6 Sentences That Changed My Perspective on Life in a Nanosecond

And they could change yours too

Have you ever heard or read something that instantly changes your perspective on something you previously held as gospel?

It’s less a lightbulb moment, more a mushroom cloud. Goodbye old way of thinking, hello unrecognizable new world.

I love learning from those who have already figured stuff out; it saves me a lot of time and effort. I borrow, I steal, I internalize and then I pass the information on, like today. 6 sentences that blew my mind. Who I was before I heard them is not who I am now. Because good advice can do that to you.

1. When you’re scared to shake things up

“What if you wiped the slate clean about what you thought you knew and re-wrote “the rules” to your liking?” — Kristin Wilson

It was the middle of 2020 lockdown and I had just received an offer from someone who wanted to buy my business. Scary in the best of times, downright terrifying in the middle of a pandemic. I was tired, though. I was done with living in a small UK seaside town and I was desperate to start the next phase of my life traveling the world, working from my laptop.

But I was 35. You just don’t do that at 35.

Then Kristin Wilson’s story The pandemic proves that society was wrong about how to live life popped onto my screen. Kristin laid down some of the rules that society has convinced us we have to live by, that were blown wide open by the pandemic.

It was the push I needed to believe that I could sell the business and start again, even when everyone around me was giving birth and buying houses. And sitting in a Spanish apartment, I can tell you, her advice works.

You don’t have to live by all the rules. Life isn’t as linear as we’re told. If you want to do something, damn well find a way to do it at whatever age you are. And if you’re having doubts, just remember Teiichi Igarashi, who at 100 became the first centenarian to conquer Mount Fuji. And he only started climbing it when he was 89.

Selling a business to become a freelance writer at 35 has got nothing on that.

2. When you struggle to understand how other people tick

“Judgment is but a mirror reflecting the insecurities of the person who’s doing the judging” Joshua Fields Milburn, The Minimalists

If like me, you struggle to read people and you don’t know about this idea, man it will change your relationships forever.

Understanding that a judgement is a mirror really takes the sting out of the negative comment tail. Suddenly, you realize that your dad telling you that you can’t make it as a singer / freelancer / anything that isn’t a ‘safe’ career is really him telling himself that he couldn’t do it.

A friend telling you that your financial independence plans sound like ‘you’re going to lord it over us all with your passive income’ is really them telling you that that’s how they would approach financial freedom. You might not want to ‘lord’ over anyone, thank you very much. But they might.

Someone announcing that your business will ‘last 6 weeks before it folds’ is really them telling you that they don’t think their venture would last longer than 6 weeks.

For many years, I took people’s comments at face value. But here’s the thing — when people talk, most aren’t thinking about you; they’re thinking about themselves.

Knowing that judgement is a mirror essentially gives you a window into what your friends, colleagues and acquaintances really think, which is a superpower in itself. You can hear through the noise. Ultimately, it gives you a greater insight into those you choose to spend your time with and armed with that knowledge, you can better assess the relationship. Are you getting enough value from it? If not, what are you going to do about it?

3. When you think you don’t have what it takes to become your own boss

“What many people don’t realise is that when it comes to starting a business, entrepreneurs have the same barriers as everyone else. They just see them as challenges rather than roadblocks.” — Dude at a networking event

I have no idea who this guy was. It was at one of those awful cult-like networking events where they promise you all the clients you’ll ever need, so long as you pay them $1000 a year and only refer customers to their companies. What can I say, our business was 3 months old and we were desperate so I went for their free taster session.

Once he said it, I heard the sentiment everywhere.

“I’d love to do what you do, but I have a big mortgage.”

“Freelancing is my dream, but I can’t do it, I have kids.”

“Owning a store like this must be so exciting! I looked into doing it once but I had too much debt.”

It’s the ‘yeah but’ syndrome. Yeah, your choice is fine for you, but I can’t do it because of X, Y and Z. What they don’t realize is that everyone who made the choice to change their life had to overcome their own barriers too.

Think you can’t be a Minimalist with kids? Leo Babuta and his 6 children would disagree.

Is your debt overwhelming and halting your life progression? It’s hard, but there are ways out of it. Jonathan Mendonsa paid off his $168k student loan debt in less than 5 years.

