Sahil Bloom Profile picture
Mar 6 22 tweets 4 min read
It’s Sunday evening and I’m two whiskeys deep.

A few thoughts and counterintuitive truths:
You can read every business and self-help book in the world, but ultimately the only way to learn is by fucking it up.

I love reading—I love gathering insights from the greats.

But reading and studying is nothing without battle-testing.

Don’t fear failure. Fail smart and fast.
Allowing kids to fail is one of the greatest gifts you can give them.

I’ll never forget being left out on the mound in those moments when I desperately wanted to be taken out of the game.

Learning to fail—and how to grow through it—is one of the most important skills of life.
If it bothers you to see other people succeed, you’re definitely not gonna make it.

Distance yourself from anyone who spends time bringing others down or dismissing their achievements.

These people are boat anchors.

Celebrate everyone’s wins and you’ll start winning more.
The Hedonic Treadmill is one of the most devilish forces in our lives.

We have a tendency to quickly return to a baseline level of happiness after positive events.

No amount of money or fame will make you sustainably happy if you aren’t truly happy.

Look inward, not outward.
Life really only changes in 10x increments of wealth, so you should focus your energy 10x opportunities.

Your energy is finite—a resource to be allocated strategically.

Allocate it towards opportunities and ideas that have the potential to change your life—non-linear outcomes.
Complaining never got anyone anywhere worth going.

The world is split between complainers and actors—the former talk while the latter do.

Complainers are always on the sidelines.

Actors are in the arena. Actors fight—their bias for motion creates real results and change.
Second-order thinkers will always run the world.

The world is filled with first-order thinkers—it’s so easy to do.

Digging deeper—asking “and then what?”—is more time consuming, and it’ll piss some people off along the way.

But second-order thinkers win non-linear rewards.
The only way you can truly trust someone is if you’ve been together in your darkest hour.

Darkest Hour Friends are those special few who are there for you when shit hits the fan—when you’re down and out.

Those are the friends you can trust—in good times and bad. Cherish them.
Solitude is a lost art we all need to rediscover.

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” - Blaise Pascal

We have more connectedness than ever, but we’re less connected to our surroundings.

Practice solitude to reclaim connection.
Fixed hour schedules of are a dying remnant of the Industrial Age.

Parkinson's Law says that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

When you establish fixed hours, you find unproductive ways to fill it.

We are made to work like lions—sprint, rest, repeat.
Every single person should develop a daily journaling habit.

Daily journaling is the most beneficial and therapeutic habit I’ve picked up in the last year.

It can be short and unstructured—mine is!

It provides a daily outlet that helps with stress & supports personal growth.
People criticize self-promotion, but if you aren’t willing to promote yourself, why should someone else?

It's easy to condemn self-promotion from the top.

But when you're starting out, you may be the only one able to promote.

If you’ve put in the work, share it with the world!
Sometimes inaction is the most powerful action.

Bias for action is one of the most common traits of highly-successful people.

But never confuse movement with action.

Action is about progress—a rocking chair moves, but it doesn’t make progress.

You don’t have to move to act.
It’s historically been a VERY bad idea to bet against human ingenuity.

Go short innovation at your own peril. If you do it, it better be liquid…

As for me, I’m betting on human ingenuity 10 times out of 10.
You probably aren’t the first person to think of an idea, and that’s totally ok.

People incorrectly assume that if you aren’t first, you can’t win.

I see so many entrepreneurs quit when they find out there are others doing the same thing.

Remember: Facebook came after MySpace.
Most experts use jargon and acronyms to convince you to pay them to do something that you could probably do yourself.

Next time you encounter someone talking over your head, ask them to explain it to you like you’re 5.

You’ll quickly figure out what game they’re really playing.
You’ll never know what you’re truly capable of unless you give yourself the headspace to go after it.

It’s often very difficult to envision your alternative paths.

Sometimes taking the leap gives you that headspace—you might be shocked by what you can accomplish.
It’s a huge drain on your time to refute nonsense, but it’s so damn important.

The BS Asymmetry Principle says the energy required to refute BS is much larger than the energy required to produce it.

This is why BS spreads so easily—and also why we need to take time to fight it.
Negativity Bias is a powerful force holding people back from sharing their light with the world.

