This is not a motivational article.

I am not here to tell you to think positive. These are life lessons I wrote down in my notebook, because they are the things that have actually helped me. Some are about work, some are about health, some are about the kind of person you are becoming.

Take what is useful. Leave the rest.

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1. Do hard things

I was at ALX’s hub at The Piano on Brookside Drive in Westlands the other day. On the wall, they have a statement that says, “Do hard things.”

It stuck with me, because that is exactly how I try to work. Do the things other people do not want to do.

Could you post 25 times a day for a year?

How many people can post 25 times a day on Facebook, every single day, for a whole year, without expecting any results?

Very few. And that is exactly what I will do.

Somebody tells you to post 2 videos a day on YouTube. You think, how do I film, edit and post all of that? It is hard. That is exactly why I want to do it. The more I do it, the more I get paid.

“Elvis is always selling courses”

Many people complain that I am always selling courses.

That thing you are complaining about is hard. It takes a lot of work, consistently, for a long time. That is exactly why I do it.

Doing hard things has allowed me to make good money. In a good month, around 500,000 shillings. Sometimes it goes up. Sometimes it goes down.

Am I living a bad life? No. I am happy. I eat well. I take care of my woman, and she is okay.

But all of it comes from doing the things most people find uncomfortable.

Why billionaires stay billionaires

People love to complain about billionaires like Aliko Dangote. But a lot of what he does, very few people have the stomach to attempt.

That is part of why some people keep winning. They are willing to do the hard thing everyone else avoids.

2. Write down your thoughts

When you have something in your head, it stays in your head.

An idea stays in your head. A post idea stays in your head. The problems you are carrying stay in your head, because you never pour them out.

Learn how to journal. Any thought you are having, write it down.

I wrote down every point in this article before I recorded the video. That is how much I believe in it.

3. Never stop learning

Education does not end when you graduate.

Graduation means you have finished at an institution. The real education, the education of life, begins when you leave school.

Learning does not stop, no matter your age or where you come from. You do not always need a course either. You can learn from experience.

But do take courses. Go to Udemy. Go to Click2Skill. Learn skills, because skills are what will actually help you.

4. Control your social media addiction

Social media is one of the biggest distractions in people’s lives today.

Have you noticed how you open TikTok, and 6 hours later you are still scrolling? How are you ever going to build something meaningful if that is how you spend your days?

Why I delete the apps myself

Sometimes I intentionally remove TikTok, Facebook and Instagram from my phone. I am left with YouTube only.

YouTube is different for me because it pushes you towards long form content that you choose to watch or listen to. You are not just being fed whatever comes next.

Try it. Can you go just 1 week without those apps?

You might want to build something. Start a business. Focus on learning a skill. But you cannot, because of doom scrolling. Control it.

5. Watch what you eat

You become what you eat.

People like to make fun of anyone who talks about healthy living. “We only live once.” Wait until you are sick. You will not be thinking about making money or drinking. You will only be thinking about one thing, your health.

Your health is your wealth.

Eat the right kind of food. Do the right kind of activities. Pay attention to everything you put in your body.

I have also found intermittent fasting very helpful. I wrote about how I do it in my article on personal health tips.

And as always, I am not a doctor. If you have a health condition, talk to one before changing how you eat.

6. Use AI properly

We now have so many AI tools. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Kling. New models are coming out left, right and centre.

AI gives anyone living today the chance to build things that used to need 5 people. You can now do it yourself.

I have one person and Claude

People think I have a big team. I do not.

At the moment I have only one person working with me. And I have Claude.

Learn how to use these tools properly. Take an AI tool like Claude. You can use it to:

• Write social media posts
• Generate captions and YouTube descriptions
• Plan courses
• Build content strategies and digital marketing strategies
• Write code
• Create presentations, documents and reports

Take advantage of these tools today.

7. The most important decision is who you become

Let me say it twice, because it matters.

The most important decision you will make is who you become, not who you marry.

Many videos will tell you to be very careful about the person you marry. Fine. But who are you as a human being? You might be a terrible partner yourself, while in your head you are busy setting standards for the other person.

Have you looked at yourself? That is the first question.

I had to ask myself the same question

I had to have this conversation with myself too.

I used to look at women with certain expectations. But I was not pointing the finger at myself and asking, who am I?

You attract who you become. Become a demon, and you attract demons. Become an angel, and you attract angels. Yes, life brings both in mixed proportions. But a good person is a good person, and a bad person is a bad person.

If you focus too much on who you should marry, you are focusing on the wrong thing. Focus on who you are becoming. Become better, and you attract better. Become worse, and you attract worse.

8. You have a brain, so think for yourself

People insult me online all the time.

But I am not here to run your life, and you are not here to run mine. Your life is shaped by your own decisions, and your decisions come from your own head.

If you look at my YouTube channel, I have a very clear statement there. Think for yourself.

As an adult, you were given a brain so you can think.

We live in a world where many people struggle to tell right from wrong. Not everything online is right. Not everything online is wrong. You have to decide.

So if you choose to be toxic because somebody on social media is toxic, that is your choice. And choices have consequences.

9. If it does not sit right with you, do not do it

You are not here to impress anyone.

Say everyone in your circle of friends is deep into drugs. You do not want to look like the odd one out, so you join in to keep your so called friends happy.

The consequences of that decision will be yours alone. Not theirs.

If something does not feel right to you, it is completely okay to say, “I am not doing that.” You have a brain for a reason.

10. People will talk either way

People will talk about you whether you do something or not.

Start sharing advice on TikTok, business knowledge, data analysis, whatever you know, and you will get attention. Some of it will be criticism.

Take a web designer or a graphic designer. Start creating content and people will say you are showing off. Stay quiet and people will say you have no clients.

Since people will talk either way, the only person you need to impress is you. So do it.

11. Every decision is an investment

This is the shortest of these life lessons. Every decision you make today, good or bad, is an investment in the person you are becoming.

Read that again.

12. Learn from your friends, both ways

Your friends are a free case study.

Some of your friends have picked up habits that have been very damaging to them. Does it make sense for you to repeat the same thing? It does not. But many people never learn from it, because they do not pay attention.

It works the other way too. Some of your friends have become successful. You have watched them grow, build something and see it through. That is also a lesson.

Learn from both. If you are too blind to see either, you will keep repeating what others already learned the hard way.

13. You are only here to impress yourself

Of all these life lessons, I finish with the one I started with. Do hard things.

You are not here to impress anyone else. You try so hard to impress your peers and everyone around you, and you forget about yourself.

The truth is, most people do not care. They are not watching your progress. They have nothing to say about it.

But you will always have something to say about yourself, whether you move or you do not.

So do the hard things.

Learn something hard this month

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Over the past 2 years we have run masterclasses on artificial intelligence, graphic design, web design, video editing and much more. We have even run a cohort on vibe coding. With a subscription, you get access to all of that material and learn at your own pace.

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— Elvis W.