Turning 30 Years Old

 

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OK. Hello Tyler Bryden here. Hope everything is going well. It’s a milestone in my life. Over the past few days I turned 30 years old and if anyone has known me I get a little existential around my birthday. I always seem to struggle with it and this is the start of a new decade. A lot has happened in that decade and I’m definitely a different person. Being 19 turning 20 that I am now turning 30 in. I remember when I was turning 26. I put together a little sort of milestone post and and podcast episode and it continues to be one of the more popular ones, and I realize it’s cause like people are continuing to turn 26 years old and I thought, I know I might as well do one at this stage. I’m creating videos pretty constantly and the sort of birthday always brings, you know, for me this existential piece, but also just a positive reflection time. As I look, you know, towards the, you know, look at the past and then look towards.

In the future, so in this. Video and I apologize. I don’t know how long this is going to be. I’m going to, you know, reflect a little bit on those 30 years. Many of those which were somewhat unconscious to be honest and for different reasons, and going to share some things I’ve learned along the way. I started with them more. Sort of trite. Here are 30 lessons at 30. You know, wrapping numbers around it felt weird. And then you know, first of all, I was too little. Then I exceeded those lessons and then I was like I don’t need to do it.

Like this I I’m just gonna share some things that I feel like are true and walk through those and and hopefully those are maybe insightful for you. If you are turning 30 years old or you’re just living life and you’re interested, maybe it’s coming whatever it is. The other thing that I’m sort of looking at is like what could I tell my younger self and I think that’s. Something that we all look back or as we ask people who are further along in the life are more successful. It’s like what do you wish you knew? What do you wish someone had told you what you wish you had realized at that age? And that’s something that I, you know constantly wrestle with because we continue to grow. We continue to be more intelligent. We have these life experiences and it’s just like I wish I had known that then and that is something that can never come to fruition. Time you can’t go back in time, but you know, maybe someone checks us out and.

You know, somehow the words that I say here resonate, and it helps them at an earlier stage, and I think that’s a lot of times what life is about, which is just like helping people not maybe make the same mistakes that you made so they can get to where they want to be faster with maybe less pain, less suffering. And of course, those pieces are crucial to growth crucial to that journey, but I think there’s a lot we can do when we share knowledge. We share insights we understand ourselves, and then we reflect that back and give that to other people. And then maybe just summarize with like. Some goals for the future are what you know I’m thinking about in the future here, and so I do have a list. I don’t think I if I pull it up here you can see some of the things here. I’m not sure if I’m going to screen share the whole time. If I’ll click back or not, but I’ll start and go down and again, you can see that maybe this list scares you off right away. It’s like, oh God, how this got some talking to do, but this will be, you know, you can tune in TuneIn tune out anytime. And this is, you know, as much a reflection.

There for me here as well too and and working through some of these lessons that I think are really important and I’ll start with number one which is take care of your body. This is something that I understood in some ways, that being an athlete and then didn’t understand in other ways. And for those who don’t know, I went through a really tough. In my early 20s. I ended up at about £280 and because of that I you know, really did some damage to my body. I gained that weight very quickly and I lost that weight. Ended up with stretch marks, things that make me, you know.

Well, if you can see them right there. But, you know, things that make me self-conscious, and that’s just a little bit like the ones on my stomach and everything, too. And, you know, every day it’s a reminder that I didn’t take care of my body as if it was the only one that I had. And I, out of all the regrets that I have, it’s. I wish I had known that and took better care because it’s such an important part of your life. It’s such an important part of your health, and I know that that sort of time did a lot of damage that I really wish I hadn’t done. So. The next lesson here was how to understand how to use substances and substances as a little bit of a generic word, but, you know, for me, there’s a lot of.

Different perspective on what substances are so someone would say alcohol. Some would say caffeine, some would say marijuana. Some would say sell cybin different sort of substances. All of these things are. They modify our lives, they modify our behavior, our mindset, our body. And some can be healthy, some can be unhealthy, some can be used moderately, and if used moderately can have benefits. And I think that’s the part that I wish I had learned earlier, now have a little bit better of a feel on. I still learn, I’m still pushing boundaries and understanding what’s working, what’s not working, but I also try to let go of sort of societal.

Sort of understanding or propaganda or whatever it is around these substances. Everything is a substance. It can be used positively or negatively, and the more that you know yourself, the more that you experiment, the better you can use the substance to your advantages whatever they are, so I think that’s one big thing that stuck out to me a little bit as I’ve gone through life here. Other one is that like animals, give your life joy. I was lucky enough to grow up on a farm surrounded by horses surrounded by dogs.

