22 lessons I learned in 22 years of my life

Hey guys, today I got a new milestone achieved. I’m 22.
So as my gift to you I decided to write all of the things I learned so far. Enjoy.

1. Those who you spend time with matter.

To be honest, I don’t have a lot of friends, I’m not that type of person who has thousands of followers and don’t speak to them. Instead what I prefer to do is to choose quality friends or in my case quality environments.

I mean I try to look for the situations where I can find people who are likely to share similar values, beliefs and ideas. Obviously it is not an easy thing to do but certain events and conferences helps.

Also what I found is that hangout with those are better than you are is the key. A rule of thumb is always to check are you the smartest person in the group you surround yourself with? If the answer is yes, you either have to change your group or find somebody smarter than you, invite him/her in your group.

2. Say no to random requests.

This is a huge one.

Your ability to say NO is everything. People will always ask you to help to do something, to buy their product, to check their email, to answer their call, to respond to their request.

Basically everybody tries to steal your time and attention towards something they want but they don’t realize you have your own agenda, your own priorities, your own tasks to accomplish, your own family to take care of, your own life to live, your own dream to achieve.

Speaking about dream, I believe it is so much easier to get people’s attention if they are directionless. Usually if you don’t have your own dream, you’ll end up working for somebody else’s. Don’t be one of those, seriously.

That’s why I decided to say yes only to things I really care about and that are related to the direction I’m moving towards in my life.

But notice, that doesn’t mean I have to respond immediately.

3. Health is energy and vitality.

Usually I don’t focus too much on a health when talking to people but hey, your health is important.

One of the coolest distinctions I discovered about this topic is that your level of health is directly proportional to the level of the energy you have. Just think about it, when you have energy, you feel alive. And that’s what health means.

Check out the studies on pH balance in your body (it’s know as well as acid-alkaline balance). It will completely change what you put into your body.

4. We’re getting paid for the value we provide to the marketplace.

This one comes from one of my biggest mentors Jim Rohn.

He always keep repeating that the only way you can get paid more is you have to become more valuable. You have to learn everything you can on the topic you’re passionate about and just give more than anybody else does. That’s how you win.

5. You don’t need anybody’s permission or anybody’s approval to start what you want.

This one comes from Brendon Burchard, the book of whom is staying right in front of my eyes.

The reality is that starting something new is not hard physically but hard emotionally. In fact, most of the people are not afraid to fail, they’re just afraid to fail in front of the people they care about (family, friends, loved ones).

That’s why it is so challenging to do something novel, unique and different. But if you are an adult and achieved a certain level of maturity, you’ll understand that the noise of the crowd and their opinions about you is not that important.

You cannot please everybody, especially your parents who are the hardest to please. They always want the best for us but most of the time their expectations are not even close enough to the dream we have inside.

And that’s why I believe it is so fucking hard to do whatever it is you want, not your parents want, not your friends want, not your teacher or your dog wants, but what you want.

It is fucking hard and that’s why it has to be done.

6. Don’t keep the stuff you don’t need.

Minimalism is one of the main features of my character. Basically if I don’t use something, I either throw it out, sell, delete or eliminate out of my life.

Yeah, that may sound weird but that’s how I do. In this way I can get a lot more space for new things to come into my life.

Test it, at least with your clothe.

7. The most important skill in the digital world is an ability to minimize distractions and learn how to focus, concentrate on one thing at a time.

Right now we experience an endless stream of notifications from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, email, boss, child etc. And that’s why we start multitasking but our brain works a lot better when we focus on one thing at a time.

It is a skill that we have to develop, not an easy one.

8. Observing can teach you a lot.

Not that much people know me well enough but I love observing different situations. I love it just because it can teach you so much, it will blow your mind.

Unfortunately from time to time I look and hear negative stuff from my parents, my friends, and some random people on the street. And instead of reacting or interrupting that situation I just detach myself emotionally, observe and see what I can get from this. Because there are so many things you can learn when you become a curious person.

9. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

If you can get one thing from this entire post, just remember people can help you and will help you if you just ask.

Obviously not everybody is going to do that but 90% of the time they will. Because nothing tastes better than a feeling of giving and helping another person, nothing.

10. Everything happens for a reason.

I’ve had some many things happened in this short span of 22 years old and what I figured out that every event that occurs to you is not an accident.

If you’ve met somebody, if you’ve lost money, if you’ve been fired, if you’ve got that call or that offer, if you’ve got this challenge or gift from God, remember it was meant to be so.

However it may contradict with my belief that you have the power to change your destiny by taking totally different set of actions.

11. We don’t have confidence, love, passion, energy, influence. We generate it.

Yesterday I was ice-skating and what occurred to me is that I didn’t have much energy which is rare for me :)

However after a few seconds a phrase came up in my mind “You don’t have energy, you generate it”. And I was like “Yeah, makes total sense”.

This one phrase gave me the boost of energy 10 times bigger than red-bull does, and I mean it. So the thing is that whatever emotion you need to have at the moment, you can create it.

