HOW TO DOMINATE YOUR 30S

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

What is going on everybody out there in Warrior Soul Nation? Welcome to this edition of the Warrior Soul Podcast. Today, I've got a special Warrior Notes edition. I wanted to do this episode for a while because it's been on my mind. I am 40 years old today.

Well, I've been 40 years old for a while. 40 years old at this moment, right? I'm well, guess you could say 40. I'm going on 41. My God.

Getting old. But my point is this. So I'm in my forties, and you know, I there's a list of things that I wish people told me or counseled me on back when I was younger. Specifically, back before I got out of the Marine Corps when I was still in my twenties. And these are things that you could do pretty, pretty simply and easily in your twenties that will help you to absolutely dominate your thirties and your forties and beyond.

Now, here's the thing, because when you're in your twenties, there's this set period of time that you have. Right? And it's a set period of time to go out there and live. Right? It's before you get lots of responsibility.

Hopefully, you don't have a lot of debt yet. Right? If you guys are in the military, you shouldn't have a lot of debt unless you were one of those guys who went off and bought those cars at the ridiculously high interest rates right outside the base. But you shouldn't have a lot of debt. You at this point, if you're in the military and you're single, you your only responsibility is really your job, right?

You've to lead your marines. You've got to ensure that you're proficient at your your specialty, your job, you got to make sure that you are on top of your mission, right? And that's a really good time because it allows you to focus on one thing. Now, the problem though is this, a lot of guys, while they're still in, they get into this mode of of, okay, video games, beer, bars, strip clubs, and spending money on a lot of crap that they that's not really gonna do anything for them in the long run. Right?

I remember when I got off of the deployment, I had so much money saved up. And I went and I spent it all really fast, like I'm talking like within four or five months, I spent all the money I had saved up. I had like nearly $20,000 saved up, and that's not a lot of money if you look at it in the big scheme of things, but for a young Marine, that's a lot of money to have in your bank account. And I went out and I spent so much of it. And the thing is, I wish I had somebody who said to me, hey, dude, this is what you gotta do.

Right? And and so that's what I want this podcast to be like. Now, I try, I really try not to come off sounding like a dad. Right? And and as I'm getting older, it's harder and harder to do that.

And what I want you guys to understand is that this is not just me trying to come at you all pious and trying to tell you you shouldn't do this or you shouldn't do that. I'm telling you guys this stuff from experience because I screwed a whole lot of things up. I screwed a whole lot of things up. And had I just changed a few things, had I just changed a few things, had I just modified my behavior a little bit, I wouldn't have gone through some of the hellish stuff that I've been through. And in that, I put, you know, my really bad marriage and my divorce.

I put, my time living out of my car with just a bunch of garbage bags and some clothes. I did that in my 30s. I put a lot of the business failures I've had. I put some of the struggles I have today, as far as saving money or keeping money that still stem from some of the things I did in my twenties that I'm still paying for. And so when I'm telling you guys about this, what I'm really trying to do here is to get you guys on the right path as soon as possible.

Now why do I do that? Well, do it for this community, the veteran community, because I believe that this generation of veterans could have such an impact on this country, could have such an impact on this world. Because a lot of you have served in combat, a lot of you have so much leadership experience. The civilian world needs that. Our country needs that.

And the thing is this, if you are, you know, wrapped up with financial debt, or you wrapped up in bad relationships, or you wrapped up in a bunch of personal drama, you're not going to be able to fulfill that role role as a leader like you should, Right? It's gonna have an impact on your life. You're not going to be able to get to a lot of those ambitions that you have. And so if that happens, then not only do you miss out, but everybody around you and everybody you could potentially impact misses out. And that's what this show is about.

It's about giving you more impact, giving you more ability to lead, giving you greater control over your life so you can go on and do amazing things. And that's what I want for you. Now, there's some of you out there are listening to this. Some of you are veterans, and some of you are active duty military. Some of you are civilians.

