This week is my birthday—I'm turning 52! And to mark the occasion, I'm sharing something a little different: 52 things I would tell my 22-year-old self.
Over the years, I've made a lot of mistakes, learned a ton, and picked up a bunch of insights that would’ve helped me back when I was just starting out. In this fast-paced, fun solo episode, I share all 52 lessons—from career advice to dopamine management, creativity, emotions, habits, finances, and yes...Dungeons & Dragons.
Whether you're 22 or 72, there’s something here for you.
Key Takeaways:
Why “Be so good they can’t ignore you” is still the best advice
How dopamine and distraction shaped my productivity—and how I manage it now
The massive difference between execution and experimentation
Why habits matter more than discipline
The importance of stretching, walking, and watching less rerun TV
How fear of disapproval shaped my career—and what I’m doing about it
52 rapid-fire insights on living more intentionally, joyfully, and creatively
Relevant Links:
AvishParashar.com – My speaking, books, and more
Unedited Transcript
Avish:
Hello, my friend, and welcome to Yes And. This is Avish, and I just wanna start off by saying happy birthday. Not to you, not to the podcast, but to me. Yes. This is my birthday. Well, it's not today. At the time, this is live.
My birthday is about four days away on the thirty first. But, yeah, this is my birthday week. And so for my birthday, I wanna do something a little bit different and special. I don't know about you. I know some people are always like, ah, my birthday's just another day, and I don't care if birthdays aren't important.
That's great if that's you. For me, I've always thought birthdays should be a special day. I was fortunate growing up. My parents made it a special day. Not with these crazy parties, like, when I was growing up, you know, in the eighties, seventies and eighties, the birthday party for the kids was a very different world than it is now. So it's maybe a few friends over. One day, the the one birthday was amazing.
It was my birthday party was, like, three days after return of the Jedi had come out in the theater, so I took, like, 10 friends there. That's about the most extravagant birthday, party I ever had. But just in general, it's just a day to feel special, and I still to this day feel that way. I feel my birthday, I like to feel special, the people in my life. I just feel like it's a day, you know, one day out of the year to make it about you and to be special. So for my birthday, I wanted to do something a little different with this podcast. And I have not done a solo episode for a while.
If you've been listening to me for a while, you know, when I started this podcast, I was alternating where one week I would do an interview, and the next week I would do a solo podcast and then alternate back and forth. And around the beginning of this year, I dropped the solo one just for for time and energy's sake, and I've only been doing the interviews every other week. So for this, I wanted to come back and do a a special solo episode. And I was thinking about formats, and then I realized that, oh, this is my, 50 birthday. And I I just saw the notice that this year was my thirtieth, college re thirty year college reunion, which I did not attend. But I was, wow, it's been thirty years since I graduated, which means it's been thirty years since I started my sort of entrepreneurial journey. Because even though I had a regular job after college, I did sort of decide at that moment to run and start my own improv group.
And, you know, I thought of these ideas, and also the interesting thing is, I'm turning 52 this year, and there are fifty two weeks in a year. And for a long time, I have I've started or noodled around with book projects around the number 52 thinking it could be a weekly, email list or a book where you read one chapter a week. I've thought of 52 yes ands, 52 different things to say yes and to. 52 dings, if you've seen me speak or been with me for a while, you know my keynote was titled ding happens, and I still use that phrase. And so I thought of 52 dings, and it would be 52 emails or chapters where each one would be word that ends with ding, like leading, reding, adapting. Although that's a t, but, you know, I'd play around with it a little bit. But that, you know, was was gonna put a lot of effort and still will be a lot of effort.
And so real quick, if you like that idea, if you'd be interested in 52 yes ands or 52 dings, either as a podcast episode or as a weekly series of emails or, like, a group you can join, for free, or a book where each one's, like, one week, you kinda focus on one yes and a week or one ding a week, Let me know. Because if I get enough feedback saying, I would really like that, then I'm much more inclined to actually do it versus creating it first and then finding out no one actually wanted this awesome idea I had. But for this purpose, it is a lot of work, so I'm like, that's too much. But then I got to thinking, a recent piece of content generation and marketing and business advice I heard is, you know, the your ideal client is the person you were a few years ago or your younger self. What are the messages that person needs? And that's how you should position your expertise because you are the most qualified to help the person you were. And this got me thinking, well, I'm 52.
When I graduated college, I was 22, and I had a hope and a dream. And and a lot of changes and alternations and setbacks and adaptation and ding moments along the way. So I thought, well, what advice would I give my 22 year old self? So what I decided is for this podcast episode, I'm gonna share with you 52 things I would tell my 22 year old self. Now to make this true improv comedy slash creative flow fashion, I have done very little preparation. So this is gonna be somewhat extemporaneous and off the top of my head to a degree, and let me explain. What I'm gonna do is in a moment, I'm gonna pause the recording, and I am just going to brainstorm on a notepad for five minutes.
And I'm doing this for two reasons. One, it's gonna help me. Just whatever comes out, I'm gonna write down, make notes of things I could say. Because when I speak to organizations on creativity and problem solving innovation, this is what I recommend they do. Everybody wants to jump in to get in the group together. Oh, let's just kick around ideas, which is great. But when you do that, you lose out on the power of your introverts, your shy people.
And a lot of times, someone will say an idea that's pretty good and everyone runs with it. And who knows the creative genius you might have missed out on? So what I recommend is before you get to the group brainstorming session, have everyone on their own brainstorm for a few minutes, five minutes, just free write whatever comes out, then bring those ideas to the table. So I'm essentially walking my talk, implementing what I teach others to do. So I'm gonna pause the recording, and then I'm going to go for five minutes. And then when I come back, I'm going to go through 52 ideas, some of which probably came on the brainstorming session, many of which I assume will pop in my head based on what I'm talking about, as I talk about them. Each one, I'm hoping to have a maximum of one minute.
Many will hopefully be significantly less, but I can be verbose. So I'm gonna really try to keep it to one minute. I got my little stopwatch here. And if you see me speak, you know, a bell is a big part of my program. So between each one, I'll ring the bell and move on to the next one. So, hopefully, this is fun. It's high energy.
It's gonna be super fast. You get 52 cool ideas that I would tell my younger self, that maybe some of them will resonate with you as well. So without further ado, I am going to kick off my timer and start my five minute brainstorming process. Okay. I am back. Thank you for bearing with me on that. Although for you, I probably just edited that bit out.
So I have a list. I'm not just gonna read straight down the list. I'm gonna glance at the list periodically and jump in with a, an idea there, but, hopefully, those will trigger ideas. Just going with the flow here, I want this to not be super polished and super, like, oh, let me think about what will build my brand or will be appropriate.
Like, just boom. What if I was sitting there and I could take a time machine back thirty years ago thirty years ago and talk to young of each, here's what I would say. And here we go. Number one, be so good you are impossible to ignore. This is one of my favorite bits of advice from Steve Martin. And every time in my career, I have adopted this advice. My business has gotten better.
Every time I've strayed away, my business has stagnated. For a long time, I thought I was a great speaker, and I was like, my marketing is not good enough. Mm-mm. If you are not where you wanna be yet, be better. And that is the first thing I would pound into 22 year old Abisha's head, whether it was as a speaker or as an improv comedian, as a martial artist, as a writer, whatever I was doing. Be so good. You are impossible to ignore.
