Chris Williams

Amateur explorer, commercial @supertri_, qualified psychologist & everyday athlete @ 🌍 | 🦡 @twcricketclub 🏏 views are my own

[247 @247_endurance]

Strong words from @MaccaNow.

On T100 Miami, and the future of triathlon on TV 📺

#triathlon #T100

https://t.co/p4IjrT3aMY

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Big shout out to all my fellow legends giving a first run out today for their new drinks bottle, and fresh pants / socks combo.

Seen a few on the train already. Is it weird to offer a “cheers”?

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Where does our 🐐 obsession come from?
Listening to the Cricket World Cup final on @bbctms and for much of the last hour the conversation was “where does this rank?”. Multiple commentators endeavouring to create another 🐐 story.
Has this always been the way? Is it not futile?

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Granted England’s players aren’t at their best, but they face an extraordinary amount of dot balls. I would imagine comfortably the highest of all teams in the comp. In a format where teams give singles from the 10th over onwards, it seems schoolboy.
#EnglandCricket

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Before taking a strong view on complex situations be sure to seek multiple perspectives. Simple solutions to complex problems rarely suffice.

Lessons in decision making on show to the world right now. All actions are interactions with reality. There are always consequences.

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

So Dallaglio and Woodward agree Borthwick should go in and read riot act. Really? Stinks of old school “man up” leadership. This England team is rigid… scared even. Playing with so much fear. Leadership have failed thus far, but the job now is to give belief.

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Training with a newborn is largely a case of trying to hunt down enough hours of sleep where exercise can actually be productive.
Otherwise, it’s walk and mobility.
There is always time to do something that is good for your body, and that something might be to take a nap.

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

@Banouby Capgenini just had ex players that most people won’t recognise saying random adjectives - naff is an understatement. Penny for your thoughts on the Defender ads on ITV coverage of the RWC?

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

1 week into life as a parent today. What a gift. So happy to have joined the dad club ❤️

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

@GeorgeDobell1 George, your story has one retweet, and it is from you. That’s a non-story. And yes there is an investigation, so I would let that play out before trying to invite criticism towards an individual.

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Borth-ball 😴 #RWC23

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

This is goosebumps stuff for me. Pouring with admiration for the resilience and creativity required to bring stuff like this into the world.

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

In 2009, Lin-Manuel Miranda was invited to perform at the White House.

His musical “In The Heights” had just won a Grammy & 4 Tony Awards.

So the White House was expecting him to perform something from Heights.

Instead, he debuted a song from a rap album he’d been working on:

Miranda explained that he'd been working on this "concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop...Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton."

The crowd laughed.

"You laugh, but it's true!" Miranda replied.

"He was born a penniless orphan in St. Croix of illegitimate birth, became George Washington's right-hand man, became Treasury Secretary, caught beef with every other Founding Father.

And all on the strength of his writing.

I think he embodies the word's ability to make a difference."

Takeaway 1:

Lin-Manuel Miranda said he initially picked up Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton, "thinking maybe I’ll get a funny song out of it—some jokey-rap thing about the Hamilton/Burr duel."

Then, as he read it, "I thought I would write a bunch of songs that tell the greatest hits of Hamilton’s life."

Then, as he wrote the songs, he realized it could be a musical.

Most things of magnitude start small.

Talking about working with Nobel Prize winners, interviewing the great minds of his time, and studying the greats of all time—Richard Hamming famously said, to do great work, you have to:

"Plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow."

Takeaway 2:

When Lin-Manuel Miranda told people he was working on a hip-hop album about a founding father, people laughed.

He worked on the concept for 8 years—so, Miranda said, “I had a lot of people look at me like I was crazy for a very long time.”

Speaking to entrepreneurs at the startup incubator Y Combinator, the billionaire Peter Thiel drew a Venn diagram on a whiteboard.

In one of the overlapping circles, he wrote, “seems like a bad idea,” and in the other, “is a good idea.” The intersection is the sweet spot for doing great work, Thiel said.

Everyone knows that to do great work you need natural ability and you need to work hard.

But there’s a third ingredient that doesn’t get talked about or written about as often: the ability to work on what "seems like a bad idea."

- - -

As he was working on what he thought was going to be a hip-hop album, Miranda met his hero, the composer Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim asked him what he was working on.

"And I told him, 'I’m working on this hip-hop album, like a ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ concept album about Alexander Hamilton.' And he threw back his head and guffawed, and he said, 'No one will expect that from you. That’s amazing. Keep writing that…Keep surprising us.'"

Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

A bit of the good stuff this morning ☀️🏃🏽‍♂️🦌

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Taking my Dad for a round of golf today. I got him this as a birthday present, 363 days ago… and have been “too busy” to get out with him since. Daft. Sharing to remind anyone to go do that thing with that person, you’re not too busy.

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Couldn’t agree less.

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

Harry Kane has to take this opportunity. Goalscoring records are great but the game is about glory, and Kane can win trophies at Bayern Munich. He's 30. The time is now, the opportunity is right, Kane has to show ambition and go.

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Dawning on me I might be one of the only people to have been close to this AND to have paid handsomely for the privilege. 🌊

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

Yes. But let’s be clear it was preceded in by 10-20yrs+ of dedication to their craft, and dev of skills for the individuals to be competent.

This point gets overlooked. The volume of work / training that has been accumulated prior to the change.

Competence + confidence.

[Cody Royle @codyroyle]

I love that the culture of England's men's cricket team is predicated on the introduction of humanity into high-performance:

🏄‍♂️ Free, intuitive style
🙂 Fun-infused
🚶‍♂️ Approach mindset
🏏 Less training
🗓️ Less meetings
🗣️ Simplicity
🫠 No fear

All these things are possible!

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

@bbctms As a massive Bairstow advocate the interviews from yesterday make me cringe. The reason people have questioned the selection is because of the very reasons that he is asking for more understanding around. Essentially said he’s not fit or prepared to keep, so stop criticising.

[Chris Williams @ChrisWilliams_0]

“There is very little traffic on the extra mile” @JamiePeacock10💥

For years I’ve always taken the stairs. I’m grateful that I’m fit enough, and one day I won’t be.

Most people would rather mindlessly stand still on an escalator. I’m not saying this to flex - think about it.