To help you get ahead and win at the game of life!
This website got its name for a very good reason, and that reason is to improve the lives of those that read it through practical and honest advice! As I am a 35 year old man, this article is written from a man’s perspective, though I do feel there is value for all genders to be found.
111 Things Learned After Thirty
Here is the first piece of advice I have:
Learn to compartmentalize & prioritize your life
When something is organized, not only does it become easier to learn, but you are able to distinguish between what is serving and what is hindering your goals.
To help illustrate this point, we start this post off by organizing the things I’ve learned after thirty into ten categories to make it easier for you to absorb. By mastering these aspects of life, you will be well on your way to maximizing your potential and becoming the person you’ve always wanted to be, and it will also make the things you set out to accomplish more achievable!
The 11 most important things i’ve learned after thirty
- Learn to compartmentalize & prioritize your life
- Life Doesn’t come with an instruction manual
- Cleaning up your habits
- Find your spirituality
- Become a lifelong learner
- Take care of your body
- Master communication
- Love deeply, but love yourself first
- Get in the habit of creating value
- Become a successful investor
- Create purpose for yourself
Mastering these 11 categories will allow you to build yourself up to be the type of person others can rely on, and want to spend time with, but they will also turn you into the type of person that you enjoy spending time with yourself.
Learning to love spending time with yourself is one the most important part lessons there are!
Now that we have the categories let’s the lessons each contain as we go over the remaining 100 Things Learned After Thirty:
Life Doesn’t come with an instruction manual
We are born into a set of circumstances and from the moment we open our eyes, a lot of things aren’t in our control, the values we learn and the resources we have access to are restricted by the environment that surrounds us. This is all circumstantial and while it may be your starting point, it doesn’t determine where you end up!
Here are:
10 things should do to take control of the direction your life is heading:
- Learn how to lead – First yourself, then others. Leading means making decisions and living with the consequences, and also happens to be one of the most attractive traits a man can develop, your main role in the bedroom and in life is to lead, so become good at it!
- Determine your values – We mentioned circumstantial influences in the intro, but it is what we choose to be important to determine where we end up. Check out our article on determining our values for some tips and tricks to help you along the way
- It’s all about creating value – One of your values should be creating value. For your partner, in your career, and for others around you. Value is the main social currency in circulation and it can be traded for almost anything! If you are able to create value, you will never be short of money, friendship, or love.
- Perseverance is key – Nothing in life worth doing is easy, but there is also a secret to it. Something is only hard until it’s not. Then it becomes rewarding, these principles carry out over every aspect of life, from fitness to music to learning how to trade.
- Set the right habits – The things you spend time on will determine the person you become.
- Life is about setting goals – A goal is created for a purpose, and in exchange creates purpose, without which life literally has no meaning. If you don’t create it for yourself, others will fill the void with all kinds of useless crap!
- Courtesy is given, and respect is earned – Be patient, gentle, and kind towards others, but don’t let them walk over you. Working hard on yourself teaches you to respect yourself, and you should apply those same standards to those you spend time with.
- Nobody is gonna wipe your ass for you – You’re not a pretty girl that can pack up your shit and move into somebody else life, and your parents won’t always be there to bail you out. Become the type of guy that others can rely on.
- Take accountability for your actions – Nothing loses respect faster than watching somebody try and shift blame.
- Focus on finding solutions – Not only does this create value, but you’ll become good at it.
The only time you should put this principle aside is when you’re girlfriend or wife is moaning about their problems, believe it or not, most of the time they aren’t looking for solutions and just want to vent.
By creating a set of principles by which you govern yourself, you unclutter your life from unnecessary thoughts. If you already know what the right thing to do is, it becomes easy to do and cuts out hesitation and the hundreds of our people waste on it.
This is not to say become rigid, no rules are cast in stone, but if you know what you value, then you know what you should do. You can check out our self-development section for more related content on building a great life!
Cleaning up your habits
Drugs are fun, loose women are fun, and procrastination is fun. Everything is fun until it isn’t
Usually, by the point we realize this, we have already paid a higher price than we were willing to pay. As I said in the previous section, the habits you keep, determine the man you become, and replacing bad ones with good ones, is the difference between success and failure.