I might get 99 positive responses to this thread, but the 1 negative response is all I’ll think about.

Negativity sticks.

My advice: focus on the base rates and share your light.
Ok, it’s now two-ish whiskeys deep and probably time to call it a night before I get yelled at…

Follow me @SahilBloom for more threads on just about everything.

Oh, here was my poison of choice: Found North Cask Strength. A delicious find from my wonderful Father-in-Law!
Lmao just realized this bottle is 62.4% alcohol by volume.

Was wondering what was up with me, but now it all makes sense…

Cancel Monday morning!

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Sahil Bloom

Sahil Bloom Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @SahilBloom

Mar 5
The difference between amateurs and professionals:
Amateurs make it look effortful, Professionals make it look effortless.

You have to put in more effort to make something appear effortless.

Professionals know that elegant performances are the result of a large volume of gritty practice.

Small things become big things.
Amateurs play the table, Professionals set the table.

Professionals play games they are uniquely well-suited to win.

If they don't like the way the table is set, they flip it over.

They set the table in a way that favors their edge and then make their opponent play on it.
Read 21 tweets
Mar 3
If I were starting my career, going to an event, and wanting to stand out in the minds of the new people I meet…

Here’s how I’d do it:
First off, in your 20s, I think it’s important to say yes to almost everything.

This dramatically increases your luck surface area—you wind up in a lot of situations with new and interesting people.

But you need a playbook for thriving in those situations.

A few ways to do it:
Say people’s names back to them.

When you’re talking to someone new, make a point of saying their name back to them naturally in conversation.

Two benefits here:
(1) You’ll remember their name.
(2) Everyone loves hearing their name.

You’ll immediately stand out in their mind.
Read 12 tweets
Mar 1
A Primer on SWIFT & Sanctions: Breaking down SWIFT, asset freezes, and the complexities of economic warfare.

The proceeds from today’s newsletter will be donated to UNICEF: Protect Children in Ukraine.

Please read, listen, & share if you found it useful. sahilbloom.substack.com/p/a-primer-on-…
A few images from today’s piece that I found striking...

Russian reserves (ex. Gold) since 2014.

The last dip was when they used them to insulate the ruble from the impact of sanctions from the prior invasion of Ukraine.

They have rebuilt steadily since… Image
The Russian ruble to the U.S. Dollar over the last 6 months.

A clear picture of the impact of the sweeping sanctions package that covered SWIFT and Central Bank asset freezes. Image
Read 6 tweets
Feb 24
With the rapid deterioration of the Russia/Ukraine situation, you’re going to hear a lot about SWIFT in the coming days…

Here’s a quick breakdown of what it is and why it matters:
SWIFT is short for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.

It’s a global cooperative of financial institutions based in Belgium.

It was formed in 1973 when 239 banks from 15 countries came together to establish a way to handle cross-border payments.
Today, SWIFT connects more than 11,000 financial institutions across 200+ countries.

Think of it like a simple email system enabling secure messages across its members.

An average of 40 million messages a day—including orders, payment confirmations, FX exchanges, and trades.
Read 13 tweets
Feb 23
On May 9th, 2020, I came back from a walk, had an idea, and typed out a few tweets—I posted it on Twitter for my 500 followers to see.

22 months, 200,000 words, and 1 billion impressions later, there are 500,000 of you here.

Here are my 10 favorite posts from this wild journey:
Paradoxes of Life

A paradox is a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that, when investigated, may prove to be true.

Life is full of paradoxes.

Once you become aware of them, you will find yourself empowered to use them to your advantage.
How to Win (Without Talent or Luck)

We all want to win.

Our definitions of “winning” vary—happiness and fulfillment to some, money and fame to others—but we all want to win.

You've been told that you can’t win without incredible talent (or sensational luck).

This is wrong...
Read 12 tweets
Feb 22
“My overnight success took 270 days. Every single day, every single weekend…”

You won’t want to miss this amazing episode with @nasdaily!

We explore:
• Mechanics of the Coinbase ad
• Mental health service startup idea
• Future of the creator economy

Links below!
Join our Discord community to go deeper! discord.gg/NyeRBV7r
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(