How to be happy:
Learn your true preferences. Life becomes much more pleasant once you stop chasing the preferences of others.
Try new things, take what works, and throw away the rest.
Treat your life as an adventure, not a competition. A good life is a story you're proud of. There's no score.
Happiness is about getting in the flow. For most things, go with intensity over consistency. Balance your life at the macro level, not the micro.
The purpose of work (after securing basic necessities) is to support your preferred lifestyle. If working hard is degrading your life, what's the point?
The best things in life are free, and they're not worth sacrificing for the possibility of the getting the second best things.
As soon as you can afford to, optimize your life for maximum enjoyment. The deferred lifestyle is too risky.
As soon as you can afford to, only work on what gives you energy. Only intrinsic motivation lasts.
Procrastination is information. Don't fight it, embrace it.
Take risks, but don't put yourself at risk. Never risk anything you can't tolerate losing.
Decouple your self-worth from anything you don't control.
Understand that the only thing you truly control is how you react to things. Live with dignity.
Do not play victim. Do not complain.
Add beauty to your life. Aesthetics matter.
Quit all the wrong things. The good things happen on their own.
"If you're on the wrong train, every stop is the wrong stop." @GuruAnaerobic

No matter how much you've invested in your current path, you must be willing to jump off the wrong train, and write it all off. Otherwise you'll be stuck enduring an existence full of wrong stops.
Add excitement to your life, not expectations. Happiness is governed by expectations, not outcomes.
Realize that the physical world is sacred. We are built to roam the real world, to have physical ownership, to make physical objects, to meet people in person. This is the only real life, and there can never be a digital substitute. Digital is only a supplement.

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More from @dvassallo

13 Sep
How it started How it’s going ImageImage
I also bought kaleidoscopeboards.com while waiting for the glue to dry :)
Color pop:
Read 4 tweets
30 Jun
Different ways to approach work:
Idea-first

You start with an idea (a product, a job title, a career, etc.), and try to make it a reality at all costs.

Good, but what about the rest of your life? And what if your idea turns out to be a dud?
Income-first

You start with what you have, and try to maximize the most likely way to make the most money.

Good, but when do you stop? And what if you hate what you’re doing?
Read 5 tweets
7 Apr
For #GumroadDay, my info products are 'Pay What You Want', $1 minimum. Today only.

- Everyone Can Build a Twitter Audience, $40
- The Good Parts of AWS, $25

These 2 products made $332,667 in sales so far. Go see what they look like!

👉 dvassallo.gumroad.com
An average of 1 sale every 12 seconds in the first hour. 301 sales in 60 minutes. Thank you! — 23 hours to go.
Almost 2,000 sales in the first 12 hours of #GumroadDay. Thank you!

12 hours left.
Read 4 tweets
8 Mar
Everyone wants to decouple time from money.

The problem? It's an extremely unpredictable way to make a living. For every successful creator, there are thousands who make nothing or almost nothing.

So, how do you make the unpredictable, predictable? Here's what I learned:
See, there are two very distinct worlds of how to make a living in our universe.

The first world is the one we're mostly familiar with, where you follow a predictable career path.
Say you want to make a living as a programmer, a doctor, a plumber, an English teacher, etc. If you do certain things (learn to code, get a specific degree, etc.) you can increase the odds of getting what you want to very close to 100%.
Read 32 tweets
18 Feb
Why I find @joinClubhouse interesting:
1. Unlike Twitter, I almost never open the Clubhouse app. Occasionally I get a notification that someone I follow is speaking, and I get the option to drop in. The push system adds random pleasant surprises to my life.
2. I hate parties. The crowds, the small talk, the dressing up, the inability to avoid certain people... ugh.

But I like the idea of parties: An almost free opportunity for chance encounters that could lead to many things.

Clubhouse is my party substitute without the downsides.
Read 6 tweets
18 Dec 20
Which's the most important skill you should learn if you want to work for yourself? ...
Selling.

I don't think you learn this by reading about it, but by becoming determined to figure out what motivates people to take out their wallet and pay for things.
I started by observing my own behavior when I came to make purchasing decisions. Whenever I found myself choosing to pay for something (or choosing not to), I would try to reflect on why I was making that decision.
Read 6 tweets

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