting. (laughs) Like I really want a 700 pound deadlift. That was my goal for so long.

Chris Williamson 20:43 And what's that? 320?

Jonny 20:45 317.5.

Chris Williamson 20:46 Fuck, you're so close, man.

Jonny 20:47 So I know, well, exactly. So like-

Chris Williamson 20:49 Powerlifting's so annoying because of that though.

Jonny 20:51 It's, it is.

Chris Williamson 20:51 There's always unfinished business.

Jonny 20:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:52 If all, if all that you want, do you want it in competition or just in training?

Jonny 20:56 So, so the, there's two things. So one, I still hold the (laughs) 93 kilo deadlift record and there's a guy who's just pulled 300 in training who's right on the heels of it. So I quite, like, to bump it a little bit.

Chris Williamson 21:09 You'd have to get back down to the 93s.

Jonny 21:10 I would. I would.

Chris Williamson 21:12 Wow.

Jonny 21:12 So these are the, these are the decisions I'm thinking of.

Chris Williamson 21:13 I'm so keen for you to get to 93s.

Jonny 21:15 Man, you would be. Just full...

Chris Williamson 21:16 Yeah.

Jonny 21:16 So I am just thinking about just getting really lean.

Chris Williamson 21:19 Jacked. And just become whatever, whatever may, but it's interesting 'cause, um, I don't have the same, like, desire for that anymore. I don't know why. Aesthetically?

Jonny 21:29 Yeah. I just-

Chris Williamson 21:30 Fitness menopause, man.

Jonny 21:31 Well, yeah. I think, like, we've all been through the fitness probably the past, you maybe-

Chris Williamson 21:37 About three years ago.

Jonny 21:37 ... from the first podcast. The Chris Pitt podcast.

Chris Williamson 21:39 When I started, when I started doing CrossF- CrossFit, yeah. Yeah.

Jonny 21:41 Um, there, there's no better feeling even across everything in CrossFit. So like, doing the open was class, like doing those workouts were class. But pulling a deadlift record in competition is the single most, like-

Chris Williamson 21:53 Buzz.

Jonny 21:54 Yeah. Like b- could have cried, easily could have cried every time I've done it.

Chris Williamson 21:58 That's awesome.

Jonny 21:59 So quite want that again.

Chris Williamson 22:01 I, I re- I was watching, um, a vlog. There's a blonde freak from the north of England called Dylan Nelson. Dylan, if you're watching, you know I love you. Um, but watching-

Jonny 22:10 He is a strong motherfucker.

Chris Williamson 22:11 Watching him get ready for a lift-

Jonny 22:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 22:13 ... is the most electric thing I think I've ever seen in competition.

Jonny 22:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:17 And he was talking on a vlog, uh, where he was saying about how he, he gets to the point where he feels like every hair, like, on his body is just standing up.

Jonny 22:25 Mm.

Chris Williamson 22:25 And you can see he's one of those guys who he's not chill at all.

Jonny 22:29 No. (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:29 He's like a bull. He's like someone's just taken... You know like when they're in the, when they, they're doing corralling or whatever it is in, like, T- Texas and it's just in the thing and then they lift the gate up-

Jonny 22:39 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 22:39 ... and it just goes (hands clapping) (laughs)

Jonny 22:41 Yeah. Um, there's, there's-

Chris Williamson 22:43 We, we competed with him, didn't we? Like a few-

Jonny 22:46 He competed when I watched, when we went to go watch you in Ashington when you made men smell-

Chris Williamson 22:50 That's, that's what it was.

Jonny 22:50 ... the smelling salts, isn't it? Oh yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 22:52 Yeah. God.

Jonny 22:53 There's another, so there's two other guys that are, have... So Owen Hubbard, watching him about a bench, like, record level stuff. He just gets his, like, I watched him take AirPods out and just throw them 'cause he's in so much-

Chris Williamson 23:05 You're like, "Owen."

Jonny 23:05 Yeah. I've watched him throw his iPhone just off the floor.

Chris Williamson 23:08 Yeah. 'Cause he just wants it.

Jonny 23:09 Just 'cause he's in such a, such a, like, a state.

Chris Williamson 23:12 So ready to drive hod.

Jonny 23:14 Drive, (laughs) drive hod.

Chris Williamson 23:15 Didn't he just break another-

Jonny 23:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:17 ... record? Bench record?

Jonny 23:18 Yeah. The thing that blows my mind about that is to have a, a 200 kilo bench press and then still year after year get a better bench press is mental.

Chris Williamson 23:29 (laughs)

Jonny 23:30 Like, I feel like-

Chris Williamson 23:32 For the Americans that are listening, there'll be more than 50% of people listening that are American.

Jonny 23:36 Okay.

Chris Williamson 23:36 Got to 440. Pounds?

Jonny 23:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:39 Yes, 440 exactly.

Jonny 23:40 Yeah. But it's more, no, it's, it's-

Chris Williamson 23:42 It's, it's, it's 217.

Jonny 23:42 The bench was like 218 or something, yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:44 Oh yeah, it was 218 this year, wasn't it? Yeah.

Jonny 23:45 So, and I know, what was the best thing about it was he just tagged, tagged Brett Gibbs in the post. I don't know whether you've seen that.

Chris Williamson 23:51 Who's that?

Jonny 23:51 Him, Brett Gibbs is a very small New Zealand guy who is ju- we've met him. He's just as strong as Owen and they're like back and forth-

Chris Williamson 23:59 Go back and forth with him.

Jonny 24:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:00 Uh, is it amicable or really-

Jonny 24:02 Yeah, it's amicable, yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:02 Okay, yeah.

Jonny 24:03 But like most people would be like, "I'm so humbled and grateful." And they just when like-

Chris Williamson 24:06 It's just...

Jonny 24:06 ... "Where you at?" Yeah, Brett.

Chris Williamson 24:08 (laughs)

Jonny 24:08 You all right, mate?

Chris Williamson 24:09 Uh, another shout out, Reggie Fasher who is a, a CrossFit athlete from, uh, Sunderland who competed at Filthy 150 in Ireland the other week and came one place above Dan Bailey.

Jonny 24:21 Wow.

Chris Williamson 24:22 Um-

Jonny 24:22 Wow.

Chris Williamson 24:22 And before he, (laughs) before he started there's this really, like, it went round famous, it went round like, the CrossFit community in the UK of, uh, Reggie being interviewed and, uh, him saying, uh, like, "So who do you want to beat at this weekend?" And then, "Oh, well, that Dan Bailey looks a bit past it, doesn't he? He's like a bag of fucking spanners now." (laughs)

Jonny 24:40 (laughs)

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 24:40 (laughs) and then sure enough, he placed one-

Chris Williamson 24:42 He beat you.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 24:42 One place above him. But someone managed to get this little video clip of both them. So Reggie said this thing, he's, like, called him out, only, like, to people, like, he hasn't done it to him. And everyone's like, "Oh, let's see how you get on up against him." And then they're walking off the floor, they're in the same heat together, walking off the floor, and then someone managed to catch this video of them fist-bumping, and Reggie going like that. And the number of-

Chris Williamson 25:04 "Oh, friend."

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 25:05 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 25:06 "Aw, don't fail me, friend."

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 25:07 But the number of memes that were made of that was, it was worth it.

Chris Williamson 25:11 Oh, man.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 25:11 Totally worth it. Uh, so, Scobes, what's gone, what's a win? Apart from passing, I mean, passing medicine is a huge fucking win.

Chris Williamson 25:17 That's a pretty significant win.

Yusef 25:19 I sup- I suppose that's, yeah, that, that has to be the win. Um, otherwise, it's been probably the hardest year of my life.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 25:25 (laughs)

Yusef 25:26 Just, just, just, just because it's such a bottleneck of-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 25:29 Just the total enormity of it all.

Yusef 25:31 ... my life. Oh, yeah. Like, from, from day one, oh, because I remember December 2018, I was like, "Oh, things are starting to, like, get a little bit out of control." And then I fell into 2019, and I still feel like I'm, I'm, like, scrambling.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 25:45 What happened at the start of the year? 'Cause this, because I listened to it and I did my homework, so what we discussed a lot was how we started the year.

Chris Williamson 25:52 Mm-hmm.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 25:52 How did everyone start this year? I don't... I, in fact, I do remember what I did. You'll, you'll like it.

Chris Williamson 25:58 What did you do?

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 25:59 Well, no, I want to hear Yousaf's first.

Yusef 26:01 I did the g- the propane goals process, um-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 26:03 Oh (laughs) .

Yusef 26:04 ... on a (laughs) on a MindNode sheet. And have actually achieved a lot of that, so like-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 26:08 Oh, did you? That's cool.

Yusef 26:08 ... it's good to know that, that, uh, that has moved forward. But the whole time it's felt just like, you know when you-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 26:14 Controlled falling.

Yusef 26:15 Yeah. Not even controlled. You, you know, you, when you just trip in the street and then you pre- pretend to go for a little jog.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 26:19 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 26:20 But then that jog turns into a sprint, and then your arms start flaming.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 26:22 And then you, you do what that guy does on the video of the, "Are you a car?"