And I am grateful to have a dog in my life now. Tasia a wonderful little guy that I just love so much here. Let’s see if I got a picture. We’ve got a Christmas picture here with Monica and then Teja and they, you know not. No. I’m focusing on Taiji, on this one. But it’s more more than that. In another lesson that that pops up of just like how much joy they can bring you. I had made excuses about why couldn’t get a dog, and I was busy with this X and.

And and I waited for a while and waited to the right time to find the right animal, but I’m just so happy I feel so much less stressed gives me so much joy. I have so much love for Tasia and I I just I can recommend that wholeheartedly to anyone who loves animals. And most people do that, even if it seems like a lot of work that work is, it pales in comparison to the love, the happiness, the the distress that you get. It really is such a a truly beautiful thing. And so as I move to number.

Before this is one that sticks out to me a lot too, which is you can accomplish a lot over a long period, but not in a short period. So humans we sort of tend. We have a tendency to overestimate what we can do in the short term and then underestimate what we can do in the long term. And so I’ve set many goals, say in a year’s time frame that I thought would be, you know, achievable and I didn’t achieve them until maybe a year and a half or two years or even three years. They all sort of came to fruition, but it was a lot over a lot longer.

Period of time, and so when I think about that, you get the stress and frustration from not achieving goals on the schedule that you might want. And for myself, that’s caused a lot of frustration and pain and suffering, and it’s obviously not just myself. This is what people do. They have these expectations when those expectations aren’t met. Then you you have suffering, and so if you can remember that if you keep working in the right direction, maybe it’s going to take a little longer than you intended and think it’s good to time frames and goals. I think that allows you to, you know.

Make decisions that prioritize those goals, but also remembering that it might not happen as quickly as you, possibly as you think, and so to not let that make you, you know, not let that have impact on your day-to-day happiness because you’re moving in the right direction. And if you continue with good intent with good, you know good hard work and also making smart decisions along the way. Eventually that will happen so. I think another one that sticks out to me, and hopefully I’m moving at a pretty good pace here, is that you can create as much as you can and create don’t consume one of my good friends, Harry, he said. He said that to me originally, a crate don’t don’t consume. And that really stuck with me because there’s a world where there’s so much entertainment available, there’s so much out there and it’s so easy to just.

Consume content all day and I’ve had to switch that paradigm to create and that’s what I’m doing. Right now I’m creating this video. Didn’t need to create this video, I could just not that could go watch videos of turning 30 whatever it is, and that intentional decision has opened up so many opportunities for me. It’s connected me with so many people and so grateful that I’ve you know, that first of all, Harry shared that with me in the right, and it’s obviously a simple thing. But the words that resonated in the right way and because of that I’ve focused on creation. I built tylerbridge.com speak I.

Marketing agency now I’m doing these videos. All of that steers me in the right direction and it seems to also. Most throw things out in the universe that then come back in a positive way. And when we consume we don’t have that same almost tilt that we’re putting into the universe. So if you can, even if it’s small, it doesn’t need to be this big quantity. Just create, create as much as you can. I think that’s a lesson that I wish I had known, and if I had hadn’t been embarrassed or ashamed of maybe my quality or whatever it is, I would have started earlier and I would have been further along the path of some of the things that I wanted to be. And now.

1:30 I think I just gave up. I said I don’t care. I don’t care what people think. I don’t care if people think my videos are too long or bad or I’m a sad guy. Whatever those things are that get in our head of who we could be, that doesn’t matter. Just create. And when you create, you’ll find the people who really care who do connect. And maybe the people who who who don’t want to you know be part of that. That’s OK. That’s that’s that’s the part of the journey. And those are the things that we gain. And those are the things that we lose along the way. And just because you might lose something doesn’t mean it’s a.

The negative thing because you have opened the door to something else. So the other piece here, which consistently I battle with all the time, is just valuing your time. And I started my own business in 2015, 2016 and in that time I first of all I was doing a lot of learning and so I always felt that it was OK to sort of spend an extra amount of time, you know, diving deep into something, maybe not necessarily asking for the money that I wanted, or even needed to do it. And as I started to grow and started. You know getting a bit older?

You realize the trade-offs that you’re making when you don’t value your time properly. You know you take a job or a contract and you have to work. You know all this time for free and it feels OK when you’re young because you’re hustling and then as you get, you know, a bit older. You have family and your friends and you have a house and you have a dog. These things are so valuable to you that you don’t want to make that trade off in the same way anymore. So I really do believe that you need to learn to value time. You need to learn to protect it. And when you do that, you actually optimize for success.

You create boundaries around yourself that make you successful that make even when you do, when you’re when you are trading off the time you’re working for some whatever it is that you’re putting that input into there knowing your boundaries so you can leave and then be happy in the time that you have for the other parts of your life so. Value time value yourself. I have this shirt that says you are underpaid and I made that a long time ago and I wear that. I look at it sometimes and I laugh and I’ve also seen people see that shirt and go. Whoa, you know. And if we have that mindset that our time is valuable, that we are valuable that we are worth a lot. Everything starts to move in the right direction and you start to prioritize things a lot differently.

