This week I turned 45 years old and
today I want to run through the best
lessons I've had in the last 25 years.
What do I wish I knew 25 years ago
having 25 years of business and
adulthood. I started out as an
entrepreneur in my early 20s. I built
seven startups that went from 0 to a
million in their first 12 months. I've
helped three businesses that went north
of 10 million in valuation. I've crashed
businesses where I had to start again.
I've done that multiple times. I've had
an amazing marriage. I've had three
kids. And I've had multiple billionaire
mentors that I've spent actual hangout
time with. I've traveled the world. I've
been on private jets and big fancy
yachts. I've backpacked through jungles.
So, from all of that, I've learned lots
of different lessons. And today, I want
to run through all of my heristics, all
of the key ideas that I've learned in
the last 25 years that I would love to
go back and share with someone in their
early 20s is just getting started. In
fact, the last lesson I want to share
with you in this video, it's going to be
a little bit emotional for me to share.
Oh, this one makes me emotional. So,
let's go through them one at a time
in no particular order, but I'm going to
start with this harsh truth. You get
what you pitch for, and you're always
pitching. So, let me be really blunt
with you. I don't think you're pitching
big enough. I really do not think that
you are expressing who you really are in
the world. I think that you contain
really incredible insights. I think
you've got great opinions. I think
you've got great ways that you would
love to steer the ship, but you're not
telling people. You're not talking to
people, or you're telling them in a
soft, gentle way. you're not pitching it
into existence. What I wish I could say
to you if you're a 20-year-old Dan is
get off the fence and start pitching
things into reality. Harsh truth number
two is prolific beats perfect. See, what
I think is holding you back is that you
just want to put something out that
everyone loves and you're just scared of
what people are going to say if you put
something out that's a little bit
mediocre or that's not great. You must
get over this. Please, I'm begging you,
put more stuff out there. If people
don't like it, it's just data. The truth
is in the age of algorithms, the stuff
that's no good won't get traction
anyway. Only a few hundred people are
going to see it. It's only the stuff
that's good that takes off. So the more
stuff you put out there, the good stuff
has an opportunity to rise to the top.
Be more bold. Be more brave. Get more
stuff out there. For me personally, I've
written seven different books and I've
co-authored a few as well. I've put out
hundreds of different videos on YouTube.
Some of them get great views, some of
them not so much. You might have seen me
on Diary of a CEO or Ali Abdal's podcast
which got millions of views. If you look
a little deeper, I've done hundreds of
podcasts that got less than 200 views.
And what I've discovered is failure or
mediocracy is not the opposite of
success. It's the leadup to success.
It's a key ingredient of success. You
can't have success without medioc.
Here's the harsh truth. Older
generations got the opportunity to buy
property for cents on the dollar. And
it's unbelievably unfair how difficult
it is to get on the housing ladder. It's
so unfair how difficult it is to buy
into stock markets that are massively
inflated at the moment in many cases. A
lot of the traditional assets, the
traditional ways that your parents and
grandparents became wealthy and became
rich and no longer accessible to younger
generations. But here's the good news.
This new generation has this new
completely different type of asset. An
asset is anything that adds value
regardless of what you're doing. If
you've got a book out there on Amazon,
that is an asset that's adding value
regardless of what you're doing. If
you've got a YouTube video that's
winning you business and bringing you
clients, that's an asset that's doing
things regardless of where you are.
Whether you're on holiday or whether
you're taking the dog for a walk, that
video is out there winning business for
you. These are new economy assets that
you can buy really, really cheap. Your
children and your grandchildren will
say, "I cannot believe how lucky you
were to be alive at the time when
YouTube was just getting started, to be
alive at the time where podcasts were in
their infancy, to be alive at a time
where you could put a book on Amazon
relatively easy." Right? So there's
these new economy assets, this
intellectual capital turned into digital
assets. That is your opportunity. And
also those assets will then lead to
being able to buy the more established
assets. The first 15 years of my career
was all about building digital assets
that gave me enough money to then
transfer some of that wealth into
traditional assets. Please do not dwell
about the opportunities that your
parents and grandparents had. Get into
the opportunities that are right for
you. There are assets that you can own
that cost you almost nothing to create.
