10 Things I Wish I Knew In My 20s (That Would Have Made Me Happier, Wealthier, and Better Off)

As a 33 year old man, I’ve had some time to reflect on my 20s.

I learned a lot of lessons (haven’t we all), many of which I’m not sharing here.

However, these are 10 of the most impactful ones that I’ve learned. My hope is that you can read this and put this to use in your own life.

This is available as a podcast:

1. You are on a predestined course and only you can change it

From birth, you have been on a specific track.

For one, you were born to a specific set of parents, with a specific set of genetics, and a specific upbringing.

Your fate was predestined before you even took your first breath.

That is…unless you make active steps to change it, through the use of the will.

In my opinion, the only real way to do this is through decision architecture.

And that’s because this is a specific groove or specific track that you are on by default. You must make effort to change it. It’s not gonna happen by itself. It’s going to involve some pain.

Pain is the downpayment the house of success.

After all, master psychologist Carl Jung once said:

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

The Truth About Self-Improvement and Pain

I can’t separate self-improvement from pain at some level. And pain doesn’t have to be physical. It can be mental, emotional, financial, spiritual…lots of different flavors.

But don’t worry – chances are: the pain won’t last long. Or even if it does last long, you will be justly compensated.

Esteemed philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson had a famous essay called Compensation.

In it, he discussed his take on the universal law of sowing and reaping.

Late nights studying, money invested in a profitable venture, sacrificing now to reap later – these are all forms of compensation.

2. People don’t achieve their goals not for lack of trying, but for lack of focus

There’s a lot of people who try very hard at many things.

They try hard at yoga. They try hard at lifting weights. They try hard at architecture. They try hard to be computer scientists.

The problem is: they’re trying hard at all of these things at the same time.

And as the saying goes:

You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.

The Reality of Trade-Offs

There are a select bucket of things I do well. Sure, I may “dabble” in other things, but I don’t make them my main focus.

And the things I do well, I know there are other people who do them better than I do.

There’s always going to be someone better than you are at something.

And this is why I try to be a minimalist, as much as I possibly can.

This is also why I try to encourage independent thinking, because other people will try and influence you to tell you what your goals should be.

And because most people aren’t into improving themselves, you will most likely get advice from people who will try to encourage you to live an average life going after average things.

And that’s fine. That’s where they are. But if you have a higher vision and perspective for and of your life, you can’t let this happen to you.

You need to accept that at the end of the day, there will be trade-offs. There is an opportunity cost for everything you do in life.

If you want to start a business, accept that there will be a trade-off of income potential, at least early on.

If you want to move to a new location, accept that there will be a trade-off of comfort, at least early on.

Unfortunately, many people can’t accept those trade-offs, so they try to do everything and as a result, end up doing nothing.

3. Novelty is the death of dreams

We live in a world of unending novelty.

AI algorithms catering feeds to your specific tastes.

New creators popping up daily.

Endless streams of content.

You can just stay on your phone for the rest of your life, clicking, swiping, scrolling…

As a result, this has created a world of Internet addicts with short attention spans who find it difficult to concentrate for long periods of time.

Why Most People Switch Up

I remember when we were in the pandemic, a lot of people believed that they were turning the corner in their personal lives.

They finally had the time and space to reinvent themselves in a way.

I knew people who said they wanted to continue their habit of reading books.

I knew people who said they were going to continue playing their musical instruments.

I knew people who said they were going to commit to maintaining a healthier and fitter version of themselves.

There was a lot of “new person, new me“ energy.

Five years later, where is that energy? What happened to that?

Well, “what happened to it” is that it disappeared because most people went on to the next thing.

The Man Who Built His House on Rock (or Sand)

In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke in the Christian Bible, there’s a parable of a man who built his house on solid rock vs. someone who built their house on sand.

The man who built his house on rock had a modest estate, nothing really Instagram-worthy, but a nice and comfortable dwelling.

The man who built his house on sand built a massive palatial estate, very ornate, very multi-storied, something that glistened like a jewel in the sun.

But then life changed, as it always does and the storms came.

As for the guy who built his house on sand? His house was washed away in the mudslide.

The guy who built his house on rock? His house was still standing.

You can’t built a life worth living on a shifting foundation. If your belief structure changes according to what’s new and what’s trendy, you will stand for nothing but fall for anything.

And you know what never changes? Universal laws and principles, which is what I mainly discuss on Unstoppable Rise.

4. You need to get used to rejection

Rejection is simply a part of life, especially if you’re a man.

Most people will say “no” to you at some level.

But the key to getting closer to “yes” is to run up the numbers.

If you’re applying for a job, keep sending out applications. Keep reaching out to people. Keep networking. Everything is a numbers game until it isn’t.

The Rule of 100

Last year, I made a podcast episode talking about a concept called “the rule of 100”.

Simply stated: try something 100 times before you give up on it.

• Send out 100 job apps
• Reach out to 100 people on LinkedIn
• Talk to 100 women
• Try 100 business ideas

Whatever it is, try it 100 times before you quit on it. Most people quit too soon.

5. Women will always be a challenge for you until you find your masculine center

Every man needs to learn how to relate to the women in his life in a masculine way.

This goes for your partner, a woman you’re dating, or other women who are in your life – aunts, your mom, your co-workers, women you work with, or even random women on the Internet.

I believe that a lot of problems in today’s world are created by the masculine and feminine not relating to each other in a cohesive way.

What do I mean by this?

The Real Spill on Attraction

Women in general are attracted to emotional masculinity. Meaning, the more strong you are on the inside, the more a woman will respect you.

