Choose Your Role Models from Twitter

Everyone tells you not to choose role models from the internet, but they’re fucking wrong. My life improved 100x when I started choosing my career role models from Twitter.

Some of us don’t have great role models in our lives. Some of us do — but we aspire to accomplish more unique goals than our parents, coaches, and professors.

Like we have more selection when dating thanks to the internet, we have more selection when choosing career role models. It doesn't just have to be our Dads or rockstars.

Before I read Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek, I didn’t know that a country-hopping, internet-money type of life was possible. I didn’t know how I’d get there, but I knew I’d make a career on the internet. 

When I was a teenager, I looked up to artists like Kanye and Seth Rogen. As I dived deeper into tech Twitter, I found new professional role models.

I began to look up to writers and founders like Greg Isenberg, Cami Russo, and Antonio Garcia Martinez.  I never met Rogen or Kanye, but I worked for Greg, currently work for Cami, and have chatted with Antonio.  

Kanye and Seth were unreachable.  They're too fucking famous.  Twitter fame and Hollywood fame are different.  Hollywood and hip-hop fame makes a creative life seem unattainable, like you need to be a badass half-man-half-god to make it.  

Twitter is unique because you can talk 1:1 with role models at any point.  Well, you can try — they don't always respond.  But, sometimes they do.  I think most of the Twitter celebs are humble enough to remember when they still had 1,000 followers.

Even Y Combinator founder Paul Graham who has 1.5M followers responded to an email from me, saying "No thank you."  Here's my all-time favorite response I received.  It was the start of an email from Mike Solana, VP at Founders Fund and writer of Pirate Wires.

While chatting with Twitter celebs is cool, there's another option that is way more helpful.  When you first start creating online, find role models who are closer to peer-level and less like mentors.  You'll get actionable advice and make friends along the way.

I was inspired by health writer Austin Schlessinger to spend more time on thread-writing and working out more.   I've been inspired by financial writer Jack Raines to charge more for my writing and build a referral program for my newsletter. 

Austin and Jack are both in their mid-20's and have 10-20K followers.  They're not too far ahead of me and I can hit these guys up anytime.  One day they'll both be Tim Ferris NYT-bestsellers, but right now, they're not just friends — they're reachable role models.  

A career like Tim Ferriss feels unreachable.  A career like Austin or Jack is doable.

When selecting internet role models for your career, I think it's important to focus on what your role models want out of life and their work.  Do they want clout or freedom?

There's this idea called mimetic desire. It's the belief that everyone copies the desires of people they see as behavior models.  We mimic other people.

I used to see founders as my career role models.  I tried building an augmented reality startup in college, but realized I hated it.  Managing people is my worst nightmare.

Once I read The Minimalist Entrepreneur and found out about people writing solo newsletters as their career, I knew that was the route for me. 

On a more granular scale, I've seen people on Twitter who are clearly only in it for the money and followers — not the friendships.  I'm careful to avoid those kind of people.

I surround myself with people who are on Twitter to build friendships and a community, not just an audience.  The new friends make spending hours on this shit worth it.

"If you admire somebody you should go ahead and tell 'em, people never get the flowers while they could still smell 'em" — Kanye West, Big Brother

The weird thing about making friends and finding role models on Twitter is that people not in tech or on Twitter will be super confused.  To them, you'll be like a new person.

If you follow the right people on Twitter, you'll have more ambitious goals, determination to exercise more, and a love of reading and writing.  I see that as growth. 

Find people on Twitter whose careers you want, understand their strategies, and implement them. As I wrote in my last post, it's not stealing if you put a spin on it.  

If you're in the ages 15-25, friends come and go.  Not everyone is meant to be in your life forever.  Don't be afraid to grow past some people, to want more from life, to chase your fucking dreams.  Just make sure you choose your role models wisely.

This week, I posted podcasts with Tom White, an advisor at OnDeck and writer at White Noise, and Arvid Kahl, a full-time creator and 3x author.  Listen on Spotify and Apple.

Do you want a free book from Amazon?!  Refer 10 readers to Cyber Patterns and I'll send you one!