Reflecting On The Wildest Year - Christmas Special (4K)

Chris Williamson 0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a Modern Wisdom Christmas special. For those of you who are probably in the 99.5% that have joined within the last two and a bit years, you won't recognize this location. This is my living room in Newcastle. This is where we did the first ever in-person episodes with Johnny and Yousef. And, we've got George Mack with us as well over from Dubai, specially, just for this, not for Christmas or to see his parents, just for this (laughs) , just for this episode, who'd a thunk it. And, uh, we're all in, for those that can't see, we're all festively adorned in Christmas jumpers and Yousef is refusing, even though he's hot, refusing to take it off because-

Yusef 0:39 It may have to happen halfway, thanks for the reminder. (laughs)

Jonny 0:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:44 (laughs)

Yusef 0:44 The microphone for the-

Chris Williamson 0:45 Yes.

Yusef 0:45 ... for the podcast.

Chris Williamson 0:46 For the podcast, yeah.

Yusef 0:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:47 Uh, you may, because you complained that it feels like a hair shirt, so you need something to protect you underneath.

Yusef 0:52 It's a stoic torture device.

Chris Williamson 0:53 (laughs)

Yusef 0:54 I'm just really trying to build up my willpower this Christmas.

Chris Williamson 0:56 It's resilience training.

Yusef 0:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 0:57 This Christmas jumper is resilience training.

Yusef 0:59 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:59 Anyway, we're going to go through some of our best lessons and life hacks from the last 12 months. For those of you that haven't heard a life hacks episode before, we go round in a little loop and go through some of the most en- best way to make a toasted sandwich, some new app that we've become obsessed by, some new productivity system or a book or something that we've been watching. And as is tradition, Johnny-

Jonny 1:19 There it is.

Chris Williamson 1:20 ... hot potato for you to go first.

Jonny 1:22 (laughs) There it is. Is the toasted sandwich one the one you... 'cause that was mine. Do you remember that one? Feel like you bring it up a lot.

Chris Williamson 1:26 Uh, was it a Breville Toasted Sandwich Maker?

Jonny 1:28 It was a sleeve that you put bread in to a toaster to toast it. I mean, it's, it's average, to be honest, but-

Chris Williamson 1:34 Okay. Well, I mean-

Jonny 1:35 ... you remember it more than me.

Chris Williamson 1:35 ... we've done hundreds and hundreds of life hacks over the last six years.

Jonny 1:38 And that's the one you remember?

Chris Williamson 1:39 There's one that I remember. Anyway, first up, what you got?

Jonny 1:41 So mine's, uh, it's a supplement, and it's one that I think you feel very strongly about. Don't know what the two guys think. Clearaway, specifically the raspberry lemonade flavor-

Chris Williamson 1:54 Okay.

Jonny 1:54 ... mixed with either lemon or orange LMN salts.

Chris Williamson 2:00 That's interesting.

Jonny 2:01 I would genuinely have that over anything else.

Yusef 2:04 That's a sophisticated blend.

Jonny 2:06 It is. It's great. Great way to start-

Chris Williamson 2:08 So you're using that post-training?

Jonny 2:09 Just morning.

Chris Williamson 2:11 First thing in the morning?

Jonny 2:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:12 30 grams of protein and some salt?

Jonny 2:13 Sometimes two scoops.

Chris Williamson 2:14 Two scoops?

Jonny 2:15 Sometimes two scoops (laughs) . Raspberry flavor.

Chris Williamson 2:18 (laughs) Raspberry lemonade. Uh, and what's that, 50, 55 grams of protein?

Jonny 2:22 I don't even know.

Chris Williamson 2:23 Yeah.

Jonny 2:23 Enough.

Chris Williamson 2:24 That's good.

Jonny 2:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:25 And why i- wha- wha- why that?

Jonny 2:27 It's just, I, I don't know, like, I, I mean, I'll get into this later in the episode when we talk about lessons, but I've been big on, this year is all about set things to background, make something fun, align the, like, what you should do with, "That was nice."

Chris Williamson 2:42 Well, I think, I was thinking about this the other day, th- that Hormozi, uh, clip that I had with him where I was explaining my love for pickleball because it's 1000 calories-

Jonny 2:51 Got to be it. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 2:51 ... in 90 minutes and all you're doing is chasing a ball.

Jonny 2:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:53 So trying to get the thing-

Jonny 2:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 2:54 ... whereas the guy that sits on the cross trainer-

Jonny 2:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 2:58 ... for 90 minutes thinking to himself, "Oh, I'm so disciplined," with-

Jonny 3:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 3:01 ... David Goggins playing in his ear, the outcome for both of us-

Jonny 3:05 The same.

Chris Williamson 3:05 ... has been precisely the same, except he's had to develop so much more and use so much more willpower.

Jonny 3:09 If you take, like, I don't know, 2009 me, I'd be still trying to get protein and hydration and lemon in water and salt and all this sort of stuff first as soon as I wake up, but it's like, "Oh," egg whites and... Whereas that's, like, a delicious way to wake up.

Yusef 3:25 Ooh. So the principle behind that, that I think is that there's no moral virtue in white knuckling everything.

Jonny 3:30 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 3:30 So Ramit Sethi talks about that with just automating your saving. If you just have a direct debit, the g- or a standing order, whatever the international phrase is for that, for savings to just go out as soon as you get paid, you're then not having to think every month, "Oh, I really need to save," whatever. You just never see it.

Jonny 3:47 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 3:47 It's just-

Jonny 3:48 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 3:48 ... out of the account.

Chris Williamson 3:48 Well, they do that with, uh, is it pension contributions? They realized that they could get people to increase the contribution to their pension easier when they asked them to do it at the time that they got a pay rise-

Jonny 4:00 Ah, okay.

Chris Williamson 4:00 ... because they, as yet, they'd never realized the gains from that new paycheck, and as a part of that, people didn't feel... Anchoring bias, largely. Right, "Oh, here's new money," but it's a little bit less new money than you were thinking you were getting, as opposed to old money now minus some.

Jonny 4:14 So is the key there that you've got to forget about it? You've got to be able... 'Cause if you save, if you're saving automatically and you aren't aware of it, that's the win, isn't it? 'Cause you don't notice it.

Yusef 4:21 Whereas if you think, "I've got a pay rise," you just squander it before it even-

Jonny 4:24 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 4:25 ... comes in, and usually people overcorrect. It's like, "I've done 30 minutes of cardio, I'm going to have a couple of donuts."

Jonny 4:31 Mm-hmm. (laughs)

Yusef 4:31 You've just more than corrected-

Jonny 4:32 (laughs)

Yusef 4:33 ... for the calories.

Jonny 4:34 But also-

Chris Williamson 4:34 It's automation, right?

Jonny 4:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:36 Just doing whatever the hard thing is.

Jonny 4:37 There's some in that, though, that you said then of the thing that you like with the pickleball, for example, and, uh, y- it's like, uh, Djokovic versus Andre Agassi. Have you ever heard that thing? So Andre Agassi became world number one, went all the way down to, like, 120, was doing crazy drugs, like, hated tennis, loads of childhood trauma, but was constantly grinding away. And then they asked Djokovic like, "What about you?" And he goes, "I just like hitting the ball."

Chris Williamson 5:02 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 5:02 And you can find where you like hitting the ball versus having to go Andre Agassi mode.

Chris Williamson 5:06 It's hard, it's hard to beat that guy.

Jonny 5:07 Such a contrast.

Chris Williamson 5:07 So Aaron Alexander, who is my American equivalent of Yousef, is-

Jonny 5:13 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 5:13 ... literally a-

Jonny 5:14 I'd love to know what that means for you.

Yusef 5:15 (laughs)

Jonny 5:15 Interesting.

Yusef 5:16 So Andre, I'd love to meet you if you're (laughs) around.

Chris Williamson 5:19 Very into, very into body work, very gamey. Like, if I grab his lat, unbelievably gamey. Like, do you know, like-

Jonny 5:25 It's like a really-

Chris Williamson 5:26 Very soft.

Jonny 5:26 ... like, tenderly cooked piece of meat.

Chris Williamson 5:27 Yeah, does tons of, tons of body work. Um, we were doing s- uh, high side planks, you know, where you've got y- up on that and then you've got your other hand up as well. It's pretty unstable.

Jonny 5:36 Is that where your-

Chris Williamson 5:37 Yeah.

Jonny 5:37 ... arm's doing that?

Chris Williamson 5:37 Like this. And he looked over at me, and he could see I was gritting my teeth in the middle of this workout and he just said, "What would this be like if it was easier?"

Jonny 5:43 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:45 "What would this be like if it was..." Fucking awesome principle, and you're like, all right, like-

Jonny 5:49 Just relax.

Chris Williamson 5:49 ... I don't need to grip as hard to this thing.

Jonny 5:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:52 There's times when you should do that, uh, y- trying to max out your deadlift, yeah. But for the most part, what would this thing I'm trying to achieve be like if it was easier?

Jonny 6:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:01 Like, if you don't like your morning walk, pick a better route.If you don't like the drink that you have to have first thing in the morning, find another brand or find a different-

George 6:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:08 ... flavor until you find the one that you actually enjoy.

George 6:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:10 If you don't like getting your steps in, buy a dog.

Jonny 6:13 Yeah. Well, I don't think many people like normal whey protein, just to link it back to my point. I think that loads of people drink whey protein with, like, bleh, whereas ClearWhey, delicious.

Chris Williamson 6:24 Don't change your mind.

Jonny 6:25 Genuinely delicious.

Chris Williamson 6:26 All right, Seth, you're up.

Yusef 6:28 So life hack to begin with. I'm excited about this 'cause I've been working with a team of accountants and operational analysts to develop the optimal categorization system for life hacks. And what they've landed on is basically digital and physical life hacks. So I'm gonna begin with a physical one, which I got from my partner, which is, if you have-

Chris Williamson 6:55 I love how you had to take the glasses off.

George 6:57 (laughs)

Yusef 6:57 (laughs) At that point.

Chris Williamson 6:57 Like this is, I'm fucking down to business now.

George 6:59 This is important.

Yusef 7:00 We're getting serious. If you eat a lot of berries, like me, get yourself a Pyrex Tupperware with a sealable lid, and they last days longer. Like they no longer, you know, you, ev- you would, we like a turgid, plump blueberry that's not- Mm-hmm. ... kind of a bit deflated- Mm-hmm. ... and crap. You just, it maintains that for five, six days.

Chris Williamson 7:22 'Cause most of the packaging for berries has got little perforations in the top of the seal, right?

Yusef 7:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 7:29 Is that not there for a reason?

Yusef 7:30 So soon... I, I mean, I don't know what their reason is. I think it's still-

Chris Williamson 7:34 (laughs)

Yusef 7:34 Because like there's a difference between what-

Chris Williamson 7:36 You just revolutionized the berry industry forever.

Yusef 7:38 Oh.

Chris Williamson 7:38 There's someone, some, someone from Kia Ora listening going, going, "Wow, didn't we think about this?"

Jonny 7:44 (laughs)

Yusef 7:44 So there's maybe a difference between the way things are stored in a supermarket for display versus at home. So eggs and things are stored differently, but berries, give it a try.

Jonny 7:55 Do you ever get frozen berries?

Yusef 7:57 I do, but-

Jonny 7:58 Not quite as good.

Yusef 7:58 No, they don't quite land as well, do they?

Jonny 8:00 Mm. Well, they haven't got the, the snap.

