Efrain Martinez @martefrain: sorry for all the questions. but im in a weird part of my life. how are you different now than when you were 20?
ANSWER:
When I was 20 here’s what I did not know because nobody had ever taught me or even told me I needed to learn these things and that these things were difficult to learn. I thought they would either be easy or I would never really need to know them.
A I didn’t know how to come up with ideas.
B I didn’t know how to sell ideas
C I didn’t know how to execute ideas
D I knew nothing about failure and how to bounce back from it.
Since then, I’ve failed and bounced back and have been rejected and bounced back and had to come up with new ideas and sell them maybe 100s of times. More than that. Maybe 1000s of times. I am a completely different person than when I was 20. Ethically, emotionally (my ability to ride the waves), spiritually (a better understanding of what it means to surrender to life around me and appreciate what I have this second instead of always striving for more) and even physically (when you are 20 you can take a lot for granted. When you are 44 you can’t and you have to have extra appreciation for the body you’ve been given).
So what does this mean from a practical perspective. It means every day, treat yourself like you love yourself. You wouldn’t harm your lover. So don’t harm your body, your emotions, your thoughts, your spirit. Keep improving them every day. Hopefully by the time you are my age you are way ahead of the game and will have avoided much of the misery I have been through.