40 Things I Learned In Last 40years.
I’ve turned 40 a couple of months back.
To be honest, I’ve still not accepted the thought of becoming a 40year old person. Still feels like I’m 33–34 years old :-)
When I was in 20s, nobody used to take pay attention to my opinions. When Microsoft completed 30 years in business, Bill Gates mentioned that “People start taking you seriously when you turn 30”.
Actually, he was right. By 31–32 years of my age, people did start taking me seriously :-)
I’m 40 now and I’m expected to know a lot about life.
But I’m still figuring out the mysteries of life and that’s why still hold the mindset of my 33year old self.
Anyway, here are 40 things that I learned in the last 40 years..
1) Things don’t go as planned most of the times.
I love to plan things out.. and most of the times, things don’t go as per the plan.
That holiday trip, that weight loss goal, that plan of learning Spanish, that Gym, those books.. and the list is long.
But when I look back, I don’t have any regrets. Whenever things didn’t go as per my plan, the outcome was always favourable in long term.
2) Our opinions change and that’s fine.
In my 20s, I never understood the concept of religion and god. I was an atheist. Then I started to see the meaning behind the rituals. My opinion changed.
At times I didn’t like the idea of eating meat & other non-vegetarian food. I turned vegetarian for quite a some time but didn’t experience any change in my thoughts or my body. So, I again started eating non-vegetarian food occasionally.
My opinions kept changing as I discovered new things about the same subject.
People used to say that I’m not firm on my decisions, but I think it’s absolutely fine to ‘improvise’ our thought process.
3) Burden of expectations kills you
This one haunted me for a long time. During school days, college, when I got my first job and finally when I started my own business.. the burden of expectations was huge.
At one point it almost killed me. I was under tremendous stress.
Overcoming this burden and living the life stress-free is among my biggest achievements.
Now, I can think clearly. My actions are based on my intuition and no longer based on my family’s and society’s expectations.
4) Self-imposed pressure of performance
When I overcame the burden of expectations from the family, it was time to deal with self-imposed pressure of performance!
When I crossed mid-30s, I started comparing myself with the fellow entrepreneurs and developed a feeling that I’ve not achieved enough.
That started killing my productivity.
Later, I made peace with this and realised that it’s okay to move at our own pace.
30s is not the end of my life. It’s just an interval.
Look at any good movie and you’ll notice that the first half is just a build-up. Actual action happens after the interval :-)
5) Being judgemental halts the personal growth
Putting labels on every situation and personal actually limits the thought process.
People change with the situations. So, it’s really immature to put the good or bad labels.
6) Relationships are the most important aspect of life
My relationship with my wife, brother, parents, in-laws and friends defined my life.
If I take this aspect away, then my life will become meaningless.
7) Daily habits are the only way to achieve goals
The legendary author, James Clear taught me the importance of daily habits in his book Atomic Habits.
Later, I realised that if good habits help you move forward by a step, bad habits pull you back by 5 steps.
Imagine eating right food for 6 days in week and then having beers and pizzas on Saturday night. It spoils all the efforts.
So, focusing on good habits is important but it’s equally important to get rid of bad habits.
8) Maintaining a life log to understand patterns
Somehow, I had his habit of maintaining a private journal since the college days.
It gives a lot of interesting insights when I look back at the diary after many years.
It feels like going back in time while reading posts written in my 20s.
9) We can’t change our family
Our family members are not perfect and that’s absolutely fine. We are not here to change anyone’s basic nature as per our own beliefs.
It’s great to accept the people as they are. 🤗
10) We can’t & should not try to control our kids
I realised that the kids are born with a certain nature and skills. As a parent, my duty is to nurture those skills and help them flourish rather than influencing them with my beliefs.
I stopped influencing their thought process.
11) Me-time helps in introspecting
Whenever I was feeling low, taking some time off for self-reflection helped me 100% of the time.
It’s okay to take a pause for few days, stop running around and do the thinking.
12) You need a guide
No matter how much intelligent you think you are, you need a mentor. I was able to navigate my business with focus when we hired a business coach.
When I feel stuck, I turn up to my friends, my family, my wife for an advice. I have no hesitation about that.
It helps 100% of the time.
13) School friends are special
Among all the friends I’ve acquired during my life, I really cherish and enjoy the company of my school friends.
They are unique because they know the ‘real’ you.
They know you before you became that business owner, director in some multi-national, etc.
I don’t have to wear any mask in front of them.
14) Managing emotions is a key life skill
When my business was going through a rough phase, I had to deal with stress, anxiety, that feeling of uncertainty, fear of failure and some similar demons.
It took me a couple of years to make peace with these emotions and when I learned to ‘manage’ my emotions, I felt like I’ve become a new person.
15) Change of environment brings transformation
On many occasions, I was running out of workable solutions to my problems. During that time, a complete break of minimum 2 weeks really helped me.
When we change the place, people around us and the environment where problem was created, we kind of break the bubble of negative energy and only then we are able to think clearly.
16) Mindset of a seeker of truth
Somehow, I was not very religious during my teenage days. I always used to question various rituals and even challenged the existence of God.
Later I realised that there are communities for atheist, vegans, etc which was no different than a religion.
I preferred to go solo and be a seeker of truth.
This mindset has served me well till now.
17) Nature heals
I’ve experienced the healing power of nature. I don’t need to explain this.
Just a bare-foot walk on grass can make all your worries disappear. Nature heals the wounds of body, energy, and mind too.
18) Power of gratitude
If my mind is gripped with negative emotions and stress, a sure shot way to change the feeling is to start thinking about the blessings.
It sounds simple and sometimes empty talk, but the gratitude is a powerful stuff.
Ever since I discovered it’s power, I maintain a gratitude journal and it’s transformative.
19) How to read the books
Reading is good but then there are tons of good books when you go to the book store. And the book recommendations that flow from all the directions make is more overwhelming to chose what to read.
So, how do I pick my next book?
I pick up a book that is going to help me solve my current problem in life. For example, when I wanted to setup marketing in my business, I started reading books about marketing. When I felt directionless in my life, I picked up books by Osho and Om Swami.
This is the best way to consume books. I don’t read fiction.
20) Money is energy
I learned this very late in my life — in late 30s, that money is not a ‘thing’ or ‘object’, it’s an energy.
This energy flows ‘through’ those who can manage it well. It has characteristics like a person. Maybe that’s why we call it ‘Goddess Laxmi’ in India.
A lot can be shared on this topic, maybe in another post.
— — — — — —
This post has become a lot longer that I had anticipated :-)
So, I had to split it into two parts..
👉 Continue reading about the next 20 learnings..
>>