- Master your lust – Lust is a hell of a driving force for us fellas, it motivates us to get in shape, build a business, and all kinds of other crazy stuff, all to improve our chances with the fairer sex. Learn when to use it to your advantage, when to unleash to rock some lucky person’s world, and when to reign it in to keep them wondering. This also means:
- No porn – It takes away your motivation, and takes the place of what should be a good natural reward for being a seductive mother fucker. Don’t have to go full No Fap, but stay away from busty IG bitches too. Your discipline will skyrocket and carry out into other aspects of your life
- Limit your alcohol intake – Hard to do when you’re young, but when you realize that it’s more dangerous than most other drugs out there, you start to use it sparingly. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and makes you live in the moment, but if you use it too often, you’ll soon find yourself stuck in that same moment for most of your life. It’s worth mentioning that the moment loses its novelty and gets shittier the more times you repeat it.
- Restrict Social Media use – This is the world of women, their currency is their sex appeal and validation, while ours is our attention. When you spend your time there for something that is not related to your business or actively improving your life, you’re giving the two most valuable things you have, time and attention, away for free.
- Not all drugs are good – Some of them are great, for fucking up your life. There is a time and a place for drugs, usually college, but addiction is not attractive. Psychedelics can be a tool used for overcoming addiction and self-development, but they don’t work that way when you use them at parties. Learn how to master your consumption, not let consumption master you.
- Cigarettes are the little-death – Nothing will break down your willpower faster than the compounding effect of cigarettes, especially when you try to stop, but fail, repeatedly. They spike dopamine, like all the other fun addictions, but they will destroy your discipline.
- Giving up too soon – Great habit if it’s a bad addiction like smoking you’re giving up, but the terrible mindset to keep if you’re trying to achieve anything. This habit will lead to dozens, if not hundreds of half-finished projects and attempts that prevent you from getting the satisfaction of accomplishment, repeat this one too many times and you’ll find yourself feeling worthless.
- Procrastination – Never put off tomorrow, what you can do today. There is honor in trying and failing, but only disappointment for those that never even start. Learn how to set goals, this will teach help you break tasks into smaller achievable units and teach you accomplishment
- Kick the gaming habit – Movies and series are bad, but gaming is the worst. Anything that steals hours of your time while offering little benefit is simply a poor trade, and gaming is one of those addictions that make you feel good about accomplishment, without having accomplished anything, just like porn.
- Toxic relationships – Friends, lovers, even family after a certain point, we don’t view them as habits, but they are a part of our routine nonetheless and the time we spend with them is just like begging to be influenced by them. Keep your standards high and surround yourself with people that are able to grow along with you.
Habits are one of the most important aspects of our life, educate yourself and learn how they work. A great place to start is by picking up the Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg, and heading over to Huberman labs on Youtube, where Dr. Andrew Huberman will teach you loads of interesting stuff on dopamine and addiction. You can also check out our section on overcoming addiction, for some great content on the topic!
Find your spirituality
This is not about religion, this is about connecting with the universe. You open your eyes and start experiencing the world you’re born into, your environment, parents, and everything else you encounter is circumstantial. This is about getting comfortable with yourself, and being able to find the balance within that seems to elude so many people.
- Spend Time in nature – Emerse yourself in it. Go hiking, swimming, and exploring. Get out of the hustle and bustle of the world and allow yourself to observe the natural world around you. Humanity has found its greatest insights and inspirations from observing the natural laws that govern our reality.
- Meditate – This is one of those hard things that remain hard until suddenly it isn’t. It becomes even harder in the modern world, with continuous digital distractions, but developing a meditation practice is a sure way to reveal your own secrets as well as those of the universe. Personally, I view it as a form of prayer, where you ask for nothing, but receive exactly what you need. The more you do it, the better you will get at it and the more it will reward you with mental clarity, wisdom, and fortitude.
- Start practicing yoga – Fitness, flexibility, as well as all the benefits of meditation. Learn to master your body and a whole new world becomes available to you. Yoga is universal, but there is probably more benefit in it for us guys than for the ladies out there. Learning how to do complete kegals and exploring tantric practices opens a whole new world under the sheets
- Experiment with psychedelics – Note, psychedelics, not amphetamines, and other toxic shit. Psychedelics open up the same doors to spirituality as the other practices described here, just that they are a lot more forceful and carry a lot more risk, use them wisely. Nobody wants to be the guy on his knees in the mud at 4 am meeting god.
