I’m always on the lookout for “Advice-I’d-Give-My-Younger-Self” articles.

These pieces often contain valuable insights from older generations, like, “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard,” “I wish I’d let myself be happier,” or “I wish I’d stayed in touch with old friends.” While these reflections can be sobering, they offer a wealth of wisdom. I make it a point to consume as much of this information as possible because it’s just as crucial to learn from others’ failures as it is to emulate their successes.

Last month, I was invited to give a speech to a group of young men. Instead of dishing out the usual “advice I’d give my younger self,” I chose to tackle something more immediate and relevant.

Why not talk about the advice I still need to hear at age 31?

This introspective approach led me to identify five crucial soul-building instructions that I must constantly remind myself of. These insights aren’t just reflections from the past — they are active, ongoing lessons that shape my daily life. They’re the things we kinda all know, but often fail to remember in the throes of life. Whether you’re in your twenties or already navigating your thirties, these reminders aim to kick you in the rear and reframe the complexities of this journey we’re all blindly navigating through.

If I’m being 100% honest, this article is more of a pep talk for myself than some random advice column.

Embrace the Struggle

“The things which hurt, instruct.” — Benjamin Franklin

Imagine you were building a human being from scratch and your first instruction is to make them tough and resilient. What ingredients would you add to the recipe? It probably wouldn’t be a life of ease and comfort, right? So clearly, there’s an appropriate amount of struggle one must endure to become strong and resilient. The challenge is determining the right amount.

Author Ryan Holiday explains that we’d be crazy to want to face difficulty in life. But we’d be equally crazy to pretend that it isn’t going to happen.

If you’re lucky enough to have accomplished something you’re proud of, you likely faced difficult situations and tenuous times. You probably thought about giving up along the way too. But you didn’t. It meant something to you. It filled you with meaning and purpose. You relished the challenge. You forged through and came out the other side stronger, more resilient, and more capable. Better yet, you learned something about yourself; that you can overcome hardship and execute effectively in worse situations. You gave yourself permission to feel shitty momentarily because on the other side of that shitty feeling was satisfaction.

Five years ago, I signed up for the New York City Marathon. Oddly enough, I hate running. Absolutely despise it. But running a marathon was a bucket list item for me, so I was prepared to face months of painful training to achieve that goal and cross it off my list.

Over the course of five months, the training would take me running through the hills of Los Angeles, the highways of Long Island, the deserts of Arizona, Paris’s Seine River, and the bridges and boroughs of New York City. I got to see a lot, and running was truly a great way to experience these new cities. After a couple of months, seeing ‘Saturday — 12 miles’ on the training agenda wasn’t nearly as horrific as it was back in July when I first started. Six miles felt like a warm-up. Eight miles felt like a good, solid workout. After a while, I started to enjoy running. I liked leaking sweat and the feeling of accomplishment before I started the workday. The longer runs were always tough. No matter how much training you do, twenty miles is twenty miles — it ain’t easy.

I will say, the actual race was something else. The atmosphere, I mean — everyone and their mother was out on the streets of Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan cheering their hearts out. Miles one through eighteen blew by and I felt like this thing was going to be easy. I actually surpassed my pacing time and it looked like I was on pace to finish in under four hours, something I never would have imagined five months ago.

But then it all came crashing down in the Bronx, mile twenty. Reality set in. My legs said, “NO MORE!” and gave out. My will was going to have to carry me for the final six miles. I took my first long break, swigged some water, and got an anti-inflammatory agent from a medical rep spraying something called Bio-Freeze on my knees and calves. It did nothing for me. The pain was excruciating and as I looked at my watch, I saw the sub-four-hour mark quickly drifting away.

I swallowed my disappointment that I would not beat the sub-four-hour mark and set my sights on just crossing the finish line intact. The pain was such that I was not able to walk — it would only be jogging or stopping — that was the only way to temporarily silence the pain. In the last six miles, I saw three waves of my family along the road. I did all I could to muster a smile and pretend like I was pain-free.

As I crossed the finish line, there was merely a moment of joy. Maybe two seconds. Then the pain set in. My stomach was in knots, I was pale with low blood sugar, and my knees and calves felt like they had knives all over them. People will tell me it’s an incredible accomplishment, and the medal on my mirror is a reminder of the five months of suffering I went through to earn it. Yet, crossing that finish line, despite the agony, taught me a valuable lesson: struggle builds character.

