The title speaks for itself. Every year the world is going to get tougher, but you’re smart enough to put in the work. If you continue to challenge yourself mentally and physically the punches that life throws your way will seem like a cake walk.
1) Get Rid of Bad Information: In the age of the internet this is probably the number one skill we can all improve upon. Obtain good information.If you’ve read this blog before you know we don’t enjoy writing articles that do not have actionable steps so here is a good cheat sheet for getting good information. Do not take advice from people with zero real life experience, do not take advice from people who had an easier life than you and do not take advice from people who complain. It will be difficult to hit all three items on the list but that is the point. You wouldn’t allow an accountant to perform plastic surgery on you and you wouldn’t take “game” advice from a guy who is clearly a 9.5/10 on the looks scale. Life just doesn’t work that way. No matter how well someone sells you on his opinion, he or she doesn’t have the right to an opinion unless they have accomplished something. The manosphere gets angry when feminists attempt to tell men how to be men… Well men in the manosphere should not be giving any advice based on zero real life experience either. If you’re not a millionaire or a billionaire you certainly don’t have the right to give advice on what you would do with a million dollars or a billion dollars, get it first then state what you have actually done with the money. If you look at the Ask Us Anything section of this blog you quickly see we don’t answer questions about consulting, working as a chef etc. Why? We have never done it before, we don’t have the right to an opinion and we are not in a position to give advice on those topics.
“How can you criticize someone who is better than you at X? Life 101: if they are better than you, you’re opinion doesn’t matter” – @WallStPlayboys
2) Smile in the Morning: Yep you’re laughing at the computer screen right now. These guys are turning into hippies! Nope. We’re dead serious. If you wake up in the morning you probably feel a bit bad, the alarm clock is annoying and you simply are not in a good state of mind. Before you do anything, walk to the bathroom and smile for a full minute (60 second straight!) and place the palm of your hand on your head. After looking in the mirror for 1 minute you’ll immediately notice two changes 1) you’re in a better mood and 2) you’re suddenly awake. As much as we humans like to believe we are in control of our emotions, physical changes will absolutely impact your mood. You should also talk to yourself every day.
“The next time you wake up and walk to work start singing out loud” – @WallStPlayboys
3) Read Daily: We went through Google analytics and generally speaking the readers of this blog are between 18 and 35. This is the perfect age range for reading… well every single age is perfect for reading, but no matter what you do, you should have a regimen where you spend 30 minutes to 1 hour reading everyday. Not every other day, not 360 days out of the year, 365 days out of 365 days. If you are not reading something that helps you earn more, become healthier or in some way improve your life, you’ve wasted the entire day.
“Go to bed smarter than when you woke up.” — Charlie Munger
“read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge builds up, like compound interest.” – Warren Buffet
Both of the men mentioned above have more knowledge and power than anyone you will ever meet in your life time and they have the same routine of reading hundreds of pages per day. In-line with point number one in this post, if the vast majority of successful people read daily, it is probably a major life tip.
4) Remove an Unhealthy Habit: While we believe in themes instead of goals, lets at least remove one nasty habit today. If you work in Investment Banking, Private Equity or a Hedge Fund, we already know what habit you can replace. Stop drinking redbull. This is a lot easier said than done. While $2-4 a day is not going to be noticed by your bank account, the health impact will be immense. Switch to the free coffee provided at work or stick to water. If it isn’t natural the chances of it being good for you are quite low.
Assuming you don’t work in finance, then we suggest you find a simple daily habit you can remove. Maybe you have an addiction to chocolate, chips or fast food. Cut one of the habits out and do it today without looking back.
“Health over Wealth” – @WallStPlayboys
5) No More Negative Friends: If you read our post on choosing friends you likely have a good core set of people to turn to. Lets turn it up a notch. Even if someone is making more money than you, it may be time to find a new mentor for making money. At the end of the day, negative people are a waste of your time. Complain Complain Complain and no actions to fix anything. Yes life can suck, yes you’re going to have horrible awful things happen to you… but? There is nothing you can do about it. You have two choices in life 1) fix the situation or 2) leave the situation. If the person you are speaking to is doing neither, they are losers.
We know, you’re thinking that is harsh! Well it is the truth. You cannot control what people wear on a daily basis, you can’t force someone to lose weight, you can’t force someone to do anything because it is beyond your control. Do what you can do to fix your own life and help others fix their life. Control the controlables. The rest is noise.
“The first person to complain can withstand the least amount of pain” – @WallStPlayboys
6) Upgrade One Outfit: We will always be minimalists and that does not mean you have to dress like a homeless man. You can have flash without spending a lot of cash. Take one item in your wardrobe that looks hideous (we all have a few shirts/pants that should have been retired in the 90s) and throw it away, forever. Spend some time and pick out a new outfit to wear. The rule of thumb is this, you should physically feel different when you put it on. If you wake up in the morning and change into your new outfit and don’t feel some bounce to the ounce… then it is not the right outfit.
“The room should improve when you walk in, because you’re better dressed than the rest” – @WallStPlayboys
7) Revamp Your Resume: Read our guidelines on writing a resume and get to work! 2014 plans and budgets are currently being set at major investment banks, hedge funds and private equity firms. Even if you’re not in the finance industry, if you have not updated your resume in the last 12 months, it has no value anymore. The macroeconomic climate is 10-20x better than it was back in 2009, don’t sit around waiting for opportunity to knock on your door. How important is a resume? Well if a good resume hits an interviewer during the initial screening period (phone calls) they might even call you and schedule an interview that week. How do we know? We’ve done this before.