Yusef 26:26 (laughs)

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 26:26 Where he, like, tries to kick and then it stacks his head-

Chris Williamson 26:28 Yeah.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 26:28 ... on the kerb.

Yusef 26:29 And he wrote, "Spikes over his head," like, "That's horrible."

Chris Williamson 26:32 Um, so what went bad this year, then? Did you, did you have any fails?

Yusef 26:38 (sighs) I think the whole, the whole lesson was just not creating a bit of space between tasks, and rather than just, like, diving into everything and just kind of frantically being behind on stuff.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 26:54 Trying to keep the sp- the plate spinning.

Yusef 26:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:56 It's so, it's, uh, two things. First one, uh, is I think massive respect for you for this year, man. It's been, like, watching it happen's been painful.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 27:04 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 27:04 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 27:04 Like, seeing someone... I don't, I can't convey to the listeners just how much stuff you try and do, but trying to do a job which is essentially more than a full-time business, like, a business that would bury most people, whilst trying to do a degree which buries most students, whilst trying to have life, girlfriend, um, ba- bought two hou- or bought, like, one house, managed another house.

Yusef 27:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:26 Sorted your mum's da, da, da, da. Like, do you know what I mean?

Yusef 27:29 Well, well, yeah. Bought, bought three houses in kind of... Yeah, and, and, like, all the... So I think that's, that's a, that's a good point, and, like, we always hold ourselves to a higher, such a high standard. But, um, I look at doctors now that have no other commitments, and I think, "Oh, it looks so easy," like, (laughs) it was so-

Chris Williamson 27:45 Mm-hmm. This is what I say to the guys that work for us at Voodoo. I'm like, in, some of the boys will start to say, "Hey, man, like, y- my motivation for work might be waning a little. I'm in s- second year, third year of uni. It's starting to get really serious." I'm like, "All right, man, but I'm telling you now..." Fucking tell you what. (sighs)

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 28:00 Don't you fuck with Reggie.

Chris Williamson 28:01 Fucking bastard. Um, I'm telling you, if you just do university, university after having tasted what it's like to run a business whilst doing university, you are going to be bored out of your mind.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 28:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:14 Because you're going to free up all of this space which sucks in nothing-

Yusef 28:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:18 ... as opposed to freeing up all of this space to suck in something.

Yusef 28:21 Well, this is like we were saying last time, that if we were, if all of us were to do university again, like, we'd just absolutely smash it. And not because we're any more smart or competent or anything, but it's just like you would just know how to use your time properly-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 28:35 Ability to task manage, yeah.

Yusef 28:36 Um, I did end up, like, post-finals, with a twitch in my eyelid for about three months, two, three months, like, s- just ongoing twitch in my eyelid. And so-

Chris Williamson 28:45 What does that ha- do you know why that manifests?

Yusef 28:47 Just fatigue. Like, just being, uh, like, in a very-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 28:51 I get that. I get twitchy.

Chris Williamson 28:52 Me too.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 28:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:53 I just wondered if you knew-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 28:54 Same. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:54 "Oh, it's actually the endothelial functions."

Yusef 28:58 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:58 "This gland in your head." Yeah, so-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 28:59 Yeah, so-

Chris Williamson 28:59 ... with the glands.

Yusef 29:00 The, the head gland just starts going-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:01 The head, big gland pops middle.

Yusef 29:03 Um, and so I think the big lesson, like, both of you saw me go, like, hospitalize myself essentially a couple of years ago from just not paying attention to fatigue management.

Chris Williamson 29:15 Well, no, that was the giatis-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:16 That was when the giatis, yeah.

Yusef 29:16 That was, that was the giatis. But the, the giatis was s- precipitated by being a dickhead. Like we were-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:21 And Icelandic weather.

Yusef 29:22 Oh, yeah.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 29:23 And making us walk through-

Yusef 29:25 Sta- standing in a, in a taxi queue, just hugging Johnny, just like-

Chris Williamson 29:27 Which is hilarious because we, the on- the only person out of that group who wore a coat was you.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:32 And me and Johnny went out in Iceland, on Iceland, in-

Yusef 29:34 You were both, like, 25 kilos heavier than me as well.

Chris Williamson 29:37 At the middle-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:37 I nearly passed away.

Yusef 29:38 (laughs) Did you?

Chris Williamson 29:39 Like, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure that I came pretty close to just ending-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:43 Dying.

Yusef 29:44 You're actually in heaven now.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:45 I was quite honest with you about it at the time.

Yusef 29:46 (laughs)

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:46 I was like, "Yousaf-"

Chris Williamson 29:47 I think this is the end.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:48 ... "I'm not joking when I say I'm, I'm concerned about this."

Chris Williamson 29:52 My welfare.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 29:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:53 Um, so, th- the second thing is, um, for me, I've absolutely been reminded this year that self-care and continuing to ensure... Your, your wellbeing is not a...

Yusef 30:09 It's not a luxury.

Chris Williamson 30:10 It's n- it's not a luxury, but it's also not, like, a, a savings account. It's a current account, and you need to continue to deposit into it every single day. And the times when-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 30:20 Something that, a quote from Paul Moore is, "Self-care, sooner or later, becomes your number one priority." Which I, I just think is so complete.

Chris Williamson 30:28 Yeah.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 30:28 Like, either sort your shit out (laughs) or you'll have to take... It's like the, like, "I'll do it on Monday, I'll do it on Monday," but with your health...

Yusef 30:37 It's so weird that health is just the most, like, when it's good, you don't even notice it.

Chris Williamson 30:41 Yeah.

Yusef 30:41 And then when it's bad, you, all you wanna do is-

Chris Williamson 30:43 It's all you think about.

Yusef 30:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:44 And even less so than the health thing, 'cause I think all of us have even, even your worst time, you'd have trained once a week.... probably you'd have got in and moved once a week, which is more than some people do. We pro-

Yusef 30:56 Not during the 'gitis, but yeah, like-

Chris Williamson 30:57 Yeah, d- during, like, busier and busier.

Yusef 31:00 Like this year, yeah.

Jonny 31:01 During the busy years, yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:01 Um, like you couldn't do anything-

Yusef 31:01 Yeah, during the... he's just been on maintenance luckily. It's been two to three times a week-

Chris Williamson 31:04 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 31:04 ... but, like, nothing special, just background.

Chris Williamson 31:07 But it's not just the, what most people would consider, like, the headlines, like, are you having enough water? Are you drinking? Are you... Do, do... What? What are you drinking?

Yusef 31:15 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:16 (laughs)

Yusef 31:18 You bastard.

Jonny 31:20 It's just, it's just because the other day, I was looking through our YouTube channel, and I saw, uh, one of Yusuf's training logs of him deadlifting in-

Yusef 31:29 (laughs)

Jonny 31:29 ... um, a gym he used to train at, and it's just the face.

Chris Williamson 31:34 (laughs)

Jonny 31:34 I just, when I, when I thought of, when I pictured Yusuf training, I just imagined that face, that-

Yusef 31:38 I think the first podcast we did with Chris, with the, with the coffee and the-

Jonny 31:41 Yeah.

Yusef 31:42 ... the drugs.

Jonny 31:42 Yeah.

Yusef 31:43 (laughs) Um, it was-

Jonny 31:44 It's... What I love, it, it's a face that I don't think you could do now, is it?

Yusef 31:47 No. It's-

Jonny 31:48 It's only comes out under strain. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:50 Under load, yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 31:50 'Cause you zoomed in on the-

Jonny 31:52 Yeah.

Yusef 31:52 ... the squat face.

Chris Williamson 31:53 Video Garden will be able to make that face appear-

Yusef 31:55 Bing.

Jonny 31:56 And just loop it of us .

Yusef 31:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:56 Just here. Um, it's the one when you also try and do, like, a double back flip or whatever, isn't it? In gymnastics, it's the Mr. Bean face.

Yusef 32:03 Oh, yeah.

Jonny 32:03 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:04 That's, that's exactly that. Um, (laughs) so, yeah, my point is that, um, it's not just about the headlines. It's not just about, like, sleeping, eating, training, doing that stuff. It's like if I wasn't... if I... There was periods, extended periods where I wasn't meditating, extended periods where I wasn't journaling, wasn't doing a morning routine, and it comes back to bite you in the arse. It's like the first time that all of us learned that eight hours of sleep is quite a priority.

Jonny 32:29 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:29 And then when you go back to six and a half, you're, "Oh, my God, this is-"

Jonny 32:34 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:34 "... this is where I used to be. This is what life used to be like." And that's what life's always like-

Jonny 32:39 Well, if you, if you-

Chris Williamson 32:39 ... for some people.

Jonny 32:40 ... were, if you were to say, like, imagine what it's like when there's dark mornings and dark nights and you're only getting six hours of sleep, but you're, like, medicating with loads of caffeine.

Chris Williamson 32:47 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 32:47 How do you think you feel at, like, 1:00 in the afternoon?

