So what's the one thing every guy needs to know before he turns 30? My answer? How to
change a belt on a snowmobile. Seriously. So last week I head up to Eagle River, Wisconsin,
meet up with a bunch of buddies, a guide trip, and we decide to go snowmobiling.
So on day two, we're out on the trails having a great time. About 07:00 at night, it's dark
and all of a sudden my buddy snowmobile stops running. Now we're miles from the nearest city.
It's 20 degrees below freezing and they're rentals and we really don't know a whole lot about these
machines. So at this point we got a decision to make. Option one, call a snowmobile shop.
We did that. Nobody picked up. Apparently they closed a few hours before at four.
Option two, leave the broken snowmobile there, have my buddy Chris jump on the back of mine,
come back the next day with help. And then there's option number three,
fix it ourselves. As you can probably guess,
option number three is what we took and we were able to figure out the repair on our own.
Now specifically, do I think every man needs to be able to change the snowmobile belt? The answer is
no. But what I'm talking about here and the first thing I think that every man under the age of 30
needs to understand and be able to do is not be afraid to do minor repairs himself. Seriously.
Nobody in my party had actually ever changed a belt. But you know what they had done? They had
changed their own oil, they had changed tires, they had fixed washing machines,
we had fixed. I mean, I'm just thinking of all the things around my house,
maybe it's not done perfectly, maybe sometimes I do screw it up.
And you could always argue it's cheaper to hire this stuff out. But I do think
there's a lot to be said about a man that's not afraid to actually take on
and try to figure something out. In fact, having that can do mentality is a huge leg
up in this world when everyone seems to be outsourcing dependent on others.
The next thing on this list I think every guy should at least started by age 30,
is to understand the five basics of financial literacy. Those five basics are how to earn money,
how to save money, how to protect your money, how to spend your money,
and how to borrow money. When it comes to earning money, there are an infinite number of options.
But try to choose one that's going to reward you well for less work involved. My parents worked
hourly jobs. It was something that I saw around me and that's how I thought the system worked.
Then I realized there are salary jobs. Okay, that actually seems
like a better system. You know exactly how much you're going to get the hours.
Yeah, they may work you a bit more, but it seems like they had higher leverage. However,
that leverage then seemed like a joke when I realized, wow, being a business owner,
that really is a potential. You can choose the hours, you take a lot more risk,
but all of a sudden, wow, you've got almost unlimited earning potential in theory.
And then higher than that are passive income streams. This
could be where you own a business and you are a hands off owner and you've
got a manager in there that's running things. Next up, we've got savings.
And anyone that has lived paycheck to paycheck understands the importance and
difficulty of saving money. But even if you're earning hundreds
of thousands of dollars a year, if you're not saving any of it,
then you could vary and you're spending more. You could easily be going into threats.
So that's the key is to live within your means. Next up,
protecting your money. And this one has come to the forefront because of inflation.
There's also the concept of protecting yourself from paying too much in taxes.
If you're doing your own taxes and you're making good money,
that may be a mistake because taxes are not logical. Pretty much in any country,
there are going to be legal workarounds so that you can actually pay a little bit less.
I remember I restructured my business in a way that I was paying less taxes. Yes,
I'm still paying taxes. I'm a patriot, but I don't want to pay more taxes than I need to.
Next up, we've got spent. You want to spend less than what you earn because you want to be saving,
but sometimes you are going to spend a bit more than what you earn. Why?
Because you're starting off on your career and you know, hey, I want to be a doctor.
So you're going to spend the good money invested into that right university. And
that takes us to borrow and understanding the difference between good debt and bad debt. Now,
good debt in general is when you're going to be picking up an asset, whether it's
an education asset, whether it's a physical asset that you expect to increase in value.
It makes sense financially, you're going to be in the positive bad debt. This is when you
spend money you don't have on something that you don't need. You buy that car and all of
a sudden you're paying over 10% interest rate on that vehicle because your credit isn't good.
