SPEAKER_02: 0:04

Linking up with the homies to talk about the thing is not doing it. Hitting the group chat and saying what you're gonna do tomorrow is not doing it. Tweeting about it is not doing it. Posting a video about it is not doing it, watching a motivational documentary or watching a Kobe montage video about all the shit that he did is not you doing the thing. In order to get the thing done that's gonna change your life, you gotta get the fuck up and do the thing. That's what action bias means. Failures podcast. Today, Rich and I are discussing the 10 most important skills to master in your 20s. Rich, if you were 21 years old right now, what would you master? What skill would you prioritize above the others?

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

Man, for me, bro, by far, I think the number one skill I would try to master is just the ability to be an effective communicator slash know how to persuade. I think this is probably the most underrated skill you can possibly have. The ability to effectively communicate, the ability to share your value to people, right? Whether it be in a job interview or in a pitch deck or uh having sort of like that elevator moment where you're pitching an idea to someone, that that's for sure my my number one.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30

I want to give context because we're gonna get into probably 10, maybe, maybe more than 10. I have five skills that I think are crucial to master in your 20s, early 20s, and Rich also has another five. So what we'll do on today's episode is we're gonna go back and forth. And then at the end, we'll compile the 10 plus skills you should master in your 20s. And Rich, we'll do a tier list. We'll do an A tier, B tier, and C tier, and we'll try to identify which ones, if we were 21 years old, right now in 2025, what would we master? I think this episode is crucial for our community because if you really think about it, Rich, we're in our late 30s. If we were really smart and we chose wisely in our 30s, think about how these skills could have compounded and you would have gone into your 30s being way ahead of your peer group. Do you feel like you were ahead or behind when you got into your 30s, given your skill set?

SPEAKER_01: 2:24

Nah, I feel like I was always behind. And it was sort of like a lack of having a mentor, a lack of having an OG to really teach me the ways or teach me things that would matter when I would come up on my 30s or 40s. I really never had that growing up. So hopefully we share some valuable insights on what skills to master and not master in your 20s, right? Like there's a lot of bullshit out there too. So we're gonna sort of unpack what what to avoid and what to not spend your money on in your 20s as well.

SPEAKER_02: 2:57

I love the not master because if you think about failures as a show premise, what we're saying is failures is a platform dedicated to learning from other people's mistakes so you don't have to make the same mistakes. So I like that pivot, Rich, because it's that is less about what you should master and what can be the counterweight to mastering something is the things you shouldn't do. So we'll get into both. We have soft skills, skills that you necessarily don't have to take a course for or you don't have to learn anything, but stuff that you can do to be more proactive about developing soft skills so you could be more valuable in the marketplace or in your friend group. And I think you started off with number one. Number one, you were saying communication skills. That one might seem less obvious, but why is it so important to you if you're talking about top 10 skills you want to master in your 20s?

SPEAKER_01: 3:50

Yeah, think about it. You could be good at a lot of things, but if you don't know how to communicate your value to people, like that, they just won't know, right? Think about moments when you're in a job interview and that whole interaction is how well you speak, how well of a communicator you are, how you can communicate your value to a potential employer. Think about being in a business meeting or think about trying to get a loan at the bank and you have to explain to this loan officer what your business idea is or what your vision is. Like you have to be able to articulate ideas and value properly, even in relationships, right? When you're trying to conquer a woman, like she's gonna go for the guy who's sort of the slick smooth talker versus the shy and timid guy who can't communicate properly. So I think it's a super underrated uh skill to have.