Barriers are everywhere. But once you think about them as challenges rather than roadblocks, suddenly you can see a way through. Because challenges can be strategized, broken down and taken one step at a time.

Which brings me neatly onto my next quote:

4. When you need a kick up the ass to start something

“Next thing you know, you look up and what’s now normal to you would blow the mind of ‘former you.’” — Ayodeji Awosika

When I was in my mid-twenties I used to daydream about being my own boss rather than stuck in my mind-numbing, hateful job that was definitely not what I was promised by society.

At 28, I did it. And life settled into a new normal.

At 35, I felt trapped by my bricks and mortar business, enviously eyeballing everyone I knew who could work from anywhere. So I sold the shop and went online. And life settled into a new normal.

It’s like the cliched quote ‘If you’d told me at (age whatever) that I’d be doing this, I would never have believed you!’

As Ayodeji rightfully points out, once you build momentum, you can get where you want to go. If you slowly shape your life into something you actually like the look of, when future-you pops out of the wall one day, you can tell them that actually, you do believe them.

Because even though you might not know what your future looks like, if you take charge of your actions, you know that you will get to wherever you go because you decided on that course of action.

5. When your finances keep you up at night

“If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough” — Vicki Robin, Your Money or Your Life

If you want to have a healthy, functional relationship with money, Vicki Robin is the woman to listen to. She is one lean, mean, consumerism-fighting machine who poses the question — how much is ‘‘enough?’’

Do you need 3 cars or is one enough?

The 1,000 channels that you pay $150 a month for, do you use them all, or would 20 be enough?

Must you own 75 pairs of trainers, or would a couple be enough?

Vicki’s book Your Money or Your Life turned money — and my relationship with it — on its head. So much so, I went from discovering the concept of Financial Independence to achieving financial freedom in just 18 months.

Even if Financial Independence isn’t your bag, understanding that consumerism isn’t a route to happiness, freedom or anything other than a big pile of debt and stress is relevant to everyone.

Vicki’s financial advice is the embodiment of the famous study that suggests happiness levels decrease with higher wages (typically over $105,000). She teaches you how to understand what is enough for you. That money isn’t there to gather and hoard. Instead, it can be a tool for positive environmental impact. Understand how much is enough for you, stop consuming thereafter and less of the world’s natural resources are exploited for mindless consumerism.

Her book goes beyond how to budget and handle money. Rather, it’s a guide to a sustainable, contented life.

6. When you worry your best days are behind you

“A friend asked me, ‘You worked hard for that diploma. Are you sure you want to throw it out?’ Yes. I’ve worked harder for other things since then. I don’t keep all of these things around either.” — James Altucher

I remember being very disappointed when I discovered that college was not all it was cracked up to be. You get told it’ll be the best time of your life, your crowning achievement all done and dusted before you turn 21.

All that really happened was that I put myself into debt and gained a diploma that did nothing to get me where I am today. For years, it bugged me. Like I’d failed at a major cornerstone of life.

James’ quote changed all that. Because he reminded me that learning and development don’t stop once you leave formal education. Your later-life achievements are just as valid, if not more so.

Understanding this is fricking great because it means your ‘best days’ are both behind and in front of you. Your life doesn’t finish at 21, 35, 55, 75 even 95. You can continue to achieve and develop until the day you meet your maker.

And you don’t need a piece of paper to prove that you did it.

I worked harder and learnt more through running my own business than I did in college. Do I have something to show for it? Not unless you count a ‘Founder of’ footnote on my Instagram bio.

But that doesn’t matter. What matters is what I learnt from the experience. And I gained an understanding that you can continue to achieve, innovate and be a success at whatever age you are. Those achievements are yours whether you hang a diploma on your office wall or not.

These will not be the last 6 pieces of advice that change my perspective on life.

The more I read and listen, the more frequently I have the mushroom cloud moments. I want to keep myself open to new ideas and perspectives because arming ourselves with knowledge is the best defence we have against the drudgery of an unintentional life.

And one day, if I’m really lucky, maybe something I say will change someone’s perspective on their own life. If that isn’t a perfect life goal, I don’t know what is.

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