 So reflecting back on my life, there was something very interesting that somebody asked me about my childhood, now where I am after the age of 30. Someone asked me, what would you do differently to be successful as a teenager? Because teenagers now have insane resources for improving their life. You know, like when I was a teenager, there wasn't any YouTube. When I was a teenager, there was no social media. When I was 13, there was no internet. The internet literally had just come out and people were getting AOL and doing AOL chats and typing weird things to strangers on the internet, that was the beginning. But what would I do going back reflecting on in my life? Well in this video, I want to share three of the biggest things I would do differently and if you're a teenager or your early teens, your 20s, the things I would really, really recommend to do differently because they could be huge life mistakes. What's up guys? Alex Hein, author of the book, Master of the Day. Now if you are looking to get your life right from the jump, from the get go, that first link in the description is a free goal setting worksheet that will help you plan out your most epic year ever. Now if you are a teenager or if you are someone who's young and you want to get things right sooner rather than later, download that, fill out that worksheet that will help you get started and plan that out right away. So the first thing, the most important thing is this idea of rebel, conform or align. Now I'm going to shoot a whole video on this coming pretty soon, but there's this idea in school where when people don't know what to do in life, they do one of two things typically. Most people conform. So that's like mommy says she wants you to be a doctor, so you become a doctor. The kids in school want you to dress a certain way, to fit in. So you dress a certain way to fit in. People say this class is cool. This class is stupid and nerdy. This sport is cool. This sport is stupid and nerdy. These are the cool things. These are the dumb things. Either no one cares about them or they're just dumb. So most people conform because most of us really want to fit in. You know, there's nothing worse than being in school and not fitting in. That's what most of us want. And in life as you get older, some people still try to do the same thing. You know, high school is a little microcosm of life where people who are popular on some level are the people people want to be around. People want to emulate. People want to see those people more. But in the real world, you see a very similar phenomenon, which is that the keeping up with the Joneses phenomenon. And that is the exact same manifestation of the popular in the cool. You don't want to be in a town where everyone has nice green yards and your yard looks like crap. Like all your animals just took a pee on it and now it's all rotten and brown. You want it to be green because otherwise it sticks out like a sore thumb. You don't want to be the person that's driving like a Honda Accord where everybody's driving Audi's, Mercedes and BMW's, right? Because you want to fit in with the Joneses and now look like you're not making money or something. So this idea of wanting to fit in, conforming, wanting to just not ruffle too many feathers. That is the default state that most human beings live in and most kids in school will as well. The second thing is when people don't know about their own identity, they rebel. So we see most people conform, some rebel. So this is like the punk, the skater kid, the Goths, maybe even the hippie types, the emo types. All these kids are just like screw the establishment. I don't want to be doing that. I don't want to listen to Jack Johnson. I want to listen to a Venge Sevenfold. And so you have the kids that are like, I want to fit in, like not fitting in, feels weird. I can't deal with the criticism of having like a gauge earring or black hair. So they want to fit in. Or maybe they are conventional and they really do fit in. The second group, rebels. So this group is really, it's almost unconscious rebellion where they're like screw whatever is popular, screw authority. I hate my teachers. I hate the popular kids. I hate what's popular. Screw that life. I don't want that. That's the rebel group, smaller percentage. But there's a third group that nobody talks about. And that group is what I call the aligned group. It's just being yourself. And guess what? If yourself is the conventional nerdy person, then you'd be nerdy. And then whether that's popular or not popular, that's fine. The aligned group is if you're the athlete and you love sports, you just so happen to be good at them and you get popular, fine. That's fine. You're popular because that's just the high school social dynamic. But also alignment means if you like Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft or being goth, whatever it is, and you're very unpopular or you're bullied for that. Guess what? That's fine too, because you should always try to be yourself. That aligned group is such a small percentage of humans, not only in high school, but in life. You're the people that say, you know what, screw what everyone thinks is popular, I'm going to be real. I'm going to be me. These are my values. If the world loves it, great. If the world hates it, so be it. Screw the world. I don't care. I'm not doing this for you. I'm not doing this for my mom. I'm not doing it for the Joneses, so they can know I have money by driving an Audi. I want to drive the Honda Accord, right? I want to listen to this music, do this kind of thing, go to these places. I don't give a damn if people think it's popular or not. So my first piece of advice would be always be in the aligned group, which means very simply just be who you are and be confident about who you are, because that kind of confidence gives you power. That gives you an inner kind of power that very few people have that everyone envies and everyone wants. This kind of superficial external power is the power you get from having a lot of money or being popular or famous, but that power is not real. That power is ego power. It's not a real power. You