The 7 Things I'd Wish I'd Known In My 20's

Today we're going to talk about the seven things that I needed to hear as a young man and maybe you needed to hear as a young man. The reason why I'm doing this video is because I have a two year old son and I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want to teach him. You know, I have a lot of men in my life that have boys of their own, some older than others. And this question of how do we prepare the next generation of young men to be men, to be effective, to live meaningful lives that are rewarding, to be masculine, and to pursue things that are valuable not only to themselves individually, in a sovereign sense, but in a communal sense. And there are some very basic things that in hindsight I wish people had told me or I wish that I had known growing up. And so I'm going to share some of those things with, with you here today. The first one, and maybe before we do that, subscribe to the channel. Don't forget to like this video. Share it with somebody you think you, you know, would, would enjoy it. The first one is that discipline isn't a punishment for doing something wrong. Discipline is a practice in giving yourself what you know you need, regardless of whether you feel like doing it. Now the reason why I put this one first is because for such a long time as a young man, I beat the crap out of myself whenever I did something wrong. I learned as a young boy that discipline meant punishment, that if I did something or didn't do something that I was supposed to, that I'd be punished for it. And so how I took that and what I learned about discipline is that in order for me to do the things that I know I need to do, I should punish myself towards them. I should beat the crap out of myself verbally and internally. And the way that I'm going to get myself to go to the gym and start the work project and you know, pursue the woman, is to discipline myself, is to smack talk myself into doing it. And the problem with that is that that's shame based motivation. That type of motivation might work for a period of time and you might even get phenomenal results because of it. But the reality is, is that it'll never leave you feeling fulfilled or rewarding and eventually it'll have a net negative impact on your life. So discipline is a practice of giving yourself what you need even though you, you might not feel like doing it. Next is that porn is a waste of time. It's a great distraction from maybe how fucking lost you feel. And how shitty you may have feel and all the things that you don't want to avoid and a great way to get off, you know, maybe when you're just feeling riled up and you need a release, but it is a waste of time. And more and more I've seen this to be true. You know, I had a real issue with porn when I was younger, in my teens and my 20s. I mean, I was watching it constantly, almost daily, sometimes for hours at a time. And it really drained a lot of my energy, a lot of my focus, and just a lot of my time. It just took up a lot of time and space in my life. And so if you're a young man watching this today, and I know that a lot of young men watch my channel because predominantly the men that are tuning into my channel are between 24 and 33. So I see you, I know you're watching. Probably the biggest thing that I would say to you and that I would have said to myself in my early 20s, is start trying to stop watching porn now. Right? Because for me, it took a while. And for a lot of guys that watch porn regularly, it takes a while and you might not even be convinced that you need to stop watching it, and that's fine. Maybe you're somebody that's just like, porn's just what I want to do and it's what I want to watch. Cool, no problem, you know, carry on to the rest of the video. But if you're a man that's like, yeah, I think I, I, I want to stop watching porn, start that journey right now. Because it might take a few tries. For me, it took honestly a couple years to stop watching it and to let it go. And it was a journey that required me to fail over and over and over and over and over again. It was really humbling to be defeated that many times. So start that journey now. Third, developing solid connections with other men who challenge you, who push you, and who you can talk to about absolutely anything in life is one of the most undervalued assets that you can possibly acquire. You know, you're going to hear a lot as a young man of build your wealth, figure out how to make money, figure out how to build your network. All those things are great. I'm not devaluing those things at all. Those things are phenomenal. But having really solid, high character, high value men in your life who are going to challenge you, who are going to push you, who are going to say, hey, you said you were setting this goal for yourself. This year. What's happening? Where's that at? You know, you said you wanted to stop smoking weed, and yet here we are on a Friday night, and, you know, you're. You're hitting your joint again, like, what's going on? Having those types of men in your life is, I kid you not the most underrated asset that you can acquire, especially in your 20s. So I'll leave you with that. Figuring out how to make good money doing shit you love is a noble path. Now, this might take a while, right? It took me until I was probably about 33 years old, 34 years old, before I started to get an inclination of how to make good money doing something that mattered to me and doing something that was fulfilling for me. And I think this is something that I really want to pass on to my son, is give yourself permission to go down a few paths. I mean, I've done some of the craziest, stupidest jobs that you can think of. I delivered water for a water company. I work construction in a gravel pit in northern Canada. I built sidewalks. I sang classical music. I worked for Apple. I mean, I did a wide array of things until I finally honed in on what was really meaningful to me personally. And I let myself fail along the way, fail towards success and learn from the things that weren't filling my cup, you know, that. That weren't ultimately rewarding for me or satisfying for me or that I knew wasn't going to provide the lifestyle that I ultimately wanted. Right? Like when I was singing classical music, I was like, you know, this is cool, this is fun, but this is never going to provide for me in a way, and provide the lifestyle that I ultimately want. And so that's one of the reasons why I left it next is that women are great. Women are great. But getting your sense of self worth, your sense of value, and your sense of status from them is a losing game. One of the things that you can begin to do, and one of the things that I wish I had learned earlier in my life is to shift from trying to get value and worth and validation and status from women, and shift that towards being able to define my own value as a man. Being able to develop skills and competencies that were not only rewarding for me, but that were contributing back