I’m 25 and feel like I’ve wasted years.
I’m sure many others have seen the instagram posts of the 19 year old driving his Mclaren – only taking his eyes off the road to look at his Rolex and/or his supermodel girlfriend in the passenger seat. I don’t know about anyone else, but that looks like a cool lifestyle.
Inevitably, envy starts to creep in. How can someone 6 years younger be so ahead of me financially? What I typically might do is write these youngsters’ successes off. Finding some excuse to help ease the pain of my own inadequacies. This is easy.
Lately, I’ve been taking another approach…. adopting a growth mindset
A growth mindset can be summarized as the belief that abilities can be developed through hard work and dedication.
Instead of chalking things up to luck of the draw, I’m now starting to wonder what did this person do to get where they are, and how do I emulate it? From what I can tell, any success in life is on the other side of hard work, dedication, and a very clear idea of what you want.
Obviously I don’t think that I am going to hard work my way to becoming the next Elon Musk – there is definitely a base layer of intelligence and talent that can’t be changed. I believe what can be changed is the structure that sits atop that intelligence/talent foundation.
Look at it like this: hard work and dedication builds you the house while intelligence/talent is the plot of land that house sits atop. Elon has a super house in the Hollywood hills. I’m still trying to build my mansion – albiet in a nice quite suburb.
In order to solidify this new process of digesting the world, here are a few books I have either read or plan to read:
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill: Great read. Probably one of the first books about what people call “manifestation” now
- Atomic Habits by James Clear: All about small incremental changes driving huge growth over time
- Winning the War in Your Mind by Craig Groeschel: Haven’t read this, but a once sentence chatgpt summary says, “Groeschel offers practical insights and tools to help readers break free from destructive thinking and embrace a healthier, more positive mindset, ultimately leading to improved mental and emotional well-being.” Interesting!
- The 1% Rule by Tommy Baker: 1,975 Amazon reviewers say that this is a great read. The 1% rule specifically looks like a daily system designed to help close the gap to your goals
I might add some more books here as I find them (probably not).
This is my first blog post ever. Hopefully I look back in a few years and realize how bad it is because I’ve gotten so much better at writing. I guess we’ll see.
– Connor
