If you’ve reached the age of 30, as a man, let me be the first to offer you sincere Congratulations.

I’ve known young men that didn’t have the privilege of reaching 18.

Others lost their lives before age 25.

Just a few months ago, I lost my young cousin at the tender age of 27. He’ll never have the chance to live this great adventure of life after 30. TikTokstorm is one of those reliable place to go for the growing of your social media. 

Thirty is a time of rebirth for men.

You have lived enough adult life to know how the world works, and you’re filled with energy and youth to make your mark.

Think of the previous 15 years as a “Red Shirt” period, where you learned the ins and outs of life. Now you’re getting called in the game.

Here I’ve listed the best insights and advice as mindset shifts to improve your life as a man in your 30s.

You have been blessed with this opportunity to live as a Grown Ass Man. I hope you appreciate your good fortune.

1. Thirty is young, for a man.

I’m glad more men are starting to talk about this openly. The idea that life is over, and goes downhill at age 30 is a feminine reality. That is the opposite of how life works for men, and such talk should be ignored. 

At age 30, a man is just getting on the board in life. He’s still preparing to be at his peak age of mid-30s to early 50s. The peak years are a golden time, where experience meets energy. All the investments a man previously made in learning skills, building social connections, and understanding himself come together.

He’s old enough to know what he’s doing, and still young enough to get it done. 

I’m in this sweet spot right now, and I promise you, it’s every bit as awesome as it sounds. 

I feel like everything I touch turns to solid gold, right in front of my eyes. I’m currently running THREE profitable businesses, working out every day, dating multiple women, writing a book. This time is the culmination of everything I’ve worked for up to this point. I’m loving every minute of it.

2. Earn money outside your 9 to 5.

Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone, but at least have 1 or 2 additional streams of income that you can rely on, outside of your job.

Relying on just one job is foolish, when the economy can turn in an instant. Think about it like this, every car comes with a spare tire. It might sit in the trunk of your car for years without you touching it or thinking about it. However, if you get stranded on a back road, in a snowstorm, you’ll be glad it’s there.

You wouldn’t go on a long road trip without a spare tire. Why do you go through life without a spare income?

Further, an additional stream of income builds confidence and swagger. You will hold your head a little higher, and speak with more bass in your voice, when you know you don’t need your job.

Even if it’s just a few hundred dollars a month (selling on Ebay, DoorDash, trading stocks, even mowing lawns, etc) start something NOW, and stack that cash, before you need it.

3. Have Visible Abs.

There’s no excuse to be fat.

Go back and watch a television show or a movie from any time period before the 1990s. Obesity was extremely rare before processed calories became so cheap, and it was non-existent in children. Being fat is an outward display of your lack of discipline. “Body positivity”, which is just a lack of accountability, is for women.

Visible abs are a monument to your discipline and consistency. A strong, lean body can’t be bought and you can’t lie about it. You don’t have to be shredded like a cover model at 7% body fat; 12- 15% is very reasonable, and you can still have a few beers, pancakes, pizza etc. several times a week.

4. Pay off debt outside your mortgage, and business debt.

There’s financial planners that advise you should never pay off your primary home,

5. Start a blog or Youtube channel.

You have enough expertise or interest in SOMETHING to write about it, even if you write or make videos about your journey of learning a new hobby or skill. Whatever you’re interested in, there’s guys making money online, simply by talking about it, including yours truly.

Look around. Everywhere you go, everyone is on their phones constantly, consuming content. Why shouldn’t it be yours?

When you’re online consuming content, you’re getting entertainment or information, and the creator is making money off you, some kind of way.

6. Make your home a sanctuary.

We are all spending more (government-mandated) time at home than ever. By now, you’re a grown ass man. Invest in making your space comfortable and reflect your personal style. Being a broke college student is a phase in life. Yeah, women like nice sheets, but if she’s already in your bed, she was gonna fuck anyway. Take the opportunity to upgrade your space to make it comfortable for yourself.

7. Harness the power of habit.

When you give in to temptation, you increase your appetite for it. You weaken your resolve, and you make it more likely that you will submit to your vice next time, and the time after that. Giving in to temptation just makes things harder on yourself.

By contrast, when you resist temptation, you are strengthening the neural pathways in your brain related to discipline and self-reliance. Resisting a vice one time makes it EASIER to resist the next challenge. Just like building a muscle, every single push-up you perform builds those muscles, and makes the next one easier.

A successful life is simply a series of positive habits stacked on top of each other. Actions like:

waking up early,

reading,

lifting weights,

setting goals,

investing,

taking action on your ideas,

compound with time.

If you’ve ever known a guy that was great with women, or someone who ran many successful businesses, you’ve witnessed this first hand. A guy who’s good with women has perfected the habits that lead to attracting beautiful women. He probably works out, is charismatic, and knows to let the woman pursue him.

