Maximize Your 20s: Avoid Traps and Build a Successful Life

This video is going to piss some people off because it's for a very specific type of person and I'm going to sound

extremely inconsiderate to most people, but that's the only way that I can get the severity of this situation across.

So, with that said, consider the nuance of my normal videos turned off as of right now. The people who get angry with

the brutal honesty that's about to come are often those who have pretty terrible lives. They haven't grown past the age

of 20 to 25. They are the people who have not yet realized that the best way to make the most of your 20s is to make

them your worst. Because you really only have two options. The first is to use your 20s to become the person that you

were meant to be. And the second is to repeat the same 6 months for the rest of your life. If you don't nearly max out

your potential in your 20s, you can simply observe society and see where your life will probably end up. In

essence, you get stuck in this loop of anxiety and overwhelm, and you just attempt to live your past peak

experiences. You go to the same bars and the same raves, and you play the same video games. When you turn 20, you start

having the best peak experiences of your life because you're old enough to try new things now. But you haven't yet

realized that those should be and are the lowest peaks of your entire life. And so what happens is people register

those as, oh, these are the good days. This is the peak experience. This is where I feel amazing. And they try to

repeat that over and over again. And when they're not doing that, they crave the peak experience. They want the

euphoria that they associate with happiness when happiness is not euphoria. So the result of this is that

you just fill your entire life and it becomes your routine to engage in these extremely shallow activities that aren't

leading to a good life. And eventually it becomes your identity. It just becomes second nature. You shut your

mind off and you're just automatically doing these things and it's very hard to get out of. Most people plateau around

the age of 23. And then when you start to ask them like what are you doing with your life in a genuine way? You're

asking like hey like what are you doing? Are you improving your career? What? You're just talking with them. What are

you doing with your life? They confidently say that I'm just living life. Like they they label what they're

doing as living life. And these people, they haven't come around to the ramifications of staying the same

because they don't realize that there's no such thing as staying the same. There's only you get better or you think

you're staying the same, but you're actually just getting worse. And that worst doesn't show up until years later.

So, as you can tell in society, most people turn 30 to 40 years old with the emotional maturity of a 15-year-old. The

world rapidly pushes forward and it's continuing to push forward even faster while your mind, body, spirit, finances

stay in the same place when in fact they're you're just digging them all deeper into this hole. And the deeper

you get into this hole, the light at the top is more difficult to see. And if you're stuck in this 30foot deep hole,

how are you going to dig yourself out of that? So, the purpose of this video is to show you that your 20s are the

tutorial phase. They're not the main game. They're the preparation, not the main event. So, I just want to give you

three traps to avoid and three things to do because I've been in this position, right? I'm talking [ __ ] about these

people who get stuck and stay the same for 6 months at a time when I was that person. And I can confidently say that

my life has gotten substantially better since I made the decision to stop doing that. So, I want to help shine a light

of awareness in a way that can shift the beliefs in your mind that allow you to notice new opportunities and change

certain aspects of your life so you can continue to get better. Not in a self-improvement dopamine junkie kind of

way, but in a way that makes sense. If you can set yourself up in your 20s, your quality of life will only continue

to increase. And that's even when your youth is no longer on your side. So, the first trap is don't listen to anyone who

doesn't have the life you want. Because the people who have the life you want are extremely rare. They're less than 1%

of the population. And the other 99% of people are those who just blabber about how you should live your life when they

wasted their own. And if you listen to them, then you're probably going to waste your life as well. These are the

people where they are adamant on convincing you that you should do something in order to live a great life

because that's what they did and they don't know what a good life could have been for them. They're adamant on

convincing you that the greatest things to do are the greatest things that they did and those things aren't that great

at all. If you bring them your goals that sound close to impossible, they'll tell you to be more realistic. They'll

tell you to create a budget. They'll tell you to invest your measly savings. They'll tell you to go out and have fun

and make the most of your 20s when they have no idea what making the most of your 20s means. And then they will tell

you that during that time to set yourself up in this boring mechanical life through a thing called a job doing

work you hate until you turn 50 as if that's some like twisted right of passage, right? That that's all they're