The next harsh truth is most
opportunities are downstream from
attention. Without attention, you can't
make an opportunity come to life. The
really harsh truth is that you have a
business idea, you want to get it in
front of people. You want to raise
money, you've got to get in front of
people. You want to sell products,
you're going to have to get in front of
people. Getting in front of people is a
massive skill. Getting in front of
people is an essential ingredient to
success. There is no point being a hero
in the eyes of your dog and your cat,
and nobody else knows who you are. In
order to be successful, you have to get
attention. There are people who are
massive introverts. Richard Branson is a
massive introvert. I've met him. I've
spent time with him. He's an introvert.
Tim Cook is a massive introvert. He was
able to hide in the shadow of Steve Jobs
for many, many years until such time as
he had to get out there and get the
attention for Apple. These people,
they're introverts, but they understand
the power of attention. Getting in front
of the right people is half the battle.
Now, you sit there and tell yourself a
story that you're not born into the
right family. You're not born into the
right location. Stop hiding. Stop
playing small. Stop sitting in the
shadows. Stop waiting for someone to
point at you and say, "It's your turn."
Or let me in this video point at you
right now and say, "It's your turn." Get
out there. Get in front of the people
that you need to be in front of in order
for your ideas to come to life. I have
no qualifications. I have no special
skills. And yet, I put myself out there
and I say, "You know what? I'm going to
write a book. I'm going to put some
YouTube videos out there. I'm going to
get myself on podcasts. I'm going to get
in front of the right people." The more
I've been able to capture attention, the
more I've been able to grow and scale my
ideas into reality. The next one is
everything is a team sport. Everything
that you want is a team sport. Even when
you see a solo tennis player playing
tennis by themselves on the court behind
the scenes is an amazing
physiootherapist, an amazing coach, an
amazing assistant, right? Everything is
a team sport. Half the battle of
succeeding in life is recruiting the
right team. You've got to get people
onto your team. You cannot do it all on
your own. I have never worked in
isolation. I've never been on my own.
When I was just starting out, I
recruited people onto my team. Now, who
did I recruit onto my team? People who
didn't have many opportunities. Now,
when most people think about recruiting
a team, they think about hiring someone
who's ex Google or ex JP Morgan, but the
person at the local bar or pub is going
to quit their job and come and work with
you. That door-to-d dooror salesperson
who's looking for something better will
quit their job and come and work with
you. Everything's a team sport. If you
want to scale a company, you probably
need some mentors, some angel investors,
some salespeople to join your team. If
you want to get fit and healthy, you're
probably going to need a team of people
around you who want to go on a fit and
health challenge. Stop thinking that you
can do this in isolation. Stop thinking
that first you'll become successful on
your own and then you'll start hanging
out with the right people. First you
build a team, then you become
successful. I don't have any skills and
I also have a fairly fleeting attention
span. I leverage people around me who
can get things done. I want you to
pretend that you have no skill other
than the skill of recruiting people onto
your team. What if all of your success
came from recruitment? Picking people to
come and join your team, on boarding
them, inspiring them, getting them
aligned, giving them a vision, getting
them all rowing in the same direction.
Right? If that was your only skill, that
would be enough. That leads into the
next harsh truth that alignment is a
form of magic. Getting people aligned to
the same vision is an incredible form of
magic. Unbelievable things take place if
you can get a team of people into
alignment. What does that actually mean?
It just means that a group of three,
four, five people all want the same
things in the next 3 years. A group of
people are all excited to achieve an
outcome. A group of people are all
excited to solve a problem. If you can
be the person who gets a group of people
into alignment, you will create magic.