Number two, start researching dopamine right away. It took me till about 51 years old to start understanding my dopamine addiction and how that affects my life. I have always been a person with some kinda ADD, and I've watched TV. But as a younger person, you know, I was able to get by really smart. So in high school, I could watch TV while doing my homework and doing all these activities. As I got older, the distractions, took over, and it made it harder and harder for me to get the work done I needed to. And it all comes back to dopamine.
And these days, I'm struggling with it so much, but every day, I can manage my dopamine activities like social media, quick fixes on TV or Internet or checking email, and just get down to the deep work. Things get so much better. So I'll go back and remind Avesh, hey. There's a lot more going on procrastination. Learn all about dopamine. Number three, read more. Now I'm a pretty avid reader.
I don't know if I'd quite to go so far as voracious, but I find that even reading takes more mental energy than TV or video games often. And so instead of reading fiction, I'll do one of those things. And this is not, like, a life changing thing, but, generally, I feel better, when at the end of the day, I read for bit. This doesn't mean I don't watch any TV or video games, and I just read three hours a night. But just in fact, I would set a timer. Just twenty minutes, build a habit. First thing, when you're winding down for the day, read fiction before you go into the other, frankly, dopamine type activities.
It's gonna make you more enriched. It's gonna make you feel better. And, you know, there's so many great books out there, and there's so many I haven't read yet that I still want to read. Alright. Number four.
You have time. Now what does this mean? This means that as a younger person, when I was in my early days, I was not very successful. I didn't have a lot of speaking gigs. I wasn't dating, so I didn't have a girlfriend or anything. And, frankly, a lot of my friends had moved away, so I was sort of alone. I had one or two friends here, but they had kinda normal jobs.
So I had a lot of time to myself, and mostly this made me depressed. And, man, I just squandered that time. I just procrastinated and surfed the Internet and watched random TV to a point where I got nothing done. And looking back on that now that that my business is successful and to have a wife with kids and activities and like, the schedule is so busy that I just look back on those days and, like, you wasted your life. I would smack myself in the head of 22 and say, when you're on those teams, yes. I understand you're upset that you're not successful, that you're single. But, man, use this time to your advantage. Exercise. Pursue hobbies. Learn crafts.
Do fun things. I wasted so many so much time that I could have used so much better, and I wish I could go back. So that's what I would tell myself that now. Alright. Number five. Emotions matter. How we feel matters.
And I have grown up in a world as you probably have where we're supposed to who cares about feelings? Feelings don't matter. Eff your feelings, some people say, right. It's all about discipline.
Just do it. Man, for me, feelings matter. How I felt in the moment so drastically dictated, the quality of my output and what I worked on. And I would feel guilty about that, like, I was broken, or I just wouldn't even think about it, and I would just be like, oh, today's a bad day. Man, Avish, young Avish, emotions matter how you feel. So when you start your day, check-in on how you're feeling. And if you're not in the right frame of mind, do something to get in a better frame of mind because that is going to 100% help you be more successful.
Number, six, build habits. Not achievement. So this whole habit thing has come out recently in last ten or twenty years with, the power of habit by Charles Duhigg and atomic, Duhigg and atomic habits by James Clear. And I never fully appreciated it, but, you know, there's so many habits I should have developed as a younger person, the exercise habit, the, reading habit, the writing habit. And they don't need to be grandiose, but just building a habit over time versus trying to force myself every day. So I should have focused on one habit at a time for three months, six months, even a year if it took that long, and then move on to the next one. The book, The One Thing, talks quite a bit about this.
I wish I had done that, because right now, so many things are still a struggle that if they were just habitual, I'd be healthier, I'd be calmer, I'd be more creative. So go back and focus on building habits. Number what number is this? 6. No. Number 7. Number 7.
I would say, try new restaurants. Now this is a small one, but I definitely became a creature of habit. Probably in that sort of depressive phase. I don't wanna you know, you just feel like, I just wanna go back to the same place I order lunch from every day or every night or every weekend. I'm gonna go back to the same chain restaurant on Friday night to to get takeout. I live in Philly, and then for a long time, I lived in Downtown Philly. So many great restaurants.
And just there's something about it, just the thought, had enough inertia of trying something new. Who knows what I missed out on? Who knows how many great experience I could have had? And this isn't about money. I'm not saying I needed to go to the fine dining, but there's plenty of pizza joints, takeout places, right, hole in the wall type places that I should have explored and tried. And that just goes to creativity. It goes exploration.
It just goes to overcoming inertia and getting just a little bit out of the comfort zone to try new things. Number eight. I'd say, Yvesh, play more Dungeons and Dragons. Now that's a weird one to say. Right? But I have this weird thing where I grew up, in the seventies and eighties, and, my I really was enamored with the idea of Dungeons and Dragons, but it was right around that time where all that fake, craze came out about how it was poisoning kids' minds and leading to people joining cults. And my parents had heard something from a friend about how Dungeons and Dragons was bad.
So my kid my parents actually prevented me from playing Dungeons and Dragons. They they banned me from doing it. So, of course, being a good little kid and teenager, I just played it without telling them at other people's houses or at night. But it was played it without telling them at other people's houses or at night. But it was hard, like, at sleepovers, you know, when they were asleep, we'd play Dungeons and Dragons. Right? We wouldn't be drinking.
We'd be partying playing Dungeons and Dragons. Now as an adult, you know, I could do whatever I wanted. And if I had this inner stigma, both from my parents and also growing up, it felt sort of nerdy. But, man, I've started doing it now with my kids and with some friends and not as much as I wish. But I had so much time there and friends who would have done I should have done it regularly just to explore and scratch that itch. You know, we've all got an itch that as a kid, we weren't able to do it always wanted to. And, man, I had so much time as a younger person, and it's so creative.
And, you know, people built friendships out of it, and I just didn't really take advantage of that, thirty years ago like I should have. Number nine. Slow down, Avish, is what I would say. Now not in everything because, with improv, with creativity, going fast is a huge key to accessing creativity, to coming up with with new ideas. But I would say that in some areas that I need to slow down, and I still do. One of those is reading. I have always been a skimmer when I read probably because of the ADD and probably because I get so pumped and excited about what I'm reading, or I get bored.
And so I just start skimming ahead. But even with books I love, even my favorite books, I find myself sort of skimming the pages, because mostly I'm so excited about but we'll find out what happens next. And in those cases, like, just slowing down. Read every word. Number one, it would appreciate it more. Number two, like in a book, I will learn the craft of writing more because I'm writing now fiction. But having not read very closely, I'm I'm going back now and having to reread and relearn the craft of writing because when you don't read every word, you don't pick up all the nuance there.
And I think there's a lot of areas we're slowing down. Instead of just trying to get through something, just slowing down and being really in the moment would have helped me a lot. Number 10, and this one is sort of similar, and that is, meditation. You know, I've often on meditated over the years, but I've never built a meditation practice. Even now, I know I should, and it's, you know, even just starting five minutes a day. And I know there's so many incredible benefits to meditation, both for health and stress, but also for creativity, for connectedness, for relationships. And again, this is one of those habits that if I built as a younger person where just everyday automatic, you wake up, you meditate.
