The 5 Most Powerful Questions Every 20-Something Should Ask Themselves Cover

The 5 Most Powerful Questions Every 20-Something Should Ask Themselves

Nik

It was a random moment. Not one you’d celebrate. Or even notice, for that matter.

I was walking along the sidewalk, like every day. Morning snack from the bakery in hand, headphones in my ear, Kygo playing on repeat.

Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks.

*Ping!*

The insight hit me like a stun grenade. I actually had to step aside, into a little alleyway, so people could pass me by.

“You will never figure out life. There will never be an end to all the questions. You’ll just get better at dealing with them and learn to do it faster.”

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What Skill Should I Learn for 1-2 Hours a Day That Will Help Me Become Successful?

Nik

It’s obvious, isn’t it? Writing.

In 2 hours, you can easily write 1,000 words. In Word, about 300 words are a page. That’s 3 pages per day – 1,095 per year.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has 636 pages. You could write 1.5 novels of that length, just in your first year. The entire HP series is 3,407 pages. That’d take you three years.

Most ebooks on Amazon are a lot shorter. At 3 pages/day you could publish a 90 page ebook every month, or a 45 page ebook every two weeks.

You could also:

  • Write 365 blog posts that rank on Google and attract 100,000 visitors to your website in a year (which I’ve done).
  • Answer 5 questions on Quora every day.
  • Publish 2–3 times a week on Medium.
  • Ghostwrite articles, and later even books.
  • Learn copywriting, which pays a ton of money, once you’re good.
  • Start publishing your own magazine.

In addition, writing will automatically teach you a ton of other things, like:

  • Communication
  • Focus
  • A great vocabulary
  • Creativity
  • Speaking
  • Thinking
  • Research
  • Patience

I hope you’ll give it a try. We need more good writers.

How Should a Person in Their Early 20s Invest Their Money?

Nik

I’ve saved 55% of my (pre-tax) income ever since starting to work 2 years ago. I’m self-employed, so 25% is reserved for taxes, the other 30% are spread as follows:

1. Save enough cash to be able to live for a year if anything goes wrong.

Estimate your minimal monthly living cost and put money into a cash account every month until you have 12 months worth of expenses. Should come out to something between $10-$20k, depending on where you live. I’m about 85% there.

I put 10% of my pre-tax income into this. Goes right out of however much I make in any given month.

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What’s the Most Outstanding Life Hack?

Nik

Not equating fun with leisure.

I spent the summer of 2007 pulling staples out of shoes. I could not have had more fun.

It was my first holiday job. The old collection went out, the new one came in. I had the important task of removing all the price tags, which were stapled to the soles, and putting on new ones. It was incredibly tedious work. I didn’t even have a tool to use, so my hands were sore every day. But for as long as I worked there, I enjoyed coming in every single morning.

There were a ton of bad things I could’ve focused on, but I chose not to. I chose to make it fun. Here are some of the good things I saw:

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2 of the Most Important Things We Should Be Informed About in Life

Nik
(Image via Flickr)

It’s a miracle that your life started.

In June 2013, the global money supply for U.S. dollars, considering all available cash, checks, checking accounts etc. equaled about $2.5 trillion. The odds of being born as a human – everything considered, are about 1:400 trillion.

That’s insane. Most of the time we take our lives for granted, yet we don’t even remotely understand how we got here in the first place.

It’s a miracle that your life started.

Be grateful for it.

It’s a certainty that your life will end.

In the time it took you to read the first part of this answer, 64 people have died. Another 151,540 will part this world like they did, just in the next 24 hours.

Yes, we live to be older and older and maybe, we’ll all live to be 120 one day. Maybe, we’ll all become cyborgs by 2045.

But no matter how you look at it, or how many years you add, so far, in 200,000 years of human history, not a single one has escaped death altogether.

It’s a certainty that your life will end.

Act like it.

However much time you have in between and whatever you do with it, as long as you keep those two in mind, every single day, you’ll do just fine.

What Does Optimistic Mean? Header

Optimism: Definition, Explanation & The Ultimate Guide to Go From Being a Pessimist to Becoming an Optimist

Nik

Right this second, someone is recording a Youtube video, grinning from ear to ear, trying to sell you on the idea that if you’re not happy, there’s something wrong with you. Even worse, there’s probably also someone writing an article claiming they can show you how to fix it in seven easy steps.

First off, there is nothing wrong with you. If you don’t want to run around the streets naked right now or aren’t at the verge of a positivity-induced ecstatic breakdown, that’s just fine. What’s not fine is that there is a massive storm of fake happiness going on out there, and it leads to the kind of bad advice and “just be happy” bullying I just mentioned.

Today, you and I will identify, criticize, and debunk fake happiness. You will learn why people confuse happiness and something else, namely optimism. You will understand the true meaning and definition of optimism.

We will also learn how science defines optimism, which traits make a person optimistic, and how you can develop those traits in yourself, no matter whether you are an optimist or a pessimist right now. Let’s start by looking at 200 million pieces of terrible advice.

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What Trends Are We Likely To See in Ad Tech in 2017?

Nik

Friction-free impulse buying on mobile devices.

The web browser is already disappearing on mobile phones, as more and more apps allow cross-platform browsing.

Not having to switch to another app or go to your browser to complete a purchase after seeing an ad will spike impulse buys, because it will eventually reduce friction to zero (or rather one tap with your finger).

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3 Things You Can Do Right Now To Increase Your Productivity

Nik

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” — Albus Dumbledore

1. Have a collection bucket.

In the Harry Potter series, Dumbledore has a “pensieve” in his office. He uses it to return to thoughts and memories, which he pulls out of his head using his wand to file them away for another day.

Distracting thoughts probably cost the world trillions of dollars in lost productivity each year. They’re in your head, but very real.

I find the best thing I can do is to pull them out and store them somewhere. David Allen calls this a “collection bucket” in GTD.

Just have a notebook or use the notes app on your phone, and whenever you think of something distracting you want to remember or get back to later, put it there. Review the bucket regularly. I try to empty mine every Friday.

For example, if you remember you have to buy milk in the middle of a task, put it there and the thought will stop nagging you instantly.

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