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George Mack

@george__mack

Nov 8

"Most people die at 25 and aren't buried until they're 75" - Benjamin Franklin

Why?

4 reasons and solutions:

Reason 1 - Milestones

0-25 is a well-designed video game.

You level up each year.

There are regular milestones as you go from infancy to school to entering the workforce.

You constantly feel like you're making progress -- and have reflective milestones.

After 25, it's a terribly designed video game.

Society places you on your own.

If you don't have the agency to design your own 25+ video game, the only milestones life will give you are the funerals of your loved ones -- followed by your own funeral.

Read 23 tweets

George Mack

@george__mack

Nov 7

Controversial opinion: Resting smile face is worth ∼20 IQ points.

4 reasons why:

1. Smiling Is Lindy

The first human language started 70,000 years ago.

The smile started 30 million years ago.

Babies that can't talk understand a smile.

Facial expressions are the first ever human language.

2. The Solo Player Flywheel

Resting smile face has a positive flywheel: Smiling creates more smiling...

Resting smile face --> Positive mood --> Notice things to smile about --> Resting smile face --> Positive mood ---> Notice things to smile about.

Read 9 tweets

George Mack

@george__mack

Oct 1

7 Trojan Horses To Avoid:

Trojan Horses are behaviors that appear positive -- but harm you in disguise.

Trojan horses can be worse than obvious harmful behaviors because you're under the illusion it's positive.

It's degenerate behavior but with great branding.

1. Trojan News

The Horse - Keep up to date on the news to feel like an informed citizen.

The Outcome - Spiked cortisol levels. End up less informed by consuming opinion pieces that turn out to be wrong 12 months from now.

2. Trojan Business

The Horse - Keep up to date on the latest business trends.

The Outcome - Shiny object syndrome. Envy of Entrepreneurs presented reality vs hidden reality.

3. Trojan Payrise

The Horse - 50% increase in salary to join competitor.

The Outcome - Traded earning for learning. Loss aversion to go back down the ladder is now greater.

4. Trojan Nutrition

The Horse - Healthy glass of orange juice full of vitamin C.

The Outcome - 50g of pure sugar in your blood stream.

5. Trojan Workouts

The Horse - Lift weight too heavy because YouTube guru says you're lazy.

The Outcome - Incorrect form that causes serious injury and motnhs to recover.

6. Trojan Dating

The Horse - Date the best-looking person purely to show off on your Instagram.

The Outcome - People view your Instagram for 2 seconds of their day. You spend 10 hours per day with someone you have nothing in common with.

7. Trojan Thinking

The Horse - Try to think your way out of overthinking.

The Outcome - You make the problem 10x worse. Trying to think your way out of overthinking is like trying to snort your cocaine addiction away.

The great irony of Trojan Horses: In your desire to move things forward, you actually moved things backward.

You would've been better off doing nothing at all.

Sometimes it's actually better to the degenerate alternative to the trojan horse -- at least you're not under any false assumptions.

Trojan Horse: The News

Trojan Horse: Earning > Learning

Read 4 tweets

George Mack

@george__mack

Aug 23

How to get creative (without taking drugs):

13 techniques I've found useful:

1. Consume Niche Content

Go to YouTube or Twitter.

Step 1 - Scroll through Explore page

Step 2 - Only click on content that has under 5K views

90% is often a waste of time.

But 10% turns into an incredible niche input that nobody else on the internet is tapping into.

That 10% input is like a VC's investment portfolio - it makes up for all the failed investments

2. Balaji's Transformer

If you have a written idea -- try to draw it

If you have a visual idea -- try to write it

If you have a numerical idea -- try to explain it out loud

The process of transforming the idea from one language to another produces a new perspective

3. Wake Up Early -- Or Stay Up Late

Most people hit peak creativity whilst others are asleep.

Why?

The brain is free to stop worrying about other people -- and fills the vacuum with ideas instead.

4. Create An Evil Twin

Imagine there's an evil identical twin of you whose sole job is to out-think you.

What are they thinking?

This thought experiment allows the mind to explore creative ideas -- because you can blame it on the twin.

5. Spin Wheels

Step 1 - Collect the best questions you find
Step 2 - Add them to a spinning wheel app
Step 3 - Spin the wheel before bed
Step 4 - Leave the question with the subconscious overnight
Step 5 - Brainstorm on the question first thing in the morning before any input

6. Escape The News Trap

Most people only consume content made in the last 24 hours.

David Perell calls this the "Never-Ending-Now"

Instead, study the best of history.

Your inputs go from the best content in the last 24h to the best content ever made.

Imagine if you could only consume music that was made in the last 24 hours. This is what most people do with their content habits.

7. Be Like Japan

When I ask people where they want to travel to: Most say Japan

Japan practiced an isolationist policy called Sakoku for 265 years. They cut off the outside world -- resulting in their unique culture

Once per quarter, practice Sakoku for a weekend or a week

Sakoku is intermittent fasting for the mimetic mind

In the interconnected age, your thoughts feel like your own -- but it's often society's voice echoing.

When you spend a week alone with 0 external inputs -- the echoes disappear and you hear your own creative voice

8. Avoid Dramatic People

Human Brain Paradox: Your brain is a supercomputer -- but it can only have 1 thought at a time.

Every thought has an opportunity cost.

Toxic and dramatic people are so dangerous to creativity -- they eat your supercomputers RAM.

9. Never Identify With Ideas

People don't have ideas. Ideas have people.

You are just a vessel for ideas to pass through

2nd album syndrome and writer's block are often caused by the creator building an identity to defend.

10. Create A Mood Log

When you feel creative -- log the causes.

When you feel uncreative -- log the causes.

Once per month, review it and redesign your environment based on this log.

11. The Manhattan Project

Find the smartest people you know.

Get an AirBnB away from all distractions together.

Throw ideas back and forth like a tennis match.

In this scenario, if you have 3 people, 1+1+1 = 111.

You unlock their bottlenecks, which leads to a greater version of them unlocking your bottlenecks.

It's a positive compounding flywheel that is greater than the sum of its components.

Swedish House Mafia did this to create the iconic "One".

It's one of the best videos I've ever seen. (See below)

Here's an example of what the Manhattan Project technique looks like.

Swedish House Mafia producing the iconic "One"

Each one unlocks the other person's bottleneck -- resulting in something exponentially greater than each individual alone.

Here's an example of Balaji's Transformer:

Walt Disney's business plan.

The act of transforming the written plan into a drawing unlocks so many creative pathways that would be impossible with words alone.

Read 4 tweets

George Mack

@george__mack

Aug 6

0.1% of ideas this week:

The rabbit holes -- without the distractions.

7 examples:

1. How much does Google pay to be iPhone's search engine:

2014 - $1 billion
2017 - $3 billion
2018 - $9 billion
2021 - $15 billion
2022 - $19 billion

Every year Apple says "Jump"

Google replies with: "How high?"

2. Twitter Is So Big In Japan

Elon Musk recently posted Twitters usage.

The thing that went under the radar?

Japan did more minutes than any other country.

Read 9 tweets

George Mack

@george__mack

Jul 30

0.1% of ideas this week

The rabbit holes -- without the distractions.

7 examples:

1. Lagging Measurements

I've been looking for a graph that visualizes lagging measurements.

This one is perfect.

https://twitter.com/george__mack/status/1679570120266633216

Reminder:

The smoking of this decade is not exercising.

https://twitter.com/george__mack/status/1679570120266633216

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