Chris Williamson 8:02 Mm. Yeah, agreed. Uh, I mean, finding the right blueberries is a, it's difficult, a difficult challenge. I've found that you can go super small and they're tangy and take, take your face off and can make you go like, ugh.

Yusef 8:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 8:16 Uh, and then if you go too big, there's never big and turgid, and turgidity is what I optimize for.

Yusef 8:23 It's the triangle, isn't it? So you get to pick two of three. So there's taste-

Chris Williamson 8:26 (laughs)

Yusef 8:27 ... turgid and size, and you can only be on one of the vertices-

Chris Williamson 8:30 (laughs)

Yusef 8:30 ... of the triangle.

Chris Williamson 8:32 (laughs)

George 8:32 (laughs)

Yusef 8:33 It's a real shame.

Chris Williamson 8:35 Oh.

Jonny 8:35 This is the sort of thing you wake up and think about in the morning.

Yusef 8:37 I've, I've got a model for it. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:39 (laughs)

Yusef 8:39 This is my second brain.

Jonny 8:40 Tick, tick, tick.

Chris Williamson 8:41 Uh, all right,

Chris Williamson 8:42 my one. So this is an old one, the OG listeners of which it's literally like points of a percent that will have heard this one before. So all of this is essentially new to everyone. Uh, but it's one that I really reinforced again this year and has just continued to pay dividends. I would probably say top five life hacks of all time.

George 9:00 Wow.

Chris Williamson 9:01 Text your friends when you're thinking about them.

George 9:03 Mm.

Chris Williamson 9:03 Just it continues to pay huge fucking dividends. Why is everyone laughing?

Yusef 9:09 I- Is there a limit? So let's say you think about someone-

Jonny 9:13 (laughs)

Yusef 9:13 ... five or six times in a day.

Chris Williamson 9:14 Oh, yeah, of course.

Yusef 9:14 Because one, because it's a self-exciting process, isn't it? Once you think of someone, you're more likely to think of them again that day.

Chris Williamson 9:19 Well, yeah.

Yusef 9:19 But if you keep texting them that day, they're gonna be like, "Well, all right, Chris, like-"

Chris Williamson 9:22 This is the Yousef who at five years old organized all of his toy trucks in a perfect semicircle by size and then color coming out. Uh, uh, uh, just, just t- t- to be sure, are we... Is it every time that I think about... Evidently not. Like use, use a filter of let's not be a crazy person.

Yusef 9:40 So if there's any programmers or developers listening to this.

Chris Williamson 9:43 You've actually clarified a caveat quite importantly, but no, just when you're thinking about someone, just send them a message. Like whatever it is, you know, we'll do it all the ti-... Like, remember that thing or even just a link to whatever it is that we did previously that's resurfaced somewhere 'cause you think about your friends way more than you're in contact with them, and they never get to benefit from it. By sending them a text saying, "Hey, mate, just thinking about you, hope everything's good," or a memory about what it is that you're doing or whatever it is that's surfaced in your mind, it makes them feel great because it just nice to be reminded of that. It makes you feel good because you've unselfishly just bestowed some, you know, love onto whoever it is, and it keeps friendships ticking over. If, if your friends knew how often you thought of them, friendships would decay much more slowly than they actually do, and by doing this, you actually reduce that gap between the two things. I mean, this is something that you've done as well, right, this year?

George 10:37 Trying to do better, yes.

Chris Williamson 10:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are chronically bad with your phone-

George 10:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 10:40 ... which is actually being very good with your phone.

George 10:42 Yeah. Yeah, that, that is the tough balance with the one you've given there of I try not to be on my phone too much and then I'll end up in that sleuf of texting back and forth.

Chris Williamson 10:52 But the reason that you try not to be on your phone is not because of texting your friends.

George 10:55 No, texting is actually-

Chris Williamson 10:56 You know what I mean?

George 10:56 ... one of the... If you had to, like, draw a graph of ROI activities, texting friends is up, up on the top.

Chris Williamson 11:02 It's the same as why y- you actually got me back into taking photos at events. I'd mistakenly thought that taking a photo was cringe because the only reason you take a photo is so you could post it on Instagram. So I dissociated taking photos of things that you enjoyed with being a cringe inf- Instagram poster. But it's actually I can take a photo and not post it anywhere and it's my memory for me. So I had to, like, chop that bit off.

Jonny 11:28 Very important distinction.

Yusef 11:30 Yeah. I have a recurring reminder at different cadences for friends to check in on them, give them a call, et cetera. So it's like-

Chris Williamson 11:37 You have it geotagged as well, don't you?

George 11:38 I'm immediately...

Yusef 11:38 Oh yeah, geotagged, so if I'm in certain cities it pings up with like, oh, I'm in London, get in touch with Ali, get in touch with whoever. So-

George 11:45 I'm immediately picturing Yousef like actioning this life hack and I'm gonna get a text from-

Yusef 11:49 (laughs)

George 11:49 ... like, Yousef's VA saying, "Yousef's, Yousef's in the bath thinking about you."

Chris Williamson 11:53 Yousef's thinking about you. (laughs)

Yusef 11:53 (laughs)

George 11:53 Something like that very soon.

Yusef 11:55 At a very strict cadence as well.

George 11:56 Yeah, very strict cadence. Always at 9:00 PM at night.

Jonny 11:59 I think I still need to reply to a message from you from like June.

George 12:03 There we go. Do it, do it live on the podcast.

Jonny 12:04 Um, yeah, we'll do it, should do it now. I s- I wrestle with the worry that as soon as you message someone if they reply straight away-... now you, that could be 20 minutes back and forth. You know what I mean?

Chris Williamson 12:15 Mm-hmm. Do you not like your friends?

Jonny 12:17 No, I do. But no, but th- but I think-

Yusef 12:20 But you've opened up a, a bottomless task, is it?

Jonny 12:22 Yeah. So like similar to you, so if I'm like, "Oh, I should text Chris."

Chris Williamson 12:25 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 12:25 And you're, you're good at it, you'll reply and then that's it, we- we've had our exchange.

Chris Williamson 12:30 Yeah, yeah.

Jonny 12:30 But some people are like, "Oh, hey mate, how are you doing?"

Chris Williamson 12:32 Oh, there's post-coital pillow talk.

Jonny 12:33 Fuck's sake. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I was just doing my task, man. Like-

Chris Williamson 12:36 Well, I don't know.

Yusef 12:37 I've got a final question for you on this, 'cause I know Jonny is very easy-going on this. If someone knows that you have a, an internal system for every time someone, every time you think of someone you have to text them-

Chris Williamson 12:48 Hmm.

Jonny 12:49 Not every time.

Yusef 12:50 Does that- Sure. But does that ruin the magic?

Jonny 12:52 I don't think so. At all.

Yusef 12:53 Should it seem spontaneous? 'Cause I have a reminder for all my friends' birthdays and so on, and some people will be like, "Oh, well that's not the same, you know, you're not just doing it out of your own ki-" Whereas Jonny's like, "Oh no, I think that's great because you've had the foresight to make this decision."

Chris Williamson 13:04 So I think your w- your one of having reminders is less emergent. My one is when you think of a friend, text them. Like, that does n- at no point in there is there any deceit. Right? I was just thinking about you, hope that everything's well.

Jonny 13:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:19 Like, you've said what's happening. Your one is, "Hi mate."

Jonny 13:22 How is this deceit? (laughs)

Yusef 13:23 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 13:23 Hope- h- well, well no it depends on what you, it's like, "Hey mate, my reminder just came up telling me to message you." Do you say that?

Yusef 13:29 Well, yeah. Good point. So if you say that, the magic's gone.

Chris Williamson 13:32 Precisely. So your one-

Jonny 13:33 It's knowing how you do the magic trick, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 13:35 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jonny 13:36 I'm now just going to check my phone every day, and if you've not messaged me...

Chris Williamson 13:39 I haven't thought of you.

Jonny 13:41 ... count the days. Well, maybe I think of you so much that I can't do it. Then it's more than once a day.

Chris Williamson 13:44 Right. George, you can't.

George 13:46 My, my one's ser- my one is,

George 13:48 um-

Chris Williamson 13:49 (laughs)

George 13:49 (laughs) Fucking hell. Oh, it's thrown me. That's really thrown me.

Yusef 13:54 Chris, he's, he said no private jokes.

George 13:55 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 13:55 That needs explaining. That's not private. Everyone's seen Our An-

Jonny 13:57 You're right, actually, it's on BBC.

Chris Williamson 13:58 (laughs)

George 14:00 So, enough with the Alan Partridge references. My one is gonna, um, uh, a threefold one. I think it's gonna, um, add years onto men's lives, reduce the divorce rate, and it also killed my fear of dying alone. So, um, I had this-

Chris Williamson 14:18 Very low bar to get over.

George 14:19 Yeah. I had this, uh, simultaneous fear that for ages I wouldn't be able to share a bed with anybody, because I would constantly get woken up throughout the night. And it's like, what point in the dating process do you bring that up of like, "We're gonna have separate beds"? So I just assumed that it wouldn't work out. And there was this image on Reddit, for people who haven't seen it-

Chris Williamson 14:39 Do you know where they are in the edit?

George 14:40 ... where, where a boyfriend and girlfriend track their sleep for like over a year. And both of them, the top two are very similar. So fasted in bed, uh, three hours before bed, um, is a 16% improvement in sleep. Getting in bed before 11:00 PM, both of them, that was the tw- two most beneficial factors. And then for her, the beneficial factor was sharing bed with partner, and then you go all the way down his list through all the good ones, all the way past alcohol, all the way past like everything bad you can think of. The single biggest thing, a minus 25% score, was sharing bed with a partner. However, for her it was plus 7%.

Jonny 15:21 Behaviors.

George 15:21 So she benefits from it, meanwhile he's down... And for context, girls, her menstruating was minus 15%, so he sh-

Chris Williamson 15:28 So it was nearly double that.

George 15:29 Him sh- yeah, him sharing bed with a par- with her was, was way worse than-

Jonny 15:34 Careful with this.

George 15:35 Oh, sorry. Was way worse (laughs) than, uh, her menstruating.

Jonny 15:39 Is there a hack here, George, or is this just-

Chris Williamson 15:41 Yes. Yeah, yeah, mate. I know, I already know what's coming.

George 15:43 All right. In fact, you don't want to do this.

Chris Williamson 15:43 I've seen the end of this movie.

George 15:44 The fact you don't-

Yusef 15:45 If, if you're male, you're screwed.

Chris Williamson 15:46 This might change your life.

Jonny 15:46 This might change your life.

George 15:47 S- can I, can I ask around the room, do, do you sleep better or worse when a partner's in the bed?

Chris Williamson 15:51 Way worse.

George 15:51 What about yourself?

Yusef 15:52 Worse.

George 15:53 What about yourself?

Jonny 15:54 I don't feel-

George 15:54 Neutral?

Jonny 15:55 ... like my date is good enough to answer the question.

George 15:57 Okay. Um-

Jonny 15:57 I'd say it doesn't affect me.

George 15:58 Okay. Well, you, one, one of the outliers.

Jonny 16:00 When, whenever I sleep not with a partner in the bed, it's like in a hotel, traveling.

George 16:03 Yeah.

Jonny 16:04 And that's worse anyway.

George 16:05 Ah, okay. So there's n- yeah, there's not an update there.

Jonny 16:07 Yeah.

