Originally a draft named 25 rules for 25, for my 25th birthday, I almost didn’t post this and instead deleted it. I’ve renamed this post to 25 things I’d tell myself 10 years ago, deciding to put it out there to help anyone that felt as lost as I did navigating my early adult life.

1. Aim for the stars, land on the moon

You have to believe your ideas fully, because optimism and having faith in yourself can often get you further than not believing in yourself ever will. In the pursuit of greatness, you have to aim for the stars with complete trust in yourself, and harness enough delusional optimism to be misunderstood by others.

When I was 23, I proposed my research idea for a summer project using this quote, a great lecturer I was having a chat with responded to this quote with “Don’t crash land back into earth”. Whilst taken aback in the moment, I’ve come to realise that by crash landing back into earth you’re back where you started with better experience, it’s not a bad thing if you enjoyed the journey. Similar to a rogue-like game, you can always try again with better equipment. I’ve found that by dreaming big in this way, even if your trajectory is short you’ll have a higher chance of repeatedly achieving great things.

2. Time is money, and money is time

Time is the most important resource we all own. If you’re like me and you’re employed, you are working for what you are willing to paid, trading your time for money. This is important to understand because it reveals the scope of money further, that it’s a function rather than a resource. There are two things you need to understand when it comes to money.

You have to understand what money is a function for, you can trade your money back for time, you can trade your money for energy (hiring, healthy food) and money for fun (video games, eating out, movies at the cinema). These are just some ideas around what money can be used as a function for, but the possibilities are virtually endless.

The second thing you need to understand is that you have to respect money and be indifferent towards it. Money does not care who you are, so you have to remove all emotional barriers to money if possible. This means understanding what it can and can’t buy you. Be aware of what money is, its function, and be indifferent to the amount of money, as it’s just a function. Money does not care if you are using the money for malicious activity, being greedy or gambling it away, it is just the medium currency that is being used for the activity. This can be flipped on it’s head, you can learn to positively be indifferent to money, and use it for good things to support yourself and your family.

3. Love deeply

Love the people around you and the work you do. Try to build a small amount of meaningful connections rather than a lot of shallow ones. Appreciate the support network you have and try to love deeply by contributing to your loved one’s support systems if you are in a position to do so.

4. Work hard

But work hard selectively, on things that matter to you. Try to work with interesting and smart people. If done right, working hard can give you momentum and more energy. Pick your battles wisely, as you can only work so hard for a certain amount a day.

Always remember that hard work never goes to waste, seriously. Even if you don’t get the results you want from hard work, the experience gained is invaluable moving forwards.

A term I got infamous for at university was my adoption of min-maxing. I would rigorously try to apply the 80/20 rule as I found it an efficient way to balance so many activities on top of my studies. This aimed to cut down bikeshedding and spend the minimum time required to get the maximum results, within reason, implying that there is a point of diminishing returns. This was further supported by the fact that 70% in a UK university is the same grade as a 100%. This should give some perspective on how to work hard selectively - I was happy to spend more time on modules that mattered to me, and less time on modules that mattered less, averaging out to a healthy grade and learning more content that was relevant to my career, and most importantly having more time to spend on other things that mattered more to me, such as people, side projects and job interview preparation.

5. Nobody’s watching

When is the last time you ran for public transport? I recently told my friend I felt embarrassed to run for the train after work in my corporate attire. His response was one I’ll remember forever. He said, “So what? No one will remember that, all the people you cross in London whilst running for train, you’ll probably never see again”. That’s when it clocked, a lot of my embarrassment was in my head. Try not to feel embarrassed about people watching you in public, or getting anxious about something that hasn’t happened, because the likelihood is that only one who cares, is you. What if they do know you? They probably won’t care unless it affects them.

That’s the beauty of life, everyone is so busy doing their own things that they won’t bother to pay attention to you. Attention is becoming a commodity, people need a good reason to pay attention to you, meaning the ball is in your court.

6. Focus is a muscle

I’ve seen so many great people lose touch with the world due to a lack of focus. Often stemming from an unhealthy relationship with social media or doomscrolling, their focus muscles have diminished over time, and thereby their dreams. Respect long-form content and read books to build back your focus. Make social media interactions meaningful. Focus for long periods of time.

7. Learn to disconnect

The best thinking is often done offline.

8. Summer is the best

The United Kingdom gets about 3 months of sun a year, June, July and August. Enjoy them whilst they last.

9. Take risks

Risk is subjective and needs to be evaluated each time. Even on both sides of the same deal, both parties may have a different amount of risk they are taking on. The successful risk takers understand this concept and evaluate both their risk and counterparty risk when taking a risk. Figure out what defines your risk.