SPEAKER_02: 4:37

It works for everything, everything you want at that age. You want to get some money, you know, learn how to communicate, develop some sales skills. You want to get some honey, you want a woman in your life, develop some good communication skills. Don't be so scared of everything. You can't be a scary guy and go out into the world and assume you're gonna get what you want out of it. And communication for anything as simple as um you want to get a discount on furniture, you want to get a raise at work. This shit applies to everything. If you're prioritizing AI or getting good at some skill of some like thing that just like, for example, you Rich and I recreating our second media platform. In 2025, media is very different. So, in some way, shape, or form, Rich and I are understanding digital marketing in 2025. Even with understanding how to start a YouTube page from scratch, I would say the ability that we have to communicate supersedes that because learning how to create a YouTube is one thing, but learning how to communicate once you create a YouTube might be 50 times more valuable because eventually you're gonna have to communicate. You're gonna have to start sharing information. So I can't oversell that one. Rich, you've known me since we were young. It's one of the greatest skills that I was able to get given how I was raised and what my family did for a living. But I think I sharpened that sword when I started working at call centers, worked for a modeling agency where people would call to cancel memberships and I would have to try to keep them on. Um, I sold cars for a little while. Like I had a lot of odd jobs in the world of sales. And I do credit those weird ass jobs that I took where I learned sales skills and people skills that allowed me as a professional adult at 39 to go and speak to my boss when I'm feeling overlooked, uh, when I feel like I need a promotion, speak to an artist when they don't want to do something that I feel like they should be doing, and I gotta persuade them, I gotta convince them. And like you said, women. What's better than that? I think we could have stopped the whole uh bullet point right there, women.

SPEAKER_01: 6:40

Yeah. Do you feel like what has made you a better communicator has been the amount of reps that you just had over the years with all the odd jobs?

SPEAKER_02: 6:48

I think it's a combination of a few things, and then we will get into that and skills you master a little later. I'll give them a teaser now. You have to know yourself well enough to know what God and your environment and your family kind of gave you a competitive advantage. Everybody's built different. Everybody has different advantages in life. Some people are better at concentrating, some people are better at combing through a lot of details, some people are better at people skills, communicating. And there's a lot of reasons why people are better at these things before they turn 30. But you have to know yourself well enough to know what advantages you have. But to answer your question, no, I shit, if you met my mom and you met my father and you've been around my family, it's almost impossible to exist in my family or to be seen or heard or get anything you want if you don't have the ability to communicate. So I think since I was a little rug rat, I had to master the ability of communication because if not, no one would even know I existed. And then not to mention my mom and dad are highly charismatic, they're well spoken, they're very funny people. They've always been in positions of leadership, so they've always been the one pushing their friends to do things or inspiring. So I kind of stole from my family and um I sharpened it by doing jobs that complement the stuff that I was already good at. Because God knows I wasn't good at school. I I definitely had a D average for most of middle school and high school. I failed the eighth grade twice. So it wasn't textbook education that got me here. It was verbal communication, but definitely an advantage of mine. And I see how I changed my life when I wasn't really good at other things, I would I could always depend on being able to communicate. So I love that as a number one for sure. And public speaking falls into that. I do want to say that, Rich. And that's something you shared a story with our community. I don't know if you want to give the short version, but why public speaking inside of the bucket of communication is important.

SPEAKER_01: 8:37

Yeah, what what do they say? That that's like the number one fear for for most humans is public speaking. So in an earlier episode, I talked about uh sort of a speaking engagement that I was kind of like forcefully thrown into and I hadn't held a microphone before, I hadn't been on stage before, I hadn't spoken to an audience of 300 plus people before. But I rose to the occasion and it was sort of a muscle that I've never flexed before. But now that I've gotten to do it and I felt comfortable on there, I'm like, oh, you know, this is not so scary. Um I sort of overcame that uh that fear of public speaking. And I feel like anybody can if you just sort of um, you know, prepare yourself and master that ability to be an effective communicator.

