Reflections On My 30th Birthday
As I type this I just turned 30 years old and if you’re reading this and it’s still Sunday July 19 where you are, make sure you wish me a happy birthday 
.
I had a conversation leading up to my 30th birthday with a fellow 29 year old who was heading towards her 30th with a little trepidation. She had just divorced her husband, so needless to say she was experiencing significant changes in her life.
Personally I don’t look at 30 as a big deal, although there was one comment this particular girl made that caught my attention. She said as people turn 30 they usually are in one of two places – they have their “shit” together or they don’t. I told her I was about as happy as I could remember in my life as I turned 30, so her conclusion was I was one of those people who has their “shit together”. Yay for me.
It Was The Worst Of Times
It’s natural to reflect on your life as you get older, especially at milestone ages. If I look over my twenties I can certainly say it has been a wild ride, full of highs and lows.
I left my teenage years and entered my twenties while I was at university, not really enjoying my studies, not very motivated by much and just uncomfortable in my own skin.
The problem when your own self worth is low, is that you have great difficulty digging yourself out. You generally attract experiences to enhance your low self esteem because you view the world in “sad” glasses. Until you can switch the conversation going on inside your head from negative to positive, your experiences in the outside world will reflect this, further enhancing your negative belief structure.
In order to truly become confident, you need to have experiences that have a positive impact on you. There’s only so far re-framing your interpretation of events and thinking positive can take you, eventually you have to actually have the positive experiences to build your confidence.
As a result of my dogged determination to remain unhappy, I experienced many low-points. I’d have to say my time with panic attacks and anxiety during my early twenties was one of my least-favorite periods.
As always, thanks to the wonderful world of polarities that we exist in, the trauma caused by these experiences forced me to seek out answers to big questions. If I didn’t suffer the pain, I wouldn’t have gone looking for answers to certain questions either – you need the ying in order to see the contrast and thus fully experience the yang.
I won’t go into detail here, but if you want to read more about my experience with panic and the resultant search for happiness, you can read this –
During my early twenties I had a few part time jobs and experimented with different web projects. My most successful at this time was my Magic: The Gathering card game website, which I grew to the largest site of its kind in Australia and then later sold for $13,000, the first big website deal I made.
I also started my proofreading business BetterEdit.com in my early twenties, which I would invest serious time into growing, including trips to university campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hawaii, Vancouver and Toronto to promote using posters.
From 20 to 25 years old I spent a lot of time playing with different projects and gained a lot of experience. I also began my study of Internet marketing during this time, and delved into more philosophical and spiritual studies too, as a means to figure out why the world is the way it is and what I could do to be happier in it.
I don’t look back on my first five years in my twenties as the most fun of times. Sure there were good times in there, but much of the experience was sabotaged by my attitude. I’m glad to have gone through that period for the growth it provided for me as a person, but I wouldn’t want to go back there again.
It Was The Best Of Times
A clear contrast to my first five years in my twenties, from 25 to 30 my life went from good to better to great, and thankfully, it’s still going!
It’s funny how as you get your “shit” together, people start to look at you as if you have answers to a question that has been bugging them for a long time – what to do with their life.
The answer to what to do with your life is simple – you need to experience. Your purpose is to gravitate towards activities that manifest joy for you, those around you and any person or living thing who is impacted by what you do. However, you won’t know what these things are by spending all your time wondering what to do.
Surrendering to the process of living is the only answer, but if you don’t at least commit to participating in the process, you don’t get anywhere.
I’ve read a lot of books that presented this wisdom as direct teachings from “god’s” mouth, or through the use of parables to explain ideas so you can more readily absorb them. Regardless of the source, reading about this is never enough, you need to BE it.
Creating awareness is definitely helpful, but until you experience the belief, it will remain only a truth as long as you have faith. If you really want to cement a concept you need to have lived it.
This is why the first five years of my twenties were so important. I needed to be lost in order to be capable of understanding what it feels like to find a purpose. The second five years were all about further refining and building upon the clarity I was discovering.
