If I could live my life over, what would I do

Key wellness strategies, self-care, and productivity tips (from the subtitles)

Build language skills early

• Expose kids to more than one language from birth.
• If a family speaks two languages, don’t use only English with the child—use the other language consistently.
• Consider hiring a babysitter who speaks multiple languages.

Develop lifelong creative skills

• Learn to draw early (the regret is that it wasn’t learned sooner; it helps with many projects throughout life).
• Learn to write poetry (described as difficult, but if you can do poetry you can write anything; it improves writing quality and impact).
• Use these skills as tools to become a better overall writer/artist (not necessarily to be a professional poet).

Stay productive without losing joy

• Type fast to handle modern work and life demands.
• Laugh while working—hard or sad parts of life are inevitable, but friendship, laughter, and fun are choices you can cultivate.

Protect social well-being with active effort

• Keep track of people (phones/emails) to avoid drifting away from old friends.
• Reunions, parties, and regular contact help build a “database”/network of friends for mutual support.
• Avoid people who don’t like you: don’t waste time trying to change them.
• Warn against isolation (example: med students over-isolating to study).

Build practical self-sufficiency

Learn skills like:

• Growing food
• Filtering water
• Basic car care/repair (prefer older cars for DIY fixability)

Exercise wisdom + prevent harm

• Choose activities you can do long-term:
  • Prefer sports like tennis (can be done all your life).
  • Wrestling is possible later but requires major effort and fitness.
• Avoid head trauma (avoid activities likely to damage the brain; examples include head impacts in sports—boxing was mentioned as a risk).
• Avoid substances and substance abuse:
  • No alcohol, cigarettes, or other drugs
• Water and food health practices (strong opinions stated):
  • Use reverse osmosis water rather than tap water (claims about chemicals).
  • Avoid junk/fast/processed/fried food.
• Learn nutrition earlier (wish they learned nutrition biochemistry when young).

Learning acceleration: seek mentors and coaching

• Don’t do everything alone—get good coaches and mentors.
• Ask parents for help getting transportation to coaching.
• Compete often:
  • Wrestling competitions, and for artists art competitions.
• Use competition to:
  • Make mistakes, learn from them, and adjust
  • See what others do better to improve faster

Skill-based mindset over grades

• Grades ≠ education; focus on real skills you can demonstrate:
  • Writing
  • Playing instruments
  • Fixing cars
  • Programming/computer skills

Career/business productivity and money savvy

• Experiment with starting businesses while living with parents (even if they fail, you learn).
• Key business driver emphasized: sales (ability to sell determines whether you make money).
• Learn about the stock market early to build financial savvy.
• Be proactive with money—don’t assume you’ll be wealthy automatically.

Life planning: relationships and work flexibility

• Be very careful about marriage (claims it’s difficult to find a good partner; dating/“dating to learn” is referenced).
• Pursue remote work if possible to avoid commuting and rush hour.
• Remote work requires high, marketable skills.
• If you can build a business on a computer, you can live away from major crowds.

Media/portfolio skills (with an experience warning)

• Learn photography and video editing (linked to drawing and content creation).
• Caution that a younger person may struggle to make a “good YouTube channel” due to lack of life experience; do the hard life work earlier, then share later.

Education system critique (strong opinion)

• Strong preference for alternatives to public school:
  • Catholic school or homeschool
• Avoid public schools (belief that the system damages children)

Presenters / sources

• No specific external presenter or source is mentioned in the provided subtitles (it appears to be a first-person speaker recounting personal advice).