106 Quotes
"Back in prehistoric times, socialization came to be when humans started forming groups in order to survive. The most important objective for an individual was to not be excluded from the group."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "“the product speak for itself.”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "He insists that product managers should be “literary and artistic youth”, not just “logic driven.”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "His product philosophy focuses on combining intuitive design, human psychology, and what’s technologically feasible."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Being a product creator is like being in a relationship with the users. Otherwise, it’s only a business transaction. Product managers must have big hearts."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "All features have to go through Allen for approval. As a result, WeChat has benefited enormously from having a singular and coherent identity."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "I believe this is necessary, because a good product requires a certain degree of ‘dictatorship’, otherwise it will embody all sorts of different, conflicting opinions and its personality will become fragmented."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Innovative; it must have creativity Useful Beautiful Easy to use Unobtrusive, modest Honest Timeless; it won’t become outdated Doesn’t skip over any small details Environmentally friendly and doesn’t waste resources Not overly designed, “less is more”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Allen believes that the primary goal for technology should be helping humankind increase efficiency."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "5 centuries before Christ, Confucius set forth his own Golden Rule: ""Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself."""
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "The backbone of his philosophy is to think about users as his friends."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "He believes that only when one treats users with genuine empathy, will products be used for a longer time."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Quality, not openness, is the greatest good that a platform can deliver 🧠"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "what you see & read determines what kind of person you are and the thoughts you’ll have."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "communication is the process of inculcating one’s self-image into another person’s mind"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "If users weren’t willing to do this, whatever marketing they did would be meaningless. Although it took more time, it meant that the product was healthy when it really started to grow."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "At WeChat, every PM ensures that each feature or service has a meaning or a dream behind it. If a feature is made for just gaining traffic, and it doesn’t provide value to users, then it’ll have problems, it won’t last.”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "If one does everything users ask, the result is increased complexity and a loss of coherence."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "he sees the competitor as WeChat itself - and whether his organization will be able to keep up with users whose tastes and needs change every year."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "if WeChat can’t give our users even a little bit of hope, then we can’t judge whether what we’re doing is right or wrong"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "When a platform only focuses on pursuing its own benefits, it’s short sighted, it won’t last. When a platform can benefit the people, then it’ll take on a life of its own."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Only 9% of us will be able to stick with our new year resolutions."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"1st stop: Motivation vs. Discipline"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"In other words, discipline is something you do, and choose to do; motivation is a thing that can come and go, which you cannot choose to do or control."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Newton's third law of physics states: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Let motivation inspire you, but don’t expect it to stick around."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Focus on building disciplined habits instead. Get specific in what “discipline” will look like for your specific goal. Schedule it in your calendar."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"It takes 21 days for a new habit to form."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"2nd Stop: Valley of Pain"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"As you embark on the first 66 days, you will inevitably traverse the “Valley of Pain”."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Fear & Resistance. A rule of thumb: The more scared you are of a work or a calling, the more sure you can be that you have to do it. The more important the accomplishment is to the evolution of your soul, the more resistance you will experience facing it."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"But ultimately it is taking away time from you actually doing the work. Begin."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"We owe it to those who have left us prematurely, to make the best use of our time today."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Sharing your goals tricks us into our ego being satisfied with others perceiving us that we’re x, ultimately before you deceive anyone else, you first have to lie to yourself."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"3rd Stop: Discipline is not enough, it has to feel good."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Discipline metabolizes a jolt of motivation so that it can get you over the “Valley of Pain” and into the realm of “Feeling Good”. Feeling good calcifies into habit."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Not feeling good after a while of doing the habit? Drop it. Life’s too short to do something you hate and suffer from everyday."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"“The ultimate word is I Like."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"It lies beneath philosophy, and is twined about the heart of life. When philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month, telling the individual what he must do, the individual says, in an instant, “I Like,” and does something else, and philosophy goes glimmering."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Philosophy is very often a man’s way of explaining his own I LIKE.”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Like I mentioned earlier - it’s hard, if not impossible, to control our thoughts but we can control our behaviors."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"To achieve success in any long term pursuit, perhaps the most important attribute is simply showing up."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Sometimes when we are feeling down and unmotivated, the best thing we can do to change our mental state is to change our physical state."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"The action of discipline is needed to traverse the “valley of pain”, leading us to the land of “feeling good”, thereby solidifying our habit."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"The important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. Why is this so important? Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"4th Stop: Habit fuels identity, giving us the motivation to do it all over again"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"As our disciplined actions turn into habits with the the balm of dopamine, their summation become our identity."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"Habits fuel identity in our quest of self-actualization - to not just shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.31: a mental model for habits & self-actualization"A newsletter for the thoughtful."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "This newsletter is free because I believe everyone deserves to have access to wellness resources."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "What I uncovered was not so much a cunning businessman, but a deeply philosophical digital anthropologist and empathetic first-principles thinker."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "He then returned to Tencent, cleaned up QQ’s email system, and realized in 2010 that the rapid growth of messaging platform Kik presaged the future of communication."