Mini Motivation #94 - The Worst Advice You Can Ever Get
Over the years, I've been given lots of advice. Some were really good and I treasured them, and even used them to guide others with.
Some, though, are crap, and when I think back about them, they mostly came from a place of ego, rather than a place of humility. I'm sure you've gotten some in that category as well.
But one of the worst that I ever got - one that I made the unfortunate mistake of buying into as well - was this:
You're young. You got potential.
Now I would cringe every time I hear that, even if it was given to someone else. (Of course of late, I haven't received the first part of the advice, but hey, life goes on)
Firstly, once you buy into that, you'll start to procrastinate. After all, you'll think that you've got the time, and that took some urgency from me I admit, when I was starting out. The advice usually came from those elder ones, and I believed it stemed from the point of them wishing to be young again, rather than really being about my age. So the usual follow-up is,
"Man, if I got your age and I know what I know now, I would own the world."
Dude, it's never too late to own the world, and seriously, do you want to take responsibility of the whole world when you can even take responsibility for the present opportunities?
Secondly, everybody has got potential. Even a dead corpse has the potential to be fertiliser! The problem is when you're young and when you buy into that, ego comes in the way. You'll think you'll conquer the world because you have the time and the capability, but the truth is, it still doesn't come without hard work, smart work, network, team work, and heck of a lot more.
Frankly the more I look at those who started their entrepreneurship journey late in life and succeed, the more I realised that that advice just meant shit, really. Truth is age cannot stop you from doing things you that you want, but just that you have to do it differently from others. When you're young, you will have the energy and tech-savviness, but lacking in wisdom. When you're old, you will have soft skills, working experience, and network. The key is to play by your strength, not the strength of others.
What about you? What's the worst advice you've ever got?
Mini Motivation is my own daily strategy to inspire myself. Mostly 3-minute reads.
From Motivation, we gain Inspiration. From Inspiration, we achieve Momentum. And the rest, they say, is history.
Hope it helps nudge you a bit too in the right direction.
Oh it did? Let me know in the comments, and of course an upvote would be a nice motivation for me. :)
Stay awesome!
Hi there! Thanks for stopping by. I mostly blog about Steemit Success Strategies, business, marketing, entrepreneurship, psychology, community and random thoughts.
Talking about Steemit Success Strategies, if you want to 10x your results on this platform, perhaps some of these guides will be able to help you.
- How to generate at least 365 post ideas for your Steemit Life (and possibly never run out of ideas again!)
- The 4 Big Cs of Steemit Success
- 8 Content Strategies to Excite & Engage your Steemit Followers
- 29 Steemit Post Types to Attract More Followers & Boost Your Popularity (Part 1)
- 29 Steemit Post Types to Attract More Followers & Boost Your Popularity (Part 2)
- Copywriting Magic for Steemit: "How To" Post Titles
- Copywriting Magic for Steemit: "List Type" Post Titles
- Steemit Success Strategies #1 - The Law of Requisite Variety
- Steemit Success Strategies #2 - Batching + Parkinson's Law
- How to apply the 80/20 rule to your Steemit Life
- Steemit Experiment Report: 21 days, 21 minutes, 21 posts later, PLUS an 8-Step Guide on How to Write a Steemit Post every day under 30 minutes
- Case Study on Bid Botting - A Steemit Bootcamp follow-up module, a cheatsheet and why I probably won't use it
At least once a month, I run Steemit community events and training workshops with my buddies at #teammalaysia too. Some examples are:
- Steemit Bootcamp March 2018 - KICKSTART Your Steemit Success
- BoilerRoom 03.03.2018 | Let's Huddle, Hustle & Hack Out Awesome Steemit Contents!
I'm also grateful to be part of #steemitbloggers , SmartSteem and the sndbox.
Animated Banner Created By @zord189
Wait, why's Mav posting on Steemit nowadays?
Well, unlike other blogging and social media platform, Steemit is the only platform that allows me to earn cryptocurrency when I engage with it. Yup, one Steem is about USD5, and you, too, can earn Steem Dollars every time you:
- Create content (articles, blog posts, podcasts, videos, photos)
- Upvote (like) other people contents
- Comment on other people's posts
- Have discussions, share opinions etc!
Yup, basically it's the very same thing you're doing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc all along!
The only difference? For once you can earn a nice income on the side!
Sign up for a free Steemit account, and you can thank me by coming back and upvoting this article. And guess what, you will earn Steem too for doing that! #awesome
Good stuff Mav!
Too true @maverickfoo and the fact of the matter is, nothing in life is guaranteed - least of all "tomorrows" so, we should all be making hay while the sun shines.
In addition to this, I will also say that this "young generation" best not be given advice like that... most of them are far too lazy already...
Great piece as always. :)
The greatest illusion is that we have all the time in the world. Thanks for the support!
too true @maverickfoo! And it is my pleasure :)
Good one @maverickfoo!