All that being said, when it comes to the five pillars of financial literacy,
it's easier said than done. Still, you want to dive into this well before you turn 30,
otherwise the problems are going to compound themselves. And speaking of finances,
I think we can all agree that overdraft fees at banks are the absolute worst.
Seriously, I remember starting my business, living paycheck to paycheck and getting
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if used properly, it can save you money. The next thing I think every guy before
the age of 30 needs to realize to figure out is that your physical wellness affects
your mental wellness. So many times we think these things are separate,
that we're going to be able to think our way out of a problem, out of a bad feeling.
We're just having a tough day and we just keep plowing through working in the office versus
stepping out and going for a walk in nature. You got that trail the back of the office,
you've got the company, they got a policy of you being able to take a lunch break, but you feel
you're so far behind that you're just going to power through. How about you go talk to your boss,
you find out if you can actually extend the deadline and simply go for a bike ride,
go for a run, hit the gym, change your mental state by changing your physical state.
And I say guys before the age of 30 should have this figured out. I want you to at
least to understand it, to realize it because you're going to use it the rest of your life.
And I have days in which I find myself, you know, in the afternoon, just really not happy.
I feel behind, I'm not getting things done. I have this whole list and I've
accomplished nothing on that list and it just sort of brings me down. I'm going
to be going at home in a couple of hours spending time with my kids and I realize
you know what? Am I going to be able to recover this day? Maybe I need to just go hit the gym.
Maybe I should just go for a brisk, quick 15 minutes walk,
a five minute walk. Maybe you live in the city. Maybe you can simply just go for a run,
change the way the endorphins are flowing through your body.
It has a huge impact. Now, this one right here could easily have
been number one. And that is, I think, before the age of 30.
Guys need to start figuring out the difference between needs and wants. As a child, as a kid,
they all seem the same. Like, you want something, you need something.
You throw it all in the same category. You're asking others
for help. But once you're on your own, you're 18, you're 20.
Some of you guys were 16 on your own, I get it. At that point,
you have to start making hard decisions. She had limited resources.
And as time goes on, your resources are going to become more and more limited.
Your body isn't going to have the same amount of energy. You're going to have
tons of other commitments, not just at work, perhaps to family members.
Maybe you've got aging parents at some point. You've only got a limited amount of time. Now,
the way I deal with this is being able to prioritize.
I love starting off a day or when I'm overwhelmed. Simply create this little
box right here. Across the top, you're going to have urgent and non urgent.
Then from top to bottom, you're going to have important, non import the important
things. Those are the needs. The non important things, those are the wants.
Yeah, you could live without them. And you have to go through and put everything into one of
these four squares. Now the power with this is if everything is going into important and
urgent and you've got an issue, you've got way too much on the plate and you're
going to have to make some hard calls, some hard decisions and start putting things,
you know what? Now this isn't as urgent or truly, this isn't that important.
Now the box that really fills up for me is going to be the
important and non urgent and these are things that need to get done,
but no one's screaming to get them done. And this is dangerous because you've got
all of those non important things that are screaming urgency. This is social media.
This is that person asking you to do something that you don't really
need to do. They're just trying to throw more work on you. The reality is you're
never going to have enough time to get everything done that's being asked of you,
especially if you're a productive, busy person that people are relying on.
People are reaching out to you. You're known as the guy that gets
things done. You've got to make a decision of what truly is going to have big impact,
what really matters, and that's where you focus your energy.
Now, this next one I read over on Reddit, I think it was meant as a joke,
but there's a little kernel of truth in it, and that is you shouldn't have anything to give. Now,
a lot of people were like, yeah, at this point, I don't care about
anything. Another guy jumped in and said, you know what? I do care about my friends,
I care about my family, I care about my future, and the rest of you guys are all deadbeats.
So you can look at this. But what I think and I think the kernel of
truth in this is that at this point, you should start to realize that there are
things that matter and there are things that don't. And with those two piles,
the things that don't is huge, and the things that do is relatively tiny.
And you want to focus your energy. The few that you do have left over on the important things,
that 20%, that's going to yield you the 80%. Now, what is that 20%? Well, that's the hard part.
