[Deep Dive] How To Maximize Your 20s (List Of What I Did, What I Used, What Results I Achieved)
Steal my blueprint?
When I entered my 20s, I had one goal:
To maximize the scoreboard in the most important areas in life by the time I’m 30.
I don’t necessarily think there’s anything special about doing all this before you’re 30, but it seemed like a worthwhile target.
So I said, “Fuck it, let’s go for it!”
The areas that I deemed most important?
Wealth
Relationships
Health
Spirituality
Adventure
Character/Self/Skills
You know, the basics.
It was my thought process that if I maxed out each of these areas, I would create an epic life.
A life that I could spend my time enjoying instead of just existing through.
With that noted, the sun has shined, but the tides have also come.
I’m not 30 yet – still some time left to go, but have achieved quite a bit of success in each of these domains (some more than others) that I’m very happy with.
Inside this newsletter, I wanted to document my strategy for each area, the resources that I leveraged (half of the battle is just finding shit that works) to generate results, and my approach to consistently maximizing all areas simultaneously.
Maybe it’ll help you to maximize the next decade (whether you’re in your 20s or not)? Maybe it won’t.
I don’t know.
But what I do know is…
There’s many paths you can walk to maximize each area, but I’ll share with you what worked/works for me.
Try it. Don’t try it. Your call.
But let’s go.
The Areas Of Life (And The ‘Lower Limit’ Targets)
Before we get started, it’s useful to set targets for each area. By targets, I mean an overall vision for what that area looks like based on what you want.
Different targets for different people.
But here are the ‘lower limit’ targets you may want to adopt (“we don’t rise to our dreams, but fall to the level of our standards”):
Wealth: $1M+ net worth (liquid) – ideally via own business.
Relationships: Tight circle of loyal “go-to” friends (1-3), larger world-wide network of friends all over the world, find an amazing, kind, beautiful woman who will birth your kids/wife material/potentially get married (if that’s what you want).
Health: In shape, high energy, pure vitality.
Spirituality: Realizing True Nature.
Adventure: Story book full of epic memories, adventures, travels, stories.
Character/Self/Skills: Grow consciousness and become a greater being by forming ideal character traits + useful life skills + habits/lifestyle that is attuned to what you want.
–
Add all that together and you really maximize the “worldly dream of life” by the time you’re 30. Sure, there will be people who are richer, stronger, funnier, more in tune with the Divine, but not many excel in all six domains.
Besides, it’s not a competition.
For there’s only YOU here ;-)
Okay after you set forth ‘lower-limit’ targets for each, the next step is to dial in your overall strategy aka how to best approach this.
The Strategy: Picking The Best Area For Initial Attack
I don’t know what is best for you. But for me personally, I am a huge fan of eating the biggest frog first thing.
Frog = Hardest thing.
So when I kickstarted my 20s with a lot of energy, a lot of fire, a lot of ambition flowing through my bloodstream… I told myself to put all this to use towards the hardest thing.
For me the hardest frog was wealth.
Why?
I didn’t really come from money (welfare baby turned into middle class later in life – typical immigrant parents story), had no connections, plus the cookie-cutter path laid out in front of me was trash (it left me with no real chance of building wealth on my own terms – becoming investment banker was the best option which I was qualified for after finishing college, but I didn’t want to waste my early 20s making powerpoints. Besides, it was really important to me to not just get money, but to get big money on my terms (entire point). If I couldn’t do it on my terms, it lost its appeal. And I could care less).
So figuring out how to turn my negative bank balance into a healthy sum of cash seemed like the biggest challenge haha.
As a result, I decided to start here.
It was *my* thinking at the time that by maximizing the vehicle of wealth, I would indirectly maximize other areas as well.
Meaning, wealth would open me up to building a higher quality network of people (relationships), give me the funds to go on wilder adventures/collect amazing stories (adventures), and also would cultivate both character building traits/skills (character/self/skills) AND the traits/qualities that are required for the inner journey (spirituality).
One domino, infinite impact.
So that’s what I zeroed in on. Like crazy.
If you knew me during this time frame of my life (early 20s), all I cared about was wealth, wealth, wealth.
How to make maximum money. How to get rich. How to make things happen. I didn’t really give two fucks about having money for the sake of having money. It’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but for me all the juice came from proving to myself that I was capable of going from zero to hero.
