4 things I learned after 30s
Career, relationships, wealth and health
The period from 20 to 30s can be one of the most rewarding times in life, probably the time of your most important decisions and biggest changes, you may be transitioning from your studies to the beginning of a career, becoming independent living alone or with someone else, starting to make your own money and year by year growing as person and professional. You now can do whatever you want (after work) and you have some money for it. It is a time for many mistakes, good and bad choices and lots of learnings. I listed 4 of the learnings that summarizes the way I changed personally, professionally and financially
- Your priorities will change
From my early 20s until my 30s my main priorities in life were related to growing professionally and enjoying life. I considered I was wasting my time if I was not learning, working or having fun. I was very focused on my career, moving jobs, working more, studying and reading to grow as a person and professional. The rest of the time I focused on social time with friends usually with lots of drinking and partying — no concern with health, not so family oriented, zero worries on taking care of a house or have a more predicted life. I would say YES for every invite and was amazed to not know how the day will end or what the weekend will bring.
Now in my mid 30s I can enjoy the fact that I learned with experience, what works and what doesn´t work. I was able to focus my time on what was important for me, I was able to plant a good career path and made good friends. I read the books and did the courses that shaped my values. I found my partner for life and I had all the party I needed. I saved money to follow my plans and live comfortably but of course left some things behind that I could have paid attention earlier, especially with spending time with family and taking extra care with my health, things that today are among my priorities
After 30s, main changes I did in my life were:
i) I am still focused on my career and after 30s I already moved countries twice for that, but now my motivations are different, growth is still important but I care much more for well-being, having a job that gives me time to be with family, have hobbies, exercise, eat well and so on. Money will always be important but working with people you like, for something you believe and having time in the end of the day is much more than that
ii) Still on the job part — I used to love to travel for work, one of the reasons I started working in consulting was because I loved it and during my late 20s to early 30s I traveled all over the world for work, almost 80% of the time and it was great — until I didn’t loved it anymore. I still of course love to travel on weekends and holidays with my wife and this is an important part of my life but I love to not travel during the week for work as this gives my time back to have a routine, exercise, eat right and spend time with family. Maybe is age, maybe is moving from single to married, the fact is that what you want and value will change
iii) I always took for granted the time with my parents and family, I used to saw it as an obstacle to spending more time with friends and parties. Luckly there was no accident or death to make me realize that family is most important than everything and they may not be there forever. In my late 20s I started to give much more attention and have a conscious effort to be present and spend quality time family, this should always come first
Since young age, professional and financial success were a priority for me, I don´t mean becoming a CEO or super rich, but having a decent life. Once I felt I was able to reach my minimum threshold and settle myself, I felt I was able to prioritize other things.
My take here is that, focusing on my priorities when I was on my 20s allowed me today to have freedom to take different decisions, focusing on different priorities on my 30s. The earlier you reflect on what is important, where and what you want to be, the more freedom for taking this decisions you will have
“Compounding works best when you can give a plan years or decades to grow. This is true for not only savings but careers and relationships. Endurance is key. And when you consider our tendency to change who we are over time, balance at every point in your life becomes a strategy to avoid future regret and encourage endurance.”― Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money
2. You will see your friends less
Two things will start to happen:
i) Most of your friends are getting married and having kids
Is not only your priorities that changes, as you get on your 30s your friends priorities will also change. Couples may hang out more with other couples, Couples with children may hang out less and also with other couples with children
Some friends will move city or country, some will develop different interests. Your colleagues from work will move to another job and you will also change
ii) You will become more focused on yourself
It is natural to become more self-oriented as you are dealing with your own life, you are building your career and maybe starting a family. You developed new interests and maybe also need to combine it with your partner´s interests, with a demanding job or with any surprise life can bring
It starts to be easier to say No as you are more certain on your priorities, you may not want to go out during weekend as you are tired, you may not be able to have dinner with friends as you had plans with family. Also it´s not only you — combining agendas with other people in the same situation start getting more complicated
The more you and your friends focus on building your lives, with or without partner and kids and having your own priorities in terms of health, career, money, family you tend to reduce your social circles and that could be a good thing. it´s OK if you see your friends less and maybe loose contact with some but I believe is more important than ever to make an extra effort and be conscient to make sure you still the keep most important ones closer and push for spending some time together in a fair frequency
3. You must learn how to manage money and risks
I am not here to give financial advice, there are many excellent books that can do this (Strongly recommend The Psychology of Money from Morgan Housel, quoted a few times in this text) but by 30s, would be great if you have a good and healthy relationship with money. You should be able to live a life beyond your means, spending less than what you make, investing frequently in a fair investment that rewards you based on the risks you are able to incur and enjoy the benefits of compounded interests
I invested since my early 20s but one thing I only learned later in life is on how to better manage risks. I always been aggressive and did several investments with good (sometimes by luck) and bad results. For some, I lost a lot of money in a stupid way for taking too much unnecessary risks for a not so high return. I thought that I could outsmart the market, get rich quick but on the hard way I learned this is as effective as gambling. This is not about not taking risks or being conservative instead of aggressive, is about controlling emotions, your greed and ego and take calculated risks.
