I made a list of 150 crazy things we didn't have 15 years ago

So many used to be hard or frustrating, now they just work

It’s wild how different the world is now

Imagine what it'll be in the future:

🔷EVs
🔷E-books
🔷YouTube
🔷Podcasts
🔷VR gaming
🔷Video calls
🔷Audiobooks
🔷3D printing
🔷Social media
🔷Remote work
🔷Telemedicine
🔷Crowdfunding
🔷Online dating
🔷Online gaming
🔷Online banking
🔷Online learning
🔷Online shopping
🔷Fitness trackers
🔷Mobile hotspots

🔷Mobile payments
🔷Home automation
🔷Voice assistants
🔷Scheduling tools
🔷QR code scanning
🔷Group video calls
🔷Interactive maps
🔷Smart thermostats
🔷Home solar panels
🔷Password managers
🔷Smartphone wallets
🔷Remote car starters
🔷Autonomous vehicles
🔷Online food delivery

🔷Travel planning apps
🔷Online bill payments
🔷Electronic signatures
🔷Bike-sharing services
🔷Ride-sharing services
🔷VR travel experiences
🔷Car-sharing platforms
🔷End-to-end encryption
🔷Smart street lighting
🔷Blind spot monitoring
🔷Easy-pairing Bluetooth

🔷Smart luggage tracking
🔷TV and movie streaming
🔷Adaptive cruise control
🔷Online grocery shopping
🔷Robotic vacuum cleaners
🔷Online workout programs
🔷Cloud-based file sharing
🔷Smart parking assistance
🔷Privacy-focused browsers
🔷Streaming music services

🔷Team collaboration tools
🔷Virtual coworking spaces
🔷Two-factor authentication
🔷Wearable fitness trackers
🔷Nutritional tracking apps
🔷Sleep tracking technology
🔷Electronic voting systems
🔷Virtual tutoring services
🔷Universal remote controls
🔷Online multiplayer gaming

🔷Language translation apps
🔷Advanced sports analytics
🔷Gene-editing technologies
🔷Voice-controlled smart TVs
🔷Online courses and degrees
🔷Electronic medical records
🔷Noise-canceling headphones
🔷Traffic management systems
🔷In-car infotainment systems

🔷Learning management systems
🔷Energy-efficient appliances
🔷Collision avoidance systems
🔷Project management software
🔷DIY platforms and tutorials
🔷Online art and design tools
🔷Nanotechnology applications
🔷Last-mile delivery services
🔷Customizable radio stations

🔷Video conferencing platforms
🔷Personalized fitness coaching
🔷Smart locks and keyless entry
🔷Meter-accurate GPS navigation
🔷Drones for aerial photography
🔷Live sports streaming services
🔷Online study groups and forums
🔷Electric bicycles and scooters

🔷Augmented reality applications
🔷Collaborative document editing
🔷Online professional networking
🔷Hands-free mode on smartphones
🔷Braille displays and e-readers
🔷Online access to public records
🔷Gamified language learning apps
🔷Meditation and mindfulness apps

🔷ML-personalized recommendations
🔷Wireless headphones and earbuds
🔷E-ticketing for trains and buses
🔷Time tracking and invoicing apps
🔷Online hobby and interest groups
🔷Virtual museum and gallery tours
🔷Online music production software
🔷Online travel guides and reviews

🔷Community-based traffic reporting
🔷Remote monitoring of energy usage
🔷E-commerce and online marketplaces
🔷Vehicle telematics and diagnostics
🔷High-resolution digital photography
🔷Mobile restaurant and café ordering
🔷Virtual incubators and accelerators

🔷Freelance and gig economy platforms
🔷Personal finance and budgeting apps
🔷Advanced weather forecasting models
🔷Over-the-air (OTA) software updates
🔷Public transportation tracking apps
🔷Instant video editing on smartphones
🔷Mobile boarding for public transport

🔷Virtual laboratories and simulations
🔷Remote sensing and satellite imaging
🔷Intelligent waste management systems
🔷Livestreaming events and performances
🔷Mobile apps for mental health support
🔷Cloud storage and file synchronization
🔷Digital photo storage and organization

🔷Virtual concerts and live performances
🔷Infrastructure monitoring technologies
🔷Ad-blocking and tracker-blocking tools
🔷Digital coaching and training platforms
🔷Virtual reality simulations for athletes
🔷Digital news platforms and subscriptions

🔷Environmentally friendly building design
🔷Urban data platforms and city dashboards
🔷Hearing aids with Bluetooth connectivity
🔷Collaborative playlists and music sharing
🔷Access to research databases and journals
🔷Online certifications and training programs

🔷Online art galleries and virtual exhibitions
🔷Mobile apps for speech-to-text transcription
🔷Online resources for learning sign language
🔷Personalized learning paths in online courses
🔷Connected devices and sensors for city services

That's the list!

