I wasted my 20s. #grindreel

today I'm 29 years old another trip around the Sun just a little bit longer before my hairline starts taking that inevitable march backwards across my scalp I'm not keeping my hair I looked at both of my my grandpa's that's what you get your hair Jean and I am [ __ ] now I'm 29 years old I'm in the last year of my 20s like this has been the most formative phase of my life I figured if I can maybe help you learn a thing or two from things that I learned then this would be a decent value-added video that's not just talking about corporate the whole time one of the main things that I've learned from 22:29 is to stop caring what people think about you I used to read comments and I would say oh they must be right because they have an opinion about me example I got a comment today that said you have an annoying voice and the music you pick is annoying you're annoying and I used to think that was like my fault for being annoying and then I realized I can't control what people think and this has been one of the major things that I've dealt with my entire life is that I was so self-conscious and I cared way too much about what people thought about me that I could never do anything that I wanted to do I could never just be myself caring about what people think of me has been the number one thing that has stifled my growth in my life in my opinion another thing that happened over these few years is that I stopped feeling sorry for myself regardless of what ever happens to you it might not be your fault it might not be your choice but it is your responsibility to handle it and deal with it and that took me a while to learn to it always came down to like what's the other option and then these corporate scenarios that I kept putting myself in and whenever I would get let go I would I'd say what's the other option Josh you give up now you're definitely you know you're definitely done so I stopped playing the victim one of the things that I'm really surprised that being 29 years old is that I don't feel like I'm 29 I just feel like a slightly smarter version of my 20 year old self and I just if I could go back in time boy I was slapped [ __ ] up myself so hard and be like what are you doing what get off the computer stop playing so many games the one thing that is weird is that as you get older time goes by faster it doesn't actually go by faster but the appearance of time goes by faster when you're a kid everything in life is a leveling up experience you go from one experience to the next experience and you and you level up you go from kindergarten to first grade from elementary school to middle school and that's like an experience and you remember these things when you remember your summer breaks and you remember doing dumb things with your friends on the summer breaks and then you go to high school and then you get to the top of high school and now you're the cool senior and now you've worked away from the front of the school bus to the back of the school bus where all the cool kids live and like everything was an experience that was really memorable when you turn 16 you can drive or 15 you learn arrggh permit and you turn 18 you can vote when you turn 21 you can go alcohol store after college everything just kind of speeds up someone someone takes the dial on time and just kind of turns it up and I think that's because you're just doing the same thing every day from here on out for the rest of your life there's no more leveling up experiences there is no more unique experience unless you create them for yourself because other than that there's no more summer breaks there's no more moving from this to this you might get a promotion or a salary increase but for the most part you're gonna be doing the same thing every day for the rest of your life and the time that I did have those jobs when that happened thinking back I don't really have any memorable experiences from any of that it was just time for my life gone and that's been the weirdest thing about getting older is seeing the days go by faster when I was at work days will just blur and it would be Monday and then it would be Saturday and then it would be Monday again and that's the weirdest thing I think for me so far for a majority of the first part of your life you're just kind of on Rails and it's just kind of like this experience that you get pushed through from kindergarten to school and to college or if you choose to go that to start working but like for the first part of your life you're on Rails and everything's super exciting is super memorable and there's a clear step up every single time and then after college there's nothing there's no guidance anymore it's just up to you and if you do the same thing every day and you choose to make your nut life not very memorable it's going to blur and it's going to just fly by and when I started to realize that while I was at work it was May and then it was September and there no more summer nights you know I would walk outside and have that warm summer air is super nice you get those summer warm like summer smells and then I close my eyes and now it's cold outside at night and and the next day there's snow and as I started to realize this I would get anxiety about going to work because my life was just flying by and this wasn't what I really wanted to spend my life on at all at my job you could see kind of just a time past the look on people's faces that they were they were people but they were hollowed out shells of humans there was nothing behind there they were just like this is my life now and then you could see the wear and tear on their face and it was just very difficult to look at these people because they've just accepted that this is going to be their life until they're 65 and hopefully their 401k still intact I don't know that was probably the scariest thing just to see people accept that and for me to try and say something different would made me look like I'm crazy they were they were once hungry engineers ready to work ready to put in those 15 hour days just kind of sailing through life I would hear