life strategies

You can find many articles and posts written on the topic What I wish I truly knew when I was young, but most of them are about the universal life truths that are true no matter the age, and which we frequently remember, but are at the same time somewhat too lazy to follow. Whether this is; travel as much as possible, save some money, enjoy the moment, you can learn something from anyone in life, take care of your health, make a good first impression, spend as much time as possible with the people you love, love is the most important thing in life, and so on.

All that advises are nice, important and true, but there are much more dirty secrets about life. I am talking about harder life discoveries and lessons that are those most primal experiences, sometimes making us stronger, while at other times unrelentingly killing our dreams and potentials, and leading us to disappointments in life. Let’s look at some of the most difficult discoveries about the world and life; those realizations that would’ve been truly useful if I had already known them in my early twenties.

• Being good means being good and nothing more.
• The role of biology is much stronger than we’d care to admit.
• Soft and naïve aren’t qualities that this world is looking for.
• Politics are a large component of life.
• Accept people for who they are, or find new ones.
• Always be honest with yourself.
• Environment and trends have an incredible influence on our life.
• Reflection and strategy before actions.
• Different doesn’t always mean better.
• It’s easy to stand out, it’s incredibly hard to truly succeed.

1. Being good means being good and nothing more

Be a good person and you’ll get good things in return. It’s true. But people often confuse and simplify this; to their own benefit, of course. And this later leads to disappointments. I am talking about the mentality that goes along the lines of: Be a good person and life will reward you with a good job, a lot of money, luck in love, and so on. Not true.

Be a good person and you’ll get good things in return; yes, in the same context of life. People will mostly act nicer towards to you (not all of them). You’ll feel better in your own skin. Your world will be calmer. You will also obtain some social capital. You will be rewarded with additional spiritual/karma points. But all this has minimal correlation to the amount of money you earn, luck in love and a good job.

Both bad and good people can have a lot of money. The amount of money is mostly connected to skills that are connected to money, if we dismiss lottery and inheritance. Luck in love depends more on our personal relationship skills and commitment to partnership, and beforehand the effort we put into searching for the most suitable partner (perfect fit), than on whether we are generally a good person (except if this is a value that’s important to our partner). Sometimes being good can even be counter-productive. For example, it has been psychologically proven that being only nice (niceness falls in the category of being good) isn’t the smartest male seduction strategy, while if women are nice, this can quickly give false signals to men.

It’s absolutely must that we are a good person in life – that we have integrity, are nice, compassionate, don’t harm others, help, connect, collaborate, and so on. However, what’s wrong is the expectation that life will reward us all by itself and that this is why we don’t have to make an effort in other areas of life.

2. The role of biology is much stronger than we’d care to admit

We are animals and we are spiritual beings. To deny one world or the other can be very painful. The fact that a part of us is animal means that we are partially acting from an entirely biological impulse written in our genes – one that is completely direct and clear: spread our genes as far as we can and with the best possible combination for our offspring. Nature (biology) knows two mechanisms for the purpose of reaching these two goals: the first one is lust and the second one love. The role of the former is quantity (everything that suits our genetic/psychological code) and the latter quality (cohabitation until producing offspring and raising it). It’s clear from this alone that we aren’t fundamentally monogamous beings, but that monogamy is definitely a sensible social innovation that can bring a lot of good into our lives; if we have realistic expectations and are prepared to keep investing into a relationship.

What’s even more important is that both mechanisms (lust, love) play an important role in finding true love, in the first place; before love, sexual attraction is needed in most cases and infatuation oftentimes as well, especially in the younger years.

The sexual force is, besides the wish for survival, one of the strongest forces of humanity; based on this force, each individual actually possesses a certain sexual capital. One part of our sexual capital is given, namely looks and the general quality of genes, while a large part of sexual capital is also obtained. The bigger the sexual capital, the larger the choice of potential partners, while our relationship can also have higher quality.

Sexual capital can be obtained in three different ways: the biological, sociological or psychological one. The first, biological one simply means being fit. The most visible way of being not-fit is being overweight. Not only does excessive body weight lower our sexual capital, it also brings many other inconveniences and potential complications. Thus being fit and taking care of your health is incredibly important, not only from the aspect of energy and physical performance, but also the (sexual) status in society. We can also put neatness, well-groomed appearance, care for oneself, motoric abilities and other things under the biological aspect of sexual capital.

