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Zain Kahn
@heykahn 4 years, 9 months ago 735 views

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11 of the wisest things ever said: 🧵

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.”

― René Descartes

"The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life"

― Confucius

"If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing."

― Margaret Thatcher

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."

― The Buddha

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

― Seneca

“If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled—have you no shame in that?”

― Epictetus

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

― Marcus Aurelius

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

― Helen Keller

“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”

― Emmanuel Kant

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

― Lao Tzu

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

― Anne Frank

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I write about psychology, marketing and career growth. I share my insights along the way.

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Zain Kahn
@heykahn

Things I know at 28

I wish I understood when I was 18:

Hard work is overrated. Consistency is underrated.

It's not about how hard you swing your bat.

It's about swinging over and over again till you learn to hit it out of the park.

Consistency gets you places hard work doesn't.

You gain confidence after doing something hard ― not before.

Too many people never try hard things because they think confidence is a precondition when, in reality, it's a reward.

Goals are bullshit.

Successful and unsuccessful people have the same goals.

You never rise to the level of your goals. You always fall to the level of your habits.

Goals are just dreams. Habits make them a reality.

h/t @JamesClear

Your need to fit in is your biggest barrier to personal growth.

Let's face it ― most of us would rather be wrong with the crowd than be right alone.

Learning to overcome your constant need for social approval is the first step to growth.

Zain Kahn
@heykahn

7 powerful concepts everyone should teach their children:

Compound interest:

Large outcomes are often the result of small gains in performance compounding over the course of years and decades.

Small improvements may look tiny in isolation, but they result in gigantic outcomes when you zoom out.

Evolution by natural selection:

People and culture evolve through a process of generational iteration.

In every generation, the fittest organisms reproduce to create the next generation - while the unfittest die away.

Most things in our world are the result of this process.

Evolution-environment disconnect:

We evolved in the scarcity of jungles but find ourselves in the abundance of cities with unlimited food and pleasures.

Our biology isn't equipped to deal with this abundance - which often leads to addiction and obesity.

Many things around us are designed to exploit this evolutionary disconnect:

• Added sugar to exploit your taste buds
• Pornography to exploit your sex drive
• Social media to exploit your social instincts

Recognizing and limiting these things is critical for a healthy life.

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Zain Kahn
@heykahn

Mental models can save your life.

But psychological biases can ruin it.

Here are 10 psychological biases to help you avoid a life of pain and suffering:

1. Doubt-avoidance:

Doubt and uncertainty make us feel uncomfortable.

And when we don't have clarity, we start rushing decisions to avoid that feeling of uncertainty.

When in doubt, take a deep breath and sleep on it before making a decision.

2. Overoptimism bias:

When we want something badly, we start overestimating our odds of success.

It's why so many people bet on their sports team to win.

It's also why millions buy lottery tickets.

Don't let what you want cloud your judgment of what you should do.

3. Reciprocation:

The tendency to treat others as they've treated us.

When treated well: "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

When treated badly: "An eye for an eye."

Sometimes this tendency can lead to endless conflict.

Resist the urge to reciprocate bad behaviour.

4. Social Proof:

We copy other people's behaviour when making decisions.

Especially when we're feeling uncertain.

This is why so many ads have celebrity endorsements and user testimonials.

Next time you make a decision, be mindful of other people's influence.

Zain Kahn
@heykahn

Hard skills get you hired.

But soft skills get you promoted.

11 soft skills to accelerate your career:

1. Communication:

• Listen without interrupting.
• Speak with a positive tone.
• Pay attention to your body language.

2. Persuasion:

• Identify what other people care about.
• Create stories that resonate with them.
• Communicate those stories with brevity and emotion.

3. Negotiation:

• Listen carefully.
• Understand what the other side wants.
• Know your worth.
• Then propose solutions that benefit both sides.

4. Relationship building:

• Help others unconditionally.
• Look for common interests.
• Always add value before asking for something in return.

Zain Kahn
@heykahn

10 free websites that are so valuable they feel illegal to know:

1. TinyWOW:

Get free versions of tools you usually pay for. Includes free versions of:

• Adobe Acrobat Pro (PDF editor)
• Photoshop (image editor)

2. Jenni AI:

An AI auto-writing tool that automatically writes your essays and emails for you.

All you have to do is give it a title and a couple of sentences.

3. Temp-mail

Temp-mail gives you a temporary email and inbox to help you sign up to a website and avoid all the spam down the line.