If you're a civilian, still listen to this because you're probably making a lot of the same dumb mistakes that a lot of guys who served are making. Right? You're probably still going out. You're probably still partying. You're probably doing a lot of that crap.

And the thing is this, you can also be a leader. You there's a lot more ways to serve than just serving in the military. And you know, leaders can come from all different facets of life, and and no matter who you are out there, whether you served or not, the goal of this show is to to to make you better, right? To to help you to live your best life. So that's what I'm gonna go through today.

These are five things you could start doing in your twenties that will help you to dominate your thirties. Alright? So let's get started. Let's get into this and just keep an open mind with me here. Again, I'm trying not to sound like a dad.

Alright? So the first one is this, and this is probably I hate to say this, but this is gonna be the one that a lot of you are going to to have the biggest resistance to. Right? This is gonna be the one, particularly you young men. Alright?

But but this is gonna be one that that you're gonna be like, no. I don't wanna do that. And what I'll see is this. Alright. So so the the item I'm say is, you need to find a good partner.

Right? A good partner. A good mate. Alright? Now, obviously, when you're in your twenties, a lot of you, you want to go out and you want a party, you want to date as much as possible, and when I say date, I really mean something else, right?

That's the way I was. I wanted to sleep with as many girls as possible. I wanted to to do everything I could. Right? And this is what I'll tell you.

That's a trap. It's a really, really, really big trap that a lot of us fall into. Now why is it a trap? When you are out there, and you are just womanizing like crazy, essentially what you are doing is you're barring yourself off of any human connection, and basically, what you're doing is is you're associating yourself with women, or or and and if you're a girl, same thing, girls could do this too. You're associating yourself with people based off of physical attraction.

Physical attraction. Now, why is that a bad thing? Right? And and I'm I mean, I'm obviously very attracted to my mate. I I've had a girlfriend, a steady girlfriend now for for six, seven years.

She's become my life partner. I am planning on marrying her. But what I'll tell you I did in in in my twenties and and into my early thirties was I went out and I tried to sleep with as many people as possible, as many girls as possible. And that was partly based on physical attraction, but also partly based on what I was getting out of it, which was an improved self image. Right?

I was doing it because I was trying to make up for things that I saw lacking in myself. And I thought, and I can only tell you this because I'm older and I can think about it with some hindsight. The thing I was trying to make up for was the fact that I felt inadequate in so many ways. Right? I I felt like if I didn't have a girl with me or if I wasn't sleeping with a girl at the time, then I was missing out on something in the world, and I felt like I was just not putting my best face forward, I guess you could say.

Right? And what I can tell you I started to lose from that, I started to lose a lot of self respect because I was constantly rating myself based off of who I was sleeping with at the time or how many girls I was sleeping with at the time. And the other aspect of it was that I would bar myself off from any real connection with them. Like, whenever it became time to get emotionally involved, I was constantly in a place where I would be pushing them off, and and, you know, I was basically using these girls. Right?

Now, where did this lead me? Well, what it led me to was a really bad marriage because there came a point where I was in my early thirties where I was just so sick of what I was doing. So emotionally sick of of trying to sleep with girls, trying to to just get that nut off, right? And I was so so sick of myself that I said, okay, now is the time to settle down. And so when the opportunity came to settle down with somebody, I jumped at the chance to settle down, and I ended up with somebody who I really didn't mesh with.

I really didn't emotionally mesh with. We didn't have similar values. We didn't have similar life goals. And I'll tell you that it was that rabble rousing, you know, kind of desire to sleep with as many girls as possible that led me to that, because I was I was really trying to make up for what I felt was my downfall. Right?

I felt like this is what I had to do to stop myself from womanizing. It was kind of like trying to quit smoking and then just picking up dipping instead, right? And I will tell you this, if you end up with the wrong partner, and that can happen a lot of ways if you're not careful about who you're associating with, right? If you sleep with a girl and she gets pregnant, or if you end up, you know, being stupid like I was, you end up getting married to the wrong girl, or the wrong man, or the wrong person, then there is nothing, nothing that can ruin your life more than ending up with the wrong person. There is nothing that can ruin your life more than ending up with the wrong person.