people say yeah it passes the time and that sentence would scare the living [ __ ] out of me if you ever find yourself saying it passes the time you're not gonna get this back I'm not gonna be I'm the youngest that I ever will be and I'm the oldest that I ever will be right now this Monday this Tuesday this Wednesday July 17th 2019 I don't get this back and so for me to just want to it passes just it all passes the time it scares me if I could go back in time and tell myself one thing it'd probably be to stop spending so much time on video games stop leveling up in a video game that's gonna come out with a sequel then you're gonna lose all your progress and you're gonna have to do it again anyways it's a skinner box you don't know what a skinner box is google it but essentially the concept is a gear treadmill you do something so that you can get something so you can do that thing again it's just a giant circle like in Diablo 3 you get better gear so that you can kill stuff faster so that you can get better gear to kill stuff faster it's just a giant loop that's what most RPG games are a lot of people get lost in that and it's progress that you can't hold on to and you're living inside the realm of someone else's rules and constructs in that you know I would go back in time and be like make progress in life where it matters things that you can hold on to things that you can move forward with instead of these things that get reset with a patch at some other person's discretion oh man that's what I would I would just go back I have spent so much time playing video games in my life and while I had a good time I had fun I could have just made so much more progress seriously I have maxed out every class in WoW in every single expansion except for the most recent one where I decided to really get it together that's a lot of time that's a lot of time in just that game and I don't play it just Wow or I didn't play just wow League of Legends and dota 2 the game just resets and you try to do better next time the next thing I would go back in time and tell myself would be is this what you want Josh everyone else says this is what you're supposed to do be happy you're supposed to go to college you're supposed to get a degree that's in something safe and good that pays a lot and just will take care of you and then you'll get a job and you'll work that job and you'll have a nice life so what does that mean nice life does that mean my mortgage is paid every month but I am miserable what does that mean I don't know what that means I didn't ever ask myself that question I just kept doing what I was supposed to do I kept going where I was supposed to go and I kept trying to make myself happy and it was never it wasn't it wasn't it didn't work didn't work I have the degree I have a nice car I have a flat-screen TV I have an Xbox I have computer games I can I have everything that I was so called one but I am NOT happy and I couldn't figure out why and it's just because it was not what I wanted in life it is not my initial that was not my initial goal what I've learned over these past few years is like self confidence in life how do you build self confidence you have to do things that you haven't done before and that's where they say the you know you make progress when you're uncomfortable because you're trying to build things that you've never done you're trying to be someone that you've never been before how are you supposed to stand out if you're in the crowd you know that doesn't make any sense if you want to be big you got to do big things I always heard it and I I knew it but I didn't I didn't like internalize that for a very long time until I decided that I was a youtuber I would feel like I was faking that I wasn't real and that like I'm not you know this isn't legit because it's not my full-time job even though I want it to be but it's not right now until I decided like I don't here I don't care what other people think I'm gonna make this happen and I will not stop until this happens what I've also realized is that you're never done you're always in the process and as soon as you say you're done ties are gonna turn you're always in the process of becoming like I'm not where I want to be I'm not who I want to be yet I want to be able to walk up on a stage with a microphone and motivate people to do what I've done because I didn't think that I could do it I know that you guys could do it that's what I wanted that's the kind of person I want to be but here I am in my room you know I want to be the person that shows up to one of the people and discord houses that's struggling and be like hey man here you go and just mr. beast I know there were people out there like me when I was younger when I was in my early 20s I would look at people like John Thomas I would look at people like Casey nice that big youtubers and I'd be like how do I I want to be like that and then I would go back to playing video games and for those people those are the people I want to find to be like look man I was you I was you I was an introvert I didn't know how to talk to girls I didn't know how to make videos I hated the sound of my own voice I still hate the sound of my own voice I'm I'm 30 years old and I sound like I'm 15 so I'm gonna go year by year from 20 to now at 20 years old I still lived in Atlanta Georgia I didn't know who I was I didn't know what I wanted to be I was that typical guy that was lost without a girl to talk to you I was lost without being in a relationship and if anything jeopardize that relationship my whole life was in turmoil I was a wreck I was a mess I was in like the middle of Community College in like real college trying to figure out what I wanted to do I tried international business I tried to be a pilot because you know I wanted to fly stuff but being a pilot at embry-riddle there's like $320,000 and then the first job you get is a $10 airplane trainee job like instructor job good luck paying 320k off at $10 an hour I was lost I was lost I've dropped out of school like six times before I actually finished and got my degree I got married