What I Would Tell My 18-Year-Old Self

This question arose a few weeks ago, when I participated in the student orientation day at the school where I studied. I felt excited to be able to contribute to the school that saw me grow up.

This is what I would like to tell my 18 year old self.

You are about to enter university. I know how excited it makes you. But also that you believe that from now on, everything will go smoothly, in a linear way. That you will no longer have problems and that you can be happy.

I don’t want to take away your hope. It won’t be like that. But it will be for the best.

I’m not going to tell you exactly what will happen. Maybe if I told you, it wouldn’t happen. But I can give you ideas and tools that I didn’t have, and that I would like to have had.

There are no rules

You have been living in a world full of rules. Get to class at this time. Now it’s time for this subject. This day you have an exam with this syllabus.

And it’s great, because it teaches you to have a schedule and fulfill your responsibilities.

You have been practicing martial arts with defined rules. Left foot, right foot. One, two.

It seems that the path is clear. Until you go out into the working world.

No one will teach you what the next step is. How to find work. What is networking?

And you have to bang your head against the wall until you find the answer. If you don’t have a mentor to guide you.

After that whole process, more than 10 years, I learned that you create the rules. Start studying, trying, moving. You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. You don’t need to go to university to learn engineering, or to tinker.

Work on your personal brand

They are all sales. All.

When you flirt you are selling yourself as a potential partner. When you do a job interview you sell your experience and your skills as a professional.

You are selling all the time.

That is why it is so important to develop public speaking skills. Learn to speak in public. Lose the shame of talking to a stranger. Lose the shame of selling something.

And to learn something, all that’s left is practice.

Go to events. He knows everyone. Show genuine interest in what they do. I got one of the best positions I’ve ever had precisely by attending talks on entrepreneurship and product design.

Ask for advice and help. Most people are flattered and excited to help you.

The only defeat is giving up. Abandon. If you continue, it is not a defeat or a failure. It’s a learning.

Take care of your finances from the first salary

Take advantage of times of abundance to protect yourself in times of scarcity.

Save. With the first salary you open a separate account and put in the automatic 10%. Without thinking about it. Before spending anything. Your first goal is to have an emergency cushion: enough to live on for six months if you lose income tomorrow.

When you have it, invest. Not in fashions. Not in cryptos that a friend recommends to you on WhatsApp. Not in things you don’t understand. Start with index funds: a simple way to invest in hundreds of companies at once, with low fees and without having to guess what’s going up. Time does the work for you thanks to compound interest.

And every time your salary goes up, resist the temptation to raise your lifestyle at the same rate. That margin is what builds long-term freedom.

In a world full of financial noise, look for the signal.

Learn to use artificial intelligence

This didn’t exist when I was your age. Now it exists, and it changes everything.

AI has broken all barriers to entry. What once required a team of ten people — development, marketing, design, finance — can now be done by one person with the right tools. That includes you.

But here’s the nuance: AI executes. You have to know what to ask for. Know what problem to solve, why, for whom. What hurts the client. What makes a product intuitive and not frustrating. How to lead a team, motivate it, share the vision.

Those things can’t be learned by a machine for you. Criterion and judgment are what will differentiate you.

Learn to use it as soon as possible. Not as a substitute for thought, but as a multiplier.

These are tools that will help you along the way. But the most important thing is to know what you want from life. Ilia Topuria, UFC champion, said that it costs the universe the same effort to give you one euro as it does to give you a million. But you have to want it.

When I was at that orientation day, I looked at the 18-year-olds and thought about all this. I wish someone had told me before. That nothing happens if you don’t have a clear path. That blows come, but each one brings you closer to where you want to be.

Visualize it. Believe in it. And go for it.