38 Lessons To Get Healthy & Wealthy

I turned 38 in October, and instead of trading my roadbike for orthopedic shoes, I’m basically reverse-aging—happier, healthier, and with fewer existential crises than my 22-year-old self.

As I get older, healthy habits seem to get easier and easier. Who knew dodging chips I use to can’t stop eating and riding bikes in the rain could become as routine as breathing?

Back in my day—okay, fine, the ’90s—everyone I knew treated turning 25 like a death sentence. I never gave it a second thought—probably because I was too busy perfecting my eyeliner wing.

Now, longevity science is my hype man: Turns out, if you believe you’re over the hill, your body high-fives that delusion and speeds up the slide because you’ll unconsciously embody the mindset and behaviours of older people, like sighing at youth and hoarding coupons.

A landmark study led by Yale psychologist Becca Levy, published in 2002, tracked 660 older adults over 23 years and found that those with more positive self-perceptions of aging—assessed up to 23 years earlier—lived an average of 7.5 years longer than those with negative views, even after adjusting for factors like health, education, and socioeconomic status. Remarkably, this longevity boost surpassed the benefits of low blood pressure, not smoking, or regular exercise. Levy’s work shows how age stereotypes can become self-fulfilling prophecies, subtly shaping cardiovascular health, cognitive function, and overall resilience through mindset alone.

In other words, your brain is basically a grumpy GPS: Tell it you’re “old,” and it’ll route you straight to the early bird special.

But if you simply think young? You could stay vibrant forever—embodying the energy, curiosity, and habits of youth well into later years, like blasting pop music at 80 and still attempting TikTok dances, thinking we are still cool and relevant. I don’t know you, but my brain still feels like it’s still 17 sometimes.

At Longevity Palace, we avoid receipts and plastics like the plague, wear blue light blockers after the sunsets, and take NMN, collagen, and creatine religiously. People call us crazy, but it’s our normal in this upside-down world—where “self-care” means doom-scrolling until 2 a.m.— but guess what, if you want to age unapologetically, there have to be ground rules.

There’s so much more to share, but here are 38 lessons from 38 chronological years on this earth:

1. The best career hack you’ll ever make is marrying the right person. (Or, as I like to call it, outsourcing your emotional support to a fellow masochist.)
2. Inner peace always trumps time or money.
3. Treat health like wealth: Invest in it as your most prized asset.
4. Keep your standards sky-high. Raise the bar for yourself first—others will follow. Mediocrity spreads like a virus.
5. Your biggest enemy isn’t failure, it’s mediocrity: average job, average relationships, average effort. This is why the middle class will always be middle class. Comfort breeds complacency; average is where dreams flatline.
6. Do what you say you’ll do. Never lie to yourself; your brain logs every pattern. Self-integrity is non-negotiable.
7. Criticize yourself rigorously. We’re often too lenient—become your toughest coach.
8. Habit change starts small and daily. They compound: The you in five years is built by today’s choices.
9. Always choose the hard path. Train your mind for adversity—life will never go easy on you. (It’s like gym memberships: You pay whether you show up or not.)
10. Adaptability is your ultimate superpower. Life throws curveballs; craft plans that flex, not shatter. Perfection is a myth—it’s just procrastination in a fancy hat.
11. High-five your triggers, don’t ghost them— they’re goldmines of self-insight. They’re neon signs screaming, “fix this, idiot.” Ignore, and you’re just collecting emotional baggage fees.
12. Victim mode: Logout immediately. It’s the emotional equivalent of fast fashion—feels empowering till it falls apart and you’re left with crumbs.
13. Cultivate a spiritual practice that draws you inward (meditation, prayer, or staring at the ceiling—whatever quiets the inner critic).
14. Learn to be disliked. It’s not your job to make 8 billion people like you— how exhausting! Life begins when you stop caring about what other people think. Don’t ever dim your light because everyone’s afraid to step into theirs. What a dark place the world would be!
15. Work hard, recover harder. Just like growing muscles, the magic happens when you are rejuvenating.
16. Einstein says time is a man-made concept. “I don’t have time” really means “I don’t want to” (or “I’m allergic to adulting today”).
17. Be ruthlessly selective. Your circle moulds your habits and mindset. Auditing your environment is the greatest life hack.
18. Don’t compare your journey to somebody else’s.
19. Distraction masks discomfort. Swap it for traction.
20. Learn something new every day to prevent brain rot.
21. Get in rooms where your dreams are others’ realities.
22. Surround yourself with friends who call out your BS.
23. Thinking fixes nothing. Action transforms everything.
24. Celebrate progress. Every step forward deserves recognition.
25. Look the part. Dressing well boosts your confidence and energy.
26. Time doesn’t heal; action does. It demands processing and growth.
27. Life isn’t about finding yourself—it’s about creating yourself. You create your reality.
28. Nail your morning routine: It sets the tone for the day. Begin with calm, nature, and sunlight.
29. Measure the gain, not the gap. Focus on how far you’ve already come, not how far you still have to go.
30. Big problems? They’re disguised opportunities. Life’s endless puzzles sharpen your solving skills—master them.
31. Want it? Ask. Minds aren’t read. Odds are 50/50—seize them. “No” builds rejection-proof skin; it’s redirection, not defeat.
32. Invest in long-term possessions. Anything you’ll spend thousands of hours on, such as your mattress, sofa, office chair, shoes, fitness gear, and even purses, is worth it.
33. Use inversion thinking. Rather than focus on what actions are required for success, consider what will lead to failure and avoid it. Learning to avoid stupidity will take you far.
34. Never take things personally. Insecurity is a narcissistic trait because you think the world revolves around you. 99% of the time, it’s probably not about you.
35. You may not know what you want to do, but you should always know the kind of person you want to be.
36. My top biohack for levelling up every area of life? Master your emotions. If you don’t manage your mind, it manages you. Gain control, and life effortlessly flows.
37. Ignore advice from those who haven’t walked your road.
38. Reinvent every decade. One life to live… make it epic.

There you have it, my unsolicited TED Talk in list form. Aging backwards at Longevity Palace means laughing at the absurdities while stacking the wins.

⌛️ Throwback to past articles I've written over the years:
→ 28 Lessons I’ve Learned in Life [2015, the year I quit my 9-5 forever]
→ 34 Lessons I’ve Learned in Life [2021]
→ 21 lessons I learned in 2021