Don't waste your life on some shit. Learn! Learn! Learn! Develop skills! Learn programming! Work with smart people and learn from them! Measure your progress in KPI! Learn how to be useful for other people and solve their problems! Be persistent and not give up easy!
What I would do if I was 18 now
31–40 of 50 posts
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#32Who are all these people who "didn't learn anything" from university? What were they spending their time doing? I learned a ton about a wide variety of fields from experts in those fields; it was extremely valuable. Did this guy just goof off the whole time?
He got an MBA at a well-known European university... hardly gooding off
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#33> Happiness comes from intangibles, like experiences, relationships, activities, not stuff. Experiences don't make you happy. It's one of the mistakes millennials make. Vacations are exactly the same as buying shit - you're just buying more shit, except your buying a pre-packaged consumer-friendly vacation. Taking a vacation to south of France isn't going to make you happy. You'll be just as angsty there as you are i…
> don't need the south of France or Machu Picchu to tell you your life is empty
This. It really clicks with what I have experienced so far. Sometimes, after done some travel activities, back to a hotel or hostel, sit in front of that place and think "what the fuck am I doing here". Nothingness is really real sometimes.
Create or make, I believe, is valuable this day where there are tons of consumers and less creators. A lot of consumer experts when those new version of mass projects come out. So, I agreed that creating something new, useful, helping non-privilege people to have better life, are probably the ways that make us happy.
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#34> If you save that $3k/m over 20 years and put it into Vanguard ETFs (at 7% over 20 years), you’ll be 38 and have $1.5 million in the bank! Save $6k/m, and you’ll have $3 million at 38. Yes, I said that correctly. Save $1k/m and you’ll have $500k by 38. Simply, no. No. That's not how it work. You can't find index returning 7% avg on 20 year interval. Plus that gains are taxable in many contries, sometimes heavily.
People say you should do reckless things when you are still young but strangely enough they also encourage to save money during that age, (almost 20 years?), to spend when you are quite old there.
Saving isn't wrong, but man, can average people save $3k/month? In developing countries, $3k is probably more than your entire salary.
I'd say that's simply NO NO NO NO NO NO way.
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#35I like how some of the comments here completely ignore who Pieter Levels is. "Some blogger", LOL. I suggest you check out what he's created before simply poo-poing his advice.
Regarding said advice, here's my take; his post is about exactly what the title said - what HE would do if HE was 18 right now.
From my reading of him, he's an extremely independent, entrepreneurial-type who would not be interested in being employed by others(hence him suggesting you skip college). You need a fancy degree to get fancy corporate jobs, not to start lifestyle businesses.
Regarding learning how to code as soon as possible - I think that's good advice for most people who want to make things. Sure, you won't get that job at FB or Dropbox, but I have a feeling Pieter knows himself well enough to not even consider those as options.
Building an income. Yes, simply "producing" a business making $5K pm is, shall we say... optimistic. But it's still good advice for independent-minded people. It's a target to reach for. A prompt to at least attempt that goal. It's better advice than "get an unpaid intern position for a year."
Move and travel. That's easier for young people from rich countries, which, well, would apply to an 18 year old Pieter too. If I had been young and unattached with a currency advantage like that, yeah, I'd be out traveling too! Life experiences can teach you a lot about yourself.
Save and invest. Solid advice. You may disagree with his assumptions and math, but how many 18-year-olds even think of saving and investing money, never mind the amounts he suggests?
Follow your passions. Yeah, that's a bit pie-in-the-sky for me too, but to his credit, he does say that that would follow after you've accomplished his earlier advice(Build a business with a lot of income, ect.)
I enjoyed his post. And I suspect you'd enjoy it more too if you took the time to know more about the man who wrote it.
