There is an ideal age for taking risks, getting things wrong and learning from our mistakes. Let’s say that age is your twenties. Always bearing in mind that 30 is not the new 20. And this comes from someone who is already past 30.
Plenty of people will give you advice at that age, and by default, people tend to ignore it. Others of us take it gladly. Your twenties are an ideal age to blame certain mistakes on youth, but stupidity sometimes has nothing to do with age. There are idiots aged 20 and 25, and they’re not idiots because they’re 20. They’re idiots because being an idiot is their most distinctive trait. They’re idiots, full stop. And they’ll still be idiots at 30 and at 40. If anyone already feels offended, now they know where to start working đŸ˜‰
(Read: 21 things young people and students need to accept in their 20s)
Doing something while being sure you’re going to come a cropper, and saying the usual “I know I’m getting this wrong, but you learn from mistakes too”, doesn’t make you a brave risk-taker. It makes you a (…insert name of choice…).
But yes, making mistakes in your twenties is no bad thing, as long as we know how to draw lessons from them. Ultimately, progress and maturity come down to how quickly we learn from our mistakes.
If you’re given advice and fail because you didn’t apply it, but you’re one of those people who hide the fact that you failed for not applying that advice, you’re cannon fodder for more problems once you cross the 30 barrier.
Some things you should know before you turn 30, and that you’ll be grateful for
1. You’re not the only one with good ideas
Everyone has good ideas, and most people know it. The problem is that most people think of other people’s ideas as competition for their own. Our competitive nature stops us from recognising that other people’s ideas ultimately help our own.
Isaiah Hankel, author of Black Hole Focus, advises young people to start opening their minds and listening to what others have to say too, even if at first it may clash with their own ideas. You should be willing to explore other people’s ideas instead of shutting yourself off inside your own.
See also: 7 lessons for success from William H. McRaven, the SEAL commander who hunted down Bin Laden
And this applies to every area, whether we’re talking about culture, religion or political ideas.
2. Friends are worth more than money
It’s better to have 100 friends worth 100 euros than a single friend worth 200,000 euros. It’s easy to think money is the answer to all your problems, but it isn’t. People are the answer. Your network of contacts and the relationships we develop are among the most valuable things we have, because they’re something a bank can’t take away from you.
You need people to achieve great goals, so a large network of friends or contacts is actually the best net worth there is.
Of course, as the quality of that network rises, so do our possibilities.
(See: The 50-30-20 rule for career success)
3. A little can go a long way
Everyone overestimates how much they can do in a short space of time, but underestimates what they’re capable of in the long run.
The most important breakthroughs and the biggest successes don’t happen overnight in a moment of inspiration. They come over time, through small, repeated efforts. Start small and do a little every day. Through consistency and discipline, that little bit each day will produce an end result that will surprise you, whether we’re talking about a project or about saving and investing (compound interest).
(Read: The key to success with the Seinfeld strategy)
4. Try to control only what you can control
Some situations can’t be controlled, but we can control how we handle a situation. Plenty of bad things will happen to you, some of them seemingly for no reason, but this isn’t about what happens to you; it’s about controlling your attitude so you can handle whatever is happening to you.
Don’t waste too much time asking yourself “why is this happening?”, and don’t waste too much time criticising what’s going on either. Focus on a possible solution, if there is one.
If a problem has a solution, we fight it with the right attitude. If it has none, we should let it go and move on.
5. Nobody is the villain of the story from their own point of view
Over time you’ll realise that some people are best left aside. They’re what we call toxic people, and trying to set some of them on the right path is simply a waste of time.
There are only two possible outcomes when we try to change a stray sheep: either we change it, or it somehow rubs off on us, and the second is more likely. Stay as far away from these people as you can, because they can set off earthquakes in our lives whose aftershocks keep having consequences even after 30.
(Read: 6 smart ways to deal with toxic people)
6. You don’t always have to attack. Sometimes it’s better to sit and wait
Nobody likes feeling attacked, and it’s very common to defend ourselves quickly, but that isn’t always the smartest thing to do. Sometimes the smartest strategy is to let our competitors expose themselves.
We don’t always have to make the first move; we don’t always have to attack. Sometimes doing nothing is the best offence, because many of our enemies are so clumsy that they’ll destroy themselves all on their own.
As Sun Tzu put it in his famous book The Art of War, if you wait long enough on the lower reaches of the river, you’ll see the bodies of your enemies come floating by.
(See: 3 books every business owner and every leader should read)
7. Learning about sales will open the doors of the future
For some reason, salespeople have a bad reputation, and for some reason, at least in Spain, they get very little respect, both in terms of pay and of professional standing.
That’s a big mistake, considering that you’ve already sold (everyone has sold). Maybe well, maybe badly, but you’re in sales. You’re selling yourself all the time; you negotiate every day, when you buy, when you’re chatting someone up, when you go out looking for a job, and so on. Things not going well for you in life? It’s probably because you’re not a good salesperson.
Sales, together with a solid financial education, will be the most important subjects in life, and they aren’t taught at university. If you learn to sell, you’ll never be short of work.
If you start a company and you already know how to sell, your business will be more profitable than a competitor’s without sales professionals.
It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re going to do in the future. You are, or will be, in sales one way or another. Either you sell something to make a living, or you’ll be selling yourself all the time. There are no exceptions to this rule, because there isn’t a single company in the world that doesn’t live off selling something.
(Read: 14 secrets and truths about selling)
8. Surround yourself with people who challenge you
If you’re given the choice between a flattering boss and a very critical one, put yourself under the more critical one. You’ll find plenty of people who will follow you blindly and think everything you do is fine. That doesn’t make you a good leader. Sometimes it just means you’re the one-eyed man leading a group of the blind.
You’ll feel more comfortable in circles where you’re the smartest person, but try to do the opposite. Always try to be in circles where you’re the dumbest, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to learn from those people.
Seek out people who push your limits and never let you get comfortable, because in this life, getting comfortable means a guaranteed fall. You always have to keep growing and learning.
And of course, look for people who speak to you clearly, honestly and sincerely, even if you don’t like that sincerity because it isn’t what you were hoping to hear. Those are the people you should have in your circle.
9. Don’t change to please others
Many people keep changing just to fit in with others. They lose their authenticity to follow trends or behaviours. In other words, they stop being themselves to fit in with the herd.
Over time I’ve learned that the best strategy for standing out in a group is to stay authentic within it, not to be liked.
Don’t waste your time and energy trying to please people. As we’ve said many times, plenty of people will love you for who you are, and others will hate you for that very same reason.
If you don’t consider yourself an idiot, a jerk or a moron, don’t change to look like jerks, idiots and morons.
Further reading
- Life is a game, and this is how you play it
- 4 things you need to give up to keep moving forward in life
- 5 things you should do differently if you want to succeed
Featured image: vlasta2, bluefootedbooby on flickr.com, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