- Spend time with some Buddhists – They are usually pretty fun people, and often have a lot of wisdom to share and are pretty good at teaching it.
Don’t limit yourself to one religion though, learn what Hinduism is about, and read your Bible and Quran, these practices are so established in our cultures exactly because of the wisdom they contain, and what you choose to incorporate into your life is completely up to your own discretion. - Contemplate your own mortality – Get comfortable with death, it’s the only certainty in life. Everyone you know and love is going to experience it too. For some reason, we have convinced ourselves it’s a bad thing, but just like everything else in life, it’s part of the experience. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius has some great advice from his meditations: “Contemplate our death daily“
- Write and journal – There is no better way to get your thoughts out than to write them down. We learn to write in school and we associate it with work, however, once you’re able to get that notion out of your head, you get to experience the real joy of being able to express your thoughts and feelings through pen and paper, take it from a blogger!
- Practice gratitude – Literally the best practice you can have if you want to be rewarded by the universe. The more you implement being thankful into your life, the more it will reveal its secrets to you, and the more you will become aware of the wonderful endless possibilities that it brings into your life. It also keeps your ego in check and makes you a better person to be around.
- Spend time alone – Go on a solo retreat, hike alone for a week, travel by yourself, or just keep that meditation habit up. The more time you spend with yourself the more you will evolve as an individual. You can naturally sense the comfortable air around a person that is at ease with themself.
- Learn how to breathe – It’s the one thing you do from the moment you’re born, up until the day you die, yet we rarely practice it. Yoga will teach you the basics, your body will do the rest. Go listen to the science of breath, and stop breathing through your mouth like a western barbarian.
All of these practices will clear your mind and put you in a state of receiving. We are so obsessed with the wants and desires of our ego that we spend most of our time living in the future, creating dream castles, and distracting ourselves from the reality that is right in front of us. This is probably the most important part of this list.
We have an entire section dedicated to this pursuit of reconnecting with the universe and spirituality, which you can check out here.
Become a lifelong learner
Which is something you already are, whether you know it or not.
From the moment you open your eyes for the first time you are learning and adapting to your environment. It only makes sense to put a bit of practice into those, above and beyond what we are taught at school or university, not only are there dozens of different ways to learn, but there are certain skills you can train that will bring in twice the results with half the effort.
Let’s learn how to apply this!
- Learn how to learn – Along with breathing, this is something you’ll be doing for the rest of your life too, so you better get good at it! We have an entire article dedicated to the art of becoming a master learner, as well as one on how to become a better student. It might be worth your while to learn the difference between the two!
- Read as much as possible – Like every day, and everything you can find. The more you do it, the better you will get at it, additionally, the more realistic your schemata of the world around you will be. It is definitely possible to live a hundred or even a thousand lives, and while it doesn’t make up for the practical experience, it comes pretty damn close! Our Library is always a good place to start for some great recommendations!
- Become an expert at something – Art, design, movement, and mindset. There are so many fields out there that we use on a daily basis and becoming a master at one or two of them will not only set you apart from the pack on a social level but also teach you the valuable lessons and insights required to get to that level, all insights that can be applied to other fields in your life!
- Pick up an instrument – Music is another thing to aim to achieve mastery at, however, just the act of taking up an instrument and learning how to use it is enough to improve your life and your appreciation of beauty substantially!
- Learn a new language – Depending on where you are born in the world, you may be restricted to only your native language, however the moment you take the effort to become bilingual or a polyglot, it’s not just you that changes, but your interactions with the world around you do too! Just like with Music, it opens up perceptions and opportunities that would have otherwise been overlooked!
- Master digital skills – With apps like Canva and Placeit around, it’s never been easier, but even getting a little more technical is not a problem. Downloading GIMP and doing a few tutorials will soon have you creating custom logos, banners, and anything else you put your mind to!
- Learn how to grow your own food – There is little that will bring you as much joy as starting out gardening as a hobby, even if it is just a tomato plant or two in your garden or on your porch! Be warned, however, once this bug bites, it bites hard and you may find yourself down the rabbit hole of understanding how soil and plants work!