Or in the evening, you meditate. It just becomes something you do. I think my life would be better right now, and, that's still something I'd like to do, but I would tell Aviv, hey. Back then, when you had total control and a lot of time on your hands, perfect time to build a meditation practice, so do it now. Alright. Number 11. Analyze regularly.
What about this? Well, I had a problem in that, I was overwhelmed with information and ideas of things to do. And I'd launch into something, and then I would just stick with it without regularly analyzing. So for example, when business was slow in 02/2008 or 02/2009, I started a blog called the motivational smartass. And I figured, you know what? I'm not getting a lot of bookings anyway, so I may as well just do something I love. And it was a bad idea, and a lot of people thought, oh, well, no one's gonna hire you with a name like smartass to come in their company.
And you know what? They're right. I didn't get a lot of business out of that. But my thought process was if a blog is successful enough, I'm writing humorous self help. If I build a following, it's not gonna matter because enough people will.
Well, guess what? Not enough people followed me. And after, like, three years, I shut it down when I had, you know, maybe 300 subscribers. And what I should've done is I should've said benchmarks. I should've been like, look. At three months, you gotta have this many subscribers and six months this many, or at least set those benchmarks for when to analyze. But I never analyzed what I was doing, whether it was working, and what I needed to adjust.
And so I stuck with something for way longer, and I think this is true for a lot of us in a lot of ways. We gotta set regular intervals to look and analyze.
What are we doing? Where are we going? Is what we're doing getting us there and what needs to be changed? And that's what I would tell young Avish to do. Alright. Number, 12. Let's oh, I got that one already.
Let's say, expand myself. Now what I mean by that is just learn more. For a long time, I would read a lot, fiction, NSA meetings, speaker association meetings. So I was learning the craft of speaking and marketing, which is the two most important things, and that's great. But I think just expanding myself, taking a class, and learning something else, even something irrelevant like dancing, not that I care about that. But, you know, I wanna be a better typer, so I should learn to type. I always had a thought about I I'm I'm pretty inept with car stuff, and I'm like, I should just take, like, a intro to car repair class just so I kinda learn that.
And I think there's something so valuable in expanding ourselves. And because it didn't feel necessary and because my mind was focused on business, I never did that. And, again, back when I had a lot of time, I I would say younger, find the time to do these things. Just pick a class. Doesn't need to be long. One four week class or six week class, not your whole year, not a university course, but little things, puree, and keep expanding yourself in other areas to grow not as a professional, but as a person would be very helpful. Alright. Number what number? 13. Lean into who you are.
Lean into who you are. I remember, in my early days as a speaker, but not that early. I've been doing it for a number of years. A, person said to me, no one's gonna hire you if you're gonna talk about improv comedy because people don't want their employees to improvise. They want them to follow the script and stay on path. And this person was a very successful speaker, big marketing guy.
He was an expert. So I really believe this, and I was like, oh, oh, I gotta and it wasn't two years later where I was like, you know what? My business isn't working. If it's gonna fail, I may as well have it failed doing whatever they want to. So I leaned into the improv instead of leaning out and away and avoiding it. And, man, that made a difference, because I was being more authentic. I was playing to my strengths, and it just worked much better.
So I would tell young of each do that earlier. Find what works for you. Don't worry about whatever else is doing. Don't even worry so much about what the experts are telling you to do, because they're all coming from their own frame of reference. Now you gotta take it what they say, but also take with a grain of salt. Find what works for you and lean into it. Alright. Number, 14.
For this one, let's see. Go on more second dates. Now this is a weird one, but it sort of popped off off my list. You know, again, I as I mentioned multiple times here as I was single for a long time. I did a lot of dating, a lot of online dating especially. And, you know, it's it's a numbers game. And I was very no.
I won't say dismissive, but, you know, you know or you you think you know, like, on a first date whether the person is is right for you or not. And I want plenty of first dates where I just didn't feel a spark.
And it was good people. We had good conversation, but just didn't feel a spark. And so, you know, oftentimes, it'd be the other way. I'd be interested, and I'd get the email back. It's like, or the message through the dating site. You know, no romantic connection. Okay. Fine. But I did that to people too sometimes. Like, hey.
I had a nice time with you, but, you know, I'm really feeling romantic connection here. Great. What I realized is that sometimes it takes time to develop these things. And so I probably should've got on more second dates. Like, even the first date, didn't necessarily feel a spark. I was like, I don't think this is gonna be a person I wanna be in a relationship with. I shook on a second date because not not with the bad people, not with the people who, like, the conversation was terrible or I didn't like them.
But maybe you just feel very nice. Maybe you weren't as attracted to them or maybe there's something about them you just thought of them more as a friend. And I think that's something we can all do. We need to give things a little bit more time to percolate and generate. Now it worked out well for me because, you know, I love my wife very much.
We're very happy. We got three kids. Everything is great. But, you know, from from an experience standpoint, I would have told younger Avish, you know, go go on more more second dates. Number 15, read more of the classics. Now what do I mean by that? I don't necessarily mean classics like, Dickens, Tolstoy, and that sort of thing.
But, you know, I I mentioned I read I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction. And a lot of what I would do is I would just go to the library and just grab whatever book looked interesting, which is fine. A lot of new releases, and I read some great books that way and some very bad books, frankly. But there are classics within the genre. So, and there's still stuff I'm like, oh, man. I I've never read that. I'm just starting to catch up on some of those things now.
And so I would say, you know what? Figure out what those things are. And right now, what I have is a TBR, a to be read list that I can refer to. So instead of wandering aimlessly around the library, I can go to a bookstore, a library, a scribd, wherever wherever and now, whatever it's called, and get a book that's on my list. And I should have done that a little more intentionality. And, yes, reading some more of the classics, a, as an improviser and as a business person helps having that breadth of experience. But b, these classes are classic for a reason, so I should have read more of them.
And, even now I'm going back to do more of that. Alright. Number 16. I would say, develop a hobby, Avish. And this kinda goes to learning and expanding. But when you are focused on starting a business and it's not going well and you find yourself procrastinating a whole lot, maybe the thing to do is to pick up a hobby, something unrelated to your business. I did karate for a while, and that was great.
I did it for a long time. Actually, I did it in high school and college and after college, and I stopped and then went back. And it was great, and I loved it, but I got out of it. Problem with karate was the school was far away. It took a lot of time. It was in the evenings. So I should have found other hobbies, multiple ones. You know?
Like, right now, board gaming is a bit of a hobby. Creative writing is a bit of a hobby. But back then, hobbies always feel felt like a waste of time. So instead of engaging in a hobby that would be rejuvenating, I would watch TV or play mindless video games. So, Avish, twenty two year old, Avish, go get a hobby. Number, 17. Create performance standards.
And what I mean here is this goes a little bit to the be so good, you're impossible to ignore thing. In my I ran an improv group. That was my first goal. It was after college, I started an improv group with the dream of turning to a Philadelphia institution, a whole, get my own theater, make my living doing just that, running classes, doing shows multiple times a week. Never happened. I ran a group for many years, and I think I didn't have performance standards for myself and for the group. Because if you were pretty good, that was fine with me because I wanted to be nice. And we had a lot of people in the group who were who were pretty good, some were very good, and and a small number were exceptional.
