🔥🥵 When the fever has us, 😌 Happiness is contagious

#80: a weekly newsletter for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.

Welcome to the 80th edition of the Antifragile 🔥.

This week, we discuss the fever that money can bring on and the lesson that enjoying yourself a little more can provide.

With love,
Chris

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Here’s the antifragile 🔥 this week:

1. 🥵 When the fever has us

2. 😌 Happiness is contagious

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1.) 🥵 When the fever has us

These individuals have riches just as we say that we ‘have a fever,’ when really the fever has us.

Seneca

My life gets worse when my days revolve around money.

Considering that I run a for-profit business, this may sound a bit loony.

But there’s something about the days when I focus on money itself—rather than creating value or following curiosity—that brings out the worst in me.

I become short-tempered. Reactive. Pessimistic. Uninteresting.

Everything begins to feel finite.

I worry there won’t be enough.

Worry that I’m not enough.

Enjoyment, creativity, and joy become wispy shadows of their former selves. The world starts to look scarce.

Not just scarce in money—but in time, ability, connection.

Fear and anxiety hum dully in the background of my mind.

It’s just…not fun.

And not only is it not fun, it’s also horrendously ineffective.

On those days, the very thing you know would cool your fever—taking a break, a few deep breaths, journaling, going for a walk, reading a book, reimaginging the rest of your day—seems like the last f*cking thing in the world you should be doing. Wastes of god damn time!

A walk? Are you kidding?

Have you seen the profitability on our hitting mats?

I don’t give a sh*t that we’re up 50% over last year. We’re losing money on the hitting mats. I cannot leave the pain cave until it’s remedied.

Scarcity.

It takes a world that is obviously bigger than one margin problem, one spreadsheet, one bad SKU—and convinces you this is the whole map. That this is all there is. That until this one painful thing is solved, you are not permitted to breathe, laugh, think an interesting thought, or be a decent husband, father, or friend.

And of course that’s nonsense.

The hitting mats matter. The numbers matter. Profit matters.

But the moment money stops being a tool and becomes a lens—pulling me away from creativity and curiosity—it becomes a disease.

That’s when the fever has me.

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2.) 😌 Happiness is contagious

We all want our children to be happy.
Somehow, some way today
show them something that makes you happy,
something you truly enjoy.

Your own happiness is contagious.
They learn the art from you.

William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching (commentary on above passage)

Sometimes I get so caught up doing things to (hopefully) make my kids happy that I forget to model happiness and contentment for them.

It’s rare that I read my own books in front them, or write, or draw, or build something dope with Legos for no reason. It’s always either work, chores, or playing with them.

Maybe it’s time they get to see Dad enjoying himself a little more.

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Just one thing for you this week—

Consider buying The Parent’s Tao Te Ching (hard copy!)—it’s proving an absolute treasure.

With love,
Chris

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