Turning 40 is a significant milestone, often accompanied by newfound wisdom and perspective. Let's delve into 14 essential life lessons that can enrich this journey, offering a roadmap to navigate the complexities of life with grace, resilience, and optimism.
Acquisition never leads to satisfaction
Lasting satisfaction comes from doing, not having.
- Want to feel good about yourself? A simple way is to help someone.
- Knowing you’ve made a difference in another person’s life creates a lasting buzz.
- To get another buzz, you have to buy something else.
- And you’re never really satisfied.
Other people really do want you to succeed
Investors constantly search for great ideas, great ventures, or great companies
- They want to love you and invest in great people
- People want to see you do well because your success will help them solve a problem or fulfill a need of their own
The best investment you will ever make is in yourself
Invest in yourself: improve your skills, improve your network, increase your expertise, your talent, your experience
The people around you are the people you chose
Think about the type of people you want to work with, the types of customers you would enjoy serving, and the kind of friends you would want to have.
- Change your job or career so you’ll start attracting the right people.
Effort can always be your superpower
You can always out think, out hustle, and out work everyone else.
Emotions are a mixed bag
Researchers found that feeling both cheerful and dejected at the same time – what psychologists call a “mixed emotional experience” – was a precursor to improved well-being in follow-up therapy sessions
- Noticing and embracing a wide spectrum of emotions is the path to short- and long-term happiness
Best advice is not advice
Help people find the right questions to ask themselves and surround yourself with people who do the same for you
- Don’t tell someone what to do, but rather guide them to find the answers they need
- Warren Buffett’s father told him it was a bad time to enter the securities industry
- Buffett decided to do it anyway because it was the right thing to do
Big ideas are overrated
We have tons of small ideas.
Your success is predictable only in hindsight
Look back on an entrepreneurial path to greatness and assume that every vision was clear, every plan was perfect, every step was executed flawlessly, and tremendous success was a foregone conclusion
- Only in hindsight does it appear that way
- The only thing that’s inevitable is if you don’t try, you can never succeed
If your goal is to get rich, you’ll need to start a business
When you work for someone else, you will never be paid more than that person or company decides you’re worth.
Your resume is just a record
It’s a by-product of what you’ve accomplished, learned, and experienced
- Base your life on accomplishing your goals and dreams
- Let your resume reflect that journey
- Determine what you need to do to get to where you want to be
Sacrifice
Success always requires sacrifice
- The most successful people do things when they don’t necessarily want to do them
- That’s what makes you great: Doing things when you know that is what it takes to get you to the place you want to go
- Don’t be afraid to make sacrifices
Defining success
Decide what “success” really means to you.
- Make sure what you really want is the same as what you will actually get
- If your goal is to become a wealthy restaurateur, the economics of the industry mean you’ll need to own multiple locations
- You will need to build a restaurant business
Hierarchical gain is not achievement
Playing politics can help get you ahead, but ultimately you lose because political success is based on the impulses, whims, and caprices of other people.