This was the entire point.
After all:
It was a game where the chips weren’t objectively stacked in my favor, but subjectively because I knew all was rigged in my favor.
Even back then (always knew I’d make a lot of money, but didn’t know how).
So that was my overall high level strategy.
I didn’t really put much ‘direct’ focus into relationships, health, spirituality, and adventure in my early 20s.
Just ‘indirect’ energy.
Despite that, these areas still considerably improved by default/pretty much on their own because of the overall strategy.
Plus being in College naturally allows you to tick off the relationships and adventure bucket, so you don’t have to think about it (and health wise you got an abundance of energy anyways).
“Hey, you want to jump out of a plane?” “F it, let’s do it.”
“Hey, you want to drop everything and go live in another part of the world for 6 months?” “F it, let’s do it.”
“Hey, you want to party all night, come back at 4 in the morning, and wake up to write an exam at 8 in the morning?” “F it, let’s do it.”
Initial focus was always on wealth/biz, but I always kept an abundance of “F it, let’s do it” lines in my back pocket…
Because why not?
Now that we covered the initial means of attack, let’s break down the strategy/thought process behind each area, plus the resources/mindsets I leveraged to make a dent in each (personally speaking).
Area-Specific Strategies
When it came time to define the best strategy to follow to maximize each area, I used the inverse approach. Meaning, I just asked myself:
“How do I NOT get what I want?”
If, for example, the target was to make at least $1m, I’d look around and see what everybody else was doing with their life who wasn’t achieving that result (not out of judgment, but observation).
This is where the following rule for living my life came from:
“When everybody else is doing x, do y!”
Asking myself this question and avoiding what wouldn’t get me that result was half the battle because half the battle is just avoiding choosing the wrong vehicles, the wrong approach, the wrong path.
I did this for each of the above areas.
Here’s what I wrote down (note: it may be different for you)
Wealth: $1M+ net worth (liquid) – ideally via own business(es).
How to NOT get this: Major in a non-money career, get a dull 9-5 long term, settle and become comfortable, focus on saving instead of earning, take no risks, start no business, fail to learn the skills required to make money (i.e. sales), and depend on another man for your income as you become addicted to the drug known as a steady salary.
Relationships: Tight social circle of loyal “go-to” friends (1-3), larger world-wide network of friends all over the world, find an amazing woman who will birth your kids/wife material.
How to NOT get this: People please, be the nice guy society programs you to be, try to impress, care about what others think, never venture out of your friend circle – especially friend circle from high school/college, don’t put yourself out there online and make yourself known, don’t focus on raising your own value and becoming a person worthy of the above, don’t put yourself first, don’t be authentic/real, shy away from spontaneity, don’t hone your game, live with the fear of rejection and fear of regret.
Health: In shape, high energy, pure vitality.
How to NOT get this: Eat like shit, drink/do drugs, sleep like shit, don’t stretch/mobility exercises, sit down all day, don’t exercise, don’t optimize testosterone levels.
Spirituality: Realizing true self + actualizing true self in daily life.
How to NOT get this: Prioritize YOUR personal life/story over THE greater life. Live in the past/future. Be scared of the unknown. Continue to act like you know it all and there’s nothing left to discover. Give into ego-activity. Reject the present moment. Become a spiritual junkie and start worshiping crystals or whatever instead of doing the work to discover the “real”.
Adventure: Story book full of epic memories, adventures, travels, stories.
How to NOT get this: Give into fear and live on society's terms.
Character/Self/Skills: Grow consciousness and become a greater being by forming ideal character traits + useful life skills + habits/lifestyle that is attuned to what works for you.
How to NOT get this: Failing to be here now (raw experience needs to make contact with your personal presence in order for you to grow your consciousness and become a greater being) + becoming one dimensional and just prioritizing ONE area over the rest (i.e. rich financially, but suck/below average at everything else).
After you know what not to do for each area, you want to look out into the world, find people who have achieved what you want, and make an initial plan of attack for what to do.
What to do gives rise to the area-specific strategies.
Again, these may differ for you, but here’s what you’re likely to find:
Wealth: Learn high ROI skills & apply toward high growth area (online biz)
Relationships: Learn the basics of the red pill (nothing crazy or you might become a weirdo lol), raise your value, shift your energy from head to belly, hone your social skills, and double down on what makes you YOU (not conditioned you, but authentic YOU!).