While you’re sometimes people can be, the world is not predictable and. This one’s a little I even I would say abstract but like. People are, you know, we’re emotional. You start to learn people and you understand what they might be doing or the decisions that they’re making, or what their goals are, and then it can help to start to predict what they are doing. But then the macro environment around that may not be predictable, and then something can happen, whether it’s a recession or a catastrophe or whatever, it is that then changes something so much that then sometimes people then become unpredictable because they’re adapting and they didn’t know that this was coming. And to me, this world.

This beautiful this is as it is. Can be chaotic and out of control, and there’s so many times I thought something was going to happen and then it didn’t. I moved to Toronto with this vision in my mind of what was going to happen, and then put COVID and and all this stuff. And so you know there is chaos in the world and if we can live with that and we can also accept that, then we can excel and we can thrive in that. And that’s something that I wish I had known and it sort of lines up with this things when we have these expectations and they aren’t met then suffering happens. So when we go without.

Expectations, knowing that the world is unpredictable, that knowing that the world is felt filled with chaos. It allows us to excel in that chaos. So finding a community that you love being a part of it and you want to contribute to. And this one’s still something you know hard for me to do. I work on it all the time. I have connected with sort of machine learning and natural language processing. I feel more you know, even more at home with sort of psychedelic communities going to Burning Man again those.

Communities make me really happy and actually want to be a part of it. I want to contribute to it. I don’t even care sometimes about you know, especially like getting paid. To do that. I just am so curious. I’m excited. And when you do that life becomes a better place to to be. You build connections, you build strength. There’s this idea of your network being your net worth, which is a little you know. Yeah, whatever that but.

That the the the the, the truthness, the truth and that is that when you have amazing people around you and you care about them, they care about you and you all contribute towards something or at least help each other out. That’s a beautiful place to be in and so find that community contribute to it, grow at be part of it. That’s a beautiful thing, thing to do and something I’m still working on and trying to figure out so. More 9 is your priorities and risk tolerance changes over time and. You know this was one for me growing, you know, starting this business all I wanted to do was one of my big goals was to make $1,000,000. By the time I’m 30 and 30 and you know over a period of time that may be true, but not in the same sort of vision that I had. And I realized that over time my own priorities have changed. What I want to change where I want to spend my time has changed.

The kinds of risks that I’m willing to take, whether that’s and you can see the next one. There are, sometimes they’re sort of connected, which is like avoiding personally liable debt. One time that I didn’t care about that because I just I’m gonna hustle my way out of this. Now I realize when I do that, I lose opportunities of other things that I can do so. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, but in the last few years, especially with sort of the pandemic and everything, I really did have this huge shift in.

My own risk tolerance and my priorities and that’s then changed my behavior dramatically to change my decision making and I. I’m grateful for that change. It’s allowed me to be a little bit more safe, a little bit more risk averse, and also prioritize the things that are truly meaningful in life. And so when you expect that and it’s a hard thing to expect, and it’s hard to know when these changes come because they can happen very quickly or they can happen over a period of time. But when you, when you know that that’s going to change, and you may be sort of trend towards being a little bit less risk averse and prioritizing family and friends and in your own personal time, then you can make adjustments. Early in life to.

To make sure that you can get towards that a little bit later in life, so that number 10 spot there, avoid personally liable debt as much as you can. I touch on this, but they just think I remember being in this Court of this workshop for venture capital and this guy said, never take on personally liable debt for your business, and at that time I had taken it on and I was like, Oh my God, I I just never had really thought of it because it was just like if I believe in this. If I think it’s true, I’m willing to do that. And luckily I’ve been able to pay all of that off. It was a significant amount and I made.

You know an assessment there where many people would have sort of not paid that off. I went and paid it off and it had consequences for my business for myself or what I could do in the short term. But overall I then removed that from my life specifically around business. Still have mortgage, but specifically around business, which then opens up so much more freedom. I don’t have the same stress every day when I operate, and it’s now allowed me to look at life in a different way.

Less stressed way and also without that there, I can then have more time to to research, to adjust, to adapt instead of always being scared and worried about that. So that’s been a huge change for me and something I recommend no matter what, no matter if you are. I know it’s not always possible, this isn’t always possible, but I would rather go slower and and you know, make money through customers and work that I’m doing then take on debt to try to hit hypergrowth or whatever it is and it but because so many times those calculations. Don’t work out and you’ve whatever you’re building software you don’t find product market fit and you’re stuck. You know, a year later, two years later, with $100,000 in debt that you need to run, build, and maybe that’s going to pay off in some way. But many times it doesn’t, and you’re back to Ground Zero and starting again. You’re actually less than Ground Zero. You have to rebuild to get to where you want to be so.

