things I wish I knew in my twins travel more for leisure yes I traveled I've been all around the world we have a whole video dedicated to all the countries I've been to but most of them were for work I would fly to China for a day and a half and then fly right back I would fly to Monaco to do my TED Talk and fly right back I never truly got exposed to the cultures of these nations that I was visiting and I felt like if I did I could have grown more as an individual where sunblock oh my God how many times was I playing soccer outside and I didn't wear sunblock and as a result I was burned therefore my skin is showing signs of what I like to say is premature aging it increases my risk for skin cancer later in life because I had more than several Burns and it's such an easy thing to do we're all trying to play catch-up by doing Botox fillers and all this stuff when in reality the preventive stuff is what works don't put an over emphasis on the future certainly think about the future plan have a five and ten year plan all that good stuff that people talk about but don't think the future has a Finish Line I'm guilty of this myself when I was in medical school I would say oh my God once I finish medical school it's going to be great once I finish residency it's going to be great once I hit a million Subs it'll be great once I hit 10 million times this is all factually untrue you have to enjoy the present and I'm not saying you have to force yourself to enjoy the present or anything cheesy like that just take time during the day during the night to think about what went on to think about the unique experiences you had because ultimately those experiences will change and if you didn't enjoy them then odds are you won't enjoy them later devote more time to sustaining friendships from high school and or college it's very easy in your 20s and even into your 30s to create distance within friendships accidentally someone moves away someone finds a relationship someone starts a new job send that text message do a check-in have a phone call on your car speaker when you're driving home from work it truly goes a long way the older you get the less of those friendships you maintain and you're going to kick yourself in the in the bum for doing that learn to cook right now I am not a Master Chef I am Master ubereats seamless order that is not ideal if I learned to cook in my 20s I would have had a great hobby used it for dating purposes been healthier because when you cook for yourself it's odds are then it's healthier than ordering out and you can use it as a creative Outlet creating your own dish putting spices doing all this cool stuff you also become better at understanding calories and macronutrients earlier on in your life oh and not to mention that it saves money start investing earlier I always knew when I was younger that the most valuable investment would be investing into my future knowledge skill set that's absolutely true and I don't regret doing that but if I invested even a small amount of money in my early 20s that would have compounded into such a good quality savings account and you don't have to do something very unique a lot of people think you need to be a master stock picker or had to get in early with cryptocurrency no invest in the indices buy the s p and forget about it let it just sit there and collect that interest spend more time with parents I think this one's kind of a universal one when we're in our 20s we're excited we're going out a lot we're going to events and we kind of put our parents on the back burner I learned firsthand this was a mistake for me in my early 20s at least when I lost my mom because I didn't get to spend enough time with her so don't waste those moments invest your time that you have with your family don't buy brand name stuff just to show off oh my God I did that probably more than I'd like and I will say to give my younger self credit I I did it for others as well so I would try and buy expensive gifts for my friends my girlfriends not a smart way to spend money you buy you know thousand dollar shoes two thousand dollar handbag and you're like for what that bag is worthless now those shoes are worthless the moment you walk out of the store No One's Gonna think you're a Mega millionaire when you're 21 anyway who are you fooling but this doesn't go the same for watches that is more of an alternative investment sign up for more leaks man I wish I did this when I first came to America most of the friends that I made were because of leagues I signed up for soccer Little League Baseball Taekwondo but in my 20s for some reason after college I was like I don't have time for leagues I wish I did you could meet so many people like participating in a league you could play pick up basketball frisbee flag football I wish I did those because I could have meant like-minded individuals created long-term lifelong friendships there take it easy with the milkshakes and snicker bars this isn't about punishing yourself I just know that I probably was a little bit too loose with my diet early on especially in my late teens early 20s I would be eating like two snicker bars a day muffins milkshakes all this really unhealthy stuff because I thought I was young and it's fine the foundation of the health of your arteries starts getting impacted in your late teens early 20s you literally start forming those early layers of plaques in your blood vessels and to make that plaque go away it takes a lot of work a lot of discipline so it's easier to not have it become a problem by just controlling those binges of the Snicker bars and milkshakes everyone is Faking it I would rotate with doctors when I was in my 20s cardiologist neurologist and I would assume that they have it all figured out I would meet someone who was very wealthy and assume they have it figured out and after spending enough time with them I quickly came to the conclusion that we're all faking it that we're all just trying to do our best and figure it out some are faking it more than others obviously the takeaway that I have that I would