I moved to Finland I started college all over again so I went to college for two years in the United States Community College real college and then I had to start over in Finland and I was trying to be a good husband 21 years old when you're supposed to be done with college just starting college with a bunch of 16 17 18 year-olds that was weird I was weird you were a little bit more mature than them but it was still weird at 22 I was in the middle of college in Finland I was just trying to be a good husband trying to figure out if I could do the math classes that were in Finland failed my classes in Finland a lot I failed multiple times the same class it's rough when you fail the first time you got to retake it because that's another six months of your life then you fail it again that's like the worst feeling at 23 that's when I started making wild PvP videos with my monk it was like an absolute joke and I remember at the very end of my PvP videos I put hey guys is Josh and if you would like to see more be sure to subscribe and I showed it to that girl I was married to at the time and she's like that's not what you sound like that's not how you talk in real life and that really that really [ __ ] with me that really had an effect on me because that was a person I was married to that I that I trusted I was like you don't sound like that that's not you that's not how you are but inside it was who I wanted to be and so for me to be vulnerable and try to become that person just for a minute just for an outro of a YouTube video was probably the hardest thing I ever did and to get told does not you nobody knows who you are but you that was really hard I remember that at the end of age 24 I graduated college finally and just by the skin of my teeth happened to find my very first engineering job they flew me from Finland back to Utah this is where I started my life and that's when I realized this is like the start to the end if I don't do something right now at 25 years old I met a girl I got dogs they were both rescue dog much as I love puppies I feel like there's also many more dogs and humane shelters that deserve a good life and so the white dog his name is oak oh it's a finnish name when I was married I had a father-in-law and he had a guide dog his name was oak oh as well obviously I couldn't take oak oh but he was like my BFF while I was there we don't deserve dogs like humans don't deserve dogs they're so good to us and he was just left in the backyard he grew up in the backyard like fireworks don't bother him lawn mower doesn't bother him vacuum doesn't bother him none of the stuff that scares regular dogs doesn't bother him though he was just an outdoor dog that never had the other he never got attention he never got anything and then the black dog her name is sue V also a Finnish name but everyone in Finland says that's weird that I named her sue V because it'd be like naming your dog like Frank or David or like you know like Jessica or something you know like she was a street dog I don't know every day I wake up I just try to be the person that my dogs think that I am I always remember I spend a lot of time in the morning with my dogs if you guys ever want to see a day in the life I spend a lot of time with my dogs because to them I am their whole world they have nothing without me but to me they're just a piece of my world and so I always try to remember that like I am there everything to them you know I feed them I let them outside I take them on car rides every day at 26 that's when I had right remote job making sixty five thousand a year and I was really concerned with what I was doing with my life because at that point in time I had a remote job it paid enough more than enough than I needed to live and I played a lot of Wow and so instead of making progress and the things in the back of my head that I knew that I wanted to be doing like making videos but I didn't know anything about camera gear at the time I didn't know anything about lighting I didn't know anything about how to speak to the camera how to look at the lens I didn't know any of that but I knew that I wanted to do that but again it was a lot easier to just level up in WoW instead of real life at 27 I was working my last programming job my last job that I have ever worked I bought a house everything that I did as soon as I got that job was an investment for a safety net so this house I bought this house this house was built in 1939 I have one wall socket I don't know this house was I think it was like an actual Trap House I traded in my dream car I had a two-door Jeep Wrangler I love Jeeps I like kicking the doors off taking the top off just cruising around like a go-kart but I had to trade it in because I needed a way and you had something to fall back on like uber and lyft or Amazon delivery or whatever it was at the time like I knew that was just an easy fallback to have if I ever lost that job and then I could create money for myself like boom on demand 27 to 28 and still to this day I read so many books and you'll always hear these inspirational speakers talking about how they've read books and how the books changed them and it feels so cliche to say that that's true gosh it feels so cliche because you're like just a book your life and then you hear things in books that justify your own mentality that you've never heard anyone say before like for me I thought that I was a bad employee and then I started reading books about I'm not I just don't have the mindset of an employee I just want to do what I want to do and that's okay and so reading books really kind of validated my own I guess it validated my own bias right which is not which is not always a good thing but when everyone around you was against you and you read some books and they verify what you're thinking and they're successful in life then it motivates you then you're like okay they were me and now they're here if they can do this I can do this if I had to talk about just a few books of people that have influenced me the first book would be unscripted by MJ DeMarco after that it would probably