Pod Insights The $100 MBA Show MBA2707 Life & Career Advice If You Are Under 30 About this episode Do you ever wonder if you’re really making the most of your twenties? Curious what advice could put you ahead of the curve or how to avoid the common mistakes that trip up ambitious young professionals? If you’re under 30, or know someone who is, this episode is for you. With a few extra years under his cap, Omar shares what he wish he'd known before 30. These tips are all designed to help you build a career and life that actually work. From mastering a skill that pays to living lean for flexibility, this episode is packed with practical insights. No fluff, just clear steps you can start applying right now to set yourself up for success. Ready to start stacking wins early? Hit the play button at the top of this page and get the lesson that can help you level up your life and career no matter where you’re starting from. Watch the episodes on YouTube: https://lm.fm/GgRPPHiSUBSCRIBEYouTube | Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Feed Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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0:45 Speaker 00 Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Bitcoin services provided by Block Incorporated brand. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app/legal/podcast. Small business owners, listen up. You started your business, but you can't do it alone. And that means you have to hire people to help. That's where Justworks comes in. Justworks is the payroll, benefits, and global hiring platform to unburden your brain from all the complicated small business stuff. They handle the things you can't afford to get wrong, so you don't have to worry. So you can focus on the parts of running a business that you enjoy, knowing everything else is running smoothly. You don't have to worry when it just works.
1:28 Speaker 00 If you're under 30, I've got good news and I've got bad news. The bad news is that you're probably wasting more time than you think. The good news is, you have more time than anyone else. Honestly, everybody, including myself, that's over 30 years old, wish they were your age. Wish they had as much time as you have. They would probably trade everything they have, all their assets, just to go back to your age, to be under 30 again. Because time is the greatest asset of all. But, you need to know how to use it wisely, and that's what today's lesson is all about. In this episode, I want to share with you five pieces of advice I wish somebody gave me before 30. These are hard lessons.
2:10 Speaker 00 That could have saved me years of anguish, of confusion, of wrong turns, of broken relationships, of lost thousands and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and burnout, right? Just burning out and just feeling like I don't know what to do. I want to save you that heartache. So if you're willing to listen and implement what I'm gonna share with you today, you're gonna be miles ahead of everybody else your age.
2:37 Speaker 00 Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business.
2:51 Speaker 00 I got a quick favor to ask. If this show has helped you in any way, leave me a quick review. You could do so wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps me and my team reach even more people who need the same no-fluff, practical business advice that you're getting from the show. It only takes a few seconds, but it makes a huge difference. Thanks for being a part of our journey to help others on their journey. Insight number one: Master one skill that makes you money. I actually got this one right, which I'm happy that I did, because I don't know where I would be if I didn't. When you're in your twenties, you're trying to build a skill that's gonna allow you to be valuable to the marketplace. You're not trying to chase titles, or job descriptions,
3:33 Speaker 00 or even money, okay? What you want to do here is pick one craft that the world is willing to pay for, whether it's you're a great writer, or thinker, or designer, or coder, or communications expert. For me, it was teaching, right? I was a teacher. Over my first career, I was an English teacher at the high school level. I went super deep in this field, right? I made sure I was a better teacher every single day, and I had a lot of practice, because I taught five classes every single day, five days a week, for over 10 years. And I have tons of training and certifications. I'm training in assessment, what actually it takes to get somebody to learn something, right? If I'm teaching, how do I make sure that what I'm teaching is actually getting installed in somebody's brain?