Accomplishing that feat taught me that I could endure. It taught me that I could overcome my weaknesses and internal temptations. It taught me that if worse comes to worst, I now know what I’m capable of.

Let’s face it, nothing really wonderful happens unless we take uncomfortable risks. The ticket to transformation is being comfortable being uncomfortable. Without moments of discomfort, how would you ever learn a new skill or get a promotion? Growth requires some form of hardship and potential embarrassment. James Clear says that one of the great mistakes in life is “suffering for years because you didn’t want to feel foolish for five minutes.” I’m married to my wife today because I faced the temporary discomfort of approaching a stranger and risking rejection. She could have easily shut me down, but I would have lived the rest of my life with the regret that I was too scared to approach her.

To achieve great things we have to be willing to shovel some shit. It’s gonna suck, and unfortunately, that’s just how it goes. Instead of grumbling and dragging through the obligatory bullshit, I often come back to a phrase I heard from entrepreneur Alex Hormozi: “This is what hard feels like. This is where most people stop and that’s why they don’t win.”

We’re not here to be comfortable. We’re here to grow, evolve, transform ourselves, and turn our lives into something exceptional. That doesn’t mean we’re bound to a life of never-ending struggle, barred from the luxuries of comfort and relaxation. Rest is just as critical to counterbalance hard work. But you have to earn it. You earn it through effort. You earn it by looking at obstacles as opportunities instead of reasons to give up.

Joseph Campbell said, “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”

Anything outside our realm of comfort feels threatening until we’re familiar with it. We get familiar with it by embracing the struggle and getting over the initial agitation. No matter how much it hurts now, someday you will look back and realize your struggle changed your life for the better.

And guess what? You’re going to fail. But failure, ironically, is what leads to the greatest success, which is humility & learning. It’s supposed to be hard. You’re supposed to have moments of doubt. You’re supposed to have days you don’t want to do it. You’re supposed to make sacrifices, to challenge yourself, and push your limits. That’s the price to be paid to separate yourself from the pack.

The nice part about conquering difficult things is that the lessons learned can be applied to every aspect of life. Your mind can lock onto a certain element and then search widely for something unexpected that fits with it. On any given day, I can use my writing chops to draft a memo to a client, I can use my experience as a volunteer firefighter to remain calm in a chaotic work environment. There is always some connective tissue between disciplines.

Look at whatever challenge you are going through as a gift to your future self. Learn to fall in love with the challenge, the sacrifices, and the discomfort — use it to your advantage. The mind wants peace, but needs conflict. If we’re to be pushed to the full use of our powers, we need to face worthy opponents.

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” — Haruki Murakami

Everything you want in life is on the other side of something hard. The trials you endure create your future.

Embrace the struggle.

Unlock Your Emotions

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” — Sigmund Freud

Two years ago, I had my first experience with therapy.

The session, I was told, would last 55 minutes. Initially, I doubted whether I had 55 minutes of “issues” worth talking about. Nevertheless, as the therapist encouraged me to open up, unexpressed emotions began pouring out of me; memories forgotten, stories blotted out, and feelings unarticulated. My therapist explained that all of these emotions, though seemingly dormant, were affecting my actions and responses to everyday life. Holding back meant I was less open with my wife, less affectionate with my parents, less vulnerable with my friends, and less trusting of my colleagues at work.

I first heard of the concept of ‘samskara’ in Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul. In Indian philosophy, Samskara refers to the impressions left on our subconscious mind by our past actions, thoughts, and experiences. Every experience you have and every action you take leaves a mark on your subconscious, shaping your habits, character, and even future experiences. In essence, Samskara teaches us that our past actions and thoughts influence our present and future. Think of your samskaras as the unfinished energy patterns that end up running your life.

Remember taking Driver’s Ed for the first time? If your experience was anything like mine, your first time driving on the highway was probably terrifying. You didn’t know how to merge, couldn’t find your car’s blind spot, and were too scared to even think about changing lanes.

Now imagine, due to that one experience, you chose to avoid all highways for the rest of your life.

How difficult would it be to see friends? How many creative ways could you map out all the side roads from New York to Boston, or D.C. to Philly? Sure, you could still live a relatively normal life, but a huge chunk of it would be spent mentally bullfighting your fear of three-lane highways, maneuvering every which way not to confront your anxieties; lying, hiding, and shucking at opportunities for fun road trips during your most vibrant years.