One of the craziest things is when you
start a major project absolutely not
knowing how the hell to do it or what's
going to unfold, but just simply getting
a team of people into alignment that
together we're going to solve these
problems. together we're going to get
these outcomes. It unlocks magical
things that you could never have
predicted will happen. Alignment is
truly a form of magic. I would go so far
as to say if the people around you are
not aligned to the same goals, it's
almost impossible to succeed. What I
would say to 20-year-old Dan is take the
time to get people into alignment. Go
out to that cafe, sit around the table
with eight people, tell them your
vision, tell them what you want to
achieve, tell them problems that you
want to solve, and see if you can get
the people to stay at the table and say
that they're committed to being part of
that team and that they're aligned to
it. I would also say to 20-year-old Dan,
don't try and hoard success to yourself.
Get other people to feel that if they
succeed, they get to share in the
success. We're all going to create this
together. Give people opportunities to
earn more money, to have more ownership,
to have more fun, to achieve bigger
goals, to take the credit. And if you
can get other people into alignment so
that they get all those benefits as
well, you all get to achieve way more
than you could on your own. The next
harsh truth, life is an energy game. Low
energy, low results. Negative energy,
negative results. Positive energy,
positive results. Optimism, great
results. You might sound super smart as
a pessimist, but guess what? The
optimists win the game. The optimists
win the game because they have positive
energy. And positive energy attracts
positive things into their lives. It
attracts the people who say, "I'm up for
that challenge. I'm ready to go for it."
Negative people, people say, "You know
what? You sound intelligent. You sound
right. You sound like you know what
you're talking about, but I don't want
to join your team. I don't want to
invest any money behind you. I don't
want to send anybody over your way. Even
though you sound like you're smart, I'm
not going to allow you to succeed."
Whereas the people who have good energy,
they're the ones who get good results. I
am seeing so many young people at the
moment who have bought into the negative
news and the negative algorithms.
They've not stopped to think about the
fact that those algorithms are fueled by
outrage. They are fueled by negative
energy. The human brain is twothirds
optimized for negativity over
positivity. You've got to make a
conscious decision that you want to have
good energy. You have to be the person
who blocks out those negative
algorithms. Recently, I was blowing up
on X.com. I was getting literally
hundreds of thousands of views, but it
was causing me negative energy. was
causing me to be down a rabbit hole of
negativity. I called up my team and I
said, "I want you to change the password
on my ex account. Lock me out of it.
Don't tell me the password. I need to
get off this platform because it's too
negative." Ever since doing that, boom,
my energy levels are back up. I'm
positive about the world again and I'm
out there achieving positive things for
my life. You know what? The world has
plenty of positivity and it also has
plenty of negativity. You get to choose
which stream you want to jump into. Do
you want to jump into the stream of
negativity or do you want to jump into
the stream of positivity? Now, when I
say life is all an energy game, there's
a deeper layer to this as well. There's
actually five energies. There's the
energy of purpose and vision. There's
the energy of a strategic approach.
There's the energy of the right people,
getting the right people aligned, uh
connecting with people, sharing stories.
There's the energy of rolling up your
sleeves and getting stuff done. Work,
work, work, work, work. Like, get it
done. Do the work that needs to be done.
And there's the energy of refinement.
Look at the data. Figure out a better
way. Come up with a system. You need an
approach where you figure out which
energy am I in right now and which
energy do I need to be in right now and
how do I shift gearing to that energy?
Now, I'm not talking about the law of
attraction and manifestation. A lot of
people take that to mean that you sit in
your bedroom writing down your vision
and your goals and you're not talking to
anyone and you're not pitching anything
and you're not taking any action. Yes,
there is an energy called purpose and
vision, but that energy is nothing
without the other four energies. The
next harsh truth may upset you and that
is environment dictates performance. The
environments that you show up in dictate
how the rest of your life is going to
play out. I have personally gone into
prisons and I've worked with people who
are prison inmates. I've worked with
people who are drug dealers and I've
spent my time helping to mentor them
that if they keep showing up in the
environment of drug dealing, they will
go back to drug dealing. They'll end up
back in prison. I also tell them that
the entrepreneurial spark that sits
within them that allows them to be a
successful drug dealer could also allow
them to build a legitimate business
that's wildly successful. But the key
thing that I tell them is environment
dictates performance. You have to get
yourself into an environment where
legitimate businesses are being built.