And we're talking, you know, years of misery, we're talking financial ruin through divorce, we're talking, you know, just you'll have a person out there in the world, who absolutely can't stand you if you go through a divorce, right? And that in and of itself is a horrible thing. Now, for my ex wife, I don't put any fault on her. It was my fault, right? But I'll tell you the woman does not like me very much, right?

She does not like me at all. And so just having somebody out there who doesn't like you very much, who's not somebody who wants to be your friend, and maybe potentially somebody who wants to ruin you, that's not a good thing. So my advice to you is, as early as possible, try to get yourself away from that womanizing aspect, or or or just sleeping with as many people as possible, and try to find somebody who's going to mesh with you, going to mesh with your values, who likes similar things as you do, right? If you're into fitness, you really want to have somebody who's also into fitness and taking care themselves. If you have life goals, you want somebody with similar life goals, let's say, you are looking to stay in the military and you you want to, you know, do a career, well then you need somebody who's going to be up for that, right?

And if not, then you need to hold off, until you do find a person who's going to mesh well with your values and what you want to do. The biggest factor in the success of my current relationship, is the fact that me and Shawna, we are so aligned on everything we want. We have very similar values. We see the world in similar ways. And if that's not there, then you're going have a really hard time.

And if you're going to have a hard time and it's going to lead to divorce, then like I said, there's nothing that can ruin you more than that. So start thinking about that in your twenties. Now, again, I don't want to come off like your dad, I'm not saying you gotta become a priest or a nun or anything like that, but at the same time, just understand the impact of what you are going to end up with, if by some chance you make a mistake there. Okay? Number two, this is a big one too.

Okay? You want to save and invest your money, you wanna knock down debt, and you wanna stop spending money on stupid stuff that is not going to lead to a better future for you. Right? You don't want to be buying things that rust rot and depreciate. You don't want to be constantly spending your money on alcohol.

Right? I I can tell you I spent tens of thousands of dollars on alcohol in my twenties. You don't want to be doing that. What you want to do is you want to be saving at least 10% of your income, and then you want to be investing that income into a tax deferred retirement plan, or some other investment vehicle that is going to allow you to have a good nest egg for your future. K?

Now, again, a lot of you in your twenties, you wanna go out there and you wanna experience as much as possible, and that's awesome.

Right? A lot of you wanna travel. I think that's great too. But if you're going to the bar every single weekend, you're spending 50 to $100 a night or more, think about what's happening there. Right? Essentially, all your money is just going to make somebody else rich, whoever owns that bar.

And that 50 to $100 you're spending each night you go out, let's say you go out four nights a month. Right? What some of you are doing more than that. Right? That's at $400.

Right? We'll see it's $400. $400 a month, if you're investing that into a retirement account with compounding interest and everything, that could add up to millions over your lifetime. At least hundreds of thousands of dollars. Right?

And you are missing out on so much there. You're missing out on so much there. So, again, rather than than than constantly going out, and again, I want you to have fun, but rather than spending money, take that money and invest it. Do it at the beginning of the month before you have a chance to. The second you get your paycheck, put it put that money into a savings account or a tax deferred retirement account where you know you're not gonna touch it.

Right? And definitely go out and read as much as possible about investments. Okay? I've read a few books that I'm definitely gonna recommend here. Number one, you want to check out The Millionaire Teacher.

That's by, I think it's Andrew Haram, The Millionaire Teacher. I'll get that up on the show notes in case I'm wrong about the author, and we'll get a link to Amazon. That book goes into everything you need to know about investments, know, getting yourself into index funds that are low fee, not spending your money on high fee mutual funds, or listening to some financial advisor who's going to screw you over. Alright? Go check that book out.