Your samskara acts like an ugly scar across your chest. As a result, you live your life metaphorically wearing a t-shirt into the ocean, deathly afraid of exposing your bare skin to the world.

But what if you confronted it head-on? What if you looked at that scar on your chest as a badge of honor instead of something to be embarrassed about? Leland Van Del Wall says, “The degree to which you can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth you can accept about yourself without running away.”

For most of my life, rather than wearing my heart on my sleeve, locating my heart required a treasure map and a crowbar. I was deathly afraid of opening up and being affectionate. Before therapy, I hadn’t cried in over a decade.

I naively thought self-awareness meant understanding what I was thinking. If it couldn’t be explained through reason or logic then clearly it wasn’t useful. I thought presenting myself as enlightened, analytical, and level-headed was the ultimate expression of intellectual superiority. Look at all the books I’ve read. “I’m much too sensible to be overcome by irrational emotions.”

But it took me a loooong time to realize that self-awareness isn’t about using cerebral horsepower to out-rationalize my emotions; it is actually about understanding what I am feeling. I once described to my therapist a situation in which I was angry for no apparent reason when she so delicately explained, “Yeah, that’s fucking emotions, dude. None of them are rational!” The whole point of emotions (anger, hopelessness, elation, etc.) is that they are irrational. That doesn’t mean they aren’t valid. If we can learn how to listen to them, they can be incredible learning tools.

Executive coach Joe Hudson lays out a three-step formula for seeing through the emotional matrix:

1. Name an unwanted emotion in your life (shame, guilt, anger, etc.)
2. List the ways you try to avoid it
3. Notice that every way you try to avoid it, you actually create it.

The only way to understand your emotions is to contemplate them deeply, and the only way to get through your emotions is to face them.

There’s a model in behavioral psychology called Ironic Process Theory, which posits that sometimes our efforts to control our minds result in the opposite outcome of what we intended.

• If you want a thought to get bigger, run away from it.
• If you want your fear to shrink, run towards it.
• If you want to relax, don’t try to relax.

Most things in life require less effort than we think. It’s just that the effort requires that split-second feeling of being absolutely terrified. We want to run and hide from scary things. It’s natural. But emotions are most harmful when we hold them in instead of expressing them appropriately. When we can’t control our emotions, we resort to controlling other people’s behavior. Think back to the imaginary friend who’s too afraid to drive on highways — they’re going concoct every story imaginable to stop you from pulling on the expressway, right?

So how do we pull back the veil on our emotions? It takes four simple steps:

• Feel it
• Contemplate it
• Journal it
• Map it out

First, you feel the feeling. This is involuntary, but often don’t recognize our emotions in the moment. Pause. Give your emotion a label. If you notice anger or fear rise, notice it. Say something stupid to it like, “Hello, old friend.” Next, contemplate it. Spend two minutes completely void of inputs. Let your mind drift. Go for a walk without your phone. Allow yourself to feel through every passing thought and emotion that arises. When you get back, write down everything you can remember. Journaling gives you clarity over your thoughts by allowing you to self-author the story. Only by laying them out on a blank page can you begin to map the meanings of events that happened in the past.

More important than feeling, expressing, and contemplating your emotions is the ability to understand them. As I said earlier, emotions are irrational by nature, so we’ll never be able to interpret them with 100% clarity. But through consistent contemplating and self-authoring, you will soon be able to feel an emotion like shame arising and know where it’s coming from; to feel anger boiling up and to understand its root.

If you can learn to notice emotions as they emerge, you can pause briefly before they overwhelm you. You can look at the emotion objectively and decide whether to accept it as true or recognize it as invalid. With this skill, you gain an emotional superpower, enabling you to respond to events more effectively.

Mastering your emotions means you’re capable of a range of emotions — happiness, glee, anger, sorrow, love, and affection. The more capable you are, the more ways you can act. The more ways you can act, the more ways you can act virtuously. The ultimate expression of emotional security is that you can take care of yourself and others. The first step is being able to take care of yourself, and that step cannot be skipped. Being strong is synonymous with being open, honest, and affectionate with others; a strong, healthy individual is one who both gives and receives affection.

Unlock your emotional side.

Own Your Responsibilities

“Those who commit to nothing are distracted by everything.” — Bhagavad Gita

Responsibility is a word that follows us from cradle to cubicle. As children, we’re told to be responsible. Fast forward to adulthood, and our job descriptions are packed with roles and responsibilities that sound like a never-ending to-do list. And let’s not forget when we mess up — we’re sternly told to take responsibility for our actions as if it’s some magical fix-all.

