On February 15th, I turned 33. The past year has been a wonderful learning lesson in so many ways on so many fronts. This is the first time in my life where I can legitimately say that I’ve made progress in every area of my life.

Part of this progress is a natural consequence of everything I’ve been working towards since the age of 28. Every year is a foundation year for the next. If you’re doing it right, you should be able to reach a little further every year because you got a little better during the last.

There were also setbacks and difficulties, but they were surprisingly easy to manage and navigate because I had such a strong foundation in place. This is a powerful lesson as well, and I’ll dive into detail about them in the heart of the post.

I did a version of this post when I turned 30. Many people got quite a lot out of it and it’s one of my favorites. Check it out. What that said, I think this one is just good and it’s a newsletter exclusive. Enjoy!

  1. Antifragility is the only way to live. If you aren’t building your life to grow stronger in the face of attack, you are a victim waiting to happen. I had my first serious run in with SJWs this past year when I spoke at LambdaConf in May. My speech was about overcoming fear, but some SJWs decided to dig into my tweets and try to show that I was misogynist (nevermind the fact that I’m there with my girlfriend of 5 years). One thing lead to another, and pretty soon I was a featured piece in Breitbart.

If I was a regular person with a regular job, this almost certainly would have been a death sentence. People have been fired for WAY less. However, my personal branding makes me antifragile. Not only do I not work for anyone, but the attention brought my an influx of new followers and fans and sold me almost a 1k books that month. It also put me in touch with some powerful people in the media, tech, and Silicon Valley.

The Lesson: Become antifragile and be careful who you provoke. You may unintentionally make a martyr or worse, mark a rallying point for your enemies to fight--and you may lose.

  1. Everyone has limits. If you never push yourself to the breaking point, you likely don’t know where it is. I learned where mine is the hard way. I tried to take 4 physics classes to graduate in the spring semester. Instead, I nearly failed all 4 of them because it was simply too much work and too difficult. Even after I pulled out of two of the classes, I was not saved. I barely passed Mechanics and Electromagnetism with a C in both.

Still, the struggle made me better. I will always look fondly at that last semester because it was so difficult but I made it through. I found out how much I could handle by taking on more than I thought I could handle.

The Lesson: You don’t know what you can REALLY do until you try to do more. Everything before then is just a guess motivated by fear of exhaustion and the unknown.

  1. Purpose is built not discovered. As awareness of who I am and my writing grows, I find myself thinking about the purpose of what I’m doing. I’ve realized that the mission of my life is to take what I’ve learned the hard way and break it down so that people can learn it the easy way. This is likely why I gravitate towards teaching and enjoy it so much (more on that in the next lesson).

Life is better with a purpose. Until this year, I don’t think I ever experienced the feeling of a clear vision. A clear purpose makes it easy to make decisions about everything.

If you don’t know your purpose for living, don’t worry. It’s never too late to figure it out. Hell, mine might change in a year. But discovering that purpose though this year has given me tremendous confidence in how I’ll interact with the world. There is great peace of mind in this.

The Lesson: You can get somewhere without directions, but it’s a lot easier if you have them. A personal mission is like a set of directions that makes living easier because it automatically makes difficult decisions for you.

  1. You owe it to yourself to find the one thing you’re good, love doing, and pays well. I stumbled into private tutoring. It started as a random suggestion by my girlfriend when I was dealing with a tough time financially, and in 6 months, it became a respectable source of income. The best part is that I genuinely enjoy it and I love seeing students make it past hurdles.

There are other perks to this (which I’ll discuss in the next lesson), but the one that keeps me taking on new students--even when I didn’t financially need to anymore--is because I love it. I want everyone to find something like this to do.

The Lesson: Do something you love, that you have a talent for, that pays well, and that inspires you. This is your edge. It's in this place that you're indestructible, most impressive, and will live forever.

  1. I learned a lot about money this year. This was the first year I earned every dime and had to learn the ins and outs of being in business for myself. Earning boxing purses is nice, but it’s predetermined and there is little you can do with supporting work (marketing, networking, and sales). When I’m consulting, tutoring, teaching, and writing, it all comes down to me.

I set my prices, I deal with negotiation, I gather recommendations, stay up to date,and I have to do all the work. When you work for yourself, there is no off time. However, you get to redistribute your time and if you’re smart then you shouldn’t have to do the same job more than once. The main benefit of this lesson is that it’s completely changed my relationship with money.

I don’t mean this in the sense that I have an abundance of it (I certainly don’t--yet!!), but rather that I have a real understanding of how it’s generated. Because most people aren’t willing to venture out and learn how to exchange their value directly with the buyer, they settle for working for someone.

The Lesson: When you work for other people, they HAVE to pay you less than you’re worth so they profit. When you work for yourself, you have HAVE to increase your worth to compensate for the lack security.

