30 Lessons From 30 Years of Life
I’ve been alive for 30 years, which means I’m (probably / hopefully) about a third of the way through my life.
I haven’t sold a tech company for a kajillion dollars, written a NYT best-seller, or made the Forbes 30 under 30 list, but I have built a relatively successful small business that enables me to enjoy what I would consider a pretty cool, fun, and fulfilling life.
I’ve also found lots of cool, loving, and supportive friends, which I consider a smashing success.
Along the way, I’ve made tons of mistakes, have had a number of epiphanies, and have subsequently learned a thing or two about life, business, love, friendship, and overall wellness.
So in that spirit, here are 30 of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my first 30 years on planet Earth:
1) SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE AND ENCOURAGE YOU - CUT THE REST OUT.
Life can be really hard. You need and deserve people who make it easier, who make you better, who make you feel loved and supported.
Anything less than that is not good enough.
Holy shit, I love my friends!
2) THE POWER OF BOOKS.
If you’re not reading books you’re basically just going through life guessing.
The smartest people who ever lived have spent hundreds or thousands of hours distilling their very best ideas and instructions for us all to learn and benefit from.
So make use of them!
After reading “How to Win Friends & Influence People” when I was about 21, I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about human interaction. I had honestly never questioned my own sense of self-importance and thought the whole point of life was to show everyone how amazing I was by helping them understand - often by destroying them in an argument or competition - that I was better than them at a particular thing, or perhaps at everything.
‘Turns out I was a little bit off the mark. Please, please, read books.
3) DON’T REACT. BREATHE, SLOW DOWN, TRY TO UNDERSTAND, THEN RESPOND.
If someone does something that makes you angry, don’t react emotionally.
Step away and cool down. Talk to a trusted friend about it. Write about it. Try to see the situation from other angles and understand why they did it and why it upset you so much.
Then you can respond, calmly.
Nothing good comes from responding out of anger or fear.
4) FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL.
This is one of the core tenets of stoicism.
Spending time and energy worrying about things that are out of your control is a complete waste of your time.
Instead, identify areas of your life where your efforts can actually have an impact and invest your resources there.
Ex. Got fired or lost a big contract? Don’t spend days or weeks focusing on how unfair or disappointing that is. Spend that time building your skills, resume, confidence, and plan for your next move.
It’s okay to feel sad or angry, just don’t waste too much time on those feelings and definitely don’t let them run your life.
5) YOU CAN ALWAYS CHOOSE YOUR OWN ATTITUDE.
I first learned this idea in Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”.
No matter what happens to you, you can choose your own attitude toward any given situation.
This takes a lot of practice, but is one of the most important lessons anyone can learn.
It literally helped Frankl survive the Holocaust, so we can get through a break up or a tough day at work.
6) START BY GETTING UP EARLY (BUT GET A GOOD SLEEP)
It took me years of trying to truly become a morning person, but now that I am, I could never go back.
The quiet, undistracted hours between 5am-8am are sacred, and they are where I set my day up for success.
This is when I do my best thinking and is often the most enjoyable part of my entire day.
Just make sure you’re also getting to bed on time! Sleep is so so so important. I need at least 7 hours, consistently.
7) THE IMPORTANCE OF ROUTINE.
Life is so much easier - and your mind is so much more clear - when you have a routine.
You waste much less energy scrambling and asking yourself “what’s next?”
Instead, you can use that extra brain power to be creative, thoughtful, or to just be present.
8) FOCUS, WORK HARD, TAKE BREAKS, STOP EARLY.
For the first few years of my career, I thought the only way to succeed was to work 16 hours a day, straight, even if it meant losing sleep, eating like crap, and constantly feeling disheveled.
Here is what I’m finding works much better:
- Choose a small number of important tasks you need to get done on a given day and focus on those. Put your phone away, give your full self and attention to each task, one at a time.
- In between tasks, take breaks. Go for walks, talk to a colleague, meditate, journal, go outside and lay on the grass, call your grandma.
- Stop working before you feel exhausted / burnt out. Spend your evenings doing things that help you rest & recharge. I like to cook, read, watch movies, and see my friends.
This is much more sustainable. I learned this from folks like Haruki Murakami, Anne Lamott, and Stephen King.
9) EXERCISE.
You’ll feel better. You’ll think better. You’ll sleep better. You’ll look better. You’ll live longer.
10) KEEP A JOURNAL.
There are many ways to do this.
I like to simply fill a small page each day with stream-of-consciousness writing, focusing on gratitude, positive intention, honest self-reflection, fearlessness, love, self-love etc.
Several years of journaling almost every single morning has improved my state of mind and my life in so many brilliant ways.