We’re often ready to take on responsibility but frequently shy away from it because we fear the repercussions if we fall short of expectations. As Sigmund Freud wrote, “Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”

But here’s the thing: truly owning your responsibilities can turn you from feeling powerless into someone people consider High Agency.

What does it mean to be High Agency?

It’s an attitude you’ve likely seen in every successful leader you’ve ever encountered. It means actively going after what you want without waiting for the circumstances to be perfect.

My favorite definition of high agency:

“When you’re told that something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind, how to get around whoever it is that’s just told you that you can’t do something? So, how am I going to get past this bouncer who told me that I can’t come into this nightclub? How am I going to start a business when my credit is terrible and I have no experience?”

— Eric Weinstein

The common theme? These are people who don’t make excuses. They take direct ownership and make every challenge a personal responsibility to confront and hurdle.

Responsibility makes you a man of action, not of speech. When you can make a promise to someone, concoct a vision, and execute it, people come to see you as a responsible and reliable person.

Of course, you can take on too much responsibility. You have to be cautious of that. But that’s a less common problem of not taking on enough. Responsibility provides the opportunity to make mistakes people care about. Most of our failures are in private. But having responsibility over other people and then failing? That changes everything. By definition, responsibility thrusts you into the spotlight because people are counting on you to achieve something.

Look, life is difficult. If you’ve lived long enough, you know it can be painful, uncertain, and often flat-out miserable. So we have to make that pain worth something. Responsibility gives us a reason to face the fear. To offset the harsh realities of our lives, Jordan Peterson proclaims we must carry a “countervailing set of propositions to embody our actions with worth.”

That means adopting some risk. All life has risks. But there’s no reason to let the fear of losing something prevent you from sincerely trying anything. Avoiding risks also means losing out on the rewards. You’re going to feel imposter syndrome. We all do — it’s a natural byproduct of stretching your limits. If you’re not afraid, you’re not reaching. You should be putting yourself in positions in which you’re a bit unsure if you’re ready. How else would you grow?

As I said earlier, things that are challenging are almost always more rewarding. When you work hard to achieve something, and then you do it, it feels good! Even if you try and come up short, you will undoubtedly grow and learn from the experience.

Taking responsibility and having ownership over someone or something imbues life with meaning and purpose. We only learn when we give our whole being to something. If you don’t have a narrative of meaning, a driving ethos, a uniting story, or an explanation for your existence in the world, then you‘ll lack direction. Without direction and purpose, you’re bound to be miserable.

Why?

Because almost all of the positive emotions you’ll experience in your life will be a consequence of the pursuit of valuable goals.

Happiness is not a consequence of attaining your goals. It’s a consequence of positing them, aiming at them, and observing yourself moving towards them. That sense of forward movement, engagement, meaning, and accomplishment is what propels you and provides lasting feelings of contentment. If someone assigns you an important responsibility, they clearly have some level of belief in you. But you can’t rely on others for belief. You have to believe in yourself.

As you get better at things and gain more skills, others will begin to feel comfortable asking you to take on more. That’s a good thing! They trust that you are someone who is reliable and capable of difficult challenges. And as your skills and responsibility increase, your compensation usually does too. That’s a great thing!

We all want to be respected, right? We hear that over and over again. How can I get more respect from people? But Alex Hormozi tells us that we should trade the word ‘respect’ and replace it with ‘usefulness.’ Because when you’re useful, guess what? You’re respected. When you have a lot of skills and a lot of talent you’re going to be respected by a lot more people. Most importantly, you’re going to respect yourself.

The key takeaway here is that you won’t become reliable and capable without taking on challenges that involve more responsibility than you believe you can handle. Adopt a mindset where taking responsibility is not a chore but an opportunity. People who are good at remaining calm under pressure are just people who went through a lot of stressful situations and learned how to take responsibility instead of acting like a victim.

Own your responsibilities.

Think Long-Term

“The more future-focus I act, the better my life becomes.” — Unknown

As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that success isn’t about discovering a secret formula. It’s about consistently sticking to basic principles that everyone knows but most people don’t do because they can’t stay focused or disciplined.

When I was sixteen, I was overweight, with a BMI just shy of obesity (by 0.01 point)! Despite my athletic build, I ate like crap and was embarrassed by my doughy gut. Determined to get a six-pack, I picked up a book called The Abs Diet and followed its advice meticulously for six months. The author set realistic expectations: results take time, and setbacks are part of the process. Patience and consistency, not intensity or desire, were key.