I thoroughly recommend checking out Dr. Elane Ingham’s work on the soil web to any beginner gardeners up there, it has a wealth of knowledge that will show you how easy it is to create your garden in an affordable and healthy manner! - Then how to cook it – Now that you know how to grow it, you need to learn how to cook it! It is astounding how intimidated people are by the thought of trying new things or following some instructions! Not only will learning how to cook impress your friends and family, but if you apply it correctly it will help you out with your health and other aspects of your life!
Everyone has a Masterchef hiding inside, be it behind a few burnt dishes! - Appreciate the small things – Learning is a lifelong journey, and in that scope, it becomes so easy to underestimate the progress you’re making or the little things that bring us joy on a daily basis.
One of the most important parts of learning is learning about yourself, and the ability to appreciate the small things in your life will open the door to inner happiness, that will guide you to external success - Become a good person – All of us are selfish by nature! Combine that with actions and you have the capacity for hurt and evil too. Not that these make you a bad person, just human.
Taking the conscious choice to be a better version of yourself, is one of the best decisions you can make for yourself, but also for others. When you are able to observe yourself and listen to your inner voices, you begin to understand that you don’t just react, but actually have multiple choices in every thought or interaction.
Most of the time, picking the ones that uphold your own values, without inflicting harm on others is enough to set you on the path.
Learning how to learn, and then learning the right things is probably the best investment you can make, with returns that will continue to reward you regardless of where you’re at in your life!
Keep putting in the effort and you will reap the rewards!
Take care of your body
While a great practice in general, if there is one section that becomes more important after thirty, then taking care of your body is definitely it, but the sooner your start, the better your results will be!
We are also not gonna talk about anything crazy here, these are the basic standard that should be maintained throughout life!
- Kick the junk food – This means Fast food, sugary snacks, and pretty much anything with artificial flavouring in it. Trust me, you can do without it and if you’re learning to cook, one of the most incredible things to experience as a amateur chef is the world of spices.
Kicking junkfood by no means implies lowering that standard of the dishes you consume!
Just make it the right ones! - Get enough sleep – As simple as that, it’s one of the best things you can do for your overall well being. The old saying beauty sleep was right too. If you are the type that struggles to fall asleep, go check out our article on the best natural ways to fall asleep faster and change your life.
- Walking does wonders – 20 minutes of your day, four times a week to change your health for better for the rest of your life. In today’s busy lifestyle it is so easy to lack movement, walking fixes this, and so much more.
We lose most of our fat through breathing, and by walking, you breath more. It is an opportunity to connect to your breath, and connect to the moment. - Build an exercise routine – Walking is the foundation, but to really get your life running the right way you need to add more to that routine. This could be hitting the gym, taking up a physical sport, joining a hiking club, yoga, or anything that adds to a overall healthy lifestyle.
This routine opens up social circles and builds a lifestyle where healthy activity is the norm. - Pick the right hobbies – They physical activities mentioned above are the right kind, but not the only kind of right hobbies. If you spend your time on the wrong types of activities, you will get the wrong kind of results. Get your focus right and you will continue to grow and improve in the direction you spend your time.
It made the list on it’s own, but read more, cut out distractions like social media, work in activities you enjoy doing, and if you don’t know what that is, start figuring it out, you won’t know until you try, and each hobby is a key that opens the door to a whole new word of wonder within its domain. - Know your limits – This is not to say don’t live outside your comfort zone, to be growing you need to be continuously putting yourself just outside those limits. Everything in life has some limitations to it, even if it’s only the consequences of those actions that restrict us from taking them.
The wise person seeks out the boundaries and knows where to find the balance. - Limit your screen time – I have mentioned social media before, but here I mean the entire digital world.
It is hard to be able disconnect in today’s world, especially when often our social and professional lives only exist because of it, but this is exactly why it is so important to create some intentional distance.
Keep your devices out of your rooms, cellphones, I-Pads and TV’s included. - Monitor your emotions – If you’ve ever heard the saying: “He who loses his cool, loses”, then you will know the truth in managing your emotions. Staying in control, doesn’t mean of the situation, but of yourself, and behaving like a person with options.