  1. Perhaps the most underrated component of improvement is rest. If you’re a go getter, chances are that you want to get things done. Now. Or if preferable, yesterday. This can cause you to push yourself to unhealthy limits of the body and mind. There will be consequences.

I’ve always said that losing on television, the way I did, was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. When I said that, I was speaking of the personal development that it put me through outside of the ring. I am now happy to say that I am forced to extend that to my abilities in the boxing ring as well.

It’s been less than two months since I’ve been back training, but my mind for the sport has truly evolved. Everything from my reaction time, to my technique and control, have all jumped a few levels. Those around me notice it too, so I know it’s not merely in my mind. Time will tell, but I believe that I will do some noteworthy things in the sport now.

The Lesson: Music isn’t beautiful only because of the notes, but also because of the space in between. Learn to enjoy the rest to make the most of your life and raise your performance.

  1. Courage and confidence go hand in hand. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I’d taken some cracks at it before, but this past year convinced me that I have what it takes to make a (not so bad) living off of my writing. I wish I could tell you that I was ALWAYS 100% sure that I could do this, but that’s not the case.

The responses that I get to my writing, the reviews, and the sales let me know that I’m not too bad at this. Now, I’m fully confident that my next book will be even better. This confidence comes from simply getting myself out there and letting people read my work. There are slow methods to building confidence (I know, I wrote the book on this), but here’s an abridged crash course: Actions breed confidence. Not vice versa.

The Lesson: After you do something, you’ll react and learn from it, but you survive. Each time you get better and more confident. As your competence grows, your confidence will as well.

  1. No matter how badly you want someone to improve their life, they won’t listen to you until they’re ready to change. A big part of being ready--if not the most important part--is being willing to make the sacrifices, endure the suffering, and do the work. Most aren’t ready to actually to do what it takes to make a better life.

I used to have trouble with this when I was in different phases of my life--especially from 30-32, and even before then in different areas. I wanted everyone I know to have the same drive and interest in improvement that I had. Now the position and state of other people’s lives doesn’t bother me.

I think that’s because this past year is the first year where I truly felt like I have carved a significant portion of the world out for myself. I could let other people exist in their own misery, happiness, or whatever they wanted to be. As long as someone’s life doesn’t affect me directly, it takes up no space in my mind.

The Lesson: I’ve purposely been vague here. The main point is that to achieve maximum happiness and peace of mind, you can’t worry about whether or not people will do what’s best for them. Even if you care deeply for them. Especially so, in some cases.

  1. Sobriety and sharing. This year I celebrated my 4th year of sobriety. I’d only been to one AA meeting on my first day of sobriety and I really had no intention of going back. Well a guy hit me up on Twitter, a fellow non-drinker, and said he’d be in the city and would love to see me get my chip (chips are given out to celebrate sobriety milestones). I agreed, so he and his girl, along with mine, went to an AA meeting (this was an open meeting--they’re not all alcoholics only. You can bring support to some meetings).

At the meeting I elected to share because I believe that one of the reasons for living is to share your experiences and what you’ve learned to help others. The reason I decided to not go to meetings after my first one is because I thought I was different type of alcoholic. I guess part of me thought that I was better than the rest of them. However, being back this time taught me something very valuable.

I’m not really any different than anyone else who had struggles with alcohol and wrestled with the problems it caused in their life. While I didn’t formally go through the 12 steps, what I learned through my process of getting my life on track mirrors the process. I plan to attend more meetings this year, simply to share and give back to people. I feel like it is this place where I can make a heavy difference and directly change lives.

I’m already working on a book about emotional journey of sobriety because I want to help, and listening to everyone talk about their struggles reminded why I chose that to be my next book. There are lessons for everyone in it, but I imagine that anyone who’s ever dealt with addiction of any kind will get tremendous value.

The Lesson: When you make it past a significant personal roadblock, you have a karmic debt that can only be repaid by helping others who struggle with the same problem who feel alone.

  1. You can’t do it all alone. This year was the first time I outsourced any of my operation, and I’m very happy I did. Outsourcing some of the editing and image choices has made my website much better and more effective. This is a big win because it means that not only can I deliver better content, but I can get it out to more people.

If you want to further separate your earning power from your time, you will have to scale. Or rather, if you doing things right then eventually you’ll have no choice. Most people think about outsourcing as something for people who sale products. Well I only have a book, but I’m working on so many things behind the scene to build myself and improve that I needed help.

I think it’s working out well. If you’re building something, don’t be afraid to outsource and delegate. You’ll know when you need to. If you reach that point, do not ignore it because it will stifle your growth significantly.

The Lesson: If you’re doing a good job, you will require help. There is no way around this. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot because you can’t relinquish control.