6 Lessons That I Learned in My 20s That Made Me Millions
Summary
- I chose to live alone during my junior year of college to focus on self-improvement, separating myself from distractions and a partying environment. This decision helped me study better and invest in personal growth.
- I prioritized changing my environment as a strategy for personal change, living in a modest apartment that allowed me the space to read and develop my autonomy.
- I learned the importance of hard work through an internship at a mountain retreat center. This experience of long hours and physical labor, despite being low-paying, taught me about work ethic and resilience.
- Pursuing an internship that didn't offer much financial reward, I realized that gathering experiences and skills was crucial for future success, rather than focusing solely on money.
- Moving to California immediately after college with limited funds proved to be a challenging but rewarding experience. It built my confidence and proved that pushing through insecurities can lead to growth.
- I took a sales job at a large gym to learn a valuable skill I noticed many successful people had. This challenging role involved constant rejection, but through perseverance, I improved over time and understood that sales skills can create income on demand and are transferable in many life aspects.
- Working in a small gym after leaving a large global gym helped me understand how business operations differ in scale and the opportunity sizes involved. It instilled the belief that the same effort can lead to bigger opportunities if you think big.
- Competing in a fitness competition taught me that the process of achieving a goal is more fulfilling than the actual event, signaling a pivot towards seeking a more balanced life and a focus on other areas like business for greater impact.
- One thing I wish I knew in my early 20s is that success doesn't require high intellect or extraordinary talent but rather action. In your 20s, you have the benefit of low risk when taking bold steps due to fewer life commitments.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest finding a quiet place to focus on your goals, away from distractions. If it helps, move somewhere by yourself and use that space to read and learn new things. Remember, it's easier to work towards your dreams if your environment helps you instead of holding you back.
Next, I'd recommend putting in the hard work. Look for an internship or job that teaches you about effort and resilience, even if it doesn't pay much. Focus on learning and gaining experience, because those are more valuable than immediate money.
Also, don't be afraid to move somewhere new to chase your dreams, even if you have limited funds. It can be scary, but it will build your confidence. Challenge yourself to find a way to make it work.
Taking a sales job is a great way to learn a skill that's useful in many areas of life. It might be hard at first, but if you keep at it, you'll get better over time. This skill can help you create income whenever you need it and in any situation.
Work in both large and small businesses if you can. This will help you understand different ways of operating and see big opportunities where you can put your effort. Always think big!
Competing or setting tough goals for yourself teaches you that it's the journey, not the final event, that changes you. You'll learn what truly matters to you and where you want to put your energy next.
Finally, remember that success isn't about being super smart or talented—it's about taking action. Especially in your 20s, when you have less to lose, take those bold steps towards what you want.
Taking action and learning from every experience can lead to great personal growth and success.
Quotes by Leila Hormozi
"It's much easier to change your environment if you want to change your life"
– Leila Hormozi
"You don't want to work for money; you want to work to collect experiences"
– Leila Hormozi
"Focus on collecting experiences and skills rather than money, and the money will come later"
– Leila Hormozi
"If you pursue something that makes you insecure, ironically, you become more secure"
– Leila Hormozi
"Nothing is as fancy or complicated as people make it seem"
– Leila Hormozi
Full Transcript
lessons that i've learned throughout my 20s to get me a net worth of over 100 million dollars by the age of 30. as i was kind of reflecting last week on what are the things the key not courses i consumed or books i read but the experiences that i decided to pursue that actually shaped who i am today so the first key moment of when i was in my early 20s is that my junior year of college i actually got an apartment by myself and so i know that's typically not what people do usually when you're in twenties you wanna be living with your friends you're in a big house and i did that for the first couple years but then i realized i was like i really wanna take my time to study i want to commit to you know getting in really good shape consuming better books materials etc and also just separating myself from people that were constantly partying and doing drugs though i knew that i could live with people and not do that right it's much easier to change your environment if you want to change your life and so i would rather my environment work for me rather than against me and so what it looked like in my first couple years of college was you know i was like meal prepping while my friends were partying and smoking weed and so i finally decided i was just going to get an apartment on my own and so i did and it wasn't the nicest place but what i really loved about that is i was able to take my extra time that i was normally trying to you know wearing headphones trying to avoid the noise you know trying to walk through the smoke when i watched my apartment and i was able to actually take that time to read books reinvest in myself i was able to control my environment and more of what i was consuming and also taught me a lot of autonomy maybe it's hard for the first week or two weeks to be on