BC LIFE
Saved by @Jacobtldr

Standing on the cusp of 2021, life can be exhausting.

No matter where we look on social media, we will find people who seem wealthier, luckier, prettier, healthier, more popular, smarter, happier than us.

As highly ambitious people, what are we to do?

A solution to consider👇🏾

 The solution, in three words:

Aim for Mediocrity
Here’s what I’ve done for years now:

1) Aim to be mediocre at most things.

2) Celebrate this mediocrity.

3) Then focus on excellence at a few things.

4) Make sure those few things align with my passions, my strengths, and what the world needs.

contd.👇🏾
5) Work hard at those few things for long periods of time.

6) Find rewards in the act of getting better, not in immediate external feedback.

7) Get clarity on what rewards really matter.

8) Trust that those rewards will come.

9) Tweak my approach as I learn more.
An acceptance of our mediocrity is a ticket to freedom.

Very few smart & ambitious people recognize this.

This isn’t about giving up or "being a loser".

It’s about recognizing that very few of the things that bring us lifelong anxiety actually matter, when all is said & done.
Alright, so how might we go about executing on this?

My answer:
Life principles.

I’ll leave you with some of my life principles below.

They are always work in progress, but the ones below have stayed stable for the past 3-4 years.
Note:

I am not saying these should be YOUR life principles or ANYONE’s life principles. Examples are useful for clear writing, so view them as merely an example of what’s worked/working for one person. If something resonates, consider adopting it. If something repels, ignore it
Principle 1:

I don’t wish to be remembered after I die. By anyone.
Principle 2:

I don’t wish to be famous while I am alive.
Principle 3:

I want to be wealthy, but I do not seek to be the wealthiest person I personally know.
Principle 4:

I do want to be the wisest person I personally know. To do this, I want to learn from everyone I come in contact with. Everyone.
Principle 5:

I do not want to do anything that’s mainly aimed at impressing others.
Principle 6:

I do want to be the best parent I possibly can.
Principle 7:

I want to continue learning my craft as best as I possibly can.

(in my case, this craft is mainly product management)

(this principle has lasted the longest in my list, approximately the past 15 years)
And finally, the principle that enables me to follow these 7 principles as faithfully as I can:

I accept mediocrity in other aspects of my life.
Sometimes I’ll do better than mediocre (great)
Other times, I’ll do worse (not great, but fine)
Just be good-enough to avoid disaster.
Back to the top of this thread:
https://t.co/caZwkypKAw

More from Shreyas Doshi

Shreyas Doshi
Shreyas Doshi
@shreyas
A surprisingly high % of stupid arguments & fights on Twitter are rooted in a tiny number of fairly obvious fallacies.

Stupid arguments & the fallacies that feed them, a thread:

Fallacy 1/

Just because it’s true that all squares are rectangles, you argued that all rectangles must be squares. (And you did it with so much swagger.)

Example of Fallacy 1

X says: Successful people aren’t afraid of hard work.

Y argues: That’s BS. I work 90 hours a week at Tech Co and am still stuck in this dead-end job.

Fallacy 2/

Just because you found an exception to a general pattern, you argued that the entire pattern is false.

Example of Fallacy 2

X says: Venture capital is useful for startups.

Y argues: Not true. Foo’s startup took VC money and they crashed & burned.

Z piles on: I agree with Y. In fact, Bar’s startup did not take VC money and it’s worth a bajillion.
ARGUMENT
Shreyas Doshi
Shreyas Doshi
@shreyas
If you’re a Startup trying to compete with a Megacorp—the 800-pound Gorilla in the space—you need to understand the tax inherent to being a Gorilla

And then you need to make that tax work against the Gorilla—with your product's positioning & features

A thread on Gorilla taxes👇🏾


1/
Collaboration Tax

Getting two or more product groups at a megacorp to collaborate on creating a seamless end user experience is the hardest problem in computer science.

(I am not joking)

Examples of Collaboration Tax:

Calendly exists because the Gmail team & Calendar team haven’t worked together on creating a more seamless experience for that use case.

Loom might succeed because the Gmail, Video, Meet teams at Google are probably too busy with their own goals.

The takeaway for startups:

If you can create meaningful value by seamlessly integrating features of two or more distinct Gorilla products, you will typically have a lot of runway before the Gorilla can get its act together and eliminate its Collaboration Tax.

2/
Denominator Tax

Once a Gorilla’s product reaches massive scale (i.e. the denominator for its metrics gets very large), the pressure of OKRs & incentives will often force the Gorilla’s product teams to prioritize breadth of usage more than depth of usage.
BUSINESS
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Shreyas Doshi
Shreyas Doshi
@shreyas
Listening, *really* listening, is a rare superpower.