4:20 Speaker 00 That skill of making sure that I can transfer an idea or a skill into somebody else's brain, which is teaching, right? That's the basic art of teaching, has helped me build an empire in my business because everything I do stems from that. Whether it's this podcast, me teaching on the podcast, whether it's me teaching my team how to perform so that we can build great products. Teaching, for me, was a skill I doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on when I was in my twenties. And I'm so glad I did because even though I'm not a high school teacher anymore, the skills I gained in that experience has allowed me to leverage my own abilities in a way
5:00 Speaker 00 that I couldn't imagine and allowed me to actually earn a lot of value in the marketplace. Now, you might be hearing me say this a lot, earn a lot of value in the marketplace. Well, that's how the world works. The world will pay you for how valuable you are. So, in your twenties, you need to become as valuable as possible. And this doesn't happen overnight. It could take a decade, like it did in my case, where I had to work on myself so that I can become a valuable person. So, how do you become a valuable person? Well, number one, you do interesting things, right? You have great experiences, you learn, you grow, you challenge yourself, you put yourself out of your comfort zone. You're constantly in a room where you are the dumbest person in the room, right? Everybody else is smarter than you. That's how you become valuable.
5:44 Speaker 00 Lesson number two, live cheap, buy freedom. You want to live as cheap as possible, guests, we're going to buy you your freedom. Freedom isn't bought at 50, you actually build it in your twenties by keeping your expenses low. The less money you owe the world, the more you can risk. When everyone else is trying to upgrade their life, buy the latest car, latest watch, latest whatever, in their twenties, trying to look fancy, you want to do the opposite. Why? Think about it for a moment. For example, let's say you have $30,000 saved in the bank because you lived very cheaply, right? You saved your money and you didn't spend lavishly on things you don't need. And let me just time out for a second. You're going to have plenty of time to spend money when you have the money, when you can afford that lavish stuff and be
6:30 Speaker 00 Where you don't even know what to do with your money. You're gonna have plenty of time for that where you're gonna get sick of spending money. But in your early stages in life, when you're in your twenties, this is not the time to do that because you need flexibility. And let's go back to the freedom part. So you have $30,000 in the bank. And let's say you ask your boss at your job, "Hey, I'd love a promotion. I want to move up in my career. I want to do X, Y, Z and challenge myself." And they just say flat out, "No." Your boss just says, "That position's not available," or "We want to make an outside hire," or whatever reason they give you. You now have the ability to say, "You know what? That's okay. I want to grow despite the fact that you said that, despite the fact there's no opportunity. So I'm gonna leave this job. I'm gonna quit, put my resignation in,
7:14 Speaker 00 and I'm gonna look for a company that will give me what I need." You have now that F-U vibe, right? You have that F-U presence where you could just say, "I can do that because I got money in the bank that could cover my expenses for six months, for a year even if I'm stretching it to the max." The point here is that you have freedom, okay? Because you have a buffer. This buys you time. It buys you opportunities. It buys you a chance for you to do what you want. So the worst thing you can do in your young age is to be trapped, is to be trapped and not have options. And when you live cheaply and you have savings and you have a runway, you allow yourself to have options, which is priceless.
7:57 Speaker 00 So what I recommend is start being proud of how low your expenses are, how you're not spending money, how you are going with your car down to the beach, driving, doing road trips for your vacations, doing things like that. There's nothing wrong with that. You're young. Everybody should expect you to be doing that. Forget about Instagram. Forget about the influencers. These people are just flaunting things that they don't have, and a lot of them are in debt. So what you want to do is you want to build a strong foundation by buying yourself some freedom, having some buffer. Be honest, as a business owner, how much of your day is actual work? And how much is it just getting ready to do the work? Answering emails, tweaking presentations, hunting for numbers?
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10:15 Speaker 00 Insight number three. This one's huge. I hinted at it previously, like five minutes ago. And that's find rooms, spaces where you are the least impressive person. Your environment is your accelerator. When I was in my twenties, I didn't know anybody that was my age. Everybody I knew was older, was wiser. I had friends that were in their 50s and 60s, like friends I would go and have dinner with. Why? Because I can learn from this person. This person's been around the block. Even if they're not super successful and a role model or where I want to be, I can learn from their mistakes. I can learn from their experiences. Let's go another level up. You want to go to places that encourage you to grow, to think differently, that expand your mind.