The other piece here, I apologize. I got to take a little drink little Gator. It’s not Gator, it’s water. Is carve out time for deep work and this is something I didn’t understand when I was younger because I just would take every meeting that I possibly could, which is OK and it’s a good part of your life and it builds connections. But as I got especially in the last few years, especially with the pandemic, I realized when I didn’t have meetings all day, I could block out four hours to put on music and do the kind of work like data work or whatever it was or even writing or creating all these things.

I started to excel and I started to feel more fulfilled at the end of the day I felt like I was accomplishing more and that became really fruitful, became really rewarding to get that done, whereas before I was just in meetings bouncing around all the day and I would be overstimulated of field chaos. And then I would have to do all the work still. Wasn’t very good at delegating. Still ain’t not very good at delegating. It should be a lesson here, delegate if you can. And the lesson around that, I’ll just off the cuff, is like if someone could do it 80% as well as you delegate. So that’s another lesson that I should learn here. I’m going to print it, delegate, but carving out the time for deep work has allowed me to have some of my most creative moments, successful moments, professional moments. And I think we don’t prioritize that as much as we should as that culture. And so if you can do that.

Find ways to block out that time and focus and work on tasks chunk by chunk instead of you know, multitasking over many things and you’ll find that you can make huge strides. Instead of feeling like at the end of the day, you are not accomplishing what you wanted to accomplish. One thing that I didn’t, you know. I always actually trended towards not believing in it because I had sort of some negative. You know, feelings in my life around sports, especially after my hockey career, but what I realized is that.

Sports are a great way to connect, and as I move to port credit here in Canada, I found soccer. I found hockey and I found ultimate Frisbee and all of those have made helped me meet new people. Get good exercise, build team, build just this little moments of connection that are really really beautiful and again at a time. I was very skeptical about this and I think there is times where sports can be actually detrimental or negative. But now as I get a bit older I found it such a great way to meet people.

Have fun, be healthy and I’m really grateful that that sort of perspective has changed around, so another one, and I’m promise I’m moving through some of the other ones are shorter. Is that addiction to food is a real addiction, and that’s one that I struggle with. I yesterday at the grocery store I bought 2 at their sourdough bread, but I, you know, we talk about these addictions to things, and to me, one of the greatest ones that we have as a world is food, and we have such a. Many of us have such a damaging relationship with food that I, I think was not stigmatized in a way it should be. I think maybe when we see people who are, you know, really obese and in dangerous territory then that starts to come out. But generally I see a lot of people that you know, maybe they look negatively on alcohol or whatever. All of these other substances which are again harmful, but in some ways just like everything is. But then they eat whatever act desserts and blah blah food addiction is real. It’s something that’s the hardest addiction that I have in my life. I try my absolute best to work through it, but I struggle with it.

Dale and I and my if I someone was younger. I wish that they would know. That if they can build a healthy relationship with food and find positive ways to eat healthy. You’re level much healthier, happier, better, longer life, and I’m still telling that to myself here right now. I’m still trying to figure this out, and a lot of that goes back to my own childhood and and and and everything there and so.

I’ll be working. I’ll share updates as I go along it. The less alcohol you consume, the better little judgmental there Tyler. But there’s been some studies. Recently I shared a YouTube video on it about alcohol and.

And just how dangerous it is for us? And it’s not very, you know. It’s a big part of our culture here. It’s not one that I, you know, love very much. I you know still have beers now and then, but it’s I’ve seen the damage that can do in family and friends. Even you know, went home for the weekend to see some friends and went out to a old bar that I went to and had a couple of drinks. And I just saw some of the rage and the anger and the you know lack of self-control that was taking place and that makes me sad. And again I have some bias here.

And my, you know people my family struggle with alcoholism, but I really do believe this and there’s a lot of sort of science and just personal trauma. Not just experience myself that that sort of shows me that this is at least right for me to to write down, even if it does have some bias in it. So creating helps you connect with people who care about the same thing you do. So I did talk about the creation and you’ll see there starts to be a little bit of repetition here now, as I did these at different times. But that’s one thing I found by creating these videos or writing or whatever it is. People message me.

That I didn’t even know because they resonated with something and that. That means a lot, and in in this world, and you know, through some of my own journey, I’ve disconnected from a lot of friends and it’s been quite sad. Just prioritizing, you know, business and all this stuff, and so I continually reach out to try to connect with other people. And I’m still not very great at it, but but creating this content, I’m. Able to do, you know, do a better job at doing it and find those tribes. Find those communities. Find those right people and that’s a beautiful thing to to have so.

