Twenty

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This past Friday, I turned 20.

I don't know why, but twenty feels different than nineteen. Not in some dramatic way. Just different. Like when you drive past your old high school and realize that used to be your entire life.

This year was intense. I started and scaled my ghostwriting business. Joined Acquisition.com in January. Published my first book in April. Dropped out of college in May. Helped break a Guinness world record in August. And ran a marathon in October.

I also shut down that growing business and disappointed clients who believed in me. Moved across the country from everyone I knew. Had several dreams where my teeth were falling out. And honestly, spent a lot of nights feeling lonely.

Each year, I like to reflect on what I've learned. But the older I get, the less certain I am that I actually know anything. As the quote goes, "As your island of knowledge grows, so too does your shore of ignorance."

Anyway. Here’s my best shot :)

7 reflections from the past year:

1. Your inability to focus will hurt you more than your lack of talent

For years, I’ve been positively reinforced for trying new things. Start a business, learn a skill, make some money, move on to the next. It was good. I was experimenting to figure out what I liked and didn’t like.

But there comes a time when hopping from thing to thing hurts you more than it helps. I had a conversation with Alex Hormozi and I mentioned how I was feeling kind of restless, like I was itching to do something new.

He asked me how long I had been with the company, and I responded, "Six months." Then he looked at me with that kind of look you give to someone after they just said something stupid. “Dude,” he said. “Six months is nothing. It may feel like a lot because it’s 10% of your working career. But trust me, it’s nothing.”

Then he went on to explain how if you jump to something new, it may feel like you're making progress in the short-term, but what you're really doing is killing your long-term gains.

“If you keep chasing the new shiny thing, you will never grow,” he said. “To get good, you need to go deep.”

2. Put yourself where you don't belong

The quickest way to change your life is to put yourself in an environment where you feel out of place and force yourself to level up.

Since joining Acquisition.com, I've been in rooms with deca-millionaires and centa-millionaires. I've led meetings, worked with vendors, run learning workshops for the team, and pitched ideas to the company's leaders. In nearly every one of those situations, I felt slightly out of place.

And that was the point.

Mimicry is fundamentally baked into the psychology of every human being. Rather than trying to fight against it, lean into it, use it, find the best people you know, and spend as much time with them as possible.

Work with the best in the world. Lift with people stronger than you. Run with people faster than you. Hang out with people happier than you. You become who you surround yourself with.

3. Losers let bad things define their story. Winners win despite bad things happening.

Tough things happen. Problems are inevitable.

But the story you tell yourself about these moments matters more than the moments themselves.

When everything feels like it's falling apart, I try to ask myself: What story do I want to tell about this later? That something hard happened and I quit? That I took the easy way out when things got tough? Or that I pushed through and figured it out?

It’s wild how many times that little reframe has saved me from spiraling.

The difference between people who succeed and people who don't isn't that successful people have fewer problems. It's that they tell themselves better stories about those problems. And then they do something about them.

4. You don't need special days if you like your regular days

I had a few people reach out to me and wish me happy birthday. They asked if I was doing anything special. I told them no. I was just going to hit a lift, do some work, and FaceTime my parents.

They looked at me with pity.

I felt slightly ashamed that I wasn’t doing anything “cooler”. But then I reflected on it and realized I didn’t want to do anything else. To me, that was a great day.

I exhausted my body. I engaged my mind. And I filled my cup.

What more could I want?

And look. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wanting to do something special on your birthday. But if you genuinely love your “average” day, then you won't feel the need to escape it.

5. You don't know what matters until it's gone

Last year, Noah Kagan told me I should cherish the moments while still living at home because once you leave, it's never quite the same when you come back. I nodded along but didn't really get it.

Now I'm living across the country from my family, and I get it.

The things I miss most are the things I used to think were boring. Shooting the shit with my brother. Lounging around watching TV shows with my parents.

I used to think those moments were filler between the important stuff. Now I realize they were the important stuff.

6. Life isn't as serious as we make it

Looking back, the things that kept me up at night six months ago seem laughably small now. The exam I stressed about for weeks? Can't even remember what class it was for. The opinion of the girl down the hall at my dorm? Completely irrelevant to my life now.

We rush around in a panic, acting like every decision is life or death. But most of what feels urgent today won't matter in a year. Heck, it probably won't matter in a month.

Whenever I feel really stressed or tense now, I try to ask myself: "What would this look like if it were fun? What would the less stressed version of me do?"

The secret is just being fully engaged with what you're doing right now. When you stop treating everything like work and start seeing it as play, everything shifts. Life isn't a to-do list to check off, it’s a dance to be enjoyed.

7. You never truly “figure it out”

When I was younger, I thought twenty would be when things started making sense. I thought there would be this moment where you suddenly felt like an adult. Where you knew what you were doing.

But I actually feel less certain about things than I did at nineteen.

I think growing up isn't about finally knowing things. It's about being okay with not knowing. It's about realizing that everyone you thought had it figured out was just doing their best with what they had. Your parents. Your teachers. Even your heroes.

But I think that's how it's supposed to work. You learn enough to see how much you don't know. You grow up enough to realize that growing up isn't a destination. It's just this ongoing process of figuring things out, making mistakes, and trying again tomorrow.

So that's what I'll do.

I’ll wake up tomorrow, make the best decisions I can with what I know, work on things that matter to me, FaceTime my family, and go to bed knowing I gave it my all.

Until next week,
Jay “No Longer A Teenager” Yang

Ps. Toilet paper

Kind words for ‘You Can Just Do Things’

As a way to celebrate my birthday, my book You Can Just Do Things is on sale for 50% off until the end of today (the price is already reflected on Amazon).

So if you've been on the fence about reading it, maybe this is your sign to grab a copy.

OR if you know someone who might enjoy it, it's a perfect time to gift it to a friend too.

You can grab your copy here.

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