4. Quillbot:

Quillbot is a paraphrasing website that rewrites everything as plagiarism free text.

Super handy if you're in college.

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10 powerful Excel features every user should know: 📊

Flash Fill:

Let's say you've got all the data you need––it just isn't in the right place.

"Flash Fill" is your friend.

Quickly extract pieces of text from one cell and move them to another OR combine text from multiple cells into a single place.

Camera Snapshot

Here's a little-known trick to move data between workbooks.

First, add "camera" to your quick access toolbar.

•Select your data ⇢ click 📷
•Paste to new workbook

The cool part: When you update the main workbook, the data in the picture updates as well! 🤯

Analyze Data:

I was never very good at Pivot tables, graphs, & analyzing data on my own.

Lucky for me (and you) Excel will do the heavy lifting for us.

•Select the range of data
•"Home" ⇢ "Analyze Data"

Charts, tables, & analysis––premade.

Click "insert" & you're done!

X-Lookup

If you're an old-school Excel user, there's no doubt you're familiar with V-Lookup.

X is the new & improved version, here's why:

•Lookup array does NOT have to be only on the left-hand side.
•Allows you to return multiple values at the same time.

Here's how: 👇🏻

$Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2$

Dickie Bush 🚢
@dickiebush

What is 1 YouTube video you think every person on Earth should watch?

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$Alex & Books \U0001f4da$

Alex & Books 📚...
@AlexAndBooks_

I asked, "What's the best history book you've ever read?"

I received 300+ responses.

Here are 20 books that will help you understand the world and how we got here:

1/

Sapiens

by @harari_yuval

2/

The Lessons of History

by Ariel Durant & Will

3/

Guns, Germs, and Steel

by Jared

4/

A Brief History of Nearly Everything

by @billbrysonn

Amanda Natividad
@amandanat

If you want to get rich and live your best life...

10 threads to make you healthy, wealthy, and wise:

1/ Learn a bit of psychology to better understand yourself.

Not from me. From a doctor.

@dremilyanhalt breaks down psych concepts to help you name your feelings and

PSYCHOLOGY MEGATHREAD:

40 of my favorite psychological concepts, introduced as thoroughly as I could manage in 280 characters or less.

These are core human behaviors that play out in all relationships, & are explored through therapy.

Enjoy, ask questions, & add your own!
— Dr. Emily Anhalt (@dremilyanhalt) February 11, 2020

2/ Define what self-care is to you.

Practice it. Often.

Incredible life lessons from mom, marketing executive, and CEO @AmandaMGoetz.

This thread will blow your mind.

Things I know at 35,
I wish I had known at 25.

\U0001f9f5/
— Amanda Goetz (@AmandaMGoetz) July 27, 2021

3/ Know your worth.

Pay attention to red flags in business. Stand up for yourself when it's time.

No one knows this better than founder, executive, and influencer marketer,

Emails like this where you need to "prove" your rates, while simultaneously being told you are "overpriced" are never worth the response (unless you're responding with a clapback). pic.twitter.com/nmVmQJHVI5
— Brittany | Influencer Marketing + Social Media (@MissBeeBright) August 10, 2021

4/ If you want to get rich, be willing to think outside the box.

Consider unsexy, cash-flowing small businesses.

@Codie_Sanchez is the expert in this and she writes a killer newsletter on building

I was burned out in finance, working on someone else's schedule, tired of having my time tied to $.
So I started investing in cash-flowing biz's.
Not sexy startups, but boring businesses.

One of my fav small deals netted $67k a year, $100k at close... w/ quarters

A thread: pic.twitter.com/Mv0diWoPeB
— Codie Sanchez \U0001f4a5 (@Codie_Sanchez) April 9, 2021

Joe Koster
@jtkoster

I’m often asked by college students for reading recommendations to help them learn more about investing. I feel like I change my answers, at least a bit, all the time depending on what I’m reading and what’s on my mind at any given time, but here’s my current list….

1. Warren Buffett’s Letters to Shareholders

2. “Poor Charlie’s Almanack”

3. Howard Marks’ “The Most Important Thing”

4. Nassim Taleb’s books, in this order…. “Fooled by Randomness” (twice, back-to-back), “The Black Swan” (once), “Antifragile” (twice, back-to-back), and then “Skin in the Game” (once).

I think after reading Buffett and Munger, things sometimes seem too easy. Taleb’s books helped me think about risk and randomness in a way other books haven’t. Howard Marks’ book (or letters) help a lot too, but Taleb’s books pound those lessons in.

