10 Universal Lessons I Learned About Life & Success In 10 Years

Back in 2015 when I was getting headlong into my career and just living life in general – I started to hang around many different people who had attained what many people in the world would call “success”.

These were people who had achieved financial freedom, had control of their own time, and had several productive personal and professional relationships.

And it’s funny looking back from this point, 10 years later because I can remember it just like yesterday. More importantly, I can remember the gap I felt between them and myself.

At this time, I had made an early career transition into the career I am doing now, I was making “ok” money, definitely nothing to flex about, was still living at home, and most of all—I felt like I was at the bottom of a very steep mountain, looking up high into the heavens, knowing that there was a very long climb ahead of me.

So what did I do?

I got to work.

I humbled myself. I spoke less and listened more.

I didn’t argue. I observed the lines of power. I saw who was on the rise and who was on the decline.

When someone gave me a lead on an opportunity, I followed it. When someone told me to read a book, I read it. When someone told me to look up a person, I did it.

Sometimes, these were dead ends, other times they were highly profitable.

In the end, I came to several conclusions about my life, the lives of other people, and reality in general.

The following lessons are some of these conclusions.

This article is also available as a podcast:

1. Success is rented and the rent is due every day

Life is constantly changing.

Since you are a part of life, you are changing as well.

That means whatever got you to where you currently are, will not get you to where you want to be later.

This also means that if you do not maintain your level of skill or proficiency, you will fall back or be outpaced by others who are changing evolving and growing.

You need to continuously upgrade your skills, your talents, and your life in general if you want to continue to not only achieve but maintain the success you desire (whatever that looks like to you).

This is because of the second law of thermodynamics which says the total amount of entropy in a system will increase over time.

Which means for our intents and purposes, you will need to work harder just to maintain a high level of performance.

You will need to show up day in and day out just to maintain.

An easy example? Physical fitness. If you want to maintain a certain level of physical fitness, you need to go to the gym a certain amount of days per week. You need a certain amount of volume.

This volume is probably more than the volume a beginner would need but it is still maintenance for you.

Same with any skill. Tennis, playing guitar, social skills, whatever you can think of.

Obviously, people say they get “rusty” for a reason.

It’s not about what you did 10 years ago. It’s not even about what you did yesterday. It’s about what are you doing right now in this moment, in the present.

That’s how people from small beginnings become titans and stay titans – because they realize they need to keep putting in that work to pay the rent of success.

2. There’s a difference between the right thing and the easy thing

If you’re an adult over the age of 25, you kind of know what the “right” thing is.

“Right” in this case is something that may be hard or inconvenient in the moment, but is better off for us in the long run.

We all know we’d be better off catching up on sleep rather than watching that show.

We all know we’d be better off eating quinoa than french fries.

But these things are harder to do than their opposite.

Things that are “easy” rarely lead to success or else everyone would be doing it.

The people that I was around that were “successful” were usually doing the “right” things.

Now, did they do the “right” things all the time? No. But their hit rate was pretty consistent.

And this is sort of the difference between instant gratification and delayed gratification.

We all sort of know the best things in life come at the far side of effort, work, and time – but actually doing those things are hard.

3. You are always either strengthening or weakening yourself

There are many things in our world that can enhance your character, health, and mental acuity.

There are also many things that can weaken them as well.

In every day and every moment, you are either doing something that is enhancing these areas or diminishing them.

If you have any question what those are, refer to my last point.

4. You will only rise as high as your weakest skill

We all have weaknesses. But there are some weaknesses in some areas that will put a “drag” on your entire lifestyle and prevent you from rising as high as you could without that drag.

This is your “limiting skill”.

Depending on your life circumstances, that could be anything.

Your job is to find out what that is and make efforts to improve it (not necessarily turn it into a strength).

And that’s the thing. You don’t need a unanimous vote to win an election. You don’t need to be skilled at every single little aspect of a job to get the job.