your own and living in your own place but the reality is that very soon it becomes normal and so if you can just break past that first you know week or two weeks of being on your own it's normal and eventually you actually like it the second experience that i pursued in my early 20s was taking an internship that was basically an off-site retreat center in the mountains and so the reason that that was such a key experience for me is because one i was alone you know three quarters of a mile from the actual retreat center i didn't really have any cell service or internet so it kind of sucked um the second was that i was alone right so i was by myself there wasn't much else to do if i wasn't working then there was literally nobody i knew in the area and so it was a lot of time by myself to read reflect etc and then the last piece to it was that it was just completely teaching me the meaning of hard work right i think until that point in time you know i worked throughout college i worked in high school i started working when i was about 15 but i had never understood what it's really like to you know wake up be at work at 4 a.m and working truly until 8 pm at night and that was what i was doing when i was there and i remember how exhausted i was because i would read a hike at 4 am i would teach swim class or i would teach a biking class at lunch and then i would lead another hike in the afternoon and the in-between was all training people uh taking other people on walks you know helping the other uh clients that were at the facility and so it didn't leave a lot of rest time and it was very physically and mentally exhausting not to mention that you know they run a tight ship there so there was a lot of pressure and so i think that was a huge experience in the sense of teaching me what work really looks like because until then you know i was used to eight-hour shifts but this was not just an eight-hour shift there was so much ancillary work around it not to mention the physical exhaustion of it and this is something from robert kiyosaki's book you don't want to work for money you want to work to collect experiences and that was what i learned it was super valuable there is i knew it wasn't going to pay well i mean the job paid barely anything right i didn't make any money from it but i learned so much about myself and i was able to develop skills that i didn't have before and that's why i was such a key experience that i had in my 20s and so if you're looking at opportunities for yourself when you're in your 20s don't think about the money the money is going to come if you have the skills and experience focus on collecting experiences and skills rather than money and the money will come later the third experience that i pursued in my 20s was that i decided to move to california not knowing anybody i think three days after i graduated college i actually packed up my prius and i drove across country to california and the reason for that was i just knew that i didn't want to be in michigan anymore no offense to michigan it's a great place to live if you're a michigan but i don't think it's a great place to live it's fine but i always wanted to live in california and that was like my dream i was like the weather's great the people there everyone's super ambitious and successful and i really want to be around that you know i remember telling my parents like i'm going to move out there i think i had maybe seven or eight thousand dollars saved up and so if you know anything about california no that's not much money at all you know when i first moved there i had so much anxiety like i felt so insecure when i didn't have a job yet and i didn't know anybody like i felt so lonely afraid feeling like what if i had to move back home all these things but i just figured it out and i didn't have any resources i didn't have much experience but i was still able to figure it out and make it work for myself if you put yourself in a situation where you're like i believe that i have the capability to figure this out for myself you'd be so surprised what you can prove to yourself and doing that for myself created so much confidence that those kinds of things you can't get from anything else they only come from putting yourself in a situation where you have to figure it out otherwise you fail if you pursue something that makes you insecure ironically you become more secure if you pursue fear you become less fearful so anyways that's what i would suggest if you're in your early 20s the fourth experience that i had in my early 20s was that i took a sales job at a large global gym and the reason i took that job is because every book i had ever read on being successful what i noticed is that everyone actually started out in sales and so i decided that i would get into sales because i had gone to school for exercise science i want to become a personal trainer and eventually have my own business but what i understood and what i'd learned from all these books i've been reading these biographies was that what most people are never taught is sales applied at the global gym and i got the job and it was absolutely terrible like it was one of the hardest things i've ever done because you know constantly being rejected over and over and over again when you've barely been rejecting your whole life it's like smack in the face but i'm so glad i did it and it was probably i want to say it's almost the number one experience i had just because of how terrible it felt the whole time for the first two three months getting rejected on a daily basis having people say no to me all the time and being in a situation where if i didn't make money and i didn't make sales i was gonna have to move back home to michigan that was probably the the best situation i could have put myself in because it taught me that though it's very hard at the beginning at first you suck you then you suck a little less then you suck so little that you might actually be like decent and then eventually you're good and then eventually you're actually pretty good and then