2020... what a year.

I just put the finishing touches on my Annual Review.

Here are 30 lessons I learned about myself and the world across five areas:

• Health
• Wealth
• Relationships
• Online creativity
• Personal operations

🧵👇🏼

Feel free to treat each of these as standalone tweets and comment on the lessons that resonate most heavily with you.

HEALTH

1. Health starts with removal, not addition.

This year I officially hit 100 lbs lost. And looking back, it wasn't what I started doing, but what I stopped doing that got me there.

Fewer carbs, fewer beers, fewer hours sitting, these things add up.

2. Recognize you are undisciplined instead of trying to fight it.

The most "disciplined" people actually are the most undisciplined.

But they recognize and accept this.

So they set up constraints that prevent them from having to rely on self-control and willpower.

3. Your health, especially mental health, is your foundation.

If you can't sit comfortably alone with the voice in your head, no amount of "success" will change that.

12 weeks alone in NYC during peak-COVID forced me to learn this lesson.

Biggest Regrets: Lessons from a 100 Years Old

~ Thread ~

1. You will regret not choosing your life partner carefully

Take the time to get to know someone before committing.

Make sure the person is the right one.

2. You will regret not spending time with loved ones

You feel more stressed,

When you don't spend enough with people you love.

Don't pursue professional life at cost of personal life.

3. You will regret not traveling enough

Travel when you’re able to.

It opens new perspectives of life for you.

4. You will regret settling in a condition you hate

Our human lives are very finite.

It's not so cheap to spend somewhere you hate.

There are a number of steps you can take to protect yourself from being tricked by the clever and manipulative criminals who carry out #RomanceFraud.

#Fauxmance THREAD ⬇️

1⃣ Avoid giving away too many personal details when speaking online to someone who you’ve never met in person; this could lead to your identity being stolen.

2⃣ Stay on the platform’s messaging service until you meet in person. Criminals will want to quickly switch to other platforms that are less regulated and have better encryption, so there’s no evidence of them asking you for money.

3⃣ Whatever reason they may give to move away from the site where you met, consider – if they’re genuine, they'll accept your decision to stay on the platform until you meet in person.

4⃣ Most online platforms have a reporting tool. You can use this if you suspect someone online is using pictures that don’t belong to them, if you're suspicious of their behaviour, or if they ask you for money.

Was thinking last night about how what is now called ‘body shaming’ can affect your life not just your opinion of your appearance. As a tall, muscular and big built woman who took after my 6’4” enormous father I have received a lot of criticism about how I

look from my earliest years. I was also born with my legs twisted inwards somewhat and the loose ligaments that now cause so much trouble even though you look cool in yoga 😉. The early abuse from my mother - literally that I was

‘born in the wrong body’ - sound familiar? - was devastating. As a child to be told you’re ‘wrong’ in a way you cannot do anything about except by surgery and constantly dieting - I was starved from age 10 and my brown hair dyed to ‘copper’ - is terrible.

I can say that now. Before I simply accepted I was unattractive and that it was my lot. In the 70s cosmetic surgery was unattainable though my mother offered me a rhinoplasty for my 18th birthday. I refused. I then spent 40 years with a person who found me

as unattractive as my mother had (guess why, duh) and whilst not as blunt as my mother could only manage to say he thought I’d done the best I could with what I’d been given. Now, you may think this all vanity. But the constant erosion

The 10 most important things I've learned in 2020.

10. Be very careful where you put your teeth when carrying balloons. It's also probably not a good idea to carry eggs if you can't carry a balloon.

#DogsOfTwitter #yegdog #CanadianDogs #LifeLessons

9. Humans should order more dog treats and less of these bags of air. Don't they know they don't need to get air shipped to them?

8. I would make a stunning statue!

7. It's important to wash your paws! Not as important as it is for humans to wash their hands, but still important. Also, check for eye boogers before going out.

6. Certain surfaces cause the tires on a wheelchair to build up static which then makes the treat ⚡your nose.

The 17 Essential Skills For Success in Reading, Writing, Sports, and Practically All of Your Daily Activities...

THREAD 👇

1. Eye Movement Control is the ability to move both eyes together, to focus on an image, or path. Each eye has six muscles that work together to control eye movement and position.

2. Binocular Coordination is the ability of the two eyes to accurately work together, at the same time, as a team. If one eye is weaker than the other, the child may develop a lazy eye.

3. Saccades are quick, simultaneous movements of the two eyes between two or more focus points. This skill is essential for reading words and sentences across a page.

4. Pursuits are smooth movements of the two eyes between two focus points. This skill is required for moving between paragraphs on a page or even looking up at the teacher and then back down to the class notes.