You've got to figure it out for yourself. But I'm not going to say it's family,
because some of you guys I get it. You have family that you don't stay in touch with.
They're toxic, they have really hurt you, and you want to stay away. Well,
what are you doing to build up either a new family through friends,
maybe meet somebody so you can start a family, if that's your goal. Not saying it's for everybody,
but I am saying that relationships and being human and simply having a community of people around
you that have your back, that simply make life more enjoyable, I think that's really important.
And I do think by the age of 30, it's okay to not suffer fools. This is the
point when you're maybe 20, starting off, you've got some friends that are complete
idiots. There was a whole theory about the dangers of stupid people, and you've got
to play a few of those people in your life, but what you realize is some people are just,
yeah, they're a net negative to everyone around themselves, including themselves.
Those people are dangerous. You want to stay away from
them. You probably want to start cutting them off.
You're not going to deal with those people anymore. You're not going to
invite them into your life. Instead, you yeah, you only give attention and time
to yourself and to those around you who are you deem are worth your time and your effort.
So the next skill I think every man needs to have by the age of 30 is to be able to
break down goals into the key component parts so that you can tackle them. Now,
a lot of you guys have dreams. You've got an idea, hey, I want to own a business that's paying me a
million bucks I want to be able to have that luxury, that race car, whatever it is you want.
You want a certain type of partner, you've got an idea of what he or she is going to
look like. But here's the thing, how are you going to get there? Because if
you've just got dreams, that's not a goal. There's no plan of action.
Now anyone that's got an engineering background, that is a huge benefit. Why? Because engineers
are excellent for the most part of breaking out the key components to everything in a
system. They understand that a bridge is just a series of material crafted in a certain way.
You've got supports, you follow a set of rules and in general you're going
to be able to craft a bridge that's going to be able to deal with a set amount of weight. Well,
the same thing for your dreams. When you break it into a goal of how you're going
to achieve that dream, you realize, okay, yeah, there's a lot of steps,
maybe there are 100 steps, maybe 1000 steps, but that's a finite number.
And anybody that has ever broken anything out realizes that if it's a finite number,
you can actually accomplish it. You can go through step by step,
start taking steps in that direction. And it's really nice whenever somebody because
sometimes you've got this goal or dream that is overwhelmingly you're starting not just at zero,
you're starting at negative 1000, whatever it may be.
Maybe you're in debt, maybe it's something that you just had a hard shake at life. You
weren't lucky where you were born. So in that case you're just trying to get up.
You're trying to move up. But when you see step by step, you see a path and you're going
in that direction, it's a lot easier when you've got this laid out. The next thing
I think every guy needs to understand before turning 30 and this easily could
have been probably in the top three, is that not everyone has your best interest in mind.
A lot of us are lucky enough to grow up in a family that cares about us. But some
of us at a very early age learn this, that you've got someone that is close
to you that was supposed to be looking out for you, taking advantage of you. I know.
I've heard the horror stories and I've had a few people throughout my life that
you thought you could trust them, that they had your back and all of a sudden
they rip you off. They're the people that are not there. They actually take things from you.
They've been stealing from you, they've been taking from you, they've been hurting you.
But understand that there are people out there that will take advantage of you, especially when
you start earning money. If you're young and you've got a lot of energy to give, you want
to make sure you're working for a company that's rewarding you appropriately, that has a path for
you that isn't just simply leveraging and taking everything from you and not giving anything back.
Now this next one, I think you don't even need to be 30. It'd be great if
you knew this by the time you're 20. It really would have helped me in my
teens and that is that it's okay to be alone, to actually have solitude,
to have time that you can think and you don't have to attach yourself to somebody.
I know for me, the longest time I wanted a girlfriend, I just felt that I was it
was something that all my friends seemed to have no problem talking to the ladies
throughout college. I just felt like I needed to find somebody that that would
completely and for some people. And I am fortunate that I have a partner now that
I've been with for 20 years and she is amazing and we've been able to build a life together.
