These Life Lessons Are More Valuable than 100 of the Best Self-Help Books
"Adulthood starts when you stop waiting for someone to come and save you"
Self-help books feel like they take a lifetime to read.
The average one takes 6-8 hours to read. We’re time-poor. We can’t read enough books to gain the wisdom we need to live a badass life.
Here are the life lessons I’ve learned that will nuke most self-help books. It’s a quick read.
This is when you quit being a child and become a fully grown adult
Adulthood starts when you stop waiting for someone to come and save you
– @OrangeBook
Adult babies are everywhere.
They look their age yet their minds are a totally different vintage.
You should have seen the 5th graders operating the brains of some of the people I worked with in my previous 9-5 job. It was like watching child princes and princesses race to the top of the jungle gym to get a booby prize.
Real adults take personal responsibility.
They don’t blame their sh*t on other people. They don’t wait for charitable people, universities, or the government to come and save them. They own their decisions. They figure out a plan. Then they go and execute on it.
Fellers: don’t become a man baby.
Ladies: don’t become a lady baby.
Work on yourself until you can think for yourself.
Network with people two levels above. Not Elon Musk.
Building relationships is something many of us do poorly. Every day I get random messages across various platforms.
99% of them never get answered.
One of the main reasons is because they all contain ‘asks.’ Often the asks come from people who are 10 levels or more behind where I’ve got after 7 years in the writing game. That’s fine. We all start somewhere.
But think of it like this: What’s the point of trying to network with Elon Musk?
You can’t relate to him. He’s hard to get access to. Even if you do get access to him he’ll be on the lookout for selfish requests of his time that don’t benefit him.
No point.
A better strategy is to build relationships with people slightly ahead of you.
For example, on Twitter I talk to other creators who have between 2000-5000 followers, compared to my 1500 followers.
The response rate is higher and the conversations are more relatable. And because they’re slightly ahead of me, I can still learn a lot from them, even though I’m behind them in results.
Forget chasing celebrities. Make friends with people who have similar results – and improve your inner circle by 10X, and get around up-and-coming legends.
Working for 5 years on one internet goal
Many people don’t have internet goals. Without a way to make money from online sources, they become susceptible to recessions, layoffs, and dangerous debt cycles.
The trick is to package up what you know and turn it into a product.
Sell it as an online course, or eBook, or paid Substack newsletter, or 1-1 coaching on the skill.
There’s no reason you can’t sell your skills from your 9-5 job, twice.
Still, even with that knowledge it doesn’t work. The internet is busy.
You need to pass the threshold of participation before anyone will care or dare give you a dollar.
In the first year it can be frustrating. After 5 years the results are inevitable. What helped me was to ignore the results for a while. Don’t worry if you make $10 in your first year.
The example below is the best one I know. They’re one of the most popular newsletters of all time and now make millions of dollars. You can do it.
This week, a media company got called out for *only* doing $1m of subscription revenue in year 1. Reminder:
MorningBrew [popular newsletter] did $500 of revenue in year 2. That is not a typo. Literally $500. Ignore everyone. Keep grinding.
– Austin Rief (MorningBrew founder)
Make Jack Dorsey proud
Self-help can be wishy-washy at best. Here’s a practical tip to light your pants on fire.
Write tweets daily.
It sparks your creativity. It brings people closer to you. It clarifies your thoughts and beliefs. It helps you get to the point faster. Get so damn good at Twitter that the co-founder Jack Dorsey falls in love with your work.
Best part: it takes no more than 15 minutes per day.
Action over self-help masturbation.
Always have an event to look forward to
Without something to look forward to you slowly die inside while doing your work each day. There’s no point.
Self-help preaches “purpose.”
For many, purpose is some weird thing they can’t explain to a 5th grader.
Everyone can explain treats. Tell a kid if they do homework they’ll get a slab of chocolate. The kid will work their face off.
The same works for us. My work weeks are hectic. I work harder than I care to admit. What keeps me going is future events. This week it was a movie I’ve waited two years to watch. Next week it’s a long weekend at the beach. Whenever I don’t feel like working this week, I’m going to think of the beach.
Motivation is hard.
It’s easier to motivate yourself with treats you’ve earned through hard work.
"The inbox is nothing but a convenient organizing system for other people's agendas.”
*Points gun at own head*
Brendon Burchard said this quote. I’m guilty. Email isn’t where your dreams are built.
If you want to blow up your day then spend lots of time in your inbox. As soon as one task is done another one will magically pop up. Your phone is no different.
Most phone calls are stupid.
Think about the idea of a phone call. Anyone can call you whenever they like and a loud sound that wakes up the whole neighborhood will play until you shut it off. It will vibrate in your pocket as intense as a dildo, yet give you no pleasure.
Phones work better when they’re permanently on do not disturb and only have family members are allowed to get through in case of emergency.
Everything else can wait. No need to be a phone slave.
Be alive, not on call 24/7.
Keep the 5 by 5 rule handy for situations that blow up
The 5 by 5 rule: If it's not gonna matter in 5 years - don't spend more than 5 minutes being upset about it – @lawrencekingyo
Most of what you worry about in life ain’t gonna matter.
It’s tempting to blow up at every little thing – but if you zoom out, you won’t.
Will you remember this rude social media comment in 5 years? Nope.
Will you remember that nasty lover who did you wrong in 5 years? Nope.
Will you remember the person that shafted you and took $1000 from you in 5 years? Nope.
Test: what did you have for breakfast on August 15th, 5 years ago?
Your 5-year memory is not as good as you think. Great.
A preprogrammed life is a nightmare (eventually)
After 5+ years of a scheduled life, there is no greater joy than a mostly empty calendar – @ankurnagpal
Jobs program our day for us. They give us an Outlook or Gmail calendar and say “okay pal, this is where we insert meetings all day for you.”
Most meetings progress literately nothing.
You’d be better off going to the pub to drink piss than sitting in back-to-back meetings all day and wasting your life away, so that inflation and taxes can take away most of your earnings.
Screw that.
Work on a project after hours so can buy some or all of your time back in the future.
True freedom in life is an empty calendar.
It all boils down to this
Self-help books are often full of inspiration rather than strategies that lead to implementation.
Focus on ideas you can execute, not lessons from a celebrity who uses their journey in life to make money and get the next movie deal.
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Hi, thank you for writing and addressing into this issue.
As a young adult, that's what really happened to me.
I really need this snappy, completely unfiltered, and extremely explicit words because I have a firm belief that pain is necessary to grow (even medicine tastes bitter).
For me personally, online networking is different with in-person, and when I seek advices with people who knows me in real life, they always sugar-coat everything—and then how we can learn.
What I can do is figuring out everything by self and sometimes sh*t happens.
So, thank you for sharing these prospectives. It’s something I can really learn from.
Thanks as always for your generosity