39 Pieces of Advice I Gave Myself

Why 39? Because I turn 39 years old today. The advice you are about to read are from my notes repository accumulated over sometime. While there were more than 39 pieces of advice I’ve had for myself, these stuck out the most.

This idea is inspired by my friend Mayank Verma.

1. Life is about experiences. Focus on optimizing for new experiences to grow in all dimensions of life.
2. Identify your purpose. Be in pursuit of knowing self and continue to ask yourself "Who are you, Why do you exist and What is your purpose"
3. Be fearless. Absolutely Fearless.
4. Be limitless. And be flexible. Stringent things break easily.
5. Find a mentor and a coach as soon as possible. They are two different people. Without them, you have only realized 30% of your true potential.
6. Think BIG. Human beings are limited by their thinking in what they can achieve.
7. Innovate and Simplify to succeed. Innovation is a Habit. Focussed practice helps you to develop it.
8. You are special. Try to figure out how you can positively impact the entire cosmos, all humanity and all creation.
9. Chase money, it's very important ; Money = Freedom (but don’t sacrifice relationships over it).
10. Develop Speed as a Habit. Speed, like exercise and eating healthy can be habitual. Through a prolonged, proactive effort to develop speed, we can convert ourselves to be faster, more efficient and formidable. Speed is the ultimate weapon in business.
11. Learn soft skills early—the compound every year with practice. Developing eye for detail is important.
12. Writing lets you scale your thoughts and is the only legacy you can leave behind that will retain its value and maybe gain as time passes.
13. Reading books > listening to books > listening/watching podcasts.
14. 99.0% time, when people are unhappy, they are in an active victim mindset. Avoid it, and remember, how you feel has more to do with something internal than external.
15. You don’t need permission to be successful. If you need it, give it to yourself today.
16. Take plenty of sleep. A fully rested person is the tortoise compared to a hare running on coffee.
17. Try to learn something EVERY DAY. Everything in this world is a learnable skill. Spend time learning.
18. Confidence is the key. Knowledge helps build confidence. Focus on developing right personality traits.
19. Listen more before sharing your opinion.
20. Ask stupid questions but avoid giving stupid answers.
21. Everyone remembers two kinds of people, i.e., asshole and humble. Learn from both. Don’t worry about assholes too much, as their world will shrink over time.
22. Like there are only two best times to plant a tree, ten years ago and now, there are only two times to start working on yourself. Yesterday and now.
23. Run towards things rather than away from things, whether they are experiences, people, work, etc.
24. Be direct, but be humble and kind. Humility and being grounded is important.
25. Don’t associate the outcome of your decisions with the quality of decisions when you made them. There is a time between making a decision and its outcome. The longer the time horizon, the higher the chance unknown variables can affect the outcome from when you made the decision.
26. Drink water. If you think you should drink water, you are already dehydrated.
27. Spend time with yourself. Self-time is too under-estimated. Long walks are very important and helpful.
28. Cut out refined sugar as soon as possible. Eat fruits.
29. Evaluate your reasons for drinking alcohol, smoking, getting high, or doing drugs. They likely have changed since you started. Understanding and re-evaluating them may help you quit those habits for good, even if you have failed in the past.
30. When on vacation, spend money to enhance the experience.
31. Spend money on haircuts and tailored clothes and not generic big chain stores. They charge 30% more but can elevate your personality in a single day.
32. Go outside every day. Being with Nature is important. Realize that you are part of it. Don't be stuck at home.
33. Develop a few hobbies. Play a Sport. Start practicing Music. Start today.
34. Anything worthwhile achieving will take time, 6 months at best and few years at most. But you must be willing to sacrifice something you enjoy doing now.
35. Writing is essential for understanding. It’s hard to write about something without completely understanding it. The act of trying to understand is where learning happens. The format of writing doesn’t matter. Public writing, such as blogs, books, and tweets, provides similar learning as private writing, i.e., writing no one sees. But public writing can also provide validity.
36. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And be entrepreneurial in whatever you do.
37. Take what your parents give you even if you don’t like it or have no use for it. It may be the only thing you’ll have left once they are gone.
38. Giving back is important. Devise ways to give back to your family, society, country, planet and entire humanity.
39. Develop Spirituality. Love everyone. Find happiness by making people around you happy. Follow your Dharma. And be ready to go to any extent to protect Dharma.