8 things you can accomplish in 4 years.

If you’re not familiar with Jim Rohn, give him a try. Today I thought about how easy it is to feel stuck, because of how little time we feel we have left. This is simply not the case. Here are just 8 things, belonging to entire categories, that you can do to enhance, improve or completely change your life:

1. Become a carpenter. In four years, you’ll know how to build a wine box that looks like a bird house, or an actual entire fucking house. This is a super power. Never pay for gifts again.
2. Get your purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. There are two types of people in this world. Those that know BJJ, and everyone else. Six months into your training, you’ll understand the intellectual, emotional and psychical differences in these people. A dorky account manager with a purple belt in jiu jitsu can neatly take out any Navy Seal, Marine or Green Barret. Any military person who also happens to train in BJJ will attest to this.
3. Acquire a 1400 Elo chess rating. I’ll never forget the day… I was 16 years old and was viewed as the problem child. My attention deficit disorder made it impossible to listen to teachers without loud, random thoughts barging in like how deep the ocean is. I hated feeling stupid. Well, my uncle challenged me to a chess match and I beat him. Becoming proficient at chess is a serious confidence booster. Everything is analogous to chess, so if you’re good at chess you’re going to be good at problem solving and getting what you want.
4. Have a conversation about how deep the ocean is with a 3 year old you conceived 4 years ago. Four years from now, I will remember thinking about this moment, anticipating how quickly the next four years will fly by. Is it not miraculous that at the rate time flies by, you can actually create another human being and talk to it? When I had my daughter, a switch flipped and portal opened up. I understand and feel things now that weren’t possible before I created life. I realize now how important love is. Adults are just older children.
5. Learn to code just about anything. People are paying Universities hundreds of thousands of dollars for degrees that will take decades to pay back. Not the University, the bank gives them their money immediately. You pay back the bank almost just as much in interest as you paid the College for the degree. Even finance majors incorrectly state they have $150k in loans. Incorrect, they owe $150k to the college and another $100k to the bank who already paid the college. Well, it’s free to learn how to code (or a carpentry apprenticeship) and employers don’t care if you’re self taught. Like chess, music theory, language and jiu jitsu, you have to learn a framework, that becomes a lens with which you use to view and interpret everything.
6. Learn to speak fluent Mandarin. Aside from the enormous surge of dopamine you’d feel from surprising everyone by ordering in Chinese, it is an extremely practical and valuable language. It is the most spoken language in the world, in fact.
7. Read 12-16 books on personal finance, meditation and self-improvement. That’s three to four books a year, and you’re guaranteed to save your life and your kid’s life from the misery of debt, poor financial decision making and spending habits that ruin peoples lives across all income brackets. When you liberate yourself from the belief that possessions will make you happy, you… become happy. Well, damn.
8. Become an intermediate guitar player. The guitar has served me well over the years, on camping trips and holiday family gatherings. Above all, I wrote a song for my wife for our first dance on our wedding. Guitar, piano, percussion — if you’re fluent in the language of music you’ll change your brain. Utilizing the other side of your brain, massaging it, over and over again through the dexterity involved in an instrument with turn you into a creative person. Creativity can’t be bought, and creative people are the driving force behind all the things we have that we are thankful for.

Make your own list. Just get one done. If you don’t have a terminal illness you don’t have an excuse.