Check out another good one is Tony Robbins, Money Master the Game. That's a great book too. He's got some great advice in there. K? And again, money is one of those things.

Money brings options. Right? And when you you're in your twenties, you you feel like you have a lot of options. You might not have a lot of money, but you have a lot of options because you got a lot of time. If you get up to be my age, 40, and you don't have a big savings account, and you are a lot more limited on options because you don't have as much time as you did when you were in your twenties, well, then at that point, you're you're you're gonna be screwed.

So you want to start that process of saving money, investing it early. You also want to make sure that you're not taking on tons of debt. If you got a credit card, pay that thing off every month. Right? Most of these credit cards, they have like 30% interest rates.

Think about how much money that is, 30% interest rate. On your retirement account, on a good retirement account, you're getting eight percent back per year. Right? 8% interest rate, right? Compounding interest per year.

On a if you've got tons of credit card debt, you're paying that at 30%. That's crazy. That's crazy. You're never gonna make up for that. So pay that credit card down each month, down to zero.

K? If you're gonna go to college, because I know a lot of you are heading out there, or if you're in college, or if you are getting out of the military and thinking about college, a lot of you are gonna have the GI bill, but the GI bill doesn't cover everything. Some of you are gonna have to take out student loans, but make sure that you're not taking out tons and tons of loans or more loans than you need. Because, again, you think about if you're using those loans to pay for your living expenses, like 20,000, $30,000 a year or something like that, you come out with $60,000 in debt. That's insane.

Right? Some people are coming out with a lot more than that, like 100,000, 150,000. It's a mortgage. Right? And and the payment, the minimum payment on that, if you unless you're doing a a income deferred plan, in which case you're paying tons and tons of interest on it, then that's going to be like $1,500 a month, right, when you're paying that down.

Right? Don't want that. Don't you don't need that in your life, right? And and again, I'm telling you this from experience. I got student loans, even though I had the GI Bill, And you don't need that.

That's gonna hobble you as you're trying to put your future together. So what I would say is make sure that you were saving, investing your money, make sure you're not taking out tons of debt, don't spend money on stupid stuff, don't buy a dumb car, alright, that's not going to do anything but depreciate in your driveway. Right? Get a sensible car that's going get you from point a to point b. Ride that thing into the ground.

Right? I I drove a Honda Civic. I'm gonna ride that thing into the ground. Right? I'm gonna take care of it, you know, make sure it's it's up to par, but, you know, I don't need a fancy car no matter how much money I ever make.

K? So really think about that. The next thing, you wanna take care of your body. You need to eat right. You need to exercise.

Because listen, if you're in your twenties and and you're just living off a beer and pizza, and you're putting on tons and tons of weight, I'll tell you right now, when you hit 30, 35, you're gonna start to feel that. Alright? You'll you'll feel the inflammation. Your joints, particularly you guys serving in the combat arms, especially you infantry guys, If you're not taking care of your body, a lot of that impact you're getting from your military service right now, that's going to show up when you're my age. You're going to have problems walking.

You're going to have problems moving your joints. You're going have problems with your back. Okay? So the answer for you is to not stop taking care of your body after you get out the military. Right now, you've got people looking out for you and making sure that you're doing PT, probably making sure you're hitting the gym, but learn as much as you can about taking care of your body on and into your thirties and your forties.

Because if you don't, it doesn't matter how much money you have, what kind of job you have, who you're married to, how many kids you have, you're not gonna be around long, and you're not gonna enjoy life the way you should. Right? That's what fitness is really about. That's what's taking care of your body is really about. It's insurance to ensure that you are going to continue to have options as you get older.

Right? Because if you become 40 and you're feeling like crap, you're having a lot of medical problems. Right? And and you don't have energy. Well, I'll tell you that feels awful.

It doesn't matter, like, I'm gonna live while I can. I'm gonna live through my twenties. I'm gonna drink as much as possible, blah blah blah. I'm telling you right now, you still wanna live when you're in your forties. You still wanna be able to enjoy life.