focused on because they have this industrial mindset. It's like, okay, you need to go to school, get a job because

that's what your grandpa and great grandpa and great great great grandpa did. And they don't understand how

technology is changing career paths and that you can actually do something different. So, when you go and you take

that to them, they it doesn't even register in their brain. It it puts them into survival mode because they're

afraid that you aren't going to survive. Many people say they want the best for you, but in reality, they just don't

want to feel inferior to you. So you have my permission and you should give yourself permission to ignore most of

what these people say. Just practice deliberate ignorance. You can entertain the thought, but don't let it into your

mind. You need to do your own independent research and you need to actively search for the less than 1% of

the population that have the life you want. And you need to listen to their advice. Take it, experiment with it.

still don't take it as law, but you eventually need to take the best parts of the people who have the life you want

and you need to turn it into your own through trial and error. Now, the second trap is to get your taste of

distractions fast because most people treat their youth as a currency instead of investment capital. They party and

they smoke and they watch Netflix at night and they just lounge around all day. And those things aren't necessarily

bad and they aren't the end of the world in and of themselves, but they destroy the benefits of being young where you

have time, you have energy, and you have focus. Now, I was a dumb college kid, too, but the distinction there is that I

was always working on something that would somehow buy my freedom. I didn't know what that was. I was just working

on various opportunities that I was researching and coming across in terms of starting a business or getting

healthy or learning how to master my mind. I was always into self-improvement. Not what

self-improvement has become, but in bettering myself because I knew at such a young age that I didn't want to end up

overweight, obese, low energy, financially unstable. I wanted to take control of those things fast. And I can

tell you just by like trying just an hour a day, even when I was in college and I was partying and I was doing all

of these things, I still felt the desire to set aside time to research and try things and build things. And even though

most of them failed, when you actually try something, when you do something in reality, that's when you learn. So if

you continue to do it over time, try and fail. It doesn't matter if the business doesn't take off because you stack all

of these skills that lead into something working in the future when all of the right pieces come together. So, I'm not

telling you to get rid of these distractions altogether. I'm not telling you to stop partying. I'm not telling

you to stop smoking weed or doing whatever it is that you do that is draining your time, energy, attention,

focus. But it would be wise to get your taste of them quickly. That way you can recognize them as mistakes, but you

won't recognize them as mistakes unless you have a goal that you are actively working toward. Because in order for a

goal to have gravity for you to be disciplined or motivated to achieve that goal, you have to have some form of

energy invested into it. You need to spend a month working toward a goal so that you actually feel the pain of no

longer working toward it or you can register the smoking weed or being lazy or eating junk food as a mistake.

Because if you aren't, let's say, going to the gym as a goal, then the alcohol isn't going to take away your

performance at the gym. If you are not working on a business, then again, the alcohol, the partying, the weed, it

isn't going to affect your mental clarity for making more money inside of the business. Most people aren't working

towards meaningful goals. So, all of the distractions that they're engaging in aren't distractions to them. So, the

third trap is to do everything in your power to not get a job. And this one is more personal to me because this is what

I did and it drastically changed my entire life because when I was around the age of 15 years old, I just had this

insight. I don't know where it came from. It just came to me. The insight was that if I got a job like most

people, I would end up like most people. And when I look at most people's lives, I would understand that right as I

accepted the job, a third of my time would be taken from me. That that's insane. a third of my time that I could

use to better myself, do what I want, other things of that nature, create a type of work that I enjoy so that I

don't hate a third of my life. It just I I don't know how that doesn't register to certain people. But then on top of

that, another third of my life would be spent in this low energy state right after work when I'm drained from putting

in energy to something that I hate. And you become what you focus on. So if you focus on something that you hate, you're

going to become something that you hate. and the other third of your life when you get back from work, you're just

drained. You don't want to do anything. I remember when I was working uh as a web designer at my 9 toive job. I I had

been in the gym for my entire teenage years. It was very important to me. And that was the only time that I've ever

started skipping the gym, right? I didn't want to go after work because that would just extend how much less

free time I had to myself. I would go to work from it would take an hour to commute. So I'd get I'd leave at 8, get