Chris Williamson 32:50 (laughs)

Jonny 32:50 Like, the thought of that's just this, like, fabricated environment, like-

Chris Williamson 32:54 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 32:54 ... sort of a very awa-

Yusef 32:55 (laughs)

Jonny 32:55 ... very an- anxious. But yeah, it's something I've... So one of my takeaways was, um, you, you create the good day or the bad day. So, like, if you ju- if you're going through a day feeling shit, feeling tired, feeling angry, de-motivated, whatever, like, you are just... You're responsible for that, and you're also responsible for the days where you're super productive or... It's just the consistency with things that, like, the on-ramp that creates that situation.

Yusef 33:24 It's just that it's on loan or it's like there's a delay, isn't there?

Jonny 33:26 Yeah.

Yusef 33:27 Like, the, the sleep thing, like, because midnight you is like-

Jonny 33:30 Doesn't care.

Yusef 33:31 ... is like, "Oh, I'll be fine in the morning, soon."

Jonny 33:33 Yeah.

Yusef 33:33 And then 6:00 AM you is like, "Oh, what have I done to dick?"

Chris Williamson 33:37 Oh, yeah.

Jonny 33:37 Yeah.

Yusef 33:37 So y- yeah, I think that's such a good point. Like, I'm, I'm getting, getting a handle much more on that now, and I think through the bottleneck things are-

Chris Williamson 33:44 All of us have swam in and out of the deep, the deep part of this ocean, right? Some of us... Like e- there was a period this year where you hadn't meditated for ages, or like you weren't meditating consistently enough-

Jonny 33:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 33:55 ... uh, and you felt that, and then it was the same for me and-

Yusef 33:58 But, th- you get the, the, the phenomenon that you mentioned, which is like meditation then becomes not, like, a thing that's meant to improve your life and qu- it's "You're a dickhead if you don't..."

Chris Williamson 34:08 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 34:08 "... if you haven't done 10 minutes a day." 'Cause then you, you're lying in bed and you're getting flashbacks of like when you were, like, eating a pack of crisps or doing something that, that wasn't meditating-

Chris Williamson 34:16 Just wasting my behavior.

Yusef 34:17 ... for seven minutes.

Chris Williamson 34:18 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 34:18 And you're like...

Chris Williamson 34:19 "Why am I doing it?" And so one of the things definitely that I've focused on this year or that's been a big realization for me this year is, uh, learning where the controllables and the uncontrollables are and allowing those uncontrollables to sort of let go.

Yusef 34:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 34:32 And it is such a liberating feeling. So, uh, a good example, we, um, do everything right with a particular club night launch and it goes really well. Great. We do everything right with a particular club ni- club night launch and it goes bad. Like, that's a shame, but what can we maybe look at doing? The effort doesn't change.

Yusef 34:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 34:51 Um, and the same thing with the podcast. There's some episodes that I put out this year that I was like, "Oh, that, that, that's an all right episode," and it's absolutely flown. And then there's some that I've poured my heart and soul into and thought it was amazing and it's just, like, done okay.

Jonny 35:03 Yeah.

Yusef 35:04 That's, that's absolute... Yeah. Been the same (laughs) with us as well. There's videos that fly and you're like, "Oh, no." Why?

Jonny 35:08 Sleeping on the floor.

Yusef 35:09 Yeah. Like, "Why is that?"

Chris Williamson 35:11 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 35:11 I made a 531 review s- couple of years ago.

Chris Williamson 35:14 Like, eight years ago.

Yusef 35:14 (laughs)

Jonny 35:15 Very little effort into it and it's like 44,000 views.

Chris Williamson 35:18 (clears throat)

Jonny 35:18 Gets comments most days.

Chris Williamson 35:20 (laughs)

Jonny 35:20 Like-

Yusef 35:20 Usually why you're, like, so long.

Jonny 35:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:22 Yes.

Jonny 35:22 How tall are you? Yeah. And you just wish you could go back and remake the video.

Chris Williamson 35:26 Yeah.

Jonny 35:26 But it's too late now.

Chris Williamson 35:27 It's too late.

Jonny 35:28 And then you're like, "Well, I'm, I'm messing with alchemy. Like, what if I remaking it doesn't do as well?"

Chris Williamson 35:31 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 35:32 Or... But yeah, like, that was something that, um, Brian, meditation teacher was... said to me 'cause I was saying like, "I'll sit down to meditate in the morning and allocate 30 minutes to it, and it's just a fucking shite session." So you're like, "Well, I coulda just done some work in that time. Like, what have I actually gained from that?" And his thing was, "Don't judge the session, judge your approach to the session." So you're like... So, like, you made the time. Did you, did you deal with what was there with the, the right attitude the best you could?

Chris Williamson 36:01 (clears throat)

Jonny 36:01 If so, box ticked, right?

Chris Williamson 36:02 So that, that's the beautiful thing about Shinzen's approach to meditation. For the people who don't know what we're talking about, Shinzen Young is a meditation teacher/master/ probably one of the best known on the planet now, I suppose. And both me and Johnny are being coached by one of his students, a guy called Brian, and, um, there're three elements of awareness, uh, clarity, concentration and equanimity. Um, the equanimity thing is so crucial, just allowing stu... It's like I had a shit session, whatever.

Jonny 36:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:32 As he quotes it, "There are no bad sits."

Jonny 36:35 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:35 Um, is what he says. Essentially, there's no wasted meditation session.

Jonny 36:38 There are also no good sits.

Chris Williamson 36:40 Yeah, I don't like thinking about that.

Jonny 36:42 (laughs) Well, that, that is equanimity though, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 36:43 Yeah, but I don't think you know me.

Yusef 36:44 (laughs) You only, you only go by the bad.

Chris Williamson 36:45 I'll let myself slip towards positive, but I won't let myself slip towards negative.

Jonny 36:49 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 36:49 Um, but yeah, so that... What else? I'm trying to think about something that's a little bit more immediate and gratifying that I've done this year. Um...What do you mean? Just things you've done.

Jonny 37:01 Stopped taking caffeine within the first 90 minutes of my day.

Chris Williamson 37:04 Nice.

Jonny 37:05 S- and really, really got a taste for, uh, pint of water, two big squirts of lemon juice, and teaspoon of salt.

Chris Williamson 37:14 Really? A pi- a pint of water?

Yusef 37:16 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 37:16 You maniac.

Jonny 37:18 Why?

Chris Williamson 37:18 Just so salty.

Jonny 37:19 Well, like, yeah. (laughs) Like I've- I've- when I've done it, I've-

Chris Williamson 37:21 A teaspoon?

Jonny 37:22 I've done like a little-

Chris Williamson 37:23 Teaspoon of salt?

Jonny 37:23 ... like in a, like in an espresso.

Chris Williamson 37:25 Teaspoon? Five grams of-

Jonny 37:26 That's a lot of salt.

Chris Williamson 37:27 Five grams? Is that what a teaspoon is?

Jonny 37:29 A teaspoon of salt is a lot of salt. That's a lot of salt.

Chris Williamson 37:33 (laughs)

Yusef 37:34 (laughs)

Jonny 37:34 I have it every day and I think it's a lot of salt.

Chris Williamson 37:36 So, like, I've done ... I used to have ... So I read the Aur-

Jonny 37:38 How many times are we gonna say how much salt it is?

Chris Williamson 37:40 (laughs)

Jonny 37:40 I read the Aubrey Marcus-

Chris Williamson 37:41 Five grams? That's a lot of salt. (laughs)

Jonny 37:43 (laughs) It's only five grams.

Chris Williamson 37:45 (Laughs)

Jonny 37:45 I read the Aubrey Marcus book-

Chris Williamson 37:47 Yep.

Jonny 37:47 ... and I was like, "What a load of bollocks." No, not really. There was a ... So he talks about, uh-

Chris Williamson 37:51 He's not listening.

Jonny 37:52 He might be.

Chris Williamson 37:52 He's been on.

Jonny 37:53 He talks about the, the salt, water, lemon in the morning. So, as we all would, when a claim is made, I was like, "Well, I can't not do this."

Chris Williamson 38:00 Give it a crack.

Jonny 38:01 So I did it for a while. But I would ha- I would do it in, like, that much water.

Chris Williamson 38:05 I enjoy the taste.

Jonny 38:07 Wow.

Chris Williamson 38:07 It's like, I really enjoy the taste of it now. Um, but anyway-

Yusef 38:10 Do you use table salt or sea salt?

Chris Williamson 38:12 Just table salt.

Jonny 38:12 Because table salt is super cheap shite.

Chris Williamson 38:15 You should get ... Go ... If you're doing it every day, like, treat yourself.

Yusef 38:18 Yeah, get Maldon.

Chris Williamson 38:18 Do you know that Himalayan s- pink Himalayan sea salt isn't even from the Himalayas? It's from Pakistan.

Jonny 38:24 Does it matter?

Chris Williamson 38:24 And its iron enriches, innit?