And no offense if you're listening, but just, you know, be honest here. And it's not so much that, oh, those people were bad. It's that I should have really raised the bar for them and myself. And if you can't make the bar, then it's time to part ways, and I would have done things, completely differently, which will probably be another point here in a moment. But, yeah, I would have set performance standards, and I should have done that as a speaker early on.
What's the response I'm getting? What are the number of spin off gigs? And keep working towards that standard. And when you hit that standard consistently, raise it so you keep getting better and better. Number 18. Along those lines, I would say have the hard conversations earlier. So along the lines with the improv group, I've only I only kicked out one person from the group in the early days, and he was someone who auditioned well, but, a, he wasn't particularly solid as a performer, and, b, probably I think that and, b, probably the thing that was harder than that is, he was sort of annoying.
He tried too hard. I don't I don't wanna bad mouth someone. So let's just say he wasn't a great fit for the group. And so, eventually, I had the decision to have the hard conversation with him, and that was really hard for me. And and, you know, my thing is I want people to like me. And, you know, it was hard, and and the group got better for it as a result. But I needed to have other hard conversations over the years there as well.
I needed to sit some people down. And not a bad one. I'll be like, are you stuck? I'm kicking you up.
But, like, look. Here's what you need to get better, or this is not working, or the attitude you have here is not, conducive to our group atmosphere. Like, basically, culture building stuff. Right? And now as someone who helps leaders, I acknowledge that the difficulty with it. But I would I would coach younger each. Listen. Those conversations are hard, but when you're a leader, you gotta have those hard conversations.
And I should have had them, and I should have had them earlier. Number 19. Oh, man. I just had one.
This is very similar. It was it was gonna it was gonna build off of that. Oh, stop. This is probably the hardest one. This is the one I'm currently working on. That is, number 19. Stop thinking about or worrying about what other peoples think of you.
Now I I don't wanna be too extreme where I don't care about anybody else's me. But, man, I am a people pleaser. And to me, the most important thing is that people think nicely of me. Now this could be people I know, friends, clients, but it could be audience members. It could even be random people per people person walking down the street. And if I accidentally bump into them and they think it was my fault and it wasn't, that will haunt me for, like, hours or days later. Like, I can't believe that person, like because the thought of this person out there thinking badly to me was like and this informed so many of my decisions over the last thirty years.
Just my primary driver was wanting to get approval from others, even people I don't know, and even not even actually just believing in my own head. And, man, that is a bad way to live, and I'm still struggling with this and working on it. And I would tell young Abish, start working on that right now. Get over that nonsense and move on with your life. Number 20, learn how to network. I have always hated networking. Probably kind of introverted and shy.
This probably goes back a little bit to that wanting people to prove of me, and I was sort of felt like, ah, sort of insecure, and people think I'm gonna be interrupting them. But, man, I the people who are good at networking, are are so successful, so much more successful. They build their relationships. They get gigs. They get opportunities. And almost everyone I know who's really good at meeting and connecting with people, especially new people, but not just new people, but even deepening existing relationships, They have a much less friction in their lives, in every area of lives, and that is something that I'm still working on and would tell young of each, whatever you do, man, figure that out and get better at it right now. Number 21.
Along the same lines, network more. Now oftentimes, when I talk about networking, I am essentially talking about meeting new people. Right? Going to a networking event or a conference and shaking hands and walking over to a table of people and introducing myself, and that's really hard. I I would like to get better at that. But networking is basically, as my friend Michael Goldberg says, it's just getting to know people with the intention of seeing how you can help them. And I should have been doing much more intentionally that all the while.
I'm not starting to do that now. Just reaching out to people, old friends, old contacts, people I only know a little bit, and just having conversations. And I feel like if I had done that going back to when I was 22 years old, every week just having one or two conversations, phone call, coffee meeting, now video call. I feel like with this that would have built my network in a way that's not as hard as going to networking events and meeting strangers. If I just start with the people I know and meet and and meet regularly through contacts, everything will be different right now. So, young of each network more, and that just means have more conversations, stay in touch with people, and and just with people you like. It doesn't have to be miserable.
Just talk with people you like about things you like to talk about, and that is a form of networking. Number 22. Find an exercise you enjoy. I forced myself to do so many workouts, attempt so many workout and workout routines that I don't really like, because they're the most efficient way or it's what someone recommended or it's the way you feel it should be done. And that is just a giant waste of effort. Maybe in your younger days or for a sprint, if you're like, oh, I got something coming up in thirty days or ninety days. I wanna get in great shape, so let me do this routine.
I'm gonna force myself. Eventually, though, you dwindle off. So I'm like, you know what? It's not even gonna have to be exercise.
Just physical stuff. Now I said karate for a while. You know, I used to love playing tennis, but, never had anyone to play with. Just my one buddy, and then he moved away, and it was totally done. I love playing basketball in the right environment. But when I played with friends, great. But once they moved away or or that broke up so now it's just walking.
I like going for walks, listening to a podcast or something, and it's been much better. But, you know, working out, it always felt like like a hard discipline forcing myself thing to do. I would love to just develop just explore more things, found stuff I just love to do that happened to be physical and give me exercise. I'd be in much better condition and shape right now.
Number 23, invest. Specifically, I should have young Abhishe, make sure you invest in your IRA every year. So, you know, when I was first graduating college, like, '22, my my dad sort of forced me or told me to open an IRA, which I did. And then he wanted me to contribute to it every year, which I did not. I did in the beginning a little bit. But, you know, business wasn't great. I wasn't making a lot of money.
And so the money I did come in, I wasn't putting away. Now I was still racking up credit card debt. But, man, looking back, I would have been much better off if I had the money did come in, if I'd made sure I maxed my IRA every year even if that meant going into more credit card debt for a while. Because, eventually, I was able to get myself out. I knew once my business picked up. Frankly, I should've just gotten leaner, and you spent my credit cards less. But the priority should have been investing in that IRA because now I'm looking at my retirement fund, and it's okay.
But I'm gonna be working probably till I'm in my mid seventies probably because of my life and my, wife's age and my kids' ages. But I'd be so much far ahead if I just done that one simple thing. Avish understand the power of compounding. I understood it mathematically, but I just ignored it because I figured out it all work out, and that was dumb.
So, Avish, invest in that IRA. Every year, the power of compounding is incredibly powerful. Alright. Number 20, four.
Laugh more, man. I'm a comedian, and I love to make other people laugh, but there was periods of my life where I was on my own, and I wasn't really doing anything to make myself laugh. Just going through the motions. Right? But real laugh, you know, go and see a comedy show. If you're gonna watch TV, watch stuff that really enhances you, true laughter and joy. And most importantly, be with friends who make you laugh.
I got so many friends, and there's a period of my life where a bunch of my friends were living in Philly, and we'd see each other multiple times a week, lots of laughter. And then as life moved on, people moved away, circumstances changed. I started to see people less and less, laughter went way down. And I think that's where a lot of that sort of downward spiral happened where I just start to feel unmotivated all the time is when I was seeing friends less and, laughing less. Number 26. I think I'm at 26. Hopefully. I can't read my handwriting here. Alright. So number 21234.