SPEAKER_02: 9:19

I love that. Number one, communication skills. I'm gonna quickly go into number two because we got to get to this full list of 10. And I think this one is a broad category, so I'm gonna try to unpack it a little bit, but learn to manage your time and energy in your 20s. Because as you get older, those are two things that are not a luxury. Your time and your energy. Your energy, because as you get older, whether you like to believe it or not, when you're in your 20s, you have hella energy. You're down to do anything. You can go out all night, you can drink, you can stay out till four, pop up at nine in the morning, go to the gym with your boys, go to the beach after. Like, bro, you remember we were hanging out at that time in our lives. You can mash out for a fucking two weeks straight and get everything done in your early 20s, and I don't think you realize how valuable your energy is at that time. And the other part of that is time. There's only 24 hours in a day. If you can really choose what you do in the little bit of time that you have free or the time that you have in a 24-hour day, if you're 21 and you're in your 20s, I'm gonna assume you're already graduated from college. So I don't want to hear about school in the most proper way. The only thing you're really putting your energy into is maybe a job, full-time job, part-time job. And then after that, you should have a calendar that's pretty empty. We'll get into it later how you can avoid distractions. And Rich and I talked about what you should not do in your 20s that could fuck up this top 10 list of a skill set. But I think managing your day is important, and that leads me to a rule that I've always worked off of. I kind of always had it in the back of my mind. I never gave it a proper label, but I am doing it for this show, is the 777 rule, which is I split my day up into seven-hour blocks, and it allows me to manage the day in a way that is like I can conquer each seven-hour block, and that'll allow me to do all the things that I think are important in a 24-hour day. Now I know our listeners are listening on podcasts thinking Justin definitely failed eighth grade twice because that's only 21 hours. I'm not a fucking idiot. Seven times three is 21. What the three hours is for is for chaos and randomness and people that want to waste your time or emergencies or hobbies, or just sometimes you I felt I find in 2025 and beyond, sometimes I just look forward to just not being plugged into anything and letting my mind roam, going for a walk, uh disconnecting. I think the three hours in the 777, the three hours that are free, that's for miscellaneous. That's for a question mark. The other seven go to seven hours for sleep. I think you can do it with less when you're in your 20s, but you definitely want to at least be in bed for a max amount of seven hours. And every hour you save that's not part of the seven for sleeping can go into the other two sevens. The second seven is for employment, making money. And if you're not making money, you should dedicate that seven to a hard skill. Like Rich, I'm sure you're gonna get some skills that saved your career early when you actually learned hard skills that you can learn that can make you employable. I don't know if you have any off top you want to share that you were you learned early in your career that that helped you earn money.

SPEAKER_01: 12:41

Man, for me, the the ability to problem solve is absolutely the number one driving factor when when you think about hard skills and soft skills. I think being able to unpack and dissect complex problems into micro tasks or just smaller initiatives makes a big problem a lot less uh prudent. And you're you're able to sort of be that reliable person that people can count on when it comes to you know assigning you a tough project. I I think people get compensated handsomely for solving complex issues. That's sort of like how you identify your superpower and how you become that one of one. It's like, oh, all right, what makes this person unique? Well, they can solve complex issues. Well, guess what? We need that guy on our team. And that's what most companies are looking for.

SPEAKER_02: 13:33

Yeah, and that's a hard, that's a hard skill, right? And we we could probably get into later how do you get better at problem solving? But being ready, willing, and able and useful enough to solve problems is important. So going back to the 777 rule, seven hours for sleep, seven hours to either making money, which is gonna help fund your lifestyle, so you're not a broke boy, but the other seven should be dedicated to developing a skill and learning a trait or something that can make you more of a lethal weapon moving forward. So the seven, seven, seven rule is a way for you to look at the 24 hours of a day and know, okay, if I'm not doing one of these two things, the third one is sleeping. It's mandatory. If I'm not doing one of these two things, which is developing a skill or earning money to fund my skill development, then I'm not managing my day well. So recap for the top three we have so far is number one is communication skills. Number two is learn to manage your time and energy. And you can do that with the 777 rule. And then number three, Rich, you touched on it, which is problem solving. And I love problem solving as number three because it's just like communication, it's a skill that works for everything. Like, who doesn't like to be around a person that can solve problems?