11) DO GOOD WORK FOR THE SAKE OF DOING GOOD WORK.
If you’re focused solely on outcomes, you will end up disappointed.
Instead, practice finding fulfillment in the process of doing good, consistent, hard work.
Bonus points if that work is in service of something bigger than just yourself.
12) ASK FOR HELP - AND THEN TAKE IT.
If you don’t know how to do something, ask for help.
If you get what seems like good advice, take it and run with it.
I don’t know where I would be without my mentors, heroes, peer forums, and amazing friends who’ve guided me in so many ways on my journey.
If you don’t have anyone in your real life you can go to, books, YouTube, and podcasts are an excellent and endless resource.
13) BUT… DON’T RELY ON ADVICE TOO MUCH!
We can easily become bogged down by seeking out too much advice, and not taking action, because we’re trying to find certainty (which is usually impossible).
Sometimes you just have to trust yourself.
If no one knows what you’re talking about, you might be crazy, or it might mean you have a truly great idea!
This is how I felt before I started my first business, and trusting my gut was the best decision I ever made.
14) WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN!
If you hear, read, see, or think of a good idea… WRITE IT DOWN!
We take in so much information every single day, we can’t possibly expect our brains to be able to store it all.
You’ve got to write it down.
Want to take it one step further?
Begin to catalog and organize those ideas - in a way that makes sense for you - so you can easily revisit them, make use of them in your work, leverage them in day-to-day life, or share them with your friends / the world.
15) INVEST IN YOURSELF.
Spend money (even if you don’t have much or any) on books, courses, fitness, healthy food, therapy, self-care etc.
It will pay off.
What is worth more than your mental and physical health?
16) A LOT OF AUTHORITY IS BS.
From a young age, most of us are socialized into believing that parents’, teachers’, institutions', and boss’ authority are absolute, as if they all, unquestionably, know what is best for us.
My experience is that a lot of this authority turns out to be imagined / misplaced / optional, and aside from straight up breaking the law, you can kinda just do what you want.
If you do decide to go against the grain (for example: by choosing an alternate career path), you’ll be met with what feels like a ton of resistance (this part is scary as hell), but if you have the stomach to push through that part, people will eventually respect your bravery and resolve.
This is the price of admission if you want to live on your own terms.
17) EVERYTHING / EVERYONE IS CONNECTED.
Everything in the universe is made out of the same stuff. We are part of nature, not apart from it.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” - Carl Sagan
I’ve found that when I hold this cosmic perspective on life, everything becomes a bit more clear. I feel a natural sense of belonging and purpose that can often be very difficult to cultivate.
I often lose sight of this, especially living in a busy city, but then I go out to the country and look up at the stars and think “oh, right…”
18) ALL WE HAVE IS NOW.
Our time here on earth is all we have, and there is only now - the present moment.
Reflection and planning are important tools if we want to feel grateful / prepared for our lives, but a life spent constantly longing for / regretting our past, or always working toward some idealistic future state is a life not lived.
We need to learn that things are worth doing just for the sake of doing them and we must enjoy the little moments that make up our very finite time here.
Read fiction, learn to do something you suck at, take a day off work and feed birds in the park.
It’s so worth it.
19) LEARN TO BE FEARLESS / TO CONQUER FEAR.
One of the traits I most admire in others, and that I am constantly trying to cultivate within myself (with varying degrees of success) is fearlessness.
The thing is, fear is a natural emotion that we all feel, but with effort we can learn to work through it, to embrace it, build our tolerance to it, and we can even learn to enjoy it.
Sometimes, when I begin to feel my heart thumping, I’ll crack a little smile because I know that feeling means I’m at the edge of my comfort zone, which means I have an opportunity to learn, grow, and become better in some way.
20) YOU’LL NEVER BE HAPPY ALL THE TIME AND THAT’S OKAY.
Life is not about pursuing a constant state of bliss, but is more about learning to ride its waves, feel its textures, and to not judge any of our feelings too harshly.
Sadness, loneliness, anxiety, anger etc. are all perfectly normal / unavoidable feelings, and don’t have to be labeled as “bad”.
Meditation, yoga, exercise, therapy, spiritual reading, and chats with friends and loved ones are some great ways to work on our understanding / acceptance of these feelings.
21) WE’RE ALL JUST LITTLE KIDS:
Whether we like it or not, our experiences in childhood have a massive impact on who we are and how we act.
The good news is, there are more resources than ever before for us to examine and understand our pasts and to change our own psychology in order to improve our thoughts and behaviors.
I feel proud of and grateful for some of the ways I’ve been able to do this (with lots of help, of course).
