Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you Episode 173 today, which actually, now that I think about it, that kind of blows my mind a little bit. But the topic that we actually have today comes from one of our listeners and actually comes from one of my mates, a coworker and also one of my now business partners, john. He is my eBay lister. He actually asked a whole bunch of different questions. There was four questions actually which we'll call maybe four questions to change your life and they're quite deep questions and sometimes they can be a little cliche in the sense of, well, I'll read them out to you in a minute, but they can be a little bit cliche. But I think they're super important and even more important for me to answer because I know John and John's a lot younger than me. John is about 10 years younger than me and I think it's really important that when people that are younger than us, or behind us or looking up to us, that they do ask these questions and then it's our responsibility to be able to provide our value, our wisdom, our insight. Whether they take it or not is up to them, and I think it's really important because there's so many things that I wish I had asked when I was younger as well, which we'll talk about shortly. But he asked me a whole bunch of different questions which I thought were very super relevant to the podcast, obviously to further your lifestyle, and I was also admired by his strong curiosity himself. So, as I said, because he's younger than myself.

So these are the four questions that we'll be talking about today, and I'll be answering them personally what would you have done differently if you were five years younger? Number two was how about if you were 10 years younger? And then, what advice would you give your younger self? And then the fourth and final question will be what is one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life? Now, these are deep. They're deep questions and I want to chat about them today. So buckle up, we're going to dive in. Roll the intro.

So question number one what would you do differently if you were five years younger? Now there's two ways I can look at this question. So, john's in the Philippines, so I'm not sure if it's just the interpretation, but I will answer it from potentially both perspectives. So, obviously, five years ago at the moment it's 2024. It's almost 2020, five years ago, right? And what would I be doing different back then? Maybe that's the question what would I be doing different back in 2020? Or if I was five years younger in general so I'm 32, and if I was 27, would I be doing anything different?

So the way I'm going to answer this is looking back into 2020, that was the year when I started to have the conversations actually about taking a chance on myself, like actually leaving my job and starting this whole journey of creating a podcast, having my own business and just seeing what I can do Now. It was also the time of the pandemic, but that aside, we're not here to talk about that. If I had known what I know now, of course there would have been some different things that I may have doubled down on If I knew back then, even though that I was planning to do this. But if I had the knowledge that I have now, back then there was probably a couple of things that I would have probably would have done. Number one is giving myself more credit than I thought, because, unfortunately, doubt is one of probably my biggest weaknesses, or worry or imposter syndrome Look, they're not welcome, right, but unfortunately it's been something I've struggled with continuously since even working, to be honest. But now that I know that I am capable and I have been able to achieve what I've been able to achieve needing to be able to tell myself that and say, mate, you've got this, just don't let that be the things that slow me down.

There's been so many times where, because of doubt or imposter syndrome, I've held back doing something or I've limited myself. The problem with all this is, when we limit ourselves, even if we do fail, we forget that all that's doing is actually redirecting us to making the best decision we can possibly make. You're not failing. All it does is say that doesn't work, so let's try it this way. But unfortunately, a lot of the time, because of worry, doubt, imposter syndrome, when we do fail, we don't go back to it, or we don't even try it because we're too scared to fail it, so we don't even do it in the first place. So that would be my number one thing. I would be telling myself We'll be doing differently.

Number two is almost to the contrary of the first point is do not confuse confidence with competence or capability, and it keeps part one in check. But just because you think you are the best doesn't mean you are, and just because you say you can doesn't mean you will. And just because you've done it before doesn't mean you can do it again the same or better. And it's just like saying this year I want to lose weight, I want to lose 10 kilos. You got to do the work. That actually means you will lose 10 kilos.

Action and application. Action speak louder than words. So that's the other thing that I would make sure that I would be very honest about, because there was probably a lot of things where I probably it was probably YouTube perspective came in pretty bullish saying, oh, this is what I'm going to do, and obviously I learned my lessons and figured out. This is not as easy as it looks and I think, not confusing that confidence with competence I'm more than capable of doing this because here I am. But I think sometimes we can get a little too vocal and then we disappear and then we climb into our shells and hide. And we can avoid that Get your groundwork done, get into a groove and let the actions speak louder than the words.

Number three is take more risks, and I think this is a relevant segue into the 10-year question. What would I do differently 10 years ago? And it would be take more risks. And what I mean by this is at any given time, we know what we have done, right, for instance, up to this date. I know what I've done, I know what I'm able to do, I know what I'm able to do, I know what I'm able to easily do, what I struggle with, and it also means I know what I'm able to maybe tackle now. At the same time, I also have an understanding of my motivation, whether it's pulling towards something or pushing away from something else. Right, and that's the two forms of motivation push and pull and it also tells me what fuels our motivation and what is the willpower to keep me going.

