Advice for My 16-Year-Old Self (In Today's World)

A 16-year-old doesn't need a life plan. He needs a first job, a few good habits and someone to tell him which of the things everyone else is worried about don't matter.

In August 2025, John LeFevre posted Advice for my 16-year-old self (in today's world). It is a cousin of his 2024 thread, Things I've Learned, but rewritten for a younger reader and a different world: one with AI, free YouTube courses and a college system he calls mostly a scam.

All 25 lessons are below, exactly as John wrote them. We've grouped them and added short notes. Everything inside the quote blocks is John's.

Start working before you start worrying

1. Your first job (16) should be as a waiter

Developing soft skills, dealing with difficult customers, and working with immigrants, convicts, dropouts, addicts, single moms, and people who don't even have passports will teach you more than you could ever learn at an Ivy League school. Your second job (18) should be as a bartender. Successfully navigating the drunk and entitled will teach you lifelong skills, and your results are measured nightly in the form of tips. And it’s more fun.

4. Don’t emulate social media bros

Emulate the 40yr olds who are at the country club at 2pm on a Tuesday.

The first lesson is the best one, and the most unusual. Most advice to teenagers is about grades and applications. This one is about carrying plates.

Waiting tables teaches you to read people, keep your temper and work next to people whose lives look nothing like yours. Bartending adds the hardest customers of all, and a scoreboard that pays out every night. Neither shows up on a transcript. Both show up in every job after.

The country club line is a joke with a point. The men worth copying aren't the ones posting their lifestyle. They're the ones quietly living it, on a Tuesday afternoon, because they built something that runs without them.

College, and what actually counts

2. College is mostly a scam

Load up on college credits in high school, go to a state school (like UT), focus on having fun and networking, then graduate debt-free in 2-3 years and travel the world for a year. 90% of college kids already use AI to complete assignments, and most elite universities are indoctrination camps, so what’s the point?

5. Understand that the world is changing fast

Success should be defined as doing what you love and doing it well. Where you go to college and what your first job is will not, and should not, define you as a person. So, don’t worry about it.

7. Devote at least 10 hours a week to self-education

You can learn more, for free, from YouTube in a week than you can learn at Harvard Business School. Feed and nurture an intellectual curiosity. We live in a world of free university courses, YouTube tutorials, podcasts, and even Instagram health and fitness guides. There’s an infinite amount of knowledge at your fingertips. And it never hurts to be knowledgeable and conversant on an eclectic range of topics; it makes you a better and more interesting person. If Elon can teach himself how to build a rocket, you can teach yourself how to play the violin or why solid state batteries will make solar viable and enable AGI.

These three belong together. The first says college costs too much for what it delivers. The second says it doesn't define you anyway. The third says what to do instead: ten hours a week teaching yourself.

That last one is a real number, and it is the hardest one here to follow. Ten hours a week is about an hour and a half a day. The lesson isn't to give up your phone. It's to point it at something that compounds.

Widen the circle

3. Look outside your social circles

Diverse experiences with people from all backgrounds are more fulfilling than echo chambers. Cliques are dumb. The Asian kids at my boarding school sat at the nerd table. 10 years later, I moved to Hong Kong, and learned that they owned the nightclubs and racehorses, and drove orange Lambos.

This is the funniest lesson in the thread and the truest. The table you didn't sit at in high school is the one you'll be trying to get invited to in ten years. Cliques are a bet that the current pecking order will hold. It never does.

How to think

6. The secret to happiness is accepting your reality

Never stop trying to improve your reality, but along the way, accept it. Anything else breeds negativity and resentment. There will always be people richer, smarter, and better-looking than you, in ways that don’t seem fair. Accept it, and play your hand.

8. Don’t wait for the perfect pitch

Real life is not baseball. There’s no free trip to first base, and you’re not limited to three strikes. Just keep swinging, and your “luck” will improve.

10. Never harp, worry, or wallow in fear

It doesn’t help.

20. Be skeptical

A significant portion of everything you’ve been taught, from the textbooks to the news you read, and what you’ve been told to revere and aspire to, is a lie. The people respected by society - academics, doctors, business leaders, and government leaders - are not all-knowing or even all that smart, and certainly not impervious to criticism or without sin.

21. Always maintain a positive outlook

Even if something “bad” - like losing a job or love interest - happens to you, you won’t really know if that event was actually good or bad for another 5 or 10 years. And the answer is within your control.

Five lessons, one idea: don't let your circumstances or your mood run you. Accept the hand you were dealt and play it. Swing at the pitches you get. Don't wallow. Don't assume the people in charge know best. And remember that you can't judge a bad day until years later.

"Accept it, and play your hand" is the line to give a 16-year-old. There will always be someone richer, smarter and better-looking. Resenting them is a full-time job that pays nothing.