there at 9:00, clock out at 6:00 because an hour lunch and then that doesn't count to your towards your 9 to5 and

then it's like okay I'm going to drive to the gym 10 minutes work out at the gym maybe an hour drive back home an

hour and then I just have to go to bed if I want to get my sleep and actually live a healthy life and being healthy to

me was a value then that sounds horrible. Now, the reason that I put this section at this point in the video,

because if you've reached this point of the video and you agree with most of the things that I've said, you have similar

goals, then I don't feel bad about saying this or prescribing this as a piece of advice and blanketing it. But

the piece of advice is that you need to start a business. I know what type of person you are. You need to start one

right now, and you need to begin working on it, and you need to make it a success. You're not the type of person

that's going to go furiously in the comments and say, "Oh, not everyone should start a business because you are

the person who wants full control over their time, energy, focus, and money." You understand that the good life and

flow states and anything good in life stems from an increasing level of challenge that is matched by an

increasing level of development in your mind, body, spirit, finances, etc. And at 99% of jobs, I'm not talking about

the 1% that 99% of you aren't going to get. At the 99% of jobs, the level of challenge just stops after like 6

months, right? You get used to the job. You've gone through the tutorial phase of the job. You're working on the task.

It becomes normal to you. And then you just get into this repetitive routine of wake up, go to your computer, go to the

office, wherever you go, and just do the same thing day after day. And that's a great way to waste 40 years of your

life. It psychologically castrates you. And if you don't believe me, just research psychology for a year and you

will understand exactly what I'm saying. Now, if this is one of your first businesses that you're starting, it

doesn't really matter what kind of business you start. Because what you do 2 to 3 years from now will be completely

different. You are simply starting a business and trying to make money because you aren't going to learn how to

make money or start a business until you do it. There is absolutely no world where you're going to watch 40 hours of

YouTube and read 10 books and magically within a year build a million-dollar business. It isn't going to happen. You

have to go through the trial and error. You need to start whatever it is and then learn along the way to overcome

roadblocks and you pivot along the way. you're going to start with a personal brand or a software company or an

e-commerce through drop shipping or whatever the flavor of the day one is right now. One thing I would recommend

is just doing something that is popular on YouTube because it if if it is popular, that means that yes, even

though it's saturated, it works. So, just keep a finger on the pulse of the newer business models that are coming

out. And if you actually commit to it, which 99% of people don't, then you will probably make 10 to 100K a month if you

actually have a bone in your body that can improve and iterate and not quit after 2 weeks. Those who are not in the

game just don't understand how little competition there actually is. Just because you're scrolling on social media

all day or you see all this success, these successful businesses popping up, it's like 10 to 50 people that you're

seeing. That's it. maybe a 100, maybe 200. Out of 7 to 8 billion people on this planet, the echo chamber that

you're in is so incredibly small, it's actually mind-boggling. The only successful people in an online business,

as one example, are those who just don't care if there's competition and know that they can grab their piece of the

pie, too. Now, on to the first thing that you should do. We just went over the three traps. Now, we're going to go

over the three things you should do. The first is to set goals that [ __ ] scare you. And when I was mapping out this

video, I I felt like this ball in my chest of emotion of thinking back to the time where you think to yourself like, I

can't believe how far I've come. Right? You don't see how far you've come until you reflect on it and look back and see,

wow, I've actually accomplished all of these things. When you're an executor, when you're an action taker, you're a

doer. You just do things, right? It's just a part of you. It's what you do. You can't wake up and not make some form

of progress. And so when you look back, you're like, "Holy crap." Like, I actually made it that far. I published

two books and it doesn't even feel like I published two books. Like, I feel as if I've made my younger self proud

because little Dan never would have freaking guessed that I would have actually written two books or been the

