Ana Filipa Gaspar

digital strategist & skeptical consumer of news. believe in human skills. love to ask why. don't discuss politics or reality tv. 🇵🇹👨‍👩‍👦📱🐱📚🗺

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

“Às vezes, vamos a tempo de ver mais além. É preciso ser muito forte para que os outros não nos limitem.”

- Inês Meneses, “O Coração Ainda Bate”

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

"The question is not: will today be a good day?

Every day is a good day.

The question is: how much good will you get out of today?"

-@JamesClear

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#FridayMotivation

[Nat Eliason @nateliason]

Prove you can do hard things

When a teenager asks why they need to learn calculus, what should you say?

You know they will never use it in adulthood, outside of certain career choices.

You could say, “It’ll help you get into college,” but then they’re left wondering why college cares if you know calculus.

And once they’re in college, maybe you could say, “To get a good job,” but why would a potential hirer care how you did in multivariate calculus if your job doesn’t require any knowledge of calculus?

But I recently realized there is a very good reason to take Calculus. It’s to prove you can do hard things.

The ability to do hard things is perhaps the most useful ability you can foster in yourself or your children. And proof that you are someone who can do them is one of the most useful assets you can have on your life resume.

Our self-image is composed of historical evidence of our abilities. The more hard things you push yourself to do, the more competent you will see yourself to be.

If you can run marathons or throw double your body weight over your head, the sleep deprivation from a newborn is only a mild irritant.

If you can excel at organic chemistry or econometrics, onboarding for a new finance job will be a breeze.

But if we avoid hard things, anything mildly challenging will seem insurmountable.

We’ll cry into TikTok over an errant period at the end of a text message. We’ll see ourselves as incapable of learning new skills, taking on new careers, and escaping bad situations.

The proof you can do hard things is one of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself.

My goal with our kids is to avoid lying to them as much as possible.

I won’t tell them that calculus is super important or even that grades are super important. The truth is, they aren’t, so long as you have other plans.

Calculus is a great way to prove you can do hard things if you have no other proof to show.

But if you’re learning programming and building apps in your free time, or winning soccer championships, or writing a novel, then you are doing hard things. Probably harder than Calculus.

This is also why there’s so much survivorship bias and bad advice in the “C students hire A students” trope. Most C students are not doing other hard things instead of school. They’re just goofing off, so they end up working for the A student.

But some C students are getting C’s because they’re obsessed with other projects. Hard projects. And that obsession with doing hard things lets them blow past their Excellent Sheep peers over time.

So if you have a C student who’s obsessed with something hard, you probably don’t have to worry. If they’re getting high and watching TikTok, well…

I don’t particularly care what grades my kids get once they start school. But I do care that they consistently prove to themselves they can do hard things. If Calculus is how they want to do it, fine, but there are many, many more options.

And if you’re not someone who knows they can do hard things, find a way to prove it to yourself.

Build a habit, learn a skill, create something, whatever it is that turns your default stance on challenges from “that seems hard” to “I can figure it out.”

Create proof you can do hard things.

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

"The most invisible form of wasted time is doing a good job on an unimportant task."

– @JamesClear

#SundayMotivation

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

🤩 #ColdplayCoimbra

[Coldplay @coldplay]

Coimbra - thank you for 4 nights of pure joy 🇵🇹💫

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#SundayMotivation

[Ali Abdaal @AliAbdaal]

A great piece of advice I got from one of my medical school professors - "An hour before 9 is worth 2 after 5"

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#SaturdayMorning

[Mentalist @TheMentalist_0]

How to deal with passive-aggressive attacks

A thread to make a nasty person regret disrespecting you without being aggressive:

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

@afilipagaspar @aleyda 👏👏👏👏

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#SaturdayMood

[Susan Cain @susancain]

Lately, people keep using the word "quiet" to mean "passive-aggressive" or "something bad that sneaks up on you" - as in, "quiet quitting" or "the quiet catastrophe of loneliness."

HERE IS ITS TRUE MEANING.

I hope you find some quiet this weekend -- and kindred spirits who know its value.

#Quiet #Introverts #Kindred #Beauty #Bittersweet
Image: Maurice Sendak, via @ElliottBlackwe3

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

@SamUnderwoodUK Yes and yes 😅

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#wednesdaythought

[Simon Sinek @simonsinek]

Trust has two dimensions: competence and integrity. We can forgive mistakes of competence. Mistakes of integrity are harder to overcome.

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

@LidiaInfanteM @brightonseo Check ☑️

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#SEO

[Lily Ray 😏 @lilyraynyc]

Seems Google has recently gotten much more aggressive with re-writing and shortening the organic title link in the SERP. This includes many of its own pages 😉

And since the March core update, seems many brand names no longer appear in the SERP title (h/t @screamingfrog)

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

“We all deal with setbacks but in the long run, the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits. With the same habits, you’ll end up with the same results. But with better habits, anything is possible.”

- James Clear, “Atomic Habits”

#TuesdayQuotes

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#25deAbril1974

[Vhils @vhils1]

25

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#BrightonSEO 👌🏻

[James Brockbank @BrockbankJames]

Prioritisation is what makes or breaks #SEO success…

A 🧵including my @brightonseo deck from last week 👇

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#chatGPT

[Zain Kahn @heykahn]

If you're not learning ChatGPT, you're falling behind.

10 incredibly powerful prompts to help you master ChatGPT:

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

@GregGifford @brightonseo I will definitely follow up on your advices, already thinking about how to apply them to our projects and clients 👌🏻

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

@GregGifford talks at any #SEO event are always mandatory: great insights, awesome delivery 🤩

This year at @brightonseo -> The #FastAndFurious guide to #linkbuilding

👉 are you doing #localSEO? Are you optimizing your local relationships? 🤨

#BrightonSEO

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

@BibiBuzzCom @brightonseo I would definitely buy that shirt 😅

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

#Linkbuilding: love it or hate it?

@BibiBuzzCom talk at @brightonseo deserves a prize for the most well crafted and original slides. Not only beautiful, but engaging and insightful.

Thanks for sharing your process and leanings, Bibi. It was awesome 👏

#BrightonSEO

[Ana Filipa Gaspar @theafg]

@GregGifford talks at any #SEO event are always mandatory: great insights, awesome delivery 🤩

This year at @brightonseo -> The #FastAndFurious guide to #linkbuilding

👉 are you doing #localSEO? Are you optimizing your local relationships? 🤨

#BrightonSEO