Me and The Age of 30 – Have I Learned Important Lessons?

As Tony Robbins famously said, people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in decades.

When you understand what you love in life (it can range from dancing to operating surgery, being an engineer to singing) and take steps for it, you somehow start being involved in it.

When you become involved in it, you understand how to make it a part of your life.

When you understand how to make it a part of your life, you start doing it professionally.

When what you love becomes your job, you do not feel like working for a minute.

When you love doing it, you become successful at it.

And that is the most valuable thing in life, doing what you love to do.

I work as a trainer/speaker. Sometimes there are days that I give chain trainings for 5-6 days. And I do not complain one single moment. Because I found what I love to do in this life and I love doing it.

To love what you do, understanding your 'why' is essential. For example in my case, when I only say 'what' I do, as in:

'I give speeches'

That does not mean anything, neither to me, nor to the people that I try to convey my message to.

When I understand and internalize my 'why', which in my case is

'To inspire and to be inspired'

Then it means a lot to me and the people I convey my message to. And that is exactly what wakes you up from the bed every single morning, ready to rock.

Having a productive mindset is like going to the gym. The more you think, elaborate, reflect and focus on ideas and implementing them, the more you enjoy doing it and your mind gets 'fitter'. After a while you just cannot stop being productive and coming up with ideas and projects. When you get yourself into a productive mindset, you start achieving things that you would not imagine a few years back.

I find Elon Musk as a great example of how being productive brings to you things beyond your imagination, first founding Paypal, then Tesla and then SpaceX (and still coming up with millions of ideas).

Mind is a muscle, it works more when you work it.

Since almost everything we do is about 'people', we will see the miracles when we actually start listening to people. In today’s society, active listening is one of the hardest traits to find. When you look in somebody’s eye and actually listen to them, without thinking what to say next and what do cook for dinner or how many likes you have on instagram, then you will see how you easily communicate with people.

As an entrepreneur, I came to the understanding that instead of constantly trying to talk, I would rather listen. You cannot imagine the benefits it brought so far.

Listen to people and you will see how it changes your life.

When you understand the difference between focusing on something on a conscious and subconscious level, you will understand how important it is to also make sure that our subconscious actually wants what we want on a conscious level.

Shortly, while the conscious part of our brain has around 3000 neurons, our subconscious has more than 2 billion neurons. It is often the case that we want something and somehow can not achieve it (earning money is a good example in that).

One of the main reasons is we do not want this on a subconscious level, because we think money is for bad people, it is evil etc… As long as we are on this mindset, we will not earn money, because we will keep sabotaging ourselves.

It is the same for other things too. For a relationship, for getting the promotion you want, for learning English. Anything.

To practice in this, I close my eyes every morning and night and repeat these words.

'I am a worldwide known trainer'.

'I am on the stage in 'x' stadium, giving a speech to 50.000 people'.

'I give speeches around the world'.

'I am earning millions from this'.

These are things that I have not achieved yet. However I repeat them as I already had.

That is because the subconscious cannot distinguish between truth and fiction. When you repeat your goals as you already have had them, your mind focuses its energy on that goal. After that, all you have to do is to keep working hard towards that goal.

I suggest the wonderful book 'The Ant and the Elephant' by Vince Posente for more elaboration on this.

Get a hobby, do what you like, regardless where you are, who you are. Apart from having amazing fun in doing something you truly enjoy and blowing off steam, meeting people with common interests is very valuable, both in a personal and professional level.

In my case, being a member of the Toastmasters speaking club, apart from being a great experience, allowed me to be a TEDX speaker. One of the members of the club was in the TEDX organizing committee and recommended my name as a speaker, which had ultimately led to achieving one of my biggest dreams.

Successful people have one common trait, working their asses off. Coming home at 22:00, working for 10 days straight, going from town to town, facing constant failure or dealing with success…

Simply, you cannot dunk like Jordan if you do not practice dunking more times than him.

The good thing is, when your job is something that you love doing, you will not feel like working at all, even though you will work more than all other people.