Random Life Lessons in No Particular Order
Level 1 - NGMI
Welcome Avatar! Since we have a lot of technical and more financial type posts coming up thought it would make sense to revert to some “human” based stuff. Surprisingly this blog is written by humans, just ones with zero social skills and no ability to read between the lines. Everything is black and white!
That said hit an age where random phone calls are no longer “hey bro you got a job for me, $100K a year is nothing to you bro” to “So and So is dead”. Usually these types of calls seem to roll in after work hours in the area they live in.
On that note it’s a good time to list out some broad views we have
Mental Health Aspect
No One Is Paying Attention: The joke in crypto is that “it’s time to start paying attention” in every YouTube meme video. That said, in the real world *no one is paying attention to you*. When you’re younger, you’re trying to make a bunch of friends like those horrific sitcoms. You are trying to win “approval” from your boss in your W-2. You are trying to get clients to “like you”. Eventually you realize that no one was even paying attention to you in the first place. This usually happens when you make major presentations on stage. Recall yourself in the audience. You were probably on your phone or laptop playing video games
In Short, it isn’t enough to stop caring what people think, recognize they never even spend a second worrying about you in the first place. This should allow you to mentally take more risk. No one is going to care if you fail anyway. They will forget in 24 hours. Similar to when an employee gets let go and people forget he/she existed in 3-6 months. Everyone is replaceable
Everyone Has a Vice: If you don’t have a vice it is likely because you’re scared of risk which is ironically a vice as well. We’d define a vice as a personality trait that prevents you from reaching max potential. For most that’s alcohol, drugs, bad food, entertainment etc. On this side of the web most of our readers are likely *risk averse* when it comes to betting on themselves. After all if you got onto Wall St. Tech sales or Software/Tech you are probably smart enough to figure out at least one alternative income source. On our own side? Vice is pretty clear in not being good at “outreach” or “constant socialization” since too focused on learning new things and getting hyper fixated easily.
In short, vices outside of alcohol/drugs get a bad rap. No one is perfect and you should just figure out what industry works best for you where your “vice” doesn’t make a big difference. If you prefer working on computers all day best not go into sales. If you enjoy being around people all the time, probably best to avoid becoming a writer. So on and so forth.
Never Number One: If you go on TikTok everyone is better than you in every single way. The reality is that you’ll unlikely ever be #1 in any game. The games are Athleticism, Looks, Money and Free Time. There is always someone doing better than you and it doesn’t impact you at all. In fact, most people “enjoy it” when you are doing worse than them. Therefore if you want to make friends emphasize that you are worse than them in XYZ (whatever you are doing).
In short, no need to worry about status games. If you end up grinding 40-80 hours a week for a long period of time you’ll end up becoming as close as possible to your max outcome anyway. Every single day there is a “new #1” in every single aspect of life.
Focus on One Priority: Multi-tasking is a major scam. Your priorities will change over time. When you’re young and broke for the majority focusing on money makes a ton of sense. When your older and rich, you will realize that there isn’t much left to do so the goal is to find stuff enjoyable and prioritize non-financial needs in your life. Recall your summer vacations, they got boring after a while unless you grew up ultra rich and always had something to do. Just imagine that but for 50 years. No good.
In short, throw away the idea of multi-tasking. This forces your mind to focus on one task and one task only. It also removes background stress since you know you’re tackling the most important problem
Look About 3-5 Years Ahead: If you’re trying to make plans 3-5 years is a good time frame. Beyond that life gets in the way. The only time you want to look 10+ years ahead is to see how your priorities will likely change. Find successful people and just get a list of their #1 regret or maybe top 2 and try to avoid it. Regret is something many won’t “admit to” so rephrase it as “what they would do differently”.
In short, planning more than 3-5 years isn’t possible in your personal life unless you’re already “done” so to speak. In that case you can set up trusts and asset transition plans. For the majority, try to look 3-5 years ahead and figure out where the best ROI is.