Yusef 38:26 It's just because of the iron. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:27 Yeah. Um, anyway.

Yusef 38:28 Maldon sea salt is beautiful.

Chris Williamson 38:29 I'll give it a go.

Jonny 38:30 Maldon?

Yusef 38:31 Well, you know the flakes? It's in the box. It's really tight.

Chris Williamson 38:33 Ah, yeah.

Yusef 38:33 Really good.

Chris Williamson 38:33 It's good on steak, right, 'cause it's-

Yusef 38:35 Beautiful, yeah.

Chris Williamson 38:36 Um, so anyway-

Jonny 38:36 Do you have it cold water?

Chris Williamson 38:38 Yeah. So it's from the fridge, um, filtered.

Jonny 38:40 So apparently, and this is ... You're getting m- another step towards more woke.

Chris Williamson 38:45 Planet Wooo.

Jonny 38:46 It- it's warmer water in the morning is better.

Chris Williamson 38:48 I'm not doing that.

Jonny 38:49 Okay.

Chris Williamson 38:50 I prefer the tap.

Jonny 38:50 'Cause that would be ridiculous.

Chris Williamson 38:52 Yeah.

Yusef 38:52 That- that's how you make yourself sick, if you-

Chris Williamson 38:54 Warm salt water.

Jonny 38:55 If you ... Warm lemony water.

Chris Williamson 38:56 Yeah.

Jonny 38:56 Here's an interesting thing.

Yusef 38:57 If you've had something, you should, you need to throw up.

Jonny 38:58 If I put glove, woolen glove, even the tip of the finger of a woolen glove in my mouth, I feel sick.

Chris Williamson 39:05 (laughs)

Yusef 39:05 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 39:06 Woolen gloves? What do you mean? Like, like a, like a normal, like, micro-

Jonny 39:08 Like a glove. Pic- picture a glove.

Chris Williamson 39:10 Yeah.

Jonny 39:10 That. That's a glove.

Yusef 39:11 That was an early experience that you had.

Jonny 39:13 Yeah.

Yusef 39:13 Like, that's how, like, fetishes and phobias and those kinds of things develop, but how you feel as soon as you see that.

Jonny 39:17 'Cause if ... When I'm, I'm walking next to her and wearing gloves, pigmeant shit. I want to take the glove off, so I go like that, and then just immediately ...And it's like-

Yusef 39:26 Is it the feeling of it going through the teeth?

Jonny 39:27 No, it's just there. It's just like ... And I'm just-

Yusef 39:29 (laughs)

Jonny 39:29 ... going like, "This is wretched." I'm like, "What the fuck is that?"

Chris Williamson 39:33 (laughs)

Jonny 39:33 I'm like, this is ... 'Cause it ... There's nothing mechanical about the experience that would make me feel sick. It's barely even in my mouth.

Chris Williamson 39:38 Are you, are you accidentally deep-throating? Are you going ...

Jonny 39:40 Yeah, the whole glove's down my neck, but-

Chris Williamson 39:42 Yeah.

Jonny 39:42 No, it's ... it is literally between the tip of my teeth. And I have to ... If someone were to see me do it, I go like this.

Yusef 39:49 Your vomit stories are the, the best.

Chris Williamson 39:51 (laughs)

Jonny 39:51 (laughs)

Yusef 39:51 Like, the one with the guy who was ... had the sympathy vom in the, in the car.

Chris Williamson 39:55 Yeah, when you were all throwing up and he walked past and he threw up as well.

Jonny 39:58 Ah. Yeah. That was so funny.

Chris Williamson 40:00 (laughs)

Jonny 40:00 You know when you just wish you had a moment recorded?

Chris Williamson 40:02 Yeah.

Jonny 40:03 It was the way that he just, like, went ...

Chris Williamson 40:08 (laughs)

Jonny 40:08 And then was, like, angry about it.

Chris Williamson 40:14 (laughs)

Jonny 40:14 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 40:16 Oh.

Jonny 40:17 Yeah, tip of a glove. Try it. If it ... Try ... See, see if you get the same thing.

Chris Williamson 40:20 Take your gloves off. Yeah.

Jonny 40:21 There's something about, like, the texture of it. It's like minging dry, you know.

Chris Williamson 40:24 And then, I'm gonna guess it'll leave a couple of fi- fibres on your-

Jonny 40:27 Fibres, yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:27 ... on your tippy-toe.

Jonny 40:28 Ugh.

Yusef 40:29 The, the teeth thing for me, horrible, like, feeling down the back of your head where you, like ... You hook, bite onto a bit of fabric and pull it away from your teeth.

Jonny 40:36 Oh.

Yusef 40:36 Yeah. Awful. Did you-

Jonny 40:38 What sort, what sort of fabric?

Yusef 40:39 Any, like ... I think cotton's quite bad. Where you bite onto it and then pull it through your teeth.

Chris Williamson 40:44 Oh, no.

Jonny 40:44 I don't think so.

Yusef 40:45 Or, like ... Yeah.

Jonny 40:46 Polys- uh, polystyrene. Like, you know the white stuff that, like ...

Yusef 40:51 (laughs)

Jonny 40:52 Oh, Christ.

Chris Williamson 40:53 Yeah.

Jonny 40:53 Ugh.

Chris Williamson 40:54 My mum, my mum's got a thing about, like, filing her nails. So I'll just be, like, sat with her and she'll start filing her nails, and I'm like, "Oh."

Jonny 41:01 Ugh.

Chris Williamson 41:01 Ugh.

Jonny 41:01 It's weird, innit?

Chris Williamson 41:02 Yeah, it's so bizarre.

Jonny 41:03 Such an unhelpful thing. Fuck off.

Chris Williamson 41:05 Yeah. Um, what else from this year? So I'm just thinking about, about s- sort of what's gone well this year. Um, so I-

Yusef 41:12 You've launched a successful project.

Chris Williamson 41:14 Yeah.

Yusef 41:14 And Modern Wisdom is absolutely flown in the last year.

Jonny 41:17 Flown.

Chris Williamson 41:17 Podcast, podcast done good.

Yusef 41:18 You, you, um, broke the ... Was it the two million?

Chris Williamson 41:22 1.3 mil now, so we've broken one million downloads, which is great. Um, we set ... Me and VMD set a, a target for plays and for subs. Uh, smashed the target for plays. Subs is lagging a little, um, but still-

Jonny 41:38 Do subscribers matter, though?

Chris Williamson 41:39 So, the reason that it mattered, or the reason that I considered it as a metric to be bothered about was just that having subs on YouTube allows you to then further push more content that is gonna get more of a head start.

Jonny 41:51 Right.

Chris Williamson 41:52 Um, but it would appear that the audio platform this year is absolutely banging, so again, thank you to everyone who listens.

Jonny 41:57 So audio over video?

Chris Williamson 41:58 Um, yeah. I mean, yeah. We- we've got some really big shout-outs on audio, like Aubrey shouted out the audio version of the podcast. Uh, Jordan Peterson shouted out ... Or, Michaela on Jordan's podcast shouted out the, the iTunes. Um, so that really drove a lot of traffic, which was great. Um, but the, the YouTube stuff's still flying, man. So we'll do some special stuff in the new year, which will be exciting.

Jonny 42:21 (inhales deeply) Um, about this time last year, we were doing the first Modern Wisdom live. Maybe a bit earlier than this.

Chris Williamson 42:30 Fuck, yeah, we were. When we did it for, um-

Jonny 42:33 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:33 ... Communicore, that big radio station, and we talked-

Jonny 42:35 All right.

Chris Williamson 42:35 It's fine. Don't mind.

Jonny 42:36 All right.

Chris Williamson 42:36 It'll ... The ... It'll be listening. MD will be listening.

Jonny 42:38 Okay.

Chris Williamson 42:39 Um, and, yeah, and then we told a room full of people that ... whose income relies on radio that radio's dead.

Jonny 42:47 Yeah.

Yusef 42:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 42:48 Sorry.

Jonny 42:49 I wonder whether they've started a podcast.

Chris Williamson 42:51 I think-

Jonny 42:51 He was worried about the cost, wasn't he, bless him?

Yusef 42:53 Uh, uh, I mean, you know, for, for a-

Jonny 42:55 (laughs)

Yusef 42:55 ... a national radio show with lots of funding, obviously the, the hosting fee is a, is a real concern of ... You know, those $30 a-

Jonny 43:03 Yeah.That's, that's like, that would be, like, 25 quid.

Yusef 43:06 Ah, 20 quid.

Chris Williamson 43:06 Seriously. Yeah. Bloody serious.

Jonny 43:08 It's, like, a pound out of every, every single day.

Chris Williamson 43:09 Every day. Um, where have you traveled to this year? That would be cool to hear where you've gone.

Jonny 43:14 Uh, so I spent my ... So this was the other thing I was thinking about, this is the last one of these I'll do in my 20s.

Chris Williamson 43:22 Oh, shit man.

Yusef 43:22 Yeah, me too.

Jonny 43:23 So I spent my 29th birthday in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Chris Williamson 43:28 Shit, you did? Yeah.

