What I Wish I Knew Before Turning 30!

Ever wondered what advice you'd give your younger self if you had the chance? Join us as we embark on a reflective journey, sharing personal anecdotes and timeless wisdom that remain relevant throughout life's ever-changing landscape. From the art of channeling energy into things we can control to navigating the complexities of human connection, this episode promises to transform your perspective. We’ll delve into the power of mentorship and explore why focusing on "who" rather than "how" can accelerate your path to success. Hear firsthand experiences revealing how consistent hard work can often outshine innate talent, and why embracing kindness in our interactions remains an invaluable asset.

As we journey through the seasons of life, the realization dawns that relationships, not material achievements, hold the true essence of fulfillment. This episode highlights the insightful reflections from youth to middle age, emphasizing the importance of nurturing bonds with those who resonate with our values and interests. Discover how fostering meaningful connections becomes the guiding "North Star" in life’s journey. No matter where you stand today, this heartfelt discussion encourages you to realign your priorities, focusing on the people who bring purpose and depth to your experiences. Join us in embracing the enduring value of human connection and the wisdom it offers at every age.

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Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

Have you ever wondered to yourself what you would say to the younger version of you? Would you talk to the younger version and give them better wisdom? Well, I think about this often. I'm 49 years old right now and I think to myself what would I tell 20-year-old me? Or in my teens? What wisdom would I give myself, now that I've learned a few lessons, to help that younger version get ready for the future? Maybe you do the same. Maybe you're a young man watching this video, or a young woman watching. Maybe you're middle-aged like me, or even older. The point is, if it's better wisdom for us back then, it's good wisdom for us now, and so, even though we're going to talk today about some of the things that I would have told the younger version of me, what we're talking about is the fact that the wisdom that would have helped back then is still good for us today. So why don't you follow along as we get into a few thoughts that I've been milling over recently about what middle-aged me would have told younger me in order to get ready for the future?

Speaker 0: 0:58

The first thought is this don't waste energy on the things that don't really matter. Boy, if I had to learn this one the hard way. I have allowed myself to get caught up in circumstances and situations that many times are none of my business. Many times are situations that I have no influence or control over, but I've allowed the situation to get into my thoughts and my emotions and then you start to churn on the inside and you start to worry and think and it breeds anxiety and you spend all this emotional energy and focus on things that really you don't have any power to change and perhaps you're not meant to have power to change. I've done that one so many times and if I had the chance to talk to 20-year-old Andrew, I'd say to him be ready for situations that are none of your business, that you don't need to get involved in, and just stay focused on your own pathway. I would tell myself not to waste so much energy on those things if I had the chance to do it over again.

Speaker 0: 1:56

The second thing that I would tell the younger me from my vantage point that I have now in middle age is, I would say recognize that who is faster than how you know? When you're young, you're so desperate to prove yourself to the world and as young men particularly, we really desperately want to do that. Sometimes it's because we've got the need to try and find approval in the eyes of other people. Sometimes it's just because we're hungry and we're motivated to get things right and to achieve and to show the world that we've got what it takes. But in doing so we often default towards a strategy that's built around how, how can I learn this, how can I solve this, how can I fix this? And whilst that question is never wrong, now from middle age I'm looking back and realising that perhaps it's the slower of two questions that I could have asked and should have asked. I've learned now in middle age that probably a better question would have been who has had this problem before, who has had to learn this before? And then go looking for those mentors and guides and voices in my life that could have helped shorten my pathway. Because the story for me, as I'm sure it is for some of you, whether you're a guy, you're a girl, whether you're young now you're middle-aged or you're older, we probably all share the same story that we spent quite a lot of time and energy on the how, when. Perhaps if we focused on the who, we could have got to our destination a whole lot sooner and maybe even learned more on the way through. I would have told my younger self to be ready for recognising that one.

Speaker 0: 3:35

This third one is a really big one because this plagued me as a young man and maybe I don't know for sure, but maybe cut some of my sporting ambitions short that I had as a young man. And it's this lesson here Hard work beats talent. From middle age I would look back now and say to the younger Andrew, the younger me be ready for the fact that hard, consistent, diligent work on the fundamentals and the basics beats talent every day of the week. You see, I grew up in a home and an environment where I didn't get told that message, and so I had to try and guess at the world around about me and I had to try and lean on this idea that hopefully, if I'm talented enough, I will be able to achieve enough. What I learned in my early to mid-20s and into my late 20s perhaps a little too late on some of my goals, I learned that the other young men around about me who were making it they were making it not because they were more talented than I was. They were making it because they were doing hard work because they were more talented than I was. They were making it because they were doing hard work behind the scenes that I didn't even know about for years, and so I looked back at that one with regret in later years, realising a little bit too late for my sporting goals that hard work beats talent a lot of the time. I've been able to apply that to some other areas of my life. But if I could go back, or if I could send a message from today to back, then I'd tell the younger me don't worry so much about talent, get focused on hard work and diligence and consistency, and that will win out in the end.

Speaker 0: 5:08

The fourth thing that I would send a message back to my 20-year-old self about is this idea that kindness is rare and a debt worth repaying. Kindness is rare and a debt worth repaying. Most of us by now have figured out that the world's a pretty rough and horrible place at times and sadly we don't see too many kind people often enough. Whether we're talking about the schoolyard or the work office or the job site or the road that you commute on, we see anger and hatred and competitiveness and people who are willing to push anybody out the way to get ahead and we don't see kindness too much. When we do finally experience kindness, it comes as such a huge contrast to the normal existence that we have that it really stands out, and I would like to urge my younger self to say be ready for those who show you some kindness and put their name on the ledger of debts that you're happy to carry forward and to repay at every opportunity you get. The truth is, life is pretty short and unfortunately we don't encounter enough people that show kindness to us. So when we do, we want to make sure that we pay attention, we take notice and we keep them on our list of people that we are happy to repay that debt of kindness to all our days.

Speaker 0: 6:29

One more thing that I'd probably tell my younger self, my 20 something, or my teenage self. From my vantage point as a middle aged man, I would tell myself that people are the purpose. There's a lot of things that we try to do in our journey of life. We try to achieve, and that's good. We try to learn, and that's good. We try to grow that's good. We try to make money, we try to achieve our goals they're all good things, but really, when it comes down to it, as you get older, you start to discover that people are the purpose and that if you don't invest in relationships, people you love, people you care about, people that you resonate with and you're aligned with, similar values, similar interests, similar things you care about, if you don't put your focus on those things, you can spend a lot of time and a lot of energy, a lot of wasted energy, pursuing things that, in the end, as you get to middle age and into older age, don't really matter that much anymore.

Speaker 0: 7:25

I would tell myself as a young man to be ready for the fact that people are the purpose, and then I could have enjoyed that a little more through my twenties and thirties. I've learned that lesson now and I'm taking it forward with me, and, as I said at the start of this video, if these thoughts stack up to better wisdom back then, they're probably still good wisdom for now, and so for me, I'm trying to take them forward. Hopefully you can do the same. Whether your start point is 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s or older, whether you're a man or a woman, whether your start point is 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s or older, whether you're a man or a woman, you could take some of these ideas, evaluate your own life and see what you can deploy in your situation to make sure that you're keeping yourself pointed at the North Star you actually want to point at.