And many men are having problems today with women because they lack emotional masculinity.

In general, women just don’t respect weak men. They may tolerate them, but they don’t inspire passion, devotion, or even sympathy.

So what happens? The woman has the more dominant energy in the interaction and the man has the more submissive energy. This creates a polarity imbalance.

A woman can be a boss, she can kick ass in business, she can know how to fix cars, she can fight in the military, she can do all this “traditional masculine stuff”.

But at the end of the day, she is still a woman and she wants to feel like a woman.

And women feel like that in the context of men who don’t suck up to her and try and seek female validation.

A man who doesn’t seek validation from women will not tolerate disrespectful behavior (some of which may very well be a test).

If you are masculine, you will clearly yet calmly assert boundaries.

If you want to know more about this topic, check out the article I wrote on how to develop masculine energy.

6. Friendship is only friendship when it’s tested

This is something I believe you can only find out the hard way.

Anyone can be a friend in college. That’s easy.

But real life will test and weed out who is for you vs. who isn’t.

And if you’re on a specific path (let’s just say self-improvement), you’re not going to have too many friends.

I have a lot of people I am friendly with – but people I’d personally take a bullet for? Very few.

Your friendships and relationships are like plants. They must be cultivated with the soil of encouragement and watered with the liquid light of attention or else they will die.

And the worst thing that can happen to you is for you to find out that someone who you thought was a friend is nowhere close to that.

So it’s not something to be paranoid about, just ask yourself this: if this was my last day on Earth and I passed away – would this person be at my funeral?

Something worth thinking about.

7. You only make time for what you value

Your allocation of time reveals your priorities. Emerson (once again) said:

“What you say speaks so loud, I can’t hear a word you say.”

And it’s true. I don’t want to hear anything else. I don’t want to hear what you plan to do, I don’t want to hear what you want to do, I don’t want to hear what you intend to do, I don’t want to hear what you thought of doing.

I only care about what you do.

Because again, people say they want to do XYZ. But are you making time for it?

There is no magical day that will somehow become more convenient to do what you want to do.

So make the choice. Make the decision to do what you want to do and do it now.

8. You need to be a strategic project manager in your own life

I’ve always found it odd how there’s many people who are good at school or work or doing whatever but MIA when it comes to living their own life.

Maybe it’s because I tend not to compartmentalize stuff (it is all YOUR life, after all) but it’s crazy to me how people will be excellent employees but their own life is an absolute mess.

And the main culprit? Not taking the skills they learn at work and apply them to real life.

What ends up happening is that over time they have no real leverage. They’re not working to build something that will create real freedom, where they don’t have to work themselves to the bone.

So instead, they outsource all their good feelings, their dopamine, their mental real estate – to a job that doesn’t really care about them.

And at the end of the day? They have nothing left for themselves.

Instead, treat your life like a giant project and get to work on scoping things out. This is the essence of self-management.

Want to build a business? Do research and draw up a business lan.

Want to get in amazing shape? Do research on how to get in shape, stay in shape, and then make a plant to do it yourself.

Want to move to a new location? Plan it out with end dates, logistics, everything you’ll need for that.

Turn every area of your life into a project. A daily routine helps with this.

9. You don’t get what you want, you get what you tolerate

This is pretty self-explanatory.

Many people think they should get what they want in life, but life doesn’t care about what you want.

Life only cares about the confidence you can bring to seize opportunities. And that confidence comes from self-trust.

Self-trust is defined as confidence in one’s ability to achieve an objective. And self-trust is important to achieving things in life because we’ll get the poorest conditions we tolerate. In contrast, self-doubt allows poor conditions to occur.

Our life conditions aren’t determined by what we want but only by what we’ll accept and tolerate.

If we want financial freedom but accept financial stability, we’ll get the latter.

If we want prosperity but we’ll accept financial struggles, we’ll live and retire with financial struggles.

Confidence dictates standards.

I found this out the hard way in my early 20s. I expected things to just happen for me.

But I found out that the things I wanted in my life were outside the normal waking consciousness for many people, so it would require me stepping out of autopilot and having the confidence to chart a destination for my life that many people may not have agreed with.

With the confidence to achieve, you trust yourself to pay any price, handle any adversary, overcome any mistake, and eventually reroute to a new end destination.

You need to have that faith in yourself. Again, no one will give you this. You need to develop that in yourself and walk out and say, this is what I want. This is what I stand for. Let’s make something happen.

10. You are either your best friend or your worst enemy

Everything that happens in your life is because of you.

As a kid, this is much less so, but as you age and become more in charge of your own life – this becomes so even more.

At this point, you might say:

“Well, that’s not fair. There’s a lot of people who are in very bad situations.”

And yes, there are. There are millions of people who can say that in developing or poorer countries who don’t have a speck of what we have in the West.

But if you’re someone who lives in the West, if you’re someone who has access to technology, if you’re someone who is being exposed to different lifestyles and alternative ways of doing things, and you don’t change the course you’re on: it’s your fucking fault.

And this requires accountability and responsibility. This is how rags to riches stories happen.

Whatever your excuse you have for not being where you want to be in life, there is someone else who has that same excuse and they’re doing better than you.

I hate using that point, but it’s true.

We all have stuff that happened to us in our past. We all have pain. But my own personal problems? I’m not going to let that stop me from doing certain things with my life. I won’t let that stop me from being the main I see in my mind’s eye.

So take your own life in your own hands and seize the day.

And if you find something stopping you from doing such, ask yourself:

“Where is this coming from?”

You’ll find that without a doubt, that it’s coming from the place in between your own two ears.