Jonny 43:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:29 Very morbid.

Jonny 43:31 Yeah. But brilliant.

Chris Williamson 43:33 Cool as fuck.

Jonny 43:33 Krakow is brilliant. Auschwitz and ... I mean, obviously it feels wrong saying they're brilliant, but it's a-

Chris Williamson 43:39 Fascinating.

Jonny 43:40 ... it's a hell of an experience. So is the salt mines in, in Krakow. Uh, so I went to Krakow. I went to Santorini.

Chris Williamson 43:47 You did. You went, you waited in a line to get a photo, didn't you, for your Instagram?

Jonny 43:50 I did, yeah. From, uh, yeah, #blessed. Ah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:54 Best life.

Jonny 43:55 I'm so fucking sick of that shit.

Yusef 43:57 The Instagram stuff?

Jonny 43:58 The, um, yeah. Like, I, I'm quite pleased that Instagram are d- are, like, moving in the direction where it feels like they've kind of clocked it and they're making some changes.

Chris Williamson 44:09 I was discussing this with someone the other day, the fact that likes are now no longer being shown, it's just single person and others liked this post.

Jonny 44:16 Right.

Chris Williamson 44:17 Is ... That's getting rolled out quite heavily across the UK now. Um-

Jonny 44:20 I, I think if someone has something to share, like, something that's interesting or funny or valuable, fine. But, like, when it's just photos of people-

Chris Williamson 44:28 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 44:29 ... in Santorini-

Chris Williamson 44:30 (laughs)

Jonny 44:31 ... and the l- and the, the photo gets loads of traction because it's, like, a certain angle, like.

Chris Williamson 44:35 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 44:36 Did we talk about this last time with, like, people that will order a meal for two in a restaurant and then take a photo of the table and leave and not eat-

Jonny 44:45 Really? Fuck me.

Yusef 44:45 Not eat the meal. This was happening-

Chris Williamson 44:47 Oh, no.

Yusef 44:47 So in Thailand, like, there w- and we were in this pool, top of a, out in, like, a secluded place, nice hotel, outside, outdoor pool with, you know, where the edge just drops off to the-

Chris Williamson 44:58 Mm-hmm. Infinity pool.

Yusef 44:59 Yeah, and, like, a forest behind it, you could see temples in the background.

Chris Williamson 45:02 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 45:02 And me and my girlfriend were just enjoying the pool, like, just having a swim and stuff.

Chris Williamson 45:06 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 45:07 Drinking a coconut with a thing.

Chris Williamson 45:09 (laughs)

Yusef 45:10 And, (laughs) and we, we saw couple after couple come into the pool, boyfriend fully dressed, but with, like, a big DSLR thing.

Chris Williamson 45:17 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 45:18 And girlfriend, like, they'd be full makeup, hair done, heels, um, like, a, what looks like a really expensive swimsuit with little, like, shoulder pads and-

Chris Williamson 45:27 Oh.

Yusef 45:27 And they'd come over and sit on the side of the pool and, like-

Chris Williamson 45:29 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 45:30 And, like, pose and stuff, like, and do, like, an hour's photo shoot, and then leave. And you'd be like, "Are you guys gonna get into the pool or enjoy it?"

Chris Williamson 45:37 They'd just be around it. So-

Yusef 45:39 And it would just happen so consistently.

Chris Williamson 45:40 Uh, on the south coast of ... Sorry, on the, um, west coast of Gili T, sun setting. One of the most beautiful, picturesque islands on the planet, probably just outside of Bali. Um, and there is, you'll have seen those swings, those sunset swings that are in the middle of the ocean, like, and people sit on them.

Jonny 45:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:59 And it's usually got, like, it's, like, a kind of rustic wooden swing type thing.

Jonny 46:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 46:03 Anyway, so I'm there and, uh, I'm watching #boyfriendsofinstagram get down-

Jonny 46:10 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 46:10 There's this, uh, Chinese guy who's there who's taking photos for his girlfriend who wants a good photo.

Jonny 46:14 Okay.

Chris Williamson 46:15 And what she wants is as much reflection off the water as is possible. So what he's had to do is get down, he's lowering himself down further and further and the water's this high, but the phone needs to be up. But he can be lower, so every so often he's taking this wave in the face.

Yusef 46:31 Oh.

Chris Williamson 46:31 Like, as he's trying to get this photo. And I was just thinking the sacrifices that he makes.

Jonny 46:35 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 46:35 And it was like everyone was trying to out-extra everyone else. I mean, this is coming from the guy who, um, did, like, a legless rope climb to get to the top of it so that I was, like, at the very, very top. That was my photo. Um, but then a guy (laughs) , everyone was taking photos, everyone was looking cool, and a local guy just rode past on a horse, took the horse out into the middle of the water, and stood on the horse.

Yusef 46:58 (laughs)

Jonny 47:00 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:00 Next to everyone. And I was just thinking, like, "What a way to shit on everyone's hard work."

Yusef 47:05 That's my

Narrator 47:05 That's big news, yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:05 To be like, "You think, you think that you're on a swing, huh? I got a horse."

Yusef 47:08 That is class. Well, I, I, I went up to a couple, a, a few of the couples, like, when we were out, 'cause they're, they'd be the boyfriend taking photos of the girl and stuff. And I would go over and be like, "Do you want me to get a shot of you both?" And they'd always be like, "Oh, no, no, no. It's okay." It's like, oh, okay, obviously you don't want a, um-

Chris Williamson 47:23 Like you've shined a light on the, on the weird, weird situation.

Jonny 47:27 Yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 47:27 You're not interested in having a photo to commemorate-

Chris Williamson 47:29 A couple photo, yeah.

Yusef 47:29 ... the fact that you went to this place together.

Chris Williamson 47:31 No.

Yusef 47:31 Just for the 'Gram.

Chris Williamson 47:32 You just want individual photos. So where did you go this year?

Yusef 47:36 So Budapest on, I think on Johnny's recommendation. Or, like, went to the places he recommended.

Jonny 47:40 Speaking of, of that just to mention, I spoke to someone this week who said to me that they got a dog because I said to get a dog.

Yusef 47:48 Oh, that's a responsibility.

Jonny 47:48 So we should be careful with things that we suggest.

Chris Williamson 47:51 About what we say. I know, right?

Yusef 47:53 Budapest.

Jonny 47:53 So yeah, Budapest. It's average.

Yusef 47:55 I thought it was all right. It's the s- like, standard issue European city, um-

Chris Williamson 47:59 Has it got direct flights from the UK?

Yusef 48:00 Yeah.

Jonny 48:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:00 That's what it is. Any- as soon as anywhere gets direct flights from the UK, it's fucked.

Yusef 48:04 Oh, really? What?

Jonny 48:04 There's some cool stuff there.

Chris Williamson 48:06 But it's just stag dos. It's just immediately, as soon as you can go to anywhere. A- if you need to do a connecting flight, for like-

Yusef 48:12 If it's wasn't-

Chris Williamson 48:12 ... less than 100 quid, stag dos.

Yusef 48:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:14 Yeah.

Yusef 48:14 I mean, B- Budapest wasn't very staggy, it was quite, um, cultural Europe. A bit like, the one thing I did find, and this is, like, it's the equivalent of Iceland everything is £9,500 is that everything in Budapest is 10-minute walk away on Google Maps but feels like 40-minute walk.

Chris Williamson 48:32 Really?

Yusef 48:33 Like, any distance between any two points in the city is like, it's a miracle, is 10-minute walk but it's really far.

Chris Williamson 48:39 It's just propaganda.

Yusef 48:40 Yeah. So that, that's quite good. Similar kind of sobering experience going to the Jewish museum-

Chris Williamson 48:45 Yeah.

Yusef 48:45 ... and the synagogue where you, you just see mass graves and things.

Chris Williamson 48:49 Did you go to the baths?

Yusef 48:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 48:50 Did you get your dick out?

Yusef 48:51 Absolutely great baths. Uh, it wasn't a naked one, just a-

Chris Williamson 48:54 But did you get your dick out?

Yusef 48:56 Just in general?

Chris Williamson 48:56 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 48:56 At some point during the holiday I, I had to, yeah, to, to-

Chris Williamson 48:59 I would have thought loads of times. (laughs)

Yusef 49:01 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:01 Twice a day probably, at least twice a day.

Yusef 49:03 A- e- at least twice a day.

Chris Williamson 49:04 Yeah.

Yusef 49:04 A- always indoors, always, um-

Chris Williamson 49:07 Legal.

Yusef 49:07 ... legal situation, yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:09 I thought the baths were awful.

Yusef 49:10 Did he?

Chris Williamson 49:11 I didn't mind. Did you get your hair cut? I would've done, yeah. With the baths? Not in the baths. Not, not where other people- Did you just go to one bath? Yeah, yeah.

Yusef 49:18 Uh, I went to a few. There were some better than others definitely but, um-

Chris Williamson 49:21 You know, you know when you're getting changed in a swimming pool, and there's the, the sort of the cold stagnant water in the center- Mm-hmm. ... that you sort of curl your toes up and try not to step in.