Doing the wrong thing and having good results is the worst thing that can happen as this create bad habits. When we win by playing it wrong it only prepare us for a bigger failure and this often happens when you take a wrong decision that end up right — you can be lucky but you can´t be lucky consistently. ´´The accidental impact of actions outside of your control can be more consequential than the ones you consciously take.´´- Morgan Housel
My main learning is that we will not get rich quickly just by investing. Warren Buffet have an average rate of return a bit higher than 1% per month over the years, why would you think you could consistently do more? Investing is consistency, is discipline, is evaluating and taking the right risks. There is no secret formula for huge returns but there is a very clear path for failure and it is taking stupid risks
“Growth is driven by compounding, which always takes time. Destruction is driven by single points of failure, which can happen in seconds, and loss of confidence, which can happen in an instant. A good rule of thumb for a lot of things in life is that everything that can break will eventually break.´´- Morgan Housel
Final quote from Morgan Housel from The Psychology of Money that summarize all this well:
“Less ego, more wealth. Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don’t see. So wealth is created by suppressing what you could buy today in order to have more stuff or more options in the future. No matter how much you earn, you will never build wealth unless you can put a lid on how much fun you can have with your money right now, today. Using your money to buy time and options has a lifestyle benefit few luxury goods can compete with.”
4. You are aging and must take care of your health, the earlier the better
During my 20s I never really cared for my health. I could drink until 4am and go to work normally in the next day or even play football. My sleeping hours were never something to consider and even drinking and eating almost freely I was only fighting with a few extra kilograms. Things slowly change without noticing — hangovers get worse, is easier to gain weight and is difficult to keep up without 7 hours of sleep.
What changed my perspective is when I saw a lecture from Abílio Diniz, Brazilian businessman and among the wealthiest persons in the country, he was around 84 years and the topic was on ´´Planning my 80s while I was on 30s´´. I felt bad when I looked around and concluded that he with 80+ was looking better physically/mentally than some of my colleagues is consulting in their 40s. Abílio was a very hard worker, with an aggressive work mentality since young age and around 30s he faced a big health issue due his lifestyle that made him completely change his routine. He started doing a lot of research and planning to shape his life to reach old age in a healthy way.
The advice was no different from traditional health recommendation of exercising, having a balanced diet, sleeping and eating well but what really made me think is that taking care of health is the same thing as investing money — The exercise I do and what I eat today will give me interests for later in life and might make the difference between living a functional life until 60 or maybe 100
You don´t need to become a billionaire or have a hard attack to conclude and plan for your 80s, if I already feel some effects of aging on my 30s I can conclude it won´t get better unless I help myself. I learned to start looking for each healthy habit as a small saving in my bank account, day-by-day without noticing they compound and although many benefits of a healthy lifestyle are visible in the mid-term, the main difference in our lifespan will be felt in the long term and the same way of saving money, the earlier we start the better.