So, looking back now, 10 years in my early days of working in IT consulting or tech consulting, I think something that I missed super early on, which I understand now better, is taking risks, and the beauty of 10 years is that the time has passed anyway. It's gone like that, so quick, and I know it's so cliche, because it's like what our parents said to us is oh, you wish you had done this. You'd wish you had done that, hindsight, it's great. The key message here is you have time on your side If you're 15, if you're 20, 25, 30, heck, if you're 40 or 50 or older. You have time, but with time it's repetitive in the terms of you've got heaps of days. So if you can do something on those days, if you can give yourself permission to give those things a go on those days because those days are going to pass anyway that is going to enable you to get to new levels that you had never imagined, and that might mean trying that dream job, applying for that internship, asking out that guy or girl, traveling more, being proactive in the workplace or being proactive for you, looking after yourself, loving yourself, working out more, exercising, eating right, asking more questions, which maybe seemed dumb, but you've got to take more risks. They have to be calculated, though. When we open the door to continuous improvement, it gives us the ability to approach something with a logical approach. So it's calculated with an expectation, and then, when we get the results, we can adjust them, we can review them, we can pivot from them, we can double down on them, but we can validate them with pros and cons and then you rinse and repeat that all over again. That is risk-taking.

When you do more of it, it becomes easier. You get more and more comfortable. An example of this is starting my business. When I started to purchase wholesale, I was terrified to spend four hundred dollars, thousand dollars, three thousand dollars. I remember spending six thousand dollars on something and I remember saying to cut, she didn't know how much I had spent until I had spent that. I told her I reached out, I didn't know how much we spent, babe, and she said, oh, four thousand. I said six thousand dollars. Oh yeah, it was scary. But since then I've spent another six, spent another nine, spent another 11, 12, 10, and recently spent 16. And it's not about me just saying look at me spending all this money. But you become comfortable. You become confident because you know what you're capable of doing. You've got the validation of understanding of what works in terms of being able to prove it with a formula or prove it with what's working, what doesn't. You understand the pros and cons and you become more comfortable with it. You can only do that over time because you need the time to exercise and experience it and test it and try it, and it applies with exercise, strength training, running, reading, cooking relationships, nurturing, learning, new skills, job promotions, all these different things. It applies to everything, all types of learning. So maybe it isn't about necessarily risking more, but learning more and taking on continuous improvement, more. So that's that.

The next question that he had for me was what advice would you give your younger self? So this is generic and it probably is a bit repetitive, but I think the two is it two. I might have a few more than two. I did take a few notes before doing this was the first. One is the time will go fast, which is a cliche, but in the moment it doesn't like right now.

This podcast is probably going to be 18 minutes long or something. That's 18 minutes. It will be this episode of me filming it. Like today is the just so you understand. Today's the 23rd of June. I'm filming this. This podcast episode is scheduled to come out on the 4th of August. That's how far ahead. I'm doing this in advance because I'm planning that time is going to go like that. I guarantee it'll be like oh, okay, oh, that episode. I've got to tell John that the episode is coming out, that he asked me the questions. It will go like that.

Right At the moment, you think, oh, that's what six weeks ago, six weeks away, even more than that, so it feels like a long time away, but the reality is you're going to be doing things that make time go so much faster because you're occupied. Your attention is taken. So the key thing here is you need to find something or some things, which are non-negotiable, to commit to every day investing, learning, applying a routine or applying growth with small increments, and you will do crazy compounds over the next 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years. And it's not about investing. What I'm saying is just investing the time in learning something, or maybe it is investing money, but just doing something that you can repetitively do on an ongoing basis that continues allows you to grow.

And I think one of the other things that I want to share is one thing I think people regret as we get older and I'm not that old, right, I'm 32, but not giving things more time, not seeing it through, not being consistent, not writing it out. There's things that I gave up on, there's things that I didn't do, things that I should have given more time to. The beauty of those things is when you can build a routine where you're doing it anyway, but it's helping you passively grow. That's what you want, and I regret not doing that earlier. Now the final question that I had from John was what is one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life? Now there's quite a lot of things here, so we'll get into all of them Just taking a sip.

So a few things. I think the first one is being me or being you. The sooner we can become ourselves, let loose and get out of our hidden shells or from hiding from society of what they may think, I think the sooner we do that we're able to start to actually be able to do the work towards our full potentials. I think I became the best version of myself, and I'm still becoming a better version of myself. But the best version to date of what I knew was when I decided to take a chance on myself because things got real. I had to get deep and personal with myself. When I started doing longer runs, running, training for a marathon, training for ultra marathon, I had to figure out the doubts, deal with the lack of confidence. I still deal with that all the time. But I think the key thing was when I started owning who I am, what I'm doing, taking control of my life, being responsible, being accountable.

You can just start to become yourself and not care what other people think. I'm not saying that it's easy to not care what people say or think. A lot of the time people don't. There are people that intentionally go out of their way to make your life miserable. Those are the ones that hurt the most. But then there's other things where it's just I just don't care about those things and what I wear or how I say something, or me doing this podcast or so many different things. I think the key thing here is be your true self. The sooner you can do that, other things just figure out so much easier.