Health: Train 3-5x week, eat clean 80% – high protein (1g per body weight), drink water (0.5 - 1 gallon), sleep 7-8 hours, walk.
Spirituality: View each and every moment as a training ground to let go/achieve inner mastery. Use every task, regardless of size or scope to become a greater being. EVERY MOMENT COUNTS! Be here now and be as you (truly) are. Love truth for its own sake.
Adventure: Say “F it, let’s do it” as much as possible. Live spontaneously.
Character/Self/Skills: Spend 30 mins daily growing skills + set forth “character-building” challenges for yourself and follow through to hone character traits (1-3 “character-building” challenges a year – lasting from 30 to 90 days each).
BOOM! With the above noted, I knew back then that if I just doubled down and focused on executing the area-specific strategies over the course of time, then I’d eventually get to where I wanted to go – no luck or magic needed.
So that’s what I did!
Starting with character/self/skills, moving onto wealth, then adventures, then relationships, then spirituality, then health.
This was the path I personally took (because I personally set to address the weakest areas/most important during that time period in my life first. If you’re in your late 20s or 30s or 40s or whatever, then health would most likely go first, but in my early 20s I decided to put that time to use towards biz instead because I didn’t have much time before my parents forced me to get a “real job”).
Is this the right path? No.
Is this the wrong path? No.
It’s just a path – one path, a path that unfolded naturally for me.
Here’s how it unfolded for each area/what I personally did/resources I used to hit/exceed the targets:
A) WEALTH
Target: $1M+ net worth (liquid) – ideally via own business.
Strategy: Learn high ROI skills & apply toward high growth area (online biz)
What I did: Learned copy → wrote copy for clients → started side ventures with copy skills → landed apprenticeship with 8 figure marketer → turned freelancing into agency with the goal of getting a real world MBA in online business → partnered up with clients on equity basis → helped launched #1 brands on ClickBank in various categories + brands outside ClickBank → launched own offers → currently building out a full ecosystem ranging across niches/verticals (using the same model/approach) → funneling money into investments + reinvesting in growing the totality of the ecosystem/machine.
Recommended resources for wealth (these are what helped me the most):
Gary Halbert Letters
Adweek Copywriting Handbook
Dan Kennedy
Jay Abraham
Great Leads
Dotcom Secrets by Russell Brunson
Efficiency by WallStreet Playboys
Playbook To Millions
Rich Dad Poor Dad (basic)
Sam Ovens
Richest Man In Babylon (basic)
$100M Offers by Alex Hormozi
How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis
How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia
Relevant Biographies: Shoedog, Losing My Virginity, Steve Jobs, When I Stop Talking You’ll Know I’m Dead
Eben Pagan’s stuff
Fiction inspiration for living life on your own terms: Fountainhead
Most important thing to learn in this area: Getting attention + making solid offers + honing sales skills + delivery.
B) RELATIONSHIPS
Target: Tight social circle of loyal “go-to” friends (1-3), larger world-wide network of friends all over the world, find an amazing, kind, beautiful woman who will birth your kids/wifey material/potentially get married (if that’s what you want).
Strategy: Learn the basics of the red pill (nothing crazy or you might become a weirdo lol), raise your value, shift your energy from head to belly, hone your social skills, and double down on what makes you YOU (not conditioned you, but authentic YOU!).
What I did: Said goodbye to 95% of acquaintances from high school → kept in touch with 2-5 core friends → built additional friend circle via college → went out 2x a week → snuck into parties with rich folks → few short term girlfriends here and there – nothing serious → lived like a wild man → leveraged online networks to make connections all over the world → whenever I’d travel, I’d shoot out a message: “in x city, who wants to link?” and meet people all over → amazing stories/adventures → eventually got into a long term relationship with a beautiful and kind and supportive woman → created an authentic personal brand based on true values (to attract similar people to myself) → turned online relationships into offline relationships → leveraged following more and more to make connections/amazing contacts worldwide → (future moves: leverage new pod to make even more connections/REAL relationships).
Key thing to keep in mind: AVOID networking events (trash AF) + focus on becoming a person of value + go deep within yourself to create deep relationships with others + talk to people everywhere you go, shoot the shit, have fun. Be genuine, be real, be you (authentic you). Need nothing from nobody.
