21 Things I Would Tell My 21-Year-Old Self
#3 — As fast as you can make $1M you can lose everything.
#1. Smile. You’re alive and didn’t die from cancer. You will get a glimpse. It will be you, and it will be many people you know. You need one smack in the face with cancer to learn it’s lesson: you’re not here for very long. May as well make the most of it.
#2. Writing online is the best thing you will ever do. Writing is just looking inside your head, listening, and capturing your thinking with words. Those words have value to your life.
They have incredible, unimaginable value for the lives of people you will never meet. It could be a small number of people (like less than ten), but rest assured your writing has power. You write every day; you just don’t realize the importance of that practice yet. You will… one day.
#3. As fast as you can make $1M you can lose everything. It’s not time for you to learn this lesson yet. You need to be further into your 20s and a few more boozy nights around the sun before this will make sense. Your self-worth doesn’t equal your net-worth.
The speed of money accumulation can be fast. The opposite, where money leaves you, can be even faster. You will see that most of the people who are there when you’re doing well financially will disappear. Don’t sweat it. Who sticks around? Those people are the ones to make friends for life. Invite them to your future wedding too (if you have one, no pressure).
#4. Choose people, not a company. This one will apply later in your working life. You’ll fall for titles, bosses, company logos, industries and leadership positions. You’ll eventually see that the people you choose to work with are far more important.
Lots of money is a pain in the ass when you hate the people you work with. On the contrary, people you love working with will become lifelong friends and make the joy of going to work a reality. You might even find you accept a lot less money just so you can be around these awesome humans.
#5. Being kind has an incredibly high ROI. Hate to break it to you, pal — you got nothing on Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa. The divine intervention of a blessed life won’t find you. That’s okay. You don’t need it. As your wiser self I’m going to break it to you the only way I have learned.
Be kind — meaning, treat your fellow human with respect, kindness, generosity, and compassion.
It seems sucky. Your rebellious twenty-one-year-old self says older me is a freaking idiot. Silence the brat. This one is so counter-intuitive that it will put you on a path in life you will never forget — and that will look like a fantasy from afar. ROI doesn’t mean status or money either.
ROI means life enjoyment, good friends, great food and never-ending classic hits (you wanted to be a musician, right?).
#6. Generosity towards others makes you wealthy. I know what you’re thinking: this is starting to sound like a church service. Hear me out.
Generosity is just giving a tiny bit of yourself to other people. Generosity, later in your life, will just mean forgiveness. You’ll be required to forgive close family, distant family, a few shitty work colleagues, and an extra-large bad boss full of mortgage motivation. It won’t be easy. You’ll feel rich though. Feeling rich is better than being rich. Trust me.
#7. Business problems are almost always people related. Business will be part of your life. Business means charging money. That’s it. Through the course of working, earning money and showing up for work again the next day, you’ll encounter these little things called business problems.
Business school says to look at spreadsheets, history, economics, KPIs, technology, etc. Most of this business advice is wrong. Your biggest problem in business will always be other people — colleagues, customers or leaders. Learning to work with people is the answer — not quitting your job or being a solo entrepreneur out of frustration with this inevitable reality.
#8. Optimistic people are rare. Glue yourself to them. These gorgeous devils will be a rare breed. You’ll spend most of your 20s being a negative little asshole and blowing up at every damn thing. The good news is you will recover from this infectious disease.
You’ll meet this one optimistic person who is a farmer. They will have every possible shitty situation thrown in their direction and have it all be topped off with the death of their mother. They will teach you that life is as good as the attitude you carry around with you.
There will be two levels in your life: 1) Negative people blaming others and complaining about everything 2) Optimistic people who find the good in almost every situation, with the occasional bad moment. The second breed is rare. You won’t meet many of these gorgeous minds. So when you find one, get close to them. Learn the ways of the force. What they have to teach you will get you through all the tragedies you’re going to have to endure.
#9. Look after your health. Eat a plant-based diet. This is going to sound crazy: you can’t have a cheeky drink with every meal and smoke your dinner. You’re not going to be a Peter Pan DJ for the rest of your life. At some point you will have to grow up and nourish your insides.
The formula is simple and you learned this in primary school — vegetables (mostly), water for hydration, fruit for dessert, and nuts for a snack. Indulge with gelato occasionally for good measure.
#10. A random event can close the world down. Don’t get cocky. Okay this is going to sound crazy. You’re going to have to trust me with this one. Grandma endured two World Wars and The Great Depression.
Another completely random event is going to occur. The enemy will be invisible. You’ll be watching a lot of TV on your future Ikea couch. There will be only four reasons to leave your home. Kissing, touching, hugging and being less than 1.5 meters apart will be outlawed. I know this sounds totally nuts — trust me on this. The good news is you’ll survive if you follow the science-backed medical advice.
This random event — and many others just like it — will remind you not to be too egotistical. But why wait? Slow your roll. See everything you love as fragile and scarce, and you’ll be prepared. Luck won’t follow you forever. That’s why I’m giving you this backup plan buddy.