We can also increase our sexual capital with a sociological and psychological approach. This includes everything from material status, social skills, individual’s values, diversity, self-confidence etc. All things listed increase either the individual’s social capital or their psychological one, and consequently also their sexual one. So even if we weren’t born to be models, we have quite a few options for increasing our sexual capital.

If we go one step further, to the level of biology and sociology, there are generally two ways for climbing the social ladder (and consequently increase our sexual capital too). The first one is based on dominance in the broadest possible sense, including intimidation, domination of other people, aggression and dictatorship. This strategy mostly works in a crisis or in battle times and survival situations; sadly, those situations make up the biggest part of the known history of humanity. Others follow in hopes that with an aggressive approach, resources will be guaranteed for them as well. It’s upon these foundations that the concept of an “alpha male” is built, as is the path to a bigger sexual capital based on physical/biological dominance (being fit, having muscles, good athletic abilities etc.).

Nowadays, in increasingly less violent times, this strategy is subsequently also less and less effective. Namely being an alpha male is always possible only in a certain context and in a certain situation. In another situation and another context, even an alpha male can become a beta male (e.g. an esteemed professor who’d find himself in prison). Since there are fewer and fewer life and death violent situations, there are also fewer and fewer contexts and opportunities for the success of the dominance strategy. The access to resources is also increasingly more frequently connected to creating value rather than taking things by force.

Thus another path to the top of the social ladder has come to exist – one not based on dominance but rather on the prestige of an individual. This one still encompasses several qualities of an “alpha male”, namely a high level of self-confidence, ambition and strength, but in a combination with compassion, care for others, empathy, niceness and an easy-going nature. Such a strategy is effective in significantly more social situations than dominance. If dominance is effective in battle situations and competitions, then the strategy of prestige is effective in most aspects of life, including society management. But this doesn’t mean that dominance is bad and that prestige is a good approach.

From the aspect of the social ladder and the probability of it working, the optimal strategy is a combination of building on prestige that shows care for a group, while using dominance only in situations when this is absolutely necessary. It’s written in our genes that such individuals have an advantage in the society, and with this, access to more resources, power and potential partners.

In short, I definitely don’t want to stamp all over the meaning of true love and nice ideals. But the fact remains that sexual capital stemming from biological and sociological dispositions is an important category besides the intellectual, spiritual and emotional capital. It leads to more choices when choosing potential partners, to a higher status in the society, and may consequently also lead to a more suitable partner.

The main lesson is that hoping for true love means giving power from one’s own hands. And that is never good. The bigger our sexual capital is, the bigger is the possibility of finding the right partner. This is why it’s right that we focus on our sexual capital and its development, not only for the purpose of finding a partnership, but also for developing our power, improving our social standing and potentially having a (positive) influence on the environment.

On the other hand you should definitely not glorify sexual capital or go too far in developing it; even it has its boundaries, especially when focusing on partnership. After all, people with low sexual capital find their partner as well. Why? Because another category exists, and that is the uniqueness of an individual.

Sexual capital plays an important role in first impressions, at the beginning, with the general social standing, but in the long run, in the context of searching for an ideal partner, sexual capital loses value and the uniqueness of an individual starts gaining value. At that time, infatuation also plays its role; we go from quantity to quality.

However we have to realize that it’s much easier to work on our uniqueness, as it is largely already given. Each and every one of us is unique and we only have to sharpen our traits. Meanwhile it requires a lot more effort to develop sexual capital, but the latter is so very important in youth and later. More possibilities, more freedom.

• Don’t forget to take care of your sexual capital (be fit, work on your self-confidence,…).
• Use prestige as a path to the top of the social ladder.
• Use dominance only in situations when it is absolutely necessary, meaning step up for yourself if needed.
• Don’t glorify sexual capital, you are also unique. Sharpen your personality traits.

3. Soft and naïve aren’t qualities that this world is looking for

Naivety is probably the most painfully marked quality of youth. Life is incredibly beautiful and full of adventures, but also very demanding and hard; the most difficult lessons are sadly most often hiding precisely in relationships with other people.

Naivety most often stems from the belief that 1) relationships aren’t exclusively due to exchanging benefits, while the second source of naivety is that 2) our benefit in a relationship is so big that people will always behave according to our expectations.