Being an entrepreneur hard down. Yeah, not one that’s very true entrepreneur. Obviously you know it’s a word with a lot of meaning to it. I’ve run a business since 2016 and it was hard and sacrificed personally professionally. Things that I had these intuitions around, or you know, hear stories about all these successful millionaires and billionaires who came through business. You realize, like how many of these 90% of businesses fail whatever? All these stats, it’s like.

Yeah, not only that. If you truly want to be successful, how much you’re sacrificing along the way, and so that’s the sort of talk about risks, profiles changing and priorities changing. You know, I realized how much. Of those sacrifices were made, and even for me, as sometimes a solo entrepreneur, and in many ways, and then luckily finding amazing cofounder with vatsal and then but still having a small team, you actually sacrifice some of the network that you think you’re going to have and you really have to be intentional because you’re not necessarily working in a big corporation with teams and that you’re, you know, put together with every day. And so I’ve actually found that I’ve sacrificed a lot of networks and just connection by being an entrepreneur, and I think that’s one of the more difficult.

Things of all as well as you know now hitting a nice spot and sort of income and everything, but still a lot of instability which creates stress which creates fear and. I don’t know for many people if that’s always worth it, and I had a therapist at one time who you know, I sort of talked about being a leader and being a business owner and what that required. She just sort of challenged me on if that was truly right for me. And even though it had been part of my life as a hockey player, it doesn’t necessarily meant that it was part of my life here now. And, you know, I’ve learned a lot along the way. I’m still learning. I still have fun and there’s amazing peak moments. But then there’s also a lot of suffering and pain that comes along with it, and so if you want this in your life and you want to do it.

Remember that and remember that some of these myths, or some of these stories that you see are anonymously anomalies that don’t always indicate the truth. And even if you look at something like why, combinate or whatever these is like. We see those success stories. We see those people raising money. We see all the good stuff. We don’t see the one that failed unless they’re huge ones like we work and blah blah. But that’s generally something that I see is that we.

We we always cover the anomalies. We don’t cover the. You know the majority and the majority struggle. The majority suffer along the way and maybe or maybe they figure out how to build somewhat of a smaller sustainable business. But then a lot of people start to want to work more towards missions or more on technology, and so tradeoffs in every part of your life around this. And it’s not as easy as you think, and that’s definitely not as easy as I thought. And truthfully, I don’t know if I knew it was this hard that I would have gone down this path. So that’s a lesson that I wish I had known.

I heard it over and over again in in, in panels and all this stuff, but it’s hard for us to intake. A lesson from someone else without having the experience itself, and I’m saying that ironically, as I’m sharing these lessons with you and you’re listening to it and a couple other things, I’m almost done. I promise. Look, I’m almost there. Stress is not worth that man. Stress kills you, and I’ve had moments where I’ve talked to my partner and said, I feel like I’m dying right now because of the stress. This feels like I’m shortening my lifespan and.

Aye. I’ve gotten better at it. I still feel that way. I make jokes about it, but there are times where all the culmination of factors or events or emergencies, whatever it is, have just made me. So sometimes I’ve not even be able to barely get up and up, up, you know, I just lay in bed and I feel crippled. Almost, I feel and you know, I figured out.

You know, through exercise and healthy eating and relationship with substances and all these things, ways to work through that, especially in a much shorter time period and maybe less intensely than I did before. But in those early stages like it was really difficult. And so if you know if you can build up stress resilience, you can start to build mental models around stress and whether it’s cognitive behavior therapy or whatever it is. You can start to work through it because it’s not worth it to just sit in a stress, and sometimes it’s good to sit there and it helps you. Then problem solve, but most of the times it’s a negative and you need to move forward. And if you’re not having fun, it’s just not worth it in the end. And so I’m going to write that as if.

You’re not having fun, it’s not worth. Couple other pieces here. You can start to see again. Sort of themes come out as that routines create freedom and this is something really interesting to me, something I didn’t believe in because I love sort of being all over the place. But now with the House now with my partner with my dog. I love waking up in the morning. I love working out. I love making tea and then having a shower, a cold shower and cold shower. By the way, a great one.

I’m getting distracted along the way here. That has given me freedom and I’m so grateful for that freedom because it allows with those couple things taken care of. My mind then can do what it needs to do. So if you can figure out those routines the way that you like it, make sure the next lesson I’ll jump into that which is like reward yourself to instill those habits so there are ones where it’s like if you work out you feel good after and hopefully that’s a good enough reward for you. I would also like add, you know, a a sauna into it.

