14 Business Things I Wish I'd Known in My Early 20s, From a Fellow Millenial

Im 27, going on 28. I don't have it all figured out. I haven't made the Forbes Under 30 list. I don't have leather-bound books, no mahogany. I haven't had a huge exit. I haven't coded the next big thing. But I have built a multi-million dollar social video agency, so for what it's worth, this is what I would have shouted loudly at my 21-year-old belligerent self if I was pulling no punches. Hopefully this list is a tool of self-inspection for you whether you're 21 or 51. 

1: Never Play Defense

If you are, you've already lost. I got fired once over this one. Don't ever clam up in fear of saying something stupid. If you don't speak up then people will get rid of you anyways. Jump off that cliff, throw it out there. Be aggressive. Looking stupid 1 out of 10 times is better than looking like nothing at all. The more you worry about saying the wrong thing, the more wrong things you will say. Jump into the conversation and progress it. Any excuse for poor performance only weakens your character, and everyone's view of you. When I pushed major boundaries, broke stuff, and pissed people off I got promoted. Dig deep, realize you bring more value to every conversation than you think. Give it 110% or quit. If you get fired doing something friggin' awesome, at least you went down in a blaze of glory and won't feel like a chump. Fail on your own terms. 

2: Stop Viewing Yourself as Young

You are a wise, ageless, sexy, polished 40-something. Fake it til you make it. No one wants cute, they want someone that throws themselves out there. Take your brain's still frame of your baby face, erase it, replace with the distinguished, tough, sure of its self face. Stop thinking "I'm doing good for my age," because you're not.

Net worth at 25 years old: Snapchat's Evan Spiegel: $2.2B, Zuckerberg: $13.5B, Wordpress's Matt Mullenweg: $40M, Tumblr's David Karp $26M (at 22), so basically, you suck (so do I). I've got a half dozen friends my age that have already made their millions. Age is irrelevant. The clock is ticking, age doesn't care, it is a race. Throw the status quo in the garbage. Your bone density will start decreasing in this decade. Don't sacrifice the precious moments unique to young age. Go live out of your car for two months and be a surf bum. 

3: Don't burn bridges

There's never any advantage to it, only disadvantages, it never makes you feel better. Erase that email. Let it go. People talk, every bridge burned could be 20 more people talked to negatively about you. In a world where most business comes through referrals, you need word of mouth to be positive. People talk about you far more than you think and they will make decisions about you that you'll never hear about. It's worth making less money sometimes to keep someone's experience with you a positive one, it usually comes back around and will reward you. No one is a waste of time, give people your time even when it's not immediately gaining you something. My biggest project to date came from giving someone free help that I never thought would be bringing me business. Bridge burning just distracts you from the opportunities in front of you. Let it go.

4: Lower expectations

Work hard and results will follow. Think less about results and more about mastering skills. We millenials struggle big time with this. 

Expectations - Reality = Happiness

Set your goals, but focus on what you can accomplish in an hour, in a day. The Secret is real, almost everything I've ever written down ends up happening in some mysterious way. But obsessing over it too much can distract you from the steps to get there. Don't ever let yourself complain. If you've ever flown in a plane you're in the world's top 5%. A third of people in the world don't have clean water to drink. Read Man's Search for Meaning and when you feel sorry for yourself realize you aren't in a concentration camp. Realize that #firstworldproblems is a real thing, a real pathetic thing. Realize that you're not getting shot at. Realize that while compared to Evan Spiegal you suck, but your life definitely does not suck whatsoever, even if you're "Western World" poor. 

5: Read a ton of Books

College burned you out and you stopped. Books are the secret weapon behind every great person. Read a book a month or you'll lose out on opportunities to be inspired, motivated and have exciting new ideas. Make time. Until you suspend your Facebook for a week you have no excuse, most of it's useless mind-garbage anyways. Audiobooks are a great way to crunch it into your schedule while you commute, run, play AngryBirds. I run much longer and faster when listening to a book. Read the $100 Startup sooner. 

Audiobooks > Facebook News Feed

6: Every No is a Step Closer to a Yes

Most Nos are a gift because they prevent you from wasting your time on something that wasn't right for you anyways. You will never win them all. Move on, the sea is full of fish. It's all a numbers game, pitch more. Show people what you're working on even when you don't know why. Be absolutely shameless. 

7: Ask for feedback

I know you're a sexy, ageless 40 year old now but Spiegal laughs down at you. Always ask for feedback on your work, never avoid it, you coward. 

8: Shadow people at work

Keep being shameless, ask people to show you how they do their job, learn others' roles. Offer to do a complicated task for someone for free. Most people will see it as flattery, this is one time where being young is an advantage, everyone wants to help you without anything in return. A majority of millionaires own their own businesses, odds are if you're going to make it big you'll be owning your own business, which means you'll be wearing lots of hats, so try on a lot of them. Odds are the business you start will come from an opportunity you see in the market at your job.

