Acervo curado
Acervo curado
Dan Koe
·📬Newsletter
Learn how to learn, how to think, and how to earn
When I was a teenager, I was scared to death at the thought of wasting my 20s.
Not because I didn't believe in myself, but because of how common it was.
Yesterday, I went to the gas station before the gym and was reminded of what the average college experience looks like.
When I walked in, there were 4 dudes in polos, boat shoes, and kaki shorts, each with messy hair that looked unwashed as if they just woke up (at noon).
Each had a case of beer, one had a mega pack of Fireball shooters.
I couldn't help but cringe at the thought of how they were going to feel that night, the next day, and possibly the next week.
I get it though.
I've been in their position multiple times.
But they weren't in college. They were easily closing in on 30 years old. And I couldn't help but think that, if I didn't decide to fully commit to living a good life, I would be right there with them, as that is one of a few default outcomes in today's society. Different people have different lives, sure, but I do not see how a clear thinker can justify that type of behavior.
The truth is, by the time most people turn 23, they repeat the same 6 months for the rest of their life.
The same job. The same bars. The same video games. The same raves. You have a few euphoric experiences because you're now over the age of 21 and want to do things you've been told not to do for your entire life, then you try to make most of those experiences a consistent part of your life. And unless you started pursuing some form of higher goal before you fall into this trap, you do not understand what a fulfilling life is, so you do not try to make that a priority. All you know is going to school and "having fun."
In this letter, I want to discuss what you can do as someone entering into or journeying through their 20s.
I want to provide a look into the mindset, habits, skills to acquire, and principles that lead to an overwhelmingly high quality of life in today's world.
If you actually read it (and burn it into your brain) I do not see why you can't completely change your life.
Before we begin, Superhuman90 (a 90 day life reset and intense dopamine detox with lifestyle, training, and nutrition protocols to get your life back on track) goes live in 3 days.
The pre-order price will increase at that time.
If you want your mind and body to be more energetic, creative, confident, and ready to take on this world of temptation and distraction, consider enrolling here.
The advice I give in the next section will be the advice I would give my younger self.
So, I want to start with a few different perspectives. That way, you benefit from this letter whether you like my advice or not.
If we could go back in time and talk to some of the greatest thinkers, what advice would they give to make the most of your 20s?
It is better to be a conscious fool than an unconscious success.
The most radical thing you can do in your 20s is not to "get ahead" of everyone else, but to discover who you truly are beneath all the noise of society's expectations.
In your 20s, you possess the dangerous combination of energy and ignorance. You mistake confidence for wisdom, activity for progress, and accumulation for fulfillment.
You say you want to become "who you were meant to be," but do you truly know who that is?
Before you can make the most of your twenties, you must first discover what "most" means for you specifically.
Beware of replacing one form of unconscious living (mindless pleasure seeking) with another (mindless goal-chasing).
The problem that young people face is not that they lack ambition or goals, but that they are living entirely from psychological conditioning.
Their goals aren't their own. Instead, they were programmed into them by what society, family, education, and culture want for them.
They mistake this conditioning for their own authentic desires and intelligence.
If you want to make the most of your 20s, understand there is no path to uniqueness. The moment you follow someone else's formula (start a business, make money, or self-actualize), you are living secondhand. Copying. Imitating.
"Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine."
The fundamental problem in young people is not laziness or distraction (though these are symptoms) but rather intellectual cowardice. They fear being thought a fool more than they fear mediocrity.
Develop an unshakeable faith in your ability to see what others cannot.
Tesla was called mad for envisioning wireless communication across oceans. For believing alternating current could power the world. For seeing energy patterns that existed only in the mind's eye.
Yet these "impossible" visions became the foundation of modern civilization.
Young people have accepted other boundaries that others have drawn around possibility.
Young people today have unprecedented access to knowledge, yet lack the patience for deep contemplation. They seek quick results rather than profound understanding.
If you can learn how to learn, how to think, and how to earn, you become an unstoppable force.
The issue with the advice of wise teachers is that they often believe they are "above" prescription.
Rather than giving you something to try, test, and fail with, they simply tell you to try, test, and fail. That's fine, but I do not think the problem is prescription. The problem is the inability to see a prescription as a tool that, if it does not work for your situation, can and should be dropped. The problem is not understanding that there is no "one right way."
Personally, the advice that has helped me the most has always been harsh. When a friend looks me dead in the eye and says, "You're fucking up your life. Stop it. Do this instead." I'm much more inclined to do the thing.
That said, I want to focus on the actions that will (1) teach you about yourself (2) help you think for yourself (3) aid in the discovery of your own path and (4) set you up for some form of success in today's world.
Every year or so, I catch myself taking on too many responsibilities.
I say yes to multiple projects or business opportunities. I fill up my calendar with meetings and events. I tell myself that I can handle it, that I'm capable of doing more.
But then I ask myself, "Is this the life I actually want to live?"
Most of the time, the answer is "no," and I realize that I was either persuaded by another to adopt those goals or that there were rogue ideas in my head that influenced my decision-making.
This is when I let everything go and attempt to completely reset my life.
Now, I have become quite clear on my ideal lifestyle over the years.
I want to wake up, go on a walk, write about my interests for about 2 hours, go to the gym, read new books, build creative projects, eat great food, and feel as if I am making consistent progress toward my goals.