The practice of monitoring your emotions allows you to better be aware of them and enables you to keep them in check, and the consideration of options allows you to think rationally about what your best way forward is. This will not only help you in any potential situations of conflict, be they physical or emotional, but is great advice for life in general.
Emotional observation is a cornerstone of living happy life. - Use the right supplements – Notice how some drugs are okay?
Controversial opinions aside, there are some things that are really good for you, and listening to medical professionals like Andrew Huberman, is a great way to discover what the right kind for you is. It is well worth understanding how these substances effect our body, and what we can take to coutneract some of the negative things we do to ourselves, as well as what is okay to indulge in, and what should be used with caution. - Keep it clean – In addition to the bi-daily shower, be careful with it, despite medical advances you still only get one. It operates just like a slightly more complicated car, feed it the right fuel and keep it well services and it will take you many, many miles, learn to fix it yourself, many more, but neglect it and you will be stuck on the side of the road before you know it.
Self-dicipline is the key, find your core values and activities that define you, or create them if you lack them, and structure your life in such away that taking care of yourself is automatic.
When you’re able to do this, life becomes easier, and you are able to get a lot more miles out of the ride.
Master communication
Your ability to communicate with the universe determines your success within it.
Individual variation gives us all different starting points and different talents, however communication is something that needs to be practiced in order to master it. It’s a long journey, but a fascinating one as you explore the intricacies of our existence and our relationships with each other.
This is such an important aspect that we have an entire section, as well as a library filled with great content and information on how to master the art, but for now, let’s go over the basics and continue with out list:
- Start the journey toward becoming a good communicator – Step one on the journey, is understanding what the expectations are. If you don’t already know the basics, familiarize yourself with them and get started down this incredible rabbit hole!
- Understand body language – Body language is one of the key points of interpersonal communication and convey everything from romantic interest to utter terror with just the way we stand and move. The book What every BODY is saying by Joe Navarro is a great place to start unlocking the secrets.
- Master the art of seduction – Seriously, learn how to seduce, there is nothing that will upscale your interpersonal skills more quickly, and not just the old DTF rightswipe Tinder vibes either. Learn what makes your opponent tick, how to to enthrall and capture their attention, how to overcome their defenses and how to have them loving every moment of it.
To do this, there is no better place to go than Robert Greene’s Art of seduction. Get ready to have your life changed, seriously… - Learn to sell – Selling is a negotiation between two people, and everything in life is related to buying and selling in some for or way. We interact on value, and knowing and understanding the rules that govern it is one of the best ways to improve the quality of your life out there.
- Listen more than you speak – Sayings like Two ears, one tongue, and placing a guard in front of your mouth, don’t just come out of nowhere. There is a ancient wisdom of observation locked within them, that is one of the biggest secrets to becoming a good communicator.
Even though it doesn’t always appear that way in modern society, attention is a currency, and when you’re speaking you’re giving it out, when you listen you earn it. - Learn the tricks of the trade – There is a lot to remember, but they best way to do it, is to practice. Take the good advice that you get and apply it, but also learn how to find the right teachers that are able to teach you what you want to know in practical ways.
- Master the art of saying no – Boundaries are one of the most important things in your life, and the ability to set or dissipate them is directly determined by your ability to say no. It all comes pack to options and remembering that there is a question before each action.
So learn to master the art of saying no, to others, but most importantly to yourself! - Set an intention – While idle chatter, and a natural conversation flow is essential, setting an intention before you enter an interaction whenever possible starts building the habit of outcome. The intention could be to have fun, or to befriend, poke fun or even sell or seduce a person, but this sets in motion the principle of what get’s measured get’s managed.
It also allows you to track progress and helps turn the journey into a game. - Stay humble – Actions speak louder than words, and false bravado will not get you very far in the higher circles anyway. Fake it till you make it in terms of confidence, but always make sure you can back up what you say.
There is a 6 year old girl in China with more money, who can do exactly what you can, just better, while juggling and playing the piano. There is always some better, your only competition is yourself.
When you look at social life like a game, you start to observe people breaking this rule of braggatry all the time, don’t be one of those people, and you’ll be a few steps closer to winning it. - Be authentic – To be a person is to be a mask. The word person, can be traced back to its source Latin root persōna (“mask used by actor; role, part, character”).
So in this case to be authentic means to be play your role well, you are the one that gets to decide what you want it to be.