CEO of a small and scrappy startup company or built such a wide influence on the internet. Like, he wouldn't have

even thought of that. Now, the problem with this is that the pursuit of greatness is often shot down by people

who never do anything great. They see it as shallow or materialistic or they see getting rich or achieving goals as just

that. They they only pinpoint it. They put a spotlight on that and they're like, "You're a bad person because you

want to make money or you want to be famous." I don't want to be famous, but that's like I don't consider myself

famous either. I think I have a pretty large influence, but that's the byproduct of creating value in the way

that I'm creating it, such as a YouTube video. But these people don't understand that there is something there. There's

something deep. In my personal opinion, the deepest and most meaningful things come from the pursuit of materialistic

or shallow things. Because you can only reach the depths once you've scratched the surface, once you've started digging

down. And by not pursuing anything but the domain of spirituality, which that's only one domain. There's also the

material, the money, the mind, the body, the health, etc. You you have to do all of these things if you actually want to

become a well-rounded individual. And the thing with pursuing these goals that scare you or even scare your younger

self or that your your younger self wouldn't have even conceived is that it it just that alone is a source of energy

that is so potent that even the world's strongest stimulant just can't compare to it. It feels so good. And that's not

sustainable. Don't try to sustain it. But I'm sure you felt that when you're pursuing this big grand vision that is

just a massive source of intrinsic motivation. It's like a cosmic pull that is just calling you to become your

higher self. It's your calling. It's a self-imposed calling. So to replicate this, I want you to pull out a sheet of

paper and I want you to write at the top 10 goals 10 years. And I want you to write down 10 goals that make you

physically uncomfortable for one year at a time for 10 years. And then you're just going to focus on one massive goal

per year. Why? Because your mind expands to fill the goals set for achievement. It's like Parkinson's law, but for

goals. And because building a $1 million company takes almost as much effort as building a $100 million company. And if

you don't believe that, you don't understand it. You don't understand that when you set a massive goal, it changes

the actions that you take. If you're trying to build a $1 million company, you're going to take $1 million actions

because that's your goal. If you try to build a $100 million company, you're going to go down a pretty different

direction in order to get there. And you only have 8 hours of work in you a day. It takes the same freaking amount of

effort. And one could even argue that a local coffee shop owner or a restaurant owner works so much harder than someone

who has started an online business and they make so much less because the goal of it is much smaller. The opportunity

in it, the leverage in it is much smaller. Now, there's lots of context missing there and there's obviously ways

to build chains of these coffee shops or other things of that nature, but we live in 2025 and for most people, starting an

online business is a lowerc cost way to go with a much higher upside. And with the internet, it's a lot more common now

that hard work doesn't lead to much in isolation. You can spend 10 years writing a book and that doesn't mean

that that book will get you rich. It doesn't mean that people will read it. It doesn't mean that it's good. Now, the

second thing to do is to make as much money as you can. Why are we trying to make as much money as we can? Are we

doing it because we're bad or because we're evil people who just want to make a lot of money? No. We're actually doing

this as a way to supercharge the growth and development that we have throughout our 20s and our 30s because money is

tricky, right? So many people don't see it for what it is because it's so intimately tied with our self-worth and

our morality and our survival. So when people try to make money or hear about money, they have all of these beliefs

about it that they don't think they can change or they register those beliefs that were conditioned into their head as

truth. Your parents tell you to save your money. Your pastor tells you to shun money or not worry about it. And

your culture that runs on money tells you it's not important. And so you listen to all of these things and then

you just get piled into the ground because you have these bills stacking up. You can't get what you want in life.

And you feel guilty or bad for pursuing something that you want in life and you start to think that you can't make money

and be a good person at the same time with that is just categorically false. So am I telling you to make a bunch of

money and be evil? No. I'm telling you to develop yourself, develop your mind, and develop your finances so you are a

well-rounded individual who can make their own decisions when it comes to money because you've experienced it.