With that said, the older I get, the more I realize that some of my quirks are just kind of who I am, and that I can either spend the rest of my life resisting and trying to change those parts of me, or I can learn to accept and love them.
I am trying to choose the latter, where I can.
22) THE VALUE OF PRACTICING GRATITUDE:
For the past few years, I’ve made a conscious effort to notice and acknowledge the things I’m grateful for.
I’ll write about what I’m grateful for in my journal. I try to verbalize my gratitude for beautiful little moments or small wins as they come up, and I like to do a sort of secular “grace” before dinner where everyone says one thing they’re grateful for.
It felt a bit silly and forced at first, but now it’s just become part of who I am and how I move through the world and it’s really helped me to enjoy my life a lot more.
To be alive and healthy is an absolute miracle, and we should practice acknowledging that and treating each day as such.
23) THE POWER OF OWNING YOUR MISTAKES:
Many of us are conditioned to hate the feeling of realizing we were wrong about something.
Instead, we must learn to own that feeling with an open heart and our head up, and to say, confidently, “I’m sorry, I was wrong”.
What I’ve found is that friends, family, colleagues etc. will forgive you (usually right away) and you can get on with your life.
Hold yourself to the highest standard. Be open to criticism. Admit when you’re wrong, own it, and move on.
24) THE IMPORTANCE OF 'QUALITY OF ATTENTION':
The quality of your attention to the present moment is a huge determinant in the quality of your life.
You could be in the most beautiful place in the world, but be totally in your head, stressing about your email instead of taking it all in.
Conversely, you could be working in a boring, ugly office building, but paying close attention to the way the sun is shining through the open window and hitting your desk, stopping to consider how good it feels to take a full, deep breath next to that open window, and feeling totally at peace.
Which sounds better?
25) YOU CAN’T DO IT ALL.
Life is not all about fitting more in or accomplishing more.
It’s about deciding what’s important to you and giving yourself, fully, to whatever that might be.
We all have inherent limitations on our time, energy, and resources, and when we resist these limitations in our obsession with doing / getting / achieving “more”, we inevitably end up frustrated.
Only once we accept and embrace our limitations can we truly enjoy / excel at the things we’ve deemed to be important to us.
26) THE POWER OF CURIOSITY.
When you’re genuinely curious, you ask better questions, you retain more information, you grow more, and you’re more fun to be around.
I find it difficult to feel curious when I’m feeling tired, stressed, or anxious, so I make an active effort to cultivate a curious energy by resting, eating well, and taking care of my physical and mental health.
I also think curiosity is a skill you can practice. You can study how to ask better questions, you can observe how curious people act, or you can simply journal and remind yourself to listen more / better.
27) DO THE HARD THING.
Have the hard conversation. Make the hard decision. Complete the dreaded task.
When difficult situations come up, we tell ourselves stories and build them up in our head, but it’s almost never as bad as we think it’s going to be.
Do it right away. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
I learned a lot about this from The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.
28) FOCUS ON OTHERS INSTEAD OF OBSESSING OVER YOURSELF.
I’ve found that when I only think about myself, I end up focusing on the areas of my life that I feel are lacking. On what I don’t have.
When I focus on others (friends, family, clients, colleagues) and how I can better help them, I feel a much greater sense of purpose and joy.
I end up becoming a better person and building new skills in order to better support them, and I spend less time worrying about my own petty little stresses.
Hosting friends, making a gift for someone, being there for someone who’s struggling…
That’s the stuff.
29) HAVE A SHORT MEMORY (FOR BAD THINGS)
You’re going to make tons of mistakes in your life. BIG & small.
Learn to feel that tinge of embarrassment or shame for a quick second, then forgive yourself right away and move on.
Wasting time beating yourself up doesn’t serve anyone.
30) BE GENEROUS WITH COMPLIMENTS AND PRAISE.
If you like or admire something about someone, you should tell them.
Tell your friends and family you love them, often.
It feels good to put out that energy, and it will come back to you.
And don’t be afraid to give yourself some love and praise in the mirror.
Though I don't necessarily believe the milestone of turning thirty to be inherently significant in and of itself, it has offered an excellent opportunity for reflection, and I've been using it as such.
One thing that has come up for me, is that I'd like to focus more on giving.
My twenties were really all about soaking up every opportunity for self-improvement, self-investment, mentorship, furthering my own career etc. and though I still have a long way to go, I do feel it's time to start focusing a bit more on giving back.
One of the main ways I'd like to do that is by sharing more of my experiences and learnings in blog + video format like this.
If you'd like to follow along, I'd encourage you to scroll down and sign up for my newsletter. I'd really appreciate it!
Well, here goes 30!