Advice to Your Younger Self | E-Neighborhood Advisor

When author Mark Manson turned 30, he asked readers age 37 and over what advice they would give to their 30-year-old selves. He received more than 600 responses and the same pieces of advice came up over and over again. Here are 3 of the most common replies. Start Saving for Retirement Now, Not Later. The most common piece of advice — so common that almost every single email said at least something about it — was to start getting your financial house in order and to start saving for retirement… today. There were a few categories this advice fell into: • Make it your top priority to pay down all of your debt as soon as possible. • Keep an “emergency fund” — there were tons of horror stories about people getting financially ruined by health issues, lawsuits, divorces, bad business deals, etc. • Stash away a portion of every paycheck, preferably into a 401k, an IRA or at the least, a savings account. • Don’t spend frivolously. Don’t buy a home unless you can afford to get a good mortgage with good rates. • Don’t invest in anything you don’t understand. Don’t trust stockbrokers. Start Taking Care of Your Health Now, Not Later We all know to take care of our health. We all know to eat better and sleep better and exercise more and blah, blah, blah. But just as with the retirement savings, the response from the older readers was loud and unanimous: get healthy and stay healthy now. Don’t Spend Time with People Who Don’t Treat You Well After calls to take care of your health and your finances, the most common piece of advice from people looking back at their 30-year-old selves was an interesting one: they would go back and enforce stronger boundaries in their lives and dedicate their time to better people.  People typically struggle with boundaries because they find it difficult to hurt someone else’s feelings, or they get caught up in the desire to change the other person or teach the other person to treat them the way they want to be treated. This never works. And in fact, it often makes it worse. As one reader wisely said, “Selfishness and self-interest are two different things. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.” Your Flooring Consultant, Matt Capell Email: sales@capellinteriors.com Phone (208) 288-0151 Fax (208) 917-6160 P.S. Here's a joke for you! What do you call a hippo that doesn't follow his own advice? A hippo-crite.