For me, I don't think the advice itself was necessarily bad, but I was going against my own gut instinct, and the advice was the choice I made because truth be told I, or rather the ego wanted it too.
Though the step I took was a huge mistake, I know now that I learnt a very costly lesson on trusting my gut. Sadly it wasn't the last.
In my case I guess it is about learning to trust my instincts/gut. Some advice is good, and it will resonate even. In fact we are so smart we can even get advice from ppl who will say exactly what we want to hear. Lol.
However we each have our instinct and compass that will somehow tell us that does not feel right, and since it's not a visibly calibrated device we just need to learn to turn inwards a little more for the best advice....and drown out the noise of the ego. Lol.
You took the question in a direction I did not think of. Well done.
Learning to trust your inner voice may sometimes cost, but usually the voice is dependable. The more you listen to it, the more practice it gets and the better it advises. Did you know that there used to be a group training corporate directors how to listen to their inner voice.
When I meet someone, I instinctively feel I want nothing to do with them - and should I hang around and listen to them talk and decide I was wrong - I find out I am wrong, for they always turn out to be bad people. A few I instinctively liked have hurt me, but by far, the majority turned out to be good people.
Hey @arthur.grafo!
I did not know about the training of corporate directors to listen to their inner voice. I will look this up.
Listening to intuition and fine tuning that listening to an observation with wisdom and discernment is something I am quite passionate about.
I know that feeling about meeting ppl for the first time. I had some very painful experiences growing up. As a child, I was a lot more intuitive and a lot less inhibited. So when some ppl came over, for just no reason other than I couldn't be in the same room made me just walk out. My parents of course gave me a good tongue lashing for my rude behaviour. But a few years down the road, the very same person would reveal their true colours....and though a bit late, my parents would then say....you were right. Guess....that's kinda how it operated in my adult life too. Just takes a little time to hone in down a little more.
Thank you for stopping by to leave a comment. Appreciate it.
Cheers.
I actually had first hand experience, in that my father trusted the intuition of my step mother 100%
She never interfered in his business deals, but one night he wanted to host some bankers for supper. When they left, I had thought it had been a pleasant evening, but she asked my father not to do business with them. He did not question her, he just instantly agreed.
She was a lovely lady, all heart, and when my father died, she sort of switched off and months later she died. In a couple of days (22nd) it is her birthday, so I am glad I was offered this opportunity to speak of her and remember her with love.
Oh wow, thank you so much for sharing this very precious memory.
Such a loving relationship, and trust they had in each other.
Blessing of peace and love, with pranams.
I've always said, even if I was 71 years old and it took me another 10 years to my true passion, even if I lived for only another 3 years after that, at least those last 3 years would be the absolute heartfelt and fulfilling.
It's not how you start, it's about how you finish!
Gotta love that quote!
I came to thank you for upvoting me, read this article and decided I might as well toss in my 1c worth of wisdom.
My worst advice ever?
It is a difficult question to answer, but I'll choose this one:
Never trust anyone
Experience has shown me that 8 to 9 out of 10 people I trusted, have proved to have been worthy of my trust.
I've never seen the sense in not trusting. What a miserable life I would have condemned myself to, if I had taken the advice to heart. Luckily, even as a 12 year old, at that time (advice was from a shit uncle who cheated everyone and was proud of it), I thought to myself that I can never ensure nobody cheats or lies to me, so why live my life locked up within a castle?
In the end, I will make myself suffer more than those who betray my trust can, while those who turned out to be as I thought they are, will add so much beauty to my life - and the truth is, they are usually the ones who open doors to new opportunities.
Ah, the age old battle with trust. Personally, I've experienced good people like you too. Sure, I've been cheated a couple of times, but it certainly is not a big number, not enough to keep me from trusting the next person at least.
That's a good one indeed.
I let the 'You're young..." thing get to me once I was older. I had mini panic attacks often in my late 20's because I had little kids and I would think, "OMG, what have I done? Once they're grown, I'll be TOO OLD"
Now I am realizing that I'm just now discovering a whole new side to myself and at this point, I'm way more self assured because I know what I can do. There are still doubts, because of course getting a 'late' start is still a daunting prospect... but I can still do it.
Great post and thank you for the reminder. I needed to read this today!
@byn
I like to think as we grow older, we will be wise enough to pick our battles and your challenges. Such is the blessing of experience and wisdom. :)
I guess its a good thing that I'm old and wise now. :) It'll only get better (or at least wiser) from here on out, right?
To look for the easy way out
This post has been curated by TeamMalaysia Community :-
To support the growth of TeamMalaysia Follow our upvotes by using steemauto.com and follow trail of @myach
Vote TeamMalaysia witness bitrocker2020 using this link vote for witness
Love it now, do it now and own it now!
Because now is the only time there is!
Peace!