Physical Health
Energy Levels: Pretty simple age 15-30 you should have insane energy that never stops. This is a rough range. You don’t need to warm up to exercise. You don’t feel stiff. You can drink and lift the next day. That said after around that time frame things *do* change. We’ve seen a lot of crazy takes on Twitter usually from mid level people. If you’re extremely unathletic and out of shape there is a big cliff for you at 30. On the other end of the bell curve if you were extremely athletic and in-tune with your body (IYKYK, if you don’t you don’t), then you will see the declines in explosive performance instantly. When you jump there is no “float”, when you sprint there is no “whip” on the foot coming back and when you move lateral you don’t feel the “rubber band flick” left to right or right to left.
In short, add this up and it means Burn ALL the energy you can at age 15-30 doing two things: making money and staying in shape. If pro-athletes notice the change it means that mid-level joe just can’t even notice it because going from 27 seconds on a 200M to 28 seconds doesn’t mean much. Take a second off the world record and see what that looks like (won’t even be in the competition to start with).
Food Isn’t Fuel: This is where most guys need to start copying women. Women typically try to exercise less and eat healthy to try to create a “toned look”. Men try to eat like garbage since “calories are calories” and make it up with training. Of course. Both are wrong. This is equivalent to running heavy machinery with low quality oil.
In short, do serious evaluation of your diet. Over time it will change (just as your taste buds do). No we don’t have a “source for this” just looking at general patterns. If you want an example ask why older people drink a lot of soup. Answer: sodium = higher hydration intake = easier to eat + stay hydrated.
Morning or Night Person: This is also actually a “thing”. Generally speaking younger people have more energy at night and older people tend to be more energetic in the morning.
Likely due to evolution as nighttime is when young strong predators go out to hunt. Either way, figure out when your best performance is for each item and don’t try to “change” the way your body works. You should adapt to how your body naturally functions. Not try to force society ideals onto yourself
In short, monitor your performance each year. Within a couple of years you’ll notice when you’re most creative, most awake, most energetic etc. Move your schedule to line up with these modes of work and don’t try to change the way you work
Tendons, Flexibility and Elasticity: Generally, men obsess over being strong and muscular. This just results in "ego lifting” or massive injuries later in life. Of the items listed here the one that matters the most is the first one: Tendons. There is no way you’re going to have stronger tendons over time and they are MAX PAIN to heal. They will take months or even years to get back to normal
In short, have a plan to de-load the muscle mass later. 99% won’t listen of course and joint pain will be chronic
Stress #1 Killer: Overweight? Too thin? Smoke? Drink? Eh… stress is probably #1. Once again don’t have “sauces” for this. Just look around the info is there. Everyone knows a person or two who lives long despite ailments (drinking/smoking overweigh etc.). The key thing that ties it: all of them have low stress.
In short, focus on all the things listed here. Just don’t stress about it. There is a reason those guys and girls who count every single thing like it is “life changing” don’t look good. Stress.
Social Stuff
Assume Incompetence: This sounds terrible. Just think it through. Instead of getting mad when people make mistakes, just assume they tried their best. If you are a high performer, you can’t expect everyone to be a high performer (probabilities). Better to assume it was an honest mistake and go from there.
General Characters: You’ll always have some run-in with people. 5 years or 10 years of knowing someone guarantee there is some conflict. Just ask if it was a real “personality flaw” or if it was a lot of miscommunication and a mistake. If it’s the second, not worth ruining the friendship. If it’s the first one and consistent time to bolt
Good First Impressions: Avoid people with good first impressions. If they are likable on day one it means they have designed their life to be immediately likable. Run don’t walk to the exit. You will make this mistake at least 2-3 times in your life. Sales works.
Assume Terrible Days For Everyone Else: In current times everyone is going through significant background stress. Just assume your waiter/friend/barber etc is struggling to make it (paycheck to paycheck). If you look at life like this you’ll realize it is better to either go out with a purpose of tipping well and making their day or not going out at all. Don’t ruin their day
Best to Avoid Showing Your Hand: The key to meeting new people is to do a filter without the filter. If you’re an expert in say golf, you should ask people casually about golf. They will rush to tell you their “opinions”. Since you’re an expert then follow up and ask if they are an expert in golf. Congrats you now know if you have a new contact or not. If someone says factually incorrect stuff about something they “know well”. It’s time to leave. Smile nod and agree. Don’t argue.