How to become a beast in your 20's

// A THREAD //

1) Meditate

Meditation helps you by releasing you from the control of your own thoughts.

It helps you to:

1) Connect better
2) Reduce stress hormone
3) Know thyself
4) Control your emotions

Do it every 5 minutes and you will see a drastic change.

2) Eating Healthy

A healthy body is a key to a healthy mind and a healthy mind is a key to peace.

What will you do with all the money if you have poor health?

Leave that cheap dopamine that junk food produces and start eating healthy.

3) Start Reading

Reading helps a person to know thyself.
Reading allows you to write better and the most important thing is it increases your IQ.
Readings also improve your thoughts.

How to develop a reading habit?
Read what you love until you love reading.

4) Workout

If you need a healthy body, a healthy mind
Lift some weights

It will help you in many ways:
Gives you energy
Build Confidence
Remove your stress

Once you start doing a workout, you will feel better yourself.

Try to imagine yourself as an older Republican. (Obviously you are white and you have a penis.) You have long believed R's to be the responsible ones, the moral ones, the ones who will do the right thing even when it's hard.

You remember your heroes: Eisenhower and Reagan, the Bush's? Right? You knew that they would "take care of us" while all the crazy tree huggers and hippies wanted to buy the world a Coke and and give all your money to poor people and immigrants!

...and how was THAT gonna teach them to pull themselves up by the boot straps and make something of themselves like YOU DID??
After all, this is the land of opportunity, RIGHT? Everyone has the same chance to be successful and PROSPEROUS, right???

You did it all with NO HELP--ALL BY YOURSELF, DIDN'T YOU. I mean, the G.I. Bill didn't do all that MUCH!
Rich people were taxed at 70%, and that was OK with you because you weren't one. *YET*

Just because the cost of living was MINISCULE compared to now, and you got a spiffy new job with a company car and paid health insurance, and a freaking house you BOUGHT ALL BY YOURSELF for 25 thousand freaking dollars,

4 Sure Fire Habits You Must Develop to Become Successful.

I define success as a series of habits that you build and abide by to create your own reality.

Practicing these simple habits will surely make you successful, no fluff.

1. Focus on the things that matter - intently focus on what is essential for you and your goals. Block out distracting information, ideas and opinions.

Always ask in the course of the day,

"Is whatever I'm doing important?"

2. Empower others - one thing remains true than ever. Good leaders set themselves apart by effectively influencing and empowering those around them.

This is how great leaders shine with heroic display of empathy and compassion when others are down.

3. Delegate your weaknesses - There's someone who is strong at your weakness. They will do what you can't more efficiently at a cost.

This gives you enough time to build on your strengths.

Have a team that will work for a common course.

Why you need to be selfish: (thread)

I have had countless conversations with people looking for a way to build a brand/audience/community online.

Here's the one thing I think everyone asking that question should be thinking about.

You need to be selfish.

Why?

Because (at a high level) if it helps you, it will eventually help others.

At a tactical level, it's provides the motivation to keep going.

The lack of instant feedback on what we share publically is enough to extinguish most projects before they even get moving.

But allow me to reframe the idea:

You need to do things that benefit you even if no one sees them.

Did posting @visualizevalue images into a void 18 months ago do anything for my career as a designer?

Yes.

Would I have kept going if there wasn't some selfish drive to be more competent? (and make more money, work with better clients, etc)

No.

Multiple friends have been reaching out lately, asking some version of "how did people get radicalized to such an extent?" and, more importantly, "why not us? why was I immune." As someone who's extremism in person, pretty much my whole life, here are some thoughts:

These are EXACTLY the questions we should all be asking ourselves right now. Studies have shown that no 'type' of person is immune to radicalization or falling prey to cults or cult-think. There's no such thing as being "too smart" for that.

So, for starters, many of us were just in the right place and the right time, and didn't get radicalized. That is an important realization. It's important because as we begin to try to de-radicalize our friends, family and "good people" who fell prey to white supremacist thought

We need to start with compassion, or they will just shut down. Understanding deeply that it can happen to anyone is a big part of that. Now let's talk those who were primed for it, more likely to fall into conspiracy thinking and the Q cult.

In this case, those white people who see the movement towards equality for everyone as white people losing (which is true in a way, we have to give back much of the privilege we obtained from those who took it by force or manipulation) were much more susceptible to the rhetoric.

Interviews aren't only about technical skills.

Here are some questions to help you prepare.

🧵👇

Explain what you have been working on for the past few weeks.

What are the most exciting parts about that work?

What portion of it do you consider boring and why?

[2 / 10]

What specific libraries and frameworks are you familiar with?

What's the minimum set of libraries and frameworks that you'd recommend to any practitioner?

[3 / 10]

What kind of problems have you worked on in the past?