Yusef 49:31 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:31 The baths, the whole bath just felt like that sort of thing.

Yusef 49:35 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:35 Yeah, that's bad. Just a bit- Just a bit like it? Yeah.

Yusef 49:37 And it smelt of egg. Large parts of it smelt of egg.

Chris Williamson 49:40 Oh.

Yusef 49:40 Like icing.

Chris Williamson 49:41 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 49:41 So Budapest, same reason-

Chris Williamson 49:42 And just came back from Barcelona, which is beautiful. Did you go to the Sagrada Familia?

Yusef 49:46 Fucking hell, man.

Chris Williamson 49:48 Yeah. Gaudi is a monster. Like, he ... So for anyone that doesn't know, he's the architect and artist designer of a lot of buildings around Barcelona, and it seems like he's designed so many of them and each one is so intricate. Looks like, at least like a decade of work. You're just thinking, "How has he pumped out so much output?" And then all the designs are very fluid and asymmetrical and kind of flowing looking buildings that just look so out of, uh, out of context with anything else. He's done the major cathedral, which is bigger than you think on, from the pictures. You'd imagine him like giving the plan to the builders and they're just like, "Oh, Gaudi, man." Like- "Yeah, fucking hell, mate. Couldn't have just been a bit two by fours, could it?"

Yusef 50:30 (laughs) How are we supposed to make this?

Chris Williamson 50:31 "No, no, Rob, Rob. We're gonna have to-"

Yusef 50:34 Yeah, sounds like it. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:35 "Rob, Rob. No, mate. Everything, everything's gonna have to be knocked on the head. He's, uh, uh, he's brought up the, he's brought up the plans." "Uh, sorry, mate. Sorry again, mate."

Yusef 50:41 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:41 "You're not gonna, you're not gonna believe this."

Yusef 50:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:44 "Do not, I repeat, do not ring me." "No, Gaudi, mate. Honestly, I'm fucking sick of you." "He rang me. Can you believe he rang me when I said not to?"

Yusef 50:53 Yeah, yeah (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 50:55 So Barcelona, there's a lot of mugging there, isn't there?

Yusef 50:57 Yeah, so the ... A lot of, um, pickpockets, mugging. Uh, so actually it's transitioned. Used to be very pickpockety and now it's gone to (laughs) some of the maddest-

Chris Williamson 51:07 Don't say rape.

Yusef 51:07 No, no, no.

Chris Williamson 51:07 You were gonna say rape, weren't you? All right, okay.

Yusef 51:09 It used to be very much like pick ... If you have your phone on a table in a restaurant, someone would come along with a newspaper and be like-

Chris Williamson 51:14 With a map. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yusef 51:15 "Oh, excuse me. I'm looking for this. Oh, okay, nevermind. Thank you."

Chris Williamson 51:17 No.

Yusef 51:17 Or like, um, stuff like that. Now it's just gone to full on just like, "Give me your phone."

Chris Williamson 51:21 Mugging.

Yusef 51:21 And like-

Chris Williamson 51:22 Ugh.

Yusef 51:22 So a friend of mine who I went to visit got, uh, beaten up. So she got like a black eye and bruised head-

Chris Williamson 51:30 She? Wow, fuck.

Yusef 51:30 ... for like a rubbish phone. Um, and so it's just become frequent now.

Chris Williamson 51:35 So it's interesting that-

Yusef 51:36 Someone got murdered on the street we were staying on the night we were there.

Chris Williamson 51:39 What the fuck? Jesus Christ. As in, as in there was a murder-

Yusef 51:43 On the night that we, we-

Chris Williamson 51:44 While you were there?

Yusef 51:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:46 Where you were?

Yusef 51:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 51:47 Was it you?

Yusef 51:47 I was on the street. It, uh, it wasn't even me.

Chris Williamson 51:49 And you didn't do the murder?

Yusef 51:50 I was ... I didn't... Oh, no, I didn't do the murder or receive the murder.

Chris Williamson 51:53 Do you promise?

Yusef 51:53 Promise.

Chris Williamson 51:53 You didn't receive the murder?

Yusef 51:54 No. So, but it didn't make news 'cause it was, it was a gang thing.

Chris Williamson 51:57 Gang war.

Yusef 51:57 And like, they were like, "Ah, well, they probably worked."

Chris Williamson 51:59 First person on the list is the Arab that was staying just around the corner. Yeah. They don't wanna do that though, do they? 'Cause they don't wanna get their-

Yusef 52:05 Oh, the, the best, best thing was in the airport, they kept releasing this announcement that was like, "Will Mohammed Abijaya please go to security immediately?"

Chris Williamson 52:15 (laughs) Oh, fucking hell. "Will Mohammed Abijaya ..."

Yusef 52:18 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:18 And you were like, "It's spelt Y-U-S-T."

Yusef 52:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:24 (laughs)

Yusef 52:24 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:24 For the 10th time. Fucking hell. (laughs) Um, so I went to Barcelona for a wedding, uh, this, the start of this summer. And one of the guys that we were there with doesn't usually drink, had a little bit too much to drink at the wedding. Um, then walking through the center of Barcelona after we'd been up to this beautiful castle, had this wonderful day. He got the bus back, the bus dropped us off and he just went for a bit of a wander. He was staying at an Airbnb. Um, he woke up a few hours later, 7:00 in the morning with ... Uh, in Barcelona train station actually, to find that his phone, wallet and shoes had been stolen.

Yusef 53:03 Oh, shoes as well?

Chris Williamson 53:04 Wow.

Yusef 53:04 They'd taken his shoes.

Chris Williamson 53:05 Derren Brown. Um, and then so he then walked around for the next few hours in his brand new pair of Ralph Lauren socks, just walking arou- And he's a beardy guy, um, wearing like a kind of dishe- like obviously disheveled wedding suit, which is just, in Barcelona-

Yusef 53:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:22 ... which has got a lot of homeless, just the quintessential homeless man look. Like long beard, really odd outfit, like with su- full suit and tie, no shoes, like Ralph Lauren socks now with holes in.

Yusef 53:35 So people were giving him, giving him a couple coins or something?

Chris Williamson 53:37 But he was desperately trying to say, "Can I borrow your phone?"

Yusef 53:39 Oh.

Chris Williamson 53:39 But in the mugging, the mugging and robbery capital of Europe, like that was never gonna happen.

Yusef 53:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:44 And then because he wasn't staying in a hotel, he didn't know, he couldn't ask where the hotel was 'cause he didn't know the, um, address of the Airbnb off by heart.

Yusef 53:50 Oh, no.

Chris Williamson 53:51 So he's just walking around Barcelona with none of his possessions as hangover and sort of existential crisis slowly begins to set in.

Yusef 53:59 So the, the thief really goosed him there then, right?

Chris Williamson 54:01 Yeah.

Yusef 54:02 And it makes you realize how, how hopeless we are when we don't have a phone.

Chris Williamson 54:05 It's literally what he said. A phone, yeah. It's this Oracle that connects us to everything else.

Yusef 54:10 I always feel whenever I go somewhere, if I have my wallet and my phone, I can just-

Chris Williamson 54:14 Deal with anything.

Yusef 54:15 Like anything can happen and you can buy your way out of it.

Chris Williamson 54:18 Yeah. Yeah.

Yusef 54:18 Depending on the currency or like whether you've been robbed or something.

Chris Williamson 54:21 Well, this was the first holiday I've, I've done with a new phone and therefore I don't have my little book book.

Yusef 54:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:27 So I decided not to bring any cards, no cash, just everything was Apple Pay and it felt lovely to just tap around.

Yusef 54:36 It's a bit ... It feels a bit like if it goes wrong-

Chris Williamson 54:41 You're fucked, yeah.

Yusef 54:43 ... you're fucked, aren't you?

Chris Williamson 54:43 Yeah.

Yusef 54:43 'Cause then you've just got no pay- means of payment.

Chris Williamson 54:45 'Cause you've hinged all of your risk on the, uh-

Yusef 54:47 I, I've had, I've had scenarios where I've gone to use Apple Pay and it's not, it's just not worked.

Chris Williamson 54:52 Yeah, interesting.

Yusef 54:53 And then the Spanish police come after you. (laughs) Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:56 Knock on your door.

Yusef 54:57 You've had a run-in with Spanish ... Well, you, you've both had run-ins with Spanish police.

Chris Williamson 55:01 I have, yeah.

Yusef 55:02 Mm-hmm. I feel like mine wasn't my fault.

Chris Williamson 55:04 (laughs)

Yusef 55:04 It was your lawyer friend who ... Yeah. But I feel like you ...

Chris Williamson 55:08 Mine, mine very much was your fault.

Yusef 55:10 It very much was.

Chris Williamson 55:10 I was asleep on the central reservation of Tenerife's largest motorway, yeah.

Yusef 55:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:13 I didn't have a phone. I didn't actually have a wallet, was it?