SPEAKER_01: 14:49

Yeah, everyone, man. Everyone loves the problem solver when they have them around. If if you can grab a box of IKEA furniture and build it in two hours, like everyone wants that friend that can come over and help them build IKEA furniture. If you know how to, you know, follow a lot of different instructions and put a thousand pieces together, like you're a problem solver. You know how to put pieces of the puzzle together, and people, people like that.

SPEAKER_02: 15:14

Problem solver, definitely one of my favorites. Rich, I want to go into a different direction because I feel like these three could fall into the category of, yeah, I already know that. Uh these I can find these anywhere. One that I thought was really good, and I'm not even sure if it's a skill, but I want to put it into this list as a skill. Number four, which was big for me, and I know it was big for you as well, is you have to escape your small town mentality. I don't know the best way to say it, but I found that once I kind of graduated from high school and started spending more time with my the friends I made in college, my whole way of looking at the world elevated. And that's not that's not to say anything bad about the people I went to high school with. High school was more of a if I was born here or my mom lives here, this is what I'm already exposed to. So it's more by circumstance you have a lot of friends. But when you go to college or when you surround yourself with other people that are doing different things that are more in line with what you're curious about or the skills that you're developing, I find that that flock you gain from flocking and doing shit that's more in line with stuff that makes you money and you're outside and you're trying to conquer some sort of big picture goal. I find that that small town energy kind of goes away because you're around people that are dreaming bigger and living bigger. And I don't think you have to necessarily leave where you're from in 2025 in your early 20s if your money's not there, but either move to a bigger city or find a way to get to a bigger city because you're gonna find people that have common interests in those places. So no knock on small towns. Uh uh, you know, we all come from a different hood. I'm just saying it's more of a mindset thing. If you're around people that have bigger dreams, bigger cities, they tend to have bigger aspirations, and you could kind of be around a peer group that motivates you.

SPEAKER_01: 17:03

Yeah. You know what that reminded me of? We should probably unpack this a little bit, but have you ever heard of the term like blind motivation? Yeah. Or like dumb motivation. It's sort of like you're motivated, you're hungry, you want to do all these things, you have so many goals, no sort of clear direction, but you're just trying shit to try shit. And I feel like that could be a time waster, right? Like maybe we we sort of bucket that in the uh the things not to do. I remember when I was 20 years old, bro, I was going to community college full time and I was also in real estate school. I remember that on the weekends. So I'm seven days a week just cramming information into my brain. And I'm like, I'm gonna get a college degree and I'm gonna be a real estate agent, and I'm gonna get all this money and I'm gonna sell houses and have rentals. And I had this like blind motivation that I was just gonna conquer the world at 20 years old. And bro, life kicked in. I got my real estate license, and then they were like, okay, you have to pay$1,500 in fees, right? Because you have to sign up for all these um associations. Oh, and by the way, you're not gonna make money for the first six months because we're not gonna give you a desk and we're not gonna give you the best houses to sell. So it's just you learning the game. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. I don't have$1,500 and I can't stay idle for six months without bringing in income. I have expenses. And I quickly spent six months of my life getting my real estate license for absolutely no reason. I never sold the house, I never got a rental, I never even stepped foot in a real estate agency to be hired. I just had the license and did nothing with it. So this idea of like blind motivation can be a waste of time as well.

SPEAKER_02: 18:48

You know, that almost feels like it's in the category of uh manage your expectations and manage your energy. Because you do have blind motivation when you're young. And I and listen, I'm a dreamer. Rich is a dreamer, so I'm never gonna stop somebody from wanting to be great. But I think there is, I don't know, I don't know how to say it without stealing a young person of what their big dream is, but there is, you know what? I got it. Number five is reality is king, manage your energy, manage your motivation. And if you the blind motivation is something that we don't want to take away from a younger person, but there is something about being rooted in reality that came with that moment at the real estate um when you were doing real estate. Well, when you were learning to get finessed by the system of real estate that you had to pay for more certification. I didn't even know that story. So you're telling me though throughout the whole process, you didn't know any of that?