give myself then be as prepared as you can be but then learn from the outcome you can't control the outcome fully life is too unpredictable there are too many variables all you can do is what's in your power the time you have available your genetics your innate ability use that use it to the best of your ability and then see what happens and then do kind of a a postmortem analysis what went wrong what could you have done better would you do really well give yourself a pat on the back perform more injury prevention exercises and I'm not just talking about stretching I'm talking about doing shoulder stability work getting that scapula stable making sure that my rotator cuff muscles are well supported if I did that early on I wouldn't have a tear of my rotator cuff two tears of my labor up all because I thought the only way to gain strength is by putting on 300 pounds and bench pressing it but it's not only shoulder related it's hip related stretching longevity everything improves when you focus on stability range of motion not just on power don't discount sleep this is probably my worst Health Habit in my 20s and I'm already feel like I'm starting to regret it now but this is something that pays dividends in your later years if you do take care of your sleep too often I would cram for exams not sleep work all hours of the night not sleep stay out my friends and then try and go to class in the morning not sleep I wish I could have those hours back to get those quality Z's do stuff alone this is something that was probably the biggest challenge in my uh younger years unless one of my friends would come with me to do something I wouldn't go out I would just stay home waiting for them to become available and the only time that I remember that I pushed myself outside of the comfort zone to go do that was after my mom passed away I was asking my friends to go do stuff and they just didn't want to and I forced myself to buy a Groupon and go boxing and look what's happened just 10 years later I became a professional boxer so you never know where going alone will take you it could be quite an interesting path and by the way as you get older you're going to be doing more stuff alone so learn to enjoy your own company listen to the classics and I'm not talking about music I'm talking about the books I'm a big audible fan as you know from my other videos but if you listen to the classics you're going to be faster at figuring out certain aspects of life I have some friends that I was amazing friends with in my late teens and early 20s that recently picked up reading they were in big readers fair but now that they're just beginning to read certain books they're coming up with the ideas that I've sort of been navigating and already trying to figure out for the last five to ten years so you can sort of accelerate this process by picking up those early books starting with a good foundation and then figuring out Life along the way don't rush into relationships I don't know if I watched Friends one too many times or what I thought every relationship that I got into was it and yes I want you to be optimistic and think everything is going to work out but I felt like after I would go on a first date with somebody right away I would say that this person is either fully compatible and they're going to be my potential future wife or not at all and it would end right there give relationships some time to form allow yourself some patience in figuring out if this person is right for you those are all the things I wish I knew in my 20s or did in my 20s but there are three things that I did in my 20s that I think pay dividends and I'm proud of myself for doing don't worry so much about money when it comes to choosing your career money and financial success comes from creation of value not the career itself so many times people would ask me Mike why are you going into Family Medicine it doesn't pay as much as plastic surgery or this or that it's not important what's important is do you get enjoyment is there a satisfaction with the work are you going to create value for other people in this world by going into this field I answered All Those Questions yes and I find myself in a very financially rewarded position even though I went into a field that traditionally doesn't pay as much so Focus Less on that and focus on the other variables much much more spread success to your friend group to your acquaintances and don't ask or expect for money in return this is something I always found strange that when I created a connection between somebody or I introduced someone for business contact they immediately wanted a reward with money or give you some middlemen fee I am not interested in that at all I want all the people around me to succeed we want to build each other up and when you create this network of rewarding each other through your friendships and caring for one another that's where the biggest reward comes from it's not from getting a hundred bucks for helping someone out here or getting some 10 fee of some deal here that's not what it's about create your own path certainly take advice and inspiration from others those who have more experience or perhaps wiser than you but be a Trailblazer a disrupter try to do things differently disrupt Industries look what's working and what's not working and then try and figure it out for me being a young doctor that saw a gap within the medical media space I knew I had to act I knew I wanted to put my stamp on this world and I wanted to do it differently so I was proud of myself that I did that but if you can find that within you to say yes I'm a big fan of Michael Jordan don't try and be Michael Jordan try to be better than Michael Jordan if you want to be a medical influencer do it better than me don't strive to be me learn from the mistakes I've made but then also learn from what I did well and improve upon it some of these wacky Health Products on goop need to be reviewed Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank and I take them on in this video as always stay happy and healthy foreign