To take this one step further, somebody that has a family and a mortgage to account for has a much larger risk profile than an 18 year old living at home. Youth is a super power for risk, as liabilities are a hindrance to risk, which you often get more of as you age.

Measure opportunity cost, what do you lose by taking this risk? A textbook example of this is a Master’s degree. You pay a substantial sum, for a chance to get a better job that you may not have been able to get with an undergraduate degree. Is this worth the trade-off? There are many variables.

10. Be malleable, but stand firm.

Be disciplined, but remain open. Adaptability and initiative are two key skills you’ll need for life. Initiative in a corporate environment is often met with bureaucracy and push back. Try to fight the bullshit but pick your battles wisely, sometimes they aren’t worth it.

11. Decisions and Sacrifice are everything

They make up a lot of day to day living, and have a butterfly effect on everything else.

12. Health is part of wealth

It’s cool to be healthy, healthy food doesn’t have to be salad, salads can taste nice, your tomorrow self will be much fitter and energised with a clean diet.

13. Learn to fail gracefully

If you’re human, you will fail at times. Learning to take this on the chin, and understand what went wrong with no pride is how you fail gracefully and increase chances of success the next time. I’ve failed more than I’ve succeeded, my ability to bounce back is the reason I’ve achieved great things.

14. Take on responsibility, to learn to lead

Interpersonal skills are valuable and hard to get, in both a leader and follower position. Getting leader experience is much harder than being a follower. To get more leader experience it tends to come from taking on responsibility, opt-in for more public speaking early on to improve your confidence and build life skills, it’s invaluable.

15. Assets and Liabilities

Liabilities are things you owe, assets are things you own. Sit down and define them properly. Do you pay a monthly phone bill? That’s a liability, a required one. Did you finance your car? Try to buy it with cash, the less liabilities, the better. What assets would you like to own? How many liabilities can you afford to not take on?

The most important asset you will ever own is freedom.

16. Your worth is not tied to your achievements

You’ll always be worth more. Failing an exam might feel like a big issue today, but you will forget about it in a week, if not a month. There is an immense pressure for the youth to perform in academia, but life is about learning and not overfitting for grades.

17. Manage your infrastructure

This leans on some of the money concepts we’ve talked about. Owning your infrastructure whilst you’re young means being in control if your education and free time. You’ll have to attend school and study, but try to manage your own time outside of that. Your body, mind, money and brain all need to be managed well. When you’re older, this usually means managing your money and debt.

Think about what is outsourced in your life and ask yourself if you can insource it instead, as this allows you to control it.

18. Smile more & forgive yourself

Find ways to be happy in unhappy times and places. Forgive yourself more, it’s your first time living life.

19. Travel if you can

Travelling gives you perspective. Different countries have different systems, cultures and customs. It’s arguably the best way to actually see and compare different systems to your own country. Countries are massive systems with lots of depth that have to be experienced, not read from a textbook.

20. Stand for whats right, but be ready to be wrong

You have to fight bullshit and bureaucracy, always, but with caution. It can be unwise and crass to pick certain battles, do your best to minimise friction and build a better system for everyone around you.

21. Have goals

Every decade, every year, every quarter, every month, every week, every day. Try to make little progress to each goal in each category by breaking down complex, long term goals into smaller, more manageable ones. The 1% rule leads to compounding growth.

22. Life changing money isn’t an amount

it’s situational to your circumstances. Warren Buffet is one of the wealthiest men on earth, but you’d be crazy to swap positions with him as he is short on time, he’s 94. Even with all his billions, he’d likely trade it back for time. To a young man, a small sum of cash could change the trajectory of their life for the better. To somebody in debt, they may need a large sum of cash to change the trajectory of their life.

I’d tell my younger self this because I’d always put a value on it, and the more I think about putting a value on a life-changing amount of money the less it makes sense. A million quid might change your life, but it won’t mean much if you waste it all on supercars within a week.

23. Create value for others

I learned to love building things that created value, but it would often be for myself. If I could do it all again I’d still try to build things that make my life easier, but learn that real value is created when others find your creations useful.

24. Uncertainty as a catalyst

Risk is in the category of uncertainty and they relate closely. Uncertainty is a scale, meaning it’s not a binary state, and being uncertain has been shown to increase curiosity, but in turn decreases happiness. However, uncertainty is also an opportunity for growth, it challenges you to question your assumptions and seek alternative answers.

By being aware of how much uncertainty you have, you can be aware of why you feel the way you feel. When you start a new project there are so many uncertainties that might lead to dread. So when you become curious you start to find the way, and finding the way leads to the exchange of uncertainty for happiness and new skills.

Essentially, curiosity becomes your compass for learning, and when we are young we are much more curious, so use this to your advantage and be curious. Read more and learn voraciously.