5. Peter Kaufman’s essay on “Culture”

6. William Green’s “Richer, Wiser, Happier.” And you don’t just learn from the investors profiled in the book (about investing and life), you also learn so much from @williamgreen72 as he synthesizes and simplifies the important things.

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ANCIENT BHARAT WAS CALLED VISHWAGURU, AND IT REALLY DESERVED IT.

India had a well developed education system centuries before the westerners arrived and called us uncivilized. Education was always given a great importance in Indian civilisation since times immemorial.

Ancient India had the Gurukulas and Ashramas as the epicentres of the knowledge and enlightenment. Bigger Gurukulas served as the centres of higher education called universities. Besides these universities, temples also emerged as the major learning centres.

Studying the Holy Scriptures, character building, personality development, responsibilities towards self,family and society,discipline and preservation of the ancient culture and heritage were the key embodiments of education.

This kind of education system made ancient India, a centre of knowledge all over the world. Many foreign students came to India for education and India was called the 'Vishwaguru'.
Takshshila and Nalanda were the two prominent universities of ancient India.

But were these only Universities of ancient India?The answer is 'No'.Let's learn about these gems of our education system that flourished across ancient India & be proud.

NALANDA UNIVERSITY
This was the oldest university of ancient India.Situated in Nalanda distt. of Bihar...

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LESSER KNOWN DETAILS ABOUT THE BATTLE OF PRATAPGAD - THIS YOU ALL SHOULD READ

In the 1659 Adilshah sent Afzalkhan with the army of 75000 soldiers to destroy Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj with his empire. He was the main soldier, warrior and minister in Adilshahi Sultanate.

He was the Subhedar of Wai province.

He was very powerful physically. His height was 7.3 ft. due to same he was very popular as a strong man from Adilshahi Sultanate.

Whole India was not daring to fight with Adilshahi due to Afzal Khan.

Badi Begum Sahiba sent him to kill Chhatrapati Shivaji on any cost.

Voluntary he decided to destroy Chhatrapati Shivaji’s empire with him. He started his operation against Chhatrapati Shivaji from "wai". He destroyed many temples like as Tulja Bhavani Temple.

He destroyed so many villages, killed villagers to torture Chhatrapati Shivaji.

DETAILED VIEW- Running commentary

1. Chhatrapati Shivaji chose Pantaji as a lawyer to communicate with Afzal Khan. Pantaji was very sharp minded, who did his job very nicely.

2. He presented Chhatrapati Shivaji is fearing Afzal Khan and he wanted to invite him in his kingdom near Pratapgad.

3. Pantaji succeed in the communication with Afzal Khan and he brought him as per the planning of Chhatrapati Shivaji.

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By popular demand, here is the official Mystery Grove Film Recommendations list. Watch all of these in order if you want to truly understand the world we live in today.

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ADI SHANKAR AND SRI TOTAKACHARYA

Adi Shankaracharya chose his disciple Totakacharya to be the first head of the Math at Joshimath.
The Narsingh Mandir (Mandir of Sri Narasimha) in Joshimath is one of the 108 Divyadesams and also the home of Badrinath during the winter months.

Totakacharya was earlier a boy named ‘Giri’ and a devout disciple of Adi Shankaracharya. Unlike others, he was not known to be an expert in Shastras but his dedication to his Guru was complete and he used to listen to His discourses with utmost faith and devotion.
@SriRamya21

One morning as Adi Shankara and his disciples were getting ready for the discourse, Giri was delayed. The other disciples urged their Guru to commence the lesson on Bramhsutra Bhashya telling him that Giri would anyway not be able to comprehend its deep meaning.
@RajeAiyer

Adi Shankar responded “नायमात्मा प्रवचनेन लभ्यो न मेधया” – Atman cannot be attained through discourses or mere intellect.
He,then, awakened the supreme knowledge in Giri.
Giri spontaneously composed: श्री शङ्करदेशिकाष्टकम् extolling his Guru’s grace.

Adi Shankaracharya granted sanyasa to Giri and gave him the name Totakacharya.
The story of how Giri became Totakacharya is a great example of the importance of faith and devotion in your Guru and not the mere knowledge of the Shastras.
@DetheEsha

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These 10 threads will teach you more than reading 100 books

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I\u2019ve gotten a lot of bad advice in my career and I see even more of it here on Twitter.

Time for a stiff drink and some truth you probably dont want to hear.

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THREAD: 10 significant lies you're told about the world.

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