From 25 to today, the day after my 30th birthday, I achieved many milestones. I bought and sold websites, including selling my main business BetterEdit.com for six figures. I bought my first house, paid off the home loan within two years, traveled the world and just a few days before my 30th birthday, moved into a dream apartment in my ideal living location.
Most of this wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t conduct one crucial experiment – I started a blog. Although it seems strange to give so much credit to one event, I guess I really need to thank my friend Ed Chalmers, because it was him who first uttered the word “blog” and suggest I investigate it.
Starting a blog was just an experiment, but it led me to discover that I was capable of writing words that people wanted to read. It also allowed me to focus on activities that helped me to grow in so many ways.
I realized I could forge a specialty by combining my experience growing a blog and studies of Internet marketing. Becoming clear on my purpose as a blogger meant that I could devote more time to what I wanted to do, sell off what I wasn’t interested in, and build a lifestyle business, which was ultimately my main goal (the freedom to choose lifestyle over work or money).
During this time I further refined my attitude and it is this that I am most grateful for. Mindset is, and always will be, the key to everything.
As humans we have freewill, which means we have the power to make the ultimate decision – how we perceive every moment and every event in our life. If you truly understand this, then nothing in your life can impact you in a way that you don’t want it to.
Living this idea is harder than stating it, but during the last five years I’ve become a lot better at it. Just as my “ugly and sad” glasses made me think in negatives, see negatives and thus experience negatives in my life, by changing the colour of my glasses, I started to think in positives, see the beauty and live the wonder, regardless of the external reality.
This switch in attitude helped every aspect of my business life too. When facing set-backs, if you just see them for what they are and then let them go so you can move on, your life is so much simpler.
Dealing with jealousy, depression and loneliness, were emotions that plagued me many times growing my business in the last ten years. By seeing them for what they are (false judgments I’d made and thus decided to see as real), letting them go and then moving back on focus towards what I wanted, has made the road to success a lot more smooth.
Business can be relatively easy when you just get out of your own way, learn some fundamentals about people and then put your head down and get stuff done. This is what I did during the last five years. I pushed myself to launch new projects, I learned what the key parts of my business are and what I should work to grow, and discovered my place in the business as it functions like a machine.
The result of this was the creation of three fantastic products, Blog Mastermind, Become A Blogger (in partnership with Gideon Shalwick, a great new friend and business partner I met in the last five years as well) and Membership Site Mastermind.
I owe a great deal of thanks to the pioneers in our industry. Without people like Jeff Walker, Mike Filsaime, Rich Schefren, John Reese, Frank Kern, Eben Pagan and countless others, who I learn a lot from by simply watching what they do, I wouldn’t have grown as an Internet marketer.
Seeing what is possible by watching others do it is incredibly powerful because it makes what might be possible become a reality. When you see someone do something and get a result, then you know that’s attainable as an outcome for you too. That’s why it’s critical to participate in your marketplace and find people you can model.
That, in many ways, is why this blog you are reading now is successful. That is very likely the reason why you have read this article up to this point. You know what is possible because I’ve done it. I’ve explained it right here in this article. You can model me, take parts of what I say and do and apply it to what you say and do.
The Journey Continues
If you go back to the very first blog post I made to this blog and read every word I have published up to today, you will take in almost five years of my life, five years that happen to be the most successful years of my life too.
The entries in this blog are reflective of the journey I’ve been on in my life, particularly my business life, which is why I named it the Entrepreneurs Journey. It’s a chronicle of what I’ve done, what I’m doing and what I’m thinking as I live it. It’s my experiences in written form.
More importantly though, this blog is a reflection of the key successes and failures I’ve had along the way. You can find the moment I learned how important it is to build an email list, the first time I used a squeeze page, how I launched my first product, my thoughts and experiments on profiting from a blog, how I bought and sold websites for profit, what I learned about the importance of my own thoughts as a key to success, my interviews with amazing people from around the world, and so much more.
Ultimately though, none of this really matters because it’s about what has been. What’s important to me, and just as important to you, is what you are doing and thinking right now and how you have changed as a person as a result of the path you have walked.
I hope as you have read any article in this blog at any point in time, if it has done nothing else, it has helped you to think and take actions that have lead you to become a better person, even if it was in just a tiny little way. I couldn’t ask for more than that.
