5 things I learned from my twenties

Key Takeaways

so my 20s were by far the most transformative years of my life it's definitely the time period where I saw the greatest personal growth as well as some of my greatest mistakes when I was 20 years old I was an aspiring filmmaker hopelessly trying to make a fedora work I was a wannabe player but largely insecure and uncertain about my future honestly if you don't look back at photos from 10 years ago and cringe then well you're lying even though it didn't really feel like it at the time through all my missteps I was somehow stumbling in the right direction I learned so many valuable lessons about how to cultivate really healthy relationships how to find true happiness and also how to progress through my career and all the ups and downs that often comes from that I learned so many valuable lessons from my 20s and in this video I want to share the five most important takeaways this video is brought to you by my friends at Squarespace and I'll talk a little bit about them later effective communication will solve most of your problems when I think back to all the major problems and conflicts that I had in my 20s almost every single one of them could have been solved with better communication I remember one specific shoot that I had a freelance film project early on that really taught me that lesson the hard way I just filmed a basketball competition I nailed this shoot getting solid interviews with the players and some great action footage of the game and when I touch base with my client after the shoot I asked him if he'd also like me to edit the footage for him thankfully he agreed giving me a little bit of a bigger paycheck and so for the next couple of days I escaped to a cabin in the middle of the woods without internet connection to edit the footage but then when I came back from my three-day trip I was surprised by what I found about a dozen voicemails a few text messages and emails and now I don't remember the exact language that my client used but it was something like this Matt why the aren't you picking up your phone I need this video edited in one day or this entire shoot was a complete waste of time seriously what I'm so pissed right now I can never hire you for a shoot again you seriously even though my client was no doubt being an [ __ ] and he was absolutely crossing the line with how he was talking to me I knew that I could have avoided all of this I thought I was going above and beyond but I hadn't actually communicated the deadline I hadn't communicated the budget or any of those details and so this was a really valuable lesson it taught me that I needed to be a proactive communicator and I was also able to apply that to personal relationships I needed to stop having so many assumptions about what other people needed or wanted and I needed to stop avoiding difficult conversations because they made me feel uncomfortable not only will effective communication solve most of your problems it'll prevent them from becoming problems to begin with happiness comes from within at 20 years old I had a very clear picture of what success looked like it was a big house fancy cars vacation homes a six-figure salary all the physical possessions that I wanted but currently didn't have the money for that was my goal and as social media platforms began to dominate our attention I also felt myself craving likes followers and subscribers I wanted the admiration of my peers and pretty much everybody I graduated high school with I remember foolishly telling myself things like if I get this lens then my videos will finally be perfect if I make this amount of money that all my problems and stress will go away but these if-then statements are completely conditional and I found that whenever I got that thing it really didn't deliver on the promise that I thought it would just a few years into my 20s this became glaringly obvious when I stumbled across a few bloggers online talking about something called minimalism minimalism and blogging and have it changed all of these have been tools for me for learning about myself and how I work and how my mind works and how change works this idea of minimalism completely flipped my perspective of what success and Happiness look like and it made me realize that I was aiming at the wrong goal post all along I was spending so much time on the pursuit of happiness that I was completely neglecting all the things that I already had that could have been making me happy I had a supportive family I had passion for filmmaking I had a roof over my head even though I was in debt I still had food on the table every single day and those are the things that I should have been focusing on I should have been grateful for the things I had instead of longing for the things that I didn't have happiness as I learned comes from within you can keep chasing after more stuff more admiration more money but that will not continue to pay off past your basic needs the true path to happiness is determining how much is enough and reminding yourself every day how grateful you are to have it there is no substitute for hard work as much as I talk about the benefits of having a healthy relationship with your work and about the negative effects of overworking and hustle culture I truly believe that there is no replacement for hard work no matter how smart you are mastery takes time and dedication and consistency and whether you're an athlete and accountant or a photographer that doesn't matter you still need to show up every day and do the work if you want to get better I remember