So I tell these ex drug dealers that
when they get out of prison, they don't
go back to the same places that they
used to go back to. They go to a
different part of town. They start
networking in angel investor circles.
They go to a high net worth bank and go
to events that are being put on there.
They join a business membership and
start meeting legitimate business
people. They get themselves enrolled in
a tech incubator or a tech accelerator
and they start getting around tech
entrepreneurs. They stop listening to
certain types of music that glorify
their old life and they start listening
to podcasts that talk about strategies
for the new life that they want. So I
talk about this idea of environment
dictates performance. In the right
environment, everything changes. Now for
me personally in my early 20s, someone
dragged me along to a dance class. I had
never even thought of going to a dance
class in my life. And it was the most
embarrassing thing turning up to a dance
class for the first time. Little did I
realize this was one of the most
unbelievably cool environments I could
have ever been part of. Within my first
lesson, I'm spinning girls around and
I'm doing dips and I'm discovering all
of these moves. 3 years later of doing
three dance classes a week for 3 years,
I've got this incredible skill and
dancing is just the most normal thing in
the world. But that never would have
happened if I hadn't have shown up and
put myself in an environment that felt
really awkward in week one but felt
totally natural in week 10. So here's
the thing. You are holding yourself back
because you don't show up into
environments that make you feel
uncomfortable. You resist showing up in
environments that you are the smallest
person in the room. And I want you to
say to yourself, if I was the best
version of myself, what are the types of
environments that I would be showing up
in a regular basis? The next harsh
truth, this is the greatest time ever to
be alive. Now, I'm hearing a lot of
people at the moment, they're like, "Oh
my goodness, the world's such a horrible
place. The politics, houses are so
expensive, and there's not great jobs
anymore." And all these kind of things.
Shut up. If we took a long line of the
last thousand ancestors that you had
that lived on this planet, and they had
a chance to push a button and swap
places with you to live in this time,
they would push it as fast as they
humanly could. This would not even be a
question. Not long ago, tuberculosis
killed 25% of the population. Not long
ago, most men worked down a coal mine.
They worked on a fishing boat. They
worked in the military getting shot at.
Life has been horrible for centuries.
And finally, we have this incredible
moment where you can share a message
with the world. You can connect with any
group of people. You can learn from
anyone on the world. Everything you want
to know, ChatGBT is there to tell you
about it. You've got a lawyer in your
pocket. You got a doctor in your pocket.
You've got every PhD ever written fully
accessible to you. Oh my goodness. This
is the most mind-blowing time in the
world. Do not glamorize the past. There
was all the same horrible stuff that
we've got today, except they didn't have
algorithms for speeding it to them.
You've got to get control of the
algorithm in your head and say, "You
know what? I've been born at the most
incredible time in history. I'm not
going to waste this opportunity dwelling
on the negative stuff." Now, if I was to
talk to 20-year-old Dan, he kind of got
it, but he didn't go all in on it. He
kind of noticed that YouTube was
emerging, but he didn't go all in for
another 15 or 20 years. He kind of saw
that digital businesses were a
superpower, but he didn't go all in for
the next 15 years. And I would say, my
goodness, don't just like
intellectualize it. Really own it and go
all in on it. We are living in
incredible times, young Dan. Make the
most of it. Go all in. Kick the damn
doors off the hinges. Okay. The next
lesson is about how money has a
language. There is a language that goes
around money and if you speak that
language, money just opens up to you.
The language is called the language of
opportunity, not the language of
requests. I see so many young people who
have a request for the world. I'm
passionate and I want some money to go
lift my passion. That is a self-centered
language around what you want. Money
doesn't speak that language. Money
speaks the language of the opportunity
for the person who puts the money in.
Money moves around certain documents.
