What will it take to live the life you’ve always imagined?
Building the life of your dreams takes more than ambition—it requires mastering the key skills that fuel real success. Level Up! empowers you to unlock your potential, inspired by heartfelt letters the author wrote to his children while navigating the uncertainties of a war zone.
This isn’t just a book—it’s your playbook for mastering life with confidence and clarity. Level Up! goes far beyond the basics, equipping you with the transformative skills to conquer challenges and forge your own unique path.
- What fuels your growth? Build unshakable resilience and a winning mindset.
- Want results? Turn bold dreams into actionable game plans.
- Need more energy? Supercharge your health and unleash your vitality.
- Pursuing financial freedom? Master money and build lasting wealth.
- Ready to thrive? Cultivate relationships that enrich your life.
It’s time to seize opportunities, crush obstacles, and live boldly by unleashing your full potential. Are you ready to level up?
What will it take to live the life you’ve always imagined?
Building the life of your dreams takes more than ambition—it requires mastering the key skills that fuel real success. Level Up! empowers you to unlock your potential, inspired by heartfelt letters the author wrote to his children while navigating the uncertainties of a war zone.
This isn’t just a book—it’s your playbook for mastering life with confidence and clarity. Level Up! goes far beyond the basics, equipping you with the transformative skills to conquer challenges and forge your own unique path.
- What fuels your growth? Build unshakable resilience and a winning mindset.
- Want results? Turn bold dreams into actionable game plans.
- Need more energy? Supercharge your health and unleash your vitality.
- Pursuing financial freedom? Master money and build lasting wealth.
- Ready to thrive? Cultivate relationships that enrich your life.
It’s time to seize opportunities, crush obstacles, and live boldly by unleashing your full potential. Are you ready to level up?
This book started out as a final love letter to my family before I boarded a plane. But let me rewind a bit. As the world was watching the crisis unfold in Ukraine during the Russian invasion, I found myself far away, stationed at the US Embassy in Guatemala. One early morning, a colleague from Ukraine reached out, drawing me into a chapter of my life I never anticipated.
The Ukraine Mission was short-staffed in the foreign assistance effort during the summer of 2023—a critical transition time for foreign service staff, and the assistance package was swelling to unprecedented levels. They needed someone with my skill set to help co-manage the program office at USAID through the summer. I’d never been in an active warzone, but I felt a deep urge to help, even if just for a short period, and it was deeply fulfilling.
Before my departure, my colleague, Erin, gave me some sobering advice. She said I should get my affairs in order—including my will, finances, everything—just in case things went south. She was right; with a heavy heart, I hurried to sort everything out. I prepared myself for that summer—mentally, physically, and emotionally. In preparation for this, I started writing letters to my family in case I didn’t return home. At the time, my twin boys were seventeen and my daughter was eleven. If I hadn’t headed to Ukraine for the summer, I would have spent more quality time exploring colleges and gap-year options with my boys, who were on the cusp of leaving the roost. I wanted to leave all three of them with something encouraging and some life advice.
Writing the letters was difficult. How do you condense a lifetime of advice and love into mere words? There was just too much to say. I timed these letters to send out after my expected return date, but I felt highly unresolved about these letters.
Fortunately, I never had to send the letters. Yet this whole process of writing and reflecting got me thinking—there was so much advice I wanted to pass on to my three children, and I was fully aware that my boys were already becoming young men. So, I just kept writing. Initially, it was for them, but then it hit me—the insights, advice, and skills I wanted to share could help anyone.
That’s how the idea for this book came about. It is a no-nonsense compendium of game-changing life skills. It is a practical guide for anybody who wants to enter adulthood skillfully and seize every opportunity to live a richer, more fulfilling life.
Each chapter covers a different pillar of success—developing a winning mindset, goal mastery and productivity, a healthy lifestyle, boosting brainpower, people skills, money skills, and learning to learn and lead. Throughout this book’s drafting, I was most fortunate that my children helped me edit my work through thoughtful reviews and dialogue, which was tremendous.
Searching for Gold
Back when my kids were little, we lived on a twelve-acre piece of forested land in rural Virginia. There was a local rumor that there might be gold buried there. David and Zack, my twin boys, would spend hours wandering through the woods and along the creeks on our property, sometimes searching for this rumored gold. Their adventures helped them pick up some excellent skills for exploring the wilderness.
We sold the land before we ever found out if the gold rumors were true. My wife, Amy, and I decided to join the US Foreign Service, and that decision led us to move our whole family to Central Asia, a place entirely new for us. This pivotal moment marked a new chapter for us, turning our family into world travelers. This experience turned out to be a more extraordinary adventure than we ever imagined, a chance of a lifetime that we just could not pass up. Sometimes, the gold we seek is in the seeking, and the prize is beyond our imagination.
Throughout my life, I've been deeply inspired by compassionate idealists and humanitarians—those extraordinary individuals who dedicate themselves to the betterment of our world. They are, in every sense, my soulmates in spirit and purpose. This profound admiration propelled me into the Foreign Service, particularly in the dynamic field of international development. My heart was set on contributing to the global fight against poverty, dedicating my efforts to a cause greater than myself, and genuinely making a difference.
My respect and admiration for my global development colleagues have only grown. These dedicated agents of change tirelessly work toward a world of peace and freedom. Their commitment continues to renew my faith in our shared ability to make transformative impacts worldwide, whether working to end poverty, champion human rights, or enhance global health and education. And, yes, it’s some very tough work!