Recommended resources for relationships:
Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton
Book of Pook
Evolution Of Desire
Crucial Conversations
Rational Male
Charisma on Command
Patrice O'Neal
Toastmasters (personally didn’t do the official toastmasters, but through in college we had to do something similar all throughout so was good training ground)
C) HEALTH
Target: In shape, high energy, pure vitality.
Strategy: Train 3-5x week, eat clean 80% – high protein (1g per body weight), drink water (0.5 - 1 gallon), sleep 7-8 hours, walk.
What I did: Health wasn’t a core focus in my early 20s. I was focused on money, money, money. In hindsight, I could’ve done both at the same time haha, but all I cared about was money/solving my wealth problem (seemed more urgent). Regardless, my health was overall good and supportive for the wealth building journey.
Age 20-25:
Never fat, rarely got sick, diet was good – could care less about trash foods – never appealed to me, sleep was always prioritized (after I learned the secrets of sleep by sleeping 9 hours in college and graduating with 3.87 gpa, 6-figure business, parties every weekend etc.), and in terms of training I’ve always been a fan of long walks for creativity purposes + calisthenics in those early days + weights whenever.
25 > current day
Over the past few years, it’s shifted more towards weights/Kinobody + flow training + mobility + sprints + Paul Chek’s stuff + boxing here and there.
Recommended resources for health:
Deep Nutrition
Ultramind Solution
The Easy Way To Stop Drinking
Kinobody: Greek God Program
Yous: Vitality Program
Wim Hof Method
Flow Training by Mike Chang
Bioenergetics by Deverag Sandberg
Human Garage (YouTube)
Knees Over Toes Guy
Why We Sleep
PAUL CHECK FOR EVERYTHING
D) SPIRITUALITY
Target: Realizing true self + actualizing true self in daily life.
Strategy: View each and every moment as a training ground to let go/achieve inner mastery. Use every task, regardless of size or scope to become a greater being. EVERY MOMENT COUNTS! Be here now and be as you (truly) are. Love truth for its own sake.
What I did (journey): Study high level quantum physics → go down spiritual rabbit hole (books, courses, few retreats here and there) → meditate 20 mins a day for a decade→ learn about attachment styles → Ideal Parent Protocol by Dan Brown (RIP) → bioenergetics → meditate 45 mins > a day → join Diamond Approach → work with teacher weekly + retreats + group sessions for past ~3 years → start experiencing/actualizing ESSENCE.
Recommended resources for spirituality:
Living From A Place Of Surrender Course by Michael Singer
Diamond Approach (Spiritual School For Self Realization/Actualization)
Autobiography of a Yogi
Hara: The Vital Center In Man
The Way Of The Peaceful Warrior
Unfolding Now
Diamond Heart Books 1-5
Mind Illuminated
The Body Keeps Score
The End Of Your World
Deepest Acceptance by Jeff Foster
Surrender Experiment
E) ADVENTURE
Target: Story book full of epic memories, adventures, travels, stories.
Strategy: Say “F it, let’s do it” as much as possible. Live spontaneously.
What I did: Created a ‘STORY BOOK’ where I’d take the day I just lived and turn it into a story. Overtime this inspired me to live better stories whether that meant travels, living abroad, doing stand up comedy, jumping out of planes, approaching strangers, flying kites, taking helicopters, hosting parties, or something simple as walking outside my front door, picking a random direction, and exploring parts of my home city that I never explored before.
Recommended resources for adventure:
Losing My Virginity By Richard Branson
A Million Miles In A Thousand Years: How I Learned To Live A Better Story by Donald Miller
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
F) CHARACTER/SELF/SKILLS
Target: Grow consciousness and become a greater being by forming ideal character traits + useful life skills + habits/lifestyle that is attuned to what works for you.
Strategy: Spend 30 mins daily growing skills + set forth “character-building” challenges for yourself and follow through to hone character traits (1-3 “character-building” challenges a year – lasting from 30 to 90 days each).
What I did: This was the area that I personally started with because I knew that my business/life would only be as good as me. Issue was, starting out, I didn't have much going for myself.
So I had to forge the right character traits and the required skills.
To do this, I created a list of ‘ideal-character traits’ such as discipline, consistency, integrity, etc. and would create “mini-training camps” lasting 30-90 days that were designed to cultivate the respective character trait.