The word pursausion has such a negative frame attached to it, however it is the art we need to master if we want to get the most out of ourselves, and the world around us. This is a manipulation, no matter which way you look at it, however the nature of that manipulation is the result of your conscious desire.
To master it, you’ve got to fall in love with communication, the good and the bad.
Love deeply, but love yourself first
Love is such a hard word to define, it is so much more than the simple seeking of pleasure or an affectionate state, and has many different kinds, friendship, familial, romantic, and even the unfortunately rare kind of unconditional.
To me love is a form of truth, a way of viewing the world as a reflection of yourself as much as you are a reflection of it.
- Practice what you preach – Your word is your bond, and it should remain that way. Breaking promises to yourself and to others is terrible habit to keep, and steers you down dark roads.
It makes life easier to be honest, and if you’ve been brushing up on your communication skills, then you know that being honest, by no means makes you a simpleton, the opposite in fact, you need to be pretty intelligent to live within the bounds of honesty, and just devious enough to know to tread over it as little as possible, nobody is perfect, neither are lives circumstances, but having a standard helps, as you’ll see below. - Get yourself up to standard – Physically, financially, emotionally. Without these three things there is no way for you to play your role a healthy interdependent relationship. Having standards for yourself will allow you set standards for the partners you’ll have, whatever the rules of that relationship.
- Be honest – There is a level of compromise in most relationships, however always be honest with yourself and with your partner. If the terms of the relationship and ability to compromise steps over either of your boundaries, it’s better to make the cut of fless to save bone, and if you’ve got your standards right, your partner will understand this too.
- Take the red pill – If you are a man, you need to understand female nature, if you’re a woman, view it as either defense against the dark arts, or a metric to measure your men by. There are some harsh truths and bitter pills to swallow for all genders, however there is truth in the social observation reflected within the community.
- Forget about most of it – Despite what modern media wants us to believe, the world is still filled with amazing people. Take the knowledge and use it to better yourself and improve your understanding of intersexual dynamics, there is a reason seduction is one of the key points of communication.
- Don’t kiss and tell – This one speaks for itself, but keep your lips shut, as we mentioned earlier under guarding your tongue, nobody likes a braggart. Stay away from your friends partners though, never shit where you eat.
- Fast cars, not fast women – It comes back to mastering your lust. Nothing will fuck up your life faster than a toxic partner by your side. Find quality over quantity and work on looking after it, this might mean less, but it ends up meaning so much more later on in life.
- Learn how to please – Buy a book if you need to, but the best way is to hop onto youtube for some good tips, and to then practice them out with a willing partner. They will thank you for it, so will every other person you end up sleeping with.
There are some great coaches out there, but my personal favorites is Ex-Porn star Stirling Cooper, who offers some great insights and reflections with style on topics that a lot of people don’t even want to touch. - Don’t talk about your problems with her – At least not easily, as a man, it is okay to share the important stuff with a intimate partner, but even doing that over time is enough to make her start losing attraction to her.
This may sound harsh, and I’m by no means implying gaslighting anyone, simply that as a man you are the lighthouse that stands firm against the waves that are her emotion. Your ability to control your emotions is one of your most attractive and reliable features and when you share too much of the negative, you are only sowing seeds of discord for your future self. - Always be leading her – You may consider this a harsh condition to be a lesson, however it’s something we are already doing, most of the time, just not very consciously.
Become a good leader for yourself, and you will be a good leader for friends, lovers and any others you stumble across.
Masculine energy is centered around leadership, leading your partner on the date, in the bedroom and through life. Femine nature is by nature more submissive, but this does not mean they need leadership anyless, they are perfectly capable, just that they choose not too.
Most relationships come to an end, because the submissive partner is not satisfied with the direction the person playing the dominant role is leading them, which leads them to either take up that role themselves, or find it in others.
Learn to lead yourself, and others will follow
Get in the habit of creating value
Value really is one of the cornerstones of our existence, it makes up our entire modern monetary world, rules nations and has the power to do great and terrible things, yet it originated from somewhere pretty simple.
- Never make coffee just for yourself – Just the act of offering is creating value for people. Yes, may come across situations where people try to take advantage of you, but just be aware that the act of doing something for others generally ingratiates them to you
- Volunteer – Charity starts at home, but once that is running to satisfaction, escape from your own world and gain some perspective on somebody or something else that doesn’t have the same stability and security you do.
- Practice Perfection – Nobody is perfect, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying, everytime we upgrade our art, music or work, we are becoming a better version, despite the flaws and battle scars. Keep striving to be the best version of yourself in the now.
- Don’t tell, show – Instead of talking about what you will have, work to get it and then show it off while enjoying it. No empty barks that threaten a bite here. There is little that people value as much as a person who is able to do what they say and has no need for praise.
- Make sure you have something to offer – Even if it’s a bottle of cheap wine for the host. Life is not balanced or fair and some have more than others, however that does not determine value. Value is determined by our perception and our belief, and we are naturally inclined to value people that contribute.
Always strive to be a person that adds to the benefit of others instead of taking away. Money and objects are not the only thing we have to offer, having the ability to help people out, or to shine a spotlight on them under the right conditions are also acts of value that can be traded in our social environments. - Pick up trash – Even if it is one piece, do your part. In some parts of the world this simply isn’t an option, however its the idea that counts, and by picking up this habit and attitude attached to it, you are making a change, and small changes towards something positive are countless times better than apathy or worse, causality!
By viewing the world around you as you view yourself and honestly trying your best to perservere it, you will change the way you feel about the that world, and the way it feels about you. - Don’t expect thanks – Quoting the great Marcus Aurelius from his meditations :
“We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.”
Do good kind deeds, be a good person, repeat, not everything is for the gram. - Go the extra mile – The way you do one thing, is the way you do everything. So put in the extra effort. As a mindfulness practice alone, incorporating this check into your life will allow you to achieve things you didn’t believe possible, and open doors you never new existed if done right!
- Reserve your judgments – As we judge, so shall we be judged.
Which is to say that the world is very much a reflection of ourselves. In a sense we are only observers, with a different observers governing the other participants and seeing things from a different angle.
They are basically you, just that they opened their eyes in a different place, to a different body, with different individual variations in circumstances.
Judgement is a good thing when used to meet your standards, but a terrible thing to weild around too freely, and doing so will make you blind to many of the things there are to value from those around you.
Become a successful investor
As flawed as it is, money is a part of our current lives, regardless of which form of it we use. Life becomes a lot easier when you have a better understanding of what money is, where it comes from and how it is and how it is connected to our lives.
The important part is to get it working for you, not you working for it. It is a representation of value in society, but not as what we value as individuals, mastering the management of it, is in many ways mastering yourself.
- Learn the basic fundamentals of investing – Read a few books, watch a few videos, but most importantly start working towards it. Understanding how the economy works, what drives it and how to diversify and protect yourself is one of the best steps you can make in life, and not that complicated if you follow the right steps
Check out our guide to get started - Create a diverse portfolio – After understanding the basics it’s time to get the foundation in place, and this is done with a lot of research and a good understanding of the different types of investments available and the risk involved with each of them.
- Set up a functional trading plan – This means setting some rules for yourself. As mentioned at the start, investing is very much the art of mastering yourself, and a trading plan helps establish boundaries, protect your capital and most importantly detach some of the emotion from the decisions you’re making.
- Pick the right platforms – Every type of investment you will want to make, will have an exchange facilitating the transactions you are going to be making, and picking the right platform for the job is part of the key to success.
Don’t trade on shitty or dodgy exchanges, learn where to trade crytpo, where to trade stocks, and what the risks involved with each of these third parties are. - Avoid costly mistakes – Just head straight over and check out my article on how not to lose all your money trading crypto, if you want to learn anything about costly mistakes. There are so many simple things you can do to set yourself up for success right from the start, and it helps knowing what to look out for!
- Create a risk management strategy – This is good advice for life in general, consider your risks and decide what you can afford to take. At the end of the day we all end up in the same place, but it’s still in your best interest to try and get there in the way you want to.
- Don’t listen to Youtubers or influencers – Not all the time, but definitely when it comes to promises of overnight success or technologies that sound to good to be true, until you;ve done your own research on it, and determined that it fits into your risk profile.
- Do your own research – Could be considered the most important rule of trading, as well as life if you choose to live a free one. By drawing your own conclusions you refine your process and start winning more than you lose.