“Did you get that job because you did well in the interview? No you got that job because you sent out hundreds of resumes” – @WallStPlayboys
8) Pick a New Hobby: Even if you are 30, 35, 40, 50, 60 or even 70! It is time to add a new hobby to your life. Do not live a life of slow death. As we get older we will certainly develop preferences (favorite wine, favorite food, favorite restaurant etc.) the trap is you’re not expanding your horizons. Are you going to die from the new hobby? No? Then it’s a good one to pick. If you decide to take up piano, tennis, chess, cooking, singing (we can go on forever) for a full year, you’re going to learn something. A new hobby for a full year means you’re going to learn something about the subject and even more importantly you’ll learn something about yourself. You may even like it.
“If you’re not expanding your comfort zone, you’re dying” – @WallStPlayboys
9) Become a Kid: This is probably as cheesy as point number three if you don’t read the whole paragraph. Turn back the clock. When you were 5 or 6 years old you had so much energy your family had to reign you in. Why? You were happy to be alive. If you want to have the same energy as a 5 year old child you should be happier than a 5 year old child. Kids don’t want to go to sleep because they are happy running around and having fun. Your life themes have absolutely changed but if you are taking actionable measures to achieve them you should be a happy go lucky person. You will never meet an unhappy person who wakes up and works towards the things he truly wants. This is no different than being a kid. They wake up and say this is what I want and they do what they can to get it.
“Why bother sleeping in when you can make your dreams a reality” – @WallStPlayboys
10) Befriend an Enemy: Yep. No matter what you do or who you are, you’re going to get haters, trolls, losers, weirdos, idiots, and straight up psychos who dislike you. Even the president himself has a low approval rating, you just can’t win them all. Instead take one person, someone who does have a lot going for them and turn them around. Make them like you. For those that can read between the lines, this is called sales and or game. This will do two major things for you it will 1) teach you to never spend your time trying to bring someone down and 2) it will improve your interpersonal skills. Similar to your new hobby, you may end up liking the guy as well.
“You gain nothing by bringing someone down. Even if you succeed you’re creating a mindset of negativity and anger. You lose either way” – @WallStPlayboys
Good luck to everyone who tries to complete this list!
Fantastic post. This is one of the ones that I’ll be bookmarking!
It’s hard to make a good self-improvement post, but this site is very thorough and blunt, something I love. I have the new years post bookmarked and read through it every now and then (presently trying hard to work on not complaining). This is another golden post, really enjoy the work.
What is triggering the complaint? Usually if you’re generally an optimistic guy (anyone who is fun cool an interesting to be around is) then there is usually a trigger.
Happy to help if we can.
It doesn’t take much to trigger it in me and most of my complaining is internal. I’m working on being more positive in general and have slowed down the flow of negative thoughts (they are very toxic). My more significant triggers are annoying coworkers and time urgency. I have to say your advice has been very helpful, and even the way you respond sometimes with quips such as “you shouldn’t be concerned, next her,” help me to change my mindset.
I’m definitely putting into practice your advice on the 60-second smile tomorrow morning.
Since your issues are internal you have to change the sayings you repeat in your head. It sounds like you’re already walking down this path.
Try to figure out why your coworkers annoy you and then step outside. You can say this out loud or in your head “There is nothing I can do to change how person X acts all I can do to help myself at this point is control my work, ignore all insults from person X and continue to do my best”
It sounds “corny” but it is entirely true. You can’t control other people. All you can do is take more control of your own emotions and “state”. Remember that if someone can get under your skin, it means they are taking control of your emotional state. Don’t let this happen. If a coworker is a pure sycophant shrug it off and realize that negative person has to live with a negative/pessimistic outlook for the rest of his/her life… He/she loses not you.
Second. If you have a flow of negative thoughts, the best way to over ride your brain is to recall a time where you overcame an awful event or accomplished something positive.
If you haven’t taken a look our post on “unlock your mind” is probably a great one for you to read.
I agree with you that sometimes “corny” phrases are effective, I have used a few in the past and they help me to refocus. Your phrase on reminding myself that I cannot change person X’s behavior is exactly what I need to internalize whenever X is beginning to get under my skin. I will read “unlock your mind” now.
When should I send a cold email or resume drop?
Generally Fridays around 11am to 1pm is a good time to drop an email. People are in a better mood and there is (hopefully) less work flow. Monday morning/afternoon would be the worst time.
Please read our post on breaking in as a non-target
Great post! I’m going to try the smile trick tomorrow morning! =)
excellent article. i’m more quiet when it comes to the wall street side [because i dont work in finance so not relevant to me] but game and personal finance, you guys are definitely in the top 3 reads for me
Good post. I like the “smile” routine. I’ll add my two cents worth if you allow me:
Take a cold shower every morning. Turn that button right down to cold-as-fuck. It starts your day with a challenge, putting your straight away in a “I-kick-asses-all-day” mood, and the cold wakes you up like a whip. Been doing it for a few weeks, feels great. You get used to it very quickly, too.
Peace out bros, keep smiling.
“9) Become a Kid”
Hahaha. This is one of the things I value the most. I think up of many things myself but can never be fully sure about it due to ambivalence or hesitation to put a nail in the beliefs/opinions. You are an immense help in this regard WSP. Thank you 🙂