My journey to achieving the body of my dreams wasn’t a dramatic Rocky montage of highlights — chugging egg yolks and punching meat in a freezer. In reality, it was incredibly boring. I began with small, daily changes — waking up early for workouts, swapping junk food for healthy options, and staying hydrated. Initially, progress was slow, but over time, my energy levels increased, my posture improved, and after six months, I lost thirty pounds. Boiling a six-month process into one sentence makes it seem like it was an easy process but it was anything but. I slid back into old patterns constantly. I had days where I thought it was all for nothing. Throwing in the towel was a daily temptation. I dealt with shame, anger, frustration, and regret throughout the entire process. But this experience taught me a crucial lesson: Good things take time.

Every decision we make is an investment in our future. Choices aren’t just for today — they impact our lives 24 hours, 24 days, and 24 months ahead. Every time you make a decision based on how it will affect your future positively, you’re setting yourself up for success. Small, consistent actions lead to significant long-term results.

Ask yourself: If I repeated what I did today 365 more times, will I be where I want to be next year?

If the answer is no, then it’s simple. Change course.

It’s why in the last few years I’ve cut down on drinking and stupid purchases. Instead, I focus on investments that provide lasting value. Real success comes from patience and consistency, not shortcuts.

It took me a long time to understand that the path to success in anything is LONG & BORING. I sucked at golf for years. Bit by bit, I improved each part of my game. It didn’t seem like I was making progress, but over time, my scores started to drop. This summer I played the best round of my life and shot a 78! After celebrating, what stood out to me was how boring it was. There were no miraculous shots, Tiger-esque escapes, or flashy moves. I simply made smart decisions and avoided stupid mistakes.

Two of the best pieces of advice on long-term thinking come from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, a partnership that has arguably achieved more long-term success than any other in history.

• Warren Buffett: “You don’t get rich fast… you get rich slow.”
• Charlie Munger: “It’s remarkable how much long-term advantage you can get by just consistently not being stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”

Success takes time in literally everything: business, friendships, training for a race, personal development, etc. Strive for results, but don’t rush or cut corners. As the author of The Abs Diet advised, be patient and be consistent. If you do things right for long enough, eventually you’ll pass almost everyone who has been cutting corners trying to cheat the process. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

If you want to build wealth, automate savings and invest wisely. If you want to lose weight, stick to a few healthy meals daily. If you want to write a book, start with one page a day. Embrace the routine, even if it feels mundane. Consistency over time will turn these simple actions into significant achievements.

Make decisions your future self will thank you for, not resent you.

Act for the future version of you. Think long-term.

Sharpen Your Communication

“Writing lets you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn’t if you were just talking, and having seen them, you could improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate.” — Ted Chiang

Communication is the most powerful weapon you can possess. If you want to operate effectively in this world, reading and writing are not optional. If you can think, speak, and write you are DEADLY.

In 1946, twenty-one-year-old Malcolm Little was sentenced to eight years at Charlestown State Prison for larceny, and breaking and entering. Little had spent most of his life hustling, dealing drugs, and burglarizing the cities in which he lived. Two years later, Little was transferred to Norfolk Prison Colony in Massachusetts. In that prison, he found a library filled with hundreds of books. He wanted to write letters to his loved ones but struggled to communicate his thoughts on the page. His lack of linguistic ability caused him endless frustration.

Rather than sit in misery, he decided to do something about it. He taught himself to read and write the hard way, copying the entire dictionary, page by page, into a notebook, until he could commit the definitions to memory. He read every book he could get his hands on across various subjects — Eastern philosophy, European history, science, religion, African culture, and American literature. He’d stay up all night using the glow from the lights outside his cell. Reading in poor light affected his eyesight causing him to don horn-rimmed eyeglasses. His newly acquired reading skills transformed him from a hustler to a master communicator. He began to participate in debates with other prisoners on various subjects, and his fellow prisoners stood aghast at Little’s transformation and ability to command a room with his knowledge and vast vocabulary.

Eventually, Malcolm Little found religion through the Nation of Islam and changed his name to one you may be more familiar with: Malcolm X.

Reading profoundly changed Malcolm’s life. By gaining access to knowledge, he was able to forge his path and emerge as a leader in the black struggle for human rights. “I knew right there, in prison, that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” Years later, when a reporter asked Malcolm X for his alma mater, he simply replied, “Books.”

