The Wisdom of Rat King

Welcome to 5 Minute Masterclass, email coaching for peeps short on time and big on aspirations.

We're getting it in early this week, as I know heaps of you are knocking off for holidays today. If that's you, get this in, set yourself up for an awesome festive season, then go inhale a spicy margarita (or five - you deserve it). This is Part 1 of a two Part 2024 wrap up series - fresh questions and fresh reflections, setting up for an all-time 2025.

Short on time? Skip the warmup, and jump straight to the question at the end.

The Warmup

I don’t need tracking cookies or iPhone spyware to know you’re stressing.

Whether for you it’s Christmas, or Hannukah, or Chrismukkah (OC fans I see you – Team Ryan all day), or however you celebrate the Festive Season – it’s A LOT.

Everyone else is like it’s Christmas, yeeeewwww!

Only, not yew for you.

(Or yuletide, or even yeeeeewl tide).

Nah, you’re thinking triple dose my eggnog, 10X the brandy quota on my plum pudding and call me when it’s over.

Cos you’ve got to wrap a million things at work, then you’ve got to wrap a million prezzies, then you’ve got to wrap up another 25 December with your least-liked family members (including the dreaded In Laws, or StepMonsters, or creepy Cousin Phil with the gun fetish and unironic MAGA cap).

*Trigger warning* - these so-called loved ones are cooking up a witches brew of trauma inspiring conversations in their festive red-and-green cauldron, like maybe:

• “Ay, I saw (insert most painful ex’s name here) in the paper the other day! Bloody hell, they done well for themselves since ya split.”
• “What you don’t understand about (insert topic you’ve dedicated your life and career to) is….”
• “Wasn’t your New Year’s Resolution to lose weight?”

Then you spend the next week mainlining spicy margaritas, or the next month lost in a black hole of TikTok self-help videos, or the next year on a therapist’s fainting couch.

‍But you’ve GOT TO DO IT.

But maybe there’s a different way.

Take some advice from one of my first bosses, Rat King.

(Side note: I triple dare you to Google ‘Rat King’. Get a bucket ready.)

Rat King had some funny turns of phrase.

Maybe unsurprisingly, he called all of his staff (including me) “Rats”, or “Ratty Rat Rats”.

‘Eating’ was ‘chewing’, i.e. “yeah mate let’s just cheeeeeewwwww”

He referred to the collective smell emanating from my co-workers and I…

…which, to be fair, was a satanic combo of once-washed BO-yellowed t-shirts, tinea-encrusted socks and a thick cloud of Lynx Afrika…

…as “The Pong”.

Old Rat King was rough around the edges, and not exactly on the up and up.

In fact, he was as slippery as an eel in a lap pool of lubricant.

But one year, he dropped a life-changing nugget of knowledge on me.

The convo went like this:

“Ratty Rat, what’s crackin’ for Chrissie?”

“Ah man. I’ve got to hang with my partner’s fam. It’s gonna be rough.”

“Got to?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to.”

“Rat. You’re gonna go and chew, punch some brews, lie on the couch with ya gut pokin’ out. You don’t got to. You fuckin’ GET TO.”

That’s Rat King Wisdom right there: Leave ‘got to’ behind. You GET TO.

We get to do this life once – just once – and we choose how we perceive it.

No matter what’s going on, being alive is a privilege and there’s so much to be grateful for.

So why not focus on the good, the things we want more of, the things that make being alive so special?

Rat King’s positive reframing method is worth it’s weight in gold.

(Or at least the $1,763 he ended up pinching off me, but that’s another story).

The 5 Minute Masterclass

If you're new, here's the drill – this is your 5 Minute Masterclass in YOU.

Set a timer on your phone or computer. This week, you have EXACTLY 5 minutes to answer one question. 

Smash it out, then hit send. I'll write back to you in the next few days 🙂

‍

Question: What’s a story you’ve been telling yourself that deserves a rewrite—and what’s your new version?

Big love

Nick