I don’t want you to waste your potential.
I don’t want you to wake up with a lump in your stomach.
I want you to start that YouTube channel.
Or leave that group of friends.
Or move to that tiny town across the country.
Or switch majors.
Whatever it is that you desire.
I want you to have it, and I want you to know that you can have it.
You deserve it.
None of those people who have what you want is better than you.
I’m making this video because a few years ago I wasn’t at all where I wanted to be
in life.
I didn’t like my job, my living situation…
but a lot has changed since then, and much of what I wanted back then is now my reality.
I don’t think I actually fully realized that I’m kind of living my dream until recently.
Now that doesn’t mean that the past years have been anywhere near perfect; I’ve gone
through some of the lowest lows of my life, such as grief, heartbreak.
But those things sort of come with existing.
The biggest thing has probably been this YouTube channel, because it changed pretty much every
aspect of my life for the better.
I started from zero, had no clue what I was doing or where things were headed, and now
I make a full-time living doing this.
I’ve also gained so much confidence and trust in my own abilities.
And it’s crazy to think that, for each of those things I dreamt of that I now have,
I was one decision away from never having it.
And I want YOU to get everything you’ve ever wanted too.
So, this is like a “get where you want to be in life” starter pack that I’d give
myself a few years ago, and that I cointune to give to myself, hey, I haven’t mastered
anything.
I’m forever a student.
It’s not that I don’t think perfect moments don’t exist.
I think they exist in abundance, we’re just too oblivious to notice them.
Or perhaps we’re scared.
And so we wait, for the stars to align, for this mysterious voice to whisper in our ear
and say “now”.
Or we wait for a specific event to occur.
We say “when we’re back from vacation, THEN I’ll have that difficult conversation
with that person” or “when I buy myself a new notebook, THEN I’ll start journaling”,
or “when my mom’s in a good mood, THEN I’ll tell her I’m moving out”.
How about you call that person right now?
How about you open the notes app and start journaling right now?
How about you see if your mom is available to talk right now?
The moment is perfect when you decide it is.
Or, not even perfect, screw that, honestly.
The moment is GOOD ENOUGH when you decide it is.
Let good enough be good enough.
The stars are too busy to align for someone who’s going back and forth, who can’t
make up their mind and who’s frozen in inaction.
They align for those who have already decided and who are going for it.
Metaphorically, obviously, I have no idea what the stars are up to, but that’s how
I see it.
God helps those who help themselves.
Religious or not, I think there’s something to it.
Perfection
Speaking of perfect, instead of thinking “make it perfect” I try to embrace the mindset
of “make it exist” and this has been life changing for me.
Hemingway wrote that "the first draft of anything is shit", and I know that that is true.
When I write for these videos, it’s all a bunch of incoherent thoughts and concepts
and quotes and theories all in a messy bun so to speak.
And then I rewrite and re-write until I end up with something where I’m like “cool,
I think this works.”
I’d like to show you a snippet from one of my very first YouTube videos.
When I look at that, part of me cringes, you know?
I think it’s only natural.
But I’m zero percent embarrassed.
I’m proud of that girl.
She was extremely uncomfortable in front of the camera and you can see it in her speech.
She took a cheap old camera she owned and she went for it.
She didn’t wait for the perfect tools and ideas, she took what she had and she made
it exist.
I’ve been posting a lot on TikTok recently and it’s kind of like starting over; it’s
pretty much the same feeling as when I just started with YouTube.
I have no idea what I’m going for.
I’m posting a whole mixture of things.
It’s YouTube clips, it’s fashion, it’s Fred, it’s morning vlogs.
It’s NEW to me.
I’m figuring it out, and that’s OK.
What is something you know you should make exist, rather than trying to make it perfect?
Immediately okay
I have a really fun
little game that I’d like to share with you.
Well, I
think it’s really fun.
If you’re anything like me, you overthink everything.
When someone asks to hang out, when you get a request at work, when an opportunity comes
your way or when you get an idea for something.
You think your way out of it.
This week, I’d like you to give yourself three “immediately okays” that you need
to consume.
Now what do I mean by that?
I mean that, on at least three occasions, you’ll just say okay without giving it so
much thought that you have a chance to get out of it.
So if you’re thinking “I should start working out” – immediately do ten push
ups or squats or whatever you prefer.
If your friend asks to go grab a coffée, go for it.
What this does is you’ll start to feel less and less resistance to do things.
Because a lot of the time, we’re the ones standing in our own way.
We’re self-sabotaging, yet we blame circumstances or luck.
If you decide to do this, please share your experience with me either in this video or
on Instagram.
I’d love for you to post and tag me when you’re doing one of your immediately okay’s.
The defeatist mindset
We need to talk about mindset for a moment.
I know, I know, we’ve heard it all before.
Well, yeah, we’ve all heard it, but have we listened?
I know I didn’t listen for so many years.
I thought mindset was some woo-woo thing, until I started re-framing my thoughts and
choosing my words carefully.
Both the words I speak and the words I think.
So, a defeatist attitude is a negative mindset in which you believe you're going to fail
before you even start.
I’m thankfully not there anymore.
I believe in myself so much, but it’s taken practice.
Ask yourself: who would I be if I believed I could?
Who would I be if I believed I was worthy?
Who would I be if I believed I was just as capable as anyone else?
You are all of those things.
And as soon as you learn that you’re the author of your own story, you’ll start seeing
it too.
Let’s end with a quote I really like by Bruce Springstein: "a time comes when you
need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start.
being the man you want to be".