Christmas Special | Hacks, Fails & Lessons From 2019 | Modern Wisdom 129
Chris Williamson (host), Yusef (guest), Jonny (guest), Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) (guest), Narrator, Jonny or Yusef (Propane Fitness guest) (guest)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Chris Williamson and Yusef, Christmas Special | Hacks, Fails & Lessons From 2019 | Modern Wisdom 129 explores christmas reflections: habits, injuries, burnout and building better years ahead This Christmas special of Modern Wisdom is an informal year-end review with Chris Williamson and Propane Fitness’ Johnny and Yousaf, covering their biggest wins, failures, and lessons from 2019. They discuss training injuries, medical burnout, the realities of being a new doctor, and the importance of self‑care routines like sleep, meditation, and journaling. The trio reflect on travel, business growth, and how memory, novelty, and planning shape how fast life feels like it’s passing. They finish by encouraging listeners to review their own year and define what a successful 2020 would look like.
Christmas reflections: habits, injuries, burnout and building better years ahead
This Christmas special of Modern Wisdom is an informal year-end review with Chris Williamson and Propane Fitness’ Johnny and Yousaf, covering their biggest wins, failures, and lessons from 2019. They discuss training injuries, medical burnout, the realities of being a new doctor, and the importance of self‑care routines like sleep, meditation, and journaling. The trio reflect on travel, business growth, and how memory, novelty, and planning shape how fast life feels like it’s passing. They finish by encouraging listeners to review their own year and define what a successful 2020 would look like.
Key Takeaways
A structured morning routine dramatically shapes the quality of your day.
The hosts argue that if key habits (meditation, journaling, exercise, planning) don’t happen early, they often don’t happen at all; tightly planning the first hours can turn a 9–5 into highly productive, high‑intensity work time.
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Self-care is a current account, not a savings account.
Yousaf’s extreme workload and eye-twitch-level fatigue, plus Chris’ reflection on burnout, underline that sleep, rest, and mental hygiene must be replenished daily; you can’t stockpile health and then draw it down indefinitely.
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Use ‘who, not how’: hire experts instead of DIY-ing everything.
Johnny emphasizes paying skilled coaches and mentors to solve specific problems (meditation, business, lifting) as a faster, more reliable route than endlessly reading, guessing, and self‑experimenting.
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You create your good and bad days through consistent small choices.
They stress that how you sleep, schedule, and manage distractions directly produces either productive, positive days or anxious, exhausted ones—your daily inputs, not luck, largely determine outcomes.
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Memories, not time, determine how fast life feels like it passes.
Drawing on Laura Vanderkam, Chris explains that novelty and emotional intensity create distinct memories, which make a year feel ‘full’; routine, unexamined days compress into a blur where months seem to vanish.
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Trying to chase multiple goals at once dilutes progress on all of them.
They discuss research and personal experience suggesting that when you split focus between several goals, most of your mental energy is spent on task-switching; periodizing goals (one per month, for example) is more effective.
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Know when to say no and narrow your focus.
Chris realizes he’s spread too thin across projects and plans to say no more often in 2020, freeing capacity for the few things that matter most and for social life, rather than endlessly adding commitments.
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Notable Quotes
“Self-care, sooner or later, becomes your number one priority.”
— Chris Williamson (quoting Paul Mort and endorsing the idea)
“If it doesn’t happen first thing, it very rarely happens.”
— Johnny
“You create the good day or the bad day.”
— Johnny
“You spend all your life trying to achieve things, and then you just die.”
— Chris Williamson
“When people say, ‘I wish I had more time,’ what they mean is, ‘I wish I had more memories.’”
— Chris Williamson
Questions Answered in This Episode
How would your daily life change if you rigorously planned and protected a morning routine for the next 90 days?
This Christmas special of Modern Wisdom is an informal year-end review with Chris Williamson and Propane Fitness’ Johnny and Yousaf, covering their biggest wins, failures, and lessons from 2019. ...
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Which single habit, if added or removed, would most improve your physical or mental health in the coming year?
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Where in your life are you trying to ‘figure it out yourself’ instead of finding a coach or expert who’s already solved that problem?
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Looking back on 2019, which three experiences stand out most vividly—and what do they reveal about how you want to design 2020?
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If it were December 2020 today, what specific outcomes would need to be true for you to feel genuinely content with your year?
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Transcript Preview
(jazzy Christmas music plays) Because it's Christmas and I can use whatever (censored) words I want, all right? So, today, we are gonna go through some of our favorite hacks, lessons, fails from 2019, do a year-end review.
So I dropped med school, which was actual-
Became a doctor.
Became a doctor.
Became a doctor.
Ah. Otherwise, it's been probably the hardest year of my life.
(laughs) The main thing that didn't go well was I started the year snapping my hamstring underneath 255 kilos.
As you're moving into the new year, if I could give you one piece of advice, one piece of advice would be go sober, second piece of advice would be sleep with your phone outside of your room, but third piece of advice would be get a morning routine.
I spoke to someone this week who said to me that they got a dog because I said to get a dog.
Ooh, that's a responsibility.
So we should be careful. (whoosh)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. A very merry Christmas from us here at Modern Wisdom. Johnny and Yousaf have joined me. Uh, anyway, it's Christmas. Merry Christmas. Hope that you've had a fantastic year. We're gonna be going through-
Can I open that now? (clicks jumper opening)
(laughs)
(laughs)
(Clicks jumper opening) Oh, bollocks. (clicks jumper opening)
What are you doing?
Oh, there we go. (clicks jumper opening)
Dean, just cut this. (static sound)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. A very merry Christmas to you. I'm joined by Johnny and Yousaf from propanefitness.com.
Welcome back to us.
Welcome back, indeed.
This is actually take two 'cause we were being naughty.
(laughs)
They were being naughty. They were being Christmas elves. Um, as you can see, Johnny's wearing a familiar jumper, except for the fact it's broken. You've got an indicator.
I don't think it's broken fully.
Better.
Some would say better.
Better. Anyway-
It's more surprising.
If you are only listening, I suggest that you head to YouTube to check out our Christmas jumpers in all of their splendor.
Yours is lovely. It's really nice, isn't it? Yousaf's is far too small for him. You can't really see that 'cause he's sat down.
That's- that's your girlfriend's jumper, isn't it?
I think so.
"Take it slow in the snow," and it's a sloth (laughs) with earmuffs on her.
Like a cautionary notice, isn't it?
Yeah, it is. You could stand by the side of the road just waving.
Like, festive warning.
Festive but very sensible.
"Take it slow." Yeah.
So, today, we are going to go through some of our favorite hacks, lessons, fails from 2019, do a year-end review, what it is that we've been getting up to. Um, Johnny, hot lump of coal for Christmas.
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