34 Lessons From my 34th Birthday
I turn 34 today, June 21st. It’s 8:41am as I type.
I’m in my friends apartment who I’m staying with as I wait for my new living situation in SF to get available July 1.
Fielding birthday wishes. Dad came in. I got teary eyed from it. A lot of messages, feeling good from all the love.
Having lunch with my dear friend and mentor here in SF which I’m pumped about.
As much as I write on meditation and controlling your reality and being in the present moment, I can’t help but be reflective today. I think some proactive reflection is healthy. It’s what makes us human.
It’s reflecting all the time that let’s our own inner storytelling from it all get out of hand and I recognize it, I’m fine.
I figure, what’s the best thing I can do to take advantage of my 34 years of existence. It’s my day to ask for things right?
Of course, it’s writing what I’ve learned so far.
I’ll do this every year moving forward.
Here are 34 thoughts as I turn 34 today.
1. You always have time.
I had dinner with a dear friend and colleague last night.
I told him there’s a girl I like but I like my company and my work and my film writing more.
He said it’s never going to be a good time and you have to make time for everything you need and want to do and love is certainly one of them.
To that I say amen. Give the work to the busiest person. They can do it all.
2. Don’t Be Transactional With Relationships, But Love For Pure Want and Desire
One of the big lessons at 34 is realizing what love is and most people are programmed for transaction and not nurture and love.
The one’s who deny that statement are who I’m trying to speak to.
I saw this viral video yesterday of a lovely girl reacting excitedly when her boyfriend proposed to her.
She repeatedly said how much she loves him after she put the ring on. It made me realize just how much that actually isn’t love.
Love is actually much less exciting than that.
Her reaction was very obviously because she got a deal done. An important deal. A deal that’s supposed to last a lifetime.
This is actually very obvious though most of us are programmed not to believe or unable to understand what that is.
The act of loving has nothing to do with engagement and people learn that hard fact once they actually kick off a life long relationship.
Half of them make it and half don’t. Loving people don’t fight or split up, because they’re loving.
Oh and I’m not calling out a side. He got a deal done the same way she did.
Married people split up all the time for things that have nothing to do with love.
Not knocking love or marriage just calling out their differences and underlying motivations that we often mistakenly call love.
3. How To Love
Love has no attachment or expectation and is based on pure wanting and desire to build a strong relationship for it’s own sake.
You love by loving the work that goes into the relationship. You love and nurture a partner like a plant and love like you love your dog.
Passion without motive is what Krishnamurti calls it.
Yes this is very hard in relationships, for me especially.
I am not a master at this by any means but I’m getting better.
4. Learning makes life worth living
Nothing better than reading a book or working on something you enjoy.
When I get down, reading and writing lifts me up.
The quiet peace that comes from absorbing knowledge and the deliberate focus that comes from working the creative muscle.
Nothing better and it will save your life. Or at least, it has mine.
We’re trying to transcend learning at my company. If the world got hooked on learning stuff, human consciousness would rise and we’d become more peaceful.
5. You’re success is directly tied to who your closest 5 friends are
This is a serious one.
Ask yourself who your friends are and there you have it, you.
Energy and thinking is contagious and it determines how you take action, set standards and live personally and professionally.
Take this one seriously and spend time with people you want to become like.
This especially matters in your 20’s and I luckily got it right.
Often it’s too late as bonds get made as we come up through adolescents, college and our early working world.
Becoming successful is simply how well you cooperate with people, surround yourself with people you’ll want to cooperate with and learn and share their values.
Of course, life is long, so begin at any age.
6. The only real way to learn is to toss yourself into the lions den and do stuff
Learning to understand is experiencing high stakes situations.
Aka ‘when it matters’
Reading all the film books in the world won’t teach you how to deal with a decision maker at a studio.
So much psychology goes into getting things done.
7. You can take on as many projects as you want if you love working and have a mission
I’m in a missionary state of mind that believes everything I put out transcends the planet.
When I work from that state, nothing else really matters and it makes working fun.
I’m managing a company, writing, work/life/passion, making film, employees and investors. It never ends but I yearn to work so it’s never dull.
8. All our missions today should be to transcend the planet
With capital, tools and the internet, the world is our oyster.
There are so many problems to solve, so many people looking to fund people to solve them.