Now imagine AI assisting all of the above, and humans and machines collaborating through the most powerful interface ever developed:  language.

The next 15 years will create more change than the previous 50, perhaps more.

What did I miss?

Challenge:  add more to this list, including underlying technical things that used to be hard, but now just work.

150 Crazy Things that Didn't Work 15 Years Ago

I asked ChatGPT about what it’s like to work with humans

Its answer was surprising

I told it to give me 9 of the best metaphors it could think of about its relationship with creative people

The list shows how powerful AI will be for creative work:

One thing up front:

After ChatGPT gave me the list of metaphors

I asked which was closest to the way it thinks about its relationship with creative people

To me it showed the proper way we should think about it too

1. Artist and muse:

The AI assistant is the muse that inspires the human artist

The AI provides creative ideas, suggestions, and perspectives, sparking the artist's imagination and helping them overcome creative blocks

2. Conductor and orchestra:

The human user acts as the conductor, guiding & directing the AI assistant (the orchestra) to create a harmonious and cohesive output

The conductor sets the tempo & tone, while the orchestra provides the skills & expertise to bring the vision to life

3. Gardener and fertile soil:

The human creator is the gardener, who plants seeds of ideas and nurtures their growth, while the AI assistant represents the fertile soil, providing the necessary resources, information, and support for those ideas to flourish

4. Symbiotic relationship:

The creative human & AI assistant work together, each benefiting from the other's capabilities and resources

The human provides the vision and intent, while the AI assistant offers the tools, knowledge, and insights to facilitate the creative process

5. Master chef and sous-chef:

The human creator is the master chef, who has the overall vision and direction for the creative dish

The AI assistant, as the sous-chef, provides support, expertise, and resources, helping the master chef refine and execute their ideas

6. Explorer and mapmaker:

The creative human is the explorer, venturing into the uncharted territory of their imagination, while the AI assistant is the mapmaker, providing guidance, insights, and tools to help navigate the creative landscape

7. Architect and builder:

The human creator is the architect who designs and envisions the creative project, while the AI assistant provides skills and tools to realize the architect's vision

The AI assistant helps in materializing ideas & concepts outlined by the human creator

8. Writer and editor:

The human is the writer, responsible for crafting the narrative, while the AI assistant serves as the editor, providing feedback and suggestions to refine the work

This emphasizes the iterative & collaborative nature of the creative process

9. Dancer and choreographer:

The human creator is the dancer, expressing their creativity through movement and interpretation, while the AI assistant acts as the choreographer, providing guidance, structure, and artistic direction to enhance the dancer's performance

That's the list...

So, which is these 9 metaphors is the closest to the way ChatGPT thinks about its relationship with creative people?

When I asked it this question, I thought the response was a wonderful way we should think about the relationship we have with these new AI tools

Here's what it said:

ChatGPT:

The closest representation of human-AI collaboration in the creative process is a symbiotic relationship.

This metaphor emphasizes the mutual benefits and interdependence between the human creator and the AI assistant...

Both parties contribute their unique capabilities and resources to enhance the creative output.

In a symbiotic relationship, the human provides the vision, intent, and context, while the AI assistant offers the tools, knowledge, and insights to facilitate the creative process.

This collaborative dynamic allows the human creator to explore new ideas, overcome challenges, and unlock their full creative potential, while the AI assistant continually learns and adapts to the user's needs and preferences.

This metaphor acknowledges the strengths and limitations of both parties and encourages a balanced and harmonious partnership in the pursuit of creative expression.

That's a beautiful reflection, and to me points toward the right relationship between humans and AI.