strip those things from the person and they're like a weak child left alone in the street to die. Inner power is being yourself and unashamedly, unabashedly, confidently being yourself. The second thing is to become an entrepreneur young. Hustle early. You know, I started my first business at 25. Imagine if I started at 15. Number one, there's a certain amount of failures you have to go through as an entrepreneur as a business owner that are just seem to be unavoidable. You just have to do them. It's just how it goes for most people. Most of us are not that fortunate that we get it right the first time. And so what I wish I would have done is imagine if I started putting content on the internet, tried to write books about my ideas and theories of the world, shared my ideas, got feedback on negative feedback, started various businesses to learn how they failed and how they worked. Imagine if I started that 10 years before. That would have been awesome. That would have been the coolest thing in the world because then guess what? I could have gotten those first three or four failures out of the way even before the age of 20. And maybe by the time I got into college or maybe midway through college, I could have been earning a full time living through my own business because then I wouldn't have had to get a job at all. I could have been free to go pursue my dreams and my own goals and the things that I was passionate about and I wouldn't have to worry about anything else because I would have been going after what I wanted and could support myself financially. If you have any kind of entrepreneurial leaning, you have the internet now that my generation didn't even have when I was my early teens. You can look at successful entrepreneurs online and emulate them, study from them, watch videos like this, hire them, read their books. This era is incredible in history and so what I really want to reiterate is the very fact that if you want to be an entrepreneur, you start now. Start that lemonade stand, sell baseball cards, start an internet business, start a YouTube channel, learn how real businesses work and how money is actually earned because then you're that much younger, going to be that much more successful and that much more skilled. Like to me, the fact that there's a 20 year old YouTuber making a full time living on the internet is literally ridiculous. Like that's insane. When I was 20, basically Facebook just came out. Think about that. So if you want to be an entrepreneur, start now, fail fast, hustle. Now look, not everyone should be an entrepreneur. Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. So if not, what I would do is I would actually get a job as young as you can legally just start earning money, acquire those traits that character the work ethic that will allow you to be successful in your life, build those things out that are going to allow you to have the kind of character that will then allow you to be successful and happy and fulfilled in all the other parts of your life. That is very, very important no matter what you do. The third thing is dedicate one hour a day to self growth and getting concrete skills. Now look, there are a whole bunch of things you could be working on in your life to improve your life. But what I would say is commit yourself to the process of self growth, right? Actually commit yourself to being someone who's working on their life actively. Now that could be something really as simple as I'm going to do a 30 day happiness challenge and write down what I learned. I'm going to start getting good at judo, at card playing, at a video game, at a sport. Get good at something. So the most underrated skill in the world is actually being good at something, the skill of getting good. Because no matter what you do, you will be rewarded for actually being good. And the last thing I'm going to leave you with here is develop tiny daily disciplines. Dedicate yourself to building a disciplined life. So it doesn't necessarily mean getting up at 5am, but what it means is pick a goal, stick with it. It's not easy, right? That's why most people do not stick with their goals. Set a goal and stick with it. Dedicate 30 to 60 minutes a day to self growth material and stick with it five days a week. Do that and you're building the foundation of an exceptional life. You're building the foundation of success because the thing that precludes any success is your character. Your character comes before any success you can possibly achieve. And so if you start when you're just a teenager at being more disciplined, trying out those things, failing early, studying and acquiring valuable skills, video editing, writing, whatever it is, actually have something you can show for your skills. By the time you get into your 20s, you're going to be such a valuable person in the marketplace you'll have whatever success it is you're looking to have. But above all, don't forget the biggest thing that most people do not do in their teens is begin living your life deliberately. That's it. Actually have a direction for your life. Don't just get home and watch TV for three hours. Get home and think what is the performance goal I want to reach in all these other parts of my life? What is the performance goal? Is that goal I want to study and get fit and get a girlfriend and have a lot of friends and get good at judo? Well then dedicate your time consciously towards that. Don't coast and let your teens just go away and then you're 20 and you graduate at high school and you're in college, but you haven't done much else. Deliberately use your time and your life now because that trait and habit will carry on for the rest of your life. Now again you guys if you want the best way to begin is of course with setting goals. The younger you can do it the better. The first link in the description is my free goal setting worksheet that will help you get started with setting your goals. You're also going to get an email every few days on how to use goal sending to completely change your life. So check out that first link in the description and then come on over. Check out my last two videos there and there.