11:00 Speaker 00 Go to conferences, even if they're not related to your job or your work. You want to go to a personal development conference or a public speaking conference? Go to it so you can improve yourself. Show up your weaknesses where you feel like if you've improved them, you have a better chance of succeeding in business. Work for someone that inspires you. When you choose for a job, one of the best things I had when I was in my twenties was a great boss. I had a great boss that taught me so many things. I may not love everything about them, but they taught me the things I needed to learn in management, in leadership. And they were willing to give me a little bit of rope so that I can learn through experiences and kind of fall on my face and learn the hard way. Start befriending getting to know people that are a few steps ahead of you.
11:44 Speaker 00 For example, let's say you want to start an AR startup. You haven't started anything yet. You don't have a line of code. You don't have a sales page. You have nothing. Go on X, go on social media, go to conferences and meet people who just started a startup that maybe have $10,000 a month in revenue. They're a few steps ahead of you. They have been through the path that you are about to go on and they can remember what it's like to be a beginner. Be their friend. Buy them lunch. Buy them coffee. It's going to be the best money you invest because they're going to be able to give you insights that are going to be super useful on the path you're about to take. It's actually not super helpful for you to meet somebody who's a billionaire and hang out with them. You're not going to understand anything they're talking about. They're talking about things that are way beyond your level and things you can't apply.
12:29 Speaker 00 The point I'm trying to make with insight number three is you got to get into rooms that make you feel uncomfortable. Growth compounds faster when you're uncomfortable. I remember when I moved to San Diego, California, I met a lot of great podcasters that lived like five minutes away from me. Walking distance from me. And I started to understand, oh, these people are just like me. I can do what they're doing. I can grow a great podcast and build an empire around it. It wasn't so much a dream. It didn't seem so untangible. It didn't feel like something that other people did. And when I was around them, it inspired me to be better. And that's what you want to do. Be in rooms where you feel like, oh, man, I'm the loser here. Great, because you're going to soon learn that, hey, that's what I needed so I can learn to be a winner.
13:14 Speaker 00 Inside number four, build in public. A lot of people forget this step. And it's one of the best ways for you to market your business. Building in public not only does that, but helps you become accountable to yourself. Now, a lot of people I know who are starting in business or starting in this world of online entrepreneurship, like, I don't know what to post online. I don't know what to post on social media. I don't want to post my avocado toast. Don't, okay? Don't post your avocado toast. Share your work. Share what you're working on, the journey you're building. What are your milestones? What are some of the things that you're struggling with? People resonate with stories. And if you share your story as you build, as you grow,
13:57 Speaker 00 you're going to start seeing people responding to that. They're going to be aware of, number one, of what you do and what you're building, but also of who you are as a person. You're going to get opportunities that come out of nowhere, right? Just by being visible. And what I love about building in public is you don't have to think of anything to post. You just post what happened, okay? You post what you're working on. You post reality. You don't have to come up with a script. You don't have to come up with some sort of storyline. You could just say, hey, today I worked on this part of my product. I struggled with it. I'm going to try again tomorrow. I emailed support. Hopefully, they'll get back to me. Whatever. The point here is that people love a good story. People love rooting for the underdog. And building a public is a great way for you
14:41 Speaker 00 to market your story and market your business.
14:46 Speaker 00 Part of my podcasting journey and building this podcast over 11 years is sharing the journey of building my businesses, building Webinar Angel, my software company. So many of the lessons that I learned along the way came from that business and me sharing in public. Just recently, I started sharing in public, building in public, an experiment I was doing. And we're going to have a podcast episode all about it, where I was building an app over seven days, building an app using AI, seeing if I could pull it off and actually create something in seven days. And I got so many DMs and so many responses about the product itself even, like, hey, when can I buy this product? This seems cool. This would never happen if I didn't build in public. Insight number five, play long-term games.