Experience Over Items: Don’t worry anon you’ll ignore this too. Might be a fancy car, might be a fancy watch, might be a fancy new tent. In the end, you won’t value it all that much. You’ll value your trips, your accomplishments and your life experiences 1,000,000x over. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you consumerism to create more experiences for themselves
Lifestyle Inflation and Goal Posts
Life costs a lot more than you think. The only way to really avoid lifestyle inflation is by never spending more than your raise/increase in income (post tax) until you are financially set. Unless you were born into a well off family (anything above $200K inheritance is well off), have not seen anyone succeed without this strategy. Hint: most who make it were already fine so they took a bunch of risk since there was no downside (ie. there was no risk)
Once you are covering all of your basic living expenses with 4% returns, you are an absolutely crazy person to ever do any work you don’t enjoy. At this point it is your job to focus on personal happiness. No point in being rich if you’re miserable. Should be clear!
Project expenses *forward*. This applies to when you’re 20 and when you’re 60. Realistically you will spend more money from age 20-50. After age 60 you will spend less. Research this and make your own calculated decisions. Unless you want to try to hit the clubs and pop bottles at age 80.
Mini Rant Complete
Back to the program Wednesday. For one reason or another we’ve seen a pretty big spike in: 1) background stress - people driving crazy yelling at hospitality workers, 2) obsessing over sports/celebrity gossip, 3) trying to “make it big early with no safety net” since TikTok has wired them to believe this is how it works, 4) insane takes on how performance of the body is better at 30s than 20s (lol!) and 5) constant comparisons that mean nothing.
On that note, you can decide to go down the path of the masses which will certainly argue against everything we just wrote here. They will have no success to back up their claims but will send you to numerous studies to prove it is all wrong.
Or you take the second path, to the tent.
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce. We’re an advisor for Synapse Protocol 2022-2024E.
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small tip for the anons is when you have a friend having a hard time or facing some difficulties, make sure to occasionally check in and give them some support. 1) makes you a good friend 2) they’ll remember when they do better later on if they’re good people
This was an A+ post.
I was about to type “I wish I had read this years ago”, but then I realised that some of these lessons are new to me.
Hence I’ll go glass-half-full and presume those apply just as aptly as the others.
I want to reiterate my own experience with a few of these lessons (and hope to convince others of their importance in doing so).
1/ Focus on One Priority - If anyone seriously believes they are multitasking efficiently (and not just rapidly task-switching at a massive detriment to productivity), I recommend testing it out for yourself. Compare the amount of work you get done with 1 day of pure focus vs 1 day of multitasking.
(you can also read books like “Deep Work” by Cal Newport and “Stolen Focus” by Johann Hari. But you don’t need to - test it for yourself).
2/ Food Isn’t Fuel - Did the whole IIFYM thing many years ago. While it “worked” for muscle gain (i.e. I was still able to gain muscle), I noticed significant increases in energy levels after swapping to a higher micronutrient-dense diet. Friends have all had similar experiences.
Aim for ~90%+ of calories from nutritious and minimally processed foods—minimum 80%.
3/ Tendons, Flexibility and Elasticity - Don’t. Neglect. Your. Tendons. Tennis and golfers’ elbow are NOT exclusive to playing tennis or golf.
Overly specific practical recommendation—avoid preacher curls (you can do them with a spot, but honestly, just skip it).
4/ Assume Incompetence + Terrible Days For Everyone Else - If it wasn’t clear from BTB, this benefits both you and the person in question.
For you, it provides psychological relief, helps you focus on what’s important, and leads to better outcomes (as your negative emotions are no longer projected through your tone + facial expressions).
For the person in question, you’re now nicer to them since you don’t think they are acting out of malice (it’s easier to forgive an idiot than a villain).