I'm 28. Here's How To Get Ahead Of Most 20 Year Olds

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.