…And of course, the journey continues, we’re not done yet!
Here’s to more adventures, success stories and even greater milestone achievements in the coming years.
Yaro Starak
Blogger
Hi Yaro, I hope you had a fantastic birthday bash and love your newsletter. Keeps me hoping with my own site,lol. Yes, living through life’s highs and lows gives one wisdom to draw upon down the road and share with others especially our children. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for sharing what’s been your journey so far Yaro. I’ve watched on for the last year in awe and follow your progress everytime you post. Hearing about your triumphs and tribulations helps me (and others) become a better entrepreneur ourselves.
Happy Birthday!!
Retrospective birthday wishes, Yaro, from a fellow Australian resident.
Endorsing Sharon Beck’s enthusiasm for turning 65, and other similar posts from us older ones, let me add that after 70 it STILL keeps getting better
Thank you for your warm sharings.
Will
P.S. I am a “newbie” – about to set about building websites with my own domains, and needing lots of inspiration from those who have gone before. Hi everybody.
Yaro, happy birthday!!
I’ll turn to 30 years old in the next few months as well, but I’m not as successful as you. Perhaps I’m too comfortable with the way I’m living now.. I just don’t know..
I have been involved in the online thing since 2006 without much success although I do eacn few hundred bugs per month from my blog. It seems like that is how far I can go..
First of all, Happy Belated Birthday! I’m never particularly phased by “milestone” birthdays, but I truly enjoyed your post and found great wisdom in it. I’m considering returning back to school and I’m stoked because during my 20′s I learned that I should have fully embrace the whole college experience and taken full advantage of it instead of just focused on grades. This would have provided me with a more fun experience as well as the hands on experience that employers look for.
Eh, wisdom. i suppose it comes to us when it is meant to.
Anyhoo, that’s for writing this one. As ususal, you provide great content.
30,eh? Happy birthday!
I turn 51 on Wednesday this week, and I’m delighted to be able tell you that every age I’ve ever been is the best age to be. While I wouldn’t mind having 20 year old knees again, the truth is that every experience I’ve had, delightful or challenging, has combined to make me the person I am today- and I’m glad to be who I am. You’re very right that the way you chose to view the world around you has a large effect on shaping that world and determining what you take away from every experience.
So let me wave at you from the road ahead- I’m glad we’re on the biggest adventure of all together.
As they say, grow old with me-the best is yet to be!
C
Hey Yaro, happy birthday! I love what you shared with us here today about your journey…
It seems as though we have quite a bit in common! We’re both Cancers and we were both ‘shy’ in our early years
Personal growth is such a beautiful thing!
Enjoy yourself today! There’s much to enjoy
)
Love and Light,
Katie
Yaro, cool way to celebrate 30.. May you have more adventures, success stories and milestone achievements as the journey continues!
Many happy returns!
Happy Birthday Yaro! Thanks for your inspiration. Keep on blogging and helping others!
Yoko
Internet Heaven
When I turned thirty it was the being of my life. So was forty, fifty and sixty. But what is unique about thirty for me was I have never seemed get any older.
It never occurred to me until I was forty how significant thirty was. At the time for me it was a time when you are old enough to know better and young and silly enough to do it again and get away with it.
After I turned forty, when someone asked me how old I was I found I would reply 22, 25, 26, 28 29 respectively as the years went on, always pausing to add a tag, 2 times as questioning looks get transmitted back. I never really bothered about being precise in the odd years either. Who cares anyway? I found that was the trick to ensure people got the message about always being young at heart.
But I am sixty-one now so I recently had to change my approach. These days I find it easier to just say I am 30 something!! You can guess the follow-up tag. And I don’t care either about the odd decade or so either. It still works for me.
I also figure I have a good bit of time to figure out what I might have to say when I reach ninety.
But to make it all worthwhile my wife of 38 years and our three kids now 28, 31 and 34 never seem to get sick of me saying it.
Happy Birthday Yaro and we all wish you the very best wishes to be forever thirty.