one day you're actually great and then one day you're a master and it doesn't happen overnight it happens over a very gradual timeline and i think that if you can acquire the skill of sales in your in your early 20s what it you teach yourself is that you can generate income on demand and that is something that you can go into any new situation you always know that you can fall back on this skill because this skill is so valuable to any business any business owner to really anyone doing anything if you can sell something you can always generate income for yourself and so i'm really glad that i pursued that as a skill set because selling also pertains to many areas that i've encountered later on like now i don't sell necessarily clients but i'm constantly selling people on ideas selling my team on why they should do things selling people on why they should believe in themselves and so the skill of sales was always going to translate into other areas of life and that's why it's such a valuable skill to get in your 20s the fifth experience that i pursued in my 20s was that i actually ended up quitting working at a global gym and i went to work a small business a smaller gym and the reason i did that was because i really wanted to understand how business work working at a smaller business i was able to see how we market how we sell how we price how we build the customer service on the back end how we get equipment how we source things how we get clients and i was able to honestly try a lot of those things on i was able to get a lot of those experiences and work in different departments right because everyone's kind of doing that everyone's wearing multiple hats with a small business and so that was an incredibly valuable skill for me because it taught me if anything that working in a small business is just as hard as working in a big business which is what i realized that these people were working almost harder to have a small business than the people that i saw working to have a big business that got my brain working in terms of it's all about opportunity size and so i asked myself you know i've been pursuing fitness career and i was like i want to have some sort of business i didn't know what it was yet and i questioned myself like i think i'm thinking too small i think the same effort's going to go in either way so i want to make sure that if i dedicate myself to an opportunity that's a business it's going to be a big opportunity and so i think that being able to see and work in both a really big business and then a really small business helped me understand that perspective and spot that for myself the last experience that i pursued in my early 20s was competing in a fitness competition and so i did this because it was kind of honestly what i was supposed to do you know i had lost a lot of weight i'd gone to school for exercise science i became a personal trainer i worked at these gyms i had this you know personal training clientele and so i decided i'm going to compete in a fitness competition it could help my career it's something i've always wanted to do etc ironically what that taught me was that it's not about the destination it's about the process and the reason for that is this i pursued this competition not because i wanted to prove to myself that i was the best i want to prove myself i could do it what i really wanted on the end of it feel a sense of confidence i wanted to make friends i wanted a community i wanted all these things that i thought winning a competition would bring me and i remember getting to the show day and i ended up playing placing second in qualifying for nationals and i remember thinking how empty it felt you know one nobody actually wanted to be friends because they were actually extremely competitive and then the second piece to it was that i realized that the entire piece that was hard was the process leading into it the competition day itself was not that hard right you stand on stage you do the pose that you've practiced for the last 12 months etc i didn't really feel any sense of excitement and so when i came out on the other side of it i was expecting to feel like i became a different person but the irony of it is that the process is so gradual that you become a different person throughout the process you've already become the person that you want to become and the competition is just like almost ceremonial and so that was actually my turning point when i decided i wanted to have a more balanced life or i wanted to focus on other things which i just took all my energy from fitness and put it into business where i felt like i could impact more people and then the second piece too is understanding that you have to know why you're pursuing something and my why didn't match with the outcome the one thing that i would say that i wish i had known in my early 20s is just this is that nothing nothing is as fancy or complicated as people make it seem every time that i've gotten closer to something that i've got to understand saying that i've taught myself something that i've gotten around people who understand something that i don't what i've come to realize is a lot of the fancy complicated stuff is just a facade right it's usually to sell you something or marketing or something to that extent right and in my early 20s i don't think i understood that i think i thought i had to be this person of like insanely high intellect and i had to be so talented and so naturally gifted in order to achieve things and the reality that it comes down to is that success is typically achieved through just taking massive action and the thing that's so great about being in your 20s is that you have so little to risk in order to take that action in fact you have almost nothing to risk because you haven't built this huge thing you typically don't have a large family you don't want people relying on you so if you guys like this video i have another video on the habits i formed in my early 20s so if you like this one go ahead and check that one out and i will see you on the next one