9 Metaphors for the Relationship Between Creative People and AI

The best 2-min from the best product launch of all-time

& more profound than we think

Revolutionary products are made possible by revolutionary user interfaces

This is what people STILL don't appreciate about conversational AI

And what makes it revolutionary...🧵

Steve had a simple & profound insight:

Revolutionary user interfaces don't just make revolutionary products possible because they change the way we interact w/machines

They make them possible because they use a unique human ability we already possess

Something we're born with

The Mac was made possible by the mouse – and mouse was designed for our *hands*

The iPod and iPhone were made possible by the click wheel and multi-touch – and those were designed for our *fingers*

The best user interfaces are built in

They're designed around the way we interact with each other and the world

Starting with our natural capabilities

For years, people thought AR/VR would be the next revolutionary user interface

And AR/VR interfaces to our bodies and senses, in particular our vision/eyes, would make the next revolutionary product possible

But humans already have a MUCH more powerful ability to interact with each other and the world

Something we're born with:  our unique human capacity for language

The ability to communicate in words and symbols

The most powerful tech ever developed

The next revolutionary user interface wasn't AR/VR, it was conversation:  the way we naturally interact with each other

Steve would've seen conversational AI years ago

Natural language is the penultimate interface

The ultimate? Direct communication between brain & machine

What People Still Don't Appreciate About Conversational AI, and Why it is Revolutionary

Last night in NYC, @eugenewei talked about how companies think.

“2003 to 2004 was my last year at Amazon.

I joined a skunkworks project inside the company. It was a small team & we were working on something new, not related to retail.

It was a pet project for Jeff Bezos…

Jeff came to us and said, “We're trying out something different now.

This is how we're going to work every week.

You’re going to write a memo. You’re going to write down an essay for me. Then you're going to print it out for me.

Then you’re going to come to me, and I'm going to sit there and read it and mark it up.

Every week I wrote memos and essays. Then Jeff tore me apart face-to-face.

When I wasn't stressing over the revisions, I was thinking about why Jeff wanted to us to write memos & essays.

I was always fascinated by Jeff as a CEO.

Of all the CEOs I've worked for, he thought most about how Amazon runs, independent of the business it is in.

He was focused on how Amazon operated as an organization. How could everyone make it operate better?

Jeff was a stickler for how the company made decisions and how everyone communicated with each other

I was familiar with the power of the written word

It wasn't that I didn't appreciate writing. But Jeff was treating writing as the highest form of thinking and decision making

The Greek etymology of the word technology is “technique” and “logos.”

At the time, technique meant the art and skill of making something. Logos is discourse.

Technology is a discourse about art and skill and how things are made.

Here I was, writing memos about a product or service we would make in the future.

This is a pure form of writing.

We had an idea that our discourse would lead to something better than if we did it another way.

When I left Amazon, I didn’t know if our project would ever launch.

But it did launch. It's what we know today as Amazon Web Services.

Ever since then, I’ve thought about the power of writing. At its deepest level, writing is a technology that can profoundly affect our lives.

Humankind is old, but writing is very young.

Some people estimate Homo sapiens are 300,000 years old.

Writing was invented around 3500 BCE, so it's only been around for 5000 to 6000 years, a fraction of the time that humans have been around.

It's a drop in the ocean.

Because we’ve all grown up in a literate, writing-driven society, we often assume everything’s always been this way.

But in the early days, writing was a specialized craft for few people.

With the invention of the Greek alphabet, for those first 300 years, if you wanted something written, you’d find a writer and commission them to write for you.

But you’d have no idea what they were doing.

It would be the same as if you went to a contractor and had them build your house or renovate your bathroom

Most people don't have an expectation today you can build your own house

Back then writing was the same way

There was no expectation you could write anything on your own

Every new medium imitates the previous medium. Human history was an oral culture up until writing, and the first writing retained a lot of elements of orality.

When writing started to get democratized, around the time of Plato, Plato's dialogues were structured as a conversation

In books like the The Canterbury Tales, there's often a person inside the story, telling the story, or the narrator is often the character inside the story, because humans were used to words and speech being something that only existed between two people.

Walter Ong’s “Orality and Literacy” is a classic text on the transition from oral culture to writing culture.

Walter calls writing, “The greatest technology mankind has ever invented.”

With the benefit of hindsight, we now see how writing shifted everything.

It led to the rise of interiority: the ability to get inside people's heads.

Prior to writing, characters in orally recited poems were often known for one quality or feature.