Great article Yaro! Happy birthday as well! I just recently became a member of becomeablogger.com and blogmastermind and am pretty pumped after reading this post. Further inspires me to believe that when I turn 30, I’ll be writing a similar article as well. Guess who I’ll be thanking first! Cheers and best of luck in the future!
Jeremy
Happy birhtday Yarro. Life passes us by so quickly as we get older and when we reflect back all of the mistakes we have made they don’t seem so bad. We learn from them and we move on. It makes us who we are. No pain, no gain I guess.
I truly believe that we choose our fate before we get here and that our life is a journey to learn and grow our spiritual being. I wouldn’t trade any of my earlier years, mistakes and all, but I am looking forward to my future. I will be a successful online entrepeneur, I just have to remain positive and work hard.
You take care Yarro and have many happy more birthdays.
Happy Birthday Yaro ! Thanks for sharing your experiences .. It really inspire me…
Thanks again
I hope you blog for another 30 years. There is a lot of sci-fi anti-aging stuff coming up. So we (this generation) will live for 100+ years.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Yaro! 30 OMG. You’ve accomplished so much – congratulations! I was introduced to you by Davin Ogden of The Viral Sanctuary and have enjoyed and learned from your bog immensely. Cheers for your next 30 years!
Hello Yaro,
Belated Happy 30th Birthday! The greatest service a person can do is help his fellow man and I think you do that very well. It seems that you are always searching for answers. I questioned life quite a bit when I was in my early twenties and try to find the answers. As you were talking about mindset, I highly recommend- DIANETICS by L. Ron Hubbard. It has helped me understand the mind and my life. I encourage you to check it out. I try to read as much about what Alborz, Gideon and you say on Twitter and if you are into self-improvement as I think you are and want to expand you knowledge about life, then I highly recommend this book.
I also find that you are quite literate(the ability to read and write). You must of had a good education because it shows and you are able to write without many if any grammatical or spelling errors. You are able to speak with great depth and clarity on what is on your mind. I like listening and reading what you have to say. I have been following you for the last year or so and look forward to the future with working with you. Keep up the great blogging.
Rick
Happy birthday Yaro!
Thank you for underscoring the relationship between the last five years of successful mindset and posting in your own blog for the last five years.
I am glad that I took your advice to begin blogging this year.
Have a great day!
Hello Yaro,
Congratulations on reaching a marvellous milestone and doing it with such integrity and happiness.
I have always understood the necessity for the correct mindset and have achieved many great things in life. Up until last year I was one of those people who “had their shit together” and after some heartwrenching, aweful events I am now a few months off 30 and feel lesslike I have “my shit together” than I ever have in my life…Perhaps I am doing things in reverse to most people.
I love reading your blogs because remind me of who I was, and inevitably who I still am. They inspire me and remind me of my favourite thing to do in life…Set a goal and then don;t stop until it has been achieved…As I creep (increasingly quickly) towards the big 3-0 I am feeling stronger and more myself, with plenty of thanks to you and your similar thinking and life experiences…I feel connected to you, a stranger, and indebted to you for your upfront, easy going, down to Earth, Aussie approach….
Wishing you a very HAPPY, HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY from Sydney and Melbourne (I was travelling on your bday)…May your success continue to grow and your happiness and joy be exceed all your expectations.
Kind Regards,
Lisa D
Congrats from Bris-vegas Yaro. I enjoy reading someone local in this global village we now reside in. Good on you for having sorted out your proverbial
by 30! May it always be that way:) (Didn’t really get my act together by 30, but as the next big one looms in a couple of years, you have motivated me to set that date to have sorted myself out to the same extent 
)
That post was right on the money Yaro. Remember when i turned 30 a few years back. I felt the exact same way and reflected quite a bit on my life to that point. I think 30 and beyond is where most people can make a significant difference in their life just because you have learned to capitalize on so many mistakes and learn from them. Good post as usual.
Hi Yaro!
Here is “Wishing you a Belated Happy 30th Birthday”!
Well, I guess the older you are the wiser you will become after all the years of challenges and exploration in your twenties and then finally when you reaches your 30th you have finally found what you like to do and even achieved some goals.
You are doing great and keep it up!
All the best to you in your future endeavours.