George 16:07 I mean, the evolutionary explanation would be you naturally, men tend to sleep nearer the door anyway on average for these relationships. You're then thinking, "If somebody breaks in," and whenever she moves the duvet, your adrenaline goes up and her adrenaline goes down 'cause she's like, "Oh, he's there." Double duvet is the life hack.

Jonny 16:23 Nice.

George 16:23 Two duvets, Scandinavian style. I tried it, and it's, it is the best thing I've ever experienced.

Chris Williamson 16:29 The one bed, two d- Okay, so we need to really dig into this. You sleep in a king?

George 16:34 Super king, super king.

Chris Williamson 16:35 Super king, which is actually only in real size two singles side-by-side?

Jonny 16:41 I mean, it might be. That feels smaller.

Chris Williamson 16:44 Hmm, it's not, it's-

Jonny 16:44 So how big is a king?

Chris Williamson 16:45 Right, okay. I think a king is actually two singles.

Jonny 16:48 Right. Super king.

Chris Williamson 16:49 Anyway, super king. So how would you do it? He has a super king bed.

George 16:52 Yeah. I would-

Chris Williamson 16:53 You can't have two super king duvets. So do you get two double duvets?

George 16:56 Yeah, I, size-wise you can play around with that. I just really like a duvet.

Chris Williamson 16:59 Well, what's your solution?

George 17:00 With just two duvets.

Chris Williamson 17:00 This is your hack, George.

George 17:01 But I, I don't know the s-

Chris Williamson 17:02 Of what size?

George 17:03 Yeah, but i- i- it's like saying, "Oh, my iPhone..." I don't know the exact iPhone case for your iPhone, right? However, just wh- whatever-

Chris Williamson 17:08 Yeah, but I've never had an iPhone before.

George 17:09 So let, wh- what, what, what-

Chris Williamson 17:10 This is George's first life hacks. He wasn't prepared-

George 17:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:12 ... for the level of autism that we were, we were employing over here.

Yusef 17:13 George was like, "Wha- d- don't tie me up in legalese here."

Chris Williamson 17:17 (laughs)

George 17:17 (laughs)

Jonny 17:19 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:19 Oh.

George 17:19 What, uh, what size bed do you have again?

Chris Williamson 17:21 Super king.

George 17:21 Well, just get two super king d- duvets.

Yusef 17:23 But then it's g-

Chris Williamson 17:23 George, that's ridiculous. (laughs) Two super king duvets?

Jonny 17:27 It's fine. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:27 It's gotta be on the floor.

George 17:28 It's fine. It's fine.

Chris Williamson 17:28 Think about it, it's gonna be like a, like a floor cleaning snake.

Jonny 17:31 It's still better-

Chris Williamson 17:31 It's gonna be so much baggy duvet.

George 17:32 It's still w- well, go king then, go king. But we-

Chris Williamson 17:34 Two kings?

George 17:35 ... getting caught up in the details.

Chris Williamson 17:36 Well, this, details, details.

George 17:37 Details. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 17:38 Bore me with the details.

Jonny 17:39 Okay, okay, okay.

Chris Williamson 17:41 (laughs)

George 17:42 (laughs)

Yusef 17:42 Unbelievable.

Chris Williamson 17:44 Um.

Jonny 17:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:44 I really think, I really think that this, this needs... I mean, we can put this out to millions and millions of people. I would go as far as to say probably two double duvets.

Jonny 17:54 If you have a super king.

Chris Williamson 17:55 If you have a super king.

Jonny 17:55 What we need is a PDF.

Chris Williamson 17:57 Nice PDF.

George 17:58 Okay, I'll get a PDF. Yeah, I need it with me. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 17:58 Can you supply supplemental appendices?

George 18:01 Yep.

Chris Williamson 18:01 Please.

Jonny 18:02 All the guys who sleep with their girlfriend or wife have to go listen to this episode and then sell it to someone don't they?

George 18:08 That's true.

Jonny 18:08 I think George said because of my cortisol-

George 18:12 So, on that-

Jonny 18:13 That we need two duvets.

Yusef 18:14 That's right.

Jonny 18:14 And they'll say, "How do I get the duvets?"

George 18:16 I forgot to do the follow-up, which was then when they tracked the s- double duvet, it was the single biggest positive thing for him.

Jonny 18:23 Ah, joy.

George 18:23 So the data seems to suggest that it's true.

Jonny 18:25 Do you have two duvets?

Yusef 18:26 I've been in the process of negotiating this since visiting George and hearing If only I had a PDF. What- why-

Chris Williamson 18:31 Okay. What's been the issue with negotiation?

Yusef 18:33 Just that she thinks it's a bit antisocial.

Jonny 18:36 Antisocial? But-

Chris Williamson 18:37 Antisocial?

Yusef 18:38 Yeah, but I think two singles will do 'cause if we're in a king, and if a king is truly two single beds, that's the perfect-

Chris Williamson 18:45 I think you're gonna want, I think you're gonna want a little bit more. I think you're gonna-

Jonny 18:47 A big slap.

Chris Williamson 18:48 ... queen. I think you're gonna want two queens.

Jonny 18:50 Two doubles.

Chris Williamson 18:51 Two doubles on a normal king is gonna be a lot.

Jonny 18:55 Is a double not smaller than... Is a queen smaller than a double?

Yusef 18:57 The amount of bandwidth given to this (laughs) this detail.

Jonny 19:00 That's why it needs a PDF.

Chris Williamson 19:00 It's important. Yeah, there'll be a PDF at some point.

Jonny 19:02 We need a matrix and a PDF.

Chris Williamson 19:03 Um, yeah. I mean, this is another thing. It's how do you sell it to the partner?

Jonny 19:06 Mm-hmm. 'Cause if that- is it, that screenshot-

Chris Williamson 19:09 On the surface, it's-

Jonny 19:09 ... a bit weird, isn't it?

George 19:10 My- my answer has just been buying the extra duvet, and then just going in the duvet.

Chris Williamson 19:14 This is the way we sleep now.

Yusef 19:16 Just do it.

Jonny 19:16 There's no benefit to the female partner.

Yusef 19:18 Just one night you just walk in with your own duvet.

George 19:19 Yeah, and, well, the i- so we-

Jonny 19:19 Well, that, it's, there's a negative.

George 19:20 I discovered it by accident because I, I read that data, didn't do it, um, and then stayed in a hotel where there was, like, a blanket ex- like, a duvet extra, um, and it was magical.

Jonny 19:29 How did they track-

George 19:30 I went from waking up five to six times a night to none.

Chris Williamson 19:32 They were using a, Aura, I think.

Jonny 19:33 Is that Whoop? Aura?

Chris Williamson 19:35 Yeah, they were on Aura.

Jonny 19:36 Guys in the way.

Chris Williamson 19:37 Make yourself a custom journal entry and let's split test this in another year's time.

George 19:41 Can you do that?

Chris Williamson 19:41 No, you just use something that it isn't.

Jonny 19:43 Some... Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:44 Like, uh, menstruating or something.

Jonny 19:45 Skiing. Something...

George 19:46 Massive bas-

Jonny 19:46 Skiing. Skiing.

George 19:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 19:47 Uh, all right. So, lessons.

Chris Williamson 19:49 First one from you, Johnny, what we got?

Jonny 19:50 Oh, my God. I thought we were doing life hacks. I was ready for...

Chris Williamson 19:52 One loop of life hacks, one loop of lessons. We can kee- keep it variety.

Jonny 19:55 Okey-dokey. Um-

Chris Williamson 19:58 Just before we actually get started with that, do you remember? It was... I know exactly where I was at a set of traffic lights when I texted both of you this years ago. I wanted to do something, I think it was called, like, um, like, lesson, lesson hacks or, like, life lessons. It was life lessons.

Jonny 20:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:13 And I was like, "Why don't we do a series of life lessons as well as life hacks?" Which is kind of what we're gonna go through here. And I seem to remember you saying something along the lines of, like, "That's a, a big shout to presume that we're sufficiently interesting to actually bestow lessons on anybody."

Jonny 20:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:29 And, uh, so I bailed out of doing that. But a couple of years later, all of the listicle-style episodes that I do, like the Hormozi-style one, uh, the ones that me and George do, if it's a list of mental models, all of that, that is the progeny of originally what I was thinking about doing from life lessons. And, um, I think it probably wasn't time at the time, but I'm, I reckon now we're, we've ascended to be.

Jonny 20:51 I thought that was-

Yusef 20:51 Plus, you're the most requested guest on the podcast as well, so...

Jonny 20:57 (laughs)

Yusef 20:58 According to my brain. (laughs)

Jonny 21:02 (laughs)

George 21:03 (laughs)

Jonny 21:03 You want to listen to me on the podcast the most, more than anyone?

Yusef 21:05 I, I, I would listen to you talking life lessons all day.

Jonny 21:07 Y- you get to, you get to talk to me all the time.

Chris Williamson 21:09 Oh, it's getting hot.

Jonny 21:10 I'm... So my first lesson is actually from you, Chris.

Chris Williamson 21:15 Okay.

Jonny 21:16 Really recently, and it's linked to what George has just said. So, if anyone's listened to life hacks from the very beginning, I've been on a real journey with tracking devices, Fitbit, Aura, Whoop, borrowed your Oura Ring years ago, didn't like it that much. Y- y- it was you sa- you summed up, I think, what the whole point of all these things is, which was you said something like, "It's not about how recovered you are or what your score is, it's just how much sleep you get."

Chris Williamson 21:46 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 21:47 And I think the point, th- what I've learned from all that stuff this year, 'cause we've had, we'll, as we'll get onto, we've had a fairly, like, jarring year.

Chris Williamson 21:55 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 21:55 Where I've realized, like, if I don't prioritize the recovery side, I'm so focused on the activity side, the training side, the step side, but I never r- like, the sleep and the recovery, like, I always push to one side. But having something to just remind you every day, like, "You should have a nap later."

Chris Williamson 22:11 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 22:12 Like, "You're taking the piss." Like, "If you keep doing this, it's gonna get worse and worse and worse." So having a recovery tracker or something external to prompt you to, like, "You are not prioritizing this, and if you don't prioritize it, it's a problem."

Chris Williamson 22:26 It's gonna scupper you.

Jonny 22:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:28 Yeah. You're gonna... Y- uh, I mean, this, I'm aware that I'm both a Whoop and Eight Sleep partner, so this is-

Jonny 22:33 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 22:33 ... maybe not great for my partnership with them.

Jonny 22:36 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 22:36 But I can give you the, the only takeaway that everybody that has one of those learns, "You're sleeping less than you think you are."

Jonny 22:42 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:43 "You're sleeping less than you..." Like, it's just Whoop.

Jonny 22:45 Constantly.

Chris Williamson 22:45 "You're sleeping less than you think you are."

Jonny 22:47 (laughs) And this is going down.

Chris Williamson 22:48 Like, "Eight Sleep, you're sleeping less than you think you are."

Yusef 22:49 That should be the tagline, yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:50 Yeah, honestly. And i- i- all that you get from tracking your sleep is, "Fuck, I, I was in bed. I was sure that I was in bed for eight hours. Turns out it was actually sort of 7:15, and of that 7:15, my efficiency was 85%, which means I got six hours and 30 minutes of sleep last night, and I thought I got eight hours." It's just that over and over and over and over and over again.

Jonny 23:12 Well, you need to be in bed for nine hours, don't you?