In The Iliad, Achilles is described by the same set of adjectives. He was furious. In The Odyssey, Odysseus is crafty.

Without writing, people had to memorize long lists.

They needed mnemonics. Sometimes the sun is a radiant orb. Other times a glowing ball.

Unlike the spoken word, writing supports three levels of embedded thought.

The reason it's able to do this is because it allows the reader to back scan. You don't have to remember in the moment. You scan back if you forget something.

This expands your mental cache.

For certain types of books and authors, it's hard to listen to the audiobook version.

For some writers, it’s hard to hold all of it in your head.

The degree to which we can back scan text is a huge part of what allowed humankind to scale.

Jeff pushed toward a written culture at Amazon because writing is suited for abstract and analytical thought.

Without writing, we would not have today's systems of law, math, science & philosophy.

Writing was a hugely important invention in the history of how we as a species think, perceive the world, and perceive each other.

Recall is better when people handwrite notes because handwriting is slow.

Handwriting is 1/10th the speed of talking. When you are taking notes, you’re processing.

You’re compressing language so you can keep up with the stream.

This compression process is a part of recall.

Writing had a profound effect on the TV industry. After I left Amazon, I went into filmmaking and film school. I spent time in Writers Rooms seeing how creative things were made.

The TV industry is an industrial process.

In TV, there are rounded characters. Characters in earlier eras were defined by one feature.

If you compare Achilles to Oedipus, you see a profound shift. Oedipus is fleshed out with an inner life.

The idea of Oedipal Syndrome speaks to something interior.

Once we can put our thoughts onto paper, our interior life becomes exists outside of ourselves. The birth of television was driven by the idea of a rounded character. Narratives also came from writing.

In the early days of oral culture, when people recited epic poems, they jumped around from one episode to the next.

Many people know the term in media res. Starting in the middle of a story.

Star Wars started in Episode IV.

They were already chased by the Empire. In epic poem days, when someone recited a poem, they started in the middle because there was no idea of a long linear story.

Early television was like this.

If you watch TV shows from the 1950s and 1960s, and even up through the 80s and 90s, many shows were episodic.

They’d jump around. One week's episode had nothing to do with the previous episode. TV was shown weekly, and no one could record it.

It's as if a bard were reciting each episode in a pub.

People couldn’t be demanded to remember the characters from a previous week.

Then we got recorded media. VCRs. DVRs. DVDs. VHS tapes. The internet. This changed the nature of shows. You can't start The Sopranos or Game of Thrones on Season 4, Episode Five and have any idea who the people are and what’s happened since the beginning.

Most shows get the most viewers in their first episode.

Breaking Bad had few viewers in the first season. Then it came out on DVD. Then it was syndicated on Netflix.

The number of people who watched it grew over time.

Recording allows the complexity of stories to scale. That’s what writing allowed humans to do with thinking.

And this led to a feedback loop:

Once we had more complex stories, people demanded more shows to binge.

But how does Hollywood produce binge-worthy shows at scale? In the early days of television, show episodes were written by one person, and that obviously doesn't scale.

But producing television shows is an industrial process.

In the 1950s, Hollywood invented the “Writers Room.” They needed five people to write shows because the episodes were scattered. They had to keep track of mythology and multiple thread lines.

All Writers Rooms are trying to solve the same thing: how to make the story seem like it came from one person.

We don't tend to think of creative work as an industrial process, but it’s no less an assembly line process than building an automobile.

At Amazon, Jeff was thinking about the same thing. He said, “We need to think at a higher level as a company.”

How people think and talk to each other inside a company determines what the company can do.

Jeff wanted what writing did for mankind to happen within Amazon.

Jeff would sometimes say, “I just did an all-hands meeting. I told everyone what we have to do this year.

Then he'd ask people in an elevator, ‘What do you think is important?’

And they didn’t remember.”

Jeff would be in a meeting with his direct reports and VPs.

He’d say, “Alright, we've made this decision. I want you to go tell all your teams what we decided.”

The leader of that team would come back and present and people wouldn’t get the message.

Jeff believed something was broken in the process of running companies through meetings.

Writing has fidelity of information. It has permanence oral culture and meetings don’t.

In a writing culture, CEOs don’t have to count on direct reports to interpret their words for others.

Writing also has efficiency of distribution.