I've determined that when that lifestyle is maintained, my mind, body, spirit, and business have ample space to grow, and I do not bog myself down to the point of life becoming repetitive and mundane, because I leave space for the novel.
I've discovered that without these habits, life becomes substantially worse. My mind narrows. I feel as if I can't birth new ideas for my work, so my work starts to suffer, and I think on the surface because I am only worried about survival. Nobody built anything great in survival mode.
Here's my advice:
Before you make a decision that could impact your future, consult with your ideal lifestyle.
If it does not align, tread carefully.
If you do it anyway, be ruthless in eliminating it when the time comes.
If you do not know what your ideal lifestyle is, forget everything I've said and take on any opportunity that comes your way. Gain experience, reflect on that experience, and slowly start to make decisions that move away from the parts of that experience that you never want to live through again.
Everyone and their mother is telling you to start a business.
So much so that "buy my course" has become a meme.
Which is unfortunate, because it turns many people away from it. People can smell the sales tactics from a mile away, and everyone has a course nowadays (I have multiple, lol).
Yes, some courses suck, but to completely close yourself off from an interest-based education (you know, the thing that actually leads to an effective skill stack and unique life) because a few people on the internet made it "uncool" is the mark of stupidity.
That said, I'm not here to sell you on a specific business model. I simply want to lay down some ideas and let you make a decision for yourself. Here's why I hold the belief that everyone should start (but maybe not continue with) a business:
I have many more, but I'll spare you an entire book, because I already wrote one, and you can read it free on my Substack (Purpose & Profit).
I realized early that I hated working on other people's dreams. My life was always better when I chose a project that aligned with my ideal lifestyle. Motivation became intrinsic, obsession was almost inevitable.
Here's the thing through...
There is a barrier to entry. Any form of success will require 1-3 years of sustained trial and error. Most of your effort will not bear any fruit until you go through this period of having no idea what you're doing.
You can either spend 4 years to get a degree and maybe get the job you want, or you can spend 2 years lost in the unknown with exponentially higher upside and a skill stack that makes you unemployable.
"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. – Socrates"
You live in your body.
It should be considered your full-time job to learn about it, train it, and take care of it.
I don't care if it's bodybuilding, Olympic lifting, powerlifting, running, yoga, pilates, or water aerobics.
Most people neglect their bodies, and it reflects in their minds, spirituality, and creative work.
It seems as though everyone loves the idea of creating art in their hobbies or work, but when it comes to the entire plane of physical existence, they don't see the importance of doing the same.
If the biosphere were wiped out, the noosphere would lose its foundation.
In other words, if the world were destroyed, everything built on top of it would follow suit.
If you disrespect your body, you disrespect everything it provides for. Your mind. You creativity. Your projects. Your relationships. Your finances.
I do not believe that you can only do one thing well.
I believe that intelligent, high-leverage routine design around 3-4 fundamental habits (learning, building, training, socializing) is what provides the substrate for greatness to be born.
If you want to become future-proof, prioritize self-study around these topics
If you were to pair these skills with your personal goals and interests, you would learn to create your own path in life.
This is where my bias starts to shine.
Writing, specifically, has changed my life. I've refined my own system to last around 1-2 hours a day, and it is the source of most of my business success, learning, agency, understanding of psychology and systems, and more. This is why I created 2 Hour Writer.
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. – Archimedes"
Leverage is the ability to amplify your inputs to create disproportionately larger outputs.
It's doing more with less.
It's getting maximum results from minimum effort, time, or resources.
In today's world, leverage comes from capital, people, technology, knowledge, and network. And if you don't have leverage, you must invest your time in acquiring it.
Without leverage, your results are directly tied to your time and effort (a linear relationship).
You work one hour, you get one hour of results.
This limits your potential.
But if you spend your time acquiring leverage, you start to break into exponential growth.
Companies can scale beyond what their founders could do alone by leveraging people (and founders can scale beyond what they could 10 years ago by leveraging technology like social media, software, and AI).
Investors make money while they sleep by leveraging capital.
Authors can reach millions of people without speaking to each person directly by leveraging writing (media).
Software can serve billions from a single codebase by leveraging code.
In my own experience, I always knew that I did not want a life where I trade time for money. I knew that some form of entrepreneurship was the only way to create various forms of leverage in my life.
So, I tried to build every digital business model under the sun, made freelance web design work, realized I was still trading time for money, started writing on social media to build an audience, started a newsletter, built digital products, focused on cash flow, and now I can use that cash flow for higher leverage companies like software and ecommerce, which I've been building for a few years now.
In short, and if you want to start now, here's what I'd recommend:
No matter where I research more about leverage (in an attempt to ensure that my own bias doesn't take over here) the "fast track" advice seems to always be: learn a valuable skill, create content, and invest your cash back into assets that compound.
Start with 1 hour of learning a day.
Shift to 1 hour of learning and writing a day.
Build a digital product or service that you can generate cash flow with and validate an idea, then turn it into a more scalable, higher-risk company.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you found value in it.
– Dan
Dan Koe
@thedankoe · Self-improvement / One-person business
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“Learn how to learn, how to think, and how to earn”
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Learn how to learn, how to think, and how to earn
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