SPEAKER_01: 19:41

I just think I was so eager to start and take action that I completely skipped steps in my research. And I just thought getting real estate license equals selling a house equals getting a lot of money. Like that's how my brain worked at the time when I was in my 20s. Like I try to be simple about it. It's like, no, bro, it's not that simple. You actually have to sign up to a bunch of associations, you have to get hired, you have to sort of sit idle and go through listings and try try to get jobs. So it it and it was very competitive when I was going after the license at the time.

SPEAKER_02: 20:20

What do you think the skill is in there though? Because there there is a lesson learned from that, but what would you say the skill is to master given that uh situation you went through?

SPEAKER_01: 20:29

Yeah, like you said, bro, do your research, manage your energy, be sort of intentional about what you want. You can't be so naive to think, oh, I'm going to sell houses and make a lot of money. Like, bro, that is so naive to think that you, out of all people, can just go into this field and just be great at it. You know what I mean? Like, it's gonna take work. Do you have to do your research, you have to understand what the job entails, you have to understand all the little details of obtaining a license and uh and what it means to be a successful real estate agent. I literally did none of that research, bro. I was just like, I'm gonna get my license, I'm gonna sell houses, and I'm gonna be a millionaire. And I feel like that was so naive of me in my 20s to think that that's how that worked. I got it.

SPEAKER_02: 21:17

Number five, dream big, but respect reality. And I think that's something that will allow a young person to move to a big city, do the things that we're saying to do, but also if you got no motherfucking money in your pocket and you end up in LA, you're just gonna be homeless. You're just gonna be another dude under the bridge. So make your decisions, dream big. You definitely want to dream big. Dream that you will be the exception. Yeah. Rich and I are never gonna hate on anybody who dreams big. But a lot of your decisions have to be rooted in reality. So that blind motivation is cool, but make sure it's connected to something real. Uh, Rich, real quick recap for those following along. We're doing 10 must-have skills in your 20s. Rich and I are in our late 30s, so this is us kind of going in a time machine and then seeing ourselves at 20 years old and being like, yo, stop doing that, focus more on this, because this is going to pay a hundred times when you're in your 30s. And I can't lie, a lot of this stuff when I was putting this list together, I developed in my early 30s, mid-30s. And at 39, I feel blessed that I was able to apply them. So it's not too late for anybody, even if you're in your 30s. But I want to recap from number one, communication skills. That's number one. Number two, learn to manage your time. Apply the 777 rule. What's the 777 rule? Seven hours for sleep, seven hours for making money, seven hours for developing a skill, a trait, following your curiosity, just getting lost in something that you're passionate about. And the other three hours are for life's distractions, excuses, hobbies, or just you know, disconnected for a little bit. Number three, problem solving. It's easily the most desired skill set from 10 years old all the way to 90 years old. If you can solve people's problems, you will always be useful. Useful to women, useful to employers, useful to your neighbors, everybody. Number four, escape the small town mentality. We're not shitting on our friends that we went to high school and college with. We're just saying if you found something in your life that piques your curiosity and motivates you, maybe you should get around people that are doing that already. And they might be in bigger cities, they might be in bigger towns. It's not always going to be back home or with your family. Number five, dream big, but root your decisions in reality. That's the blind motivation one. The rich, I don't, I didn't know this shit. You were a real estate agent. I mean, Rich, how much are how much is the house going for in uh Bergen County?

SPEAKER_01: 23:54

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is a number, this is a good segue to number six. It's just financial literacy, which we probably should have had higher up there. But this one's interesting, right? Because when you're in your 20s, you're you're pretty Stratford Cash, right? Like you're college broke usually. And um, I remember in my 20s, I spent a lot of time just going out to eat. I spent a lot of time on food, on alcohol. And um, I prop that probably wasn't wise. I feel like if I had to do it all over again, I would educate myself more on investing. Even if I didn't have the money to invest yet, right? So you you look at things like learn what are the top uh most popular stocks, right? Your Google, your Teslas, your NVIDIA, learn what an earnings report is, learn what dividends are, uh, learn what a stock split is, what stock options are, what an IPO is, and all these like stock investing terms now in your 20s, so that when you do stumble upon some money in your 30s, you're sort of not starting from zero and you have some baseline knowledge of, okay, I know how investing works. I have money. Now I can deploy some of that money in different investments. So I think this one is highly underrated. And it's unfortunately it's not taught in schools, so we we kind of are always uh behind when it comes to financial literacy.