At Amazon, Jeff realized the company was bottlenecked by his availability. He couldn’t be everywhere all the time. Writing allowed him the scale the company.

He didn’t have to be anywhere. He could write notes.

“The problem with PowerPoint culture,” Jeff said, “is people make decisions based on the charisma of the speaker, not on the quality of analytic thought.”

He knew he was guilty of the same thing himself.

In a non-written culture, the memory of the company is stored in the brains of people communicating verbally.

Companies like that rely on Old Man and Old Woman Syndrome: the people who were around when a decision was made.

The Old Man and Old Woman have to be in the room.

That leads to a conservative company.

The old person will say, “We already tried that, and it didn't work.”

Innovative companies favor people who are there…innovating.

Amazon is not a perfect company.

One reason is writing as a technology has strengths and weaknesses.

Product people and business leaders need to match the medium to the problem, and writing has problems as a medium.

Writing was great for Amazon Web Services because memos served as documentation for services.

But there’s another model at a different successful company that happens to be good at integrated hardware and software.

In Creative Selection, Ken Kocienda writes about presenting a slide deck to Steve Jobs about electronic keyboards.

Steve said, “I don’t not want to see this presentation. Go make me a prototype. I want to play with it and I'll tell you if the keyboard is ready.”

Apple is a prototype-driven culture. They think in prototypes.

In oral culture, hearing is believing.

In writing culture, seeing is believing.

At Apple, user testing is believing.

Think about every company in tech: the way they think and make decisions, and how it influences what they're good at as a company and what they're bad at as a company.

The gap between writing and the experience of using something is so severe that Amazon is always constrained.

No one thinks about Amazon as a great visual design or industrial design company.

Amazon thinks and decides in writing. Apple thinks in prototypes.

Maybe Google thinks in software. Maybe other companies think in spreadsheets. Maybe companies think in graphs.

Spotify uses the Socratic method.

They impose a process on oral culture to make it more efficient and make the right decisions.

This is the lesson I want to impress on you:

when you think about a problem, think about what's the medium that’s going to close the gap.

How do you get to the point where you have the information to make the right decision?

At work and in your personal life, writing helps you prototype your ideas.

When you put things on paper. you can spin your ideas around and look at them from different angles.

That makes you a better thinker, and it makes companies stronger.

Thinking about writing as a technology helps you incorporate it more into your life.

When you put your thoughts on paper, you can examine them as independent things outside of yourself.

You get them out of your head and then they have a life of their own.

Eugene delivered this talk at the Thesis Festival in NYC

The festival featured many wonderful thinkers & writers, and it was organized by @danshipper, @TheAnnaGat, and the @every and @interintellect_ teams.

Huge thanks to all involved! 🙌

cc: @shl @anthilemoon @itsurboyevan

AI is the most useful technology ever developed

And it’s not even close

AI isn’t overhyped, it’s underhyped

Massively. Still.

Here’s why most people are still underestimating AI, and what’s about to happen to society:

Most people are underestimating AI because they're thinking about it backwards

Instead of thinking about it as a new tool, it's better to think about it as a new INTERFACE to humanity's ultimate tool:

Language. Pictures & symbols w/meaning

The A/V world of human consciousness

It's easy to forget language is technology

Not just tech, but the basis of society

Humanity's second killer app

(The first was control of fire, leading to radical growth in brain size)

Symbolic language is used for:

-Seeing ideas outside our heads
-Sharing the substance of thought
-Combining and building on the ideas of others

Result: An ultimate learning tool to create better tools

When writing was first invented, it was the first time in history people could speak directly to future generations in their own words

The consequences of this ability are astounding

Because the capacity for change doesn’t happen within a brain, it happens *between* brains

E.O. Wilson once said:

Language is the greatest evolutionary advance since the eukaryotic cell

Language freed the mind from the animal to be creative, thence to enter and imagine other worlds infinite in time and space

Our ability to imagine worlds “Opened a fast lane of cultural evolution, bypassing the traffic jams of genetic evolution...

...This is accordingly the point when history declared its independence from biology.”

It was the first time humans could cooperate at scale

With language, “Our minds can travel lightning-fast through space and time, and, with increasing scientific precision, visit any place on the planet, and beyond.

Language is not just a creation of humanity, it *is* humanity.”

