What would you tell your 18 or 25 year old self?

[WJK]

Turning 25 in 2 weeks. Taking notes from everyone right now i've just started reading books hoping to steer into a better life before im 30 5 years left

The main advice I can give you is to listen. Use your ears and mouth in the same ratio that God gave them to you -- use your mouth to ask good open-ended questions. Then listen with your ears at least twice as much as you talk. You can avoid a lot of predictable mistakes IF you implement what you learn from listening.

 

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[idea]

One of the best threads in this forum I've come across.

As a 19-year-old currently in the process of creating my very own Unscripted reality, I'm sure I can speak for my fellow young people when I say I'm genuinely grateful for the golden nuggets of wisdom presented here by some of the older, more accomplished folks.

Here's a quick list I've compiled of things I need to personally continue reminding myself:

1) Chasing money for the selfish reason of wanting to become rich is akin to chasing a carrot on a stick: it is an endless and dissappointing pursuit. Instead, let money come to you. How? Prioritize the creation of real value by focusing exclusively on the consumer's POV and how to make their lives easier & more convenient. Before you know it, you'll finally have come across the solution, and money will suddenly start pouring in - more than you've ever anticipated.

2) Stop caring too much about non-trivial stuff. Your focus, energy and time are precious, and thus logically shouldn't be mindlessly wasted on things such as low-value entertainment, pursuing the latest trends, or trying your best to please everyone.

3) Prioritize mental health & physical health over everything else, first. Without it, how can you expect to excel in any other meaningful pursuits (e.g. building a successful business, building new connections, dating, etc) and enjoy the fruits of your labor to the fullest extent? With elite health, everything suddenly becomes a lot easier to do and people treat you better. I can personally attest to this (happy to give more details!).

4) Happiness is ONLY found in the now: focusing too much on the past or the future is not productive, and counter-intuitive to progress. You are kept in the same spot: either reminiscing, regretting, or day-dreaming. Do not wait until "X thing happens" to do something you need to do, as the excuses your lizard brain comes up with will never cease. Action-faking and procrastination can only get you so far...

5) Expect the process (the grind, the failures, the risks, the unknowns), then trust the process. If you know where you want to be, don't get too worked up on the details. The dots will eventually connect, but as Steve Jobs said: they only do after the fact. If the action is uncomfortable in the moment but you know your future self would be grateful, you're doing the right thing!

6) There is no wisdom of the crowd: do not freely take conventional advice from conventional people living conventional lives, IF you want to have an unconventional life (that is, UNSCRIPTED life).

...And last but not least:

7) You are uniquely responsible for your reality. Never have a victim mentality. The sooner you start holding yourself accountable for your own life problems, the faster you start to look for solutions.

Let me know if I've missed anything else that would be considered essential.

Kind of copying a twitter post from a while back, but...

"Every single moment in your life that leaves an impression on you whether good or bad, will be longed for, by your future self. If you are facing your toughest times, it won't necessarily help you in the moment, but realize you will one day look back and feel sentimental about this point in your life"

My takeaway is that we are always making memories that stick with us in the long run, especially when you are young, so try and enjoy what you can from it.

^ Love this quote and your takeaway on it.

 

[FastlaneJonah]

Hey all, 23-year-old kiddo here. This has been such an interesting thread so far.
After reading the first 3 pages I already feel as if it has given me a huge amount of knowledge. I decided to make a notion page which summarized the most interesting points for me. My question, are these good? If so, anyone that is around the age of 20 can use the list!

