Lessons earned in blood this year. When we meet, ask me about any of them.
38. You don’t get to where no one’s been by doing what everyone does.
37. Sometimes it’s your time. Sometimes it’s someone else’s and you wait in line.
36. You have to pay to play in rooms where you have no receipts.
35. Pain is supposed to change you. That’s the whole point.
34. Everyone says let go. But the greats take things personally and convert that into fuel. Maybe negative feelings aren’t all that bad.
33. The road less traveled gets lonely. Nobody warns you about that part.
32. You’re doing the best you can on any given day….even when it doesn’t feel like it.
31. Don’t waste calories on food that isn’t good.
30. Something you really wanted won’t work out. Ball up top.
29. Someone will hear your words through their own wounds. That’s not your fault.
28. The universe is not working toward your highest good. The universe doesn’t share your moral framework. Perception just matters more than what actually happens.
27. Maintain a professional-grade hobby. Something that compounds and has zero correlation to your work.
26. Do the work to build community. We’re at the age where you can see who invested in it and who didn’t. The gap is real now.
25. Sometimes you need a vacation before the vacation. That’s how tired you are. Keep going anyway.
24. The power of voice is real. Say the thing out loud. You’ll be surprised what starts to move.
23. You can pour everything into someone and it still won’t be what they need. That’s a lesson about them, not you.
22. Proximity is a strategy.
21. Most people lack self-awareness. This is a much bigger societal problem than we admit.
20. You are the hero, the healer, the villain, and every other role in your own story. You choose which one serves the moment. Dig deep and reframe.
19. If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for everything. Still underrated.
18. People will try to tell you who you are — the ones who love you and the ones who don’t. Your job is to filter noise for signal.
17. Ghosting is what emotionally immature people do. Be grown. Own your decisions.
16. At a certain age, birthdays feel repetitive — not because you don’t want to celebrate, but because you feel behind. Don’t mourn a present you think should exist.
15. Who you surround yourself with in crisis and in triumph decides how long you stay in either one.
14. If they’re for you, they ride in the ups and the downs. The rest are scenery.
13. Grief has a schedule.
12. Solitude is required for transformation. Not optional. Required.
11. Different spaces unlock different energies. Choose rooms deliberately.
10. Home will always find a way to feed you.
9. Sometimes the smartest move is to stop fighting the current and let it carry you where you need to go.
8. Shadow work is real. Understand the origin story of your inner villain and you’ll finally have the tools to live in the world as it actually is.
7. Morality doesn’t scale. One of the reasons we can never be uppercase God.
6. When all you have is nothing, there’s a lot to go around.
5. Some doors close so quietly you don’t notice for months.
4. Forgiveness isn’t grace. It’s eviction — clearing someone out of space they no longer pay rent on.
3. Protect your curiosity like it’s the last asset you have. It might be.
2. In the obsession to track everything, don’t forget why you started measuring in the first place.
1. Build a life where the thing you’d do for free starts paying more than the thing you wouldn’t. Then keep going.