Can you list the specific use cases related to each one of these?

[4 / 10]

What is the most exciting project you have ever worked on?

What was your role and responsibilities on that project?

Why do you think your work on that project was important?

[5 / 10]

Why I Don't Open Up to the People I Love About My Depression

We know something’s wrong! We want to help! We love you! Why can’t you open up to us?”

Because I’m ashamed at how weak I feel.

Because if I expose that weakness to you, you might end up ashamed of me, too.

1/x

Because the last thing I ever want to do is be a weight around your neck.

Because you have your own problems, and your own life to live.

Because it might change the way you see me.

Because it might make you want to treat me with kid gloves, to tiptoe around me because you 2/x

think I might shatter.

Because you might go the opposite route and decide it’s time for some “tough love.”

Because if I hear the words, “there are other people out there a lot worse off than you,” I probably will shatter. I’m aware. That’s part of the problem.

3/x

Because I’ve been here before, and I’ll probably be here again.  It exhausts the hell out of me.  I can only imagine what it would do to you.

Because I’m terrified you’ll blame yourself, when absolutely none of how I’m feeling is your fault.
4/x

Because I love you.
Because I want you to keep loving me.

Because I have an illness that convinces me that’s exactly what will end up happening, no matter how much you say otherwise.
I wish I could make you understand. 5/x

One liners, inspired by that @yungdeleuze thread

The idea that ugly people have inner beauty is largely a myth

Spiritual beauty and physical beauty are related and mutually reinforcing

Sjws make themselves ugly because they have no idea how to be beautiful

Beauty is not nearly as subjective as you think

5 Non-Bullshit January Challenges That Will Change Your Life

// A THREAD //

Many of my threads are somehow conceptual.

They have practical implications but it may not be super clear at the first spot.

This thread is different.

Let me present you with 5 super-specific, practical January challenges that will change your life (even one of them).

All of those challenges are brutal - especially at the beginning.

How to prepare?

- Write down your motivation, speak about the benefits they will bring to you.
- Tell your close friends (or even make a bet with them)
- Think about the activities you will do instead

LFG.

1. Unistall All PC Games

The more thrilled player you are the harder it will be, and the bigger benefits it may have.

Be prepared for being hitten hard by them cold-turkey.

And have some great books ready... you will need them.

2. Go no-fap

I promised it's brutal!

So why?

- You may funnel the stored sexual energy toward some productive activity
- Girls near you will start to look MUCH more appealing
- You will have much more real sex than ever before (trust me on this one)

Keir Starmers new policy blitz will of course, be based on the ten pledges he made while campaigning for the

1. Economic justice

2. Social justice

3. Climate justice

4. Promote peace and human rights

10 Life Lessons You Won't Learn Anywhere Else.

Previously, I might have given some lessons I have learnt in 24 Months,

By nature man should learn, adapt and survive,

It's through pain that you learn the greatest secrets of life, things we ignore but really matter,

Which lessons?

Let's see,

1. Be ready to unlearn anything- by unlearning, chances of anything happening are infinite,

People change,

Times change,

Feelings change,

When this happens, take a step back, don't bitch around, feel, heal and move on. Create your reality.

2. Relearn- Your existence is random, nature would be so unfair or fair to have you where you are. It's your life, YOU,

It is what it is, just does not work,

You have to make it work, so you must learn,

Faster to even outrun your capabilities.

3. Every man is intimidated by your success- Your success is ONLY important to anyone if it's beneficial to them in a way. It's not about you, it's about them,

Be careful with heights, it's slippery and way too far down.

THREAD:

Wealth tips for founders & early employees...

• Secondaries
• Tax benefits
• Hiring a CPA / Financial Advisor
• Diversifying
• Tools I use
• and more...

Create a plan for your options early:

Think of this as investing in your company. If your company fails, your options will be worthless.

If your company does well, exercising too late will be costly.

Secondaries:

Secondary transactions typically first occur at the Series B [although if your numbers are up and to the right & there's demand for allocation -- it can happen at the A].

Take a small % off the table to de-risk yourself financially (rent, food, transportation, etc)

Existing investors will often offer to purchase your secondaries.

This way it keeps your cap table clean and gives your investor slightly more allocation.

Look over your ROFR/Co-sale agreements and chat with your co-founders and/or investors.

If you're selling stock to an existing or new investor during a financing, a "discount" is usually applied.

Make sure you negotiate the discount on the Preferred share price and not Common.

5-20% is considered normal.

#IKAI

1. Greetings Planet Earth!

I Share My Family Of Light With You!  I Now Communicate In The Sacred Essence Of ONE!

You Live Now In This Dream That Has Been Anticipated Since Your First Creative Experience!