You have a lot more to live for at that point. And so, don't eat up your future life by just destroying it right now, right? With bad nutrition, alcohol, tobacco, all that crap that you put in your body, that's going to screw you so bad as you get older. So eat right, exercise. What's eating right mean?

It means, trying to eat as many vegetables as possible, eating whole foods, getting enough protein, making sure that you're not eating a bunch of processed junk, going to the fast food all the time, if you're eating out of chow halls, make the better choice than chow halls, right? They got salad bars there, they've got protein sources there, right? You don't have to go for the fried chicken nuggets all the time, okay? You know, and and when you're not eating MREs out in the field, try to eat good things when you're you're not in the field. And this day and age, can take things out there with you, right?

You can get healthy snacks, beef jerky, cheese seeds, Brazil nuts, you can take those out there with you, right? And obviously, you're still going to have to eat some of those MREs, but you can stay on top of your health, your nutrition, while you're still in. And then when you get out, don't be one of these guys who just sits on the couch and just eats pizza all the time. Right? Learn how to cook.

Learn how to prepare your own meals. Cook from home. Right? Bring your lunch to work with you. Right?

There's no reason. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do that. Okay? So eat right, exercise, exercise every day. Doesn't need to be in the gym.

Right? Doesn't need to be in the gym. You don't need to get an expensive gym membership if you can't afford it. You do burpees in your living room. Can do push ups.

You can go running. Right? You do body weight squats, body weight lunges. Can get a kettlebell. Right?

You do tons of kettlebell exercises in your house, right? All these things are options that you can do. Okay? So take care of yourself. The next one.

Now, when you're in your twenties, and particularly guys, you have a group of friends. Right? And generally, these friends are like your band of brothers. You're them all the time. You're doing stuff with them.

You're going out. You're you're you're you're hanging out with them all the time. Now what happens in your thirties is a lot of guys, they lose that. Alright? You you move away.

You get married. You you do things that take you away from being able to hang out with your friends all the time. But this is where, like, a lot of depression sets in. This is where a lot of guys lose themselves. Right?

And what you need, you need a good circle of friends around you. Right? That also means you need to get rid of people who are holding you down. Right? Get rid of people who are holding you back.

If somebody's just constantly trying to get you to drink, constantly trying to get you to to do things that that are counterproductive to you moving forward, You need to get that out of your life. But you need to find positive people and you need to keep them in your life. You gotta find people who are gonna push you. People who are gonna let you know when you're screwing up. People who are going to teach you.

Right? It's really, really important. That's a big reason why I created the Warrior's Obituary Society, because we got a group of guys in there who are holding each other accountable, pushing them forward, making sure that we're setting up goals and making sure that we're working for them. You want to find something like that, whether it's through that or whether it's on your own terms. Another good thing you can do is jiu-jitsu, right?

A lot of jiu-jitsu schools, my school has great camaraderie in it. I got introduced to a lot of good guys around where I live. Get yourself in hobbies and activities that are going to get you around other good people. Right? Really, really important, because too many of us let that go, and then we're just lonely all the time.

The only people we're hanging out with are wives, our kids, and that's great, but you need other men in your life. You need other people in your life. You need peers who are going to push you, going to advise you, going to make sure you're doing the right thing. K? This pans off of what I just said in this last one.

You need to find productive hobbies. Alright? You need to find hobbies that are gonna get you outside, that are going to to challenge you. Right? My hobby, jiu-jitsu, really, really awesome challenge for me.

Every time I go in, I get my ass kicked. It allows me to stay physical in a way that's not just like lifting weights or doing CrossFit or something like that. There's another human being and he's trying to or she's trying to choke me, arm bar me, make me submit. And it's constantly getting my brain thinking, it's constantly getting my brain to think of new things, right? Other hobbies, fishing, hunting, right?

