I turn 30 Today.

These are my 8 unsolicited life tips for 20-something-year-olds, aka my past self.

1. Be Your Own Best Friend: The one person you’re always with is yourself. Learning how to love your own company is vital. Hold yourself with high regard and high expectations.

2. Be Open Minded: People stop growing when they stop listening. New information arises every day. Be open.

3. Self Reflect: Picture your ideal self. Who is he/she? What characteristics do they possess? Reverse engineer the habits that facilitate the characteristics of this person. Live accordingly. Journal every day. Write about the best thing or accomplishment that happened and a reflection.

4. There Are No Rules: You can do literally whatever you want. Everyone is just winging it. The sooner you realize it, the better. It’s entirely possible that there is no meaning to life, which sounds negative, but its not, because that means the meaning is up for you to decide.

5. Priorities: Health > Happiness/Love > Character > Money. All are important but never forget the hierarchy. Health comes first, without it nothing else matters. Happiness/Love is next, without it character and money are useless. Character next, great character yields a great life. Last is money. Money solves money problems, but not all problems.

6. Experience: Accumulate as many low cost experiences as possible. Experience is the best form of education. The harder the better. But avoid high costs. A “cost” is any drain of money, time, energy etc. Example- law school took 3 years and lots of $. it was a high cost experience I didn’t use. Trying a jiu-jitsu class cost 20$, 10 years later I still love it.

7. Be First: Things only happen if someone is willing to be first. Example, you want to take out someone for coffee? Say “Hey Monday 2pm wanna get coffee at Starbucks on 7th St?”. Be specific and direct. If you don’t who else will?

8. It’s Not That Serious: Remind yourself “It’s not that serious.” Humble your victories and minimize your losses. Most people are too busy thinking about themselves to think about you. End of the day we are just a spec in the universe.