You get a nice shower at the end of it, but if you can reward the hard work that you’re doing to instill those habits or those right things, then you build that feedback loop and then you can actually. You can actually achieve it and continue it on a routine basis without it becoming this sort of Sprint. That then breaks down because maybe you worked out too hard and then yeah you gave up or for me creating this video content I didn’t want to do the video editing so I do it like this. And you know, there’s tradeoffs and quality there, but it allows me to do it without hating it and so. And then I get, I feel good at the end when I share it and you watch it and I get comments and all that stuff as well as just knowing that I created something meaningful. I took the time to mentally get into the space and create it so you know, reward yourself when you do accomplish things that you want. Don’t do it necessarily with unhealthy food. I don’t think that’s a good way to reward yourself, but figure out some way that you do get rewarded.

One that my partner actually challenged me on is I shared about this, but if you really want something and not want continues by it, and I realized when I wrote and after talking to partners, not everyone has this opportunity. And and so I say this with. Privilege that you know and I’ve brought myself to a spot where, as an example, we wanted Monica and I wanted paddle boards where we live because we saw people out in the water and we just keep seeing them. It looked like so much fun. It looked like exercise and there’s a bit of a price tag on those and what we continue to see it and we continue to want it and we said why would we? You know, if we’re living life, we’re working this hard. We’re making this money we’re doing these things why would we not just get the thing that we want?

And and and so we did. And that has brought so much joy. We had so much fun. We went out yesterday, we went out on my birthday, and I’m grateful. For that, because there was a lot of times where I wouldn’t buy things, even though I wanted it and it would bring me so much joy because I was in this sort of mindset that I couldn’t make the money back or I couldn’t afford it. And you know what seemingly always found a way and then life seems to find a way, and when you do work hard and you care, you seem to find a way, and so it might be painful sometimes. And again there’s examples where this doesn’t work my mind right now. I told my friend Monica, and that’s all. And my birthday is next year. We’re going to be standing on a boat.

For my birthday and we’re gonna own the boat and and. You know, maybe that’s unreasonable, but I have that goal I have that want. I’ve wanted that for a long time and I hope that I can make that happen. And of course, unless it’s egregious and it doesn’t make sense, I’m not going to do it. But overall, those are the reasons why we live. These are the reasons why we work.

So if you want something and that want continues, buy it and get it for yourself, even if it’s a pared down version. I used to want a loop pedal and I got a smaller loop pedal or a microphone. I got not as good as microphone, but it gave me the start that I wanted and I’m so grateful that I’ve done that and learned that throughout time a little bit because a lot of a lot of things that we want and maybe they’re not needs, but they bring us joy in our lives and joy in our lives is important and a lot of times those things can be great for creativity. Great for learning. For lessons, so it’s worthwhile, leave yourself open to opportunities and leave yourself open to opportunities is.

Even with this, with this creation right now, what I found is by creating these videos on a constant basis. You know, maybe someone sees it that thinks, oh wow, I love what Tyler’s doing here. I I trust him with. You know, I trust him with this and and or you know or he seems to know what he’s talking about or I would love to have this person on on my team or I would love to have them help on. When you are an entrepreneur, when you have your own business. That is one thing that I’m really grateful for. Just leave yourself to open opportunities and whether it’s been grants or people reaching out or job opportunities or contract opportunities that makes me so excited that I’ve done that instead of putting myself in a box where those opportunities don’t exist so.

And it pairs with a couple of the other things here. But if you leave yourself to opportunities, you might find yourself in a spot that you didn’t expect or an opportunity that you might not expect. I’m just going to add. To this is like make your own opportunities because you can’t just leave yourself open. You actually have to make your opportunities. And so I’m just going to add that there.

Next one and again I’m coming up on 33 minutes here, so I appreciate anyone who’s stayed with me is pushed through the I’ll just stay at home mentality. I think this one is one that I get a lot. I still do it a lot. It’s just like I’ll just stay at home, but when I push myself to meet people, spend time with people I get so much joy out of it and I’m so happy. And generally I don’t regret it. Instead of just being at home, you know, and it’s hard when home becomes a beautiful place to be, but I think intentionally at some points we actually need to to do this so.

A few other pieces here, I’m gonna take another drink. Cheers. Cheers to 30. Find a partner that loves you and loves you that you love and that loves you back and life gets better and I was, you know I’m I’m so grateful to meet Monica. She’s such a great person here and I’m going to see if I can.

Play this video quickly. And so that didn’t work out as good as I wanted, but that’s OK. I don’t need my headphones on anymore. Yeah, this page isn’t great. That was like something something’s not working. Let me see if I can get this.

Going to apologize if I broke your ears as well along the way, I’ve been having some Internet issues. I’m gonna hop off this and I’ll check back in a second, but just generally. Life has been so much more filled with joy. I’m I’m I I get so much fun, amazing time with her and the dog. And we’ve, you know, gotten this house together and it’s just it’s such a rewarding experience to to have. And there was times where I just didn’t think that that was necessarily possible. And and now I find out that.