SPEAKER_02: 25:16

Financial literacy is we could do a whole episode on it. And actually, we've been asked by many of our community members to do more content on financial literacy, and that one's a tricky one because everything is kind of case sensitive, and we are not financial gurus. We are people that have made a decent living pursuing our careers, which most of our money came from salary, and then you know, any other investments we've made, but those investments come at high risk. But I do want to give our community maybe a few tangible skills that you can develop that are connected to financial literacy. And one that I learned in my 30s, which I want to add to number six, Rich, your financial literacy is delayed gratification. You don't necessarily need to make a purchase on everything because you want it in the moment. And I think one of the biggest gems that I got from you, and it took me a while to learn, was bro, understand the markets, understand how money flows. Uh, even with um the S P 500, just put your money into an account and you can build your portfolio by investing in the market. And that$1,000 you put away at 21, that shit could easily grow to$300,000 when you're in your 30s. How that magic of compounding works, I'll leave that for Rich or someone else to explain. I'm sure there's a lot of people on YouTube that do a good job with it. But just know that little piece of information could have 30-year-old you that's in a jam that has an emergency that needs a quick slush fun of money. You can dip into your 401k or uh or the money you put into your SP 500 that's been compounding for the last 15 years and it can get you out of a crisis. Now, how does that happen? Again, you should look up YouTubers that are, this is what they do. But I think it's very important financial information, and that comes with delayed gratification. If you make$100 putting away$20 instead of buying a new fit, you can't even buy an outfit with$20, but you get what I'm saying. Instead of going to buy food, you can put$100 away every paycheck. I'm curious to know how does that change from you when you were younger, Rich to now, as far as financial literacy goes.

SPEAKER_01: 27:21

Yeah, first of all, shout out to the earn your leisure guys. They they do uh an incredible job of sort of uh providing financial literacy content on YouTube for guys in their 20s and 30s. And I feel like the the tip that I shared with you earlier was understand how global money works, how money flows. So understanding uh geopolitical climate, right? Are we at war? Are there political tensions? Understand investor sentiments, right? Like are investors hoarding cash because they feel like the market's gonna take a turn, or are they bullish and they're more risk adverse? Understand countries' economics, right? Like, uh, do we have high tariffs? Do we have high interest rates? All that information, bro, is free. You know what I mean? Like, you don't have to pay for this information. It's just about being aware of what's going on in the world. And I feel like that framing in your 20s, if you just stay on pace when you do have money in your 30s, that's gonna be built in into your sort of DNA by default. And you're gonna always view the world with that lens. And it just makes investing a lot easier. Anybody who's good at investing, you'll you'll see they're just very knowledgeable about the global monetary fund and how things work and how things move in in waves, right? One week it might be crypto is the hot new topic. The next week it might be AI. The next week it's like, oh, we might go to war. So now investors are selling their liquidity and all their stocks, and they're just hoarding cash until they find out what's going to be the outcome of this potential war. Um, but all of that requires you just being a little bit more informed and paying attention.

