Transform Your 20s by Leveraging These Mini-Life Advantages
“Youth is the most beautiful thing in this world and what a pity that it has to be wasted on children.”
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
In your 20s, you’re a time and freedom billionaire.
And like money, time and freedom are fungible tokens you can trade for anything you want in life.
They are the entry tickets to building your dream business or career.
Without freedom, you have no choices to make.
Without time, you have no chance to succeed.
Without time and freedom, you have no life.
How you choose to invest your time and freedom billionaire status can produce assets or liabilities.
Good investments make time your friend.
Bad investments make time your enemy.
“Youth is the most beautiful thing in this world and what a pity that it has to be wasted on children,” says George Bernard Shaw.
You waste so much time on meaningless relationships, working in dead-end careers and settling for a life you didn’t want but society told you to have.
Don’t let your youth be wasted while you are young. Exploit your life advantages. Invest your time and freedom into creating the life you want for yourself, not escaping the one you currently have.
Life Advantage #1: Leverage your most important life advantage
“It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable”
In your 20s, you’re naturally blessed with good physical and mental health. But this can fade quickly if you don’t take care of yourself.
Living in Melbourne through one of the longest lockdowns in the world, I put on 6 kilograms or 13 pounds for my American friends.
Being slightly overweight made everything more difficult. My usual gym workouts felt harder. My sleep quality was impacted and even my breathing felt different.
I saw a noticeable difference in my facial structure and felt a drop in my confidence and self-esteem. I didn’t look too good which meant I didn’t feel good either.
How you feel is strongly linked to how you look. There is no getting around it. Since getting back to my normal weight I feel fantastic. My confidence is up and my work has improved.
Getting fit and healthy in your 20s will make your 30s and 40s a lot easier. Your health is the foundation of everything you want to do in life. Without health, you have nothing.
Life Advantage #2: If you find yourself in this situation, don’t stress. Make the most out of it.
If you’re 28 and single with no children, you’ve got a massive advantage.
When you’re single and in your 20s, you throw on a pair of jeans and look fabulous.
— Sheena Easton
You have fewer obligations and can take opportunities that people with kids can’t. You can work late. Travel frequently. And use your money to capitalize on opportunities. You have no one to answer to.
You can invest your time and money to take risks. While others have to think about servicing a mortgage or raising children, you’ve got time to start a business or build your career.
If the business doesn’t work the downside is limited. You might have to eat canned beans and ramen noodles for a period of time but no one else will go hungry.
I am not advocating you ditch the partner and kids for your career or business, but if you’re like me and find yourself single and childless, don’t feel bad.
Make the most out of it.
Life Advantage #3: “Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” — Isaac Asimov
Never let your schooling get in the way of your education.
While neuroplasticity can happen at any age, your twenty-something brain is the most malleable and flexible to absorb new information and knowledge.
If you think learning stops once you leave the four walls of your college, you’re dead wrong.
I know people who pride themselves on not reading a book since high school. That’s sad. That means they haven’t learned anything new in years.
With the pace of innovation and change, everyone will need to reskill every couple of years. Industries and sectors are being created and destroyed at a rapid rate.
Who knew podcasting or social media influencing would even be a viable career even 8 years ago?
As Alvin Toffler once said:
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”
I sacrifice going out, and time with friends and family to read books, listen to podcasts or take online courses. This sounds extreme. But investing in my self-education allows me to show up as a better person to those I love.
Knowledge compounds over time, so investing in your own education early will pay handsome dividends when you reach your 30s and 40s.
Life Advantage #4: Invest your time and freedom to build this.
Starting a business has never been easier.
Through the internet, you can create low-cost, low-inventory businesses that have economies of scale built into it.
Some examples include:
Content creation on platforms (Medium, YouTube, Only Fans, etc)
Consulting
Creating online courses
Digital products (e-books, etc).
These are low-risk business models with high potential upside and limited downside. Often the only thing you can lose is time and a bit of ego.
You create content once and cut it many times across different platforms.
You can leverage service arbitrage and win clients locally while outsourcing the work globally.
You can’t sell negative online courses or e-books. But you do have the potential to sell millions with no additional cost to you.
With digital businesses, there is no guarantee that you’ll ever make money, but there is also no limit to how much money you can make.
What does this mean for you?
Don’t let your twenties go by.
Shape your defining decade by exploiting your unfair life advantages by:
Maximizing your health
Leveraging your time to create a business or side hustle
Maximizing your knowledge and learning
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