Elaine
Happy Late Birthday… I started to follow you only recently… in hopes of being a successful blogger between other things… can’t help but wonder where I’ll be in 7 years, by the time I am thirty and what would you have done differently? Thanks for all the great advice…
Happy Birtday Yaro,
An Inspiring story of Entrpreneur’s Journey.
Changing the mind set is the hardest thing.
Once you start changing it gradually, and start living it,
you start to feel it and gain the confidence.
Entrepreneur’s Journey is not the easiest in the world.
No wonder very few people dare to choose this path-
a road that is less travelled.
However if we can make it, it is the most rewarding
experience. Freedom to Choose.
Happy Birthday!
A Big Happy 30th Birthday sent your way Yaro….and to many more wonderful times ahead now that you have got it together…mind you I think you always have had it together (just didn’t know it!!!)
Your amazing words are an inspiration and just keep on getting better all the time.
Cheers
Hope you had a great day
Lisa
Happy birthday
Yaro,
Thank you so much for your post! It’s great that you have your ‘shit together’ already. So many of us are pushing 40 and just figuring out what you already have down.
You are absolutely right about hearing God’s word, or reading the parables. It’s all very inspiring but until we take the first step it’s all rather useless. Your post had just solidified so much of what I have been reading and learning over the past few months. You have just convinces me to take that step into action.
Thank you again and Happy Birthday!
Dude,
Happy 30th. Of all the online marketers you are one of two I can trust. Michael Dunlop is the other.
I’m passed 30 and 40 and heading for 45 and is fulfilled. Thanks for the blogging directions. I’ve been blogging for a while without direction. That is changing, thanks to your course.
You have 80 comments on this blog post – wow! I garner none, strange people talk to me in person rather than comment on my posts…, but I press on as you are indeed inspiring.
Thank you and many more happy birthdays to come.
Kerwin.
Happy Birthday!
As I said to you before, I watched you transform from a nice guy to a user. So your degree is in baffle ‘em in bullshit or dazzle ‘em in brillance? You started out a regular guy and now you are one of them!
Belinda
Happy Birthday! This post really struck a chord with me – I’m 25 right now and the last five years have been very much as you described – ‘lost’.
It seems this year though things are finally starting to come together and I’m making progress in the direction I want to be going. It’s really motivating to hear this story and dream of what my future could hold.
Hope you had a great birthday!
Hey Yaro,
Great post Mr Philosopher! It is a good way to be mate (philosophizing), no thy self!
I like what you said about experiencing life your self. I have put in this way – in my Health website I’m putting together (I have written a lot on goals, change and new habits-health related).
The KNOWLEDGE we are given by you or in a book is not KNOWLEDGE – it is information. It is KNOWLEDGE for you the expert but INFORMATION for the trainee-recipient.
In my definition, INFORMATION becomes KNOWLEDGE through EXPERIENCE. You could add ‘conscious experience’ to that (as there are a lot of passengers out there being driven around by society with out actually ever taking the wheel – that is their life).
Yaro has the knowledge on Internet marketing and on how to run a very successful small business/blog as an outcome of his experience at APPLYING information – that is KNOWLEDGE.
Summary- INFORMATION + EXPERIENCE = KNOWLEDGE
Take action people and get your hands dirty, and remember, KNOWLEDGE is POWER!
ap
Heh heh, Yaro, getting all nostalgic and sentimental for your birthday? nice.. I’m at the turning point of 25 myself, though I think I hit the “life’s looking up” stage about two years ago, after my own bout with ridiculous self-indulgent misery
Happy belated Birthday Yaro … Luckily I already crossed that important line in my life almost a year ago
Hope you had a big party … Greetings from Germany
Ben
Cheers to you Yaro! Your journey is truly an inspiration to all your readers. You have unselfishly given yourself to the world through your experiences. I’m pretty sure that you have enriched many people’s lives if not changed them. Belated happy birthday, mate!
Hey, Happy 30th B’day, Yaro.
Great post just like the rest. Truly inspiring to say the least.
Hope you continue to shine all the more in the years to come and continue to guide and help people like me across the globe.