filming 50 weddings late into the night and taking the subway home at 1:00 a.m. I remember dozens of overnight edits and dealing with shitty clients or for the years I was 26 years old when I started the biggest project of my life and my first feature documentary minimalism you might have heard me talk about it on this channel before when I started that project I was overwhelmed it was largely a one-person crew I was responsible for filming and editing everything and so I had to put in a lot of work to make it come true at the time we had no deal with Netflix and no expectation of it trending around the world and nor did I care to think about those things I cared about doing the best I possibly could and the only way to get this thing across the finish line was for me to show up 12 hours a day drinking coffee and eating nothing but peanut butter sandwiches no I do not recommend that in doing the work there are no shortcuts if you want to progress in your career it's going to take rolling up your sleeves and doing the work and if you're lucky enough to find something that you truly love that you can make a full-time living from you'll find the reward in the work itself don't let your ego sabotage your relationships self-awareness is one of the most important skills you need to develop if you want to be a better coworker friend or partner understanding your own strengths and weaknesses owning up to it when you're wrong or you've made a mistake no matter how great of a match you have with your partner you will inevitably have difficult times when it comes to building healthy relationships it's not about avoiding conflict it's about learning how to deal with your own emotions so you can navigate through the issues together whenever I feel my patience decrease in my temperature rise I know absolutely nothing good will come of it I'll just continue to dig a hole deeper and deeper saying something mean or hurtful or untrue simply because I got caught up and I let my ego do the talking for me and so once I realize that I'm starting to approach this I decided to take a step away to remove myself from the conversation for a moment to cool down I'm not running away from my partner I'm not running away from my problem I'm simply giving myself some space to cool down and within 5 or 10 minutes I already start to feel better I can come back to that conversation level-headed I can apologize if I have to if I if I absolutely have to I can also communicate more effectively I can let somebody know maybe why I'm hurt why I feel that way if I'm just letting my ego do the talking I'm not able to think clearly true growth takes time there's no such thing as overnight success we love hearing these stories of people who've made seemingly huge leaps and short periods of time for the same reason that millions of people play the lottery each year because we somehow think that there might be a shortcut to finding success happiness and financial wealth but that's simply not true if you go throughout your life thinking that everything will come naturally to you you're going to give up the minute you hit any form of resistance take starting a YouTube channel for instance for most people it takes years of making videos week after week before they're able to turn it into a full-time income there's no guarantee that you'll make it happen at all but if you expect to get there in a couple of months you will absolutely fail now that I'm 32 years old I don't worry about failure as much as I used to of course I'm not trying to fail and I don't want to fail but I understand that that is literally the price you pay for trying any use the time in your 20s to invest in your skills and to let them build upon themselves learn as much as you possibly can make as many mistakes as you can because you have so much time to pick yourself up and to move forward true growth takes time so pace yourself and show up each day and do the small things that will have a lasting impact on your life make the investment in yourself now and you'll reap the benefits in just a few years time your future self will thank you so my sponsor for this week's video is Squarespace I remember when I first signed up for a Squarespace account back in 2015 I was in my mid-20s and I wanted to be a blogger turns out I'm a much better filmmaker than I am a blogger but still at that time and I continue to realize throughout the years how important it is to have a really beautifully designed website what I love about Squarespace is that you don't have to be a designer to make a beautiful website they have dozens of amazing templates that are ready to be customized all you need to do is click drag and drop get powerful analytics connect your social media accounts and so much more go to Squarespace comm for a free trial when you're ready to launch go to Squarespace comm slash MACD Abella to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain so much of life is perspective our perspective changes the more information that we get a new idea that might come to us a significant time in our life it also comes from looking back at photos from a long time ago and also in understanding that we're probably going to have these same feelings in ten years time I know I'll certainly look back at the time of my 30s and maybe cringe at some of the photos that I took and some of the videos that I made but that's just part of growing it never stops we always continue to change and hopefully we can learn from our mistakes to continue to do better thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you next time