#11. Public speaking is a superpower. Yes, while you act confident as a 21 year old little punk kid, you’re deeply afraid inside. Public speaking from the heart is something you’ll be afraid of for a long time. Feel the fear and go to a Toastmasters event. Watch other people like you crap their pants before giving a completely random speech.
Public speaking is a powerful form of communication. Those who can communicate through this medium get access to leadership positions that can change the world. You might change the world if you do the same.
#12. No amount of money is worth a job you hate. This problem will find you multiple times. You’ll think you need the job to survive and pay rent. You don’t. When you quit the jobs you hate and do work you enjoy, you’ll make a lot more money.
It makes complete sense until you’re faced with the decision. Only then will fear get the best of you, and only then will your survival instincts take over and force you to make completely irrational decisions.
Choose work you enjoy and the dollar figure will be infinite. Take what you make and invest it back into yourself and your education. Use a decent chunk of your earnings to help others too; it pays you back in joy.
#13. The feeling of getting a bonus lasts 7 days. $20,00 will hit your bank account. You’ll buy a crappy car, and move on. The seats will feel the same as the tinpot BMW you fell for in your 20s. She was a money-grubbing whore.
#14. Entrepreneurship isn’t the answer. Getting on with people is. There will be a lot of people telling you to quit your job so they can sell you an online course and then upsell you to a Bali Island Retreat. Starting a business later in your life will take on a whole new meaning. You’ll realize that entrepreneurship isn’t the answer to a lot of problems.
You’ll meet a billionaire tech founder who screams at you in the lobby of a convention because you work for a company that declined their home loan due to a lack of profits. They’ll drop the F-word and make you look stupid.
You’ll have to explain to them (later) that revenue isn’t profit. You’ll also have to explain to them that a valuation doesn’t pay repayments on a loan.
For some weird reason you will ring your boss’s boss’s boss and ask them to take a second look at the home loan. They will end up giving them the loan. They will be surprised by your behavior but never say thank you.
The ugly side of entrepreneurship will make you a little kinder. People will want to do business with that person.
You won’t need to leave your job to be happy. You can take a salary and own a small business that charges a few customers some money once in a while.
#15. The right opportunity will find you when you’ve earned it. Opportunities won’t magically find you at a real estate seminar. People will hand you opportunities. Those people will be in disguise. So you better treat everybody well. You’ll have to work hard for it. It won’t come easy. The more effort — not work — you put in, the more juicy mangoes you will taste.
#16. Hard work isn’t about time. It’s measured in mental load. You’ll take a crappy minimum wage job. You will try and work longer hours to make more money and impress your boss you never see (they’re always lunching).
You’ll see through your life that real work is measured in mental load. Hard work you hate takes a mental toll faster. Work you hate will burn out your brain. Stay away.
Work you enjoy has less of a drain on your mental batteries and you can sustain yourself longer.
#17. Clear thinking can solve most problems. Book in ‘think time.’ Think time is where you take walks, sit on the couch, stare into the abyss of nature, and wash the dishes. If you’re always doing productive stuff you won’t be able to think. You can go really crazy and leave your hometown. When you return, your hometown will look different compared to your problems. Your home will transform from a survival habitat, to an unfamiliar place once again.
#18. Listen more than you talk — in conversations. You’re a loud brat. You think you have to prove your point or speak louder to ensure your opinion is heard. The real issue is you don’t listen. You listen to speak. You don’t shut up, so you only see the world through your foggy eyes. Don’t be a Donald.
Explore the beauty of a conversation through letting a voice shine. Let the voice of another person drown out your thoughts and what you want to say next. The talking is the easy part.
Being genuinely interested in another person is the real test. If you’re interested in a person enough, you’ll shut ya yapper.
#19. Your career doesn’t need to happen overnight. Slow down. You don’t need to be noticed in your career. All those Hollywood movies growing up distorted your reality. A career takes time because the hardest part will be figuring out what work you want to do. And what work people are happy to pay you a fair price for. These two things take time to become alchemy.
You’ve got more time than you think to work out your work.
#20. Losing your family home taught you a lot. It didn’t seem like it at the time. You were mad. How dare they take away your home. You were a child. You did nothing wrong. Later in life you’ll begin to love this scenario.
You’ll be glad it happened to you because you’ll cherish the privilege of having a roof over your head, that you paid for. Preparing for another stage of rock bottom will be something you become good at.
A home is nothing without the ones you love.
#21. Explain your experiences with stories. Stories are human. This is the final part of your life quest. Stories are all you have, because stories are all you will leave behind when you die. It will be hard to imagine this event when you’re younger. As you get older your mortality’s truth will be spoken to you.
Stories are how you explain your life to other people. Stories are a gift you didn’t know you could give. Stories are supernatural in their ability to shape parts of the world you share with others. You’ll brush stories off as too small to worry about. You’ll think everybody is a good storyteller.
Then one day you will see what a story can do. You will tell a story to a person who has no hope and see it change their mind in real-time. It will feel surreal.
Start sharing your stories.
The world needs storytellers to make sense of the madness.
