Christmas Special - Life Hacks, Biggest Lessons & Best Resolutions
Chris Williamson (host), Jonathan (Jonny) Watson (guest), Yusef (guest), George (guest), Jonathan (Jonny) Watson (guest), Yusef (guest), George (guest)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Chris Williamson and Jonathan (Jonny) Watson, Christmas Special - Life Hacks, Biggest Lessons & Best Resolutions explores life Hacks, Growth Lessons, And High-ROI Habits For 2025 Chris Williamson hosts a loose, funny Christmas roundtable with Jonny and Yusef from Propain Fitness and marketer George Mack, sharing their most useful life hacks, biggest lessons from 2024, and go-to New Year’s resolutions.
Life Hacks, Growth Lessons, And High-ROI Habits For 2025
Chris Williamson hosts a loose, funny Christmas roundtable with Jonny and Yusef from Propain Fitness and marketer George Mack, sharing their most useful life hacks, biggest lessons from 2024, and go-to New Year’s resolutions.
They cover highly practical tweaks—from gadgets like the Ninja Creami, walking pads, and laptop stands to digital systems for taming YouTube and social media—alongside deeper ideas about goals, happiness, business growth, and the limits of money and success.
A recurring theme is focusing on outcomes over inputs, making small daily improvements rather than chasing explosive growth, and aligning actions with true values instead of stories we tell ourselves.
They end by suggesting high-ROI resolutions (like morning walks, phone-free bedrooms, and structured goal systems) that are more likely to stick and actually improve life, rather than becoming another failed New Year’s plan.
Key Takeaways
Use simple tools and gadgets to make desired behaviors easier and more enjoyable.
Devices like the Ninja Creami (for high-protein ice cream), walking pads under standing desks, and portable laptop stands can make healthy eating, movement, and ergonomic work feel rewarding instead of like willpower battles.
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Redesign your digital environment instead of relying on discipline.
George’s 'Kale algorithm' script hides all YouTube videos under 30 minutes, massively reducing junk viewing, and similar filters (email rules, blank YouTube home screens, Readwise/Reader queues) shift you from impulse consumption to pre-selected, higher-quality content.
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Treat minor daily annoyances as triggers for gratitude and empathy.
Yusef suggests flipping irritations—sirens, rude staff, delays—into reminders that things could be far worse for you or that others are suffering more, which both improves mood and makes you more prosocial.
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Prioritize outcomes over inputs and do the single most important task first.
The group repeatedly returns to the idea that hours worked, suffering, and busyness are irrelevant if you dodge the key task; writing down your to-dos, selecting the scariest/highest-leverage one, and doing just that (often for a fixed block) is vastly more effective.
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Aim for steady “microplate” gains rather than explosive jumps.
Borrowing from powerlifting, they argue that slow, consistent progress (small, regular increases) produces a better experience and more sustainable growth than big spikes, which create future pressure and hidden debt in business and life.
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Recognize that problems never disappear; you just face higher-level ones.
As Propain’s business grew, new and thornier bottlenecks replaced old ones, leading to the realization that the real reward is who you become solving each ‘devil at each level,’ not arriving at a mythical problem-free stage.
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Adopt high-ROI habits that change your baseline: phone-free bedroom, morning walk, and structured goals.
Chris credits keeping his phone outside the bedroom and taking a walk first thing with better sleep and mood regulation, while Yusef’s quarterly plan across four life domains (body, being, balance, business) helps prevent lopsided success and keeps daily actions aligned to longer-term aims.
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Notable Quotes
“Doing something well doesn’t make it important.”
— Tim Ferriss (quoted by Jonny / group paraphrase)
“For every level, there’s a devil.”
— Jonny Watson
“There are so many people working so hard and achieving so little.”
— Andy Grove (quoted by Chris Williamson and George Mack)
“Trajectory is more important than position.”
— Chris Williamson (attributing the idea to Jimmy Carr)
“If information was all that was needed, we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”
— Yusef (paraphrasing Naval Ravikant)
Questions Answered in This Episode
Which single digital habit (YouTube, social media, email) could I redesign with a script or filter to eliminate most of my low-quality consumption?
Chris Williamson hosts a loose, funny Christmas roundtable with Jonny and Yusef from Propain Fitness and marketer George Mack, sharing their most useful life hacks, biggest lessons from 2024, and go-to New Year’s resolutions.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Where in my life am I confusing effort and suffering with actual results, and what would it look like to measure success only by outcomes?
They cover highly practical tweaks—from gadgets like the Ninja Creami, walking pads, and laptop stands to digital systems for taming YouTube and social media—alongside deeper ideas about goals, happiness, business growth, and the limits of money and success.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If I embraced the idea that ‘for every level there’s a devil,’ how would I reframe my current biggest problem as training rather than a failure?
A recurring theme is focusing on outcomes over inputs, making small daily improvements rather than chasing explosive growth, and aligning actions with true values instead of stories we tell ourselves.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What is one 'microplate' level gain I could pursue this quarter in business, health, or relationships instead of chasing a dramatic transformation?
They end by suggesting high-ROI resolutions (like morning walks, phone-free bedrooms, and structured goal systems) that are more likely to stick and actually improve life, rather than becoming another failed New Year’s plan.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If I applied the semantic-tree AI prompt to a topic I’ve been procrastinating on (e.g., investing, longevity, or psychology), what could I systematically teach myself over the next three months?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. It is a Christmas special. For those of you who have only joined the show over the last year, or the last few years, might not recognize this room, and it is my old living room in Newcastle upon Tyne where we first started the show. Joined by Jonny and Yussef from Propain Fitness, uh, and George Mac, uh, stopping off en route from Glasgow to Manchester, of course. Uh, this is a life hacks, lessons from 2024, and best New Year's resolutions episode. So if you haven't seen these, we'll go round in a circle coming up with whatever we've discovered over the last year, and then the rest of us will rip it apart or say that it's good, and maybe there'll be some ideas for you for what you can implement going into the new year. Also, if you haven't done a new year's review, uh, the exact template that I use and have crafted very delicately over the last decade or so is available right now for free at chriswillex.com/review. That's tradition. Something else which is tradition is you getting hot potato and going first, so-
Hot potato.
A festive potato for you-
Festive potato.
... Jonathan Watson. What have you got for us?
Is it life hacks first?
It is.
So my life hack is a Ninja Creami.
So happy you said that.
Oh, really?
I've got one.
I thought you, have you?
I've got one.
Yussef's been thinking about getting one. I think hasn't got one yet.
Okay, what's a Ninja Creami?
Do you know what one is?
No.
It's-
Educate, educate me.
It's, um, it basic- what, what I use it for is making ice cream from a protein shake. It's brilliant. So like, s- skimmed milk, what, what do you, what do you use it for? The same thing or-
Yeah.
Berries? I imagine you have berries in yours.
Uh, actually no. Uh, mine has been low sugar, high protein ice cream made with the exact protein powder that I want.
Right.
So pretty much the same thing that you're doing.
Yeah. Do you put topping in it?
Uh, so I've encountered a problem with that, which is when you, you have to make up the mixture and then put it in the freezer for it to freeze. The issue is, the viscosity of the liquid when you put it in the freezer versus the viscosity of the liquid when it becomes ice cream is different. So if you put chocolate chips in, they all just sink to the bottom and create a layer. What's your solution?
Well, you put them on after you've... So you, you, you creamy it.
Mm-hmm.
And then you-
(laughs)
You what, sorry? I'm just writing instructions. You do what?
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