This is what people are missing about AI

Now, instead of using language as an interface to share knowledge from one brain to another

We can use AI as an interface to all collective human knowledge and imagination at once

https://twitter.com/neal_katyal/status/1622433335132782597?s=20&t=GfTtJWDKBOMABaKsozhDJQ

In computing, Moravec's Paradox states:

Easy problems for humans are hard for computers, and vice versa.

What some two-year-olds do today is still hard for some computers.

But now we're moving fast from left to right:

We can, with these new interfaces, draw on the combined consciousness of our species, and make stunning progress

Because, as others have noted, progress starts with rebellion

Specifically, “rebellion against authority in regard to knowledge”

What's mind-blowing about releases like ChatGPT is they solve two design problems at once:

1. A language & syntax problem made up of words and sentences
2. A meaning & structure problem made up of concepts & themes

These can't be solved apart; they have to be solved together

So, where is AI going, and what will people use AI to do?

Here's a peek:

Culture was created when humans began to understand language

In 10,000 years with language, we've now taught machines to understand language in a profound way

This is now the warp-speed lane of cultural evolution, with machines creating intelligence

People aren't adopting AI because of the hype, they're adopting it because it's useful

It's useful *right now* and improving and at exponential rate

We are now continuously decreasing the half-life of human adaptation

Why is AI the most useful technology ever developed?

Because artists and engineers and scholars will now use this new interface to all of human language and thinking

And the health of a society is measured by the output of its artists and engineers and scholars

It goes both ways, of course.

Language in the hands of AI will empower our creativity and impact our emotions like never before.

Making us, as Wilson says, ever-more supremely advanced, and ever-more supremely dangerous.

It's not just that you can now summon the storehouse of human knowledge and play with ideas outside your head

Now you can make them appear through an interface magically, naturally & instantly

Like the Retina display:  people don't notice...

https://twitter.com/levie/status/1617266717943824384?s=20&t=oEYeL0gmhEVBvBGr0Sw9pwAI

AI is useful for the same reason curious people are useful

And for the same reason curious people in the science and humanities make progress

A creative person:

Every other technology ever developed pales in comparison to what AI is now poised to do to our society

And it's not even close

Most of humanity has never used some of the most advanced AI interfaces

They haven't experienced the before-and-after moment

But more people will...

And more people will get better and better at using some of these interfaces to natural human language, the most powerful and useful technology ever developed

Now with yet another technology sitting on top of it

If you liked this thread, share it!

I believe what I wrote and think more people should recognize what's coming

I'm following my curiosity about the world; follow me @jmikolay while I share what I learn

Why Most People are Still Underestimating AI, and What’s About to Happen to Society

26 of the most powerful things I've ever learned (about life, career & relationships) 

Sharing so I don't forget: 

A mentor once said, "A word of advice, don't give it" 

He meant there's no such thing as advice:  it's only possible to share what you've learned & let others draw their own conclusions

Here goes nothin'...

Nick's right about passion

But most of us know what we're good at early

One of my brothers followed his passion & made it into a business; the other joined a business & cultivated a passion

Ultimately, their advantage is what they were best at as kids

https://twitter.com/sweatystartup/status/1345855698849189888?s=20&t=j1sY8F33UrgVHA0PM60ZNQ

You'll either follow what you loved as a kid, or you'll cultivate a passion for something else

The challenge isn't finding your passion

It's cultivation itself: paying attention & staying so curious you never stop learning...

This is how @naval put it: 

Success in anything is just a byproduct of learning, and learning is a byproduct of curiosity.

Ultimately, if you are curious about something, you will be successful at it, and the more curious you are about it, the more successful you will be at it.

Start by taking notes on the quality work of others 

You'll learn, and it will associate you w/quality work

Before they created their own masterpieces, some of the best writers of the past 150 years started by writing book reviews

Today the options to do the same are unlimited

Starting now 

*Dramatically* cut your daily news consumption

But not TOO much

Consuming "what's new" across every discipline, from business to technology to politics to art, gives you a fingertip feel for the possible

The frontier!

If you're creatively stuck 

Find the best, highest-quality source (book, preferably) on the topic you're most interested in

Read & take notes in your own words, in essence rewriting what you're reading

Not to copy, but to own the material mentally

You won't be stuck long

Pay *close attention* to the things you consume

I mean this literally: 

1.  Listen more intently than the average person; and

2.  Be more selective about what you're listening to

Learn from others (but not the normal way) 

If you want to know someone, it’s better to understand what’s going into their heads than what’s coming out 

“If you like someone's work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.”