There are certain documents that if you
have that document, you get to make more
money. At a very simple level, if you
create a product brochure or a landing
page, you get to sell products. If you
create a pitch deck, you get to raise
money. The number one reason why people
get stuck around money is because they
don't speak the language of money. If
you want to have money, you need to
learn how to speak the language of
money. You need to know the structures.
You need to know the documents. You need
to do your research into how money
works. It sucks, but money is going to
be a massive part of your life for the
rest of your life. All the things you
want to do are going to involve money
other than maybe meditation. So why not
invest a little bit of time ASAP to
understand just how money works? What
are the different structures in the
economy? How is a company different from
a trust, different from an individual?
What are the tax implications of all of
those structures? How do you raise money
if you need money? If you've got a big
idea, but it needs $500,000, how do you
get your hands on $500,000? I promise
you, it's not because you're passionate.
It's not because you want it. It's not
because you need it. It's not because
you requested it. It's because you know
how to speak the language of
opportunity. When I was 24 years old, I
got offered to buy my company for $14
million. And it was an incredible
opportunity, but I didn't know how to
handle that. I didn't know the
documents. I didn't know the structures.
And the deal fell through. I didn't get
$14 million that I could have gotten at
age 24. And it was simple. I didn't have
a mentor who steered me in the direction
of talking that level of money. And
because I didn't have all the things in
place, the deal didn't go ahead. I
learned that lesson the hard way. And I
don't want you to learn the lesson the
hard way. I want you to be ready for
those big opportunities that come along.
This brings me to my next harsh truth.
There is gold in gray hair. Most of the
problems that you're going to face,
somebody's faced them before. If you
were to sit down with someone who's 50
or 60 years old, who's been 10, 20, 30
years on the planet longer than you
have, who's faced this thing, who's seen
it before, who's seen it a dozen times
before, you would discover that some of
your biggest problems have easy
solutions. You are not spending enough
time around older people. They sound a
little bit different. Some of their
values aren't aligned to your values.
Some of their language is out of date,
but I promise you, there is golden gray
hair. I have learned so much by having
mentors over the age of 60. When I was
in my 20s, I had mentors who were 60
plus. It is incredible how much you can
fast track your life if you just sit
down with someone who's 15 or 20 years
older and ask them, "Have you faced this
before? Or do you know someone who's
faced this several times before? Who can
you put me in touch with that helps me
to solve this?" For thousands and
thousands of years, we understood the
value of having elders in our tribe. We
knew that we used to go to elders in
order to extract the wisdom that they
had. And we've lost that ability. We
think that everything is on the
internet. Everything's chat GBT. Well, I
promise you, you will discover that
people with gray hair have gold. They
have wisdom to share. Get around a
mentor who's got some gray hair. The
next lesson is about having three core
values. There came a point in my life
where I sat down and I made up three
core values. Be brave, have fun, make a
dent in the universe. Being brave is
getting out of my comfort zone. Having
fun is working with people I enjoy
working with, getting into alignment,
going to fun places, doing fun things.
And making a dent in the universe is
giving back, trying to make an impact,
doing things that uh add value to
others, doing things that change the
game, speaking in a way that improve
somebody else's life, engaging in
projects that improve people's lives.
How did I make them up? I imagined
myself as a 99year-old man laying in a
bed and a young person comes to me and
says, "What's the key to a great life?
What are the three lessons that you want
to pass on?" What came to me is be
brave, have fun, make a dent in the
universe. And those three things, I
wrote them down and I said, "You know
what? That's going to be my compass. I'm
going to make up three values and I'm
going to try as hard as I can to live to
those three values. As soon as I made up
those three values, a lot of decisions
became easy. No one ever comes and taps
you on the shoulder and says, "These are
the three values that will serve as a
compass in your life." You have to be
the one to make them up. Imagine
yourself as a 99year-old laying in a bed
passing on wisdom to a teenager. What
would be your three key pieces of advice
that you would love to give to them?
Right? Write those three pieces of
advice down. Those are the your three
core values. and live according to those
values for as long as it serves you.