And that's a 25. Okay. Number 25 is, stop watching reruns. Again, this comes back to well, this is a habit really frankly from growing up in high school. The TV was always on in my house, oftentimes being watched, oftentimes as the background. And I grew up watching TV and a lot like, doing my homework and studying, I do with the TV. And this is back in the eighties when there wasn't this mega cable with everything.
There's only a few channels, and reruns were a huge thing then, right, during the day. After school, reruns of everything. And this then went on to college. And even after college then, before social media was a thing, the TV was a thing. And there would always be reruns. And I would always have the TV on. The first thing I would do when I'd walk in the door when I came home, turn on the TV.
And the TV would pretty much be on all the way until it was sleeping time. Even if I was doing something else, like playing a video game on the computer, maybe if I was reading, I'd have the TV off. But almost anything else, the TV would be on. And I wasn't watching enriching stuff or new stuff even. I'll tell you what, the three primary things, reruns of law and order, reruns of Seinfeld, reruns of friends. I have seen those shows so many times, and it just again, they're going back to the dopamine. It was like reruns were the devil, man.
Stop watching stuff you've seen before. Find other more interesting things to do, or in the worst case, watch new stuff. You're just you're just procrastinating and and giving up on life essentially when you're just vegged out watching reruns, which is okay once in a while, but every day, not a good thing.
Now number 25. Along some way along the along those lines with number 20, 5, let's +1, 2345. No. I'm at 26. Jeez. I can't remember how many. Alright. Now at number 26, I would say again, same thing with social media.
Stop scrolling social media. Now this isn't 22 of each. Social media wasn't a thing then, but about ten, fifteen years later, when no. Gosh. Okay. I'm old. But whatever it was, fifteen years later when social media really started, twenty years later, yeah, I was all in on it.
And even though it was on social media, there was, like, aggregate sites like Dig. I had a whole routine where I would just go through the day repeating the same things, checking this website, this website, this website, see if it's updated, then go back to this website. And it's just like the reruns. There was nothing valuable there. It was just looking for distraction, and that is, that's like the dopamine thing. It all fits together, but I would tell Avish, you don't know what social media is yet, but avoid it for as long as possible. And certainly in the morning, do more interesting things. Alright. Number 27.
Sticking in this theme, learn how to be bored. I'm seeing this with my own son now, my 10 year old. He has a lot of trouble being bored, and we don't even let him have that much screen time. We're not zero screen time people, but, you know, he doesn't have his own phone or device yet. He watches some TV some days, some video games some days, but he just struggles with entertaining himself and just letting himself be bored. And I think that's a problem. And I always felt this way too.
I hate being bored, so I always have a book, podcast, something to watch, listen to, and that's where the reruns came from. Right? That's where just having something on in the background because coming home to a empty condo and the silence felt boring. So, Avish, learn how to be bored. There that triggers creativity. It keeps you calmer. It manages your dopamine.
So learn how to be bored. Yeah. Being bored is not necessarily a good thing, but it will pay off huge in the long run. Number 28. Invest in services and direct interaction as opposed to courses. By By coaching, not courses is another way of putting it. When I started out, I was just looking for the answer.
I was reading books, but I was also buying courses. And in the early two thousands is when, there was kind of a course explosion. Right? As soon as course became more accessible, I bought stuff on DVDs. I bought tape audio tape programs before then. Because looking for the answer. But because of some of my dopamine issues, and my motivation and and procrastination, the the more knowledge I gained didn't help me.
What I needed was either a coach tell me specifically with what I needed to do and how I needed to do and how to overcome my limitations. And number two, I needed just stuff done. Right? So I didn't necessarily need to learn how to create a web great website. I needed to pay someone to create a webs great website. Not that I can't do those things myself, but in retrospect, I spent a lot of money on stuff to learn, where if I had saved up that money and hired someone to either work directly with me instead of just the pass it off or hired someone to do the work, I would've gotten much better results. And so that's what I would tell young Abish now.
Number 29, move on from things sooner. You know, my last point, I mentioned coaching. One of the coaching things I did do is, I went to a Tony Robbins live event in the late nineties, and it was great. And, you know, at the time, it was what I needed. And as at the event, you you sign up for coaching. I guess you didn't have to, but it felt like, oh, you're supposed to do this. And it was, like, $200 a month, which is not cheap, especially back then.
But this is back when I had a regular job, so it was just an expense. Not the smartest use of money. And you know what? It was never really all that effective, mostly because I just wouldn't get myself to do the things the coaches told me to do. So it wasn't the best fit for coaching. And the problem is is I kept going with this coaching for years, probably four years before I finally quit and let it go. And that's mostly because my coach I was using eventually left or moved to a different position.
I got a new coach, and after a few couple months with her, I'm like, alright. I'm gonna stop doing this now. So it was like a transition period. But I realized I have a hard time letting things go. Subscriptions, relationships, regular things. If I'm doing something regularly, because I have that huge FOMO, that fear of missing out, I'm like, and and I want people to like me. I'll feel like I'll take a bath if I'm like, oh, I'm not getting what I want out of this, so I'm gonna cancel it.
So I wasted someone. That was $10,000. Basically, if you think about $200 a month over four years is $10,000. Man, that money, I could use that for so many other things versus coaching that didn't really help me. So I'd say, again, this comes back to the, whatever point I had about analyze. I should've analyzed way, way earlier, and made a decision.
Like, you know what? This isn't getting me there. So, Avish, let go of things much sooner than you currently do. Oh, yes. Gotcha. So number, number 30. I think I'm I don't know.
I'm I'm I'm having trouble. Alright. Number number 30. Identify your one thing. One of my favorite books now is the one thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papazan. I mean, basically, what it says is, you you say your goal and I'm not gonna go a thing, but you say your goal and then you work backwards. If my this is where I wanna be in five or ten years.
What do I need to accomplish in three years? What's the one thing I need to do in three years to make that happen? Great. Knowing that, what's the one thing I need to do in one year to make that three year goal happen? Great. What's the one thing I need to do next quarter to make that one year goal, then one month to hit the three month, and so on until you go back to what's the one thing I need to do right now? And the the full statement is what's the one thing I can do prioritization tool now, and I wish I knew this thirty years ago because I wasted so much time on things that seemed easier or important.
If I had really distilled down to what's the one thing, that you need to do, then I think I would have been so much more successful, so much more productive, so much more efficient by identifying that one thing. Number 31. Along those lines with the one thing, I would say to work on my craft more. This comes back to the be so good, but I should have set a regular practice. Every day of doing two things. Number one, generating new content, and number two, practicing performance. If I had done that every day, even for just one hour a day, especially back when I had lots of time, thirty minutes generating ideas and content, thirty minutes practicing whether it's working on, speech delivery, crafting and delivering stories, or practicing improv performance.
If I did that every day starting thirty years ago, that it would be amazing. So I would work on my craft. Tell Avish. Avish, work on your craft every day. Number 32. Boy, did this one already. Think in terms of execution not oh, sorry.