be anything by Robert Greene the war of art by Steven Pressfield is one of my favorite books it's if you're in a creative field Ryan holiday anything by him the daily stoic the obstacle is the way Gary Vee is crushing it atomic habits is good that's where I got the Ice Cube analogy dan locks his Fu money and Alan's pretty good the David Goggins can't can't hurt me that's a good book when I was 28 years old I quit my job I made my own company I became my own employee where I employ myself I have a business I have an LLC registered as an S corp taxed as an S Corp it exists in Wyoming grind real LLC is a real company so I pay myself on payroll so I pay payroll tax and I am the CEO and I'm the shareholder and I'm the owner and I own 100% stock of my own company and I'm the only one that works there you know I don't buy a lot of nice things for myself I live under my means I'm pretty frugal something's on sale hey that's my middle name man you ask free that's for me on sale hey what up I just lived real frugal there's not a whole lot of materialistic stuff that can really make me happy there's only kind of life-changing things that I could pay off that might give me a sense of security that might increase my happiness I don't know I'm not there yet but I know right now there's nothing really that I could buy that increases my happiness that I don't have but I do have a motorcycle I have a Triumph Speed Triple 1050 and I love that bike you could take a key right now and you could just drag it across my car and I'd be like oh that sucks oh you did that to my motorcycle oh baby I'm so sorry Oh baby what is you doing on let me get that off I'll buff that off right now for example I would like to spend much money and buy 4k monitors and by 2080 TI's and put those in sli because that would make my rendering time go from 40 minutes to 15 or 20 minutes still wouldn't increase my motivation to sit down here make these videos which I struggle with pretty much all the time I'll be like how do you stay motivated to code Josh I don't stay motivated to do anything I'm not motivated more than I am motivated and I still get things done you're not feeling motivated to code hey guess what you don't need to feel motivated to do something there's a lot of stuff that you do that you don't feel like doing you know feel motivated probably to get up and go to work but hey you still get up and go to work it's the same thing with code how do you stay motivated you don't you just do things when you have to do things because that is what that is the standard that you set yourself to so whatever your standard is you've got to hold yourself to it and I hold myself to one video and one live stream every single day so here I am at 29 I have 364 days left of being here at age 29 I guess I have some kind of new goals for myself new things that I want to do I'd like to make a million dollars by the time I'm 30 I don't know how am I do it yet but damn it do I want to buy my parents a house so bad and just be like retire live life go enjoy each other you guys have fought and fought because money problems and getting just go live your life and I want to pay off stuff and I want to go help the people in the discord that have been here from day one and I want to go do things for people I just want to I don't know how to do it yet when Casey nice that turns 30 on his 30th birthday he started his vlog journey where he made a vlog every single day and while I'm already producing content every single day that content might change going forward so just a heads up you can only bash on corporate for so long you can only make fun of stuff for so long you know I have other interests you guys have other interests we might talk about that here that's why it's Josh fluke and not code with Josh or bash corporate with Josh some gear review some tech reviews how to make a youtube channel reviews how to build a brand reviews should you have a blog or not they might be even like film and stories and skits and I know you guys out there I know you guys out there are out here doing web if you and I both know that there's more than there's more to life when you go at the end of the day and you turn on a movie what kind of movie are you watching why do you like that movie when you go home and you cook some food what kind of food are you cooking why did you cook that food let's talk about other things with sizes we don't get to come back and do this again there's no sense in just talking about one thing this whole life at least that's my two cents I'm already upset that I don't get to see the entire world before I'm done here I just want to leave the world a better place than when I got here a lot of people say that you're either a sheep or you're a wolf what about the sheepdog in the middle I know that's kind of cheesy but that's kind of what I try to be I don't want to be a wolf trying to eat the Sheep and I don't want to be a sheep because I don't really want to go everyone wants to go I just want to be that person in between that's like hey you don't have to do this and at the same time keep the Wolves away I'm not a cutthroat businessman but I don't want to follow what everyone else is doing I just want to help everyone and I want to keep them away from these crappy companies and crappy situations but that's this video guys it's not related to anything I talk about on this channel and I you can get to know me a little bit more try not to let YouTube fame go to my head not better than anybody else I just wanna I just wanna help you guys out that's it if you enjoyed this video guys maybe leave a thumbs up leave a comment let me know what you want to see I appreciate all you guys here's to a good 29th year here's to landing 30 on my feet just living a good life I'll see you guys in the next one [Music]

Channel: Joshua Fluke

Views: 1,803,084

Rating: 4.9355464 out of 5

Keywords: joshua fluke, code bootcamp, javascript, how to code, web development, brand, developer interview, developer jobs

Id: 3VCxkMvKUnA

Length: 21min 21sec (1281 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2019