Things to Focus on in your 20s so you don’t regret the life you get in your 30s & 40s

🤼🤼 Meet as many different people as you can (Network)

✨ Try new things (Experiment)

 🙇🏾‍♀️ Accept yourself for who you are (Reflection)

✅ Say yes to things (Hustle)

👯‍♂️ Surround yourself with people who make you feel happy (Discovery)

💸 Learn about finances (Responsibility)

Only you can shape, define, plan and own the outcomes of your future. Most people are either too carefree or too linear in their 20s. They either over index or de index on the little things. To build a meaningful future, you have to have a resilient present.

Folks always ask ok so we know what to do, perhaps. But what most people don’t know is not what to do. There is no one universal answer, or an easy answer. Here are some things that are a surefire way to make your self and your growth slow and low energy.

1. Being lazy and procrastinating

2. Spending all your money

3. Avoiding challenges and risks

4. Surrounding yourself with negative people to fit in

5. Staying in your comfort zone

6. Ignoring your mental and physical health

7. Living for others, not yourself

Your future starts today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not when you have more experience or money or time. It starts today, in the present moment.

If you don't have a bias towards action, you will always have a bias towards inaction. The path of least resistance is to do nothing and expect things to get better over time. But that's not how life works. If you want to create the future you want, you need to take action today.

There's an old story about a frog that was placed in a pot of cold water. As the water slowly heated up, the frog didn't notice the change in temperature. It just kept on swimming around, content in its surroundings. By the time the water was boiling, the frog was too weak to jump out. It simply boiled to death.

This story is a metaphor for how we can become desensitized to change if it happens gradually. If you were to suddenly drop a frog into boiling water, it would jump out immediately. But if you slowly increase the temperature of the water, the frog will eventually get used to it and stay put.

As entrepreneurs, we need to be aware of this phenomenon. We need to be vigilant and not let ourselves get complacent. If we see unacceptable things happening in our businesses, we need to address them immediately. Don't wait for things to get worse. Don't let yourself become a boiling frog.

Here are some examples of how this analogy can apply to entrepreneurs:

• You might start working for a company that has a toxic culture. You might notice that people are constantly yelling at each other, that there's a lot of gossip and backstabbing, or that employees are afraid to speak up. If you don't say anything, you're basically accepting this behavior as normal. You're becoming a boiling frog.

• You might start a business and find that you're not making as much money as you thought you would. You might start cutting corners, taking on more debt, or working longer hours. If you don't make a change, you're setting yourself up for failure. You're becoming a boiling frog.

The point is, we all have the power to control our own destiny. We can't control the world around us, but we can control how we react to it. If we see something that's not right, we need to speak up. We need to make a change. Don't become a boiling frog. Only you have the power to control your outcomes.

Research is your best friend. Without it, you are taking shots in the dark.

• The global freelance market is expected to reach $335 billion by 2025.

• The online tutoring market is expected to reach $13.9 billion by 2025.

• The virtual assistant market is expected to reach $19.2 billion by 2025.

• The e-commerce market is expected to reach $4.9 trillion by 2025.

• The affiliate marketing market is expected to reach $12 billion by 2025.

These data points show that there is a growing demand for non-traditional business ideas. If you have a great idea and are willing to work hard, you can be successful as an entrepreneur in the developing world. No one will come to help you. I bet there are things you didn’t know you could do, from the above list that can help you build the life you want. Start today, research and then execute.

Here are some extremely boring principles that can help you scale your time to build the business you want:

1. Plan ahead. The more time you spend planning, the less time you'll have to spend fixing things later. Make a business plan, set goals, and develop a timeline.

2. Delegate tasks. Don't try to do everything yourself. If you can, hire someone to help you with tasks that are not your core competencies.

3. Automate tasks. There are many tools that can automate tasks, freeing up your time for more important things.

4. Eliminate distractions. When you're working on a task, turn off your phone, close your email, and find a quiet place to work.

5. Take breaks. It may seem counterintuitive, but taking breaks can actually help you be more productive. Get up and move around every 20-30 minutes, and take a longer break every few hours.

Now think of others who want to do the same. Is there a business opportunity here that you can leverage to help others scale ? Here are some examples of existing businesses that help people scale their outcomes:

• Virtual assistants: Virtual assistants provide administrative, technical, or creative assistance to clients from a remote location. This can free up entrepreneurs to focus on their core business activities.

• Business coaches: Business coaches provide guidance and support to entrepreneurs, helping them to develop their business plans, set goals, and achieve success.

• Networking groups: Networking groups bring together entrepreneurs for the purpose of exchanging ideas, sharing resources, and building relationships. This can help entrepreneurs to find new customers, partners, and employees.

• Online courses: Online courses can provide entrepreneurs with the knowledge and skills they need to start and grow their businesses. This can save entrepreneurs time and money, and it can help them to learn from experts in their field.

The best businesses come from problems you want to solve for your self. Think about it, then take action, start small, focus on the boring and evolve, your best business is based on the needs you have around you.

The most Influential Biases on your Decision-Making:

1. Illusion of Skill - We regularly confuse luck with skill because we solely focus on outcomes.

2. Recency Bias - We tend to put too much weight on recent events.

3. Anchoring - Our judgment is heavily screwed by the first information we are given about something.

4. Regression - We love to see cause-effect relationships where none exist. Everything, always, regresses to its mean!

5. Hindsight Bias - In retrospect, events seem more predictable than they actually were.

6. Halo Effect - You either like or dislike everything about someone or something. Nothing in between.

7. Loss Aversion - Losses weigh twice as much as the equivalent gain. Because of that, we reject gambles where chance would favor us.

8. Commitment Bias - We have a tendency to remain committed to our past behaviors and opinions. Particularly when expressed publicly, even if they do not have desirable outcomes.

9. WYSIATI - What you see is all there is. You can't consider what you don’t know. Paradoxically, knowing less also increases your confidence about being right.

By knowing that better doesn’t mean you win over time. As you start building your business, your strategy, your growth levers, know this, if you cant brand right you cant win over time. Here is a fantastic story that conveys this lesson better than any I’ve read in recent times. As you look to invest your time in some thing, know that you can not monetize some thing how ever great, or better than competing products by only having the belief that it is better, that is some thing the market decides. So invest your time in building some thing that will stand the test of time and the market.

Every thing is some thing old. Invest your time in looking at origin stories, then looking at historical changes in the product to make it your own and make it new. What do I mean by that?

Although many think the samosa originated in South Asia, its roots can be traced back to Central Asia & the Middle East. In Arab cookbooks dating from the 10th to 13th centuries, pastries were referred to as 'sanbusak,' derived from the Persian term 'Sanbosag.'

Here is the story of the humble samosa that can teach you a lesson about how to take some thing thats old and change it over time to be more or equally relevant in the present day by innovating around the core constructs and making it a hit. All of this can happen only if you are open to research and innovating based on the mistakes/changes that happened over time and building a perspective to understand an old market and its interplay with present times.

Bonus! Thought of the week

It’s hard to get lucky watching TV at home—it’s easy to get lucky when you’re engaging and learning.

Here is the best thread Ive read on the types of luck and how can increase the surface area of your luck.