With most people, temptation, mostly originating from biological (survival, reproduction) forces, quickly beats the value added of any relationship. If we add to this equation that our value added changes (seems low to someone at a certain moment) and that grass is always greener on the other side, we simply come to a situation where husband did stupid things on a business trip he went on after a fight with his wife; or a family arguing over a division of assets.

This of course doesn’t excuse their actions, neither am I claiming that this happens in relationships every time, however it is very important to understand human nature – without naively believing in relationships, no matter their type. We can definitely have healthy, loving and good relationships in life, but we have to try incredibly hard for them and even then there’s no guarantee – neither on our side or the other. Extremely good or bad times are especially big tests of every relationship.

The lesson of this discovery is that we have to have realistic expectations for people and understand humanity’s temptations. We also have to be aware that not all that glitters is gold, and that people often show us things to be nicer than the truth actually is.

Sooner or later someone will rob us, lie to us, cheat on us, take advantage of us, take it out on us or do any other negative action. This is more a rule in relationships rather than an exception. Thus it’s incredibly important that we set realistic expectations for people as soon as possible in life, but especially develop our social skills to such an extent that we successfully manage relationships even when things don’t go as planned. And, of course, that we have a firm core in our life and don’t live in a bubble of naivety.

4. Politics are a large component of life

What happens in a situation when someone wishes to position themselves on the social/material ladder, but isn’t prepared to invest energy into ensuring the right real value added, a fair competition or maybe doesn’t even have the opportunity for it due an underprivileged situation?

This leads to politics (the negative connotation of the word), manipulation and exploitation, while in the more extreme cases, it can also end in violence or even wars for natural resources. Politics, manipulation and exploitation are a large part of our world, often already ingrained in the educational and financial system, healthcare, religious institutions and everywhere else. People wish to ensure that their positions are as monopolistic as possible at all levels.

It’s worth to note that the above-written words don’t only concern politicians but rather the human nature in general. Politics is just the most illustrative example of this part of human nature. Discrediting the opponent, false promises, misleading, exploitation, corruption, manipulation and so on – all of this can be found anywhere, in all industries of humankind, but is most obviously expressed in politics; most such “political” actions simply bring voting points, and who allocates the points other than people. Leadership is always merely a reflection of the people.

And there is only one reason why there’s so much politics in the world. It’s because it actually works to a great extent. Don’t put too much hope into friends, learn how to take advantage of enemies. Never show your true intentions. Others should work, you take the credit. Avoid miserable people. See to it that people are dependent on you and come to you on their own. Completely destroy your enemy. Make it look like you are stringing up achievements without any special effort. Play on people’s feelings, conjure false promises. And we could go on. Sad but part of real life.

I see this type of behaviour at every step, and the sooner we resign ourselves to the fact that life isn’t fair and that politics are also a vital part of the human nature, the sooner we can start making better decisions by taking this part of the equation into account. It would be ideal if politics were truly there for managing social situations for the common good, but sadly politics are far too often used for manipulation and gaining benefits without creating any real value added.

The question that arises with this is whether such an amoral strategy is a sensible survival strategy. It depends on our values, our goals and environment. The more value added that we can create, the more we will be valued in the environments that acknowledge value added and healthy competition. Those are the systems that are striving towards transparency, integrity, healthy competition and collaboration. In a system like this, there is no place for corruption, exploitation etc. However, this doesn’t mean that the human nature is any different in such a system. There’s just systematic effort for trying to direct it onto a more productive path – progress.

In such a context, it’s also right that we are honest with ourselves and know how much of a politician lies in us or, alternatively, to what extent we are disgusted by political behaviour. But it’s definitely impossible to escape politics in life, neither at a workplace nor in the family or amongst friends (gossiping, for example, is one of the most basic political actions in groups of friends).

5. Accept people for who they are, or find new ones

Changing oneself is incredibly hard; the hardest thing in the world. And each individual has plenty of positive and negative behavioural patterns in their life. Changing a behavioural pattern is nearly impossible. Up until now, I’ve met only a handful of people with enough self-awareness, self-criticism and will to change one of their behavioural pattern.

Let’s look at a banal stereotypical example, a bit upside down. A young couple. The boyfriend is extremely upset if the girl leaves the toilet seat down; since this had already annoyed his father with his mother. Now three scenarios are possible: 1) boyfriend explains to the girlfriend how vitally important this is for him and asks her to change her behavioural pattern. 2) Boyfriend confronts himself and realizes it’s not a big deal and that he can simply put the seat up, therefore changing his own emotional reaction to the situation. 3) There are daily fights about the toilet seat.