This next harsh truth came to me from my
very first sales manager, George. He
said, "Dan, the only truth is the
results." Damn, that hit me like a ton
of bricks at the time. I thought I knew
what I was talking about, but my results
weren't showing it. I thought I was good
at building rapport. I thought I was
really good at talking to people. I
thought I was good at asking for the
business, but my sales results were in
the bottom third of the team. Now, there
was another guy on the team called Nick,
and he was at the top of the results,
and I just didn't like the way he was
doing things. I thought that he was
pissing people off. I thought he was
asking questions that were too harsh.
And George said, "Dan, the only truth is
the results. Nick is at the top of the
ladder. You're at the bottom of the
ladder." Right? If your results don't
show it, you don't yet know it. So, you
need to go out there and take Nick to
lunch and ask, "What does he know that
you don't know?" Having great theories
about life is one thing, but if your
life doesn't reflect that those theories
work, you need to question those
theories. If you look at someone who has
the life that you want and the results
that you want, but they think a little
bit different to you, you should assume
that their way of thinking is actually
working. The only truth is the result.
See, in theory, you should be able to
get academic success. You should be able
to get a PhD and suddenly your life
works out really well. But I can show
you lots of people with a PhD who are
totally broke. In theory, that person
who's a little bit scrappy, that person
who just goes and knocks on doors, that
person who's cheeky and playful and goes
talks to strangers, in theory, that
person should be pissing people off. But
in reality, they often are the person
who succeeds. So you can have these
luxury beliefs. You can believe that the
world is a certain way. But I tell you
what, the only truth is the result. If
your life doesn't reflect excellence,
you don't have excellent beliefs. You
have to question your beliefs based on
the idea that the only truth is the
result. Let's do another harsh truth
about money. Money is nothing but a
tool. It's completely made up. It's a
human invention. It's a story that we
tell ourselves. That paper isn't real.
It's a shared agreement. Even something
like gold, it's a shiny rock that we've
all agreed is valuable. Money isn't
real. Money is a way of keeping score.
Now, if you were passionate about sport,
it's interesting to keep score because
that makes the game interesting. But
that's not the game. The game is what
happens on the field and the scoreboard
reflects the way that you're playing.
Now, here's the craziest things about
money. We constantly make up new money.
Banks literally issue debt out of thin
air. The governments, they print money
when they need to. Pursuing money for
its own ends is a fool's errand. I can
tell you from having friends who have
sold their companies for hundreds of
millions of dollars, you can have
hundreds of millions of dollars and
still be miserable. The idea that money
is going to make you happy is absolutely
crazy. It's like saying having lots and
lots of ingredients in your cupboard
will make you happy. It's the joy of
cooking that makes you happy. Now, with
that said, life gets totally easier with
money. Let me be really, really clear.
Your time is precious. And when you've
got money, you can free up your time to
do more of the things that you want. You
can have a cleaner who comes in and
cleans the house. Instead of driving
yourself, you can jump in the back of an
Uber and make a few important phone
calls. If you get a great business idea
and you've got money and you can take
two weeks off to explore that,
fantastic. The beauty of having some
money is really the ability to control
your time in a new way. A lot of people
don't understand the value of actually
having money. They think money is just
for spending. There is a value that
comes from having money. There is a
value that comes from having three
months worth of living expenses in a
savings account. There's a value that
comes from having money that is separate
to what you're doing with your business
or career. The value of that is the
freedom that it gives your mind to think
bigger. What you're buying with money is
mental freedom, time freedom, and
creative freedom. So, you need to start
accumulating some money so that you get
that level of freedom. It's the
enjoyment of running a business, growing
a career, building a network, traveling
through life with the right people.
Those are the things that are actually
real. Do not let people lure you away
from the real stuff with the fake stuff.
When you discover that your time is
real, your experience is real, and money
is fake, then the whole game shifts. If
you're trading your time and your
passion and your creative energy in
exchange for this fake madeup stuff,
then you're losing the game. The next
one is the truth about failure and
success. All failure and all success
give you nothing more than stories and
data. And once they've happened, it's
how you tell the story and how you
interpret the data. I've had massive
failures, but I've remained positive
because I've said, "Well, you know what?