Chris Williamson 23:14 To get eight, yeah.

Jonny 23:15 Yeah, absolutely.

George 23:15 And you, and now you're gonna have double duvet.

Jonny 23:18 Oh, yeah. Efficiency.

George 23:18 Think about what 2024 is going to involve.

Chris Williamson 23:20 Oh.

Jonny 23:21 But, yeah. I just... It's such a-

George 23:24 There's, there's a good quote on that which, I think, I forgot who said it, but, um, "There's no such thing as being overworked. There's just under-rest."

Chris Williamson 23:31 So true. So true.

Jonny 23:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:36 I'm yet to find, I'm yet to find a time where I've been overworked. If-

Jonny 23:39 Just under-rested.

Chris Williamson 23:40 Yeah. If I get a good night's sleep and train, there's pretty much no amount of work... Are you being serious?

Jonny 23:48 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 23:48 Have you finished that?

George 23:49 No, no. I was (laughs) just plowing through the new topics.

Chris Williamson 23:51 No, you just dec- I decided to, like, there's an obvious-

Jonny 23:53 Oh, I just missed it.

Chris Williamson 23:54 ... laughing ad there.

George 23:54 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 23:54 Just was like...

George 23:56 Just trying to make eye contact with you at the same time.

Jonny 23:59 'Cause d- d- do you guys... What do you guys do? You use a Whoop.

Chris Williamson 24:04 Whoop.

Jonny 24:04 Do you just, do you just wing it with sleep?

George 24:06 I mix it up. I've used, uh, Whoop, I've used Oura. It depends on, like, different periods if I wanna test things. But like, the one thing that can-

Yusef 24:13 Like, in- in general.

George 24:13 ... the one thing that can happen is begin to have like a reverse placebo, where if I have a bad night's sleep and then I check it, I feel like I've had an even worse night's sleep.

Yusef 24:22 Mm-hmm. I think dis- for the Whoop users, completely disregarding your recovery score is a good idea.

Chris Williamson 24:27 So that- that was the quote, is y- you said, you literally said to me, w- we were walking to Eggslut in London.

Yusef 24:33 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 24:33 And you said, "It's not how recovered you are, it's how much sleep you got."

Yusef 24:35 100%

Chris Williamson 24:36 And it just... I know it's so simple, but I'm so focused on like, "Oh, it's amber today."

Yusef 24:40 Yeah. Mm-hmm. Totally.

Chris Williamson 24:40 Mm-hmm. I got eight and a half hours of sleep.

Yusef 24:42 Bro, I got... Uh, look, so I slept through my flight, uh, sorry, I stayed awake through my flight from Austin back to the UK, which means that I... Eight hours had lasted me for two days, not good. Dying all day yesterday. I got tracked on Whoop 11 hours of sleep last night, so that's probably like 11 and a half with a little bit of awakeness. But I'm only at 40% recovered. Like-

Chris Williamson 25:04 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 25:04 ... "Hey, get fucked." Right? I had 11 hours of sleep last night, I feel great today, regardless of where my HRV and my resting heart rate's at. And then there's a self-fulfilling prophecy that if you're told that you slept badly-

Chris Williamson 25:15 (coughs)

Yusef 25:15 ... you start telling yourself the story that, "Oh, maybe I..." And then you perform worse. And there's studies that- Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:20 ... confirm that, that if you're... Um, if people are told falsely that they've slept badly, they perform worse on cognitive tests than if they just

George 25:29 Like a no sleep or whatever.

Chris Williamson 25:30 ... aren't given that data. So is that

George 25:31 No sleepboat, not trackable.

Chris Williamson 25:32 No sleepboat. So I- I think you, the way you've done, uh, gone about it is great because you've identified what is the keystone needle mover, which is total sleep time. There's a lot... Tracking devices have a lot of redundant data. Excellent. Um... (laughs) They do have a lot of redundant data.

Yusef 25:50 And so my medical training's very much drilled into me that you don't test what you're not looking for, because if you just do a panel of blood tests on someone who's asymptomatic and something's out of whack, what do you do?

Chris Williamson 26:00 That's now the thing.

Yusef 26:01 You've now got a thing that you have to deal with, and you don't have a context for being able to put it into- into the context of the symptoms that they're dealing with or... So, and it adds to the bandwidth as well, doesn't it? If you, if you test loads of things all at once, if you have a smart meter, for example, and it tells you, "This is how much energy I'm using now, and this is how much it's costing me." Well, is that really gonna change my behavior or have I just added to the open loops in my head-

Chris Williamson 26:27 Yeah.

Yusef 26:27 ... of something that isn't helping? I like that. I like.

Chris Williamson 26:31 It's, yeah, so I suppose the summary is put less attention on tracking, like, the other side of the equation, 'cause you probably do that. Well, depends who's listening, which is the problem-

Yusef 26:41 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:41 ... with these things. But if you're the sort of person who wears a Whoop band, you're probably handling the activity side-

Yusef 26:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:47 ... and you probably ignore, you're like, "I'm green recovered, but I got six hours of sleep." And actually the biggest change is just-

Yusef 26:54 It's just volume of sleep.

Chris Williamson 26:54 ... focus on sleep.

Yusef 26:55 Right. Seth, lessons. Lessons. Lessons.

Yusef 26:58 So as Johnny said, we've had quite a turbulent year. Why don't you tell us about that? Why don't you both- So the, I guess the main thing is that from this time last year to now, the team has gone from two people to 19 people, which along- along with that comes a lot of operational complexity, a whole bunch of skill sets that Johnny and I just didn't have that we have to suddenly develop. We set up Propane about 10 years ago, well, 14 years ago, and we're very much like schizoid introvert type characters that just like to be at our desks doing our own thing, and we barely even communicate with each other. We're just like-

Chris Williamson 27:36 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 27:36 ... in a hole.

Chris Williamson 27:37 Well, you're- you're annoying. (laughs)

Yusef 27:38 Well, fair enough. Um, so we just kind of in the hole doing our thing and suddenly it's like, oh, there's a team and we have to learn to let go of a lot of the processes that normally we'd be handling ourselves. So the lesson has been that when you're especially running a business, it's like an accelerated version of this, and I know you've been thrown into this, is that it's, as James Clear says, "It's a vessel for self-improvement disguised as a money-making enterprise."

Chris Williamson 28:03 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 28:04 That it's the- the biggest driver of your personal growth because it comes in and just twists your nipples and finds all of the- the- the spots that you've got your trigger points, and it will force you to level up and to learn those skill sets and to grow.

Chris Williamson 28:19 Well, it's external to you. All personal growth is always done at your own pace, but the business isn't. (laughs)

Yusef 28:25 So it, yeah, it forces you along and- It's road running versus running on a treadmill.

Chris Williamson 28:29 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 28:29 Yeah. You- you're getting steamrolled and it's like a heat-seeking missile as well because it finds all of the things that would get you emotionally triggered or wound up.

Chris Williamson 28:38 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 28:39 So a difficult client or getting working late nights or getting stressed about a potential, I don't know, legal case or whatever it is. Learning to be more agreeable or disagreeable, learning to-

Chris Williamson 28:48 Well, and like-

Yusef 28:48 ... disappoint people.

Chris Williamson 28:48 ... fear that it'll go away, fear that it'll fail, fear you let people down, fear of how- how people think of you, like-

Yusef 28:53 Full spectrum.

Chris Williamson 28:54 ... they're all 10 out of 10, aren't they?

Yusef 28:55 A business is a vehicle for personal growth disguised as a wealth-making machine.

Chris Williamson 29:00 Mm-hmm.

Yusef 29:00 That's fucking brilliant. Is that in Atomic Habits? Don't think it is. Not sure.

Chris Williamson 29:04 No. One of his tweets, I think.

Yusef 29:05 Is it?

George 29:06 One of the, uh, biggest hacks, um, I've found for that is documentation. So let's say if you write quite a lot about anxiety and all the stuff when you, when you go, when you get that fourth employee and you've doubled the headcount, and if you can now go back at 19 and review those thoughts of like how worried you was and anxious you was, and you go, "Oh," and you can see the evidence of you now going, "I've now almost five X'd that," um, it makes it a lot easier to then play that again, going, "Look how anxious I was then and I figured it out." It's constant evidence. Whereas in business there's no, like, Instagram account for it, so, like, trying to-

Yusef 29:40 (laughs)

George 29:40 ... create as much documentation is-

Yusef 29:41 That's so annoying.

George 29:42 ... fun. And especially between you two guys as well, to be able to share it is-

Yusef 29:45 Oh yeah. We look back and think, "Remember that thing that we thought was a massive problem?"

Chris Williamson 29:48 You- you know what would be... You know what would be a really good way to do this? A Slack cha- a private Slack channel that's just got you two in where you can just brain dump shit to each other. Like, "Dude, I'm feeling a little bit whatever, whatever about today," and that's all that goes in there, and that would be the journal between... Especially if you've got a business partner. Gonna be tougher for the solopreneurs. I remember, it's in my day one, so day one for me is serious shit, right?

Yusef 30:12 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:12 It's like there's a per- been periods of three years where nothing's gone in, there's been periods of six weeks where I've documented three times.... day one is for, like, fucking hell, like something really dramatic has happened. I remember, there's, it's still fucking in there. There's this one where the MC for room two-

George 30:31 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:31 ... upstairs in the R&B room of Voodoo, Saturdays at Riverside, told me that he was leaving to go to a competing club night in Sunderland. And I felt that that was salient enough to put in my fucking day one.

George 30:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 30:44 Right? That was the beginning of the thing that was going to be the snowball effect that would cause the- f- first off, the, like Asian sock wasn't gonna come anymore because he was their favorite MC, and then after Asian sock went, obviously all of the other dominoes were gonna tumble and I was gonna be homeless, alone on a street, and I was gonna get gluten intolerance and live under a bridge.

George 31:01 Yeah. (laughs) Gluten intolerance. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:03 (laughs)

George 31:03 But that's perfectly appropriate because at the time, you were just reacting to the circumstances as you found them, and it was a hot button for you. Like, that's the thing that tapped into this golden thread of like, "I'm gonna be under a bridge, I'm gonna get gluten intolerance, I'm gonna have all these..."

Chris Williamson 31:17 Mm-hmm.

George 31:18 It's like, so that was like a real hot button then. And it, as you say, it's great to come back to that and be like, just-

Jonny 31:25 Yeah. Have you seen Day One has this feature c- of the On This Day feature?

Chris Williamson 31:29 Yes.

Jonny 31:29 Yeah. 'Cause I-

Chris Williamson 31:30 I don't have enough, I don't have enough entries.

Jonny 31:31 So I try and use it. I tr- just after I meditate, I just write what's on my mind. And if you just pr- always wa- there's pretty much always, if you do it often enough, there's an On This Day. On this day, eight years ago, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, and you're just like, "God, there's so many, like, recurrent things."

George 31:45 I'm gonna have to bank both of those comments for my next round 'cause-

Jonny 31:48 Okay.

George 31:48 ... you guys are front running one of my other lessons.

Chris Williamson 31:50 It's so bad. Again-

George 31:51 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:51 ... like, l- one of the worst life hack episodes is when two different people arrived and had done the same life hack, and then-

George 31:58 And you've got nothing.