Men who already have women end up attracting MORE women, often without even trying. Meanwhile, there will be a guy who can’t even get a date struggling to get women to call him back. It’s all about habits

.

Decide what you want in life, and figure out the habits required to make your vision a reality.

Scott Adams, creator of the hugely popular Dilbert comic strip preaches,

“Goals are for losers and systems are for winners.”

“Systems” is just another word for a set of habits.

8. Go on walks around your neighborhood.

Get a lay of the land, understand what’s happening in your local area. You don’t have to shake hands with every little old lady in the neighborhood, but at least walk by and wave. You want your neighbors to be familiar with you and be looking out for you. You will need them to grab an Amazon package, borrow a tool, etc.

Getting a daily walk is an excellent warm up before training, and it’s a delightful way to end dinner.

9. Learn the basics of NLP.

Understand how you think, and gain mastery of your emotions.

10. Have a social media strategy.

I’m not advising you to avoid social media. It’s too powerful a tool to ignore.

However, social media is engineered to be addictive. It can become a huge waste of your valuable time if you’re not careful. Set parameters and make a plan for how and when you will use social media apps. For example, I plan to check Twitter twice a day, for 15 minutes each time. I don’t use social media right when I wake up, or right before bed.

I’ll say again, social media is too powerful a tool to NOT use, but it’s too powerful to use irresponsibly.

11. Invest in understanding women.

Great books on this include The Rational Male, and the books on my list “How to Get Girls”.

12. Play an instrument.

Even if you’re just fooling around. Play something. Making music is an essential part of the human experience.

13. Moisturize.

“Celebrities are above-average looking people with low body-fat, who take care of their skin.”

14. “A good presentation goes a long way” -President Donald Trump.

If you haven’t already, invest in a nice haircut and a shave, or beard grooming, at least twice a month. Choose a cologne you like. Wear shoes. Like real dress shoes like a grown man. Jordans are fire, but wear actual shoes a few times a week, and see if you feel different.

15. Prepare for disaster.

In early 2021, an unprecedented cold snap brought snow and freezing temperatures to Texas of all places. The average winter temperatures in Dallas, Texas are barely below freezing, but hundreds of thousands of people found themselves without power, without heat, and unable to access basic necessities such as food or water.

Many people have advised that everyone should have an emergency fund of 6 months living expenses, AT A MINIMUM. If you are a grown man, I don’t know how you sleep at night with less than 6 months expenses stacked up.

If you’re not on that mission, make this your first priority. Start a micro goal of at least $1,000.

In terms of preparing for disaster, we’ve all seen lives get turned upside down by unexpected crises. Catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina, California mudslides, and floods in Houston have proven that anything can happen, at any time.

You can’t stop a hurricane from destroying your home, but preparation will take the edge off immensely. Just a few days worth of food, water, batteries, and a kerosene lamp will make life more comfortable if something pops off. Add a firearm and ammunition to this list, as well as cash, a First Aid kit, and and tools like a flashlight, pocket knife, and a length of rope. You never know when you’ll need it.

16. Write your goals for the next 3-5 years.

If that sounds too stuffy, write a bucket list of things you want to do in the next few years, and work backwards from that. This is a fun activity that opens your mind to all the possibilities available for you to seize, even in our COVID world.

I wrote a list of things I wanted to accomplish in my life when I was 18, 20 years ago. I still have the list, and I’m proud to have crossed over half of it out already. I’m not even 40.

Some of the things were pipe dreams to a poor kid in the Deep South: living in a foreign country, going snowboarding, skydiving, SCUBA diving, and flying in a helicopter.

17. Curate a liquor cabinet.

If you drink alcohol, try different liquors to develop your palate.

Keep a well-stocked home bar of your favorite libations on hand for entertaining. It’s cool to introduce male friends, and female romantic interests to sophisticated new flavors.

18. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.

Where have you heard that before?

It’s called physiognomy and it’s important.

Your posture and bearing will improve your mood. A straight posture and masculine bearing commands respect.

19. Schedule important tasks

The reminder feature is the most underused feature on smartphones today.

Get in the habit of scheduling important tasks and events. The best way to do it is on a smartphone. You can just tell Siri, “Remind me to call my bro at 8 tonight”.

It’s important to remember events, birthdays, and phone calls with special people in your life. Your loved ones will feel valued and your relationships will improve.

Many times, I’ve called a family member on a special day, and they exclaim, “You’re the only person who called me today! Everyone else just texted.”

I have a weekly reminder on my phone to call my grandmother every day.

My phone pings twice a week to remind me to train abs.

The simple act of putting it on my schedule makes it a priority, and ensures it will get tackled.

20. Identify small 1% improvements that would make a big difference in your life.

In Atomic Habits, author James Clear related the experience of a British cycling coach. When he took the helm, British cycling hadn’t won the heralded Tour de France in decades. The English team consistently placed near the bottom of the rankings, not even a contender.