Jonny 55:15 You didn't mean to.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 55:16 It was just a bad day, yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:17 It was a bad, it was very, very bad day.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 55:19 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 55:19 Um, so I've done, this is probably the year I've done the single most amount of traveling-

Jonny 55:23 Wow.

Chris Williamson 55:23 ... I think I've ever done. Um, so I did-

Jonny 55:25 America?

Chris Williamson 55:26 Uh, so-

Jonny 55:27 Full trip.

Chris Williamson 55:28 ... I'll try, I'll try, I'll try and go through it. So I did Rome for my birthday, which was one of the best trips-

Jonny 55:32 Oh (laughs) Jesus.

Chris Williamson 55:32 ... that I've ever done. Like, just so amazing. Three, no, four days in Rome and just overwhelmed with Colosseum and Roman Forum day one, Vatican and Sistine Chapel day two, and Pompeii day three. Like, what a way to just overload-

Jonny 55:45 Did you, did you spill an espresso or something? I've got this story in my head of you in the cafe.

Chris Williamson 55:48 Yeah, so there was the first, the first thing I did, I was looking, like, just totally buh- befuddled by the romance-

Jonny 55:54 Oh, sorry.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 55:54 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 55:54 ... that is, um, Rome, looking out of the window as I put, uh, sugar into my, uh, espresso, and was just stirring it and looking at, like, just how beautiful everything was. Stirring it, stirring it, stirring it, and looked back to see there was no espresso left in the cup. Barely any espresso on the saucer and the glass counter upon which it was resting, where all of the pastries and stuff were behind it, it had just smeared itself over that.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 56:18 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:18 And the owner was just looking at me like this.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 56:22 (laughs)

Jonny 56:22 Oh, no.

Chris Williamson 56:23 And I, I was like, "Uh, could I have another espresso please?"

Jonny 56:28 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:28 Like that was, that was all I could think. But the, while I did that, in the time it took me to stir that and have all of it come out, a man came in, bought a glass of red wine, finished it, and went back to work. And I was like, "Italy's brilliant."

Jonny 56:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:40 Uh, so yeah, Rome-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 56:41 They just drink in such a paced way, don't they? I-

Jonny 56:43 Two drinks in.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 56:43 ... can't believe the first thing he said was, "Can I have another espresso?"

Chris Williamson 56:46 I think I probably said, like, "Sorry."

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 56:48 Like, "This is so stupid."

Chris Williamson 56:48 But I also said, like, you know... It was his face. It's a very British thing -

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 56:51 It's like, "Don't fucking mean to, mate."

Jonny 56:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:52 "You can come in and start throwing it around. Don't smear feces on the wall."

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 56:55 "Sorry, I'm just interested in the war of your tongue here."

Jonny 56:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:57 "Yeah, the beautiful architecture." Anyway, so Rome, great. Um, LA and Boston, saw David, Dr. David Sinclair.

Jonny 57:05 What?

Chris Williamson 57:05 Awesome. Um, then went back and went to New York.

Jonny 57:08 On the Elon Musk air?

Chris Williamson 57:09 Elon's-

Jonny 57:10 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:10 Breathed some of the air where Elon Musk breathed. Uh, went to New York for a stag do.

Jonny 57:14 Good one.

Chris Williamson 57:15 Awesome.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 57:16 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:16 Um, went to Ibiza for another stag do, that was good. Went to... Where else? Barcelona for that wedding. Then did road trip across America, did 2,000 miles in 10 days. That was cool.

Jonny 57:29 More ROMOD?

Chris Williamson 57:30 Didn't do ROMOD that time. Did ROMOD in February, didn't do ROMOD in...

Jonny 57:33 Oh.

Chris Williamson 57:34 Uh, and then-

Jonny 57:34 Stu McGill?

Chris Williamson 57:35 Stu McGill. Canada for the first time, and then went to Bali most recently.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 57:39 Stayed with Stu McGill's. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:40 Stayed with Stu McGill for the night.

Jonny 57:42 Nice.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 57:42 Yeah, yeah.

Jonny 57:42 Of all the things you've done.

Chris Williamson 57:44 Yeah, that was pretty crazy.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 57:45 Went on his yacht.

Chris Williamson 57:47 Well, I, I, it was a boat. A boat. (laughs) Okay.

Jonny 57:50 It can still be a yacht.

Chris Williamson 57:51 Yes.

Jonny 57:51 Like, yachts don't have to be big. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:53 But yeah, I think, you know-

Jonny 57:55 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 57:55 ... i- in trying to create some sort of a sense of what people that are listening who maybe aren't doing any formal gratitude or aren't doing end of year reviews, I think what we're trying to do here is just take stock of what's happened within the last year.

Jonny 58:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:09 You know, like, what's gone well, what's gone bad. 'Cause if you're not careful, life does just be this treadmill of task arises, you get the mallet out, you whack it, it goes away. Next task arises, mallet, whack, and you just keep on going. And then before you know it, yeah, you've just ruthlessly indexed these experiences and never actually enjoyed reflecting on them.

Jonny 58:29 It's like just endlessly painting, but then never stepping back to look at the painting, isn't it? Like, you spend all your life trying to achieve things, and then you just die.

Chris Williamson 58:38 (laughs) Yeah.

Jonny 58:38 But if you just, uh, (laughs) if- if- if- you never, like, go, "Oh, shit, the thing that I spent ages trying to achieve, I did that. Isn't that cool?"

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 58:44 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 58:45 Right, next thing. Um-

Chris Williamson 58:46 Um-

Jonny 58:46 Right. Just next thing, next thing. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck, I'm dead.

Chris Williamson 58:49 Yeah.

Jonny 58:49 Bollocks.

Chris Williamson 58:49 Have you, um, have you had any mind shifts or any sort of lessons this year or any concepts that you've learned that have been a, a big sort of frame shift for you? Um, if you don't, I've got my one, which I think is probably one of my biggest from this year.

Jonny 59:08 So I've written down five here.

Chris Williamson 59:11 Wow.

Jonny 59:11 They're quick. Some of them are completely irrelevant. You can, you- you create good days and bad days.

Chris Williamson 59:15 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 59:16 If it doesn't happen first thing, it very rarely happens. So that applies to, like, the days you wake up and you're like, "I really should meditate less." (laughs) Like last night.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 59:24 I opened my phone to try and look at some myself, and the first thing that came up was, "Beat your bum hole," sent from Chris.

Chris Williamson 59:30 (laughs)

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 59:30 So (laughs) .

Jonny 59:31 Eat spinach is what it is.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 59:33 Eat spin- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 59:33 Um-

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 59:33 Sorry.

Chris Williamson 59:33 Yeah, win the mor- win the morning, win the day is massive.

Jonny 59:35 Yeah. So, like, that applies to things, like... So I'm back to training in the morning 'cause I've realized that, like, when I tell myself, "Oh, it's all right, I'll train at 6:00 PM promise," which you never do, um, unless there's massive accountability. That's a great thing about CrossFit, instantly. Um, or work. So, like, just do the thing that has to be done today. Just do that first.

Chris Williamson 59:55 Get it done.

Jonny 59:55 Yeah. Um, this is a marketing thing. Sales is a process, not an event. People think that it's an event or, like, a- a thing that they've did, uh, did, a thing that they've done that caused a sale. It's what happened prior to that-

Chris Williamson 1:00:09 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:00:10 ... that caused the sale. Um, who not how to solve a problem. So this year, I've invested myself, not under the propane umbrella, 'cause those numbers are, make you more sick than putting your glove in your mouth, um, the most money personally in coaching. So I've worked with the most coaches in my, for my own stuff.

Chris Williamson 1:00:31 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:00:31 Um, so, like, if you're trying to get better at something or trying to achieve stuff, just, which is the next thing, model consistent examples of where you want to be. So not someone who's, like, where you're wanting to be and has been there for a bit. But someone who's, like, consistently doing the thing that you're trying to get to. Just pay them to learn how. So always asking. Instead of just grinding away and, like, "What book can I read? What course can I do? How can I figure this out myself?" Just who's doing it?

Chris Williamson 1:01:01 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:01:01 And I'll just pay and work with them.

Chris Williamson 1:01:03 Mm-hmm.

Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) 1:01:03 Life is short, just-

Jonny 1:01:05 Just get the answers.

Chris Williamson 1:01:06 Yeah. I think that's- that's such a fucking good heuristic. And that was one that came to me kind of last year, I think, although I still haven't fully implemented it, that, um...... being able to shortcut all of the self-direction, self-accountability, questioning, "Is this the right, should I do X, Y, Zed." It's like just, just ask the person.

Jonny 1:01:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:29 Like, if you want to know the best way to fix your back, drive to Canterbury and go-

Jonny 1:01:34 Just ask Steve Magill. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:01:35 ... and go and see Steve Magill.

