20 Thoughts To End My 20s
I recently wrote a Twitter thread on 20 thoughts to end my 20s. This write-up is that thread in article form. If you want to see the original thread, you can find it here.
20 thoughts to end my 20s (a thread)
By Thomas Waschenfelder
Inspiration:
Charlie Munger
Naval Ravikant
Warren Buffett
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Peter Kaufman
Gratitude is a superpower. If you can be grateful for the things you have, opportunities will find you. Authentic gratitude can change your life.
Few people find the right life partner. If you find someone who pushes you, wants to work as hard as you do, and supports you always, don’t take it for granted. True love is a gift, not a given.
It takes work to keep relationships fresh and alive. It’s mostly internal work to see the person as they are, and accept them fully. If you can’t do that, they are not meant for you.
Slow, incremental constant progress is the most powerful force you can harness. The small things you do consistently matter more than the large things you do sporadically.
You are what you do everyday. Writers write, builders build, and complainers complain. Over the very longterm, you are what you do everyday.
Your early habits dictate success more than you’d like to believe. Most of your habits form unconsciously. If you can lose the ones that don’t serve you, and form ones that will, that’s an edge.
Sleep is a competitive advantage. Problems are solved in your sleep. Priorities become clear. You can work deeper and smarter. Most of your peers don’t get enough sleep. That’s an edge.
Exercise is your escape from addiction. A workout is the best natural mood regulator you can find. And it’s free. Use it often.
School teaches you to choose from a discrete number of options in front of you. It does not teach you how to imagine and then build the life you want. You have to do this on your own.
It doesn’t matter if you’re right, only that you update your beliefs when you get new information. This is hard because there are many biases that keep us from changing our minds. Having strong but fluid opinions is an edge.
The world is both simple and complex. You have to hold contradicting ideas simultaneously. You are everything and nothing. Your life is the most important thing and meaningless. These ideas take time to get used to.
You have to dig for your financial freedom. There’s no financial literacy in this country. Once you learn the power of compound interest, you will focus on little else. It’s that powerful.
Time is the best filter. You can use the Lindy effect as a compass to find answers to your problems. The older the problem, the older the solution.
You are only as strong as the mental models in your head. There are a handful of frameworks that seem to bind the world together. Learn these and you’ll have an edge. What are they?
Mirrored Reciprocation means that you get back what you put out into the world. This idea comes from physics and biology. Smile at someone and they will smile back. Show hostility to someone and they will be hostile. It’s that simple.
You are controlled by incentives. You get the behavior you reward for. Spend more time thinking about incentives to get better outcomes.
You suffer more from a loss than you enjoy from a proportionate gain. This is why it’s hard to celebrate the victories and easy to wallow in the defeats. Thinking in absolutes (not relatives) can help resolve this.
You think and act like the people around you. Social proof makes it hard to go against the grain. Independent thought and decision making is an edge. It’s the only way to get outsized results.
If you can master your mind, you can master your future. It takes time and effort to examine your thoughts. The goal is to find the biases and then let go. This is a life long journey.
It takes years to internalize the right ideas. Be patient with yourself and keep digging. Think in 3, 5, and 10 year chunks. Most people can’t stay focused for 60 seconds. This can be your edge. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.
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