3 Pieces of Advice I’d Give My 20 Year Old Self

What if your definition of success is the reason you feel empty?

That question hit me like a light tap that became a shove. For a lot of us, success reads like a checklist: title, salary, followers, trophies. But what if those markers are just road signs to someone else’s life? The speaker pulls no punches. He argues that chasing external markers can leave you wealthy on paper and hollow at night.

Stop chasing the wrong finish line

There’s a cruel trick our goals play: they move as you get closer. The more you achieve, the more the horizon recedes. I actually felt a knot reading how common this is—so many people I know blink and find themselves racing after the next notch. The surprising clarity here is simple: money and titles only solve money and title problems. They rarely fix the quiet dissatisfaction that lives under your sweater.

Instead of sprinting for the next shiny milestone, the speaker suggests a radical reframe: prioritize who you are becoming during the chase. Celebrate the person you had to become to write that first book. Notice the subtle sadness in not pausing to appreciate victories. That small change—recognition over reflexive comparison—shifts how success functions in your life.

Design a life you don’t need to escape from

Imagine building a ladder and discovering, decades later, it leaned against the wrong wall. Ouch. He uses that metaphor often, and it lands hard. Many careers and businesses are built to impress others or satisfy a childhood script. The result: top-of-the-ladder exhaustion and regret.

So what if you started with the end in mind—not income or status but daily life? What do you love doing so much you’d do it for free? That question reframes ambition. Choose work that feels like play and you get endurance for free. That’s not fluffy optimism; it’s a practical design for stamina. People who love their work will outlast those running purely for results.

Small tests, not grand commitments

There are a million ways to make a million dollars, he says. That line calmed me down. It suggests an experiment mindset: start small, test, pivot. If Amazon storefronts aren’t your thing, you still have options. The idea is to build a life you want to live every day—not a life you endure until vacation.

Confidence is built like a Jenga tower

I laughed the first time he compared confidence to stacking Jenga blocks, and then I realized how true it is. Pep talks give temporary heat. Evidence builds structural integrity. Do the thing you promised yourself, again and again, and you start to accumulate proof. Miss the promise and you remove a block. That visual made me rethink how I chase readiness. Waiting to feel ready is backward; readiness is a byproduct of repetition.

He tells a revealing story about being terrified of public speaking at 19. Forced into small stages repeatedly, he noticed fear retreating. The accumulation of those tiny victories turned into years of experience and a profound shift in identity. That personal account makes the method believable: confidence through consistency, not charisma.

Practical tweaks that make a difference

• Shrink big goals into one actionable daily task—complete it, then stack another.
• Celebrate milestones privately if public accolades feel hollow.
• Ask weekly: am I building the life I’d rather wake up to?

What really caught my attention

Two elements stood out: emotional honesty and practical rewiring. The speaker refuses to sugarcoat the grind, but he also refuses to accept hustle as virtue. That combination felt both kind and ruthless—kind because it protects your inner life, ruthless because it forces accountability.

Honestly, I didn’t expect the advice to sound so urgent. It’s not a gentle nudge; it’s a wake-up. The message is that you can design for internal satisfaction instead of external applause, and you probably should—sooner rather than later.

Final reflection

There’s comfort in admitting we were taught the wrong finish line. Once you name it, you can choose another. Success may still involve hard work, but it becomes bearable—and even joyful—when your days reflect values you actually own. Imagine a life where the work doesn’t feel like an escape route but like the room you never leave. That possibility is both a quiet liberation and a serious invitation to change.

Here's what stood out: pause to celebrate, build a daily life you want to live in, and stack evidence of who you are becoming.