The Lessons I Learned in my 20's

Yesterday marked the end of my 20’s. As my youth and I said “goodbye” to one another, I felt compelled to share the lessons I learned during the “glory days” in hopes they provide clarity to some readers, a laugh for others and encouragement for everyone. I broke up the lessons into two parts: career and life. However, it is highly likely that some of my lessons are applicable to both areas so, if that is the case, apply them to both!

Career Lessons

“Work Harder on Yourself than you do on your job”

• One of my mentors, Jim Rohn, has guided me since college in various motivational YouTube videos, TikToks, audiobooks, etc., and this tiny bit of wisdom changed my life. The premise behind it is to develop as much skill as you can. Your 9-5 job will only provide you with so many experiences and activities to sharpen your skills before you realize it’s not enough. After recognizing this reality, I realized I had to take personal responsibility for my own professional development, acquiring skills, knowledge, additional mentorship and anything else I could do to increase my value to others because THAT’S what would increases the paychecks.

Learn to influence and lead people

• During all of our interactions we are influencing or being influenced. As the workplace becomes increasingly collaborative with ad-hoc committees and task forces being created to solve problems, often an individual will be appointed as the “leader” of the group and asked to achieve results without direct authority. The success of the group will depend on the leader's ability to get buy-in and produce favorable outcomes without relying on a position to command action. This is hard but incredibly powerful in almost any context requiring group cooperation. The ability to change people’s behavior and move in unison toward a common goal is, in my opinion, the single greatest skill a professional (even a person) can possess. It just takes a lifetime to acquire it.?Resource(s): How to Become a Person of Influence by John Maxwell, Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini and Influencer by Kerry Patterson

Focus on outcomes rather than activity

• Busyness feels like achievement. In my 20’s, I would engage in a ton of “studying” for several hours at the library, but only complete two assignments. At work, I might answer/send emails, call people, answer TEAMs chats and connect with three people on LinkedIn all within an hour … but not move the need on any of my important tasks. At the end of the day, the only metric that matters are results. If there is not an output (an improvement/an increase/a decrease) of some sort resulting from the inputs (your effort) placed into activity, it just doesn’t matter. For me, this took most of my 20's to comprehend because I felt comforted by the feeling of doing a lot, and did not want to confront the reality that my activity actually was counterproductive and that I needed to change. Start with being outcome driven first and the right activities will follow.

Life Lessons

Don’t compare yourself to others; you are truly your only competition.

• Have you ever compared an apple and lettuce? Two totally different types of foods in terms of taste, color, growth, usage in foods, etc. It would idiotic to compare either one to each other and ask which one is better, so why do we compare ourselves to others whose talents and trajectories are entirely different from ours? Unless you are in the same circumstances, same conditions, same talents, with the same variables being considered it is preposterous to compare ourselves to others yet I did it through my 20’s and perceived someone else's position in life as better than my own and not recognizing that I had the power to change my position in life.

Consistency wins

• Consistency isn’t sexy. It’s mundane, uneventful and repetitive. But it is the space where those who want to generate momentum and smash their goals live. Learning to execute a plan and a routine for months (or even years) on end without fail is the single hardest thing I have had to learn how to do in my 20’s and I still am not where I want to be. The evidence I was not consistent were found by 1) not hitting the goals I was striving for and the timeline was constantly pushed out further and further, 2) my inner monologue reminded me of the lack of commitment I was displaying 3) being constantly frustrated due to the conflict between my seemingly inability to do the repetitive work and the end state I wanted to be. So, the alternative was to focus on creating an environment conducive to the habits I wanted to practice, eliminate distractions and applied all activities to my calendar with the expectation it would get done. Resource(s): The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, Atomic Habits by James Clear

People are more willing to help you than you think

• If you reach out to people ahead of you with curiosity, humility and a willingness to be coached, EVERYONE and ANYONE will be more than willing to sit down and answer your questions. There is a cyclical nature for people to help each other, and their investment in helping you is an ode to the time they felt timid to ask someone else for advice but did anyway and it paid off. Seek out people you want to learn from, ask them to help, be humble and let the good fortune roll.

Learn to say “No”

• Not everything (or everyone) deserves your time or attention. In our current world, there is an oversaturation of products and people vying for our attention every second of every day, and there is only so much stimuli we can absorb before our decision making processes become ineffective. Learn to say “No” to activities/people/events that take up time without delivering any value back, especially if it takes you away from engaging in the work to move your dream forward. Disclaimer: this is much easier written than it is put into practice. That’s what my 30’s are for.

Sometimes it’s just the day

• This was an emotional lesson I learned over the past five years. Oftentimes, we become overwhelmed, frustrated and ready to give up. Our thought processes even extend further to other areas of our life and very quickly we can become ungrateful and bitter. During these emotional moments, I calmly suggest to myself that what I am feeling could just be the result of tiny frustrations or inconveniences building up to this particular moment on this day, and allow myself to feel all of it. Then, I guide myself by saying “If I feel this way tomorrow, then we know there is something further to explore. If not, then it was just the day.” More often than not, I have discovered it is in the moment we are most and, given a little bit of time, the feelings and emotions subside allowing us to think clearly about how to address some of the items that caused the frustration in the first place. Managing our own emotions can prevent us from making irrational decisions or harming others from the words we do not mean to say.

There is no destination

• The destination did not feel as good as the journey to it. After reflecting on goals I set during my 20’s, I realized I appreciated the struggle and people I met along the way more than I cherished actually achieving the goal. The person I became mattered more to me than checking an arbitrary box. And the more I focused on simply improving myself and getting better at my craft, the more aware I became of this never-ending journey of growth because I knew change would always occur. There will always be more ideas introduced to ponder over, new perspectives to consider and more knowledge to acquire. From this point of view, there is no definitive destination we arrive at and there is only the next evolution of who we are forged through new experiences and a deeper awareness about the world around us. So, don’t stress and take your time. You’ve got nowhere to be.

If you enjoyed the lessons communicated in this article and want to hear a deeper dive into each (along with a couple of extras), click on the link below to listen to a Bonus Episode on the BRUTalks Podcast available on Spotify, Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast!