It’s that time again when I turned 1 year older and got all emotional and reflective. (My 30 things I learned upon my 30th birthday still remains this blog’s most popular post. Thank you for every single read/share 🙏) I turned 31 yesterday so naturally here it is, my 13* things I learned upon turning yet a year older, hopefully a year wiser:

1. Expect less. Experience more. Think about it - would you rather be constantly disappointed or occasionally surprised?

2. Relatability, not pure talent, is what makes most celebrities or influencers take off.

3. EQ, not IQ, is what makes or breaks a leader. You can be a perfectly good individual contributor with great IQ, though.

4. Confidence, not “standard” beauty, is the most attractive attribute about a person.

5. Ideas are overrated. Execution is everything. I said what I said.

6. Don’t take anything too personally. Other people’s actions are almost always not about you, but a reflection of them.

7. Empathy, not display of strength, is what makes a man sexy. (Look up “female gaze”, as opposed to “male gaze”)

8. Normalize Mental Health and self care for men (and women). But especially men, who don’t usually do it. They need to talk about their feelings more.

9. Buy the dip. Sell the peak. Stay in it for the long run. If you know, you know 😉

10. People who have a lot of money, won’t talk about money. Now, replace money with just about anything. Strength, courage, talent, confidence, generosity.

11. We are way past the point of no return for Global Warming and Climate Crisis. Unfortunately, the Earth will get a few degrees warmer every couple of years, the ice caps are melting up north (and with it, come a million+ thousand-year-old viruses and diseases), and extreme weather will be more & more common occasions. For every place in the world that experience the hottest summer in about 100 years or extreme drought and wildfires, there’s a place that fails to handle extreme flood or snow for the first time (!) Tesla stock will continue to rise. More competitors will (hopefully) enter the space. Billionaires will be the first ones to try to escape Earth. (No - they don’t just do so for 11 minutes for fun).

12. The climate crisis is not even the hardest thing we will have to face as a species within 100 year span. There’s also covid. Which, unfortunately, is here to stay. It will be our generation’s defying feature, like World War I and II for the previous generations.

13. The answer to most things… is time. Grief will lessen over time. Children will eventually do the things that they are supposed to do, in time. Time, not money, is the world’s most wanted luxury.

Until next time, thanks for staying alive ✨ If you read until here, I’d like you to pause, take a deep breath, and think of three things you are grateful for. Like Olivia Rodrigo said, it’s Brutal out there. So, be gentle and excellent to each other. Life is hard enough.

** why 13 you asked? I don’t know. It’s the opposite of 31? lol.