Chris Williamson 31:58 Yeah. (laughs)

George 31:58 So we go, "Oh, fuck, fucking," fuck, fuck, fuck. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 32:01 Um, all right, so my first one, it's cool that we're, got this sort of human centipede of ideas coming on

Chris Williamson 32:07 here. The, um, this is from you, which is Max Content Raiser. Would you consume your own content? If not, don't post it. And that inspired Post Content Clarity, which is your content diet should be spirulina for the soul, not fast food for your amygdala. And, um, what I realized was that when you're consuming anything on the internet, it's almost alwa- it, it, it tends toward limbic hijack because if it didn't, you would watch something else which was more limbically hijacking. Mm.

George 32:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:37 You know what I mean? So during the moment of consuming pretty much anything, this podcast included, you are a bad judge of whether or not that piece of content is good for you or not, because it's just compelling. But what you can do is have a sort of pillow talk, post-coital review of, "How did that particular session of YouTube watching or TikTok scrolling or Instagram browsing make me feel? And was there anything in there that is better or worse?" And if there's stuff that continues to come in as worse, it's like unfollow, not interested in this channel, don't recommend to me again. There's all of the, all of the social medias have a way of downvoting as well as upvoting, uh, channels. And you can get rid of them, you can hide them from your feed, you can do all the rest of the stuff. And if you hide something from your feed, it's tantamount to that entire worldview or that creator just dying.

George 33:25 Mm.

Chris Williamson 33:26 Right? It's exactly the same. So...

George 33:28 Unfollowing is great, isn't it? Like, there are people who just, they always come up on your feed and they annoy you, and then when you unfollow them, it's like, "Ugh."

Chris Williamson 33:35 Yeah. Or even muting. You know, if you can't, if there's some, you know, interpersonal reason why you can't get away with the unfollow, just muting accounts that you don't like.

George 33:44 I had this, when, I- I always struggled with Instagram. Delete it, download it, da da da. Go back and forth with it. And I had this realization one day about this three-fold question of like, "Did this educate me? No. Okay, move on to the next question. Did this like entertain me or make me laugh?" So if it's like an Alan Partridge thing or a funny meme, it stays on. If no, moves on to the next list of, "Do I want to see this person in the next six months? If no, mute." And that f- th- it takes about 12 hours of pruning, like, um, or like a day and a half of pruning just whenever you're on, and immediately the newsfeed is infinitely better. That is the one thing about the, people complain about the For You algorithms, that they're filter bubbles, but you can also create a wonderful filter bubble. If all you do is like photos of dogs, you will just have a feed of dogs.

Chris Williamson 34:30 Well, we're training the algorithms on what we actually want, but the problem is that what we want in the moment is not what we want to want after the moment. Retrospectively, we wish that we were watching more of X or Y or Z. One interesting thing I think that's happening with YouTube is, I think they have time-based recommendations. So at different times of the day-

George 34:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 34:48 ... different things get recommended to me based on my viewing habits.

George 34:50 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 34:50 So I tend to listen to World War II documentaries, which, uh, Shane Gillis calls early onset Republican.

George 34:58 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 34:58 Like (laughs) -

George 34:59 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 34:59 ... getting, getting interested in history documentaries. He's like, "Yo, if your man starts watching World War II documentaries, keep an, keep an eye-"

George 35:06 It's a gateway drug for you.

Chris Williamson 35:06 It is a gateway drug. It's early onset Republican. Um, but I do that, but it only recommends them to me at night. First thing in the morning, it's not. Middle of the day, it's always 10-minute to 15-minute videos that I can watch with my lunch.

George 35:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:17 So again, just train the algo. But yeah, um, and then for the content creators or fledgling content, content creators out there, this is something that I'm battling with at the moment. There are ways to play the algorithm and there are ways to add value, and there are things that you want to do. And between, within those three prongs is some balance of what you have to do. You have to play within the limits of the algo, or else you're just gonna be shouting into the ether. But you don't wanna be completely controlled by it, because that's just audience capture. There is ways of having impact, but you can sacrifice reach and what you want to do. And then that's also, that's kind of a more virtuous version, but still a kind of audience capture. And then there's what you want to do, which can be like just total solipsism, like self-masturbatory congrat- congratulatory glory. But that's also not playing the game. So somewhere in all of them is where you want to be, but not leaning too far to just what does the audience want and what will get lots of plays. Because if you wouldn't consume it, what the fuck are you doing? And I realized this at the live shows that I was doing this tour. I would happily go for a beer with any of the people that arrived. And I know for a fucking fact that there are tons of podcasters who couldn't say the same. Like, they're not making an audience of people that are like them or people that are cool or people that are interesting. And-... every single person that came up to me, I was like, "Fucking, like, I'd happily, like, go train with this person, or go for a coffee with this person," or whatever. They're all interesting. They're all killing it. They're all in good shape. They're all, like, cool or whatever in some form or another. And yeah, would you consume your own content? If not, don't post it. It's just, it slices through all of the bullshit.

Jonny 36:45 Do you think there's a... Do you think the people who listen to your podcast are you, but, like, a previous version of?

Chris Williamson 36:53 I think-

Jonny 36:53 Like, do you have to make content for what would five years ago Chris listen to? Or th- or watch? Rather than-

Chris Williamson 36:59 I, um-

Jonny 36:59 'Cause I assume what you wanna watch now-

Chris Williamson 37:01 Is different.

Jonny 37:01 ... is probably a little bit different, right?

Chris Williamson 37:03 So, yeah. Um, but I also think that if you were posting what you ten years ago needed, it wouldn't be a few steps ahead of where you were.

Jonny 37:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:12 So, you can still frame things in the learnings that you've had. You know, all of us have been shaped by your time, uh, i- in a Big Four accounting firm, your time as a doctor, your time in a bunch of different agencies, or moving to London to go do this thing. So you talk where you're at, but you frame it with where you've been.

Jonny 37:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:28 And I think that that helps people to get along the steps. This is an Ali Abdaal thing, where he said, "You don't want to teach people who are ten steps behind you, because you can't remember the problems that you had ten steps ago."

Jonny 37:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:39 "You want to teach people that are sort of three or four steps behind you, because it gives them the path. It allows you to still be within that purview." But this is, uh, you know, a reason for tracking the journey, again, as we said about taking photos, about noting things down. Because if you don't track the journey, all of those learnings are just lost, and you can't remember the things that were only salient to you five years ago as revolutionary, because now they're taken for granted.

George 38:03 You see that with like wealth gurus. So like Grant Cardone saying, "Oh yeah, when you're buying companies, you really need to figu- remember that this is a..." And it's like, for a regular person off the street. Or talking about how you're gonna, um, rent your fourth holiday home in Andorra, like, it, it's stuff that's so far removed from-

Chris Williamson 38:22 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 38:22 And it's like aggravating.

George 38:22 ... his life. Yeah, 'cause you're like, "Well, what do I do with that?"

Chris Williamson 38:25 Yeah.

Jonny 38:26 Yeah.

George 38:26 Do you think that a possible pressure valve, the... 'Cause I see a lot of YouTubers that will have a second channel for that kind of monologue stuff.

Chris Williamson 38:32 Uncensored, unfiltered-

George 38:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 38:34 ... whatever.

George 38:34 Do you think that's just for them to scratch the itch of content they want to create, but they don't wanna post on the main channel?

Chris Williamson 38:38 So that's interesting. Well, there's lots of second channels that are also dog shit. Like, like, the j- th- they, they still don't add value. I heard this term a little while ago, I probably need you guys to help spin this up. Uh, growth hacking relatability or speedrunning authenticity. And a lot of people try to do that. It's like, wha- what are the ways that I can make mysel- self seem more authentic or relatable than I am? But it's one of these things that's just, it's like the speed of light. It's like, you are as authentic as you are authentic. And trying to growth hack authenticity results in you seeming even less authentic.

George 39:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 39:11 It's the Brian Rose effect, right? Like, fucking shadow boxing under a bridge with degenerate skateboarders.

Jonny 39:17 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 39:17 Looking for a bear market in a bush.

Jonny 39:20 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 39:20 Like... He is.

Jonny 39:22 Oh, God.

Chris Williamson 39:23 He is.

George 39:25 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 39:26 (laughs) Me and George, I, we'll, I'll... Can I tell them the story about that day we did VR?

George 39:31 Oh yeah, go for it.

Chris Williamson 39:31 Right, okay. So, uh, where, what were we here for?

George 39:35 Uh...

Chris Williamson 39:35 What were we in town for? Arc? No.

George 39:39 I can't even remember.

Chris Williamson 39:40 We were in t-

George 39:40 The whole thing blurred.

Chris Williamson 39:41 We came to London, we've been, we've been back and forth so many times. We came to London for some event, and we had a day, and I had some mushrooms with me, some k- magic mushroom capsules. So me and George decided to do two, we, we double bubble bang-banged the world's two most advanced virtual reality experiences, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds at ... in London, and then the Tower of London virtual reality experience. Uh, we did those back-to-back on mushrooms. So if you think that mushrooms is crazy, mushrooms in VR with a full, c- like, cast of actors around you, for two hours, twice in the same day...

George 40:21 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:21 Was just fucking mind-blowing. I just-

George 40:24 That's enough to induce a psychotic break, isn't it?

Chris Williamson 40:26 Well we ta- we... I think the dosage was pretty optimal.

Jonny 40:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:29 Like we, it was like a na- like a 0.7, 0.8 kind of like, just f- like nice little fluffy thing, but it made everything seem so much more real.

Jonny 40:36 Did you plan to do both?

George 40:37 Well this is it-

Jonny 40:37 Or did you do one and you were like, "Ah, I wanna..."

George 40:39 Well, I saw, I go, I'm meeting up with Chris today. And I go to him, I go, "Oh, what do you wanna do today? Do you wanna go on like a walk, maybe sauna, quick workout?" And he goes, "I've got some mushrooms and we could go to a VR world."

Chris Williamson 40:46 (laughs)

George 40:47 I go, "I guess, let's flip a coin then," right?

Jonny 40:49 So similar, yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:50 Yeah. It was fucking brilliant.

Jonny 40:52 It was a good day.

Chris Williamson 40:52 What a day. Right, you're

Chris Williamson 40:54 up.

George 40:54 Um, my one, so, um, related to the chat so far, uh, so the content razor that we spoke about then is very midwit. Um, it's very, what is the simple answer that works? And the big thing for me this year has been the midwit meme. I've, I'm quite obsessive about the midwit meme, because I'm a midwit. I, I've diagnosed myself as a midwit, I'm a recovering midwit. I think you have to say it publicly to s- start recovering from it. And I did something that was quite midwit, but I think it ends up working, which is like trying to figure out an algorithm that moves you to the guy on the left, to the stupid guy on the left. Because if you try and be the genius on the right, that's what the midwit does. Whereas what you wanna do is simplify it down of, rather than a complex content strategy of scheduling at 2:30 PM every single day, and this editing strategy from Alex Hormozi, it's, "No, would I consume this?" So, the midwit algorithm is basically, it's what we spoke about in the first episode, but I've kind of completely neglected it, which is just basic inversion. So, the biggest takeaway for me is... So let's say, I've got like three examples here. So one is writing, (laughs) one is writing, the other is e-commerce, um, or like an internet business, and the other one is happiness. So, for like writing, like the obvious midwit thing would be to consume the best writers of all time and find out their specific morning routines and trying to reverse it backwards. Versus with inversion you just say, "If you was to make sure you was a terrible writer, what would you do?"Well, the first thing you'd do is you wouldn't write (laughs) , right? The second thing you would do is you would write inconsistently, if you ever did. And then the third thing is actually what you said then, which is you'd write about things you didn't like to write about.