Body and habits

13. Lift weights, and get better educated on health and fitness

In a world where 50% of men are obese, it’s never been easier to demonstrate high-value status physically. Adopt better habits at a younger age with greater priority on weight training and muscle-building. Diet is not rocket science: Keep a simple “calories in, calories out” approach; emphasize proteins while minimizing consumption of sugar, alcohol, seed oils, processed foods, sodium nitrates, factory-farmed proteins, and exposure to microplastics.

9. Drinking isn't a fulfilling hobby

Alcohol is terrible for you, even in small quantities. It increases cortisol, which causes stress and anxiety, disrupts your sleep, destroys fitness progress and muscle recovery, increases estrogen and decreases testosterone, diminishes productivity, and causes long term cardiovascular damage. It also damages the prefrontal cortex, which impacts memory, impulse control, and cognitive ability. Occasional drinking is fine, but what’s the point? It’s never been easier to abstain from alcohol, and it’s important to start young. You'll discover that you don't need it socially; it's more fun to be present. Learn how to navigate the world without it.

23. Manual labor is therapy

A suntan is not bought; it is earned. And the man who cuts the firewood gets warm twice.

24. Watch the sun rise

It’s self-explanatory; take an early morning walk: Fresh air, vitamin D, exercise, more productive days, quiet reflection, and much better sleep.

25. Go to bed tired

16. Focus on the habits, not the goals

Achieving a goal is only a momentary change. You need to change the systems that lead to the desired results. Focus on the habits and “the score takes care of itself.”

At 16, these habits are cheap to build and expensive to fix later. Lift. Eat like an adult. Get outside early. Do something with your hands. Go to bed tired.

The drinking lesson ends differently than the 2024 version: "Learn how to navigate the world without it." That's the right ask for someone who hasn't started yet. It's a lot easier never to need a crutch than to put one down.

"The man who cuts the firewood gets warm twice" is the best line in the thread. Manual work pays you once in the doing and again in the result. Most of the good things in life work that way.

Read, write, play

11. Swap the podcasts for books

Reading allows you to borrow someone else’s brain, and have a conversation with the most consequential minds in history. Keep physical copies (trophies) and amass a meaningful library over time.

12. Write daily—for reflection, idea generation, and preserving memories

Therapy isn’t real (for most people), but reflection is important. Writing is a valuable tool for reflecting and for idea generation. My drunken journal of notes and memories in banking gave me a NYT bestseller. But more important, many of those memories would’ve been forgotten had I not written them down. I just wish I had done more of it.

14. Focus on hobbies that will last a lifetime

You might not ever “retire,” but as soon as your money starts making more money than you make in a year, you should take control of your time and focus on wealth-building, passion projects, and leisure activities. You won’t regret having developed a passion for hobbies that last a lifetime. For me, it’s fly fishing, ranching, photography, golf, and backgammon.

15. Don’t waste much time watching pro sports

Spending an entire Sunday watching football, or letting the outcome of a game dictate your mood is a waste of time and energy. Instead, play a competitive sport for as long as you can. The same goes with watching TV. Minimize the consumption of all mainstream media, limited to only basic awareness of what people in echo chambers are digesting to understand the zeitgeist. And instead of binge-watching Yellowstone, go ride a horse or get SCUBA certified.

Notice the swap. Not "read more," but "swap the podcasts for books." Podcasts feel like learning and go in one ear. A book makes you do the work. If you want a starting list, John's 100 Books Every Man Should Read is in Beau's Library. The journal he kept in banking became his bestseller, Straight to Hell.

The hobbies and sports lessons point the same direction. Play rather than watch. Pick things you can still do at 70.

People and manners

17. Nurture a handful of close friendships

I’m not superstitious but if you smile at the world, the world smiles back. Cut negative people out of your life and sever unreciprocated relationships. It’s so obvious, but you can literally choose your friends.

18. Ignore the boos; they usually come from the cheap seats.

Most people aren’t thinking about you, but even if they are, who cares.

19. Say "Thank You"

Not Thanks, or Thx, or Cheers. Thank you.

22. Have a plan

You cannot rely on the government; no one is coming to save you. Be prepared for social, political, and economic turmoil, even if it is a low probability event.

The last group is about who you let in and how you carry yourself. Keep a few friends who return your calls. Ignore the critics, who are mostly not thinking about you anyway. Say "Thank you," in full. And don't count on anyone else to bail you out.

What we'd add

Nothing. The value of this list is that it was written by someone who did it the other way first. He went to boarding school and college, worked the prestigious jobs and drank the bar tabs, and came out the other side with a shorter, cheaper, simpler plan: work early, learn constantly, stay strong, keep good company and get up for the sunrise.

Source: John LeFevre, Advice for my 16-year-old self (in today's world), X, August 4, 2025.