You just need enough.

In this case, you just need that skill to be “good enough”.

If you have dyscalculia (which pretty much means that you are terrible when it comes math and numbers), you don’t need to be the next Stephen Hawking.

You just need to know enough to pass.

Myself, while I did not have dyscalculia, I was not a numbers guy. I was never really interested in Math. It’s not something that came naturally to me, so I didn’t really try to improve in it.

My parents tried tutoring, tried all sorts of stuff, but its like my brain had a mental block against it.

I don’t think I ever got higher than a B in Math for an overall grade, ever. I had some tests where I’d get As and Bs, and others where I’d get Cs and Ds. I just needed to know enough to pass the class.

And now, in my adult life – I am not doing polynomial equations, advanced algebra and such. I just need to know the basics. Addition, subtraction, division, multiplication and that fits me just fine in my daily life.

Ask yourself what that skill is for you and get to work on again, not making it a strength, but not letting it be a weakness.

5. Successful people take initiative

There are many people who are just waiting around for something to happen to them.

There’s people waiting around for their dream partner to fall into their lap.

There’s people waiting around for people who wronged them in the past to apologize to them.

There’s people waiting around for all sorts of things.

This is a psychological habit of passivity that was created in childhood.

It served you well then…but as an adult who can do things for themselves, this is a habit that needs to be broken if you want to see any success in your life.

Today’s world is filled with people who view themselves to be victims of some kind of circumstance and they’re waiting for the universe to issue some type of grand retribution in their favor.

While I do believe in karma…that day may end up never coming.

The people who bullied you in school might end up broke and penniless or they might just end up being the CEO of a publicly traded company and ride off into the sunset with a woman you crushed on and live happily ever after.

You can’t control that.

What you can control is getting into motion, getting busy, and making something of yourself.

Life waits for no one and because of this, successful people are always looking for ways to move the ball forward in different areas of their life.

As Ol’ Blue Eyes said: “the best revenge is massive success”.

6. You become what you think about

There’s one law that underpins all of the studies in psychology, philosophy, metaphysics, religion, and personal development.

That rule is: you become what you think about.

The thoughts that you harbored at one time have got you to the point where you are currently at in your life.

Think about it. Your brain is running on subconscious programming that either you or someone else installed in your life.

Therefore, if you want new outcomes – you have to think new thoughts. What does this involve?

Visualization. Meditation. Affirmations. Taking action in the real world.

These thoughts will then become habits, which then become actions, which then become results. This is how manifestation works.

What do successful people think about most of the time? They think about what they want, how to get it, and how they’ll feel after they achieve it.

This was hammered into me after I read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich on the suggestion of someone who was very successful and more importantly – the chapter on autosuggestion.

7. You can build a completely new identity — and you must

This is a follow up point from the last one.

Successful people are constantly reinventing themselves.

Learning new things. Mastering new skills. Moving to different locations. Becoming more competent. Shedding past identities.

It is a constant renewal, a constant transformation.

And this is because — this is what the environment of 2025 and beyond requires. This is what LIFE requires.

People I know often say I have changed quite a bit since they knew me 10, 15 whatever years ago.

And that’s because I am not only older with more experience…but I am in a constant state of renewal and reinvention.

I am constantly finding ways to tighten up my discipline. To be more on point. To be more precise. To be more locked in. And that’s going to show up.

I am also constantly going inner work. Meditating. Revisiting past traumas. Journaling. Reflecting on my life and where I want it to be.

I am constantly preparing for the next phase of my life which will require me to be a different man than I am now.

As for you – you need to do the same in your own way. You need to take constant action.

That’s why I never understood why people chose to willingly remain stuck in the same situations. To remain comfortable.

You think that comfort is going to last? You don’t think the tide is going to rise and wash away the sandcastle? Do you honestly think that 10 years from now, you will be better if you do nothing?