I've got new data and I've got new
stories to tell." I've had huge
successes. I've said, "hm, that's
interesting. I've got some new stories
and I've got some new data to share."
When you start seeing success and
failure as the same thing, that it's
just stories and data, you realize that
everything's just an experience. And you
get to be the storyteller about how that
experience impacted you. You get to be
the one who sees that all experiences
are part of your mountain of value. your
high points, your low points, your
triumphs and your disasters. They are
all stories and they're all data. It's
all part of the ingredients for what you
do next. I have seen people who have
failed dramatically and then they've
gone on to succeed wildly because they
took the story and they took the data.
I've seen people succeed massively and
then they've been miserable because of
the story that they took from that. Now,
you may be slow to learn this, but you
will come to know that you will learn
more from your failures than your
successes. Me personally, I had a boom,
then a bust, then a boom, then a bust,
then a boom, then a bust. I had 15 years
of becoming a millionaire and losing it,
and becoming a millionaire and losing
it, and becoming a millionaire and
losing it. And actually, that's why I
succeeded really big after that because
all of those stories and all of that
data informed really good decisions
after those facts. I really learned
about how the world worked. I never lost
trust in the fact that I would
eventually succeed. There must be
something really valuable that I need to
learn here that will really help me make
it big later on down the track. I
haven't actually learned that much from
wild success. Wild success is a really
poor teacher. Failure, a good slap
around the chops. Unbelievable lessons.
Here's the harsh truth. Work life
balance is mostly an illusion. There is
a season to work hard at the exclusion
of other things. There is a season to
prioritize your health and wellness at
the expense of your career. There is a
season where you should go all in on
your friendships and a season where
money really, really matters. And you
need to pick what is the main focus that
is going to dominate a lot of your time.
Now, here's the other thing that I would
say to someone in their 20s. I'd say
this to myself at my 20s. You don't have
that many things to balance just yet.
So, work life balance should mostly be
about work and a few key friendships and
a few key relationships. So, here's the
harsh truth. By the time you get into
your 30s and 40s, you have to balance a
lot. You're probably going to be taking
care of kids. You're probably going to
be taking care of parents. You're
probably going to be a responsible
provider. and a lot will fall on your
shoulders. You need to build up to that.
You need to be ready for that in your
20s. If you can lay strong foundations
around your work, your career, your
money, around your health, your
wellness, and especially around key
relationships, you are going to set
yourself up for a very easy game in your
30s and your 40s. If you distract
yourself by trying to have this perfect
work life balance and you don't lay
strong foundations, life gets pretty
hard later on. Now, the other thing I
would say is life is long. You don't
need to go to that five-star hotel in
Maitius. There will be plenty of time to
do that in your 40s or your 50s or your
60s or even your 70s. You don't have to
cram everything into your 20s, but you
do need to lay some strong foundations
that set you up for your 30s and 40s.
Another harsh truth, you're not taking
enough risks. You're not putting
yourself into risky situations that
could really pay off. See, we don't get
taught how to evaluate risk in high
school. We get taught that starting a
business would be risky and having a
career is safe. But at the moment, we
live in a time of asymmetric risk, where
starting a business could cost you a few
thousand that make you millions. Having
a career could give you a few thousand a
month, but cost you your ability to
start a business. In your 20s, you
typically don't have little kids that
you have to provide for. You could take
a risk. You could end up sleeping on a
friend's couch, and it wouldn't be the
end of the world. What does taking a
risk really look like? It looks like
talking to that person that you're
romantically attracted to and asking
them out on a date. It looks like
starting that business and seeing how it
works out. It looks like jumping on that
plane and attending that conference even
though it kind of puts you out of your
comfort zone. Talking to that investor
and seeing if they're willing to put
some investment behind your big idea.