I was a bad listener most of my life.

Then I fixed that a few years ago.

Night & day difference in my leadership ability.

I learned that we can learn to listen well.

A thread on listening (and learning it from movies🎞️)
👇🏾

First, why is listening hard?

It’s because we have:
- the fear of being wrong
- an inability to be present
- a desire for validation
- a lack of curiosity
- the urge to impress
- a feeling of superiority

For an example of *bad* listening, let’s learn from this epic scene from the movie, The Darkest Hour.

The setup: World War II. There are disagreements among British leadership about whether they should pursue peace talks with Germany or an all out war.

Go on, watch the scene.


Really, watch the scene before proceeding to the next tweet.

So what can we learn from this scene about listening?

The superficial lesson is not to interrupt others.

But the deeper lesson is that most of us are like Churchill w.r.t. listening.

How so?

While we may not interrupt vocally, *we are interrupting others with our thoughts*
LIFE
Shreyas Doshi
Shreyas Doshi
@shreyas
@david_perell @readwiseio save thread
MENTAL
Shreyas Doshi
Shreyas Doshi
@shreyas
A thread of product management frameworks:

(this might be useful if you are a product manager, product leader, or founder)

Before we jump in:

Frameworks will not fix all your problems.

Used right, they should help you
1) better understand your context
2) create structure for problems
3) communicate ideas & solutions

I often use these frameworks in my product work, sometimes without realizing it.

1/
3X framework (Kent Beck)

A product can be in one of 3 stages
1. Explore
2. Expand
3. Extract

For product leaders this is the most vital framework to understand because almost every important decision should account for the stage your product is

Examples of decisions you can make more rigorously with the 3X framework:
- optimize for inputs, outputs, or outcomes?
- set more qualitative or quantitative goals?
- how to measure progress?
- what skills to look for?
- how to evaluate PMs'

2/
5Qs for product rigor

1) Who is the customer?
2) What is the problem/opportunity?
3) What is the main customer benefit?
4) How do you know customers want this?
5) What is the customer experience?

This framework provides useful structure for product proposals, reviews, etc.
PRODUCT

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The most interesting people defy categorization

Live an interesting enough life, and you’ll never be easy to describe
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A relationship begins to get stiff when excessive patterns begin to form.

Too many patterns leads to a boring, predictable, logical lifestyle.

Get the emotions involved.

Do something spontaneous out of the blue moon & flip the script.

'What's wrong with the patterns?'

Nothing is wrong with patterns.

However, there is a problem when all you have are patterns.

It's boring.

'Can you explain why?'

Sure 👇

The thing with relationships is that it's meant to be an emotional experience.

It's very difficult to logically explain love, right?

'Right.'

Well this is where you want to steer the ship the right way.

1. Too emotional is bad.

2. Too logical is bad.

Let me break it down.

1. Too emotional

If a relationship is completely ruled by emotions, then it's too volatile.

You will never reach productivity if you are aimlessly only following each others emotions.

This lifestyle tarnishes any structure for the couple.

'So why do people do it?'

Because it's fun.

You may ruled by this stage in the honeymoon phase.

Normal.

You'll be so spontaneous that it almost becomes a lifestyle.

But it's hard to level up your life when you're too spontaneous.

Avoid.
LIFE
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AMK \u2728\U0001f4ab\U0001f308\U0001f98b
AMK ✨💫🌈🦋...
@itsAMK__
Being humble is to be felt. It’s not something that you show off.
#BeHumbleLikeSSR
#JusticeForSushantSinghRajput


Being humble means recognizing that we are not on earth to see how important we can become, but to see how much difference we can make in the lives of others.
#BeHumbleLikeSSR
#JusticeForSushantSinghRajput


Be kind, work hard, stay humble, smile often, stay loyal, be honest, travel when possible, never stop learning, love always. #BeHumbleLikeSSR #JusticeForSushantSinghRajput


To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength. #BeHumbleLikeSSR #JusticeForSushantSinghRajput


The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk. #BeHumbleLikeSSR #JusticeForSushantSinghRajput
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Sarah Oxford-Laughdugr...
@sarah_ox_laugh
I'm just back for a COMPLETELY NECESSARY trip to a supermarket.

And... something dramatic happened.

So, okay, looks like we're going to have a little bit of a THREAD.

Buckle up for an unbelievable anecdote that gets to the heart of London life in this nightmarish pandemic.

(I won't name the supermarket, NOT because I don't want to shame the members of staff [I will be doing that privately by reporting their actions to the police later today - as soon as I've finished tweeting this thread], but because I don't want to give them free advertising.)

Okay, right. I'm still shaking so I'm struggling to write this out. I've opened a bottle of Campo Viejo Rioja (an underrated affordable offering which is currently on special offer at Tesco) to steady my nerves. No shame in that.

So. Yes. I was walking down the dairy aisle...

I saw a northerner.

(apologies for the delay, I'm on the phone to an upset friend - her husband of 15 years has just confessed to an affair with her own sister. It's not really the sort of situation where you can say, "Excuse me Julie, awfully sorry but I'm writing an incredible thread on twitter!")
LIFE
Shruti Chaturvedi
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Thread: A personal episode from the past that I feel is very relevant to be shared today, especially for parents of young girls.

I was 18, when my first cousin morphed my face with that of a male school friend in extremely compromising position.

Very believable for anyone without knowledge of tech.

I was devastated. This was a brother I looked upto. This was the brother I had given my laptop to so he could apply for jobs. And on the same laptop, he made those photographs of me, his younger sister.

Why did he do that? He was kicked out of his house by his family after he married a girl w/o their consent. He was homeless, so my parents let him stay with us till my his family cools down & accepts them back. After 6 months, he felt threatened he'd be asked to leave our place.

So one day, he confronts my parents, infront of me, with those pictures and shows those photographs, with clear terms - pay him & his wife a fixed amount every month, let them stay at our home or he would leak those pictures everywhere.

I still remember he explained how he would distribute those pictures on the day they would get me married 😂

I don't know how any other parent from lower middle class would have reacted to this. But I remember how my parents did, that changed my relationship with them forever.
LIFE

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THE LESSER KNOWN MAHARANA OF MEWAR:RANA KUMBHA
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Devi is worshipped in the temple as Thirumalai Kaali amman

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Bhattar conveyed the news to the Pandalam Raja and they went to find out the vigraham. Surprisingly ants showed the way to find the Vigraham. Thus Murugan vigraham was found and Prathista was done here. There is a lake with pure water on the top of the hill


which is said to be created by Agasthiyar. It is believed that kannaki of
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Om Muruga
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A relationship begins to get stiff when excessive patterns begin to form.

Too many patterns leads to a boring, predictable, logical lifestyle.

Get the emotions involved.

Do something spontaneous out of the blue moon & flip the script.

'What's wrong with the patterns?'

Nothing is wrong with patterns.

However, there is a problem when all you have are patterns.

It's boring.

'Can you explain why?'

Sure 👇

The thing with relationships is that it's meant to be an emotional experience.

It's very difficult to logically explain love, right?

'Right.'

Well this is where you want to steer the ship the right way.

1. Too emotional is bad.

2. Too logical is bad.

Let me break it down.

1. Too emotional

If a relationship is completely ruled by emotions, then it's too volatile.

You will never reach productivity if you are aimlessly only following each others emotions.

This lifestyle tarnishes any structure for the couple.

'So why do people do it?'

Because it's fun.

You may ruled by this stage in the honeymoon phase.

Normal.

You'll be so spontaneous that it almost becomes a lifestyle.

But it's hard to level up your life when you're too spontaneous.

Avoid.
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#Thread Two divine forms of Khatu Shyam ji...


On the day of Amavasya, devotees get the darshan of Shyam Baba in Shyam varan (black color). In ordinary days, the form of Baba is saffron. The reason for this is a custom. The real head of Shyam Baba which had appeared from Shyam Kund is of Shyam varan.


Every day Shyam Baba's grand Shringar is done by Pujaris. The main part of Shyam Baba's shringar is Tilak. This Shringar is done by the members of Nij Mandir sevaks. The sevaks of the Nij Mandir do sandalwood tilak to Baba everyday in the auspicious time.


This Divine Tilak is applied from the forehead to the nose. When Baba is given a bath by sevaks, this tilak comes off. Then in the auspicious time, the sevaks again apply tilak to Baba.


There is no auspicious time on the Amavasya. Because of this, tilak is not done on that day. That's why devotees have darshan of Shyam Baba on the Amavasya only in the actual real form (Shyam Swaroop). Baba's tilak is done on Amavasya only on the day of Deepawali.
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THREAD:

80 Films with the biggest Plot Twists that will blow your mind.

1. Fight Club


2. Predestination


3. Seven


4. Requiem for a Dream
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