Think in terms of experimentation, not execution. This is an idea I talk about now in my keynotes and workshops, but young of each really believe in execution. Come with your plan, Come with your strategy. Make your plan and execute that plan. Now and would that lead to two things? One is procrastination, because if I couldn't execute fully and correctly, I would, not even start. And number two, it would lead to me sticking with plans like that blog, that smart ass blog for much longer than I should have.
I should have thought more in terms of experimentation. Like, oh, here's this idea I have to market my business, or, oh, here's something an expert told me I should do. Let's experiment with it. Let me try this for three months or a month, and let's just see what happens and see what I can learn from it. And I think that would've gotten me moving much faster and oops. Sorry. That would've got me moving much faster and quicker, and it would help me have let go of many of those things, much faster than I should have.
So definitely think experimentation, not, execution. Number 33. Google twenty percent time. Now Now that doesn't mean I should have Googled the term 20% time, but there's idea that that I've heard that Google has this 20% time, which is one day a week. So 20% of your five day work week, you're allowed to work on whatever project you want, even if it's outside your realm of expertise or or or your job function. Now I don't know if that's true or not or if it's still true, but having some time and this is what I feel like I I should have done more of is I I basically poo pooed anything that didn't feel like it was gonna directly help me build my speaking business. Now that makes me sound like a very disciplined and focused person, but in fact, all that will leave me do is procrastinate.
And I think if I spend 20% of my time working on projects that I just really wanted to do because they sounded fun or interesting, not because they'd helped me build my speaking business or they're directly related to the strategic objective, but just because it sounded like a cool fun project. But just 20% of my time. Right? Not all in because then that would have taken away from everything. But some time exploring, I think it would have been really, really beneficial. 34. Write the damn book.
I finally, at 51 years old, finished draft of my novel, which I wanted to do since I was eight years old. I am in the process of editing, and I've very slowly been procrastinating. So now I'm editing the damn novel, reminding myself. But, again, I had this goal for a long time, and I started to stop so many times. And back when I had time, because I let myself go down the rabbit hole of, of procrastination and TV first, then later on social media. I just never built a writing practice. And by this point, if I just written a half hour a day, I'd probably have five, ten, 20 novels done at this point, instead of me still sort of struggling to get my first one done.
So, Avish, you wanna write a novel? Just write the damn thing because you've got the time, you've got the ability, go do it. Number 35. Finish stuff. I, you'll find that I often get discouraged when I don't get very quick feedback and rewards. This is intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. And if I am doing something and not getting a reward, like some kind of external validation, some kind of success in a few weeks, maybe even less, I tend to give up.
I I don't like that about myself, but I'm being honest here. And so I tell young of each, develop the habit of finishing. And don't make it too huge. Right? It doesn't have to be a two year project, but set an end goal and commit. I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do it until I I hit the finish line. And then I'll decide if I wanna keep going or if I wanna do it again or whatever it is. Right? This could be a class.
A lot of this was marketing strategies. I've been so many marketing strategies over the years where they probably would have been successful if I had stuck with them and finished. Instead, I implement for a few weeks, couple months, and don't get results. I'm like, yeah, it's not working. I'm getting discouraged, so I move on. So, Avish, stick with it and finish. Number 36.
Start a diary. And this doesn't have to be like a deer diary thing, you know, in my little, like like, the stereotypical thing. But just keeping a little journal of what happens in a day. And, you know, this is in Austin Kleon's book, Show Your Work. He talks about this. Just every day, write down what you did, what you accomplished, how you felt. A, it's a great way to process feelings and thoughts.
B, this would've led to so much content. Right? I could've pulled experiences from that, and in Austin Cleon's method to show your work. He's like, just keep track of what you do, and every day just share one little thing you did that day. And it would've just been a great way to build social media following, and I I could still do this, but now time is busier. And, I'm not sure how the strategy works. But if I just started by keeping a daily diary, I think I would be well further along in that process. Number 37.
Do morning pages. This is a thing I've done off and on. Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist's Way talks about this, which is every morning, first thing you do, take three blank sheets of paper and just start writing longhand. And whatever you write is not important. The point is just blurt onto the page and never let the pen stop. It is a great creative practice. It's a great way to process your brain.
And every time I've done it, I've liked it, and I've learned stuff. And I just never did it consistently. This is one of those habits which I feel kinda like meditation would have been great. So I'd go back and tell a vis, especially when you got the time. Just develop a morning pages habit. Number 38. Seek out and get better accepting feedback.
I again, because I like people to like me, I like positive feedback and reinforcement. I hate feedback. I hate when people criticize me. So I would tell Avish, look. Go at your 22 year old self. Put yourself in situations where you are going to get feedback so you get used to it. You learn how to accept it and incorporate it.
Because that's how we get better. Not all feedback. Right? Not like the one random audience member who you don't know who just happens to not like this one thing you did when the 99 other people in the audience loved it. Right? It's not obsessing over that. But it's about hiring an expert or or seeing out colleagues who really know what they're doing and getting their feedback and being really open to it and not having your feelings hurt and instead embracing it and saying, yeah.
I want this feedback. I want you to rip this apart because I know that's gonna help me be better. And that is a skill and habit I wish I had developed. Put yourself in that situation so you become desensitized to the negative aspects of it and can start benefiting from the positive aspects of it. Number 38. Identify your unique ability. This could be also called your zone of genius, your unique strength, whatever it it is.
I first heard this from Dan Sullivan, the strategic coach. I just from his books, I never attended his program. But he says everyone has a unique ability. It's one thing you do better than anyone else, and it's the one thing you could do every day for the rest of your life, and you'd be happy. And, honestly, I'm still working on figuring out what exactly that is. I'm pretty close now, but I didn't know. I I was just fluttering around thinking it was this, thinking it was that.
I I would tell young of each, figure out what this is for you and then put all go all in on that unique ability because the more time you spend using and developing your unique ability, the happier and more successful you'll be. And I'd be much farther along if I'd really focused on that thirty years ago. So that and I'm still working on it now. It's never too late. But, man, it would have made a huge difference if I started back then. Number 39. Go ahead and do more free stuff or promotional stuff or just speak a whole lot more. You know?
Especially when this is more for 32 year old of each when I started my speaking business. But even 22 year old of each with the improv group, and there's a saying in the speaking business, which is the more you speak, the more you speak, which basically means the more you're out there speaking, the more people will see you, spread the word, hire you, refer you. And I probably raised my fees too early. I was more concerned about trying to make more money where if I just found ways of speaking as often as possible for the first one or two year of my career, number one, I would have gotten better faster, especially if I use some of the other things I'm telling young Avish to do, like, work on your craft every day and analyze your results and take the feedback. I would have gotten much better, much faster, and I would have been out there way more. So I did rotary clubs like a lot of us do, you know, speaking for free.
But I probably did, like, 15 or 20. Right? One a week for a little while or two a week. I should have done everyone. I should have set a a radius of 300 miles, and there's other groups like Rotor, like Lions, Kiwanis. Like, all these groups, I should have been just aggressively out there and and using that. And so I would say go back to beach, like, just, man, volume, volume, volume. Right? And I think that's true for any young person or any person starting a new business. Volume. Get out there and do it as much as possible to get better and to get known. Number 40. Woo hoo. Number 40.