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#36> Happiness comes from intangibles, like experiences, relationships, activities, not stuff. Experiences don't make you happy. It's one of the mistakes millennials make. Vacations are exactly the same as buying shit - you're just buying more shit, except your buying a pre-packaged consumer-friendly vacation. Taking a vacation to south of France isn't going to make you happy. You'll be just as angsty there as you are i…
As others said, young folks do the cheap thing, stay in hostels, or the sorta cheap, stay in AirBnBs vs the pre-packaged thing. Also, those intangibles are "creating some new experience" - you're not buying a consumer item, you're paying for experiences. Making things is a whole different thing, even though it can also contribute to some well-being in your life. It's also interesting that you say that the new experie…
> As others said, young folks do the cheap thing, stay in hostels, or the sorta cheap, stay in AirBnBs vs the pre-packaged thing.
Hostels and AirBnB are just cheaper, shittier versions of pre-packaged vacations, which is even worse.
Pro-tip: Don't travel anywhere without being invited there.
If you were invited there, you likely wouldn't need to be staying at a hotel or AirBnB.
Kinda-related side-note: When I was about 18 or so, someone told me never to go to concerts or clubbing without being a VIP. Same thing.
Don't be the rando-stranger-in-the-crowd-reduced-to-nothing. Always be the VIP. You'll be a lot happier that way.
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#37Demonstrates the easiest way to success. Just tell others how to be successful - live a crazy life that seems awesome and blog/write about it! Pretend you know something they don't so they stay hooked on your "personal brand". Voila!
Hold on. That’s not how I make money.
I make my money bootstrapping companies like a remote job board called Remote OK (~$10,000/m) and Nomad List, a social network (~$20,000/m) and Hoodmaps ($0 still) that lets you find neighborhoods to stay. The majority of users come from my companies/apps (not me!) being covered on Reddit, HN, Product Hunt, and mainstream press, not my blog.
I have a book about bootstrapping startups that’s completely unrelated to digital nomads that makes $1,500/m in pre-orders, so that’s 5% of my revenue. Hardly a blip in terms of overall revenue and not the goal of my blog (I’ve had this blog for 7 years).
I write about anything from building code projects like https://levels.io/hoodmaps to dealing with my anxiety http://levels.io/anxiety to logging my travels https://levels.io/los-angeles.
In this case, I received a message of someone on Twitter who asked me what would I do if I was 18 now, that’s why I wrote it. It’s my subjective perspective.
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
As others said, young folks do the cheap thing, stay in hostels, or the sorta cheap, stay in AirBnBs vs the pre-packaged thing. Also, those intangibles are "creating some new experience" - you're not buying a consumer item, you're paying for experiences. Making things is a whole different thing, even though it can also contribute to some well-being in your life. It's also interesting that you say that the new experie…
> As others said, young folks do the cheap thing, stay in hostels, or the sorta cheap, stay in AirBnBs vs the pre-packaged thing. Hostels and AirBnB are just cheaper, shittier versions of pre-packaged vacations, which is even worse. Pro-tip: Don't travel anywhere without being invited there. If you were invited there, you likely wouldn't need to be staying at a hotel or AirBnB. Kinda-related side-note: When I was abo…
You do you.
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#39I like how some of the comments here completely ignore who Pieter Levels is. "Some blogger", LOL. I suggest you check out what he's created before simply poo-poing his advice. Regarding said advice, here's my take; his post is about exactly what the title said - what HE would do if HE was 18 right now. From my reading of him, he's an extremely independent, entrepreneurial-type who would not be interested in being emp…
I don't like to bring this to the table but you also ignore that he is a white privilege. Checkout this thread https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/831709893832884224
Saving and investing are not things for people who only know "struggling" or "surviving"
Re: What I would do if I was 18 now
#40Demonstrates the easiest way to success. Just tell others how to be successful - live a crazy life that seems awesome and blog/write about it! Pretend you know something they don't so they stay hooked on your "personal brand". Voila!
Hold on. That’s not how I make money. I make my money bootstrapping companies like a remote job board called Remote OK (~$10,000/m) and Nomad List, a social network (~$20,000/m) and Hoodmaps ($0 still) that lets you find neighborhoods to stay. The majority of users come from my companies/apps (not me!) being covered on Reddit, HN, Product Hunt, and mainstream press, not my blog. I have a book about bootstrapping star…
So sorry, I did not take the time to learn more about you before posting. I can't delete/edit my post now or I would.