I want to take up hunting this year, and it's a great way of getting outside, right? Hiking, Spartan races, it doesn't just have to be physical stuff, you could also learn how to play chess, that will help your brain to think of new things, right? You can get into, well reading isn't really a hobby, it's like self education, but you could start a podcast like I've got, right? That's another great thing. Podcasts are great to start because you get to introduce yourself to some interesting people when you have guests on, you get to dedicate yourself to a subject you love, you enjoy, right?

YouTube, that's another great thing, There's tons of things out there that you can do, but get yourself into something that I suggest you get yourself into something that's physical, that forces you to be around other people, forces you to introduce yourself to other people, forces you to grow in ways that you didn't think you can grow in. Right? Figure stuff like that out. Really, really important. So again, those are five things you could start doing in your twenties that can translate to big things in your thirties.

Now, some people would include like something like starting a business or something like that in there. And as an entrepreneur, can tell you the reason I didn't include it in there is because it's not for everybody. Like, entrepreneurship is difficult. Right? And there's a lot of things you could do to make money on the side to get extra revenue in.

It doesn't have to be like full scale entrepreneurship. For those of you who are interested in that, just message me and I'll I'll tell you whatever you want to know, Right? I'll I'll give you some some of my own insights, but it's definitely not something I recommend for everybody because not everybody's cut out for it. But beyond that, the bigger message here guys is this, Life is an insane journey. Right? It's an insane journey. And a lot of times when you're in your twenties, you feel like everything's just gonna be okay. You feel like you're in a playground, and that playground is just gonna keep going.

But the thing is, like, as you get older, things happen. Right? You lose certain things. You learn lose certain aspects of yourself. You lose that wild aspect of yourself.

And when you start to settle down and you settle into your life, what can start to happen is you can start to die a little bit inside. And the things I've told you here are things to kind of prevent that. Right? You constantly have to be vigilant about making yourself better. And too many guys and girls, when they hit 30, they start to let themselves go.

And it's downward a steep downward slope from there. So let's not let that happen. Let's keep going. And, of course, I'm always here to help you and hold you accountable if you want to talk. So we've got a few different ways of doing that.

Number one, can join our free Facebook group, the Warrior Soul Agoge Empowerment and Resilience Group. You can check that out on Facebook. Free to join. We've also got our private mastermind. I mentioned earlier the Warrior's Obituary Society and what that is it's a group of us who get together who empower each other to live epic lives and with that mastermind, there's an eight week development program up front.

It's where we teach you how to customize your own fitness and nutrition plan. We teach you how to put together your own personal finance plan. Right? We we take care of a lot of the things that that we talk about here, right? Educate you on those things.

We teach you how to set up goals and a vision that's gonna get you out of bed every night, that's gonna get you motivated to do things. We focus on business and career goals. We teach you how to set up a world class network, right, how to introduce yourself to people. We help you to focus on your relationships. And in the group, we meet once a week.

Each month, we're putting together battle plans so that we are laying out our goals, and then the group is holding you accountable to getting to those goals. So if this is something you're interested in, head over to www.warriorobituarysociety.com. That's warriorobituarysociety.com. And if you still have questions about that, you can always email me at Chris, chris@warriorsoulagoge.com. That's a g o g e.

Alright? Warrior Soul, a g o g e. If you want to support the podcast, I highly suggest heading over to our shop, warriorsoul.shop. We've got some great gear up there that's been designed and printed by US Marine Corps veterans up in our Santa Barbara location. So if you're interested in that, definitely head over to the shop.

And beyond that, if this podcast is helping you, if you're enjoying it, you can support the podcast in other ways without spending any money at all by heading over to iTunes and writing us a written rating or review. It really helps to spread word about the show, and it gets this information into the ears of more veterans who need to hear it. With that, guys, I want to thank you so much for listening, and I will be back at you later on this week with some more awesome content on the Warrior Soul podcast. This is Chris Albert, and I am out.