Chris Williamson 42:32 I think there's a fourth.

Jonny 42:33 (laughs)

George 42:33 Go on.

Chris Williamson 42:33 You would, you would do things that make you feel like you're making progress toward writing-

George 42:38 Yes.

Chris Williamson 42:38 ... but aren't writing.

George 42:39 Yes, exactly.

Chris Williamson 42:40 Yeah.

George 42:40 And all of a sudden you, via just inverting, you found out what the guy on the left would say. It'd be like, "Write. Write consistently, and write what you like." And then even internet businesses, where I see this a lot, where people have these complex dynamic flows to this chat bot that then moves them through this AB cycle. Versus if you went, okay, you wanted to guarantee an internet business would fail, what would you do? Well, one, you'd have like the world's worst margins. So you'd make like what, like 0.1% margin. It would give you the worst margins possible. The second thing is there's like no repeat purchase, so there's such little LTV. And th- and also the average order value is tiny. And then there'd be like a zero principle, which would be like, you're selling shit sandwiches, you're selling something that nobody wants. So you'd be selling shit with no margin, no repeat purchases.

Jonny 43:30 Make it really hard to buy, make the site lo- pa- site page-

George 43:32 But even before that-

Jonny 43:33 ... load speed really slow.

George 43:33 ... that would be later down the list, but it just, right now, just shit sandwiches with no margin, no repeat customer.

Jonny 43:40 Thing is, shit sandwich has got a bit of a niche appeal though.

George 43:42 It's probably niche. Yeah. There we go.

Jonny 43:43 It's like the Nazi milk.

George 43:44 There we go.

Yusef 43:44 Did we talk about that?

George 43:45 No. No.

Chris Williamson 43:45 Oh, what's that?

Yusef 43:46 Oh, it was... Uh, correct me if I- if this rings a bell or you get it... So it was a woman sat doing photo shoots with Nazi memorabilia all around her, and she's got her feet in some milk, and she's bathing in milk and then bottles it up and sells it online as Nazi milk. And quite a decent markup on that. But again, niche appeal. You think, "Well-"

Chris Williamson 44:08 Didn't Belle Delphine sell her bath water?

Yusef 44:10 Oh, don't know.

Chris Williamson 44:11 Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Bathe in a bath.

Jonny 44:12 Well, those are both things that people want-

Chris Williamson 44:14 Actually wanted to buy.

Jonny 44:15 I think sh- anyway.

Chris Williamson 44:16 Anyway, moving, moving on from somebody, we have to achieve...

George 44:18 Back off Nazi milk. (laughs) This, this podcast sponsor.

Jonny 44:21 (laughs)

George 44:22 Um, so, uh, and then happiness is another one where people are doing such like complex strategies for that and going to Peru and taking ayahu- which again, there's probably a time and a place for, but if you had to make somebody miserable, terrible sleep, terrible diet and exercise, and terrible people. And midway, the way to find out what the guy on the left would be is just to invert things round and avoid the top three or four. So that's my big takeaway.

Jonny 44:44 So like what is it not? What is the opposite of success?

George 44:46 Exactly. And then just-

Jonny 44:48 And avoid those things.

George 44:48 ... avoid, avoid those things.

Chris Williamson 44:49 What would someo- what would someone that was going to run a terrible online fitness bu- well, like if you-

Jonny 44:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:53 ... wanted to try and make the worst online fitness business you could, what would be the three things to try to do?

Jonny 44:58 Top three. Don't do them.

Chris Williamson 44:58 Yeah.

George 44:59 Yes. Yeah, because... And most, most, sorry just to put in, but most smart people will get caught up on the 16th smart thing for success and not avoid-

Chris Williamson 45:06 Demos it.

George 45:07 ... those things, including myself.

Jonny 45:08 We, we have a, a phrase which is just, "Stay stupid" with the advice.

George 45:11 Yeah.

Jonny 45:11 So like as soon as you start trying to make something complicated, like what would the stupid person do? They wouldn't understand the complexity. The difficulty is, I think, convincing yourself that the stupid advice is actually the... 'Cause there's a, there's examples of things where it seems simple, but it actually is the wrong thing to do.

Chris Williamson 45:27 What like?

Jonny 45:29 I knew you were gonna ask me. Okay, so going and training chest every day, for example. "I wanna get in good shape, I'm just gonna train chest every day. What do I like doing? I like training chest. I'll just do pec deck every day." It, that's simple advice, but it's probably not the best thing to pr-

Chris Williamson 45:42 There's a level of being informed that you need to get through.

Jonny 45:44 You need to like get just over the, like to have some-

Chris Williamson 45:47 Yeah. It's like a white belt mentality, right?

Jonny 45:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:48 Like the white belt actually does know. So all of the shit that you learn when you first start boxing, it's like, "Here is how to throw a good jab." Guess what you're gonna throw most of during your entire boxing career? Jabs.

Jonny 45:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:58 But then when you get to blue belt syndrome or purple belt syndrome, the equivalent in boxing, and you're like, "Yeah, well it's all about like my back off hand uppercut."

Jonny 46:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 46:06 "Like that's really where I'm o-" It's like, no, no, get fucked.

Jonny 46:09 This is the way to figure it out, isn't it? You look at what are you a black belt in now? And then think back, "What was I trying to do when I was a white belt? And I've just come all the way back to basics, and I'm just doing the basics consistently well."

Chris Williamson 46:21 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 46:21 You also had one which was someone asked Youssef recently like what's a pre- like what's his recommendation for pre-workout nutrition?

Chris Williamson 46:29 Mm-hmm.

Jonny 46:29 And he was like, "Oh, like coffee and some like honey on toast or something." And he's like, "That sits on both sides, the coffee and the honey on toast. It's the first thing you try before you do your first arm session."

Chris Williamson 46:39 (laughs) .

Jonny 46:39 And then you go through all the like arginine- Purple Psycho and-

Chris Williamson 46:43 E- se- yeah.

Jonny 46:44 Creatine methyl ester.

Chris Williamson 46:45 I mean, and your blueberry extract inside of a Nalgene bottle.

George 46:47 And you're like, "Oh, I'm gonna train later, I'll have some honey on toast and a coffee." I don't know.

Chris Williamson 46:50 Yeah.

Jonny 46:51 So it's trying to find the... But it's still informed enough that it's useful.

Chris Williamson 46:54 Tell you what's m- what's mental about this is that the first ever episode that me and George did in your old, old, old, old offices at Social Chain where we did inversion, how do you make, uh... I- it's hard to work out how to be happy, but it's easy to work out how to make a happy person miserable.

Jonny 47:09 Yes.

Chris Williamson 47:10 This is one of the most painful things that I've had to realize, which is many of the questions that I struggle with now exist in podcasts I recorded-

Jonny 47:20 Oh, no.

Chris Williamson 47:20 ... at some point over the last six years.

Yusef 47:23 Getting front run again. (laughs)

Jonny 47:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:27 (laughs)

Jonny 47:27 But y- you know what? We-

Chris Williamson 47:28 (laughs)

Jonny 47:29 ... we clearly, we clearly have had a very similar 2023, so.

Chris Williamson 47:32 Yeah, I mean it's been, I think... Maybe you, you just get disquieted by less stuff than us.

Jonny 47:37 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:37 Like you're j- you're psychologically more stable, I think, than both of us.

Jonny 47:41 Th- this is the trend I'm noticing, that like here we are coming up with these half-formed ideas, and th- and then George is like, "Well, I've actually got an algorithm for that and a full process-"

Chris Williamson 47:47 Yeah.

Jonny 47:47 "... that I've thought about, and it's very..."

Chris Williamson 47:48 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

George 47:48 There is something to be said though about, um, making conte- forgetting that you made it, and then it coming back to you. So like I said... So David Senra from Foundrs recently tagged me in something where it was, there's two kinds of people on the internet, um, one that doesn't understand the scale of the internet, and the other n- uh, the other are people that know they don't understand the scale of the internet. And he then quoted me, and I was like, "I didn't realize I said that," but I go, "That's good."

Chris Williamson 48:14 (laughs)

Jonny 48:16 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:16 So there's two-

George 48:16 I went back and found it, like I did say that.

Chris Williamson 48:18 Uh, right. So there's two ways that this happens as well. The first one is you get quoted by someone saying a thing that you forgot that you'd said. That's level one. Level infinity is you get quoted by people who attribute quotes to you that you never said-

George 48:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:31 ... because it seems like it fits. So th- I've told y- all of you guys about this before, but Churchillian drift is the name of the phenomenon whereby unattributed quotes get attributed to Churchill more and more over time. And it's like what you want is to develop like...... Williamsonian drift. Like you want to insert yourself into a niche whereby it's people that go, "I don't know who said that. That sounds like a, like a Chris Williamson thing." Like that's why y-

Yusef 48:53 This is why you gotta be very careful with the other Chris Williamson. You try it, like- (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:56 Oh, the anti-semite.

Jonny 48:57 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:58 Well, uh, you know, this is also where it would be useful to have a Andrew Tate-esq army of Vietnamese repurposers. Just starting to post quotes with, like, unattributed but, like, supposedly attributed to Chris Williamson to create the trend. That's how you begin that tsunami. That's great. I really like that one. Is there anything else on inversion?

Jonny 49:16 That's it. Just, um, think of the top three to five things, flip it around, and you've figured out how to be the guy on the left. And you will forget those things time and time again.

Chris Williamson 49:27 All right, Johnny?

Jonny 49:28 Be the guy on the left. Am I on hack or lesson?

Chris Williamson 49:31 Hack,

Chris Williamson 49:32 please.

Jonny 49:33 (inhales deeply) Uh, TickTick.

Chris Williamson 49:38 Ah, here we go.

Jonny 49:39 Here we go.

Yusef 49:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:42 So-

Jonny 49:42 All right.

Chris Williamson 49:42 ... I'm ge- I'm personally invested in this one. So-

Jonny 49:45 Yeah?

Chris Williamson 49:46 ... this is, this is now an ad read for TickTick for me.

Jonny 49:49 Okay.

Chris Williamson 49:49 Forget the fact that there's a few million people-

Jonny 49:50 In other, other news.

Chris Williamson 49:52 Don't say that anymore.

Jonny 49:53 (laughs) Sorry.

Chris Williamson 49:54 That's all right. Don't worry.

Jonny 49:56 Is it now just news?

Yusef 49:57 Because I think we've done Chris dirty-

Jonny 49:58 News.

Yusef 49:58 ... with TickTick, haven't we?

Jonny 50:00 Well, I-

Chris Williamson 50:00 You fucking left me out to dry.

Yusef 50:02 (laughs) Are you still on OmniFocus?

Chris Williamson 50:02 You hung me out to dry.

Jonny 50:04 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:04 Would you like to tell-

Jonny 50:05 Are you still on OmniFocus?

Chris Williamson 50:06 W- Yes. Would you like to tell the story of what you did to me?

Jonny 50:09 Well, uh, I mean, I, I thought at the time, Chris, I was doing the right thing. Okay. I mean, where do I begin?

Yusef 50:15 I- if only you'd just listened to my advice-

Chris Williamson 50:16 See, he says-

Yusef 50:17 ... back in 2016.

Jonny 50:18 S- the problem is that, and, you know, we, we love you very much, but a lot of Yusuf's software recommendations come from a, like a niche-

Chris Williamson 50:29 Bean mentality.