And as for you…if you find yourself in this situation — you’re not stuck. You’re just repeating. Most people live out a character script written by childhood, trauma, or comfort.

But you can rewrite it.

Your identity is malleable. Your brain is malleable.

Again, go and check out the article I wrote on autosuggestion.

Start with belief. Back it with behavior. Stack your wins. Install the new self. Then never look back.

8. Environment is a silent architect of success or failure

This is also closely related to the last one. Your environment will be the creation or destruction of anything you’re trying to build in your life.

You become your environment.

Your habits, thoughts, and standards are shaped by the people you hang around, the information you consume, and the spaces you frequent.

Successful people are always taking stock of these things because they realize it is the invisible hand that guides behavior.

Audit your environment like your life depends on it — because it does.

9. Discipline is the bridge between vision and reality

Everyone has dreams.

Very few have systems.

Fewer still have discipline.

If you can’t hold a line when no one’s watching, the vision dies in your imagination.

Discipline makes your dreams real. It’s the quiet force that compounds into dominance.

If you’ve been listening to this show for any reasonable length of time, you know what I think about discipline.

Because in my opinion, just like water is the quintessential element to life, discipline is the quintessential element for success.

Every success or failure I have in my life can be attributed to discipline or the lack thereof of it.

Every single one.

And it will be the same to you. Do some reflection. Think about the times where you lost out in life.

Maybe you lost out on a job opportunity because you weren’t prepared enough or you weren’t hungry enough.

Maybe you failed a test or a class in school for the same reasons.

Maybe you let friendships fall by the wayside because you didn’t create the rules of engagement for your friendships.

Maybe you didn’t let a crush you had know how you really felt about her because you were too scared or unsure of yourself.

Maybe you are not living the life you want to live because of various factors.

At the end of the day – it all comes down to how disciplined are you.

And yes, I know that circumstances do matter. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that they don’t.

But what are you doing? How are you showing up on a daily basis?

Are you working steadily to advance your station in life?

Are you working on getting rid of and eliminating bad habits?

Are you working on your levels of health and fitness?

Are you trying to carve out competitive advantage for yourself in the long-term?

All of these questions I just asked will only be answered by the level of self-discipline you are bringing to life on a daily basis.

Doing what you know you need to do regardless of whether you want to do it or not.

Because after all, as Jim Rohn said:

“We will all suffer one of two pains in life: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”

Choose wisely.

10. Every day is a new day

There’s a big cosmic joke in life. And that joke is that time is an illusion.

There’s no such thing as “past” or “future”, these are all psychological conceptions of life.

You can’t go back to the past or skip forward to the future.

What does this leave us with? Now. There is only now. There is only this moment.

You can have all sorts of things happen to you in the past and bring them into now, which will then become your future.

Or, you can decide to create from where you are and where you stand.

You always have a choice and it’s fully in your control.

Like I said, it is up to you to choose a new identity. And you choose it with your daily actions. Not what happened to you yesterday, not what you think is going to happen in the future — you choose it now.

There is no other time.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

If there’s one meta-lesson in all of this, it’s this:

“Success is not something you pursue. Success is something you become aligned with.”

Chasing success doesn’t work.

Simply wanting success doesn’t work.

Reading about it won’t get you there.

Success isn’t outside of you, it’s a natural byproduct of living in alignment with the principles and laws that create it.

It’s not about grinding yourself into dust or chasing shiny objects.

It’s about consistently embodying the behaviors, mindsets, and disciplines that success naturally gravitates toward.

When you live the right way, success has no choice but to find you.

You don’t “get” successful.

You become successful.

Through daily alignment.

Through daily execution.

Through relentless commitment to principles and becoming the type of person who can carry success when it arrives.

Because the truth is simple:

You don’t rise to the level of your dreams.
You rise or fall to the level of your discipline.

And each and every day, you are either moving closer to or further away from the man you’re capable of becoming.

The choice is and always will be—yours.