Very few people actually decide to see beyond the virtue signaling that is rampant on social media and everywhere

else and form their own opinion about what money is and what it can do for you. I do not care how spiritual you are

or how intellectual you are. If you have a poor psychological relationship with money, you are not as developed as you

think you are and you are not living as good of a life as you think you are because money is involved in almost

every single decision you make. And if you have a poor relationship with it, then your life is going to be pretty

terrible. And we don't live in pre-industrial times anymore. No, you are never going to go back and live like

your ancestors, not in a modern world. You aren't going to go back in time. And so the objection here is okay but Dan

what if I just want to make as much as I need and that's perfectly fine but again you are limiting the level of challenge

that you can take on in any domain of your life. You can be mostly happy and satisfied and that's great. A lot of

people live great lives, but for those listening to this, I think you will resonate with the fact that you don't

want to reach a point where you relive the same 6 months over and over again for multiple years for the exact reasons

we stated at the beginning of this video. And there are very few things that you can continue to progress at

that aren't your work, your mind, your body, your spirit, and all of those things are intertwined and you need to

survive. Entrepreneurship and value exchange is an infinite game. Now, as dangerous and as evil as money can be,

you can't build rockets or feed the world without it. Money is a globally accepted form of value. And if money

just ceased to exist or people started making less, the world would get bad very fast because people don't work when

they aren't motivated with a reward. That doesn't have to be your only reward, but that's why people work. Now,

we're going to talk about this in like two videos from now. The next video is going to be on the three decisions that

will make you rich. And then after that, it's how to learn anything in two weeks. So, with that, making money is a skill.

You just it's so tied in with your identity that you don't see it as something that you can practice and

improve. We're going to talk about how to learn anything in two weeks in that video. But for now, just understand that

making money is like learning a language or learning how to play the guitar. The difference is that when you try to make

money, one, you need another person involved and you usually need to interact with other people. That means

that your ego is going to come into play. Your values and beliefs are going to come into play. When you're playing

the guitar, it's pretty obvious. You just pick a song, you try to play it, you look up how to play that specific

note, then you continue learning how to play the notes, and then eventually you can play the song. And then you picked

up techniques, and you go to play another song, and then it's easier, and then it's easier, and then it's easier.

The thing is that with instruments or video games, so many people are okay with playing video games and getting so

good at them. But with those, there's no risk. It doesn't matter if you fail. With making money, it matters if you

fail. And that's exactly why it's important to do because that's how you practically overcome caring about what

other people think or managing your emotions. Entrepreneurship and making money are deeply spiritual because you

experience more negative thoughts, negative emotions, negative experiences that you can work through. When you're

stuck meditating all day or you're only worried about these minor irrational things in life, you're not actually

putting weight on the bar. You aren't bench pressing 315 pounds with your mind. You're lifting a five pound

dumbbell because you're upset that someone cut you off in traffic. That's not a high magnitude. That's not a high

weight that you're training with to build more mental muscle to make yourself more capable. Now, the third

thing to do or to focus on is to self-actualize. Because if the overarching aim for the entirety of your

life is not to self-actualize, then it's to self-sabotage. So every single action that you take should align with the

purpose of self-actualization. And if they don't, then I would assume that you don't have a deep reason behind why you

do what you do. And it's extremely difficult to explain the gravity of this because most people don't think about

the outcome of their actions. They have a myopic focus on short-term pleasure that slowly beats them into a pulp

without them realizing it until decades down the road. That is the worst possible place you could imagine

yourself. Health issues that caught up with you, a mind that can adapt to the changing technological landscape. The

actions you took were never a fully conscious choice, so they never led to anything great. I shouldn't have to

explain the decades of psychological research that have amply dissected human needs and development. I shouldn't have

to explain that if you don't self-actualize, you will experience a world of unnecessary pain and you won't

know what to do about it. So for your own good, you need to train your mind to zoom out. You need to make it a habit to

adopt the perspective of the highest version of yourself and consult with them before you make a decision. It

needs to become more than second nature. It needs to just become the thing that you automatically do that when a

decision comes up that is important, you consult with the higher version of yourself. Who do I not want to become?

Who do I want to become? Or what life do I not want to live? What life do I want to live? And then you allow your

decisions to be shaped by those answers. And you don't need to be perfect. You don't need to make every perfect

decision in life. You just need to understand that most people never make a conscious decision in their life. and

that if you simply do that, you will live a better life than them. Now, if you want to read more about human

potential or becoming future proof or learning AI and business and internet stuff, subscribe to my Substack. The

link for that is in the description. Other than that, thank you for watching this video. I'll see you in the next

one. Bye.