The list I made:

• Stop waiting for things in life to happen to you, be proactive. (stop waiting with asking the girl you like out, with starting the business etc.)
• If you want a girl, approach her, see if she likes you, if she does continue. If she doesn’t want you back, continue with life, don’t take it personal and be a gentleman.
• Value time.
• Live meagerly, live large later. If you want.
• Don’t get into consumer debt.
• Stay in shape, the world isn’t very kind towards fat people. (This is sadly what you see happen all the time. People make fun of fat people, treat them differently etc.) Also this has massive benefits to your memory, health, mental health, and confidence.
• Have quality conversations (and time) with your parents. They won’t be around forever.
• Be careful with marriage it can completely steal your freedom away from you.
• The roughest waters are ahead of you, prepare yourself. (perhaps through good habits.)
• Figure out ways to add massive value to this world.
• Never give up.
• Live with values, don’t do stupid/bad things.
• Cherish your health and loved ones. Be careful with who you let into your heart.
• Raise your standards - For yourself as well as for the people around you. (Don’t allow yourself to be treated like shit, also don’t allow yourself to be a lazy bum.)
• Be kind and social to most, don’t let ego take over, talk to many people.
• Don’t let people drag you down, if they do either stand up for yourself or stop the friendships or even relationships immediately.
• Listen to yourself. Especially when it comes to the grind of entrepreneurship.
• But if you genuinely don’t know something, throw your ego in the bin and accept knowledge from others.
• Keep learning. Never stop learning.
• Be ruthless with protecting your time, the people closest to you, and your values and goals.
• Sharpen your saw, but don’t expect perfection.
• Believe in yourself.
• There is no way in which you can cheat the grind or have a shortcut. Accept that.
• It’s better to fail than to never try at all. Have solid work ethic.
• Focus on process not on events.

Kind Regards,
Jonah

 

[FastlaneJonah]

Don't waste time/money on a business. Get a strong freelance first to fix money issues. Passive income comes second.

Since 18 to 21 (today), I've wasted my life this way. There's still time.

Hey, is this advice still applicable?

 

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[WJK]

Hey all, 23-year-old kiddo here. This has been such an interesting thread so far.
After reading the first 3 pages I already feel as if it has given me a huge amount of knowledge. I decided to make a notion page which summarized the most interesting points for me. My question, are these good? If so, anyone that is around the age of 20 can use the list!

The list I made:

• Stop waiting for things in life to happen to you, be proactive. (stop waiting with asking the girl you like out, with starting the business etc.)
• If you want a girl, approach her, see if she likes you, if she does continue. If she doesn’t want you back, continue with life, don’t take it personal and be a gentleman.
• Value time.
• Live meagerly, live large later. If you want.
• Don’t get into consumer debt.
• Stay in shape, the world isn’t very kind towards fat people. (This is sadly what you see happen all the time. People make fun of fat people, treat them differently etc.) Also this has massive benefits to your memory, health, mental health, and confidence.
• Have quality conversations (and time) with your parents. They won’t be around forever.
• Be careful with marriage it can completely steal your freedom away from you.
• The roughest waters are ahead of you, prepare yourself. (perhaps through good habits.)
• Figure out ways to add massive value to this world.
• Never give up.
• Live with values, don’t do stupid/bad things.
• Cherish your health and loved ones. Be careful with who you let into your heart.
• Raise your standards - For yourself as well as for the people around you. (Don’t allow yourself to be treated like shit, also don’t allow yourself to be a lazy bum.)
• Be kind and social to most, don’t let ego take over, talk to many people.
• Don’t let people drag you down, if they do either stand up for yourself or stop the friendships or even relationships immediately.
• Listen to yourself. Especially when it comes to the grind of entrepreneurship.
• But if you genuinely don’t know something, throw your ego in the bin and accept knowledge from others.
• Keep learning. Never stop learning.
• Be ruthless with protecting your time, the people closest to you, and your values and goals.
• Sharpen your saw, but don’t expect perfection.
• Believe in yourself.
• There is no way in which you can cheat the grind or have a shortcut. Accept that.
• It’s better to fail than to never try at all. Have solid work ethic.
• Focus on process not on events.

Kind Regards,
Jonah

That's a hell of a list! It looks overwhelming to me when you put it into use. Can you break out something that you want to work on first? Make a plan and do it one baby step at a time.

To me, it comes down to having good life habits coupled with a successful point of view. I would start by reading something like "Tiny Habits" by BJ Fogg to make small, meaningful changes toward your goals.