to society. Because when we do that, we naturally create value and status. We naturally create value and status within. In our culture, within our community, and within our society. And when we do that, the byproduct of that is that women see you as a high value Man. Right. Because you have an abundance of resources, you have an abundance of network. You have a large social following, whatever the case may be. So shift away from trying to get value or worth or status from women, trying to get them to affirm or reaffirm or give you that value. Right? Because for me, that's what I did in my teens and early twenties. It was like I just wanted to get women's attention. And the more I could get from them, the more I could get them to validate me and, you know, how great I was or how good I was in bed or how attractive they found me, the more I felt a sense of value. But it was an illusion because underneath that, I realized, and I knew the entire time, that it was lacking in. In substance, Right? It was lacking in substance because it wasn't being generated by me. Right. I wasn't doing anything specifically, you know, outside of, you know, in the bedroom, but I wasn't doing anything specifically that was creating value for me as a man that I could recognize. So start to develop that value. This next one is a little bit more esoteric, but I wanted to include it anyways, because I like it. This one is very simple, which is when you feel lost, when you feel lost in life, go get lost in nature without technology, and you might find your way back to your own truth, or at least your own understanding. One of the things that I started to practice in my late 20s and early 30s was a couple times a year going out into nature without any technology. And I try and do this as often as I can every single week. And I do that specifically because we live in a culture now that is inundated with other people's opinions of who you should be as a man, how you should act, how you should talk, what beliefs you should hold, what values you should hold, the whole thing. And one of the most beneficial things that I think I've done unintentionally, it just sort of started as a practice where I carved out six days from work. Well, this is way back when I worked for Apple, and I had wanted to hike up to this lake and camp in British Columbia. And it was the beginning of or middle of April, I think, so it's still pretty cold out. And I went and did this, and it was very confronting. It was an incredible time. I didn't have contact with absolutely anybody. And it gave me a chance to just think about myself in my life. It gave me a chance to meditate, to journal, to be in nature, to remind myself of how small I AM in comparison with the world that we live in. And it was a very sort of whimsical and awe inspiring experience that has developed a practice, a sort of yearly ritual of going out into nature and weekly ritual where I try and go out and do this on a regular basis solo. That just gives me time unencumbered from technology. And I wish I had started that earlier. I did it when I was a kid. You know, you just go outside and you play and you just get to be free of the responsibilities. And for men we carry a lot of responsibilities. You probably carry a lot of responsibility in your life. And so you as a man need time where there's no responsibilities, there's no expectations from you, there's no to do list, there's no tasks, there's no one needing something from you. And one of the things that we need as men I fundamentally believe is responsibility free time where we can just go and be and we don't need to do necessarily anything. So when you feel lost, go out and get lost in nature and, and you might find your way back to the truth. Last one is treating your body with respect, right? Getting sober, laying off the weed, eating healthy, working out, getting sober in the sense of not drinking booze, you know, getting good sleep. This will help to fix a shitty mindset because it will require you, it will require that you develop competence and discipline. And for me this was something that was kind of always half there. I've been working out since I was a teenager. I've always enjoyed that. I've always enjoyed playing sports and being active. But I didn't necessarily treat my body with respect. I abused the crap out of my body. I, you know, would drink entire 40s of alcohol, I would smoke as much weed as I possibly could smoke. I would watch porn for hours. I would stay up late at night and not get rest. And, and it wasn't just in my party years. Like that was sort of a habit that was with me in my teenage years, into my early 20s, into my late 20s. It was something that I really battled with. And even as a kid when I look back, what I started to realize was like I had a, maybe a bit of like an eating challenge where I, my tendency is to eat way more food than I possibly need. So respecting your body, starting to tune in to what does my body actually need? Does it need more rest now? Do I need to push my body a little bit more and get, you know, get a harder workout in. Can I eat healthier? Can I eat cleaner? Can I Put down the beer. You know, can I cut back on alcohol or weed or whatever your thing is and begin to see what your body is capable of? Because one day you will lose that. And I'm turning 40 this year, which is wonderful, and I'm in the best shape of my life and I'm eating cleaner than I ever have, and I absolutely love it, you know, And I think that that trend is going to continue on. But I think about what if I had taken to this when I was in my early 20s, what would I have been capable of? How much weight would I have been able to push? How active could I have been? And it's a very interesting question. So I think what I would leave every young man with and what I wish I would have known as a young man is see what your body is capable of, right? Treat your body with respect and see what it's capable of, because it might be capable of far more than you could have ever expected. And you're going to live in this body until you die. So you might as well have chance to see what it's capable of. So those are some of the things that I would tell my younger self. I think I'll probably tell some of these things to my son, for sure. I think these are lessons that I will impart on him as well. He's turning two in a couple weeks and this summer I plan on taking him camping. He's 2 years old, but I'm going to. I've got all the equipment. I'm going to take him. I'm going to start him outside on our land. We've got like five acres of land. I'm going to take him outdoors and just start him young, getting used to being outside, sleeping under the stars, being waking up in a tent and walking outside into the trees, into the forest and being able to see what that feels like. So thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. Make sure you man it forward and share it with somebody that you know will enjoy it. And until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off.