What I'd Tell My 20-Year-Old Self
Time, energy, and near zero obligations. An insane edge that most people squander.
Someone asked me: “What’s the best advice you can give to someone who’s 20?”
Here’s the real answer.
At 20, you have an unfair advantage.
Most people waste it.
You have three assets that depreciate every year:
Time — more runway than you’ll ever have again.
Energy — your body can still recover from stupid decisions.
Flexibility — no mortgage, no kids, no obligations eating your options.
Most people squander all three on things that don’t compound. They fill their days with pleasure instead of purpose. They spend their seed capital on consumables. They drift through the decade and wake up at 30 wondering where it went.
Your edge at 20 is temporary. What you build with it isn’t.
The Hard Truth
Here’s what I wish someone had told me:
Every minute, every hour, every dollar you fill with pleasure instead of purpose now is stripping you of multiples in the future.
I’m not saying never have fun. I’m saying the math is real: what you invest now compounds for 40+ years. What you consume now is just gone.
I messed up a lot between 18 and 22. Partying. Getting into trouble. Not focused. Not locked in. I wasn’t a total wreck—I still graduated, got good grades, competed athletically—but it was a rough patch. A lot of hard lessons. A lot of wasted time and energy on the wrong things.
I did better than most, even with all my bad decisions. But that’s the point: imagine what’s possible if you do even a little bit more, with purpose.
The more you delay gratification now, the sooner you get to the comfortable place—financially, identity-wise, clarity, purpose. All of it.
Lock In One Physical Discipline
Before anything else. Before the business. Before the hustle. Before the money moves.
Pick one:
Sleep — protect it.
Movement — walk, lift, run, push-ups, whatever. A minimum non-negotiable.
Nutrition — cut the junk. Find better alternatives or eliminate the bad completely.
Lock one in until it’s identity, not effort. Then add the next.
I had sports to prop me up through my early 20s, so I was always good here. But then I leaned into work. Worked and worked and neglected the physical. That compounded through my 30s—on for a bit, then a slump, on again, then a longer slump.
It wasn’t until my late 30s that I finally got consistent. Shortened the gap. No more cliff fall-offs. Small reps compound. Consistency wins.
Your body is the engine for everything else. Neglect it now and you’ll spend your 30s trying to buy back what you gave away for free.
Cut the Leaks
Look at where your money goes:
Alcohol. Eating out. Video games. Aimless hangouts. Subscriptions you forgot you had.
Most of that isn’t even fun—it’s just default behavior. It’s what everyone does, so you do it too.
I wasted tons on silly things. Food, beer, video games. I still managed to stock some money away, but I could have done so much more.
That money isn’t spending money. It’s seed capital. Don’t throw it away on consumables.
Every dollar you spend on things that don’t compound is a vote for who you don’t want to become.
Automate Your Savings
20% of every paycheck. 10% minimum. 30% if you can.
Into VOO or QQQ. Low-cost index funds. Set it and forget it.
Don’t look at it. Don’t touch it. Don’t “wait for the dip.” Just buy, every paycheck, automatically, so you don’t even see it.
Let compounding do what compounding does. At 20, you have 40+ years of runway. If you save 20% now, you’re basically guaranteeing millions in retirement. That’s a real edge.
I learned this the hard way. Made a lot of money trading forex. Lost it all. No discipline. No foresight. Not playing the long game.
Your 30-year-old self will have a nest egg. Your 40-year-old self will have options. Your 50-year-old self will have freedom.
All because 20-year-old you automated one decision.
Build Skills That Transfer
A W2 is fine. For now.
But use your job to learn skills you’ll need forever:
Sales — you’ll use this in every conversation that matters.
Marketing — attention is the asset.
Negotiation — every deal, every raise, every partnership.
If your job teaches these, stay. If not, learn them anyway.
This is the one thing I did right. Sales, marketing, investing, trading—these became the foundation of everything I’ve built. For all my mistakes, I stayed curious. I kept going deeper on these skills. And that has stacked well.
Read the books. But more importantly, practice. Have the difficult conversations now so that at 35, negotiating a major deal feels like just another conversation.
Learn 0-to-1
The skill that changes everything: taking something from nothing to something.
An idea to a product. A product to a customer. A customer to revenue.
Most people never learn this. They optimize. They manage. They maintain. But they never build from zero.
I failed at this multiple times. A website. A trading product. An eBay business. Some worked, some didn’t.
Here’s what I finally figured out: it’s not about the perfect idea. It’s about execution and iteration. Consistent follow-through and adapting to whatever the data says.
Ship something. It doesn’t have to work. It has to exist.
Keep launching until something hits. The failed attempts aren’t waste. They’re tuition.
One more thing: ask for equity. I contributed meaningfully to deals early on and didn’t ask for what I deserved. Now I do. Learn this earlier than I did.
Use AI as Leverage
This isn’t about keeping up with trends. This is a leverage tool. Use it like one.
Learn to use AI for:
Strategy and planning — think through problems faster.
Research and synthesis — compress weeks into hours.
Writing and editing — refine your thinking.
Automation and efficiency — remove the repetitive.
Build around what you already know. Use AI to build, not to make pictures of dogs in space.
The people who figure this out early will compound that advantage for decades.
Build Your Identity on Purpose
You don’t need all the answers at 20. You need direction.
Start asking the questions:
What are your values? What are your boundaries? What will you absolutely not do? What kind of people do you want around you?
Build the identity of someone who finishes what they start, follows through on what they say, and has standards they don’t negotiate.
I always thought about identity, even when I was young. But I wasn’t clear enough, focused enough, or mature enough to have real clarity. It wasn’t until my 30s that I locked into the person I wanted to be.
You can start earlier than I did.
You’re not finding yourself. You’re building yourself. One decision at a time.
Be Intentional About Responsibilities
Marriage. Kids. Mortgage. These are good things—built on the right foundation.
They’re also commitments that reduce optionality. Once you have them, certain doors close. That’s not bad. That’s just real.
The moment I had kids, it hit me: the time to do anything outside of work, to pursue any side interests, disappeared unless I prioritized it. Immediately I looked back and thought, “I had so much more time before. I wasted so much of it.”
A lot of people go down this path because they feel like it’s what they’re supposed to do—not because it’s truly what they’re choosing for themselves.
Be intentional about when you take these on. Don’t rush because everyone else is. Don’t delay because you’re scared.
Make the choice consciously. Not by default.
The Bottom Line
Your 20s are leverage—or waste.
What you build now—the habits, the skills, the capital, the identity—compounds for decades. You can do so much with so little right now. All it takes is time, energy, and the discipline to not waste either.
The goal by 30:
Ownership in something real.
A nest egg that gives you options.
Skills that transfer anywhere.
An identity you built on purpose.
Your edge at 20 is temporary. What you build with it isn’t.
Lock in.
I am glad that this post is underrated