25. Own your story

Your quirks and flaws become your identity. Own them with pride, you’re the first and only you in all of humanity. Once I accepted this concept and embraced it, my confidence and a young person shot up. I’m not perfect, I’m me.

I’m now a young professional in London in one of the largest banks in the world. When I was younger, I had to learn a lot of things that I wish someone would have told me earlier.

I’ve been lucky enough to meet great people, have amazing experiences, and build great things. If you’ve found this post helpful, I’d suggest documenting your story too. Aim for the stars, land on the moon.

In July of 2024, I spent a whole month in the City of Angels, also known as Los Angeles. I’ve never been away for so long, and I never thought I would be. But, here I am, let’s reflect on the myriad of experiences that defined my trip travelling around the West Coast of North America as someone from the UK. As a foonite, I tried to pick the best photos I had, as if I were to fit them all in it would go on forever!

Life is all about experiences, they open up your horizons to new things you would have never considered, and reignites some curiousity about the world and different cultures. This holiday in particular is one I’ll never forget, I met some wonderful individuals and got to spend time creating core memories with people I’ll never forget.

The Good

Let’s start off with the good, the American Dream if you will.

A packed day in summer at Santa Monica beach, California

Cuisines

The culinary scene goes crazy, street food, high-end dining and almost every cuisine you can think of. The abundance of food in the U.S. is striking, almost to the point of absurdity. The reality of larger portion sizes is undeniable. When you combine oversized servings with limited walkability, a perfect storm for overindulgence is created. However, you quickly learn that one meal is the equivalent of at least two if saved for leftovers, this doesn’t always happen as your eyes can eat more than your stomach at times, especially when presented with some of your favourite foods! Although America feels unwalkable, there are nice hiking trails and theme parks you can use to balance out the foodie in you, such as the Hollywood sign and Disney Land.

Howlin Rays Fried Chicken, Nashville Hot Chicken, located in Chinatown.

As for selection, I’d go with fried chicken to be my king, more specifically, Korean bbq fried chicken. As for the losers, well, it’s difficult to find food and drink that doesn’t taste good in LA to be honest. I mean, even the bubble tea tasted ten times nicer. I had an epiphany that it’s because of the sugar tax we have in the UK, I didn’t even know you could fit 900 calories and an ice cream scoop into a bubble tea drink until I visited LA.

Activities

My second favourite thing about LA other than enjoying the various cuisines, was the activities. As with food, activities to do whilst on the West Coast of North America are endless. During the month, some of the activities I did were: Shopping at outlets and malls, Beach trip, Japan-Town, Korea-Town, Watched a Dodgers Baseball Game, attended Anime Expo 2024, rapped Central Cee at Karaoke, went to an Arcade, strolled down Santa Monica Pier, Hiked close-ish to the Hollywood sign, Watched Princess Mononoke at an AMC, Escaped an Escape Room and visited the Getty. The list goes on, you get the point. You won’t get bored, there’s pockets of communities for everyone, you just need to go out and find them.

Los Angeles Dodgers vs Arizona Diamondbacks, Shohei Ohtani to bat.

As a tourist, I wondered what anotther concrete jungle had to offer, as London is. However, I was blown away at the amount of entertainment and culture the city has to offer, with the weather being less miserable than London’s, and the metling pot culture leading to a welcoming feeling, it’s quite a wholesome experience.

Korean Bell Tower, California.

Attractions

Attractions such as Disneyland felt like a wonderland, and also part of LA culture. Growing up in the UK it was expected that you were supposed to “outgrow” Disney movies and stop watching them, so when I saw adults with Cars backpacks and mickey mouse ears I was pleasantly surprised, as it’s Hollywood culture to respect Disney movies. During my short day visit, I went on a total of 12 rides, thanks to the meticulous planning of our host, and I immersed myself in the different universes the park had to offer, I can now confidently say the appeal is real and it’s a must-do if you ever visit LA. It really brings back memories and I caught a brief escape from the hustle of life with responsibilities and work.

Lawn design of Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.

Being much more up-to date with the Universal movies, and seeing how Hollywood operates backstage was nothing short of spectacular (a 60 anniversary special). I prepared for this one beforehand, watching all the Harry Potter movies before setting my foot into the park and readying myself to drink butter beer! My younger brother is also a huge fan of the Jurassic Park movies, so I made sure to pick him up some original merch from the store, and send him enough media content to feel like he was watching a go-pro POV angle of my antics, and he was in awe. The thrill-rides at Universal triumphed Disney and the queues were significantly shorter. Infact, the mummy ride was so good we ended up riding it twice!

Hogwarts Castle at Universal.

