Thirty lessons I’ve learned in 30 years

I turned 30 today. Normally, I’m not one to make a big — or small — deal out of my birthday. I’ve gone full Ron Swanson on it, removing it from every place on the internet I can, save for BVB, which, unfortunately, isn’t up to me. Being the center of attention for a day — some people even celebrate theirs with a full “birthday month” — is wildly uncomfortable, especially given that my life’s work for the past decade or so has been making other people the center of my, and readers’, attention.

But hell. People like birthdays. And my wife is going to put up a poem — her family writes poems on birthdays — about it, so people are going to know I’m one day older, anyway. I’ve been told that 30 is a milestone. So, like any milestone, I’m choosing to leave something for me, and maybe you, to read and look back upon as I grow older: 30 lessons I’ve learned in my first 30 years.

1. It’s possible none of these lessons will apply to you at all.

I learn from and value different things than you do. What works for me might not work for you, and that’s just fine. People are different. I’m not going to pretend, at this dirty age of 30, that I know all. I know little. But I do have a better idea of what works for me now than I did at 20, and 10. Which leads to Lesson No. 2:

2. Do what works for you.

Be serious. Be goofy. Be intense. Be light. Live at the beach. Live in the mountains. Live in the city. Live in the desert. Work in an office. Work from home. Wait tables. Stay away from the service industry. I don’t know. I’m beginning to find some things that work well for me. I love waking up early, drinking coffee, reading, being alone for hours at a time, having space to think, writing, exercising, eating healthy foods, doing many of those things with my wife nearby. When I do all of those things in a day, it’s a good day. Ignore all the weird self-help gurus who prescribe specific things for a better, more optimized life. Experiment. Play around. Find what works for you and do more of that.

3. Trust the cliches

People hate cliches. I kind of get why. If you’re a writer, you should do your best to avoid them. But as a human being looking for impactful lessons with which to live your life, they’re invaluable. Yes, they’re boring, obvious, and trite. But I challenge you to find a single cliche that isn’t true. Trust the cliches of life.

4. Get out in nature

Get outside. Go for a swim in the ocean. Hike up a mountain. Paddle across a lake. Take a nap on the beach. Listen to a creek, the waves, the trees in the wind. Roam through a meadow. Look at the stars. Go camping. Get outside, as much as you can.

5. Get out of bad relationships

I can say this with the perspective of having been in a few for far too long. Getting out of a bad relationship, be it a friendship, significant other, terrible boss, or whatever, will give you one of the fastest positive returns on investment in your life. Promise. Life’s too short to let the toxins of bad people infect you. Get out of them. And then…

6. Surround yourself with good people

I’m a firm believer that we’re the product of the five people with whom we surround ourselves. I look at the five I spend the most time with, or talking to — Delaney Mewhirter, Katie Spieler, Tri and Gabby Bourne, Jordan Cheng — and I know that I’ve surrounded myself with five remarkable people, all of whom make me better, on a daily basis, in some way or other. What do you want to become? Who do you want to become? Surround yourself with people who are on a similar wavelength, and you’ll soon find yourself becoming exactly that.

7. Quality of friends > quantity of friends

When I was in college, I was the social chair of my fraternity. As such, I was obsessed with the optics of our parties. I wanted as many people — especially good looking women — there as possible. I wanted everyone to see just how popular we were, because of how many people were showing up to hang out with us. I laugh when thinking back to those days. I still think I have a fair amount of friends, but I’ve become far more focused on developing a handful of deep relationships over an abundance of surface-level relationships. That focus has exponentially improved the quality of my life, and the quality of my relationships.

8. Guard your time with your life

It’s cliche — see No. 3! — for me to say that time is the only thing we can’t get back, but it’s true! Literally everything in this world can be made again, save for time. So guard it. Do your best to not say yes to every invitation, every temptation. Say no when you want to say no. Save your time for the things that you genuinely want to do. Derek Sivers has a rule that I’ve come to love: If your answer is not a “Hell yes!” then it’s a no. Save your time for the hell yeses of your life.

