14 Lessons from 5 Years Of Modern Wisdom - #589

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello friends, welcome back to the show. It is Modern Wisdom's fifth birthday. Five years ago, on February 12th, 2018, I launched this podcast with a conversation in my old company's office in the North East of England. And over the last 588 episodes, over a thousand hours and nearly 2000 days of working away on this project, I have learned quite a lot. And today, I'm going to go through some of the most important lessons and insights that I've picked up. I expect to learn the importance of a wide vocabulary, why all amateurs are narcissists, why learning about the reasons for your actions can liberate you or destroy you, whether you should trade youth for money, if you should be known for your takes or your work, why envy, not greed drives the world, how to stop getting stuck in old patterns and much more. I wasn't really planning on doing a fifth year anniversary birthday episode, but then I figured it's a nice opportunity for me to reflect on the most important things I've picked up over the last half decade, which sounds absolutely insane. Half a decade of doing anything is quite a long time. And it does feel very special. And thank you to all of you that have been here. Some of you may have been here from the very, very beginning. And to you, I applaud you massively and you deserve some sort of veterans trophy perhaps or a nice medal. But yeah, this is a special one. I got to go through some things that took a long time to sink in and maybe of great value to you. If you are on a similar sort of journey from useless idiot to slightly less useless idiot. In, actually before I get to other news, if you do want to give me some sort of gift, it is my birthday next week. Modern Wisdom's birthday and my birthday aren't far apart. And if you do want to get me a gift, press subscribe. That's all that I would ask. It does support the show. And it means that I can get bigger and better guests. And it makes me very happy. I thank you. In these other news, this episode is brought to you by Gymshark. I have discovered the best shorts in the world for men. And Gymshark makes them. And they are called Studio Shorts. They are listed on my product page on Gymshark's website. And they're just phenomenal. They're super lightweight. They're the perfect length. There's no undershorts getting in the way. They've got great pockets. They're in amazing colors. They've got this dusty maroon and this willow green color, which I'm completely obsessed with. And then they do a crest hoodie, which is just the perfect fitting hoodie. Super subtle branding on it. Very soft on the inside. It's perfect to warm up in, especially given the fact that even in Austin, Texas, it is freezing cold. And then they do geo seamless t-shirts. 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