Wishing much happiness in the yrs to come,
~Varada
Hi Yaro,
Belated birthday wishes to you. i am very excited to see your life’s journey. you really induce me to do even more better in blogging as well as in my life. i am mow 23 years old, had lots of worries, step downs, negatives etcccc. after reading your story, i boost up myself, that one day am also become a successful blogger.
yes i can !
thanks/regards,
manikandan.k
You are now 30 and I have just entered my twenties. Surely I have a lot of stuff to learn especially from you.
Many thanks for your inspiring blog! I’ve been following you for a relatively short period of time and right from the beginning I could tell that that you had some special qualities and life skills. These come through in your blogs, web sites, and videos. Right now I am part of your Premium series and learning heaps from you and Gideon. I look forward to a long, prosperous, and rewarding association with you.
“Many Happy Returns!”
John
Happy 30th Yaro! You are wise beyond your years, insightful, generous, open, congruent, live what you write and speak, know your topics and know yourself, which takes more insight than anything else in this life. Thank you for sharing your journey, your knowledge, tips and strategies. Have a great year.
Cheers
Anna
OK so you made 30, being from a land down under – 100 is sort of expected. Trust you enjoyed the day, life is a roller coaster ride, sit back and have some fun, most of us forget to do that! Wishing you many happy years ahead.
Great story, Yaro! Thanks for sharing so much of your personal life. Thanks for all that you’re doing for others, as well. Greatly enjoying the courses.
congratulations, yaro, on your inspirational achievements by 30! according to the good old chinese conventional wisdom, clarity usually starts from the age of 40. you obviously beat it by 10 years. no wonder! keep up the momentum.
many many thanks for your generous giving of a genuine sense of increase and value!
Beautiful post Yaro. I love reading these types of posts from you. I wish I had something as insightful to say in response. Anyway, hope you had a great birthday. Best wishes!
Great style of writing Yaro, keep up the nice work.
The journey continues, and remember that you’ll never walk alone! Happy belated birthday to you Yaro! May the next 30 years be huge!
Thank God for you and you being such a great guy sharing the knowledge.
Is a good think that you are so advance at that early age!
That shows that you being well guided.
Henry Ford siad “Most people wake up their mind after forty” Looks like you did it ten years earlier happy birthdate
I have to tell ya THIS WAS THE BEST BLOG FOR the world TO DATE that you have written. (hey only my opinion)
This is exactly what I teach folks (cuz we forget) to be what it is you desire and not just keep saying I WANT THIS OR THAT. Oh god,
I have passed this along to sum 300 folks I know that need this ‘lesson’ and I hope you all out there learn from it and BE THAT WHAT YOU SEEK. I’m today passing this on to my own clients and students.
THANK YOU !!!!!
This is better than THE SECRET.
Hey Yaro, when you get 48 …it gets even better.
My life is great and getting greater EVERY day.
I LOVE YOU YARO YOU ROCK !!!!
Tash
http://www.theeangels.com
Happy Birthday Yaro. All the best in the next 30 years
… by the way keep up the great articles!
Happy Birthday Yaro! You have been one of my main inspirations thus far in my young blogging journey, here is to a continued connection! (Clink your beverage of choice here…)
Yaro,
Happy belated birthday!
As someone who has a few years on you (I turn 36 in a few weeks), I can relate to the introspection that tends to come with “milestone” birthdays. These are the periods when you really start questioning your place in the world, and (for most of us) wondering just what we’ve been doing with our lives.
I’m not really sure that anybody ever has their shit together, because we are constantly growing, evaluating, and changing. (Or at least we should be.) I don’t know too many people who ever achieve a state of “getting it” and then spend the rest of their lives in contented bliss.
Still, the lessons that you have learned are important building blocks for a more fulfilled life. You have chosen to learn from your own lessons and use them to improve various aspects of your life… so I think you are a lot closer to “getting it” than most people might ever be.
Thanks for the insighful and inspirational post. I always appreciate your honest, straightforward approach to blogging – it’s nice to see someone who is willing to let the world see not only his successes, but his challenges and failures as well. I think this is one of the reasons you are so successful today.
To Your Success,
Lee Rowley
Blogger’s Workshop