Do more stand up comedy. I, I studied some stand up as a, speaker to work on my craft to help me. And I did a few open mics then much later.
You know, this is only, like, 02/2010. And I was good. But at the time, you know, I had, I had just gotten married, and we had moved. It was I was a different place in life in my mid thirties. I didn't love it enough. But going back to early twenties, I was good. And I did some stand up in in college, and it was good, and people liked it.
And if I just worked on the craft, if I had just gone and at that time in my life when I was young and had energy and stayed up late anyways, I could go to open mics all around the city multiple days a week and stay up till 11:00 at night and just practice the craft and get out there. And it's one of those things I look back on, and I love improv more than stand up.
That is very true. And I think a lot of people can't do both. And at the risk of tooting my own horn, I felt like I could do both and did do both. And if I just committed, Navish, go to stand up. Go to four open mics a a week as much as possible for the next six months. I think I would've developed some real, real chops and had a lot of fun. And, whether I end up being a stand up comedian or not, my comedy comedic delivered from my keynotes would have just drastically improved.
So, Avish, do more stand up. You're good at it, man, and it's gonna help you a lot in the long run.
Number 40, one. Stretch and work on your mobility. This is one of those things as a younger person. I did karate for a long time. We always do warm ups and some stretching. I was never super flexible, though. And it always felt like a burden, like extra you know, what I wanna do is lift to get sculpted and strong and maybe do some cardio even though I didn't like it to try to lose weight.
And now that I'm 52 years old, I'm like, mobility, flexibility, pliability. These things would help you so much more right now in your life. I'm constantly having various pains, lower back, knee, shoulder. And it's like, dude, if you had just started stretching and worked on that, you'd reduce injuries. You'd be healthier. You'd be way better off as an adult. And I'm trying to implement this practice now, but if I had it as a habit and already had those skills in place, woo.
Young of each stretch. Get flexible, man. 42. Oh, man. I wrote this note down here. Now I can't oh, be intentional. Number 42.
Be intentional with what you do. This ties a lot of what we've talked about here with, seeking learning opportunities and knowing what you're doing and not procrastinating. I just wasn't very intentional the first twenty years of my adult life. I just like, I had goals, but on a day to day basis, I was much more buttressed about by my feelings. Here's what I feel like doing. Here's what I could do. And I'm not getting results.
Just let me do this. I should have been much more intentional.
Here's what you wanna do. Here's why you wanna do it. Here's what you're going to do. Boom. Do it. And if you don't wanna do it, you don't have your discipline, just go back to what I said about put yourself in the right frame of mind. Manage your emotions.
Be intentional about your emotions. Be intentional about everything. Just you would have made much faster progress and I think been a lot less stressed in your life. Number 43. Excuse me. Let me pause that for a second. Take care of your skin.
I actually think I have pretty good skin for a 52 year old, but, I'm just looking at this video right now. I don't know if you're listening. You might not see it, but this is probably up on YouTube. I got these giant bags under my eyes. I don't know if that's a skin care routine thing or whatnot, but oh, look. I mean, I'm really looking like, wow. This is really serious.
I gotta talk to my wife. There's something wrong with me. But younger, you know, focus on your skin. Focus on these little things that you don't think about at all because, you know, it's gonna matter in the future. Number 44. Understand that food leads to feelings, and food impacts your motivation and your energy so much. I'm learning this now as an older person.
I've always had terrible eating habits. I've I've had a weird emotional eating issue, and I love fast food. I love junk food. And as a younger person, I could get away with it a bit more. I was always a bit overweight or a lot overweight at times. But still, I could sort of get away with it, and I had plenty of runway in my future in terms of blood work and whatnot. So, you know, I'd eat fast food and hamburgers and fries or Doritos and chips.
And and I only ever focused essentially on what it did to my body in terms of how I looked. A little bit about my blood and and my my health, but what I never really paid attention to is the relation between food and how I felt and food and my motivation and how when I had a heavy lunch of of garbage, like, I run to McDonald's and eat a burger and fries. How the afternoon then, I'd have no energy. I'd want a nap. I wouldn't get anything done versus eating something lighter. It gave me so much more energy, and I'm really trying to implement that now. Watching what I eat, not just because I wanna be healthier, which I do, but because I understand the impact it has on how I feel and what my motivation is. 45. Be kinder to yourself.
It it's sad to know this as sort of a positive motivational person, but I have some not so great self talk. I feel like I get down on myself a lot of things. Part of it's maybe a perfectionism. Part of it's just, regret and guilt as I've gotten older about things I wish I did differently. And that's where I'm like, you know, be kinder to yourself now and as a younger person because, you know, you're the you're with yourself twenty four hours a day, and, you know, don't beat yourself up when you make a mistake. Don't don't let yourself off the hook. Learn from it, fix it, and learn from it and improve, but don't dwell on yourself.
Don't call yourself stupid or talk about hating yourself or yeah. But that was I can't believe I did that. Like, let it go, be kind, and improve for next time. Number 46.
Learn how to play JRPGs. Now this is a strange one. If you don't know, JRPG is a Japanese role playing game is what JRPG stands for. And there's a lot of these games on the game consoles like the final fantasy series, for example. And I was fascinated by their beautiful art, really in-depth stories, and I have tried a number of times recently to play them, and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. The combat system, I just don't understand it. And I live my my best friend, Mike, and I lived together for a few years, and he was really into them.
And he played Final Fantasy seven. And I'm like, you know, I wish I had learned how to play it then because I feel like I'm missing out on something as someone who likes video games that I wish as a younger person if I learned when it'd been easier to learn new things, if I learned how to play these games. I feel like I have a whole world open up because they are so popular now. There's so many options I have, and every time I try to play one, I get confused. And so young of each, just take the time. You're playing video games with your buddies all the time anyways when you're younger. Right? You're hanging out.
Learn how to play final fantasy. It's gonna open up a whole world of gaming for you in the future.
Number 40, seven. Lighten up your workouts, man. I've always been especially with workouts, you know, my introduction to working out was Arnold Schwarzenegger. A cousin of mine was really into him, and he had Arnold's encyclopedia of bodybuilding, which I then got and I loved. But Arnold, you know, he was a unique individual, and he's a bit of a freak. And his whole thing was about working to failure, progressive overload. He's not afraid of passing out at the gym, and that's what I ingrained in my mind.
Everything to be super intense and super hard. And so my workouts would be really hard, which would make them cool, and I'd see some results. But it wasn't sustainable for me because I'd be sore, and then I wouldn't wanna go back. Or just a thought of going back to do this really uber hard workout just didn't resonate with my personality. So I procrastinated and find a reason not to go. And now as a 52 year old, it's like, hell, if you had just worked out lighter to a point where you just enjoyed it and you didn't feel pain and it wasn't such a herculean effort to do it every time, you would've built a habit. You would be enjoying it.
And if I'd worked out consistently, but a little bit lighter and easier for thirty years versus off and on, more off than on because super intense, I'd be healthier and have better habits now. So lighten your workouts up. Just the best thing you can do with this workout is to make sure you wanna come back for the next workout. Alright. Number 48. Take more improv classes. You know what's crazy is thirty years of well, it's been plus I started in college with thirty four years of performing improv comedy.