Jonny 1:01:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:37 Like-

Jonny 1:01:38 So many people, man. Like, and I, I, I think we've all been guilty of this. Like, you spend so long trying to figure something out yourself. Like, in your own whatever it is, and you might not even be necessarily that aware of it. But like, people read books on things or do courses on things rather than just paying a bit more and getting someone who's really experienced in that area-

Chris Williamson 1:01:56 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:01:56 ... to give you some customized help on that thing.

Chris Williamson 1:01:58 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:01:59 So I, with med- I, I tried with meditation for years to figure it out myself, and just chatting to someone who ... And I know there's no, like, qualification or level of ex- expertise necessarily-

Chris Williamson 1:02:10 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:02:10 ... but just paying for some formal help would do.

Chris Williamson 1:02:12 (clears throat) Yeah.

Jonny 1:02:13 Um-

Chris Williamson 1:02:13 So I think there's two things that for me have, have struck this year. There's a lesson that I'll get onto in a second, but two of the big things is, what I'm missing most and what many people that are in this kind of knowledge work, self-directed world of personal development might be struggling with, the two things that I think are most important are direction and accountability.

Jonny 1:02:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:30 It's like, if you know what you need to do and you have someone who will tell you off, and, uh, if you don't do it and encourage you if you do, 90% of the work's done for you. What do I need to do, and why do I need to do it, essentially-

Jonny 1:02:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:42 ... or what's the, what's the pain of not?

Jonny 1:02:43 Selling on the reason.

Chris Williamson 1:02:44 Yeah.

Jonny 1:02:45 Yeah.

Yusef 1:02:45 It's a great point, and that's the value of a coach, isn't it? Rather than just the information. I think most people, if they're just given the information, they won't execute-

Chris Williamson 1:02:53 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 1:02:53 ... unless there is accountability, objectivity, and personalization for that.

Chris Williamson 1:02:58 Yeah.

Yusef 1:02:59 And so (clears throat) although there's huge untapped potential of just getting a book on something ... And like as Tim Ferriss says, like, most of the time if you want to become a relative expert in a c- in a certain field compared to everyone else, you just read a book on it or read, like, two or three books on it, and suddenly you know more than, um, 99 point whatever percent.

Chris Williamson 1:03:20 Leap frogs, everyone.

Jonny 1:03:21 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yusef 1:03:22 Yeah, yeah. Um, and that is usually very helpful, but if you're trying to solve a specific problem, it may be more useful or quicker to get a coach to diagnose, identify your specific issues. Even if at the end of the day they just recommend you a book, it'll be a book that is relevant to your problem.

Jonny 1:03:37 Well, the problem is no longer lack of information. The problem today is which information.

Yusef 1:03:43 Oh, yeah.

Jonny 1:03:43 Like, which information should you listen to and should you not listen to?

Yusef 1:03:46 There's a disgusting amount of information-

Chris Williamson 1:03:48 You know, Naval's, N- Naval's synopsis on, uh, The Joe Rogan podcast was all of the problems that we have now are problems of abundance, not of scarcity.

Jonny 1:03:57 Yeah.

Yusef 1:03:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:59 Everything.

Jonny 1:03:59 'Cause, 'cause-

Chris Williamson 1:04:00 Too much food.

Jonny 1:04:01 The, the-

Chris Williamson 1:04:01 Too much ...

Yusef 1:04:02 Stimulus.

Chris Williamson 1:04:02 Yeah.

Jonny 1:04:03 It's heartbreaking to think, like, you have this thing you're desperately trying to do, and you spend a year just following the wrong advice.

Chris Williamson 1:04:10 Yeah.

Jonny 1:04:10 The wrong advices.

Chris Williamson 1:04:12 Can you please give me the right advice?

Jonny 1:04:13 Just, oh, Arnold Schwarzenegger was right all along. Like, on the day of the competition, I'll give him the wrong advice. Has everyone seen that quote?

Yusef 1:04:19 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:04:19 Yeah. (laughs)

Jonny 1:04:19 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:04:19 We also have. Um, so I wanna do ... I'll do your lesson of the year and then mine, and then I wanna do, like, top three books each, top three podcasts each-

Jonny 1:04:28 Ooh.

Chris Williamson 1:04:28 ... top three YouTube videos each. Just whatever, whatever does come to mind. So I'll give you a little bit of time to have a think.

Jonny 1:04:33 Okay.

Chris Williamson 1:04:33 But, um, your, any lesson from this year? Any sort of frame shift or, or, um, new concept that you've brought in

Yusef 1:04:39 I, I think you, like, it's all very similar. Like, the, the coaching thing I've also just s- spent a lot on just investing in myself. But I think also just taking time to periodize the things that you want to improve in your life and take space between each one. So, um, trying to achieve everything all at once. So I heard something today, it was from Sim Evans actually, where he says-

Chris Williamson 1:05:04 Sim.

Yusef 1:05:05 Refers to some neuroscience research. I feel like he may have been kind of approximating a lot-

Chris Williamson 1:05:11 Confused.

Yusef 1:05:11 But, but basically said like when you have goal A (clears throat) and action A, you sit and you do goal A with action A until you achieve it. When you have goal A and goal B and you have action A and action B, your brain dedicates more resource to the switching between the tasks than it does to following either of those tasks. And we're just not very good at trying to do two things at once, whether that's on a micro or a macro scale. So we know on a micro scale, like, it's why we're all such a big fan of Pomodoros, isn't it? Like, it's, it's the most, it's the best way to just say like, "Okay, I'm just gonna do this one thing to the exclusion of everything else." Rather than, like, feel the background guilt of like, "Oh, but I'm not doing that other thing, so I'm gonna just do a little bit of that other one-"

Chris Williamson 1:05:56 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 1:05:56 ... "while I'm ..." Um, and like I still always fall into the, the trap of not doing that. But, um, so there's, there's that. And then on a larger scale, over the year I think, like, imagine if twen- 2020 was 12 new habits rath- done each month-

Chris Williamson 1:06:15 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 1:06:15 ... rather than start of day one 2020 trying to do all 12 habits at once.

Chris Williamson 1:06:20 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 1:06:20 Rather than nailing habit one for January and then running it in the background, blast and cruise.

Jonny 1:06:25 The, I think the thing attached to that is when you don't ... So, the problem I, I have s- with, with doing like a yearly review is remembering all the things that have happened. Like, there'll be stuff that I've done and achieved that I don't even, didn't even really mention. Like-

Yusef 1:06:42 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:06:42 ... what I was gonna say before was I did-

Yusef 1:06:43 'Cause you've been painting the wall.

Jonny 1:06:45 Painting the picture, yeah. (laughs)

Yusef 1:06:46 Yeah.

Jonny 1:06:46 Um, I did three months of not drinking at the start of the year. Completely forgot-

Chris Williamson 1:06:51 Almo- almost forgot.

Jonny 1:06:51 Completely forgotten about it.

Chris Williamson 1:06:52 Massive achievement. Completely forgotten.

Jonny 1:06:53 So, like, the 12 habits thing, just keep a record of it somewhere.

Chris Williamson 1:06:58 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:06:58 'Cause th-

Yusef 1:06:59 Plan it out at the start of the year.

Jonny 1:07:00 Yeah. Especially people with, like, our view. Like, you're always pushing to d- achieve things, aren't you? So-

Chris Williamson 1:07:05 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 1:07:05 ... if you just f- forget that you've done them, then what was the, what was the point?

Chris Williamson 1:07:09 In doing them, yeah. (laughs)

Jonny 1:07:10 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:07:10 Um, yeah, I think ... So for next year one of the things, I've jumped ahead, but next year one of the things I'm going to have to learn to do is to say no to a lot more.Um, I've spread myself too thin this year and having spent a little bit of time with Chris Sparkes, the ... I did that podcast with-

Jonny 1:07:25 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:26 ... the guy behind The Forcing Function, uh, top 20 online poker players on the planet and a p- absolute motherfucker of a productivity expert. Um, I'm, I'm spread so thin I'm never going to become amazing at any one thing and unless there's some sort of synergistic, uh, relationship between much of the stuff that I'm doing, which there isn't sufficiently to warrant it, I need to make a decision on what it is that I want to do.

Jonny 1:07:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:51 What it i- what, what is it that I wanna do. Um, so 2020 for me, I think, will be the year of saying no to a lot more. Saying yes to a lot more stuff that I need to, like social engagements, um, which will be enabled by saying no to more work engagements-

Jonny 1:08:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:08:05 ... and stuff like that. Um, but I think one of the big concepts that I've learned this year, which I've really, really appreciated was Laura Vanderkam's time management thing, which is talking about how memories are made. Um, and I think this is so fundamental, fundamentals, uh, that everybody, everyone should be taught it, everyone should know it. Um, that everyone's experience of the passage of time happens at precisely-

Jonny 1:08:30 (clears throat)

Chris Williamson 1:08:30 ... the same speed. Even if you're traveling at close to the speed of light, your experience of the passage of time is exactly the same as mine now or if you're a child or if you're, um, 80 years old or whatever it is, the passage of time is one of the constants that's not going to change for you. So when people say, "I wish I had more time," because they complain that the year's ... "Where's the year gone? Do you know