Advice from a 33-year old person

Okay I’m going to sound smarmy, so I hope you can be patient when I say that age doesn’t matter that much to me. At least not right now. I suspect that my feelings will change the older I get and the more my face sags or hair falls. But right now, as I sink into the comfortable cushion that is my early 30s, I feel alright about it. Turning 30 is a whole to do but the few years after are just not that dramatic.

I turned 33 the other day so I thought I’d share three things I learned in the past year. Hopefully, you will find these helpful in some way.

If you are the most accomplished person in the room, you are in the wrong room.

When I was younger my mentors gave me opportunities to socialize with their circle. I couldn’t do it. I felt like I didn’t have the right clothes, the right experience, the right everything, so I didn’t take them up on their invitations. I didn’t belong there because I was nobody - I had nothing to bring to the table. I didn’t like being the “stupid” person in the group.

I’ve learned over time that this was the wrong attitude to take. The best and fastest way to learn something is to spend time with people who already know it deep in their bones, as casually as they breathe air. The people we surround ourselves with have a huge impact on the trajectory of our lives. Think about the five people you spend the most time with socially. Are they more advanced than you in their career, relationships, experiences, and so on? If you’re ahead, then it’s likely that you’re not going to grow very much.

The past year has placed me in situations where I was the least accomplished in the room. Yes, it is intimidating, but I learn so much in the process. I feel inspired and challenged every time.

Self-care is self-fulfillment.

It doesn’t matter how well we treat ourselves if our life is at a dead end. Self-care isn’t about fancy candles, long baths, or checking out that cart - for me, it’s about working towards a worthy goal. I’m not talking about burning ourselves out for a job or side hustle ha; I’m talking about doing something that makes us feel fulfilled. Something that makes us truly happy and complete inside, not just on the surface.

This involves making a lot of hard choices and answering difficult questions. We can start with: “I’m not happy because xxx” and “I need to fix xxx to move forward.” And of course actually doing the back-breaking work on that. It’s always better to move forward than to keep on stopping.

You only need 1 HP to keep playing the game.

In role playing games, there is always an item or a piece of magic that can leave the player with 1 health point (HP) no matter how huge the damage received from a battle. I used to think this was kinda dumb - what can I do with 1 HP? One more hit and I’m finished. But I’ve since learned that in life and in business, we only need 1 HP to keep going. The situation might be the furthest from ideal and we might have lost almost everything. But we’re only really done when we’re dead. Or when we quit.