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Success Advice

The Wisdom I Would Give My 20-Year-Old Self

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I’ve always considered myself to be like Peter Pan. Age has no bearing on what I think of myself or anyone else for that matter. While the numerical value that age gives us is pointless, the experience and lessons are definitely not.

Thinking about all the things I did up until I was twenty, here is the wisdom I would share with myself:

1. You’ll be special one day

You’re not going to discover the thing that will make you significant in your own mind until later in life. Have faith in knowing that if you try to be a good person each day, and you work on your craft (whatever that is), you to can be special one day just like those people you admire.

You might become:

– An astronaut

– A ballroom dancer

– A spiritual, traveling, explorer

Anything is possible, and that’s all you need to know for now!

2. Your beliefs and interests will flip 360 degree’s

What I thought about religion, writing, family, and health have all completely different meanings now that I’m older. It’s almost like someone decided to flip every belief I had upside down to see what would happen. Whoever did this is a pure genius I say.

I used to hate writing and think my dad’s passion for it was stupid, now I agree with him and think it’s the greatest tool on Earth to inspire a new generation. There’s the proof right there.

3. Drinking

Alcohol is like cancer for your body. There are other ways to get the same high that booze gives you and I’ll give you a clue: it’s called life. Get high on life, not substances.  

Excessive drinking occurs when you try and escape your current reality. Rather than escape, learn to improve yourself every day and find out what’s holding you back. If you do this, then booze will become the last thing on your mind, and the first thing on your quit list.

4. Cool kids

At twenty, it’s all about who the cool kids are. Get around them, be like them, dress like them, and be a douche like them. The reality is that they are only cool for a particular point in time. Fighting drunk people in the street is not funny when you’re thirty, with two kids, and a career or business to think about. Think about people long-term and ask yourself if you will grow old with them.

If the answer is no, then there are better people to surround yourself with who can soak you in the luscious juices of life.

5. Passion

This one’s a must for you. Look under every rock, and into crevice, until you find that one thing that makes you get chills down your spine. That one thing that makes you wake up at 4 am in the morning like your older, wiser self.

At a young age, your passion will not have fully formed. What looked like a dream to be a DJ at 16, may morph into a dream to start a business in the music industry when your 30. Everything happens for a reason, and you’re never fully going to understand the connections between different events in your life.

Chase the feeling you get when you do something you love, and forget all the elements including what people think of your passion.

6. Love

It’s easy to get caught up in all the events of your life and forget to love. Love with someone else is what will make you feel incredible. Don’t be fooled into thinking the single life, or the “having lots of partners life” is the right path: it’s not.

Loving your significant other is one thing, loving everyone around you is another. Doing both is what will bring you real happiness, not the fake happiness that your gym buddies pretend to demonstrate.

7. Fear not

You’ll learn over time that we’re all fearful, scared, little humans with more failures than successes. Overcoming fear leads to growth, and growth will make you feel superhuman. Fear is the only thing that will hold you back.

If you believe in your fears, then life is going to be very hard for you. You’ll struggle to be happy, and you’ll treat others poorly as a result. Insist on proving your fears to be incorrect, and spend time doing these scary tasks as often as you can.

“Fear are the stories your brain tells you to F%&K with you”

8. Time vs. money

TV, the Internet, movies, and all the fakepreneurs will tell you that money is important. It’s not. Time is what you need to value because it’s the one thing you can’t get back. When given the chance, ask for more time instead of more money. Instead of a pay rise, ask to work four days not five.

9. Say yes and don’t think

The hard questions will come your way all the time. When asked if you can learn to kite surf, say yes. When asked to join a startup that has a bold new idea, say yes. When asked to speak in front of loads of people about your passion, acknowledge the fear, accept it, and say yes.

10. If it feels right, say yes.

The outcome of what you think could happen is never the same as the reality. The best results come from the boldest decisions that you allow yourself to make.

11. Sickness

The only thing that will stop you in your tracks is sickness. You’re not invincible, and neither is Harry Potter. If you put rubbish in your body, then you will get sick. That’s a guarantee.

Refocus your mind to understand that good food equals more energy to do the things you love.

