30 Lessons from 30 Years on Planet Earth

I turn 30 today (woo-hoo! 🎉).

As one decade waves goodbye and another says hello, I’ve spent some time to reflect on what I’ve learned from the first 30 years of life, and what I want to bring with me into the next 30.

Here is the list:

1. Pursue less but better. Less distractions, less stuff, fewer projects – better focus, better quality, better balance.

2. Give things away. The less I own, the more free I feel.

3. Energy management trumps time management.

4. Action creates information. Have a bias to do something rather than overthink it (except for irreversible decisions, which are rare).

5. Say yes to everything when I’m opportunity poor. Say no to most things when I’m opportunity overloaded.

6. Everything compounds – health, relationships, wealth, skills, knowledge, wisdom and so on. Get the most important flywheels going, and let compounding work its magic.

7. Play long term games with long term people.

8. Choose my own desires carefully, and audit them frequently. Don’t get swayed by mimesis.

9. Create an everyday life I don’t want to take frequent vacations from.

10. Invite serendipity to strike.

11. Shape my environment with intention. Don’t own a TV to make sure I don’t waste my life watching it. Don’t buy ice cream to make sure I don’t eat it. And so on.

12. Write more.

13. Invest in myself, in index funds, and in speculative things that will either go 10x or go to zero. In that order.

14. Define enough, and stick to that definition for as long as I can.

15. Curate my media diet. Information is for my mind what food is for my body, so don’t consume junk.

16. Meet interesting people from the internet in real life.

17. Remember the most interesting takeaway from Pareto’s Law: most things don’t matter, so don’t fret over them.

18. Invest in my friends’ startups. If they win big, we’ll win together. If it goes to zero, they’ll be grateful I believed in them.

19. Create memorable, photo album worthy experiences often.

20. Take a think week by myself every six months.

21. Track stuff. It motivates me more than I like to admit.

22. Seek (or create) opportunities with asymmetric upside.

23. Invite people for dinner.

24. Remember that everything around me was created by someone who wanted it to exist. The world is malleable, so change it for the better.

25. Prepare for the worst, and hope that I’m wasting my time and money doing so.

26. Be aware of incentives – both my own and others’.

27. Assume good intent.

28. Scarcity is a lie. Embrace a mindset of abundance.

29. Learn from the past, act for the future.

30. Be here now.

Looking forwards to the next 30 laps around the sun!