1. Paradigm Shift: Motoko is a new language specifically designed for Web3 development. It embraces actor-based concurrency and focuses on security and determinism. This requires a shift in mindset from traditional sequential programming.

2. Actor Model: Actors are the fundamental building blocks in Motoko. They are isolated units of computation that communicate via asynchronous message passing. This promotes modularity, fault tolerance, and scalability.

3. Concurrency First: Motoko prioritizes concurrency over parallelism. Actors execute independently, managing their own state and avoiding shared mutable state. This simplifies reasoning about code behavior and reduces the risk of race conditions.

4. Determinism: Motoko code must be deterministic, meaning it always produces the same output given the same input. This is crucial for security and reliability in a distributed environment.

5. Permissions and Candid: Motoko uses a capability-based security model. Candid, a language-agnostic interface description language, defines the boundaries for actor interactions, ensuring control over data access and preventing unauthorized actions.

6. State Management: Motoko encourages immutable data structures and explicit state management. This makes code more predictable and easier to reason about, reducing the potential for errors.

7. Testing and Verification: Thorough testing is essential in Motoko development to ensure code correctness and security. Formal verification techniques can also be employed to provide even stronger guarantees.

8. Resources and Community: The Motoko ecosystem is still evolving, but there are valuable resources available, including official documentation, tutorials, and a growing community of developers. Engage with the community to learn, share knowledge, and contribute to the language's development.

9. Continuous Learning: Motoko, like the Web3 space itself, is constantly evolving. Stay updated with the latest developments, best practices, and emerging patterns to effectively harness its capabilities.

Happy Coding!