But not everybody needs that. Not everybody needs that at an early point in life. But
I'm going to say that you can live a complete you can live a healthy,
you can live a good life even if you never find a partner.
There are many people look throughout history, many single men, single women that have been able
to make it through their lives and have a life of impact, a life that they were satisfied with,
a life that changed in many cases the world. Those are the ones oftentimes
you read about and they did it just simply with themselves. That being said, they had friends,
they had tons of people around them that they were able to build these deep relationships with.
So don't fall into that trap thinking that you need to just pair off. It is something
that many of us want, but it's not something that you have to have to live a good life. Now,
this next one is tough, but I'm going to tell it to you straight.
Not everything works out for the good. We hear that, oh, just give it time,
things are going to work out, things will get better. Things don't always get better.
There are illnesses that people in your life will not recover from. There are
going to be relationships which are going to be non salvageable. There are going to
be times that you hear, take two steps forward, take one step back.
There are times you're going to take two steps forward and you're going to take 20 steps
back. But here's the thing. It's not about where, yes, you've got that dream we talked
about that you've got these goals, you've got a breakout of how you're going to accomplish it.
You may not reach that. But here's the thing. It's about you fighting.
It's about you in there giving your best. It's about you not giving up. I'd like to
think that life is a journey that develops our character and some of us, unfortunately,
or fortunately only, depending on how you look at it, we are going to have so much thrown at this.
How's that quote go? Smooth sees never made a skilled sailor. Well,
some of us are going to be very skilled sailors because we are going to have so much crap thrown
at us sometimes at an early age, heavy, but we're going to be able to come out of that
stronger. I know in the last couple of years, like many of you guys, I've enjoyed reading
books like from David Goggins, just simply his life, what he had to overcome to accomplish it,
which many people, like, they see the fact that he's a Navy Seal, they're amazed.
But if they actually see where he came from. And to me, what's most impressive is not the stuff he
dealt with as a kid, which is pretty impressive, but also just simply how, when he got started,
he had so many false starts going into the Air Force, getting out of the Air Force,
then gaining all of this weight, then losing that weight, then rejoining the Navy at an age
in which a lot of people they wouldn't even consider. So these are the type of things
that when you see somebody doing that, don't compare yourself to these people.
Because what comparison is the death of happiness. Understand that you've got your own journey,
you have your own life that you need to live. And living this life, no matter how flawed,
no matter how difficult, is going to be beautiful because it's yours.
And so what's the number one thing that I think every man should accomplish by the
time he's 30? Well, for me, it's about your bury. It's about knowing where you're going,
who you are and what you stand for. This is not going to be something that is set in stone.
It will probably continue to change and evolve over time. And one of the things I recommend is
look, throughout history, many men have spent their entire lifetime thinking about this. And
there's nothing wrong with actually taking and building off of their shoulders to be able to
identify who am I, what do I want to stand for? For me, the Marine Corps really helped out a lot.
Honor, courage, commitment to core values. And I've evolved and I've changed a little
bit from them. But really, I always thought that was a great place to start because really,
what does honor mean to you? What does courage mean to you?
What does commitment mean to you? You can change things like this.
And I invite you to steal that from the Navy, from the Marine Corps,
or to create your own. In fact, let me know down in the comments. I'd love to
send out some challenge coins to those of you that made it this far into the
video and are at an age maybe, that you're trying to figure out what do I want to get.
Well, make sure that you are directing. You've got that bearing because you've probably read
the studies about how in a desert or in a forest, if you don't have a compass,
if you don't have a landmark that you're latched onto, you're going to run around
in circles. It's the same thing with life, and you want to, as early as possible,
know where you're going and at least have that north star that you're focusing in on.
And, yeah, it may change. You may adjust it as life goes on, but it's least you know that for
now, you're stepping in the right direction and you're moving forward with confidence. All right,
Jen, so what video to watch next? Well, let's talk a little bit about style.
If you want to dress like a badass, what's the number one rule? Well, guys,
I got you covered in this video. Boom. Right here.
Let's go to one. Click it. Boom.