Baby Boomers have sold you a complete lie.
Fifty is NOT the new thirty and thirty is NOT the new twenty.
Twenty is twenty and your twenties are a magical, once-in-a-lifetime decade.
Although I feel great at 30: Claiming my body or mind is ANYTHING like it was at 21 would be delusional beyond comprehension.
Your brain changes as you age.
Your skin becomes less supple.
You have to work harder to get the EXACT SAME results… and you sure don’t want to get wasted, smoke cigarettes, and shake off your hangover with a 3 mile run.
Why doesn’t EVERYONE realize how crucial your twenties actually REALLY are?
Why are people telling you to seek a work–life balance?
MONK MODE Shift: The lies older people tell you are lies that they’ve told themselves.
I don’t tell you to forgive your parents and other old people because they are all good people.
Most of them are truly fools.
Yet they aren’t immoral.
It’s NOT that old people lack morality.
They are simply idiots who lack self–awareness.
They REALLY tell themselves 50 is the new 30, they dress like “cool kids,” and meanwhile they look foolish to REAL actual kids.
People do NOT want to confront their own mortality.
By telling you 50 is the new 30, old people (yes, 50 is old) are salving their own self-doubt.
I follow my own advice. I did not waste my twenties. I worked my ass off the point of almost having panic attacks, having my skin break out in hives, and not really knowing how to meet women.
My approach to my 20s was extreme and not recommended. However, you need to err on the side of burning yourself out.
The people who preach work-life balance are losers or they are people like me who have re-written history.
Successful people believe it’s cooler to say, “I’m a naturally talented. I didn’t even work hard to get here.”
Gorilla Mindset Shift: Take pride in working harder than everyone else. This fetishization of raw talent is how gifted kids fail at life.
I’m coasting at 30. You can, too. If you stop fucking around.
1. You will NEVER have the raw, animalistic energy you have in your 20’s.
If that is all you take-away from this article, perfect.
Talk to any honest man my age or older.
I feel great, yes, but 21 is like…You won’t know until you actually freaking know.
2. Read absolutely EVERYTHING that you can.
You will remember the books you read in college BETTER than the books you read last week.
This is due to a lot of complicated stuff like fluid intelligence, working memory, and neuroplasticity.
You’re young.
3. It’s easier to maintain the muscular physique you built in your 20’s than is it to finally obtain one in your 30’s.
That said, chill on the one-rep maxes and ego lifting.
You will carry your body with you for the next few decades, which means you’ll have muscle and ligament injuries.
“You only get one mind and one body. And it’s got to last a lifetime. Now, it’s very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don’t take care of that mind and that body, they’ll be a wreck forty years later, just life the car would be.” – Warren Buffet.
4. Don’t believe the hype.
You will NOT make your fortune as a “location independent lifestyle blogger.”
This is true times one-million if you write a copycat blog.
5. Believe the hype.
Yes, you can make a lot of money online.
6. Marriage is a game changer.
Do NOT get legally married.
If you MUST get married, do NOT get married out of lust.
The fun little toy YOU party with is NOT wife material, and most certainly NOT… mom material.
Her alcoholism (most Western women are alcoholics) will destroy your marriage and hence your life.
7. Children are a gift from god and also a complete game changer.
Do NOT have any children unless the woman you’re going to have them with isn’t a toy or fun party girl but instead is the mother of your children for the next several decades of your life.
8. If your first thought about point 7 is, “There’s no god,” you definitely need to grow up.
9. “You’ll lose a lot of money chasing women, but you won’t lose any women chasing money.”
This is definitely true.
10. “I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted.”
This is also certainly true.
11. Look for the sentiment someone expresses rather than at the literal words.
Learn how to Read between the lines.
Look for agreement rather than disagreement.
Then you will see how points 9 and 10 are simultaneously true AND false.
12. You can lose women chasing money as you need social skills to deal in the modern dating environment, and god help you if you DON’T know how to avoid a false rape case.
Also, spending money on booze, broads, and boats is a LOT of fun.
13. Life is about phases.
While your 20’s are magical, I am glad to be in my thirties.
“You couldn’t pay me to be in my twenties again.”
“There is a season for everything, and a time for every event under heaven.”
Your twenties are a season to work hard and play hard and spend some money on boats, broads, and booze.
14. If you work REALLY hard, you MIGHT be a ten-year overnight success.
Far more likely is you’ll be a twenty-year overnight success.