15:28 Speaker 00 It's very challenging, I understand, when you're younger to think long-term, but I'm asking you, I'm pleading with you to play long-term games. What do I mean by that? Relationships, reputation, consistency, these are the greatest assets that you can build right now, right now in your twenties. Don't chase an overnight win or a quick dollar. Chase the habits that make you better every day. Think about what are the most valuable things that you covet in life? I'm going to tell you for me, health, right? Great health so I can enjoy my life, right? Wealth, so I can not think about or worry about money problems. And lastly, relationships, right? All three of those are long-term investments.
16:13 Speaker 00 I have to put in the work every single day, day after day, week after week, year after year, in order for me to be a healthy person, in order to have great health. Same thing with wealth, same thing with relationships. So compounding isn't just with money, it's with skills, it's with trust, it's with your character, it's with who you become through playing these long-term games. Don't be in such a rush. Give yourself time to become something valuable. A lot of people don't read biographies, and I highly encourage you to read biographies because whether you love or hate these people, they're going to teach you that all of them that are successful today took years and they played long-term games. Elon Musk early
16:55 Speaker 00 Days was creating an app called Zip2. You've never heard of Zip2, but it was for coding photos. What does that mean? Who knows? All you know him now is Tesla and SpaceX and his craziness on social. But the point here is that he started with something foundational, something that allowed him to have the skills he has today to build the wealth he has today. Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, she used to sell fax machines door to door. She learned how to sell. She learned how to negotiate. She learned how to talk to people face to face and look them in the eye. These are the skills that she built along the way. These are long-term games. Mr. Beast, biggest YouTuber in the world. He posted his first cringey video and that was over a decade ago.
17:37 Speaker 00 He was a young teenager that was really just struggling with his own personal identity and wanted to show himself and have presence online. And that long-term grind of working on his craft really paid off in the long run. Again, love or hate these people, you can learn something from them and their dedication and their long-term vision. Now, we're going to get into action now, but before we do, we need to understand that what are some things that we got to look out for as we take action? I think I have found through just observing the young people around me, my own nieces and nephews, for example, people that are under 30 often fall into two traps.
18:18 Speaker 00 One, they try to do everything at once. They want to be a highly successful career person in their job. They want to build a business. They want to have a side hustle. They want to have a YouTube channel. They want to get into crypto. They want to be a fitness model all at once. Right? And then they burn out and then they give up and they think this is a pipe dream. That's one group of people. The other group is they do nothing at all because they are afraid of failing early. They get overwhelmed and they just don't take any steps whatsoever. People like this are like standing at an open buffet, like say, for example, you're on holiday and you're at the hotel and it's dinner time and there's an open buffet and you want to taste every little thing before you decide what you want to put on your plate. And by the time you decide, the buffet's closed, right?
19:02 Speaker 00 Or you're full from all the tasting. You don't want to do either of these. What you want to do is you want to try a few things. You've got to do things in order for you to understand what you like, what you don't like. And what do you want to double down on? For me, it was teaching and I didn't just fall into teaching. I tried a bunch of other things that I liked and some things I didn't like so much. Some things I loved, like teaching. So in order for you to find out, you've got to do stuff. Whether it's part-time, full-time, volunteer, try something new once a week. See if you enjoy it. If you do, continue to do it and see if you continue to enjoy it. And then, once you find your thing, go all in. So you need to take action with what I shared with you today. Number one, master one skill that makes you money. Something that's going to allow you to leverage your value.
19:47 Speaker 00 Number two, leave as cheaply as possible so you could buy yourself some freedom. Buy yourself some runway. Buy yourself options. Number three, right? You want to find rooms, spaces where you're the least impressive person. Where everybody else is better than you. Okay. Number four, build in public. Share the journey. That's your social media content. And number five, play the long-term game. Give your time, give yourself time to become successful and understand that, hey, in order for me to be successful, I can invest in relationships, my health, my business skills. And that's going to take some time. And I, as long as I'm working on it and I'm putting in the time and I'm just telling myself this, I'm actually doing things, then I'm on the right track. So before I go, I want to leave you with something that's important.
