I Asked 153 People for Advice. Here’s the Best Advice I Got.

The question I ask everyone:

As a 19-year-old, I made a vow that I’d ask every person I would come across one question;

”What advice do you have for me?”

I’d ask 25-year-olds at networking events And even 7-year-olds at family parties (to see what they would say, lol…)

I asked this question to over 153 people over the course of 2023.

One piece of advice that stuck with me was from a 63-year-old.

It wasn’t about making money

Nor was it self-improvement advice

It was….life advice.

This is one of the best bits of advice I have ever gotten. If not, THE BEST.

Family problems:

Before I tell you what this 63-year-old told me, let me give you some context so the advice makes the most sense.

Growing up, I never had the best relationship with my family.

There would be fights and arguments, and it would get physical.

To the point where now, when we speak today, out of habit, we would get annoyed at one another.

It’s easy to deny each other’s request before even listening.

It’s even easier to say the most hurtful and foul things

That’s how bad it was for so long.

A silent family:

But one thing we constantly did in silence:

Regretting our actions. Deeply regretting.

Although none of us communicated that we had done something, we regret

You could read the regret in our faces and in our actions.

We’d try EVERYTHING to make things up to one another.

The reason I give you this context is because

We often do things we deeply regret.

Whether that would be shouting at a friend

Or ignoring a colleague at work.

We don’t regret it in the moment

But give it a few days; that regret will settle in.

The pain of living with regret is the worst feeling. Ever.

Let’s say you get into a bad argument with your dad, a VERY bad one. One to the extent that you wish never to see your dad.

But if your dad were lying on the hospital bed, you would do everything to save him.

If your dad were to die and the last interaction you had with him was pure torment

You would live the rest of your life in regret.

The 63-year-old’s advice that changed it all:

So when this 63-year-old told me:

”Imagine you’re on your deathbed, and you have a time machine. A time machine that would take you back to when you were 19.

What would you do differently?

You’d do a lot of things differently.

You would treat your father with respect.

You would lend a helping hand to your siblings.

You would work harder and stop wasting your time on things that don’t matter.

I want you to live your life AS IF you entered that time machine.

Save yourself all that pain and all that regret by acting appropriately, to begin with”

This changed a lot of my perspective on how I view life.

All I have to do is act as if this life I have right now is my SECOND chance at getting things right.

I need to act as if I had already done everything wrong.

And although it may seem as if this way of living is artificial

It saves me a lot of pain and a lot of regret thinking about my actions from this lens.

So an action point for you?

Live as if you’ve already jumped through that time machine. Live as if the consequences are already in place. Live as if this is your second chance and that you have no more chances.