I talk endlessly about the importance of reading; it deepens, widens, and expands our sense of self. As author Anne Lamott explains, books feed the soul. Libraries are one of our greatest available resources, and they’re 100% free of cost. Where else can you meet and spend uninterrupted time with the thoughts of so many brilliant and unique people? A library is an infinite playlist of the world’s greatest thinkers. Morgan Housel says, “Every smart person I know is a voracious reader who also says, ‘every smart person I know is a voracious reader.’”

Fiction or non-fiction, it doesn’t matter. Humans are natural storytellers. Studies show we learn best through stories. They forge connections between people and ideas, but more than that, they also convey culture, history, and values. They build familiarity and trust, in a way that factual statements encapsulated in bullet points or numbers don’t. They allow us to enter the story where we are, making us more open to learning. Good stories are surprisingly economical in conveying complex ideas in graspable ways. You can learn more about Western civilization from a few key biographies than you might in a typical four-month college course.

Reading is just one piece of the puzzle. The goal isn’t to gather more information but to implement what we’ve learned. To do this, we need to write and discuss our readings, applying them to our minds and expanding our critical thinking skills. As writer David Perell says, “Read to collect the dots, write to connect them.”

How well we can think is directly correlated with how well we can write, and the best way to think critically, I believe, is to write. Writing isn’t just about putting words on paper — it’s a way to see where our thinking might be off; we can spot and fix flaws in our thoughts. Writing isn’t just a way to convey ideas, but also a way to have them. Investor Paul Graham put it best in his essay The Need to Read:

“A good writer doesn’t just think, and then write down what he thought, as a sort of transcript. A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing. And there is, as far as I know, no substitute for this kind of discovery. Talking about your ideas with other people is a good way to develop them. But ever after doing this, you’ll find you still discover new things when you sit down to write. There is a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing.”

To make the generic wisdom we consume personal and meaningful, we must translate it into our own words. We each have our own unique set of mental shortcuts, and writing helps uncover those hidden insights and opportunities lying dormant in our subconscious. For me, journaling has been one of the most transformative practices. Journaling makes the unconscious conscious. In this hyper-connected era, where digital note-taking reigns supreme, I find a certain charm in putting pen to paper. There’s something uniquely magical about the deliberate slowness of handwriting.

Finally, it’s crucial to share our ideas with others. Only by engaging with a diverse range of thinkers can we better understand our own thought patterns and beliefs. We need to test our ideas in the real world to see how they hold up. When we expose our beliefs in the arena of debate, we can determine if they withstand scrutiny. If not, go back to the drawing board and ask yourself: Where did I fall short? What were my blind spots? How can I improve my arguments or enhance my communication to be more persuasive?

Podcaster Chris Williamson offers a valuable suggestion: try recording a fake podcast. Once a week, sit down with a friend, grab a phone, and record your conversation for thirty minutes. Even if you never share it, having a recorded record will naturally hold you to a higher standard. Any gaps in your thinking will become evident, prompting you to be more attentive to your thought patterns and precise in your speech. My cousin Keith and I have been podcasting for two years and sharing our conversations on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Knowing that our arguments will be publicly scrutinized forces me to clearly define what I truly believe. After nearly 30 hour-long conversations, maintaining a false persona is impossible; listeners will quickly spot any inconsistencies in my reasoning.

When I was in middle school, my grandpa led a weekly public speaking workshop in my aunt’s basement with me and about ten of my cousins. Each week, he would have us stand up and share a five-minute story about something that had happened that week. After our presentations, he provided constructive feedback — encouraging us to speak louder, slow down, make eye contact, and stand with a confident posture. At the time, I hated it, but that early practice helped me build so much confidence in my speaking abilities. Before long, I was no longer intimidated by speaking in front of a crowd, and I even started to enjoy it.

Communication levels the playing field. If you can speak well, you can set yourself apart from the competition in so many ways. Very few people enjoy delivering presentations or speaking in front of groups. But if you can articulate your arguments clearly, be assertive in your speech, and command a room with your story, man, you’ll be powerful.

“Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow.” — Lawrence Clark Powell

What I Tell My Younger Self Every Day

1. Embrace the Struggle
2. Unlock Your Emotions
3. Own Your Responsibilities
4. Think Long-Term
5. Sharpen Your Communication

— KB