What’s the best life advice for a 25 year old man?
How to level up as a 25 year old man
Being in your mid-twenties as a man is a crazy time. You basically just stopped being a child and you’re on your way to becoming a full fledged adult.
How do you navigate yourself doing this period? Obviously, the basics matter: finish school and get a job. But let’s get a little more granular and see what exactly you can do to live a higher quality of life during this age.
What to do as a 25 year old
What inspired me to talk about this topic?
I saw an exchange on Twitter.
Someone asked Adam Townsend (investor, political commentator) his best advice for a 25 year old.
His response:
Read the classics exclusively, improve communication skills and social intelligence, and invest because one day you’ll be old.
This really is the best advice for anyone who doesn’t know where to start in life when it comes to improving themselves and their position - especially a guy in his mid-20s.
One caveat - fitness and health also should be in the mix. This is the best time in your life to really make it a habit of working out 2-3x per week minimum, drinking a lot of water, walking, doing breathing exercises, and getting into a combat sport. If you don’t set in stone healthy habits early on in life, then managing your weight and being healthy gets really difficult later. As you get older, time becomes more scarce. Fitness and health should be a priority when you’re 25 and when you’re 65. Working on our body and longevity is an everyday process.
But aside from the physical part of it, let’s break down what Adam says.
Why you should read the classics
Instead of going to Barnes and Noble and picking up a hustle culture book written in the last year that likely won’t have any wisdom, stick to something timeless.
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Influence by Robert Cialdini
Bonafide business, non-fiction, and fiction classics should be read first if you never read.
You can go into deeper classics like Beyond Good and Evil by Neitzsche or something about the Roman Empire…but you’re better off focusing on books that are easy to consume, practical for your life, or just straight up enjoyable and something you can read before bed.
Start with books that are more accessible. You want to actually finish it and be happy with the experience. Neitzsche is complex. Roman/Greek works might also be tough to begin with.
You should be reading at least one book at all times even if it’s done sporadically.
Why you should improve your communication skills and social intelligence
Knowing how to deal with people is huge. Money, friends, women…you can have everything in life if you have good communication and social skills. What are some examples of these skills?
- Persuasion
- Knowing when to shut up
- Knowing how to read the room
- Understanding how to be likable
- Having interesting things to say
- Dominating your body language and first impressions
These skills will get you far in life.
Conversation Academy goes into detail about all these areas. The course is focused on dating but there’s plenty of lessons you can implement for work and social situations in general.
Why you should invest
As Adam Townsend said in his original Tweet, you’ll be old before you know it. You have to do everything you can to have some financial security when you’re older. I’m not an investment planner and this isn’t investment advice but every month, I put money into my Roth IRA and Crypto consistently. You need to be creating a nest egg for yourself.
And obviously other investments include learning certain skills.
Into coding? You’ll probably need to invest into Javascript, Python, and other languages.
You want to go into marketing? Learning Paid Ads and the basics of SEO are a must.
This kind of investing is also important.
Investing money into your nest egg and into your skill stack will get you PAID.
Investments are more passive in that you may need to do deep research for a few days to see where and how to invest for retirement, and then deposit money on a monthly or yearly basis.
Adding to your skill stack can be a weekly or even daily task, or it can be a one-off thing like adding a certification to your title. But if you want to become a leader in your field, you have to read constantly on the topic, always be in the know, join a community, spend money on courses, and take risks.
Conclusion
As a 25 year old man, you need to be working on everything. Read high quality books, learn about investing, and get good at dealing with people.
There are 40 and 50 year olds who never bothered doing any of the above and their lives reflect that. Have self-awareness in your mid 20s and start putting in the work on yourself.
And if you really want to level your life up, check out my dating newsletter.