9. Pay yourself first

I began reading up on personal finance stuff a year or so ago, and the lesson that’s made the biggest impact on me comes from the Richest Man in Babylon: Pay yourself first. Saving — and investing — before paying bills, rent, groceries, whatever, has been an enormous boon on what once was a pretty waifish bank account. Not that I’m rolling around in a Maserati and living on the Hermosa Strand suddenly, but it’s given me a lot more financial freedom, which provides freedom in virtually every aspect of life.

10. Be first

I don’t mean this in the Ricky Bobby sense of “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” Just be first. Be first to say good morning. Be the first to say hi. Be the first to ask how someone’s doing. Be the first to text someone. Be the first to say I love you. Someone has to be first. May as well be you.

11. Don’t be afraid to reach out

This goes along the lines of No. 10. Sometimes it happens that opportunities get presented in your lap, but in my relatively limited experience at life thus far, it doesn’t happen all that often. So be first. Reach out. Ask the good volleyball players if they want to practice, or run a tournament sometime. Worst that happens is they say no — but now, when they need a sub for practice, your name might come up. And if you play well enough in practices with high level groups, you’ll be someone else’s sub. Soon enough, you’re just in high level groups all the time, playing with people way out of your league, simply because you reached out a few times. This goes for jobs, dating, and just about everything in life. If you want something, just ask. You’ll find that people have a tough time saying no (see No. 8), and when they do say no, it’s pretty painless. You just move on to the next one.

12. Hold yourself accountable

A common thread for when things begin going sideways in my life is when I cede control of my life to people or events around me. If things are going wrong — you lose in a qualifier, your story sucks, no agents want to represent your book, your wife is ticked that you put the cutting board in the wrong spot for the 349792057th time — don’t look to someone else to blame, or fix the problem. Just fix it. Watch the film and figure out what you could have done better, even if your partner was 0-17 siding out. Don’t blame your editor for the story not getting a ton of reads; write a better one. Don’t throw up your hands in wonder at how your wife is mad about the cutting board; just, you know, put it in the spot she wants (purely a hypothetical here…). Don’t cede control of your life to other people or events under which you have no control. Own everything.

13. Find the good

And when things do go wrong in life, as they inevitably will, find the good in it. I promise, it’s there. It’s usually not all that hard to find, either. Lost in a qualifier? Ok. Watch the film; what can we learn from it? Where can we be better? Then go get better at it. Good!

Autoimmune disease knocks you out for two years? Good! Time to launch a podcast, watch film, expand your skill set — then come back and win an AVP.

As Jocko Willink says: Good.

14. Be the good

Can’t find the good in a situation? Ok. Then be the good. When Eric Zaun died a little more than a year ago, nothing about it was good. But good came out of it. We launched the Eric Zaun Scholarship, and that, in turn, has continued to be one good thing after another, with nearly 10 beach volleyball players benefitting from a terrible, tragic, no-good situation.

If there is no good to be found in the moment, then be the good.

It’ll be as much for you as it is for those around you.

15. Write thank you notes

One of my favorite things that I do when crashing on couches and floors and random spare bedrooms across the country for beach volleyball tournaments is to write thank you notes. It’s a small act, and one that maybe goes forgotten sometimes, but more times than not, those little notes go the longest way. Some of my friends still have notes I wrote them four, five years ago. We still talk about them. It takes five minutes, which is a pretty good fare for a free night, and it’s so appreciated by whoever is putting you up. You’ll find that it’s also one of the most intrinsically rewarding activities you can do for yourself.

16. Journal

If you’re not going to write to other people, then write to yourself. Journaling has been one of my most-cherished habits these past few years. It clears the mind, solves problems, clarifies thinking, and provides some entertaining memories to sift through. Our memories are imperfect, and often just plain bad. I love going through a journal from three years ago — with pictures taped to the corresponding days — and reading about training, about my state of mind before a qualifier, about a date, or a BBQ watching the Ravens with my buddy before he had two kids. It’s so fun to have a time capsule of my life, right at my fingertips.