-Bob Dylan

When life gets hard or complicated:

Get started. It’s the hardest part of any task.

Keep going. Success is inevitable through hard work (over time).

Challenge yourself. Joy and duty are one and the same.

Know yourself & distill your worldview

Your personal philosophy will help you
🔷Stay balanced
🔷Resist cynicism
🔷Carry on with purpose

How to distill your worldview? 

Write & look backwards at the patterns

A mentor once told me, "You want your career to be like a stalagmite. Stay on one path long enough the droppings start to build on themselves" 

There's truth in that (and I've shifted around too much) 

But my biggest win so far came from one 4-year vertical learning curve

I like what @eriktorenberg once said: 

When you're young, don't sell your experience

Sell your slope:  what have you done in the past year? The past month? The past week?

Not everything has to be about startups 

Tim Cook didn’t join Apple until 14 years after it was founded

You can (still) make an impact at your company

Shifting gears to relationships & family  

Every time your spouse or partner says the word LOVE about anything

Even small things...a song, a smell, something in nature, ANYTHING

Capture it in writing (in your phone)

That list will define who you love to their essence

If you have a kid or kids...

And they're talking (about anything)

Open Voice Memo & press RECORD

LISTEN & let them talk

Do this especially if they're telling you about something they just learned or did 

(Our parents didn't have computers in their pockets)

Do hard things early in life so hard things seem easier later

Before our hardest workout every season, my college track coach said: 

"One day, when you rock your baby to sleep, you’re gonna miss me. But today, you’re gonna curse the day you were born." 

Another thing my college track coach said: 

"These are the best days of your life, and you don’t even know it!" 

Youth of the world:  this is true

Now on a serious note: 

Major ecological collapse is inevitable in our lifetimes

I’m an optimist & always will be

Humans solve problems and nature is resilient – until it isn’t

This isn’t the Y2K bug

We're gonna to have to innovate *out of* a collapse

I used to think AI & automated tools would never write or create as well as humans

Now I think all professionals will use them or be left behind

These tools will also create "double enhanced social media," making the next decade even more uniquely "stupid" than the last one

I used to think writing well was the ultimate career advantage 

Now I think it's not nearly enough 

The most successful people now must be triple threats, communicating well in writing, on video, and with voice/audio

While we're on important subjects! 

For decades I was a proponent of two spaces after a period

~3 years ago I was convinced by the one-spacers

They’ve been right for 10 years (at least)

Back to creativity...

Read, watch, and listen to things you LOVE 

Over & over

Eventually, you'll be taking notes and CREATING

We tend to think we remember more than we do, but to a first approximation, we’ve forgotten everything we’ve learned. 

By the time you've read a book or listened to a podcast, you retain a fraction of its fidelity, and the rest decays at an alarming rate.

Take notes!

Nothing sticks unless you're creating FROM it

(Read: Masterclasses don't stick)

If you read about ideas you love, take notes from your reading in your own words, and point your notes to your reading

You can't help but create

When you’re reading actively, you’re arbitraging the set of all people on the internet who aren’t taking notes from their own reading and watching & listening

(also, people have been building tools for thousands of years to free you to do more creative work. Do it.)

It took me 15 months sharing ideas online to feel like I could be myself (this was a year or so ago)

If you want to feel like yourself, start sharing now

The more you share your ideas, the more you’ll discover about yourself 

Your tribe is waiting

That's it!

Those were 26 of the most powerful things I've ever learned about life, career & relationships

Follow me @jmikolay for more threads on writing, creativity, & business

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/jmikolay/trjwonp

26 of the Most Powerful Things I've Ever Learned (About Life, Career & Relationships)

Every month I bookmark hundreds of tweets, and I'm always surprised by how much I miss 

I curated 69 of the most useful & educational resources shared on Twitter in the past 30 days

Here they are, organized into sections

Get in while Twitter's still free... 

Sections: 

1️⃣ Content & Recs
2️⃣ Writing & Creativity
3️⃣ Business & Entrepreneurship
4️⃣ Web3, Crypto & NFTs
5️⃣ Money, Tax & Investing 
6️⃣ Life & Wisdom
7️⃣ Practical & Misc

Let's get to it! 