For instance, if you want to be confident right now, do what confident people do (change your posture, start breathing deeper, raise your head, and tell to yourself “I’m confident”).

The cool part is that you don’t need any reason whatsoever to feel confident or happy, or depressed, or exhausted, or grateful, or excited. You just have to change your physiology and your thoughts, that’s all that it takes.

12. Give thanks to everybody.

Those people who have spent some time with me know that I give thanks to everybody. I just don’t see why not to.

It is so odd but people don’t talk to each other at the groceries or any other public place anymore. I mean, if somebody gave you a concert ticket or served your table at the coffee shop, why not to appreciate that?

Appreciation is the only thing you can give to people if you don’t have anything, that’s what I believe.

13. Figure out exactly what it is you want and move backwards from that.

Knowing exactly what it is that you want is really hard. It may take quite a while to get there.

The thing is when you do know what you want, just go to the future, see how your ordinary day may look like, and move backwards from that.

To be honest, that’s not an easy thing as well. But I know you deserve it, and you got what it takes to get there, paying any price.

14. Always apply what you learn, otherwise it is useless.

I’ve read a ton of books but haven’t made a ton of action, which is not good.

Learning is very important and can help a lot but don’t waste all of your time just consuming information. Apply it, test it out, fail and do it again but do something.

The only tip I have here is when you do want to gain some knowledge, learn it from the best people who have already done what you want to do. It will speed up your process.

15. If you want to be good at something, do it every single day.

We’re getting rewarded in public for what we do privately. This is a distinction of those who succeed and those who don’t.

If you interview most of the millionaires (I haven’t but I watched a lot of those interviews), almost everybody will tell you that it takes time to become great. Whatever you want to do, do it every single day and eventually you’ll get there.

Want to become good at the camera, shoot videos every day. Want to become an awesome blogger, write posts every day. Want to become an amazing photographer, take a certain amount of pictures every day. Want to become a sophisticated programmer, code every day. The key is to do it daily.

16. Teach your kids not how to be good at school or college but rather how to find what they love and just help them to achieve that.

I don’t want to talk about our educational system much because it sucks right now. But what I want to address here is that don’t make the same mistake as all of the parents do.

Don’t force your children to be the best at school, it won’t help them anyhow. Instead direct them to find what they love and what they are good at, and focus on that. Help them to develop their talent, guide them, couch them.

Be that kind of a parent that your children will be proud of because you’re helping them to achieve their dream, instead of being selfish and force them to do what you want them to do. It doesn’t work that way.

Be curious about your children, give them all that it takes to make their dream a reality. If you can do that, you’ll be the best parent in the universe.

17. Choose what information you out into your brain. Don’t watch TV and the news.

Thanks God we live in the world where you don’t have to rely on one and only source of information. You can actually choose what to watch, read and listen to.

But still so many people have lost in this big black box called TV. They are paralyzed and probably became zombies of the outside world.

Did you know that you can travel safe and stay alive? I mean, if you look at the news, you’ll be terrified to travel, you’ll better choose to stay at home and eat potato chips on your couch.

It’s crazy. Stop watching that horseshit and start watching seminars, educational courses, movies that you want to watch without annoying ads or something. Read some blogs of the people you admire, download the books or audiobooks in your industry. Just change your behavior, don’t be a slave.

18. Patience, consistency, persistence is everything.

Those 3 elements are the blood, oxygen and water for your life.

Patience teaches you how to honor what you have and anticipate something better in exchange of temporary sacrifice of your time, energy, money and resources.

Consistency teaches you how to develop the right habits that can help you in the long-term and it gives you a realization that it’s only daily practice that can move you to victory.

Persistence teaches you how to keep on going no matter what and stay positive at the same time.

19. Learn how to be flexible in this life and adjust to any environment.

Flexibility is quite interesting for me because I believe that it’s better to know how to learn to do anything and be able to apply it when is needed rather than be just single-minded and never try new things in your life.

20. Spend less than you earn. Create multiple streams of income.

Finance is my passion, as well as the traveling.

As long as I remember myself, I always find a way to save some money in order to invest and multiply it in the long term.

Most of the people are the opposite, they spend everything and keep wondering why they are broke.

I also try to follow Warren Buffet's advice which is “If you don’t learn how to make money while you sleep, you’ll work for the rest of your life”.

It is a very huge topic to discuss so I probably will make another posts on this one alone.

21. Believe in yourself and believe in where you’re going.

This is the first rule of my life.

If you don’t believe in yourself, the game is over.
If you don’t believe in where you’re going, the game is over as well.
If you don’t believe in both, you’re dead.

Don’t take it lightly, it is big.

22. The pain of regret is the biggest one.

There are all sorts of pain but the pain of regret is gigantic.

Before you’re hesitating on whether to do something or not, just think about how you are going to feel 20 years from now if you won’t do this now.

How would you feel if you won’t start that new business?
How would you feel if you won’t travel the world?
How would you feel if you won’t fell in love with this person?
How would you feel if you won’t write that book?
How would you feel about all of that 20 years from now? How?