Just like getting, you know not the exact same, but getting an animal in life makes your life better. When you meet the right person at the right time, when you have goals that are aligned and you have personalities that connect and all this stuff, man, does life ever get better and so. If you can, it’s not necessarily an easy thing to find. Be so lucky that I am in this relationship, but man does life life get better and I hope hope that you find the same thing. So I’m coming up on the end of this sort of piece here.

Diversify investments in all parts of your life and I’m the CMO talking about my Internet issues. They’re down here today. Diversify investments in all parts of life. So not just you know, not just money, your time, how you try to make money, where, what skills you want to get. Don’t just get good at business, get good at your personal life. Get good at exercise, get good at nutrition, diversify your investments and and things. Start to all. They don’t split you. They actually culminate all to make you more.

Successful, more happy, more healthy, and that’s something that I saw as I’ve sort of done different skills and things. Overtime, it’s actually just all compounded, so I’m really grateful for that. Few other things are to experiment and try new things constantly experiment. I think we. You know, we we. We start younger and we do a lot more. Maybe experimentation as we get older we start to do less and now and just. That’s a natural thing, especially as you find out what you like and what you don’t. But I think if you continue to try to challenge yourself you then you can grow and you can.

Figure out things that you didn’t know about yourself, and then bring those into your core routines or habits or day to days. All of that comes together and I I will never stop experimenting and that’s been one part. I’m grateful that I enjoy, and I if I could tell my younger self is to do it more often, do it in a rigorous way. Do it as much as you can and and things will be awesome. You are strong and then a couple of things. These are more.

I think from a perspective of like. If you are what I wish I could tell myself. So I I sort of changed the sort of writing a little bit here towards the end and it was like you’re stronger than you think. And I I think I underestimated just how resilient and powerful we are as people and. And I’ve seen that in myself. I’ve seen that in others, and when. If you know that now, it allows you to do these things. It allows you to experiment. It allows you. You may bend, but you will not break, you will.

Find out things about yourself that are truly unbelievable, and we’re so strong as people both individually and collectively that that that when we know that we can operate with strength and power that you can and you will learn to love life. I didn’t know that a time there was a time where I didn’t even want to exist anymore that I didn’t think I could ever be happy that I would. That life was worth it. And I look now where I am in life and I’m just so grateful that that didn’t take me and so I wish I had known that earlier because at the time the pain, the suffering was so overwhelming. I literally just didn’t think it could ever find joy or happiness again. And that’s not a place that I’m wanted to be. And I wish that I had known that earlier business failure. I failed in business many times and so many different ways. It’s not a personal failure. We’re all doing our best. We’re all learning.

Just like people in jobs, we make mistakes when you’re a business. It feels so much more personal, but there’s so many conditions and and environmental things that impact your success. It might just not be the moment might not have the exact skill set, and you might need you might be undercapitalized whatever it is just because that fails or fails in some way. It might not even be a full collapse or failure does not mean it’s a personal failure and try to remember that I’ve been so attached to my business and only a few times I’ve been able to fully detach and think that that’s OK and I still operate. With this sort of connection, even though I know that it’s not necessarily a healthy one or something that isn’t, and it’s good to be invested, it’s good to be care. It’s good to be passionate, but when you can’t make that separation, you can create a lot of pain and suffering. So as much as you are invested in your own life, people.

Are people are in theirs and this is another thing is that sometimes we think we overthink that. First of all, people are gonna care about us. Well. How much do you care about other people? How much do you care about them? And then you realize how much you’re invested in your own life and how much work it takes. And now multiply that with a partner and a pet or partner and kids or emergencies going on life. It’s just like people don’t necessarily have the capacity to care about you the way that you might think they should or want them to, and that’s OK.

Take care of yourself and then do the things that you want to do and if people do care and they want to connect, that can happen. We have so many different ways that we connect in the in the world today and I think we get hung up on this and we know how much we care about ourselves. We know how much we need to think about ourselves to make the world work. We know how much challenge it can be and and yet we get upset. And maybe we create a video and we don’t get the likes that we want other comments or or we do something or whatever it is and you just don’t maybe get the engagement of the reception.

People have their own lives, and that’s OK, just like you have your own life. And that’s OK. You’ll make mistakes, and that’s OK too. You are a good person. I think sometimes we feel like we’re bad people. We feel like we’re evil. We feel like we’re making decisions that are not for the good. But I think overall underneath it all we’re good people under there. And if you can think that, remember that and operate from that.

You can be much happier and you can not get so upset sometimes and good people make bad decisions but make good people, make mistakes too. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, and I wish I had known that because I felt so bad. It’s sometimes in my life and. A few other things are that you’re you’re worthy of love you deserve love you are loved. I felt so disconnected. I felt that that’s not true. Many times in my life and now I I know deep down.

