When I was 17, I was in a school shooting. It was traumatic

I'm convinced that overcoming fear is the secret to winning at startups, business and life:

Here's some tips and lessons on overcoming FEAR:

The greatest productivity tip of all time:

It isn't to drink coffee or get 8 hours of sleep or use Notion

It is conquering your fears. Period.
Life is too short for fears

"Adjusted for the subjective increase in how fast time passes, life is half over by 23 or 24. Don't waste time."
h/t @samaltman

Time is ticking
Beat your "amygdala"

Amygdala = the part of your brain that registers all your fear

When you have an experience that creates fear, it gets "coded" into your brain

For the rest of your life, your amygdala, is tainted with your past experience

Arm wrestle your amygdala and win
Rejection sucks. But it's one of the most useful ways to refine your craft

Mindset shift: use fear to learn & motivate, not run away & demotivate
The only "true" way of getting rid of 100% your fears:

Stop putting yourself out there. Don't do anything worthwhile. Care about what others think about you

That's a sad way to live

Point: A healthy amount of fear is healthy
Building a startup is scary. You're basically a wild explorer

Just have fun and know that you're sailing into unknown waters

You might find gold or you might not, but I promise it will be a hell of a journey
Statements rooted in fear:

- Get a safe job and stick with it
- Don’t question the established order
- Don’t talk to strangers
- Go to college
- Always have a plan B
- etc.

Often times these "truths" drive the worst decisions
How to escape fear:

1. Trust fear
2. See #1
Reframe your fear:

Are the butterflies in your stomach nervousness or excitement‽

Is your heart racing because of terror or because of eager anticipation?

Are you scared or are you pumped up?

Reframing is a bravery superpower
A fear of mine:

Asking people to follow me on Twitter

Doing it anyways

Follow me on Twitter @gregisenberg as I share startup tips and insights on building internet communities
Mini-fears are the secret to overcoming big fears

It brings "the positive motivation loop" (h/t @nateliason)

Take large fear: break it up to many mini-fears. If you want to run 5k, start buy running around the block

Crawl. Walk. Run.
Understand the "knowns" and the "unknowns" of your projects

“Whatever you’re doing, don’t give a voice to things you’re not able to change.” - Vince Vaughn

Habit: write down your knowns & unknowns every single week
Reminder: every person on earth is suffering from fear

Let them know there are no bears running after them. Most fears aren't due to real danger

Unlock their potential
Common fears:

- Fear of change
- Fear of danger
- Fear of the unknown
- Fear of being judged
- Fear of being scared

What am I missing?
Don't completely rely on reassurance from friends/colleagues

Reassure is nice. But it's a crutch
Society is organized to sell into your fears:

- Retirement plans
- Heated blankets
- Insurance
- Substances

Don't blindly buy into products that sell "security"
I hope you enjoyed this thread

If you did, I write a newsletter around startup insights, internet communities, and community-first businesses. Sign up for free insights into your inbox

https://t.co/o2YiBTeG4v

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survive or I’d kill someone on the way down.

Christine spoke about honoring your pastors even when they weren’t great, she spoke of us expecting too much of pastors and how wrong that was. She said God would use our testimony if we submitted to our pastors.

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A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.

Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.

6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices

https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x


PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.

735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices

https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ


The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.

The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.