12. Ownership

You’ll one day realise that ownership only makes you happy for about 3.1 hours and then you’re back to your old paradigm. Pick a car that doesn’t pollute, and other than that, who cares what you drive.

As soon as you buy the newest phone, they’re already building something to replace it. You can never have the latest technology so stop trying.

The clothes you wear are important to show who you are, but you don’t need a new outfit for every single occasion. No one remembers what you’re wearing because there so focused on all the things in their own life that they don’t want to go wrong. If someone does care, then you should drop them off your friend’s list right away. They’re teaching you how to fail at life.

13. Entitlement

You’re not entitled to anything. You have to work for everything you have, and that’s where all the fun and beauty is. Your mind has to grow, or it will get sick in the form of anxiety or depression. Nothing is owed to you other than what you reap, and even that’s not guaranteed.

The value you create for others is where you should focus your time.

14. Start out, build it up, lose it all, start again, repeat

You’ll definitely have times of prosperity and despair. This is the story of our lives. Watch any movie, and you’ll see the same pattern of starting out, building, losing it all, and then starting again. Be prepared for this fact of life.

Get excited about what it’s like to continually fail, grow, fail grow, consistently. This process is where I got all the wisdom I need to give you this advice in the first place. Now young padawan, it’s time for you to learn this wisdom for yourself.

What advice would you give? Let me know on my website timdenning.net or my Facebook. 
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Change Your Mindset

You Become What You Absorb: How Input Shapes Your Life

We let the world dictate who we spend time with and what input we allow in, rarely stopping to consider the effects it’s having on us

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How Input Shapes Your Life
Image Credit: Midjourney

“Input” is anything from the outside world that influences your mood, mindset, and emotional state. It includes the media you consume, the books you read, the podcasts and music you listen to, and the movies and shows you watch. But it also encompasses much more: the environment you live and work in, the conversations you have, the people you surround yourself with, and the events, personal or global, that unfold around you. (more…)

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Success Advice

This Overlooked Skill Drives Real Business Growth

It strengthens relationships, enhances decision-making, and fosters trust.

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Importance of listening in leadership
Image Credit: Midjourney

In every successful leader’s toolkit, one skill stands out above the rest: the ability to listen. While good leaders are known for making confident decisions, great leaders understand that those decisions are only as strong as the information they’re based on. And that information? It comes from truly listening to their teams, peers, and even critics. (more…)

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Scale Your Business

Tired of Wasting Money on the Wrong Marketers? Here’s How Smart Entrepreneurs Are Finally Hiring Right

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truthmetric, burning money on marketing

If you’ve ever Googled how to hire a Facebook marketer or best TikTok marketing agency only to spend thousands on someone who couldn’t deliver…congrats, you’ve joined a very expensive club! For many entrepreneurs, hiring a digital marketer feels like more like visiting a casino and gambling with your runway, than it feels like securing a partner who’ll help build your business. Often,  it feels like you’re betting on a stranger to grow the dream you’ve poured your savings into.

And way too often, you lose that bet.

You don’t need another list of the “Top 10 Agencies” with five-star testimonials and polished logos. You need to know which marketer can actually drive results for your business. Not in theory. In practice.

This is where entrepreneurs are learning to pivot. And it’s why a new platform called TruthMetric.com is turning heads across the startup world.

Why Most Startups Burn Through 3–6 Marketers Before Finding the Right One

Here’s the hard truth: most startups don’t fail because of their product, they fail because they can’t get sales or sell it fast enough. And in trying to fix that, founders usually go through five or six marketers, burning tens of thousands before finding someone who truly knows how to convert.

You build your product, get your website live, maybe even launch an ad campaign. But when you search for help and look up how to “hire a YouTube ads agency” or “top Facebook ad expert for Shopify”, you get hit with a sea of shiny portfolios, “ninja” titles, and endless promises.

Three months later, you’re still waiting on your first profitable campaign, and you’re most likely out tens of thousands, feeling utterly defeated…and maybe grinning with an affinity for that upcoming boxing class with a picture of that marketer’s fac……nevermind.

If this sounds like you, it’s time for what one entrepreneur called a strategic shift to scale smarter, not harder.