Jonny 50:30 Y- Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:31 They come from a very dry roasted bean mentality.

Jonny 50:33 So it's called Bean.

Yusef 50:34 I, I'm what you would call an early adopter. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 50:36 You are an early adopter.

Jonny 50:37 No, you're the early adopter's early adopter.

Yusef 50:38 But you early, you we-

Jonny 50:39 Yeah.

Yusef 50:39 (laughs)

Jonny 50:39 You early adopt everything, which means some of it, some of it sticks and some of it doesn't. The reason it's called Bean is instead of, like, Microsoft Word, you used software called Bean. Which, uh, do you still use it?

Yusef 50:51 No, it was some really lightweight open source text editor.

Chris Williamson 50:55 Just to check, have you got YouTube Premium yet?

Yusef 50:58 I don't need it.

Chris Williamson 51:00 So-

Yusef 51:00 No, no, no.

Chris Williamson 51:01 Have you still got the- N- what was the, what was the question that I asked?

Yusef 51:02 No, have you still got the Argentinian version for, like, 70p a month or something?

Chris Williamson 51:06 Yes, correct, through a VPN. Um, but that's, that's it. You spend how much money per year on YouTube ads?

Yusef 51:12 Can we just say the Argentinian YouTube Premium. Let's just not, let's not skim over that.

Chris Williamson 51:16 (laughs)

Yusef 51:16 'Cause tha- 'cause that is beaning if I ever saw one.

Chris Williamson 51:18 (laughs)

Yusef 51:18 That is Syrian dry roasted.

Chris Williamson 51:20 (laughs)

Jonny 51:21 Bean. Bean.

Chris Williamson 51:24 Oh.

Jonny 51:25 Don't you worry, habibi.

Yusef 51:26 Habibi, it's okay.

Jonny 51:28 So, all that is to say that when, when Yusuf says, "I've got this bit of software, I think it's good," you just let it, you let it simmer for at least 90 days.

Chris Williamson 51:38 Fair enough.

Jonny 51:38 And then ask him again. Um, TickTick is one of those things. It's a calendar, to-do list, habit tracker. Anything else?

Yusef 51:49 Pomodoro timer.

Jonny 51:50 Pomodoro timer, does stats, all these sorts of things. But the thing it's given me is, which is a little bit going against... Yusuf and I have had a debate a long time about how you treat a calendar. Yusuf puts all of his tasks in his calendar, and I just put events in my calendar.

Chris Williamson 52:06 And then deletes them.

Jonny 52:07 And then deletes them. Or defers them. (laughs) But I s- I recommended OmniFocus to you f- five years ago, four years?

Chris Williamson 52:18 Four.

Jonny 52:18 And you've been using it since.

Chris Williamson 52:19 I've been locked in. I've been grandfathered in. I even took Peter Akki's course on it.

Jonny 52:25 You know what?

Chris Williamson 52:25 And then I brought Peter Akkis on the show separately.

Yusef 52:28 You know what I respect about you, Chris, is that, like, when you say, "Okay, I'm gonna take on this recommendation."

Chris Williamson 52:34 Yeah.

Yusef 52:34 You really do it.

Chris Williamson 52:35 Yeah. Yeah, you go for it.

Jonny 52:36 You are one of the least flaky men I've ever met.

Chris Williamson 52:39 Well, you saw me doing, uh, Achilles rehab when we first went to Dubai.

Jonny 52:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:44 Maniacally doing Achilles.

Jonny 52:45 That would have been, like, here.

Chris Williamson 52:47 Uh, that would have been h- wouldn't it?

Jonny 52:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:47 This is where I was laid with my foot up. Uh, but-

Yusef 52:50 Notoriously boring.

Jonny 52:50 With an upset tummy.

Chris Williamson 52:51 Y- we went to, uh, we went to Dubai and George is laid by a pool like reading, like, like, throwing manga quotes at me.

Jonny 52:58 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 52:58 And I'm, I'm, I'm over there doing five-second decentric, like, single-legged soleus raises.

Jonny 53:03 When you did the McGill big three, like, you us- you used to go-

Chris Williamson 53:07 Thousands of hours.

Jonny 53:07 ... to CrossFit.

Chris Williamson 53:08 Thousands of hours.

Jonny 53:08 Everyone else is doing the WOD.

Chris Williamson 53:10 Thousands of hours I've done

George 53:10 You- you were just in the corner just-

Chris Williamson 53:12 Thousands of hours, I've done bird dog, and side plank, and McGill curl-up.

Jonny 53:16 Do you regret it?

Chris Williamson 53:17 Not at all. Not at all.

Jonny 53:18 I'm curious.

Chris Williamson 53:18 I now have a spine that, that functions.

Jonny 53:19 That works.

Chris Williamson 53:20 Yep.

Jonny 53:20 Um, so the thing it... Uh, I remember you saying to me, like, "I'm doing my weekly review and I hate it, and uh-"

Chris Williamson 53:25 Hate it. Hate it.

Jonny 53:26 And I just kept saying, like, "Just, just, just do it, Chris. It's good for you." TickTick makes that easier.

Chris Williamson 53:30 Okay.

Jonny 53:31 So, I basically just... Every, nothing... The hack is, nothing leaves the inbox without a date attached to it. But it's not necessarily a date you'll do the thing. And then all you have to do is look at the today view on TickTick. And you go down... At the start of the day, I look at, there's a batched box at the top. I either drag it to a time slot I'm gonna do it that day, or I review it, cancel it, delete it, delegate it. That's the hack.

Chris Williamson 53:58 Do you have group view on TikTok, TickTick?

Jonny 54:01 No.

Chris Williamson 54:01 Can you send it to, like, each other? Can-

Jonny 54:03 He can email things to his inbox and he can email things to my inbox.

Chris Williamson 54:06 No, yeah, but you can't view each other's-

Jonny 54:07 You can add shared lists.

Chris Williamson 54:09 You can't sh- Right, okay. That's pretty good. So if you're working on a project together, you could delegate tasks.

Jonny 54:13 Now, can s- Yusuf's convulsing. Can you see it?

Chris Williamson 54:15 Yeah.

Jonny 54:15 "What?"

Yusef 54:15 Well, well, we have a-

Chris Williamson 54:16 Omni, because he's just got so much to say.

Yusef 54:17 ... we have a shared list. Well, yeah, but you, you, uh, you're a good example of separating planning from execution. So, you have the planning time and then you turn up on the day, and you just-

Jonny 54:27 Do.

Chris Williamson 54:27 ... work through the task.

Jonny 54:28 I'm bad at that. It's something I've changed my mind on this year, big time. I thought it was terrible. Tried it, didn't like it, got rid of it. Went back to OmniFocus. But you just-

Chris Williamson 54:37 Then move to Things 3.

Jonny 54:37 Then move to Things 3.

Chris Williamson 54:38 Don't forget your brief period you-

Jonny 54:39 I, of course, I've tried everything. It's like, it's like Whoop. I've tried the whole...

Chris Williamson 54:41 But, the gamut.

Jonny 54:42 Yeah, the gamut. (laughs)

Yusef 54:43 Don't forget, don't forget-

Chris Williamson 54:44 The smorgasbord.

Yusef 54:44 ... I was about to switch to Things 3. I'm so-

Jonny 54:46 And I made fun of you, didn't I?

Yusef 54:47 I'm on such satellite delay.

Chris Williamson 54:49 ... from you. I'm Douglas Murray in the Gaza Strip, like waiting for Piers Morgan like-

George 54:54 We've just got packet loss, haven't we?

Chris Williamson 54:57 Yes, yes.

George 54:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 54:57 Thanks, Piers. I've got you. Like, that's me in a fucking flak jacket.

George 55:01 We'll get you on TickTick.

Chris Williamson 55:02 Right. Well, I want you-

George 55:03 2024, Chris.

Chris Williamson 55:03 I- you've both promised me that one of you will sit down and, and transfer everything over.

George 55:07 We have quite different flows. Quite different

Yusef 55:09 I've got a full guide on YouTube that walks through-

Chris Williamson 55:11 I've already watched it. I've already watched-

Yusef 55:12 You've watched it already?

Chris Williamson 55:12 I've watched the full thing.

Yusef 55:13 Ahead of the curve.

Chris Williamson 55:14 Of course. Well, I wanted to get the best in before you sit down and personally coach me through it. And I feel like, to be honest, I feel like it should be you.

George 55:21 I just... Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:22 Because you cursed me with three years of the most advanced task manager-

George 55:25 It's punishment. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 55:25 ... in history. Yeah, it is. It's just r- like recompense.

George 55:28 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:29 Do you know what I mean?

George 55:29 You're right. I d- I put you right in the deep end.

Chris Williamson 55:31 Yeah, you did.

George 55:31 They have just launched the new OmniFocus.

Chris Williamson 55:33 What's this?

George 55:33 They've just launched the new one.

Chris Williamson 55:35 I don't care.

George 55:35 It's quite interesting with, like, social networks or apps that are bad for you, they quite quickly get a moat. Like there's Instagram, Facebook-

Chris Williamson 55:42 Oh, he's gone.

George 55:43 There we go.

Chris Williamson 55:43 He's gone. He's bailed out. Right, well if you... E- you have to be at least partly Christmased, so there you go.

George 55:48 Um, you have like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. And only recently has TikTok really come along. But with productivity apps, there's so... It's so... Such decentralization and so much churn from product to product.

Chris Williamson 56:00 People leave.

George 56:01 But I do like what you said then about the life hack, and I do think you... That's the problem I often have with life hacks is, if a friend has just started one, you need that cooling off period.

Chris Williamson 56:09 Yeah.

George 56:10 'Cause that's the time when they're gonna be the loudest.

Chris Williamson 56:11 So you still use them. Yeah, yeah.

George 56:11 But if they come back in 90 days... That's the meta life hack today which is wait at least 90 days for all life hacks.

Chris Williamson 56:17 Well, you- I sent you that thing the other day that was Paul Bloom quote, quote tweeting someone else, where it was like, um, uh, "I've just learned about the recency bias, and I have to say out of all of them, it's my favorite."

George 56:26 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 56:29 (laughs)

George 56:31 Very good.

56:31 So yeah, when someone says something to you, set a reminder in TickTick. Right, you get 90 days' time.

56:34 There we go, 90 days. All right.

George 56:36 Saf, you're up.

Yusef 56:37 So, the most enduring life hack, you guys will be no stranger to this, but I feel like since we've... This is a, a new audience seeing this.

Chris Williamson 56:45 (laughs)

Yusef 56:46 It's got to be Alfred.

Chris Williamson 56:48 Oh, wow. Yeah, okay.

Yusef 56:49 So Alfred is one of the OG life hacks, and I have got to be one of the heaviest users. So I've checked my stats. I've used it 400,000 times.

Chris Williamson 56:59 (laughs)

Yusef 56:59 400-

George 56:59 Oh my god.

57:00 Wow.

Yusef 57:00 ... 400 times a day. I-

Chris Williamson 57:02 400 times a day?

Yusef 57:03 I invoke Alfred 400 times a day.

Chris Williamson 57:05 (laughs) Invoke him.

George 57:05 You?

Yusef 57:05 It is like, it is, it is him. It's a $20 piece of software like Spotlight that genuinely I would pay four figures for.

Chris Williamson 57:13 Happily. Happily pay-

Yusef 57:13 Happily, yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:14 Happily pay four figures.