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Zhang attributes many of his product epiphanies to Sigmund Freud. Specifically that sex is a driving force for human nature."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "01. Product Management is art, not commerce 🎨"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "At the start of WeChat's creation Allen’s mission statement for the company was to not perceive WeChat as a commercial product, but rather as an impressive “work of art”."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "His product philosophy focuses on combining intuitive design, human psychology, and what’s technologically feasible. After these are melded, economic viability naturally comes afterwards."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "02. WeChat follows the “Grand Design” approach to innovation vs. “Design Thinking” 🌏"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "WeChat has integrated both approaches in the product development process. However, it leans more heavily on the Grand Design approach given Allen’s top-down management style."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "All features have to go through Allen for approval. As a result, WeChat has benefited enormously from having a singular and coherent identity."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "I believe this is necessary, because a good product requires a certain degree of ‘dictatorship’, otherwise it will embody all sorts of different, conflicting opinions and its personality will become fragmented.”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "03. Allen models WeChat’s design process after Dieter Rams 👩💻"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Allen believes that both hardware and software products are essentially tools, so principles for tool design are applicable to both."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Innovative; it must have creativity Useful Beautiful Easy to use Unobtrusive, modest Honest Timeless; it won’t become outdated Doesn’t skip over any small details Environmentally friendly and doesn’t waste resources Not overly designed, “less is more”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "04. Make the best tool and get users out of the app as fast as possible 🔧"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "WeChat encourages users to put down their phones - In 2018, WeChat ran a campaign encouraging users to put down their phones and meet their friends more in-person."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "05. Products should serve delight and human connection ✨"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Send a Drifting Bottle to meet new friends - this early feature enabled users to send drifting bottles with voice and text messages that get virtually picked up by another random user."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "06. The Golden Principle: The User is Your Friend 👯♀️"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "It means putting their needs above even company stakeholders."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Allen has prioritized avoiding all monetization that might negatively impact daily platform usage, despite facing pressures of being a publicly-traded company."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Despite all the advertising revenue potential with an app that has over one billion daily active users, WeChat limits ads in its social feed to just 2 per day."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "It’s disrespectful to touch people’s hearts on purpose"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Just as you wouldn’t recommend random products to a friend, a platform shouldn’t recommend merchants without the users best interests at heart"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Our goal is to allow good services to surface themselves and be found by users – not through our curation. This is also driven by our respect for users."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "We don’t want to curate or interfere with various services provided on WeChat."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Users have told us their need for certain features, such as syncing conversation history to the cloud. It’s not that we can’t realize the sync technically. But from a security point of view, it’s best not to retain chat history, so that has always been our default mode.”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "07. Letting value creators cultivate value 💪"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Refusing to pay creators for content - Allen believes that a platform that is well designed enough should empower creators to make money off of authentic and quality content themselves."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Enabling tipping to creators directly"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "08. Quality, not openness, is the greatest good that a platform can deliver 🧠"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Allen believes the greatest good a platform can offer are: Breadth and diversity Quality of the content"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "These lay at the heart of a platform’s core responsibilities. It is within these parameters, that individuals can then freely choose the content they want to consume."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "“what you see & read determines what kind of person you are and the thoughts you’ll have."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Keep in mind, Allen’s view here also reflects the regulatory reality of China’s internet which holds platforms responsible for the content it contributes."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "09. Social products should be authentic and alleviate stress, not engender it 👀"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Back in prehistoric times, socialization came to be when humans started forming groups in order to survive. The most important objective for an individual was to not be excluded from the group. The way to meet this objective was to demonstrate their value to the group through boasting."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Allen believes that “communication is the process of inculcating one’s self-image into another person’s mind” and socialization is a core human need that WeChat strives to solve through Moments - a place to post photos of your life."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "10. Products shouldn’t rely on “Growth Hacking”. If a new product can’t grow naturally, don’t market it 📈"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "11. PMs shouldn’t be solely evaluated on monetary KPIs 💰"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Thus, everyone’s job is not to create the best products, but to use all means possible to acquire traffic."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "At WeChat, every PM ensures that each feature or service has a meaning or a dream behind it. If a feature is made for just gaining traffic, and it doesn’t provide value to users, then it’ll have problems, it won’t last.”"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "12. User Research is a requirement for all PMs via the 10/100/1000 Principle 💯"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Every month, PMs are expected to do: 10 end-user interviews read 100 user blogs collect feedback from 1,000 user experiences"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "13. However, one must be selective with the user research you act on and make decisions from good principles first"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "He has two general rules of thumb for any new feature request:"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Coherence - is it consistent with the existing design?"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "Simplicity - can I still do the basics well if I add this feature?"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "14. Challenges come from users not competitors 💥"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "he sees the competitor as WeChat itself - and whether his organization will be able to keep up with users whose tastes and needs change every year."
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "15. The best KPI is hope 🤍"
— Patricia Mou
✨ Wellness Wisdom vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat "I often think if WeChat can’t give our users even a little bit of hope, then we can’t judge whether what we’re doing is right or wrong."
— Patricia Mou
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