In addition, 30 minutes of daily skill building time (I picked ONE CORE SKILL I wanted to master over the course of my life which was writing/copy for me & I’d naturally spend time on that through work + ADDITIONAL ‘support’ skills)
At the start of every year, I’d set forth 1-4 new support skills I wanted to add to my toolbox. And I’d dedicate one additional skill to each quarter and would spend the 30 minutes daily on that. Some quarters/years I’d just repeat the skills. Whatever. Purpose wasn’t just to increase quantity, but the overall quality.
Over the years I’ve focused on copy, sales, media buying, funnel building, email marketing, leadership, delegation, management, system building, accounting/finance/managing cash-flow, cooking, comedy, tax, game, investing, screenplays, boxing, audience building, Twitter, etc.
You get the point.
Recommended resources for character/self/skills:
75 HARD, PHASE 1, PHASE 2, PHASE 3
30 DAYS OF DISCIPLINE
5 AM CHALLENGE
BAM! That’s what I did/do + how I approached my 20s/focused on maximizing the decade.
In order to balance/implement all this, I leveraged a very chills and unique approach.
Here it is…
My Unbalanced Balanced Approach
I’m not a fan of 20 year plans or 10 year plans or 5 year plans or 3 year plans. Nada. Takes the life out of life.
I’m a fan of intentions + a structured unstructured schedule that allows you to make progress on everything simultaneously (by leveraging THE SLIGHT EDGE!) & then grants you the freedom to F off so you can ENJOY/LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST.
This schedule varies based on the seasons of life. Jan to June, for example, it may be geared more towards work. July to August, on the other hand, may be tweaked more towards social/adventures.
Whatever.
But here's a rough example of what a “streamlined” season schedule may look like Jan to June…
Wake up: 7 am
Deep work: 8 am - 12 pm
Lunch/nap: 12 pm - 1 pm
Life/Work/Meetings block: 1 pm - 5 pm
Work
Meetings
Training
Inner work practices
Reading, learning, skill building
Close Loops: 5 pm - 6 pm
Plan tomorrow
UNSTRUCTURED: Social/Adventures: 6 pm - 9 pm
Free time
Do whatever
Chill with loved ones
Host dinners
Evening Routine: 9 pm - 10 pm
Sleep
Here’s a rough example of what a “light” summer season schedule may look like…
Wake up: 7 am
Walk or Gym: 7 am - 8 am
Deep work: 8 am - 12 pm
Go outside & live life: 12 pm and on
–
You get the point. Key thing to understand is the focus is on WINNING TODAY, taking care of what is before you, and committing to excellence.
Nothing more. Nothing else.
To turn this into a daily lifestyle, the one and only book you need to read and apply is: THE SLIGHT EDGE by JEFF OLSEN.
This book allows you to take all the main areas of life you want to improve, set mini habits for each, and improve/grow 1% daily which is all that is required to make it BIG.
Some Additional Tips:
2 habits that allow you to CRUSH ALL areas at once:
Quit drinking
Sleep 8-9 hours (consistent wake/sleep times)
Whenever you’re not doing the above two habits, there’s a greater likelihood that some areas will start lagging behind. It’s okay in the short-term, but long-term keep an eye on it.
1 thing to keep in mind:
You will get whatever you think about the most. All I thought about in my early 20s was money, so I got money.
List of things to avoid:
Shiny objects
Mindless consumption
Getting married to one area/schedule for too long
Stressing over wasted time
Thinking you’re “too old” to start this
How to maximize it all:
View everything as EASY
View the end as already done, time just has to catch up
Live an unbalanced life in the short-term (when needed)
BOOM! That’s the blueprint. That’s what I did. Those are the resources I leveraged to make it happen.
Whether you do this in your 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s or 70s or 80s is beside the point, what is the point is that you give yourself at least a decade to see what you’re truly capable of :-)
Hopefully after this newsletter, you know what you want to take action on and start implementing the resources so you can make nothing, but magic happen!
If you do, you’ll end up blowing away most lower limit targets and carving out for yourself a very unique and fulfilling life.
That’s it for this “resource-edition” newsletter.
Hope you enjoyed it!
If so, drop me a reply and let me know?
Thanks for reading!
Your friend,
/tej