9: Six Figures Sucks, 1 Million Dollars sucks

Fundamentally change the way you look at money. It's not evil. You aren't evil for wanting it. You're only evil if you'll do anything to get it. It takes $4M after tax (so $7M) to retire and live on $200k a year. We have no guarantee social security will exist for us, and the retirement age for that will be like 90 by then anyways. $7M pre-tax is the bar. Dave Ramsey isn't going to get you there. You are not going to penny pinch your way to $7M. Dave Ramsey is not speaking to you. You need to create something. 

You're goal is to make $100k/yr by 30? That's a horrible goal. That's what mine was, guilty. Someone is going to make a lot of money, why not you? You are smart. Once you have kids and a mortgage $100k feels exactly like $40k does right now. The slowest and most unlikely way of you making enough money to retire is to climb the ladder at your job. 1 person controls your whole future, that's horrible odds. The Internet has set our generation free of the ladder. Plan on quitting and starting your own business, start studying on how to do that right now.

Ignore any assumptions, stigmas or stereotypes you have or have heard about entrepreneurship. It is NOT what they say it is. It's better. In the 1600s over 90% of people were entrepreneurs, you can and should be too, the corporate dynasty is on the decline, life's too short to be a lifer. And the two weeks vacation you get a year is bogus. They get whole months off in Europe. Only way to get that in your 20s in America is to start your own business or to live in a van down by the river, take your pick. And this leads me to my next point: 

10: Work Is Mostly Empty

Never seek fulFILLment in it, it's mostly empty. Focus on family, that's the most pure lasting fulfillment you can get. Time is the most precious commodity. No one works 80+ hours a week for years on end and has healthy, meaningful relationships. 

Talking to men here: Don't put off starting a family if you're with the one you love purely for financial reasons. You don't need to get the Bugatti before you become a parent. Don't be a silly man-child. Family will fulfill you in a way you could never imagine. Give your kids your most energetic, youthful, physically able, best self. Kids will motivate you, you'll learn how to work smarter, you'll be more motivated to make your work work for you rather than you working for it. Childbirth does slow down work for a few months, but why not get to the very best, most precious and rewarding time of your life sooner than later? Until you do it there's a million reasons not to, but I'm here to tell you that you should as long as you aren't absolutely flat broke, not with the right person, or some other really huge reason. Kids will help you become the person you are meant to be and they are wonderful. Ignore anyone that says otherwise, especially if they don't have kids themselves. 

11: Decide what you want

You don't truly know what you want. Figure it out. Invest hundreds and hundreds of hours in asking yourself this question. Nearly every "I can't because" that you have is completely false. Can't travel the world with young kids while working? False. There's always a way. The root is this: 

If you had all the money you needed and were not allowed to do commercialism-related work anymore, what would you do for the rest of your life?

What would give your existence purpose with money not being a factor in any way?

Watch this

12: Spend a ridiculous amount of time studying industries

Get your hands on all the information you can and invest time into identifying an industry and niche that is going to grow and that you'll enjoy. I saw that TV was saturated and controlled by older people who wouldn't be letting me move up quickly. So I focused on social media; it paid less in the short term but enabled me to move up and learn faster, and cut past the older, wiser people who are too established to pivot. Don't just chose what kind of job you want to do, chose the niche as well, apparel? Ecommerce? Tech? Then go further, athletic wear? Infoproducts? Wearables? Get narrow, what you do now will be what you build on, pivoting later on could take years. Get weirdly specific. The narrower the better.

It takes 10,000 hours to master something, if you don't chose well you'll need to start the mastering process over again. Cut and run asap if you're not liking it. Don't stick with it just for the money, don't waste valuable time. I moved jobs every year and that worked out great, companies that aren't loyal to employees anymore don't deserve loyalty in return. If I would have stayed at my first job for three years I would have been making maybe 10% more, three jobs later I was making 300% more. Do what's right for you, not them.

13: Get good with data

You can't make it in life anymore with soft skills and a nice smile. Data drives everything, embrace it. Bow to your sensei.

14: Sell everything

All you need is a roof, health insurance, and food. And travel. Live poor on purpose. Get rid of everything so you're able to take a risk and quit your job at any moment if needed. Cancel your cable service. Drive a used car. Do not eat poor. Eat fruits and vegetables, don't go cheap on groceries, invest in your body like it was Apple stock in 2004. Travel a lot and play a lot of sports while you can. Get a lot of sleep. Don't abuse your body. Stretch a lot. Make green smoothies. Learn to meditate. Don't worry about things you can't control. Invest in experiences, not things. Focus on the one you love, they are all that matters.

Travis Chambers

Founder, Chief Media Hacker at Chamber.media, an agency that makes scalable social videos; large production videos run as ads on Facebook and YouTube that drive millions in sales.  

 Travis led distribution and content strategy for "YouTube's #1 Ad of the Decade," Kobe vs. Messi with 140 million views. He's worked with brands like Yahoo, Kraft, Old Navy, Coca-Cola, and Amazon.

He speaks at conferences like VidCon, VidSummit, ad:tech, StartFestival, and Universities.