Give your 21y/o self advice:
If you could go back and give your 20 something self advice…what would you tell them? Could be professional, personal etc..
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Comments (38)
1. Don't give up on the sports. It's a lot harder to pick them back up in the 40s if you have a long break.
2. Know when to stick it out in a challenging situation, and know when to quit and move on. And think very hard before the latter. My career has benefited from doing the latter, but I do wonder whether once or twice I should have chosen to stay.
3. You will have friends that always want more out of life, and friends that only feel comfortable in their comfort zone. Thrive on the former, be very wary of the latter.
4. You can't travel too much
5. Your parents and loved ones will get older some day. Make a lot of time for them. Same with your kids.
6. Be wary of anyone who says your colleagues can't be your friends. Of course they can
7. Plan your career based on where you want to be ten years from now, not on where you are now. At lease once, when I was doing great and enjoying my job and getting paid well, I was enjoying the moment and didn't keep my eye on where the puck was going
8. It gets really competitive getting to the very top. Start playing the game very early, watch the top performers and learn from them.
9. Don't blame your inability to have a family life or social life or hobbies on your job. It's all about discipline and time management. Never use your job as an excuse.
10. Influence is free. Always help people when you can without expectation
11. In any job, the top 10% create 90% of the value. Learn who the stars are and learn from them
Great insights, thank you. 2, 7, and 11 stand out most to me…What traits/characteristics have you seen amongst MDs and other leaders that have proven most valuable throughout one's career?
On points 8 and 11, what's the best way to follow these people and which sorts of people do you mean? I enjoy watching videos/reading articles from top finance guys
I always found it way too abstract to think about people I don't know well (although I highly enjoyed The Last Tycoons and Steve Schwarzman's book).
But in an organization, you need to seek out the people who a) get things done and b) are highly efficient with their time and the time of others. They will invariably be the superstars and the ones you want to learn from. In banking, the person that can brief their clients and leverage their resources efficiently will be the rainmaker in the end. Same in private equity where the person who can create an investment case to their committee and LPs efficiently.
in banking or PE, it's also a matter of survival. Your life is so much better when you work for someone who values the time of others.
So find those people, learn from them, work for them, make them your clients. I always tell my associates and even analysts - "whenever you see someone on the client side at your level who is a future star, note it down, take them out for lunch and be helpful to them over the course of their careers"
NB: you can be efficient with peoples time and still generous with your own time. In fact, I think generosity of time is important. But you should never waste your time or those of others.
Solid advice
Thank you for these. Very helpful
Why can't you travel too much? Can you elaborate?
He's probably alluding to the idea that he has never regretted traveling. Immersing yourself in other cultures can help you put everything into perspective and grow as a person. Life is short, see and try new things, you'll never know what you'll find out about yourself and the world around you.
To add to the points above, I wish I knew how competitive the world is when I was 21. Now I'm the head of a banking group and do probably better than 90% of MDs but I just took for granted at 21 that I would get here. I feel like I should have worked much harder in my 20s (I was well regarded but also the archetypical "smart but lazy" banker). I made it up in the 30s but I feel like if I worked harder and had my act together, my path would have been derisked and I could make it to the real top (now I still can get there but it' would have been easier)
"The higher we climb in life, the more we realize just how hard everyone has worked to achieve anything"
no idea to whom belongs, but it's accurate
Just turned 22 but I would tell my 21 year old self to just chill out and learn adulting one step at a time. Quit gaming because it really is a waste of time.
This
Start NoFap
Lay off the weights
Be careful who you spend time with
Lay off the weights?
Russian propaganda detected
Why?
following
Go on some awesome trips with friends while in college. Particularly, international if you can afford. Your future self will gladly pay.
For my 18-19 yo self (since I started dating my now wife at 19), pay for a hotel to shag, if you have no other place (like your car). Your future self will gladly pay. The amount of money would seem trivial in the future.
Call your mom and dad often. Likely their health, energy will be the most it'll ever be while you are in your 20's (assuming they would be in their late 50's to early to mid 60's). Now's the time to do some cool, more rigorous, bucket list travel with them (Machu Picchu, safari, Mount Fuji, etc).
I also think it'd be helpful to share things I'm glad I did, but May not have known it at the time
happy Sunday ladies and gents
1. Exercise at least twice a week. Ideally, both weightlifting and cardio (although you could do any sports). Also carve out some time to stretch or do yoga for 20mn+ at least twice a week.
2. Read non fiction
3. Keep your foreign languages up to par and don't drop them after uni
4. As somebody said above, you can't travel too much
5. Keep in contact with your previous coworkers and uni mates. Keep your social circle and make time for friends.
6. Prioritise sleep over partying. You do need to party sometimes when you're young though and when you do, do it well.
7. Take care of your health. If you go to music festivals without earplugs, you won't get your ears back later on.
Why can't you travel too much? Can you elaborate?
For me it's one of the best investment you can make 1) in yourself 2) for your mental health 3) to pile up memories and feel like I'm achieving what I want in life. Also, there's nothing quite like being in awe in front of nice Italian architecture, or the joy of staring in nature after a 3 day trekk
It's also good to step away from your natural habitat to expand your perspective and get unstuck
it's also just so fun to travel and 20 years from now, you're not gonna remember the Netflix show or 5th brunch you had this month, but you will remember your trip to Egypt when you looked at the pyramids.
I do believe that traveling is good, it gets you away from what you do and it refreshes you when you're back. You also get to see different cultures and I think that helps in a lot of ways.
I'd also add, counter point though, I have a lot of friends who travel. A big portion to me seem to be using it as an escape from their life, when actually they should be focusing more on the day to day. Not to go all Jordan Peterson, if you travel 30/40 days of the year, you have 330/320 days at home; focus on ways you can make those better as opposed to just the trip days. For example, my fiance has a friend who is all about traveling, but she hates her job and her family life is somewhat out of whack.
Maybe the 21 year old life advice is focus on making sure regular days are good too.
Learn asap how to perform a backflip with proper form
stop gambling now
I'd tell my 21yo self "It's all gonna be alright."
Simple, but 10 years later it all worked out.
Don't trade options
Lmao. Great advise tbh. Only a junior in college, but some kids I used to know from my hometown who are interested in finance and investing reached out to me to learn how to trade options. So hard to tell them that trading options just gambling, and they always think they can make it from the influencers they see on tiktok
You're a junior in college and can't spell "advice"? Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
I was going to say, can I just start listing investments?
Stop playing WOW and go to the gym.
You have to hit the ball head-on, not try to get under it.
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