And sadly 99 % of people will stay with the last scenario, be it in a personal or a business relationship. People change with much difficulty, if we even do at all. We definitely develop, acquire knowledge and experience, but we rarely change in our essence and our habits. Besides this, we humans are often incredibly uncritical towards ourselves, full of ego and thus very easily point fingers at someone else.

The basic rule of each relationship is that we first take enough time, without prejudice and expectations, to get to know the person. Then we accept each person fully for the way they are. If we are bothered by something in that person to the extent that it’s a deal-breaker, then we don’t count on the person to ever change. It’s simply a deal-breaker. An exception are smaller things, whereby even for a small change, a lot of communication, tolerance and understanding are needed. Even with these smaller matters, it’s better and fairer if we first try to change ourselves, and only then the other person.

At the end, it absolutely makes more sense to find someone with whom you are more compatible than to change someone. Thus it’s right that we accept people for the way they are and then decide whether they fit into our lives. We patiently communicate on the matter of some trivialities that truly bother us, while we try to changes ourselves for others.

6. Always be honest with yourself

The biggest harm we can do to ourselves (and others) is by not being honest with ourselves. When you don’t listen to yourself, you insist on a path that leads to long-term personal dissatisfaction and unhappiness in relationships. The problem of course lies in the fact that our deepest desires are usually inconsistent with society’s expectations or with expectations of people in our life. The second problem is that the path of honesty is usually a much harder path.

Dissatisfaction in the job. Dissatisfaction with the partner. A new business opportunity. Be it whatever. The larger the change in life or the decision we have to make (marriage, changing jobs, the type of study, longer journeys…), the more we have to be honest with ourselves, the more we have to listen to the voice inside us. Before every important decision, we have to take time for ourselves and see whether this is something that we truly want, truly desire? Do we see ourselves doing this in five years? Is this something that is a part of us and our nature?

Whenever we feel that something isn’t right for us deep down inside, yet still let ourselves be convinced, a much more difficult situation in the future follows. Dissatisfaction and doubt keep growing. Each time we are dissatisfied, dishonest with ourselves, this has to surface sometime. If we repress these feelings, they fester in us that much more and have to come out somewhere; be it in our health, dissatisfaction, but also in our relationships.

Adhering to ourselves and the voice inside us is often accompanied by social pressures and pressures that come from expectations of people we are in relationships with; by choosing the right path for us, we often disappoint people and don’t fulfill their expectations. But the only right thing is being honest with oneself. However, we should also expect and understand the same thing with others.

The sincere path is often also the harder path. This can mean searching for a new partner, new job, developing new skills for switching industries, or for whatever else. Despite all this, it’s right to fight for what we truly want and feel is our real path, while at the same time knowing how to say no.

The compass is simple. A longer period of positive emotions shows that you are going in the right direction, while negative emotions (anger, dissatisfaction, sadness…), maybe even forcibly repressed ones, warn you that you aren’t on the right path; negative feelings are a signpost that you aren’t on the path that’s meant for you. If you are accompanied by negative emotions, this means that your soul is suffering. The exception is (non life threatening) fear, which is an indicator of what you still have to face in your life.

7. Environment, trends and macro changes have an incredible influence on our life

People are much more a product of the environment than we’d dare to admit. It’s scientifically proven that the most successful people on this planet, in any life discipline (sports, business, art…), don’t only have talent and do hard/smart work, but also benefit from an enormous support in the environment. The government, family, religion, school system etc., they all strongly influence our potential and the extent to which we can realize it. But trends and planned structural changes are the ones that influence this the most.

What presents an incredibly important insight into an individual’s optimal performance is a bird’s view on how the society functions, where we are located, what our starting point is, the forecast of trends, and which environment will be the best for the realization of our goals. This is a discovery I most wish I had understood in my younger years.

You can’t piss against the wind, no matter how far it carries. The more your values are incompatible with the environment, the more that trends are turned against you and macroeconomic changes are making your life difficult, the harder it is to reach your goals. While it’s true that good times soften the character to a large extent and create naïve people, the range of an individual’s success is significantly limited without the help of the environment.

Of course despite all this, we mustn’t search for excuses for not working just because the trends aren’t in our favour. However we do have to constantly keep asking ourselves how we can turn the trends and structural changes to our own advantage.

