David Cancel Advice Tweetstorm

This is a great Tweetstorm thread from David Cancel, CEO of Drift.

David Cancel – @dcancel
1/ What I wish I knew when I was younger 👇🏽

2/ * Read every day. It doesn’t matter what. It doesn’t matter if you “finish the book”. Just read.

3/ * Find mentors who have achieved success in what I want (love, happiness, community, parenting, financial)

4/ * Double down on what’s working and don’t stop until it stops working

5/ * Avoid shiny new distractions. AKA Focus. AKA see above.

6/ * Prioritize learning from history. AKA you aren’t special. Cheat code = read books that have lasted the test of time AKA old books.

7/ * Prioritize the biggest rocks each day. Feel no guilt if you never get to the small rocks.

8/ * Momentum is all the things. Keep the streak going. Search for the perfect wave and ride it as long as you can.

9/ * Great opportunities are much rarer than you think. Go all-in when you find the few in your lifetime.

10/ * Psychology. Study it and restudy it. Understanding Social Psychology, human decision making, and cognitive biases is worth more than all the leadership, business and self-help books in the world. Seriously.

11/ * Be patient. A few great actions/bets repeated is worth a million tiny actions.

12/ * Seek arbitrage opportunities. Invest when others won’t, hold back when others are greedy.

13/ * Save for a rainy day as it always comes.

14/ * Learning only from your failures sucks. Learning from other people’s failures is the only real productivity hack there is. Ignore this and lead a life full of pain and misery.

15/ * Follow the Golden rule. You will run into people again and again throughout your life. Make sure they speak highly of you.

16/ * Learn to tell stories well. At the end of the day most of success comes down to storytelling. The stories you tell yourself as well as those you tell the world.

17/ * Never read/watch the News. Please. You’ll live a more peaceful and rich life without it.

18/ * Invest in relationships. Your community matters more than you think.

19/ * Avoid consensus. Avoid conventional wisdom. That is unless you want average results.

20/ * “Crabs in the pot” is real. Those closest to you will try to tear you down if you try to breakout and be different.

21/ * Remember that people are different but not a much as we believe. See Social Psychology.

22/ * Take all the personality tests you can find and study your results. Understand how cognitive biases amplify your weaknesses.

23/ * Context. Never forget how important context is. We always forget that every decision and reaction has a specific context, a time and place. Applying lessons learned without first considering the context will lead to unpredictable results & consequences.

24/ * For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. Seriously. Meditate on that.

25/ What did I miss?