That’s not true. And. A couple other things that have really stuck out to me is just like. You don’t need much to be happy. Go enjoy nature. Surround yourself with good people.

And all of a sudden you know these things come together to make your life so meaningful and worthwhile. And so that’s one thing that I took a long time to do is like I don’t need that much. And of course I want a lot, but I don’t need it. And and I’m continuing to work through that and figuring out what’s a need versus a want and and which things of those are truly going to make me happy versus they they are so. Lastly, there’s a couple that wants to talk about make music create. Always refine. Always try to figure out ways to improve and get better and the other one that has stuck out to me more recently is when I write out my goals clearly that they start to come true and not only just.

You know it doesn’t. You know when I say, clearly I know this looks maybe a little ridiculous, but these are some of the public goals that that I’ve had that and I’ve got the goal. I’ve got the deadline. How much I’ve accomplished of it, the days, the deadline, the age. If I’ve achieved it, I’m not the category that in and then the priority that I have. And by doing this I have and there’s my beautiful dog barking out there now.

Things that by doing this I. I concreted a bunch of things that I didn’t realize I even wanted and and then when I. Finally, did this. Everything moved towards those directions and then I also deprioritize things that weren’t as high on that list for me and all of a sudden I achieved multiple goals that had been looming over my head for years, and I did the same thing when I was looking for a house and I put all the different categories of what I was looking for in a House and a location, and I prioritize it and being near the water and having a backyard, all these things, and it all just sort of came together. So if you can structure your goals, do it now and you will move towards that. We’ll move towards that, and again, might not be the exact deadline or the timeframe that you’re looking for, but it will happen eventually if you work. You know how hard you work with heart, and of course there are these macro economic and these world conditions that can have huge impacts on that. And I’m saying this with my own bias and luck and privilege that I’ve had. But I I believe that we can manifest. I believe that we can bring our goals to fruition with the right pieces here and so.

When I look. To the future, these are first of all. Those were my lessons. Those are my things that I I wish I had known, that I wish I told myself. It took me a long time to get through it, but I hope that you got some insights along the way. I wish I could play that video that Monica had shared. I apologize first. I think I also went a little loud on that video, so I’m sorry if I heard anyone’s ears.

You know, not everything works perfectly, but overall I’m, I’m happy with this video and you know as I look towards the future. I mean, I can actually. I can’t filter here, but I’m you know looking at the goals that I have and some of them are financial related, a lot of them are personal goals. For some reason in the last while, this goals of creations have really stuck out to me and I really do care about it. So I I do. And you know, just to concrete these in my mind they sound sound superficial, but there are things that I.

Mean more than just a superficial goal, so you know I do want over to have over 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. I want to go to Costa Rica. I want to pay off my mortgage. I want to be a millionaire. I want to.

And want to make more than 200,000 a year in personal income. I wanna go to Burning Man five times I want to go to all the different continents I and then as I move forward I my first child, my second child. When I invest earnings, I want to release an Android app and iOS app. I want to make an Angel investment. I want to have a podcast that’s sponsored. I want a sauna, a pool, a steam room, another second house in a city that I love. I want to run a marathon and I say these all very quickly.

But to put them in sort of concrete them in this video here as I’m turning 30 years old and I hope that I can report to you before a video that I make at 40 years old when I’m sitting floating in virtual reality that I can come and say, hey, a lot of these goals actually came to fruition. So I’m continuing to build speak. I think it’s a beautiful thing. There’s challenges along the way, and I think it’s transformed in a way that I didn’t necessarily intend or expect. I build toddler bride and.

Who I am. My personal brand. I understand myself. Better experiment. I know that this decade is going to be completely different than the decade. I just lived through. And that makes me excited. It makes me nervous, but we’re heading into a a wild world and I’m doing my best to adapt, just like everyone is. And for everyone who checked out this video and truly grateful, I hope that you learn something along the way. It means a lot to me. I I say this every video, but truly does.

That there are people who care about me, especially knowing how much is going on in everyone’s lives and. I just want to thank you for everyone who’s gotten me here. Arcade Fire in their last album talks about every day, every week, every month, every year, every second brings me here and I’m here making this video right now because of all of you, and also because of of myself. Because I I’ve I’ve done a lot of things to try to figure it out and. And it’s been a lot of work, and it’s been a lot of pain suffering along the way. You keep using those words, but I’m happier than I’ve ever been and I think that we can all be happier than we’ve ever been.

That’s only as we learn, and we grow together. So thank you very much. This has been toddler bride and I’m turning 30 years old. I’m not turning 30 years old. I’m 30 years from 30 years old right now reporting from you. If you like this video. Whatever the comments, this send me a message. I love you so much. Hope you have a great rest of your day and I hope you have a great year ahead of you. A great decade ahead of you. Thank you.