15. “The only way to know your limits is to break yourself.”
“Once. Then skate near the line like you do with the law.”
16. Only argue on the Internet to make a name for yourself and NEVER because your ego is invested in the outcome.
(It took me 15 years to learn this lesson, as I’ve wasted thousands of hours in pointless debates with flat out losers.)
17. You are like EVERYONE else in the room.
If you look around and see morons, then YOU sir… are a god damn moron.
If you argue with fools on the Internet, you too are a god damn fool. (I sure was.)
18. Growth is painful.
But pain is STILL coming your way regardless.
Learning to embrace the pain as you grow will help you endure the pain when Hell finally arrives.
19. Find a better room.
If you don’t see people who make you FEEL a just little bit inadequate, then you’re NOT growing.
20. Get as MANY perspectives on life as possible.
Yes, most people are complete fools who know absolutely NOTHING, but mining for gold is ALWAYS going to take a lot of time and require a lot of looking.
In many ways, I’m a clueless dolt.
In other ways, I’m the #1 Best person in the world to ask for advice.
The trick is learning when I’m clueless and when I’m NOT. (Good luck with that!)
21. Your “fitness” or “physique” is NOT your health.
I looked like a model yet had terrible health.
Yes, that’s a plug for my Strength and Fitness eBook Badass Bodybuilding.
22. Learn how to sell.
This means above all else… how to sell yourself.
Your ability to sell yourself will be based on a LOT of intangible factors like your sense of self-worth and whether you have an abundance mindset.
To sell yourself you MUST first believe that YOU actually have REAL value. (You do.)
23. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett.
You guys often think I’m off the reservation or confused or even dead wrong.
But you know I’d never lie to you.
That, ultimately, is what it means to be a credible person.
24. Mike Tyson is way more interesting and insightful than Jeff Bezo’s.
That being said, Jeff Bezo’s wealth and income far surpasses Mike Tyson’s because… MAKING MONEY has literally NOTHING to do with your personality or how interesting you might actually be.
25. You’re NOT going to become a successful day trader.
Dollar cost average into the market into low-cost ETFs.
The end.
26. The hard work is NEVER done, but remember Dale Carnegie and DON’T trip.
“Your inbox will always be full.”
27. The kind of people who complain about affiliate links are the kind of people you don’t want to know and sure don’t want on your website.
But disclose those links.
Guys who like you will actually click on them to get you a commission.
Guys who hate you will be turned off and hopefully leave.
In life, you want people who love you to stick around and for people who hate you to leave.
Find a way to apply the law of attraction and law of rejection to EVERY area of your business and personal life.
28. Make as MUCH money as possible, and then some more.
The idea you should quit your job at 25, travel the world, and live off of $500 a week ignores the costliness of aging.
Your financial needs WILL increase as you age.
You’ll need money for skincare treatments, TRT, smart drugs, better-quality food, rug rats, and eventually sugar babies.
You’re also going to suffer some serious losses.
29. That “sexual marketplace” chart floating around is absolute bullshit.
When it comes to dating women who are at their hottest (19-24), your value as a man at 40 is not the same as your value as a man at 30, and at 50 you’re going to be simply paying to play.
30. Men who claim they don’t value female approval while spending hours seducing women rather than paying suffer from some interesting cognitive dissonance.
Spend enough time getting good at meeting women so that you’ll NEVER get played by a woman, but no more than that.
31. Home ownership is a complete scam.
Home ownership ties you down to a geographic location, giving you less leverage with your “job” or even your own business.
Goldman Sachs doesn’t loan money to its new bankers out of their goodness of its heart.
Golden handcuffs are actually real.
32. Do NOT grow your lifestyle with your income.
If you get a huge bonus or inheritance or your company is acquired or you win the lottery…Do not spend any of the money for a complete whole ENTIRE year.
When you grow into your lifestyle, the golden handcuffs get even tighter.
You’ll also STOP appreciating what you already actually HAVE.
33. Dopamine burnout is real.
Go hard, but not so hard that life loses its novelty and you lose your ability to see the sublime in the completely mundane.
Stay off the hedonic treadmill.
34. Mindset is EVERYTHING, and MONK MODE is the book on mindset.
35. No man knows his own blind spots.
36. I have my own blind spots.
If you blindly follow my advice as if I’m a guru, you will wreck your life big time.
See point 35, above.
37. There is no universal truth on this earth.
Until next time.
Your man,
-Elijah “The Realist”