To everyone in their early twenties (and even later on), I would thus strongly advise to research trends, predictions, structural changes and how they will influence their career development – positively or negatively. It’s important that we’re mobile and set ourselves in an environment where our values and goals can prosper the most.

8. Reflection and strategy before actions

Few people read. Even fewer people write something. And even fewer people invest energy into truly thinking before doing. This is especially hard when we’re young, because we don’t have enough experience or a sufficient amount of coordinates to design a more sensible strategy for our actions.

The most frequent strategy in youth is thus incredibly simple: a dash of inspiration, then onwards without a break. But today, in a creative knowledge-based society, smart work is much more important than hard work. Smart work requires a bit of inspiration, a lot of reflection, some action, reflection again, a bit of action again etc.

Designing a sensible strategy can save years of work, but what’s much more important is that it can lead us to significantly bigger potential. Oftentimes doing things of the top of one’s head or following emotional impulses without thinking can lead to a situation that’s worse than if we did nothing and indulged in laziness. Regretfully. And the more complex that our environment becomes, the bigger need there is for strategy and profound reflection, if we wish to reach our goals.

This mostly means three things. The first is that we have to take enough time for an analysis, without doing anything or making any decisions. Getting to know the environment, connections between people, their motivations, the key stakeholders, the decision makers, the trends and everything that goes with it is as important as the actions themselves. Analysing and planning can take weeks, or even months, but they also have their own importance, if they head us into the right direction. By analysing the market I don’t mean only doing research behind the desk, but also doing small experiments that gives us real insights into something (testing our hypotheses).

Secondly, when it comes to analysis, it is crucial we take a sheet of paper, a pencil and think about our strategy, as well as answer some key questions, such as what is the final goal that we wish to achieve, how will our actions affect others in the environment, what if we don’t succeed etc. On the basis of analysis and consideration, we set clear assumptions about the environment, which we can later correct and adjust based on our actions. The clearer our thoughts are about what we want as the output, the more clearly we can set a strategy.

And thirdly, talking with the right person can save us years of work, which is why in life, surrounding ourselves with mentors who help us in different fields of life presents an incredible value added.

Deliberation and strategy are a step further from setting goals. They include the external environment, small steps that confirm or refute our assumptions, engaging the environment in the sense of mentors, and finding alternative paths or goals if our assumptions were incorrect. It’s the hardest to sit down and thoroughly think about something; and yet it’s so important.

9. Different doesn’t always mean better

At every turn we can find the underlying philosophy of “be different”. Difference certainly presents an important advantage in a lot of cases, but not always. In reality, being different isn’t even that hard. What’s incredibly difficult is being different and better at the same time. This is an important lesson, since it’s easy to accept the philosophy of being different in one’s younger years, but it’s much harder to understand that you have to be better at the same time.

The average and generally recommended guidelines for life have their own certain meaning. They suit the majority and guarantee the safety of the entire society. An average diet is the most sensible diet for the majority of people. An average savings plan is the most reasonable for most people. Finishing university makes sense for the majority of people, especially if education isn’t excessively expensive. I’m not saying that this is an optimal way, nor am I saying that it’s the best path for an individual, but it’s the most sensible for the majority. Why?

Any deviation from the average requires risk, an enormous amount of knowledge, experimentation, trying, falling and also failures that can hurt us significantly more than benefit us at the end. We don’t only need a different approach, we also have to find a better system by trying; namely a system that brings us better results than the one that is generally suggested.

Let’s look at a concrete example. We have a standardly recommended diet; at the same time, it is common knowledge that such a diet includes too much sugar and that you should add more fruit, vegetables and wholegrain foods into your daily life. Up to here, we are still in the safe and somewhat above-average zone from the aspect of quality of the diet. But we can claim with certainty that such a diet will ensure survival, satisfy the nutritional needs of the body and provide a certain level of health for the average lifestyle.

Now we wish to go a step further, be it from a health, ethical or aesthetical aspect. Vegetarianism. Veganism. Macrobiotics. High-protein diet. Cabbage diet or whatever else there is.

Most of these approaches demand almost entirely removing one group of foodstuffs (hydrates, proteins, fat) from the diet. And here is where suddenly appears a certain risk that we won’t be getting all the necessary nutritional substances. This is why more knowledge is necessary for correctly combining foodstuffs, changing our lifestyle etc. With vegetarianism, for example, we can do more harm than good if we don’t possess enough knowledge, and substitute the lack of meat with a larger intake of simple sugars. The more we deviate from the average, the more knowledge we need.