- Slow and steady wins the race – While there are hotspots in between, this is a marathon not a race. Small micro decisions and focussing on the bigger picture is what will lead to the greatest success. Focus on investing in things you see the potential in based on your understanding of the world, and always be on the look out for reasons not to invest.
There is nothing worse for a new investor to get 2-3 big wins early on in their career, it changes the way they look at risk, and can give you a false sense of security by making you think trading is always easy.
So if you are ever in this position, be sure to lock in those profits and redistribute it across your portfolio. Do this prudently enough and you will never have to work on anything you don’t want to again.
Create purpose for yourself
Purpose is a strange thing. You have to have a need to create it. You can find it through interactions and experiences, but the best kinds remain the ones you pick for yourself. Creating purpose in a sense is creating a reality for yourself. You still have to adhere to the rules of the governing world, but by navigating the currents, you have the ability to change it to your will.
- Always keep your thoughts positive – If you ever suffer from depression or anxiety, this is a practice that will have you slowly but surely create awareness of destructive patterns and force you to look at the positive things in life, even when you can’t spot any.
This is why a gratitude practice is also crucial to living a happy life, it allows you to cultivate this practice, and by combining it with killing off negative thoughts, you are able create two practices that will help you regulate mood and limit emotional fluctuations.
Depression is a spiral, but it is one of our own creation that stems from our lack of desire and feelings of meaninglessness, and the first step to catching it before it builds up force, is identifying what thoughts trigger the cyclone. - The body and the universe act like mirrors – What we feel on the inside is reflected back to us by the outside world. Our feelings of fear, insecurity happiness, joy or indifference determine the experiences we have.
- Always be a person of options – Bearing in mind that we are mirrors, understand too that we have the ability to choose how the world is going to react towards us. This does not make it easy, but by becoming a person of options, you are able to always control what type of direction you steer an interaction in, the more avenues you are able to spot, the more directions you are able to steer your life in.
- Desire is the key to Destiny – Lucifer’s gift is said to be desire, yet in very many ways it is a gift that has also been given to mankind. To change the circumstances of your reality you need to be able to want something, too little and you float around aimlessly, yet too much of it leads you astray just as the lack of it
- Think for yourself – Or somebody else will do it for you. Just like with desire, if your thoughts are empty, somebody or something will fill them for you.
- Don’t give in to fear – “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” – Frank Herbert, Dune
- Practice self-dicipline – It will continue to pay off, and the more effort and success you achieve, the easier it will be to maintain.
- Pick good friends – You start off with friends of circumstance and connection, but later in life you are responsible for the company you keep, and you better believe that they will be the difference to your success or failure. We are inherently social creatures, and while it is important to be able to spend time alone, it is just as important to have an emotional and social support structure to keep yourself socialized.
- Turn existential crises into existential opportunities – At some point in time we are all going to experience them, they are the moments when your worldview is challenged and you are no longer able to uphold the beliefs that made up your view on reality or how it worked. In a sense it’s a little death of self.
However they are also an opportunity for your soul to evolve and for you to make really positive changes to your life, it really is about creating purpose for yourself, and you can check out what the best advice I have for somebody experiencing an existential crisis. - Don’t take life too seriously – You’ll never get out alive, and you can’t take it with you. As Monty Python said: “Always look on the bright side of death“, the brightest side is definitely everything before it. Life is very much about the journey, and experiencing the moment.
- in lak’ech ala kin – Or in its English translation “You are my other me. What I do onto you, I do onto myself” or we could consider its hindu equivalent Namaste, which translated in the yogic belief, means “The Divine within me bows to the same Divine within you.”
We are all part of one human experience, and the way we treat each other is in many ways the way we treat ourselves.
The final thing learned after thirty
Be patient, be gentle, be kind
We live in a world that isn’t perfect, and a lot of people struggling with their own realities. Some of us are more successful at this than others, if you’re fortunate enough to be in a position to be further along your journey than others may be, be a positive force that makes a difference wherever it can.
You never know when it could be your turn to be in somebody else’s shoes.
Be sure to share this post with people that would find value from it and check out the rest of the site, and see what other interesting topics we explore. Keep doing to right thing, and eventually the right things start to happen!
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