The Single Best Piece Of Life Advice For Anyone In Their 20s
By: Nicolas Cole
Tags: Twenty Something, Life Lessons, Life, Life Hacking, Advice

Give up short-term gains for long-term payoffs.

Most young people I know (and keep in mind, I’m only 27) want something now instead of something better later.

There was a study done that sums up the lesson here pretty well, called the Marshmallow Test.

Basically, they gave kids a marshmallow and told them if they waited ~15 minutes and didn’t eat it, they’d get a second marshmallow later.

What they found was that the kids who were able to resist the urge to eat the first marshmallow (showing signs of self-control and discipline at a very young age) went on to have more successful and enjoyable lives and careers.

Reason being: great things in life require patience. And short-term rewards (like marshmellows) often seem great in the moment, but end up being unhealthy and short lived.

Whenever I hear someone talking about their work, career, or where they want to go in life, I often ask them what they’re currently doing to move themselves one step closer to where they want to be.

The vast majority point to chasing short-term rewards — and that’s the problem.

Something a lot of people don’t know about me is how much work I end up doing for free.

I’m at a point in my career where I literally don’t have to go out and sell — I wake up to more opportunities than I have time for in my inbox.

Because of my personal brand online as a writer, an hour of my time is expensive — and I charge accordingly.

And yet, still, I do free work.

And I do it because I see those as opportunities to sacrifice the short-term gain (a few hundred or even few thousand dollars) for the longer-term payoff.

An introduction to someone more valuable.

A bigger, more profitable project.

A reduction of risk (I do something new and outside my comfortable for free, so that if things go well, it leads to something bigger — and if things don’t go well, no money was exchanged and so expectations are lower)

Nurturing a relationship I know can’t be measured accurately in dollars.

Trades of service

Etc.

For 4 years after I graduated college with a degree in creative writing, I worked for free. I didn’t charge for anything.

And the reason was, by not charging I could find opportunities faster (who doesn’t love free work?) and I could shorten my learning curve because I could fail faster. When money is involved, expectations are set. When money isn’t involved, people set lower expectations, which allows you more freedom to try new things and grow.

I didn’t charge.

Didn’t charge.

Didn’t charge.

Meanwhile…

I stacked work under my belt. And failed. And learned. And gained credibility for myself as a writer, and the work I did.

I recently stopped by my college, where I studied creative writing. I was meeting with an old teacher of mine, when I saw another teacher in the hallway.

“Hey Cole! I’m teaching a class right now — you should come by and share with my students what you’ve learned, now that you’re a successful writer and all.”

I walked into the class and took a seat at the front.

“Cole, what’s 1 piece of advice for becoming a full-time writer?” he said. “Write for free,” I said.

The classroom fell silent — and my teacher interrupted with, “Well, not free. I think what he means is…”.

I cut him off.

“Nope. Free. 0 dollars. Do it all for free, until you’ve gained the credibility you need,” I said.

Everybody looked at me like I was crazy. But I was telling the truth.

For 4 years, I wrote for free.

In the process, I became a 3x Top Writer. A Top 30 columnist for Inc Magazine. A ghostwriter to 20+ different CEOs and executives. And a writer on the Internet with a personal brand and tens of millions of views on my content.

The moment I started charging for my time as a writer, I skipped the whole $20 per article phase.

I was charging $150 per article out the gate. And then $200. And then $300.

The highest I’ve charged yet to ghostwrite an article is $1,000.

And the reasons I am able to do that are:

I learned hard lessons in the trenches (with no risk — because I was working for free)

I got hundreds of hours of practice under my belt.

I had built credibility by the people I had written for, and my own writing having been republished everywhere on the Internet (generating tens of millions of views)

Or, put more simply…

I gave up short-term rewards for the longer-term payoff.