With this, I am not claiming that vegetarianism isn’t a good diet. I am only saying that if you really wish to benefit from the real value added of this diet, you must have enough knowledge to substitute the loss of animal protein with a suitable combination of plant protein, mustn’t significantly increase the intake of simple sugars, somewhat change your lifestyle at the same time and we could go on. There’s also a question of whether vegetarianism truly suits everyone, as it probably suits someone more and the other less. In short, the purpose isn’t to find reasons for or against vegetarianism, the purpose is to emphasise that each deviation from the recommended is accompanied by a risk.

It’s exactly the same with career – entrepreneurship, as an alternative to a job; money – investing instead of saving; partnership – polygamy instead of monogamy; sleep – polyphasic sleep instead of eight hours in one piece, and we could go on. Smaller life decisions are no different, for example when it comes to arguments. It’s simple to not agree with someone, we are already different by doing it, we have a different point of view. Justifying it with arguments, however, explaining why our viewpoint is better and maybe even making a synthesis of both viewpoints and slightly changing our perspective is much harder. Despite everything, conflicts are a source of progress if the synthesis of differences leads to something new; different again, but better.

A big trap also lies in the thousands of books, blogs and other authorial self-help contents that offer shortcuts to success, no matter which area of life you look for. The formula that led somebody to success won’t necessarily do the same for everyone else, including yourself.

This is why being different doesn’t only mean standing out or taking an approach different to the one of the majority, but rather means that we are prepared to invest drastically more energy into trying, gaining knowledge, failures etc. with the purpose of finding a way that’s perfect for us and allows us a high quality of life, including feeling good in our skin and achieving personal goals.

If we are prepared to invest all this effort, we can of course strongly benefit from the investment (more energy, more money, more happiness, more whatever else), but the path to a different and better alternative isn’t simple. We oftentimes come to the conclusion that we are most suited by what suits others as well; and we mustn’t close our eyes to this. Being different has no value added if we harm ourselves.

10. It’s easy to stand out, it’s incredibly hard to truly succeed

It’s incredibly easy to stand out from the average, as this only requires a bit more work than others invest. If we generalize a bit: all we have to do is go a step or two further than the average person is prepared to.

But it’s incredibly hard to truly succeed. It demands careful strategic reflection, dedication, focus, help from the environment, hard work, luck and a lot more.

Being somewhat fitter than an average person isn’t all that hard. If we run a couple of times per week or go to fitness, we are already standing out from the average. However, having a fit and muscly body means doing an extreme diet, long years of training a couple of times per week, a lot of knowledge, food additives, listening to your own body, giving up things, resting etc. Having a fit and muscly body means being completely devoted to health; it’s a way of life. This is why the majority of muscled people are coaches, athletes or training is somehow a part of their professional work.

Having a bit more knowledge than an average person isn’t hard if we highlight the fact that an average person reads a few books per year. If we want to know a bit more about, for example, sales, then we simply read one book per month for a couple of years in a row, and we will already have more knowledge than an average person, if not maybe even more knowledge than an average salesman. But in case you wish to become an excellent salesman, this requires complete devotion to the occupation, an incredible amount of practice, constant education, improvement etc.

Earning a bit more than average isn’t hard. We invest into a good education, develop a very sought-after skill and get an afternoon job if necessary. But becoming rich demands a completely different approach, owning resources or a high managerial/professional position, being at the very top of a certain industry, be it entertainment, art or anything else. Becoming rich is practically a lifetime project that demands strategy, knowledge, the right trends, bravery, luck and many other things.

In short, being better than average requires a bit more effort and invested work; but to truly succeed in life, no matter the field, is a lifetime project that demands total commitment of the individual and using levers of the environment (market, social, financial…). So if we wish to truly massively succeed, it’s incredibly important that we don’t only have lifetime commitment and hard work, but also incorporate all the previously written life discoveries into our decision.

11. Techniques of an Agile and Lean Life

And finally, I wish I had known the techniques of the Agile and Lean life, which would’ve enabled me to be more productive, more focused and play the game of life even more smartly ten years ago. Well, today these techniques are available to the entire world.

These are the eleven things I wish I truly knew in my twenties. And what are yours?