5 Habits I Ignored in My 20s

foreign so let me start off this video with five conventional habits I did not ignore when I was younger work out three times a week get seven hours of sleep every night use a calendar read four books a year and cut negative people out of my life with that out of the way let's talk about the five unexpected habits I regret not starting in my 20s and I call these habits unexpected because well first no one's ever told me about them and second even if someone had I still probably wouldn't have listened simply because the benefits were not obvious and took years to materialize don't believe me let's get started habit number one wish people happy birthday as

I grow older I just turned 30 this year I meet more people but I have less time to catch up with them wishing them a happy birthday is the best way to keep in touch because it requires very little effort but yields extremely high returns just think about the last time you're about to message someone with a question or even ask for a favor you see a completely empty chat box and you think never mind it's been too long it's too awkward if I reach out now and you miss out on that job referral if there's already a regular back and forth even if that back and forth happens just once a year it's so much easier to initiate that conversation and have the other person respond positively because you remember their birthday obviously not everything in life is a quid pro quo that's definitely not a good way to live but sometimes it's nice to be able to hit someone up and ask for a favor without feeling awkward about it for me I literally exported my friend's birthdays from Facebook into Google Calendar using a Chrome extension called birthday calendar exporter I'm not affiliated with this extension in any way it's the only method I found that works so if you have a better way let me know in the comments all you have to do is to log into Facebook start scanning for your friends birthdays ignore the error message that pops up scroll down a little go to calendar generator generate and download the dot ICS file then in your Google calendar under settings and Import and Export and import the dot ICS file pro tip if you want to be able to toggle the birthdays on and off create a separate calendar before you make the

upload habit number two moisturize and apply sunscreen every single day now I'm willing to bet money half of you have no idea what I'm talking about and the other half is like no [ __ ] Sherlock I'll be honest I used to think skincare was a complete scam an excuse for my mom to spend money on Lemaire instead of lasson get it because I'm her son and lemare is a skincare brand you see what I did there okay my skincare routine up until two years ago was splashing water in my face and hoping for the best you know what a true alpha male would do yet somehow I would get breakouts every other week and you can actually see this in my older YouTube videos now my skincare routine is in the morning water pat dry with a face towel moisturizer wait for two minutes apply sunscreen at night before or bed a dedicated cleanser rinse with water pat dry with a face towel apply moisturizer you can obviously go a lot fancier but I found this simple routine gives me 80 of the results my skin feels great I never get breakouts and most importantly I'm spending less than 10 minutes on this every day if you want to learn more Ali abdall actually has a really good video on evidence-based skincare but if you can't bother here's a tldr the top three brands he recommends is urison CeraVe and LaRoche passe which is what I use don't spend more than 30 US dollars on a moisturizer and buy any sunscreen you want just make sure it's broad spectrum and at least SPF 50. the only thing I would add to his video is you need to figure out what type of skin you have like oily dry combination before buying the products and you usually need to try a few different brands out before finding something that works for you

habit number three close the loop if you watch my resume videos you might remember I sent a grand total of 347 cold with emails when I was networking for my first job out of college around 20 of those people got back to me I landed a few job offers and I thought that was that until two years later when I was pivoting away from management consulting I reached back out to some of the same people and this time I was largely ignored the reason I did a terrible job following up and thanking those 70 or so working professionals who took time out of their busy days to respond to my email looking back I'm still pretty ashamed of this that experience along with me going through the exact same thing where I invested time to help someone and never heard back made me realize networking should never be a one-off exchange because the world's a small place and someone who has helped you out once will very likely be in a position to help you again further down the line now my rule of thumb is no matter the size of the request whether you're asking someone for a job or a colleague for a quick Copy chat if you initiate the ask the first thing you should do after a day or a week is Circle back and close the loop I literally have this as the default action item in my meeting notes template

habit number four read less review more long story short I've read a lot of non-fiction books over the years but like most people I don't remember much of what I've read and it's not like I don't highlight I do right it's just that I can't be bothered to go back to review my notes because the friction is too high after trying out a bunch of workflows of the last two years read wise is the only one that stuck they're basically an app I'll link them down below that sends me five highlights every morning and it takes like three minutes to go through all of them let me be clear this is not the best way to retain learnings from books but just like how the best productivity system is the one that you can consistently stick to read wise has lowered the friction for me by so much that I've consistently reviewed highlights for the past year and I found myself applying some of these resurface Concepts in my daily life by the way this video like most of my videos is not sponsored but it is supported by those of you who subscribe to my paid newsletter so check that out if you want a weekly dose of productivity and career tips the bottom line here is that I wish more people told me it's okay to read fewer books as long as you have a system in place to review key Concepts from those books because as Alex hermosi so nicely puts it if your behavior doesn't change as a result of reading a book and it means you've learned nothing which means it

was a waste of time number five be a guide not a guru this concept should be very familiar to Ali abdall fans and basically it's a very effective way to tackle imposter syndrome a guru is someone who comes down from the top of the mountain and says look at me I am the expert I have all the answers whereas a guide is someone who is on the same Journey as you and a guide says hey I don't have the answers but we're on the same path why don't we kind of approach it together and I'll show you what I've discovered so far if you're a junior in college you'll learn much more from a senior than someone who graduated four years ago if you're working professional you'll benefit more from chatting with a mentor or one level above you then a senior director it wasn't until I had this shift in mindset that I got the confidence to host training sessions for new hires at work even when I was also relatively Junior the positive feedback I received inspired me to start my YouTube channel so this arguably changed my life in practice I developed a habit of documenting new things I came across at work stuff I had to learn anyways for my job for example budget forecasting and project management once I was comfortable with the topic I would find Opportunities to share what I've learned with others if I could go back in time I would start documenting in college as if I had a sibling a year or two below me I told them which classes were good which professors sucked how it landed my first internship my first full-time job as a bonus for everyone who stuck around here's the Habit I'm most proud of myself for starting in my 20s and continuing to this day and that is

re-racking weights at the gym when you go for a workout there's no gym police but we all know the right thing to do put the weights back where you found them it seems insignificant but re-racking the weights has become a reminder for me to do the right thing even when no one's watching alright if you're past your 20s and got advice leave them down in the comments if you are in your 20s let me know if this was helpful see you on the next video in the meantime have a great one