Going along to a networking event where
people are older than you and wealthier
than you and more experienced than you
and you feel totally out of your depth.
But that's the place that you're going
to get the mentor or the breakthrough.
Your risk profile changes as you age. My
decisions now, they impact my whole
family. They impact my kids. They impact
my parents. They impact my siblings.
They impact my friendship groups. If I'm
too reckless right now, it's not just me
that's going to end up sleeping on the
couch. It's going to be my whole family
who have to find a place to stay.
Recently, I did something stupid. I
jumped on a skateboard. I fell off and I
broke my wrist. There was no upside for
doing this and a huge downside for
getting it wrong. And as a result, I've
put pressure on my wife where I'm not
able to help out around the house in the
same way that I was while I'm healing.
It was a dumb, silly mistake. Now,
that's the type of thing in my teens and
my 20s that didn't impact anyone else's
life. A broken arm in my 40s affects my
whole household. Also, in your 40s, if
you do something stupid with your
reputation, it's very, very hard to get
that back. No one really cares what you
do in your 20s. You can do all sorts of
dumb stuff. You can fall flat on your
face a dozen times. And people say,
"Well, it's great that you're trying
things. It's great that you're learning.
Once you get into your 40s, if you fall
flat on your face a dozen times, they
say, "Well, this person's probably not
going to achieve very much." So harness
your 20s as a time where you can take
more risks. Bones are going to heal.
Businesses are going to bounce back.
Your career is not going to be damaged
by a silly decision. Right? Enjoy your
20s. Take some risks.
>> Oh, this one makes me emotional.
>> The final lesson is a big picture
lesson. What do I think life is about?
What do I think success is about? Life
and success is about finding really
great people and traveling through life
together. Isn't it an incredibly weird
thing? We are on a rock hurdling through
space orbiting a massive ball of fire.
We're here for a split second of time.
We get to travel through life. We get to
travel through space with a small group
of people who matter. There will come a
day where you will get a phone call that
one of those people has passed. There
will also come a day where some of the
things that you took for granted go
away. You just can't run as fast as you
once could run. You can't get through
that hit training class the way you used
to be able to get through it. You can't
lift that weight that you thought you
could lift. You turn up at a party and
you suddenly feel like, "Hey, I'm the
oldest person at this party. I feel out
of it." Life has a funny, unfair little
way of just sneaking up on you. One day,
you look at your parents and suddenly
they do actually look old.
One by one, your grandparents go, "The
thing that I'm most proud of is
traveling through life with some great
people. My co-founder I met at 14 and
we're still running businesses today.
I've got people on my team that I've
known since I was 10 years old. I've
gotten to a point now where I've got
friends in my life who have been there
for 30 years plus. Few people talk about
these achievements. On Instagram and
YouTube, you'll often hear about cars
and apartments and houses and travel.
You won't hear about the achievement of
comforting a friend when their parent
goes through a stroke. It's rare to hear
someone talk about what it feels like to
comfort a friend through a divorce. And
that stuff's going to happen. Checking
into a big fancy hotel, that's cool.
checking out, you forget it pretty
quickly. When you look back on 20 or 30
years being there in a hospital with
someone, that feels like a real
achievement. What I'd say to young Dan
is that you're excited about these huge
achievements like multi-million revenue,
being told that your company is worth a
lot of money, being able to jump on a
plane and go to an incredible holiday.
What you probably don't realize when
you're when you're 20 is that the big
achievements will be hanging out with
people during ups and downs. Being there
when a parent or a loved one has to go
into hospital, speaking at your
grandparents funeral, and even if you
achieve all the big stuff that goes on
Instagram, some of your biggest regrets
will be not jumping on the plane and
being at your friend's wedding. It'll be
not being there when your grandparent
went into a nursing home. The stuff that
we think of as peak experience is
actually pretty meaningless. And the
stuff that really does offer peak
experience doesn't make Instagram. But
if I was to sum up this lesson, it would
be to spend a little bit of time on a
rock around the sun with a small group
of people that truly matter. Don't
overlook that.