George 57:14 But not five?

Yusef 57:16 Probably. If, i- if they-

George 57:17 He's got a mortgage on his Alfred app.

Chris Williamson 57:20 (laughing) Yeah.

George 57:20 (laughing)

Chris Williamson 57:20 I've had to pay for it on Klarna through Alex.

Yusef 57:21 That's it, they, they could have me over a barrel. So Alfred developers, please don't...

George 57:26 I remember when you changed laptops. You said the thing you were most concerned about was changing your Alfred workload.

Chris Williamson 57:31 Your Alfred preferences were fucked.

Yusef 57:31 Alfred preferences, yeah, like-

Chris Williamson 57:32 It is a bastard. I had to go through it with you.

Yusef 57:34 It feels like walking through treacle using a computer that doesn't have Alfred. And I've worked in the NHS and that's like...

George 57:40 (laughs)

Yusef 57:41 So...

Chris Williamson 57:42 (laughs) Well, didn't... I come from a conversion rate optimization background.

George 57:46 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 57:46 Um, okay, so Alfred is the hack. Let's say that no one... People that are listening don't know.

Yusef 57:50 So they describe it as Spotlight on steroids. So it's a...

Chris Williamson 57:55 What's Spotlight?

Yusef 57:55 Spotlight is the little magnifying glass button on your keyboard on your Mac.

Chris Williamson 58:01 Command+Space if you're watching this on a MacBook.

Yusef 58:02 Command+Space opens up any web page or file or app or whatever. But Alfred has a load of extensibility as well. So you can con- I can control all of my lights, my Bluetooth, um, clipboard history, paste in, uh, text expansion, so if you start typing your mobile number, texts that you often send quite a lot like, "Hello. Thank you for your inquiry," blah, blah, blah, "Best wishes," all that kind of stuff, you just have it at the tip of your fingers, and it is saved.

Chris Williamson 58:30 What do you use the most?

Yusef 58:31 The clipboard history.

Chris Williamson 58:32 Same here.

Yusef 58:33 And snippets.

Chris Williamson 58:33 That's, that was what's... That's the biggest-

Yusef 58:34 Clipboard manager, huge. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:35 Anyone that doesn't have a Clipboard Manager, that spends a modicum amount, any more time on their MacBook or th- their laptop... I- it's MacBook only as well, isn't it? It's so racist, I love it.

Yusef 58:46 Well, it's (laughs) -

Chris Williamson 58:46 So bigoted.

Yusef 58:47 I, I love that though as well, 'cause it's like if you're using a Windows computer, you've got bigger problems.

Chris Williamson 58:51 Yeah. Let me learn you.

George 58:53 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:53 Uh, let me learn you about this. Um, the Clipboard Manager is insane. So for the most part, you can only copy the last thing that... You can only paste the last thing you copied.

George 59:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:03 Whereas this is... You can set it up to basically infinity.

George 59:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:06 But it's like, I think for me, it's the last 300 or 500 or something things, which means that you can go through a document or a web page and find all of the different things that you need to copy, and then go onto where you need to paste them and paste all of the different things that you need to paste.

George 59:19 Smart.

Chris Williamson 59:19 Full Clipboard Manager. Uh, you can even do conditional formatting when it comes to the snippets-

Yusef 59:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:24 ... which is their text expansion. So I have an invite message. My invite for the podcast has got progressively shorter. Now it's, "Hi there, can you direct me to whoever handles your podcast invites please? Thanks." Uh, and that's INV3, INV2 is when I need to show a little bit more, uh, how would you say, like reputational ankle, like a sort of-

George 59:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 59:44 ... hmm, hmm, there's a little bit. Uh, and then-

George 59:48 A bit more skin.

Chris Williamson 59:48 ... INV1 is... I haven't updated that in forever.

George 59:52 Is that short shorts?

Chris Williamson 59:53 No, it's huge. That's... Oh yeah, I think it is.

George 59:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:55 Yeah, cool. That's OnlyFans, OnlyFans free member access. Um.

Yusef 1:00:00 Very nice. Yeah, so I've got a full guide on that as well that kind of... To walk through, but just start playing around with it and you'll figure out so many-

George 1:00:08 You can get a free trial period I think with OmniFocus.

Yusef 1:00:10 With?

George 1:00:10 With uh, uh-

1:00:11 Ooh.

1:00:11 ... fucking Alfred, sorry.

Yusef 1:00:12 There's a free version, but then the, the real juice comes from the $20. It's $20 once off like Canva.

George 1:00:17 Power pack.

Chris Williamson 1:00:17 Yeah.

George 1:00:17 You'd pay five figures for that.

Yusef 1:00:20 100%.

George 1:00:21 That's the delta of price to...

1:00:22 I think it's you pay five figures for use of setup.

1:00:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:00:25 I think our, our, our setup's probably worth in the, like high four-figure range.

George 1:00:29 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.

1:00:30 Ethereum.

Chris Williamson 1:00:32 Uh, all right. What have I got next? Uh...

Chris Williamson 1:00:38 Right, I'll go for this one. Um, I'm pretty certain that hold luggage is a PSYOP meant to keep you poor and late.

George 1:00:44 Wow.

Chris Williamson 1:00:44 I am yet to find a scenario in which hand luggage isn't sufficient. Now you need to get good luggage-... that's a huge mediator of this. Mm-hmm. But I was on tour, me and James Smith, I did 29 days on the road, just hand luggage. Wow. Wow. No waiting ever- That's not good. ... for luggage to come out the other end. It's always with you at all times. Uh, and it causes you to be a little bit more thoughtful with what it is that you're packing, which is important because what you find is if you've got like f- Dude, hold luggage is massive, 23 kilos, unless you're carrying a ton of conditioner and shampoo. I was gonna say, where do you put your TRESemme? (laughs) Your salon-grade shampoo. We once went- Liquids is there. We once went- Yeah. ... to Iceland, not the con- supermarket, the country. (Laughs) Place. We once drove to Edinburgh while Youssuf had meningitis, to fly to Iceland, and I tried to transport five kilos of TRESemme, uh, because I just hadn't thought- Liters of shampoo and conditioner. ... I hadn't thought to decant it into something smaller. Wow. You managed to sweet talk the Glaswegian- Mm-hmm. ... person at the desk- Of course I did, course I did. ... who will do that, to transport liquids as well? Yeah, yeah. Mind-blowing. Yeah. I sweet-talk Glaswegians into worse. Um- Into a national security threat for Iceland. Yeah, yeah. (laughs) Too much TRESemme. "What is this that you've brought with you?" (laughs) Um, so- Cheapest thing there. Uh, it was the cheapest thing there. But yeah, um, hold luggage is a psy-op, meant to keep you poor and late. So- And you can get away with hand luggage only quite easily. I have a lot of questions. Hit me. Liquids. Uh, get travel-size containers. And do you run out? Do you buy more when you travel? Up to a hundred, up to a hundred mil, no. So I will caveat this, there's a couple of complications. First one is going to be if you use spray antiperspirant- Mm-hmm. ... very difficult to find a 75 mil of that. Mm-hmm. Very difficult. Lots of 105 mils, which is fucking infuriating. Um, don't wanna use a roll-on, not a massive fan of a roll-on, would rather go for a spray. That's a, that's a challenge. Yes, liquids, but largely- So do you buy an antipersp when you, when you, when you arrive somewhere? N- uh, if y- it depends how many stops you're doing. If this is one trip, yes. If it's multiple trips, no, 'cause that's just you, that's intiminta- intermittent purchasing. So you can get, you know, like 25 mil spray thing- Right. ... and just get like three or four or five of them and just throw them in. And you, you must be doing, like you must be washing your clothes regularly. I did la- I did laundry while I was there. Yeah. But I don't know about you, I, m- the, uh, how would you say, like Overton window of acceptable clothing, to me, isn't that broad. I don't have much more than about a hold luggage's worth of clothes that are like nice and cool to me at any one time. Mm-hmm. So for me to cycle through that stuff, I would probably be doing it anyway, and I would just have random surplus pieces of clothing- Mm-hmm. ... that wouldn't get worn, 'cause I'm like, "Ugh, don't like that T-shirt. Like, I really love that T-shirt though, so I'll get that one washed and I'll do it again." So I'd probably do that even if I was in hold luggage mode. And then what is the, what is the hand luggage recommendation? So before I started spending any amount of money on luggage, I would've said, "Luggage is luggage, it's fucking pointless. Like, why are you even trying to do it?" Then I upgraded and got an Away, which is pretty good, uh, and that has sort of tie-down straps that make things like much more organized. And then I started using Nomatic before I was a partner with them, so I bought their stuff and then became a partner with them, and it's just magical. Like different sections, magnetic ties so that you can lock things down and push things down, different sections for everything. They have a, it's called a ... You got, you got the backpack. What's your backpack called? Travel pack? They've got two. One's a travel pack and the other's a, uh, I can't, fucking can't remember. It'll be linked, I'll link it in the show notes below. (laughs) Um, but it's just, it's, this backpack opens like clamshell from both sides, and it's just phenomenal. So Nomatic's website just has all of the stuff on there and it, it's really good. But it just changes, it changes the quality of your life, having genuine high-quality luggage. Even if you are gonna go hold luggage, like there's ways that you can like lift different things up and, oh man, it's fucking, it's outstanding. Wow. I- Can it fit, can it fit a spare duvet? (laughs) James, James Smith managed to fit, uh, a pillow with him- Oh, wow. ... because he travels with his own pillow. What? Pregnancy pillow? And it's ... No, uh, like normal head pillow. He's bailed out of the pregnancy pillow life. Too hot. A lot of people, uh, flying long haul had brought their own pillows, I noticed that. I feel like that's probably gonna be a future li- If I was to predict what my life hack next year is gonna be, I reckon taking a pillow with you while you travel. (overlapping speech) Is it a blowout pillow, or it's a- No, no, no, normal. And he fits it in his luggage? Fits in hand luggage, bro. So you get space. In hand luggage. Thin pillow. Uh- But if it's a thin pillow, it's squish not what you want, is it? Squash down. Anyway, that's my, that's my thing, hold luggage, bail out- It's good. ... of it, get good hand luggage and backpacking roller, and you'll be able to get away with it. Also, one final one, if you are traveling and really struggling for space, whether it be hand luggage or hold luggage, if you want to just have like, let's say, shoes, shoes take up quite a bit of room, aren't that heavy, and you usually don't have space for them, just go into the airport, go to WHSmiths or something like that, buy a bottle of water, put your shoes in the bag. No one ever complains about you taking retail on from within the airport. Where were the shoes before? Is this before you go through security? Yeah. Yeah, so like literally just happen- So you're walking into the airport holding loads of shoes. Carrying shoes, yeah. Buy a bottle of water, ask for a bag. Yep, put it in the bag. Because if they didn't allow you on with stuff that you purchased from WHSmiths or- WHSmith wouldn't operate in the airport. My, my. Go fuck yourself, airports. Damn. Hack, G.

George 1:06:29 Um, so

George 1:06:31 my one, um, again, it's one I've done for a while, so I, I put it, it's been, it's not fresh this week, so it's been through the filter. Um-

Chris Williamson 1:06:39 Passed the 90-day filter.

George 1:06:40 Pretty much, I wouldn't be surprised, everyone who's listened to you as well as YouTube in the fitness scene, they've tracked like their lifts, they've tracked their nutrition, they've tracked sleep over the years,