 

[BIYMS97]

Don't buy the lie of telling yourself to take action someday in the future because you're still young and have plenty of time.
Someday will never come until you wake up one day realizing the current circumstances making the first jump even harder.

Plus, stop looking for ways to be more motivated and instead built the habit of having discipline (Getting things done no matter how you feel)
Relying on feeling motivated leads to lots of procrastination and unproductivity.

 

[BigRomeDawg]

Quit more and try more things

 

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[WJK]

Don't buy the lie of telling yourself to take action someday in the future because you're still young and have plenty of time.
Someday will never come until you wake up one day realizing the current circumstances making the first jump even harder.

Plus, stop looking for ways to be more motivated and instead built the habit of having discipline (Getting things done no matter how you feel)
Relying on feeling motivated leads to lots of procrastination and unproductivity.

Don't buy the lie of telling yourself to take action someday in the future because you're still young and have plenty of time.
Someday will never come until you wake up one day realizing the current circumstances making the first jump even harder.

Plus, stop looking for ways to be more motivated and instead built the habit of having discipline (Getting things done no matter how you feel)
Relying on feeling motivated leads to lots of procrastination and unproductivity.

That was my point too. It's easy to start too many things at the same time and create a type of fanatic busy paralysis. You get stuck flaying around using up your life's energy in the same spot. It's like the old joke about the rocking chair. Rocking yourself, no matter how hard, keeps you really busy and gets you nowhere. Being mindlessly busy is not the same as forward progress or success.

 

[FastlaneJonah]

That was my point too. It's easy to start too many things at the same time and create a type of fanatic busy paralysis. You get stuck flaying around using up your life's energy in the same spot. It's like the old joke about the rocking chair. Rocking yourself, no matter how hard, keeps you really busy and gets you nowhere. Being mindlessly busy is not the same as forward progress or success.

Hey, thank you for both replies. Being mindlessly busy and trying to do countless things at the same time is not wise. I agree, luckily for me, about 50% of the list I made are already things that I do. I will use the list to remind myself if I'm feeling bad or demotivated. I feel as if entrepreneurship means creating new roads that not a lot of people have used.

Things like being proactive, learning continuously, prioritizing health, and trying to add value to the world are things I already internalized really deeply. I've to work on the work part and productivity parts. I think what I learn from your comments is to build a solid foundation, one step at a time, instead of trying to combine countless things.

Also I try to remind myself that this lifestyle is a marathon, not a sprint.
Thank you once again. May the New Year bless you with health, wealth, and happiness!

 

[smart_hustler]

scrape every single penny you possibly can, And buy some crypto(bitcoin, Ethereum etc)

 

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[WJK]

scrape every single penny you possibly can, And buy some crypto(bitcoin, Ethereum etc)

Why? Didn't one of them just collapse? Where did the money go? Isn't that guy going to jail for the rest of his life for fraud -- stealing the money? How do you know where your money is being parked, invested, or spent that you are paying out? What are you really getting for your money past a virtual promise?

I talked to a young person the other day that was building empires online in a game. I asked him why he doesn't do it for real -- like buying real estate -- or making a product and selling it for money... This was a whole new idea for him. He asked me if he could really do that. I assured him that he can and should. I like to buy things I can see, feel, and influence. When I finish each day, I can see what I did with my time and money. I've played Monopoly with my real money all my adult life.

I end each day by writing down my biggest accomplishment for the day. I also have a list in my daybook notes that goes back for years. There I write down major events and accomplishments in chronological order. Before I kept my notes, I focused on my to-do list without feeling like I was making any progress. Now I track those wins and celebrate them every day.

 

[DennisD]

Stop reading fiction and start reading business & personal development books.
Learn to manage your work time efficiently.

My advice to myself would be the opposite.

"Stop reading business and personal development books and start reading fiction."
Or at the very least - "stop reading personal development and start reading biographies."

When I was younger I read way too much of what I now realize is trash.
A successful person doesn't always know why they're successful. They'll think something was skill when it was actually luck (or the other way around) and then the use these faulty assumptions to build out 'advice' that doesn't work very well in practice.