20:31 Speaker 00 Something that I want you to just implant in your brain and not forget. If you are under 30, stop trying to look successful. I want you to start being useful. Start working on becoming a person of success. A person of success is someone that has skills, that has value, that's important, that's interesting, that can help people. You don't, that doesn't happen by accident. That happens by working on yourself, by taking courses, by reading books, by being in those rooms I talked about that you are not the smartest person. I thought that rich people, they were lucky or they were connected or they just stumbled upon how to get rich. No, the truth is, what I learned is they just stay.
21:15 Speaker 00 stayed in the game longer than everybody else. They were consistent long enough. I know a lot of really wealthy people in my space. As an entrepreneur, I know these people very well intimately. They're my friends. They're not the smartest people I know. They're not the most charismatic. They're not the most witty or funny or interesting or good looking or anything like that. They're actually pretty average, but they were consistent and they hung in there and continued to do what they do long enough for them to outlast everybody else who gave up. And as they are going through this, as they're hanging in there and as they're being consistent, they're getting better at what they do. And a lot of us, we think that these successful people, they're just like these super humans. No, they're not. They're not. The only difference between you and them is that they didn't give up.
22:00 Speaker 00 They decided, I'm going to be successful. I'm going to work on it every single day of my life until I'm successful. The word until is super powerful. I will go to the gym and work out until I am healthy, until I'm in the best shape of my life. So use that word until to help you have that long-term vision. So your challenge that I'm giving you is this week, do one thing your future self will thank you for. Something that is a little hard, maybe even boring, or even a little scary. Send that pitch that you want to pitch to an investor, or you want to post that video online that shares your building in public and you're starting a new business. Learn that skill, read that book, think of what you need to do.
22:43 Speaker 00 What is a down payment you need to pay right now so that you can reap the benefits of that down payment in your 30s, in your 40s, in your 50s? Because one day you're going to realize what I realized, that all that discomfort I went through in my 20s and 30s got me the freedom. It bought me the freedom that I have right now in my 40s and will in the 50s and 60s, hopefully, right? And I'm thankful for all that pain and anguish and hard work and consistency and sacrifice because I'm now getting to enjoy the rest of my life instead of continuing to struggle. Before I go, I want to leave you this. If I could talk to my 25-year-old self, I would tell young Omar, "Hey, listen up, kid. Okay, listen up. You're not behind. You're just early."
23:27 Speaker 00 The people who win in this game of life aren't fast starters. They're the ones that keep showing up when others quit. They're the people that continue to persevere even when things don't look so great. So breathe. You've got time.
23:43 Speaker 00 Use it wisely. Invest in yourself. Continue to invest yourself even in the beginning when it feels like those investments aren't paying off. They will. Nothing goes to waste. They say you can't fast forward mastery or success, but you can improve your chances of it by starting today. You're guaranteed to fail if you don't start. Start the path now. Start investing now. Start taking on what I shared with you today now. If this episode gave you a spark, share it with another person who's under 30 who needs a push. Maybe somebody else that's in your family, your friends, maybe a youngster, a niece, a nephew, somebody that you know that needs to hear this, even if you're not under 30. Until next time, you
24:26 Speaker 00 can do this. I know because I went through it. And it's tough. It's not easy. No one said it's easy. Those who say are charlatans and really jerks, right? People that you shouldn't be listening to. Anything that's worth anything is difficult and that's what makes it valuable. So that's what I love about the journey is who you become, what you have to endure to be there. And those challenges make you a better person, make you more valuable, make you somebody that you're proud of. And at the end of the day, that's all we want to be, right? We want to build something that's significant. We want to be successful in our own way, but we want to be proud of ourselves and how we did it. So just keep moving forward. Don't give up because that's the only guaranteed way to lose is to give up.
25:09 Speaker 00 If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.
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