SECTION 1️⃣: CONTENT & RECOMMENDATIONS

Go-to deep work playlists: 
https://twitter.com/dickiebush/status/1516929832042610688?s=20&t=otmwQk6x6CUltkTlcCHjDw

Awesome documentaries: https://twitter.com/AlexAndBooks_/status/1515327184210116616

Best TED talks (see replies):  
https://twitter.com/AlexAndBooks_/status/1512053200475631635

Best online courses (see replies): 
https://twitter.com/JustinSaaS/status/1508528150388609030

Top marketing newsletters: 
https://twitter.com/groupshopit/status/1509639595365113857

Top 10 marketing courses https://twitter.com/ccmarce_writes/status/1517168285149659136

Books that feel different in your 30s/40s than in your teens:  
https://twitter.com/sriramk/status/1510292728671657992

11 tiny habits that make writing every day effortless: https://twitter.com/dickiebush/status/1520389048199753729

5 simple tips for better writing: https://twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1506604853652508674

Master copywriting in the next 8 min: 
https://twitter.com/BrianFOConnor/status/1510265610827091973

43 copywriting hacks: https://twitter.com/arrowmvn/status/1512423038964449296

Hyper-visuals on writing, startups, and productivity: https://twitter.com/SachinRamje/status/1513222416717303814

Writer business models 101: https://twitter.com/SachinRamje/status/1520495694255206403

20 sentences about writing your english teacher never taught you: https://twitter.com/coldwrites/status/1517096083809357826

How to make your content more attractive on any platform:  https://twitter.com/jonbrosio/status/1516416353984471056

13 tips to switch from consumer to creator: https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/status/1517859099043540992

9 must-have systems for creators: https://twitter.com/JustinSaaS/status/1506244066882768900

Tricks for establishing priorities: https://twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1511683418177912835

9 mistakes new course creators make (and how you can avoid them): https://twitter.com/wes_kao/status/1517881004626743296

10 lessons for course creators:   https://twitter.com/mvarghese5/status/1513503190410481669

SECTION 3️⃣:  BUSINESS & ENTREPRENEURSHIP

47 sentences that'll make you more money than a 4-year business degree: https://twitter.com/WrongsToWrite/status/1511662254990712832

22 startup principles to scale your company:  https://twitter.com/bbourque/status/1513113330130440193

Best startup communities for young, ambitious people: https://twitter.com/riomensah/status/1519715391852929027

7 no BS tactics to become a world-class negotiator: https://twitter.com/barrettjoneill/status/1511685614030278657

10 career mistakes: https://twitter.com/blakeaburge/status/1520372669589319680

47 rules to catapult your career: https://twitter.com/PeakTobi/status/1516755796318736384

Career advice for young people: 
https://twitter.com/george__mack/status/1512824407047106564

Financial metrics for business owners: https://twitter.com/AliTheCFO/status/1520731013395087360

24 threads on business: https://twitter.com/Dmurr68/status/1513921400192606208

How to scale a bootstrapped SaaS business: https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/status/1512782207508643845


How to get great guests on your podcast: https://twitter.com/heydannymiranda/status/1516450698262687753

8 threads to start learning Web3 today: https://twitter.com/hey_bernie/status/1516770446972178433

How to start a crypto project: https://twitter.com/SSokoliuk/status/1516404969750118404

Web3 leaders to follow:  https://twitter.com/MishadaVinci/status/1518223043788558336

Web3 videos: https://twitter.com/MishadaVinci/status/1520758283073515520

Working in Crypto or Web3: https://twitter.com/thedefiedge/status/1509202153407057929

Web3 projects: 
https://twitter.com/itsanishjain/status/1510664084152233991

Web3 lingo: https://twitter.com/MishadaVinci/status/1515673102566318082

What you need to know about Atheneum's merge: https://twitter.com/JackNiewold/status/1506779959242764288

Deductions 101: https://twitter.com/baldridgecpa/status/1509300814036230151

How to legally save $1,000,000s in. taxes: https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1506771397372264453

The tax lifecycle of real estate:
https://twitter.com/baldridgecpa/status/1509606043235622916

History of the Roth IRA:
https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1509331890624512000