All you have to do is look at ANY parenting book or mommy blog for examples of this in the wild.

That's why my advice to my younger self would be to read biographies - these are the RAW life experiences before they've been misinterpreted and turned into 'advice'.

 

[Intax]

YOU CANNOT CHEAT THE GRIND SO STOP LOOKING FOR SHORTCUTS. Take action. Get the ice cream.

Thanks for your post. It resonates with me because I experience what difference it makes to follow your advice or not. For the most of my life I never new what it meant to work hard but in the past two years I've been learning it bit by bit and I feel already how positively it impacts my life.

I always dreamed and only readed about entrepreneurship but now I'm putting in the effort and actually created a startup and earn revenue.

 

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[wyai]

Find Oneness before striving for financial freedom. Because it'll solve your assumption, you would have to reach financial freedom.

That doesn't mean to skip goals. Goals are a good thing. But feeling bad because a misinterpretation of "having XY not reached yet" will block hunches for further ideas towards your goals.

 

[Anon3x156]

I'm about to turn 21 and I love learning from other people's experiences.

What advice would you give to your 21 year old self?

By the way, you should watch this, even if you're older than 21.

 

[Andy Black]

I'm about to turn 21 and I love learning from other people's experiences.

What advice would you give to your 21 year old self?

By the way, you should watch this, even if you're older than 21.

I think there's a thread in here called something like "Advice you'd give your 25 year old self".

 

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[Anon3x156]

I think there's a thread in here called something like "Advice you'd give your 25 year old self".

nah that's a 5 year gap, at 20 you're about to start or just started college, at 25 you're out of college and maybe you're working.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dcoLdfdjTQ

 

[hexelbyte]

I'm 25 and here's what I would tell my 21 year old self:

1. It takes 1 year to learn then 1-2 years of failure (process), then a lifetime of reward.
2. If you want to try something new, give it 3 months. Give yourself quarterly reports. If it's going fine, continue otherwise quit.
3. Trust the process, do the process.
4. If you work for someone, they don't care about you. Ask yourself this, if the company made $1 billion tomorrow, how much will I get from that? Nothing because I'm paid wage.
5. Apply the 80/20 principle.
6. You can always lose weight. Start with a diet change. You don't need to do cardio or lift weights.
7. Always test your friends/ peers. Know their quirks so you aren't surprised.
8. Screw 401ks. It's money held hostage until you're dead at 60 years old. Consider it a blackhole.
9. Consider what advice you get from others. Ex: Why would I listen to a scrawny man about bodybuilding?
10. In this life, first impressions are everything.

 

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[Anon3x156]

I'm 25 and here's what I would tell my 21 year old self:

Love this!

 

[Akita]

Advice I would give to my 21 year old self:
1. Keep/find people in your life close that know your strengths and weaknesses, and will help you see perspective before you make an idiot mistake. Example: Dating a person that doesn't care for your values. It will cause pain and waste a lot of time.
2. If you don't have a community of friends and people you can really trust in your life, make that one of your main priorities, find a group of people that do epic stuff that inspires you. Learning to build friendships in new communities brings so many opportunities to grow and feel happier.
3. Don't worry about missing out on things, focus on building core skills 100 times better than anyone else and everything will come to you quickly (in a couple years). Example: Mastering sales + sell high ticket item with minimal time = more freedom to do what you want.
4. Learn to look out for high leverage opportunities in every aspect of your life. This doesn't mean easy shortcuts, but something worth working on that you know will multiply in the future. Example: If you know you didn't grow up learning to be very disciplined, go do something for a few years that will instill discipline because it will serve you the rest of your life.