Wealth is being redefined.
Help a billion people and your’e a billionaire. Not necessarily with money, but by touching them.
No, that doesn’t pay the bills but you don’t really need that much money to be happy.
A living wage will suffice. Take my word for it. I’ve made a lot and been broke so have a good understanding of how to value money.
The unhappiness that comes from lacking things is usually the power of story telling running wild.
9. Reproducing off spring is no longer our highest purpose in life
I do want kids and even yearn for it, but there’s the internet. Ha! J/k
But does the world need more people?
There are so many problems to solve but more importantly, so many ways to receive love, connection and all the things that a family provides.
A lot of it is the ‘story of having a family’. As much as I want kids, there’s just so much more to do and so many ways to find fulfillment.
10. Meditation is a must
Meditation changed my life and I think is a practice that should be taught in school.
It builds real inner intelligence, decreases stress and helps with the creative process.
My best decisions come from meditation.
12. State of mind is all that matters
Optimizing everything for state of mind is critical for personal and work life.
State of mind optimizes body.
State of mind optimizes work.
State of mind optimizes relationships.
State of mind optimizing intuition.
13. You can learn anything, anywhere, anytime.
Learn stuff and test with the market. That’s all that matters.
College degrees don’t get you knowledge, though they get you a lot of fun and connections.
All knowledge is not freely available and the market is the real king.
Most people have all the knowledge in the world but don’t have the knowledge of applying it to the market, which is hard and takes a whole new set of skills that are even harder to acquire than the 8 books you cover in 4 years of college.
14. Duality is what’s ruining our world
We’re all connected. Treat everyone like family and not separate and watch the world change.
15. The three best books everyone should read are
David Hawkins’ Letting Go, Krishnamurti’s Life Ahead on Learning and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens.
16. Writing is a tool that can save you
Start journaling, and then write.
You’ll master your field and it’s the best way to differentiate yourself.
17. Charity is probably counterproductive
Still beginning to deep dive into this one but it seems to makes sense.
Teach people to fish with dignity.
Noone wants to be handed anything.
I came across this piece yesterday and it makes sense:
18. Discipline in a new way and hold yourself accountable
Every thought and believe you have should should take the higher path.
The way we eradicate evil
The way we approach our enemies is what defines us.
This is based on our values and belief systems and believe it’s the way to save the world.
I wrote a full length piece on this topic yesterday.
19. Decide problems are simple to solve
A decision is a program that puts forth all the universal forces you need to achieve a goal.
Burn your boats so there’s no way out and watch yourself become super man.
20. Force people in ways that empowers
Ultimately, forcing ourselves to do hard things is how we make it.
I forced myself to build a company by building one and going through the often hell that’s required to getting it done.
It took all the might and will I could muster, but it purged all the fears and turned me into the fearless CEO I need to become to inspire people, speak in public and deal with conflicts.
The better we are at forcing ourselves, and embracing that force, the faster we’ll grow and happier we’ll become.
Empower people by forcing them to simulate hard situations.
21. Assume your job will be replaced by AI and re-invent and educate yourself from there.
We should be scared of the AI’s coming. It’s not like it used to be.
Google and all the companies are spending billions on AI and they’re coming for your jobs.
This is not a Google/Apple/FB is evil problem, rather, it’s a capitalist problem.
So long as we’re fighting for growth and profits, we’ll hunt for efficiencies that drive them.
It may not be for a little while but it’s going to come hard and all at once.
Start by becoming a knowledge athlete.
22. Formal college credentials will soon be obsolete
Don’t believe me? Ask what the market thinks.
How many mba’s do you know who can’t get jobs and clearly don’t have the knowledge athleticism to either create their own business or position at a big company? I know dozens.
All that matters is how valuable you can make yourself at a company and knowledge is only the beginning.
Execute and create value for people in your industry and they’ll value you, and that doesn’t take a degree.
Show expertise by being fast, read a lot and write about it. Writing is the best way to differentiate and the speed at which you work is really the most imporant thing.
Market penetration equals speed is all you need to know.
It takes getting a lot of shit done, daily.
The industrial age has long been over and college was made to support it.
Productivity, smarts and entrepreneurial creativity and resourcefulness are the skills to understand and practice.