At the root, this job involves helping more people at scale to find and unlock their untapped talents—a different sort of gold. Everybody has inherent worth and a wealth of talent, but sometimes, this innate talent needs to be discovered, unlocked, and cultivated. If you take the time to try new things and invest in yourself, you can discover and use your talents well. Learning, and especially developing the right skills, is key to this.
A skill is an aptitude or ability to do something competently. You can learn skills with sufficient focus, time, and energy. Sometimes, people confuse an acquired skill with a natural quality. Unfortunately, that misunderstanding might be why some people do not invest in improving specific skills. The skills covered in this book all support each other, and together, they can help you live a well-rounded life. There’s no silver-bullet solution to living life to its fullest, but developing a range of life skills is a critical part of the equation. Skills acquired are tools that become part of who we are and what we can accomplish.
Some people think they can’t change or improve themselves, but that’s a limited, fixed mindset. Believing that can trap you in a cycle where you don’t even try to get better. But if you shift your perspective, learn new things, and stay open to growth, you can go beyond what you thought was possible.
This book is about learning success life skills—essential skills that will unlock success in all areas of life. We all have different talents, but we discover and develop those talents by developing and applying relevant skills. There is always some skill you can work on improving. You hold the key but must unlock it and walk through that door yourself.
CONTENTS
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS
INTRODUCTION
LEVEL 1: CULTIVATE A WINNING MINDSET
Skill 1: Pay Attention!
Skill 2: Believe in Yourself
Skill 3: Emotional Intelligence
Skill 4: Resilience + Grit
Skill 5: Mindful Presence
Skill 6: Reflective Journaling
Skill 7: Discovering Your Passion
LEVEL 2: DREAM IT, THEN DO IT
Skill 8: Goal Crafting
Skill 9: Prioritization Mastery
Skill 10: Systematizing Productivity
Skill 11: Time Management
Skill 12: Digital Detox
Skill 13: Finding the Good Enough
Skill 14: Forming Better Habits
LEVEL 3: NOURISH YOUR BODY AND MIND
Skill 15: Healthy Eating
Skill 16: Nutrition Essentials
Skill 17: Preparing Meals
Skill 18: Physical Fitness
Skill 19: Sleep Hygiene
Skill 21: Mental Health Awareness
Skill 22: Stress Management
LEVEL 4: BOOST YOUR BRAINPOWER
Skill 23: Brain Nutrition
Skill 24: Critical Thinking
Skill 25: Memory Enhancement
Skill 26: Learning Acceleration
Skill 27: Creative Thinking
Skill 28: Language Learning
Skill 29: AI Fluency
LEVEL 5: BUILD BRIDGES, BREAK BARRIERS
Skill 30: Truly Listening
Skill 31: Empathy
Skill 32: Assertiveness
Skill 33: Public Speaking
Skill 34: Conflict Resolution
Skill 35: Networking
Skill 36: Remembering Faces and Names
Skill 37: Working in Teams
Skill 38: Relationship Building
Skill 39: Valuing Diversity
LEVEL 6: MASTER MONEY MATTERS
Skill 40: Wealth Mindset
Skill 41: Accounting for Your Money
Skill 42: Budgeting and Saving
Skill 43: Investing Basics
Skill 44: Credit and Debt Management
Skill 45: Strategic Risk Management
Skill 46: Insurance Fundamentals
Skill 47: Entrepreneurship
Skill 48: Retirement Planning
LEVEL 7: LEARN TO LEARN AND LEAD
Skill 49: Learning to Learn: the Skill of Skills
Skill 50: Learn to Lead
NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Which parent or caregiver wouldn’t want to help their teen or young adult develop essential skills to tackle life’s challenges? Inspired by the heartfelt letters written to his children during his time in a war zone, the author offers a personal perspective on building a fulfilling life.
This book is a powerful motivational guide and offers a blueprint to master the skills necessary to meet life’s challenges head-on.
The core message is clear: you need more than ambition to succeed. Rather, it’s about cultivating a winning mindset, dreaming about what you’d like to achieve, and crafting a game plan “making every hour count” in all areas of life.
The author explores numerous topics, from developing a resilient mindset to learning how to lead. I found the section on financial independence especially compelling as it broke down complex concepts into actionable steps. While some of the life skills, such as time management and networking, are not new, the overall message of empowerment is timeless and valuable.
While the book covers vital tools, some readers might wish for more real-life examples or stories to break up the advice-heavy sections. Scott does not sugar-coat the fact that mastering these skills means “investing your attention in what matters most.”
The book offers actionable advice designed to boost your mind, body, heart and soul through healthy habits and building meaningful relationships to enrich your life. This well-rounded approach to success is the standout feature of the book. In addition, the author provides a comprehensive resource for young adults who may feel overwhelmed by the pressures of adult life.
Each chapter starts with a self-assessment, providing time to figure out how best to apply the information to their lives. Scott encourages readers to embrace challenges and take bold steps toward their goals, empowering them to push past limitations and achieve more than they thought possible.
However, achieving these goals won’t happen without some sacrifice. Readers are called to practice “mindful digital consumption” to create the time and space to develop new lifelong habits. Parents will likely be applauding this practical and timely advice.
Overall, the book is an excellent resource for high schoolers, college students, and young adults eager to take charge of their future. Caregivers could use it as a conversation starter or offer it as a go-to gift for youngsters finding their footing in the world.