Last, but certainly the most important:

5. Learn to be grounded in who you are by doing things that will force yourself to become self reliant, the faster the better. If you're afraid of being alone, seek people who aren't, and learn from them. If you still live with your parents, find a way to live by yourself. If you're part of the same kind of people that you grew up with, learn how to become part of a new community and make new friends. If you don't know how to make money without a paycheck. Learn. If you don't know how to defend yourself from dangerous people, become dangerous yourself. If the store you go to had no more food, can you still eat? Can you process negative emotions or experiences in a healthy way? ect. Then, you can give to others, and make the world a better place, instead of taking and relying on others. Don't Stay a child in an adult body.
Most people don't start feeling grounded in who they are for a long time, and they spend hours distracting themselves from reality.

 

[WillHurtDontCare]

throw all of your energy into gaining control over your time (this above all else)
get ripped
womanize and don't get a girlfriend
hang out with other womanizers
read some philosophy to avoid getting sucked into liberalism's traps
hang out with other winners, particular winners who are older than you and can speed up your journey

throw all of your energy into a few really important things and set yourself up for life

 

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[Johnny boy]

"Scale that lawn care company up faster pussy! Here's a single page of instructions on how to franchise, scale, what systems to use, etc. Go get 50k a month by spring! You will be worth millions in a couple years then. Save me a few years or I'll come kick your a$$"

"Keep living alone and don't date girls for any longer than 3 hours, stay sharp and don't get comfy"

"Get a gym partner. You are 50x more consistent when you have that type of accountability"

 

[Andy Black]

nah that's a 5 year gap, at 20 you're about to start or just started college, at 25 you're out of college and maybe you're working.

You missed a load of great advice in that thread then.

 

[heavy_industry]

1. You are responsible for everything in your life. All your problems are your fault, and you are the only one that can solve them. Blaming anyone else for anything means that you are the biggest loser possible.

2. If you are not disabled, and have food, clean water, and internet access, you are amongst the top 1% luckiest people in the history of mankind. You did not deserve this miracle. It was a gift. Tears of joy and gratitude should happen everyday.

3. Take advice from qualified people (they are very rare), but do exactly what you want to do. It's your life and the only life you will ever have, and you will suffer the consequences of your actions - good or bad.

4. Life is never too hard, you are just an idiot. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Increase your level of competence and the world will be your oyster.

5. Health and mental health in particular should be the top priority.

6. Train hard, eat well.

7. Work diligently, have a strategic approach, split your years into 3 months quarters and have a clear mission for every quarter. Time is your treasure. Looking back on wasted time is the greatest suffering you can endure.

 

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[Ahmed Elakkad]

I'm 25 and here's what I would tell my 21 year old self:

1. It takes 1 year to learn then 1-2 years of failure (process), then a lifetime of reward.
2. If you want to try something new, give it 3 months. Give yourself quarterly reports. If it's going fine, continue otherwise quit.
3. Trust the process, do the process.
4. If you work for someone, they don't care about you. Ask yourself this, if the company made $1 billion tomorrow, how much will I get from that? Nothing because I'm paid wage.
5. Apply the 80/20 principle.
6. You can always lose weight. Start with a diet change. You don't need to do cardio or lift weights.
7. Always test your friends/ peers. Know their quirks so you aren't surprised.
8. Screw 401ks. It's money held hostage until you're dead at 60 years old. Consider it a blackhole.
9. Consider what advice you get from others. Ex: Why would I listen to a scrawny man about bodybuilding?
10. In this life, first impressions are everything.

Wow. Being 20 myself, I’ll genuinely take your advice. Well-written man.

 

[Anon3x156]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dcoLdfdjTQ

cringe, I asked for general life advice.
not for advice on a specific matter.

 

[BlackRabbit3PL]

Stop playing in crappy emo bands.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I'm about to turn 21 and I love learning from other people's experiences.

This thread that was recently created was merged with one that has already existed. Over 500+ responses.

 

[Robdavis]

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

You should be incredibly careful and precise about everything that enters your body and mind. If you bring or allow garbage in, you will get garbage out.

You need to pay attention to everything you eat, drink, breathe, see or hear. (Also anything that is injected or absorbed through the skin)

For clarity, this principle applies to both physical things eg. food, drink, drugs and information products eg. books, websites, TV etc.