23. Learn and practice the art of resilience as if you’re life depended on it
Winning is about lasting longer than others and lasting longer than others is about resilience.
Embrace the journey with mental work.
24. How much grit you build up is important
How much grit you can muster comes from your resilience muscles.
Learn to embrace pain and build grit.
Love the struggle and embrace the journey.
25. Embracing and loving pain is the best way to love the struggle and embrace the journey
I sometimes floor myself as to how much I look forward to a painful event. ‘wow I wonder if we actually went to war, how would it feel?
How would I handle it? I’d become a war hero. I catch myself laughing at how I can actually convince myself to look forward to something as serious and horrifying as war so I can
It’s just a self preservation game.
This isn’t to denigrade the serious and horrifying nature of war.
I’m actually applying the context and imagining what how to embrace it.
You get the point.
If you can dig deep and get bigger instead of smaller, you’ve conquered life.
Once you get to that state, you can conquer anything.
26. Find your flow every morning.
Start your day with a flow state that brings you personal happiness.
I read and write every single morning and it get’s me to a great start to every day no matter what’s in store.
Eat with your kid or exercise. Anything that get’s you into a flow checmical cocktail.
27. Find the right diet as if you’re life depended on it-if you don’t’ feel great all the time, every day, keep experimenting
I’ve tried every diet imaginable the last 34 years. My friends all make fun of me for it and ketogenic nailed it for me.
I’ve never felt better which is all that matters and won’t eat sugar again.
Not out of willpower but because I don’t want to.
Feeling this good physically is the key to happiness all around
28. Only do work trying to achieve and believe best in the world class work
This is huge. Think of how you can be the best in the world at what you do.
Most importantly, who you need to become to get there. Look at the market and study what the top 5 are doing and start your work from there.
Put work out into the market and let the right connections find you.
29. Connections are dead, work matters
Start by testing but putting out into the market as much as you can.
The right connections will find you and better yet, the connections that find you for your work alone, are the best connections.
Forget having your dad or your girlfriends cousin help you out.
Nepotism is lame. Build healthy connections because of your work and you’ll find most people will be happy to help.
Do work that’s so good people look good by helping you.
30. Grow with connections don’t seek ‘top connections’
a. Marc Andreeson isn’t the right VC for you unless you’re already in his world. The hungry up and coming VC looking for a deal is.
Meeting Steven Spielberg for the first time won’t get him to buy and like your script. There’s too much infrastructure under both of them to cold find your work if it’s raw and brand new.
Grow with the agent/investor/entrepreneur/colleague that’s at your level. Help each other out and find the guy or gal that’s right above you who looks good by helping you.
31. Share connections with the hungry up and comer
I now share and intro and connect everyone to everyone.
If someone cold sends you a big note on FB, appreciate it. Don’t do the usual reaction which is the natural ignore and delete.
There’s a reason someone’s going out of their way to concoct some long report to reach out.
If you want to coach them on tact, do so but help people for it’s own sake.
32. Do things that change peoples lives, especially kids
It takes so little to take action that chances peoples lives, give them faith in humanity and transcend their world.
Take a homeless person to dinner.
Invest in the strangers crowdfunding campaign.
Make bold introductions for strangers that can change their world.
Get people jobs.
33. The best way to change a system isn’t to resist it, but to re-invent a new one that others like and follow
Learned this one from Buckminster Fuller.
I met a lady from Brazil at Singularity University trying to –reinvent money and how we value things and she’s trying to pull it off so benefit climate change.
Imagine that system. Would you follow it if proven feasible? I would.
And the big and final one:
34. Life may not be worth living but we have the power to make it so
Borrowed this from Stanley Kubrick in a piece yesterday.
This isn’t meant to be gloomy but more of an understanding of what life actually is (consciousness awareness) and that we have the power as sentient beings to use our consciousness to shape our realities, give our lives meaning and make the most of it.
I plan to do that boldly with my company, writing and film.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite art pieces I had commissioned for my writing, Viktor Frankl during his time in the Holocaust on how to give life meaning in the most dire of situations.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed and was helpful. I rushed to get the piece out so ping me if you want to chat further or discuss clarifications. My birthday wish is to simply recommend the piece below and consider signing up to receive my work once a week :)