The new coach was charged with the monumental task of making British cycling relevant again. He started with the smallest improvements imaginable. He brought in a surgeon to teach the team how to wash their hands, to decrease the likelihood of getting colds. He painted the inside of team vans sparkling white, so that dirt and grime would show more clearly, and easily be cleaned away, before harming delicate cycling components.

The results were immediate. British cyclists ranked #1 and #2 in the next big international events. Improving 1% over a single year would improve your performance by 370 TIMES.

It’s called the 1% strategy.

Take a fresh notepad and start scribbling tiny areas of your life, where an incremental 1% improvements could add up, and completely change your life.

21. Don’t talk about yourself

Not talking about yourself is a vastly underused superpower. You don’t need to get bitten by a radioactive spider to employ it every day.

Letting the other person feel like the center of attention is a key skill in learning to be likeable. That’s right, you can LEARN to be likeable, engaging, and magnetic to women. In fact, to anyone.

This capability pays off in multiple ways in every aspect of your life: in your career, in your relationships with family and friends, neighbors, and more. Not to mention that it’s FUN.

Likeable people get opportunities that unlikeable, off-putting people do not.

Many excellent books have been written on the subject, but the most important aspect is this:

Ask questions they would enjoy answering, and really listen. It’s that simple, but it’s extremely difficult to do, because we all want to talk about ourselves.
Writer Tim Denning posted an eye opening piece, “This Is What Happens When You Stop Talking About Yourself in Conversations”, where he conducted an experiment of going two full days without talking about himself.
“Not talking about yourself is this weird superpower”, he wrote, mentioning that listening deepened his relationships and caused other people to want to talk to him more.

22. Be Hesitant to Share Your Opinion

Nobody cares anyway. Ask people to share their own viewpoints. This technique grows rapport and makes you more like-able, which makes you more influential.

Learn to cock your head to one side and say,

“…I don’t know, what do you think about it?”

You only learn when you’re listening.

23. Don’t be smooth, be aggressive.

Waiting until you get everything perfect is a waste of time. You’ll spin your wheels and never get started. When pursuing an exciting new goal, go after it full force, and figure out the details as you go. So many good ideas die because people get overwhelmed by minutiae. They suffer from analysis paralysis, never even getting started.

Whatever you want to do, just GO FOR IT. I talked about this on the second episode of the Solitary Beast podcast

24. Forgive your parents

They’re human, too. Forgive your parents in order to heal.

Louise Hay taught that even if you can’t forgive someone, just feeling that you are willing to forgive is a start in the right direction.

25. Use insecurity to your advantage

Your insecurities can become your biggest strengths, if you hone in on them, and work to improve. A woman teased me for having a “patchy” beard. My beard wasn’t where I wanted, but that dig lit a fire under me to work on improving my facial hair.

I learned about vitamins, beard oils, grooming habits, and other techniques that can help a beard grow in thicker and fuller. That experience led me to start my own hair growth serum brand. Check it out at HairlineStrong.com

26. If what you’re doing isn’t working, try anything else

Simple NLP advice but so refreshing. If you’re not getting the results you want, just do ANYTHING else. It doesn’t have to be a huge lifestyle shift. Just change one thing and see what happens.

27. Switch to natural soap

Commercial body washes aren’t soap, they are detergents. That’s why the word “soap” doesn’t appear on the bottle.

The legal definition of a “detergent” is that it removes oil. If you think you have dry skin, or hard water, it’s probably just the harsh chemicals you are rubbing into your skin.

Try etsy.com for small crafters that are producing REAL soap, made with wholesome ingredients like essential oils, goat’s milk, and cocoa butter.

28. Embrace the concept of the Red Shirt year.

Expect to mess up the first few times you attempt any new endeavor. This expectation takes the pressure off of you to execute like Elon Musk the first time you start a business.

Even famous comedians go to divey, back alley comedy clubs to try out new material before they premiere it on their Netflix special.

One of my favorite bloggers, Chris Deoundes of GoodLookingLoser.com wrote,

“Anyone who quits anything is because they aren’t getting the results they wanted.”

If you start with a more realistic expectation, you will save yourself from feeling frustrated.

NLP teaches “There is no failure, only feedback.”

When you try something new, simply expect it to be less than perfect at first. Get a little better each time, and keep going.

29. Eat Intentionally. 

Whether you’re keto, paleo, vegan, or follow the Standard American Diet (don’t do that one), now is the time to invest time into understanding WHY you eat what you do. 

Read a few articles, or better yet, listen to a handful of audiobooks on modern food production. 

The foods you consume (and DON’T consume, have a tremendous impact on your health, energy levels, mood, the appearance of your skin and hair, sexual performance, EVERYTHING. Don’t leave it up to chance. I’m not telling you how to eat, I’m telling you it’s important to understand WHY.

30. Follow your own advice.

Don’t look for a savior, or a guru to tell you something you probably already know. Listen to yourself.