Last but not least, San Diego Zoo blew me away. I’m a big fan of zoos and aquariums, being able to view wildlife that you’ll never be able to see otherwise and really take in the variety of animals that nature has provided to the world was fantastic. Putting the ethics and moralities of (bad) zoos to one side, it felt like San Diego Zoo had a good focus on education and conservation of various animals, with a large range of endangered species. You need to see animals to appreciate them, and get a better understanding of how they behave, and ultimately we are animals too. Most important to me, is that by understanding animals we can put together the pieces of the ecosystem puzzle to get a more holistic view once we have more knowledge of Earth’s habitants. I can draw similarities on a different scale, to when I would play Monster Hunter World with my little brother throughout Covid-19 when sat in isolation at home. In the game, you get to run around and view all the large and small sized creatures in each area, that will fight, die and respawn. You come to learn that every one of these creatures, in its own way, contributed to a delicate balance in an interconnected, living and breathing ecosystem. Coexistance with different people, and animals, is what plays a vital role in creating a world of beauty that can thrive.

An absolute unit of an Elephant, San Diego Zoo.

Las Vegas

Right next to the City of Angels, lies Sin City in Nevada, Las Vegas. Although it has an, for lack of better words, an interesting reputation, I found it to be a beautiful place with some of the most luxury experiences I’ve seen and witnessed. After a 4 hour drive and a stop at Dutch Bros, I arrived in “The City That Never Sleeps”. Staying in the Luxor Hotel on the edge of the strip, I was a quick 10 minute walk away from the Bellagio, as most of the hotels are actually connected underground and you can walk through them freely. Walking through the Bellagio, attending events at the LIV and the MGM Grand, seeing the Hershey’s and M&M stores and eating at one of the finest steakhouses made my Vegas weekend trip very much worthwhile. I talked at the beginning about Sin City, and watching people glued to slot machines was as normal in Vegas as seeing someone complaining about the weather in Britain, it’s so casual, constant and popular that you become numb to it. My advice to future Vegas attenders would be to never buy things on the strip, instead drive 10 minutes out to a local CVS, you’ll thank your wallet later!

Bellagio Botanical Gardens, Vegas.

Grand Canyon

During my trip, I also visited The Grand Canyon State, Arizona, in order to visit the Grand Canyon, AKA the GC, and grand it was. Loaded up on water, electrolytes and sunscreen, I was ready. From the moment I got there I was in admiration, the size of it was enormous and the views make it fitting of being one of the world’s seven natural wonders. Although I didn’t hike (due to the extreme heat), I drove around view points and stared into the vast expanse of the canyon. I took countless photos, but none of them do the GC justice, you have go and see it in person to capture the true essence of it all. My one regret was not spending more time there when it would have cooled down in the evening. Advice here would be to bring lots of Sunscreen, be careful hiking, and save time to visit Sedona and marvel at the red rocks, a day trip may be too short!

Standing on top of the Grand Canyon, Nevada.

The Bad

Now onto the bad things, as there must be balance in all things. The obvious one is that it can get expensive, even more so than London and when you factor in tips, even lunches can hit your wallet quite hard. Where costs don’t come as a drawback is in petrol (gas) deparment, as it is cheaper overall. Also, the tap water is not drinkable, which is really a shame because who wants to go out and buy a ton of plastic bottles? It feels like such a normalised inconvenience, to drive to go and get water. Air quality sucks, at least compared to Brighton, this is no joke as it can lead to respiratory problems long term for residents. On top of that, if you try to overlook LA from the Griffith Observatory there’s a thick cloud of smog, that’s when you realise you’ve been breathing it in the whole time. The nature of no public transport means everyone takes cars everywhere, which means everyone gets stuck in traffic, there is even a fast lane for cars who don’t want traffic (paying to win?). I was also lucky enough to never witness any gun violence, however it does exist and it does impact overall safety of the city. I’d say for tourists a lot of these things are neglible, and some not so much.

Culture Shocks

Nor good or bad, are some culture shocks. For example, Tesla cars are as common as hatchbacks in the UK. This was particularly interesting as I always feel like the UK has less of an innovative culture, and more of a “safer route” type of thinking, LA is very much the opposite, which likely contributes to being heavy buyers of EVs along with some government incentives. Billboards, there are signs whilst driving on the motorway (where you are supposed to be focusing on the road?), seems counter-intuitive, the irony is that a lot of billboards are for accident insurance, is cause equal to correlation? As mentioned earlier, there’s also a fast track motorway lane, as well as car pool lanes, which seems a bit odd as initially I thought it would make more sense to push for more public transport instead, however if you live in LA you’ve been lucky enough to see a city grow and never consider public transport until it was too late.

Footnote

Thank you Los Angeles, until next time. As someone that wanted to grow up and work in the bay area for a tech company, this was the closest I’ve gotten to experiencing life in the US.