17. Do fun shit

Gotta have some things to fill that journal up with, don’t we? Go do fun stuff. Go camping. Take a snow volleyball trip to Austria and Italy. Get some friends and swim from the Hermosa Pier to the Manhattan Pier, then walk back on the beach. Jump off either one of those piers. Float down the Colorado River. Fish. Camp. The world is full of so many epic things to do — and many of them you can do for free, like camp, swim, walk on the beach. This sounds a little like No. 4, but that’s because my fun comes mostly in nature. Maybe your fun is binging a Netflix show in PJs all day, or lifting weights in your Garage of Gains, or doing a puzzle. Whatever it is, have fun. Life is better when you’re having fun.

18. Take some risks

Tim Ferriss introduced me to a concept he coined “fear-setting,” which is, essentially, asking yourself: What’s the worst that’s going to happen if everything fails? Most of the time, the consequences are relatively minimal. Want to move to California to pursue beach volleyball? Do it. Worst that happens is you flame out, go broke, and have to move back home — but now you have a ton of experiences and lessons you learned, and you can use those to grow. I’m not saying go crazy here and invest your life-savings into a startup crypto, but take some chances.

19. This is fine

If one of those big chances doesn’t work out, you know what? This is probably fine. It works out. All of it. Somehow. Someway. It’ll work out. One of my favorite stories of all time is on Monty Williams, the former coach of the New Orleans Pelicans. His wife was killed by a drunk driver, and when he was delivering his speech at her funeral, he said, incredibly: “All of this will work out. As hard as this is for me and my family and for you, this will work out. I know this because I’ve seen this in my life.“

I’ve never forgotten that. This was a guy who had been through the worst thing a man can go through, and he had the awareness, in that moment, to know that his life, and the life of his children, would still go on. And it would be hard. And it would take an eternity to scar over a wound that won’t ever heal. But he knew that it would work out. Because it has to — we have no other choice but to make it work.

20. Pick others up

One of the best compliments I’ve ever received is when someone told me that they thought my best skill in beach volleyball was not setting, or serving, or siding out (we all know that’s not my best skill), but bringing out the best in my partners. Life isn’t meant to be lived alone. The only way we’re going to be able to get the most out of this life is if we’re providing an environment for those around us to thrive. Be the best husband you can be, so your wife can be the best wife she can be, and you can have the best family. Be the best partner you can be on the beach, so your partner can be at his or her best, and your team can, by extension, be at its best. Be the best friend you can be, so your friend can be at their best, and your relationship will blossom.

21. Be “all ’bout that action, Boss.”

The quote above comes from Marshawn Lynch, a bulldozer of a running back who is now famous for, among other things, the Beastquake, and eating Skittles after scoring touchdowns. He’s one of the most reticent men in professional sports when it comes to the media. When someone asked him why he doesn’t speak much, he replied, simply, ‘I’m all ’bout that action, Boss.’ It’s a good theme for life, honestly. Talk and bluster is easy, and it makes you feel great sometimes, when you declare all the great and wonderful things you’re going to do. Instead of just talking about them, though, just do it. Quit planning, forecasting, predicting, posting on social media.

Just do it.

Be all ’bout that action, Boss.

22. Believe in something

My life changed for the better, by an unquantifiable and increasing amount, when I began to dig into my own faith. Before I get much further, I want to state: I don’t think it matters so much what you believe in, or what faith or spirituality you follow. I think anytime you believe in something that’s bigger than yourself to such a magnitude it’s impossible to really imagine, life begins to get a little perspective. When you begin to see everything that happens as a small piece in a much larger plan, you begin to see everything as both big and small: There is purpose in everything, while nothing is the end of the world. And when you begin to seek the purpose in whatever it may be that is going on in your life, it changes the lens through which you view the world.