I have taken, I think, a grand total of two days of improv classes, two workshops one day each. That's it. Most well, all of my improv basically came from what I learned my first year in my college group with, with, the director. And then because the way the years worked out, I was the director the second year. So I was really only learning improv for one year. And then it was a lot of experimentation. It'd be watching other improv groups.
It'd be reading books on improv and then testing stuff out in my workshops and rehearsals and and shows. And I think I got real good. I'm still doing it thirty years later, and I get good reviews. But I should've taken more classes for a few reasons. Number one, I'm not the best improviser in the world, and I'm not so good. I can't learn more. So learning from different people woulda helped me. Right? It comes back to that feedback thing.
Number two, it woulda broadened my knowledge of how to teach improv by watching other great teachers and made me a better both improv teacher and workshop leader now because I see other styles and how they they do it. And number three, just networking connections. And, obviously, people taking an improv class like improv.
And who knows? Maybe I would have made some new friends, some contacts, some people who I'd still be friends with today, some people who maybe could have been business contacts or improv contacts. So if I go back, Amish, you know, don't be proud. Don't be so proud, about you, and that's probably what it was when I was younger. It's like, I don't need a class. Go back. Take some classes. Learn. Go to Chicago for a while.
Take classes there. Whatever. That's what you should go back and do. Number 49, learn how to explore and manage your feelings. Yes. This is soft and touchy feely. But, you know, growing up, my parents were never expressive about feelings.
We never talked about feelings. It's not like modern parenting now. We tried with my kids. My feelings were never validated. It was mostly, like, if I got upset, they get mad at me for getting upset.
And other than that, whatever. My feeling so I learned how to keep my feelings to myself. Not that they were mean about or anything, but, like, we never talk about feelings. So I never learned how to identify, label, express my feelings. And, man, when I started learning how to do that much later in life, frankly, in a lot of ways, thanks to my wife, things got so much better for me, and this is what I'm trying to teach my kids. And if I learned that lesson earlier, I think it would've helped in a lot of ways. It'll help my relationships.
It'll help my communication. It'll help my own internal dialogue if I learned about identifying and managing feelings and emotions much earlier on. Number 50. Learn how to draw. This is the one thing that sort of sticks in my cross still to this day. I I love comic books ever since I was a little kid, and I just never had any artistic ability, any ability to draw. And I think it's just so cool.
I just love the idea of sitting with a sketchbook and sketching and drawing. And I even bought a few years ago a sketchbook for my birthday. I was going to learn how to draw, and I never did. And, you know, it just would've been cool to spend again, this back made a lot of times some great hobby. Just draw. Just stand in your sit in your apartment and just draw the still life you see or go out in nature and just practice or or pick a comic book page and try to draw it just for fun. I don't know.
I feel like right now if I could draw, life would be better. Number 51, walk more. You know, I lived in the city for a long time.
Here's something embarrassing to say. I live right in the middle of Downtown Philadelphia. If you know this, it's at Fifteenth And Locust, and I love going to bookstores just to explore. And there's a bookstore at Eighteenth, Barnes and Noble, I think, and a Borders, I think, at the time. Both were still there, like Eighteenth Street. And it's about four or five blocks away, and I rarely went there because it felt too far. I know.
You know, there was a bar right across the street. There was a bunch of fast food restaurants and takeout places. And so me and my roommate, we would just go right there.
Five blocks is nothing. It's like a vis. Learn how to walk more. Number one, I could have explored so much more of the city just by walking more. Number two, it's so much healthier walking versus, taking a taxi cab. This is before we even Uber or or not walking. Right? Just staying the closest option.
And number three, now I I see so many benefits, so I love walking now. Now that I'm not right downtown and there's nothing to walk to, I just go for walks. So if I had walked more and built that habit and I would've explored so much more, I would've been healthier. I think everything would've been so much better. So walk more, young of each. Walk more. Don't just go to everyone that's within one or two blocks.
Go 10 blocks, 20 blocks. It's worth it. It's awesome. And finally, number 52, try to make it a big one. I would say, Abish, do more improv comedy. Now maybe this doesn't apply as much to 22 year old Abish because at the time, I was running a group. So I was doing, I mean, at the time, we did runs, but then eventually, I was doing two shows a week.
But then, you know, once that group broke up, I stopped doing improv altogether. And then I taught with a group at Temple a little bit here and there. But whether it was me starting another group to do more improv, which I didn't wanna do because of the time I was trying to build my speaking business, but I could've just done a fun thing or just auditioning for another group. And I think part of that was pride. A lot of it was pride. I felt like, well, I ran my own group. Do I really wanna go join someone else's group?
But part of it also was just time and commitment because my schedule was off. I'm like, you know, which again is just an excuse. And but you know what?
I love improv. I love performing improv, and I haven't done much straight improv comedy performance in, like, the last twenty years since I started my speaking business. And I get to I get to perform improv as part of my keynotes and my training. That is great, and I love it. So I'm still doing improv, but, you know, I was really good at it. That's probably where my zone of genius was, and I love doing it. And if I could've found a way of keep doing it, even when I stopped doing it through my own group and started my speaking business, if I could've found a way to keep doing improv and force myself to and stayed in that, a, again, the networking thing, b, the skills thing, and c, the joy thing.
I think that would have made a big difference. And even as I say this now, I think now about my future and think, maybe you should consider that, Abhishe. Maybe you should consider doing improv again because, it fed your soul and you were really good at it, and who knows what additional doors it might open, both in your speaking business and just in your life in general. So there you have it. That was 52 things I would tell 22 year old, Avish. If you are still listening, thank you so much for sticking with me. This was a long one, but hopefully, you picked up one, two, three, four ideas, maybe 52 ideas that resonate with you.
If you like this format, please email me. Let me know, because maybe I'll do something similar next year for 53 or maybe even just something similar, maybe not 52, but maybe something similar in the near future. As I said at the beginning of this episode, I did think about, the 52 format. So if you like this, you know, let me know. And please share this with a friend for this onto someone, maybe a young person who's just starting out who's 22. You're like, this is something this guy did for his younger self. Or maybe it's just to a colleague you have.
I'm like, oh, this is really interesting with some cool ideas in here. I'd like to to check that out. If you wanna learn more about me, go to AvishBarashar.com. You can see about my speaking business, my TEDx talk. My books are all up there. And just a quick disclaimer, my goal when I started this was to go completely extemporaneous after my five minute brainstorm. I will admit, you may have noticed if you watch it, the video, is there were some skips and I did pause a few times.
What I did find is I could have done it extemporaneously, I think, because as I was delivering one, an idea popped in my head. The problem was that I was in the middle of explaining my one idea. And so by the time I finished explaining that idea, that thing that popped in my my head had left my head, and then I was like, oh. So I did have to pause to to rebrainstorm a little bit and to rethink about what I just thought of. So it wasn't fully extemporaneous, but, hopefully, I did it all in one sitting and with only a couple breaks in there to to quickly jot down some additional ideas. So thank you for listening, and be sure to subscribe. Next week, we're gonna have another interview with a great expert, talking about the incredible power of improv comedy and yes. And. Thank you.