Introducing TruthMetric.com: The Transparent Marketplace for Hiring Marketers Who Deliver

TruthMetric.com isn’t just another freelancer platform or agency directory. It’s the first hiring solution where you can see three years of real, verified marketing performance before spending a dime.

That includes:

  • Verified ad campaign performance
  • Actual return on ad spend (ROAS)
  • Industry-specific experience
  • Platform specialties (Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Google Ads, and more)

Whether you’re looking for a Facebook ads expert, a TikTok marketer, or a YouTube growth strategist, TruthMetric.com lets you filter and compare based on what actually matters, results.

This level of clarity is something you won’t find on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. And it solves what many founders know too well as the New York Pizza Problem: where every marketer claims they’re “the best,” just like every pizzeria in Manhattan says they’re #1. Often without showing you results, you get sucked into this dream of collaboration, until the nightmare commences the moment you fork that first invoice payment. Hence the deception that leads to many business owners losing their hard earned savings and budget to launch their grand idea.

With TruthMetric, you finally get the data to decide for yourself, BEFORE you hire. Now if only New York Pizza shops had the same transparency then maybe you’d finally find the best pizza in New York, perhaps the perfect post work out after a boxing sesh? I think so!

Why Founders Are Shifting to Results-First Hiring

Most entrepreneurs think they need to do it all themselves, until they burn out or burn through their budget. That’s exactly why this founder had to drop the Superman complex and hire a marketing genius.

What makes TruthMetric so powerful is that it turns hiring into a confident move, not a hopeful one. You’re no longer guessing. You’re choosing from proven performers. You know what vertical they dominate. You know their past client performance. You see the monthly results from the campaigns they ran, and the outcomes they achieved.

It’s not just efficient. It’s empowering.

Scaling Quickly Requires Automation and Eliminating the Noise

Founders who scale quickly understand one thing: growth isn’t just about hustle, it’s about systems. TruthMetric is the system for finding great marketers at speed. No more DM’ing ten freelancers or interviewing agencies feeling like you are asking the world of them to just see some prior results. Instead you get to see the information you need to make an informed decision and plug into verified talent, all ready to perform.

This difference allows for you to match perfectly with the right talent quickly. If you’re building your business to run lean and fast, this convenience plugged in with automation can help you scale your small business right alongside your new marketing hires.

Why TruthMetric Is Also a Boon for Marketers, Not Just Founders

This isn’t just a win for founders, it is a gift for great marketers, too.

If you’re a freelance marketer who’s been quietly pulling 10x ROAS for clients while being passed over for flashy agencies, you now have a stage where your results speak louder than your brand.

TruthMetric is a true meritocracy. No fluff. No sales tricks. Just data.

If you’re tired of being overlooked and ready to stand out based on what you actually deliver, this is your home.

The Secret Weapon for Investors and M&A Operators

There’s another angle here that some of our readers might miss.

Investors, private equity firms, and M&A advisors should be drooling at the thought of having a proven talent pool they can plug and play and the ability to use TruthMetric to revive underperforming companies. Imagine acquiring a business or becoming an active investor, then dropping in a verified operator with a history of explosive growth in that niche.

It’s plug-and-play. Scale on demand.

That kind of insight has never been available before. You couldn’t do this on Upwork. You certainly can’t do it through a friend-of-a-friend referral. 

And when it comes to attracting high-performing talent, here’s how to hire top talent and keep them around.

Let’s Really Drive This Home…

If you’ve wasted money on agencies or freelancers who couldn’t deliver, it’s not because you’re bad at hiring, it’s because the game was stacked against you. Trusting dreamy charismatic sales pitches over data was a doomed approach from the start. 

TruthMetric levels the playing field by showing you what no other talent marketplace does and that’s proof.

Real marketers. Real results. Real growth.

It’s time to stop guessing and start hiring based on data.
Visit TruthMetric.com and make your next marketing hire the one that actually works.

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Personal Development

The Real Reason Successful People Are Never Late

More than just good manners, punctuality is a vital professional and personal trait.

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Successful people are punctual
Image Credit: Midjourney

How do you feel when your flight is delayed, throwing your entire schedule into chaos? Or when a patient dies due to a doctor’s tardiness? What about missing a job opportunity because your driver showed up late? And how do you react when someone walks in late without the basic courtesy of apologizing? (more…)

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