23. Wake up early

I know, I know — I said to do what works for you. If sleeping in works for you, then great. But what has worked remarkably well for me has been waking up early. I do my best not to sacrifice sleep in doing so, but when you have a wife who’s a night owl, then, well, sometimes I come up short. But waking up early, even on short sleep sometimes, has been my jetpack turbo booster for virtually everything in life. I love how quiet the mornings are on a brisk morning walk. I love the two, sometimes three hours I get by myself to read, journal, and write. I love how productive I can be in the first three hours of the day and it’s still only 9 a.m. I’d recommend you try it (and also recommend you try being in bed by 9:30 p.m. to get the most benefit out of it).

24. Exercise

Days are better when you exercise. It’s science: Exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy. Therefore, exercise makes you happy. I can guarantee you that 90 percent of my worst days in terms of productivity, mood and efficiency came when I didn’t exercise. Go run around. Take a walk. Swim. Lift some weights. Do some pushups while watching Netflix.

Sweat.

25. Take walks

I mentioned this above, but this deserves its own number because of how wonderful walks are for me. I try to start most days with a 15-20 minute walk on the Greenbelt. Phones are not allowed on these walks. I love giving my brain the time to just think about whatever it’s going to think about. Most of the time, these walks are when my best stories are written. My brain just puts the pieces of the puzzle together, and all I have to do when I get home and begin working is transcribing what happened on the walk to the computer. But walks also provide the space for me to solve problems, figure out certain things going on in my life, think about friends and family, daydream about winning the Manhattan Beach Open — just let the brain do its thing.

I read somewhere that a 30-minute walk a day provides the same boost to your psychological welfare as a $30,000 raise. I don’t remember exactly where I read that, so it could be wrong, but honestly, I believe it. If you don’t buy into it, then I invite you to try walking, by yourself, with no phone, outside, for 30 minutes a day for a month and see what happens.

For those who are already walkers, then walk on, my friends.

26. Read books

I was initially going to leave this one at “read” but with the state of the media at the moment, I’ll specify to read books. James Mattis once said that “If you don’t read books, you’re functionally illiterate.” It’s true. I’ve learned more from reading books — I shoot for one a week — than I did from a moderately expensive college education at the University of Maryland. People have been fighting and dying and struggling for, literally, all eternity. To not avail yourself to that information, what led to downfalls and triumphs, defeats and successes, is willful ignorance.

Read books. It could be any kind of book, to be honest. Fiction books have their place here as well — they’re packed with lessons and have been shown to actually increase empathy in readers.

So go pick up a book and read.

27. Be kind

It’s the easiest thing to do in the world. Just be nice. Having a bad day? Be nice to someone else. It’ll help you have a better day. Having a great day? Be kind. Now two people are having a better day. It’s really not that hard to be kind — and it’s easily one of the best things you can do not only for those around you, but for yourself.

28. Get off social media

It’s easy to go deep down the social media rabbit hole. I’ve been there. Twitter is the most addicting to me, and it might just be the worst. There isn’t much good on social media, especially when compared to the beautiful world we have around us. Stop scrolling and look up. Be with the people around you. Be in the environment you’re in. Use social media as a tool, if it is, indeed, a tool. But in terms of entertainment, or a source of information, there is plenty that is not as toxic as the world of social media.

29. Travel

I was compiling some of my favorite stories together yesterday to put together in a portfolio, and I came across two stories I forgot I had written. Both came from my FIVB trip to China and Israel, and my reflections were similar in that they were steeped in gratitude. Gratitude for where I was raised (the United States) and also for being exposed to so many new cultures and people. Gratitude for all that we have that we take for granted — clean air, running water, freedom. It’s a big world out there, with so much to see and do and learn. We won’t get to see and do and learn it all, no, but get out of here. Go see something. You’ll come away better for it. I promise.

30. Choose

When I was in high school, we had our daily announcements over the PA system. At the end of it, our assistant principal said, without fail: “Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours.”

Everything that happens in our life presents us with a choice. Do I choose to react with love or hate? Blame or accountability? Action or inaction? Do I choose anger or happiness? It’s our choice, always.

Make it a great life or not, the choice is yours.