Be inspired by @dvassallo

I organized and distilled his last 3,000 tweets into a summary of his big ideas on self-employment, information products, and lifestyle design.
Beware, not every itch is worth scratching…
🔷Not every opportunity is worth taking
🔷Not every dangled carrot is worth chasing
🔷(You might be caught in a rat race)
To break free, recognize you’re in a race…
🔷Consider your obligations
🔷Imagine an alternative universe
🔷And ask yourself, “Why not?”
It’s hard, but it doesn’t take much (and almost anyone can do it)…
🔷140 views at 5 percent conversion = seven sales
🔷Seven sales a day of a $39 product = $275 per day
🔷Seven sales a day of a $39 product = $100,000 per year
Start with the hardest part…
🔷Be willing to jump off the wrong train
🔷Be willing to write off past ambitions
🔷Be willing to detach your identity from your accomplishments
🔷Otherwise you might get stuck enduring an existence full of wrong stops
Take stock of your means…
🔷Time
🔷Skills
🔷Location
🔷Interests
🔷Strengths
🔷Resources
🔷Experience
🔷Perspective
🔷Connections
🔷Cash at hand
Curb your ambitions…
🔷Keep reducing scope
🔷Keep moving the finish line closer
🔷Keep giving yourself free energy
🔷Keep the complexity of what you do within your means
Figure out what you don’t like…
🔷Procrastinate on purpose to find what demotivates you
🔷(What you’re putting off is what you don’t like)
🔷Learn from your internal resistance to find your true preferences
Slowly evolve your lifestyle to better match your true preferences…
🔷Do things for their own sake
🔷Do what no one’s forcing you to do
🔷Do what you’re intrinsically motivated to do
🔷Gradually do fewer things you’d rather not do
🔷(Only intrinsic motivation lasts)
Set a direction instead of a goal…
🔷You can’t predict what will work
🔷You can’t predict what will last
🔷You won’t know if a great idea is really great until it survives impact with reality
🔷(Goals tend to get in the way of letting you do what you should be doing)
You don’t need a big vision to succeed…
🔷There’s no need to change the world
🔷There’s no need to conquer the competition
🔷There’s no need to dominate the market
🔷There’s no need to disrupt anything
🔷Just throw yourself into random tasks until inspiration meets opportunity
Make time your friend…
🔷Cut costs
🔷Make do with less
🔷Reconsider your needs
🔷Don’t spend more than you earn
🔷Make your worst-case scenario a slow success
Work hard to earn credibility…
🔷Do something interesting in real life
🔷Prove yourself by making something interesting
🔷Without credibility, nobody will listen to what you have to say
Avoid low probability bets…
🔷Stack odds in your favor
🔷Choose your projects carefully
🔷Study your opportunities carefully
🔷Business is a conjecture that an idea will work out
🔷Don’t ignore uncertainty in a randomness-laden venture
Make many small bets (and keep them small)…
🔷Don’t be greedy
🔷Control the amount wagered
🔷Go for the low hanging fruit first
🔷Keep investments tiny and bounded
🔷Try many things in parallel or almost in parallel
🔷You’ll learn more this way than any other way
Build something imperfect that works…
🔷Start with a very small product
🔷Pick something you can finish in two weeks
🔷Charge ten dollars for it
🔷(Perfectionism is fine, as long as you realize you're doing it only for your own amusement)
Don’t optimize or polish your products…
🔷Focus on substance, not optimizations
🔷Let the scrappiness be part of the charm
🔷The returns on polishing and optimizing are small
🔷A book can be your life's work, presented as a masterpiece, or it can be a scrappy brain dump
Keep idle time in your system…
🔷Idle time is slack
🔷Slack lets you immediately explore and pounce on opportunities
🔷By not optimizing to the limit, you can deal with randomness without breaking down
Remember, growth is not linear…
🔷Progress comes from random, high impact lucky events
🔷Realize a fraction of the effort gets most of the results
🔷Recognize which fraction to focus on
🔷Use the time you bought back to do whatever you want
Do a lot when inspiration strikes…
🔷Take long breaks in between
🔷Most things require intensity over consistency
🔷Consistency works, but it's unpleasant
🔷What can be done with consistency is often more enjoyable when done with intensity (otherwise you're fighting yourself)
If there’s no one around, go where people already hang out…
🔷Make yourself useful
🔷Share what you’ve done
🔷Share what you’re learning
🔷Let yourself be opinionated
🔷Share how your product is doing
🔷Teach what you know (it took a lifetime to acquire!)
When you promote yourself…
🔷You promote your product
🔷You have automatic authority
🔷You find people who want to learn from you specifically
🔷You create an uncontested market space (competition becomes irrelevant because nobody can copy you)
Strive to be an artisan…
🔷Be creative
🔷Don’t follow others
🔷Make your work a business
🔷Don’t cut corners for efficiency
🔷Say no to things you’d rather not do
🔷Do the best work you can, for its own sake
🔷Never sell something you know is defective
A good life is a story you're proud of…
🔷Pride comes from the story we tell ourselves about how we created something in the circumstances we were in
You can follow @jmikolay.
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