Number two is understanding how money works through the lens of leverage. Now, the books might not be super relevant in today's society in the sense of like opportunities, but it does give you a really core function and understanding of blows your mind of how the books might not be super relevant in today's society in the sense of opportunities, but it does give you a really core function and understanding of blows your mind of how money works, and that is Rich Dad, poor Dad and the Cashflow Quadrant. They were big game changers for me in terms of just comprehending things. Now, where it got different, though, was when I was actually able to apply those things in on paper and building my business. I have been able to do that, so when you understand that earlier and you're able to hustle, understanding tax, understanding how money works, leveraging money, leveraging people the sooner you understand that, the more successful you will be, and it's not about money, but money unfortunately weavers through everything and makes things happen quicker, so that's why it's important. The other one is, then, the importance of winning the day through small wins, and I've already said this, but talking about making progress daily, right, and there's actually a follow-up point to this in a minute, so we'll talk about it in a bit.

The next one is reading and consuming information that will enable you to figure out more. We don't know what we don't know, so you want to make that box smaller and smaller, expanding your unknown, expanding your do not knows, because when you understand more, you have a better and a broader zone of understanding, and it's just relevant for you. It gives you a better understanding of just maybe emotional intelligence. Awareness helps you make decisions better of just maybe. Emotional intelligence. Awareness helps you make decisions better, helps you with empathy, helps you with dealing with people's situations and it's always good to hear different sides of different stories just because it helps you make a more informed decision. It's that simple.

Another one which I'll harp on again is the time will pass anyway, so be consistent and diligent with one thing. I already said that. I'll say it again, though, but this is the main kicker, this is the big one. If it's anything, this is the thing that I would make sure that you take away. If you have a dream and I'll be specific about this If you have a dream that holds to your core, but you don't know what it looks like yet, all right, let me say that again.

If you have a dream or a passion or an urge or a want that is to your core, right, that holds to your core, to your heart, and you don't necessarily know what it looks like, but you want it, then the thing you need to do is make sure you are working on making that clearer and clearer every day until it is, as no one else is going to do that for you. No one else is ever going to tell you that for you, they're never going to be able to reveal that for you, and then no one else is actually going to do the work for you and it will only come from you taking action and getting out of your own way. And then you have to own it and then you have to make it happen. But that's why it's so important about doing the things daily or having that passive growth and I've spoken about this story so many times where I've had people say to me I want to have a business, or I want to have this, or I want to be a millionaire by that. Those things are vanity numbers but obviously it gives people a perspective to work towards something. But if you don't know how you're going to get there, have a plan and make that clearer every day. Okay, if I do this one thing today, I'll get.

There's a book by Simon Sinek. I think it is the One Thing. What is the one thing you have to do today that will get you closer to the one thing that you need to do monthly, that you need to? That is the one thing that you need to do closer to getting closer to the one thing you need to do in a year to get you closer to the one thing that you want to be doing. I've destroyed that. But the point is, if you want to be somewhere in five, 10 years, there's a whole bunch of things that has to happen before that. What are you doing today? That is, getting you closer to where you want to be, closer to furthering your lifestyle. Make sure you're doing that. If you don't know what it looks like, make sure you're making that clearer every day and I guarantee you you'll get to where you want to be quicker.

If you're not, then you can't, five years from now, say, oh, I want to do this and I just don't know how to start. You should have started five years ago. You would have solved so many problems five years ago. Very passionate about this, because here I am, four and a half years into my business and hitting new levels, seeing growth I've never seen before, which I'll probably see this again in another five years. But to think that like why wouldn't I had started this earlier, even though I know since 17, 18, I wanted to have my own business. I just didn't know what it looked like. Now I have done things that have enabled to me get there. I've had multiple businesses. I've tried different things, but I was also working a nine to five. Now that has given me the experience to get me to where I want to be. So I'm not saying you shouldn't go do the nine to five, you shouldn't go get the experience, but make sure there is always something that you're doing that is moving you towards that North Star, to that end goal, to that end game, and then when you get there, that end game will have changed and then it'll be something else, and then the time will pass anyway and then you'll work towards that.

So that's all my thoughts on these questions. John, I really do appreciate you asking. Thank you so much. They're great questions and if you'd asked me five years ago, I probably would have answered them differently. And you asked me again in five years time and I'll probably answer them differently because we learn so much more, we have a better understanding.

I think there's so many things that I wish I had done when I was 20, but obviously it's not a copy and paste, because I could say, oh, do this, do that. But they might not be the same relevance to the opportunities that are available today and that's why I think it's more about learning, understanding, taking experience, applying yourself, taking action and executing, because you'll learn quicker. I could go say do something, but it's not your idea of it and it's not your passion of it. Figure out what it is you want, identify it, understand it in your own terms, then take action, because you'll execute based on your understanding and then you can get some wisdom, some support, some feedback along the way pivot, adjust, rinse, repeat, and then you can continuously improve.

All right, folks, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone. Send it to someone, john. Share it to your mates. I've done this episode for you, mate, no pressure. But if you think someone can resonate with this, please share it, send it out and or maybe you can copy a little part from it. There is some of the details of the episode in the description below. By all means, please. It would mean the absolute world to me. It does help the podcast grow. If you're here on the YouTube, hit, subscribe. Hit like that would mean the absolute world to me and we'll be back here next week doing it all again. And yeah, any questions, comments. You can continue the conversation down below in the comments on the YouTube channel, and otherwise you have a wonderful day, cheers.