1:1 The ultimate advice for every 20 year old

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Welcome to One to One with James Laughlin. I'm a former world champion and now I work with and coach professional athletes, entrepreneurs and CEOs of billion dollar companies. I'm going to share with you in this episode some of the insights and strategies, some of the tools that I use with my clients. Every week I'll bring you an insight, an action or a tool that will.

Help you go from great to to greatest.

My mission is to cut through the noise and help give you the tools that truly transform your mindset and help you to take the right actions towards your desired outcome. So let's dive in.

So I just got back from South Africa. Wow, what a place. Unbelievable. It was my second trip there and I'm always blown away, always wowed by what happens, what unfolds and the nature of things. We got into the wilderness and got to be amongst 50 plus elephants that surrounded our vehicle and they were doing their thing and washing and playing and feeding. Pretty incredible, but also a real strong reminder that life is short, that we've got to live it. There's one shot I'm yet to be convinced otherwise. I sat down with a friend of mine, Robin Sharma, in Cape Town, enjoyed a coffee and talked about the future and where things were headed for humanity and what our role is as leaders, as humans in that. And I came away very inspired about what we can do and I firmly believe in controlling the controllables. So I wanted to share a couple of things and I guess if I was in my twenties again I would need to hear this, but I guess it could probably equally apply at any stage, but particularly in my 20s. If I had known this, it would have been a huge help. Number one, don't commit to a career, don't get stuck in one job, don't commit to one company dabble. Try learn, go and find a startup, work for them, go and find an entrepreneur, work for them, work for as little money as you need, get in and just learn. Learn from the best in your 20s, it's not about making big dough. It's about making big decisions around who you want to be in your 30s, 40s, and beyond. So get around cool people, try things, volunteer. Hands up. Hey, can I help you with this? Can I do that? I'll tell you what, the amount of people that reach out to me in their 20s to say, James, you've got an event coming up. Can I volunteer? Hey, James, your podcast, is there anything I can do to help you? Editing. Is there anything I can do to help in the background? I love it when people do that. And there's very few people that do it. Why? Most people are afraid to reach out. But I promise you, by reaching out and asking, can I help you? Many people will say, actually, yes, you can. I'd love your help. And you never know where that might lead. So I want to urge you to do that second thing. Whatever you do, earn, please make sure, whether it's minimum wage, whether it's $50 an hour, whether it's $2,000 an hour, whatever it might be, take a percentage. Let's call it 20%. Take a percentage and funnel it straight into an index fund. Yes. I'm not a financial advisor. This is not official financial advice. Go and seek professional financial advice for that. But what I have done is spent the last 15 years understanding index funds, understanding how they perform, and understanding how they help you manage your risk. So if you're in it for the long term. If I went back to my 20s, I'd be putting 20% of whatever I earned, doesn't matter what you're earning, into that index fund. And as you earn more, keep the percentage the same 20%, it just goes in. I promise you, the compounding effect will blow your mind. And I want you to think about making it easy. Automate it so it's set up every week. Look, I'm almost 40 and I'm still doing the same thing. It's automated every month. Boom. It goes straight into my account. Here in New Zealand, you've got Sharesys, you got Invest. Now you maybe got other platforms, too, but that's where to start. You can start super small. Making tiny contributions to an index fund mitigates your risk. And I'm not just going to give you this advice and tell you to go for it. One, go and get Unshakable. Tony Robbins book Unshakable, where he interviews some of the best leaders on the planet when it comes to financial investment. Please go and get Unshakable. Next, go and get Girls that Invest. I don't care if you're a boy or a girl or whatever you call yourself, go get the book. It's phenomenal. It's the simple stuff done well. If you don't like reading, go to chatgpt. Have a conversation. Say, tell me about investing, what index funds do. How do I do it? What are the risks? Start upskilling yourself. You don't need to start with big bucks. If you're at the other end of the scale and you've got millions and you're at a different part of your journey, great. I would still encourage index funds. Read Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. I think that'll give you some perspective. Also, you can never go wrong with great financial advisor, one of my dear friends and financial advisor, Colin Slade, former All Black is somebody you would want to talk to if you're here in New Zealand. Get in touch with him. He works for Forsyth Bar. This is not a plug. I do not get commissions from him. But he's great at what he does and he'll give you some great advice. So last thing, if you are in your 20s, read, read and read some more. Please stop shortchanging the reading. And if you're in your 40s or 50s, maybe you're in your 30s. Read. Just read some more. The people that I find most interesting are readers. When I sit down with the most interesting leaders on the planet, they read, they talk about what they read. They get challenged by what they read. Please do yourself a favor, go and order five books today on topics that you are interested in that will help serve you. I've already named a few, you know, Unshakeable by Tony Robbins, Morgan Housel's book the Psychology of Money, Girls that Invest by Simran Kaur. Please also go and order Habits of High Performers. That's my book available for pre order right now. But all of those bonuses that I'm giving you for free are about to go away. We're about to remove those because the book's going to be on shelves and as soon as it is, the bonuses are gone. You only get them in pre order. Go to thehabitbook.com to get your book. I would deeply appreciate it. If you do purchase, please purchase through Paper plus on that link. I would really appreciate that. They've been great to deal with. And when it comes out, please go to your independent bookstores, your Scorpio books, your university bookstores, all of those bookstores, wherever you're from, please go there. And if you're international and you want to order a copy of the book. It's only available in Australia New Zealand, but if you message me, I'll make sure I send a signed copy to you. So just message me on any platform. I promise you me or one of my team members will respond. But there's the three things to think about doing I wish I had known in my twenties 1. Don't work in one job. Dabble in lots. Learn for lots. Volunteer, put your hands up, two Put a percentage of your money into an index fund and three Read like there's no tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed this, but for now please get out there and lead your life on purpose.

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