SPEAKER_02: 29:04

If anybody was really curious about what's the biggest gap in knowledge between Rich and I, it's Rich's knowledge in financial literacy and workflow and project management and Justin's ability to shortcut the world through his God-given skills. I'm going to make the same point you made, but for the dummies in their 20s that grew up just like me, that just want to get a good haircut, drive a good car, wear some good clothes, clothes that you know cost a lot, but would make you look good around women and your friends, this is who I am in real life. So I'd be a hypocrite if I were going to tell our young viewers don't spend your money on any of this stuff. If you get good at communicating and being around women and being the leader of your social circle and being the that guy in your friend group, El Leon, the one, the guy that everybody goes to, you Don't really need a lot of money. You don't really need a lot of expensive jewelry. You don't need a lot of clothes because women tend to flock to the guys who are the guys. So you might be spending a lot of money on bullshit hoping you get the girl. I'll give you a shortcut. Here's some non-financial advice from Justin Durant. Get good at communicating. Learn how to manage your time. Go to the gym. Be the leader of your friend group. Throw parties, host events. That right there will save you a lot of money that you can put into your 401k, and you could be financially literate by just not doing a whole bunch of shit that costs you money. That's the shortcut, uh, the Justin version. Sorry to interrupt, Rich. Just wanted to make sure. I wanted to make sure all my popcorn players out there that kind of you lost them with the financial planning. Just develop these other skills, put your money in a 401k or SP 500, and you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00: 30:52

Yeah, just be a jug head, just be the cool kid, and uh life would just sort itself out.

SPEAKER_02: 30:58

Yeah, I mean, if you're not popping and you think clothes and all this other bullshit a car is gonna get you lit, it's not. People are gonna use you for those things. Yeah, they're not gonna give you what you want for those things. You don't make friends because you have all designer clothes on. That's not how that works.

SPEAKER_01: 31:12

Nah, for sure. And save that thought because we're gonna talk about the biggest waste of time and money. Um, and that's that's certainly one of them. I think you naturally segueed into health and fitness as being our next point. What's that number seven or eight? Seven. Seven. Uh health and fitness. I think your health is extremely important. Uh, unfortunately, it took me to turn 30 and start to feel body aches for me to feel like, damn, I need to move, I need to go to the gym, I need to get fit, I need to feel right. Had I started this in my 20s, bro, I would have just felt better. I think we oftentimes don't realize that if if you're 20 years old, bro, you you have this body knock on wood, hopefully, for another 80 years. Like, treat your body right because once you go to the gym, once you eat right, once you get good nutrition and and you you're in a good mood, everything just flows a lot easier. It's funny, like I had lunch with my coworkers and um we we all got like five guys. Well, I didn't get five guys, but they got five guys. And after you didn't throw it in the lettuce? No, bro. Listen, after 30 minutes, they were slump. They were trying to take a nap. They felt like shit. All I heard for the next two hours were how terrible they felt. And I'm just like, yeah, bro, because you put bad nutrition in your body and now you're paying for it. So I think that that one's sort of highly underrated.

SPEAKER_02: 32:30

I love that one, and I want to unpack it a little bit more. I think along with maintaining good health, what you're doing is you're taking the 24 hours in a day that you could be productive. Again, let's assume seven of those hours you're sleeping and three, you're just doing miscellaneous shit. You really have 14 hours in the day to be productive. The best way that you could ruin the 14 hours of productivity is that if you have a steak sandwich with French fries, with garlic parmesan french fries in the middle of your work day, you gotta be have next level metabolism for your productivity not to drop after that. And you're sitting in a corner trying to figure yourself out. And now you're drinking more caffeine to keep up. It's a loop that kind of feeds itself. It's almost like that image of the snake eating the back of its tail. You're cutting away your own energy if you don't know how to manage your energy. And when you're in your 20s, I said this earlier, bro, you have so much fucking energy, you should capitalize on it. And I think the the bullet point I'll add to your number seven health and fitness is once you know how to manage your energy, when you go to the gym and you get a good lift, or you go to the gym and you get a good run-in, or you get your adrenaline going. I don't know about you, Rich, but what happens to me is that that shit gives like rocket fuel for the next five hours of my day. So I leave the gym, I go to work. And not only am I feeling good physically, not only is my energy up, but I get this clarity that really helps me solve problems professionally that I wouldn't be able to do if I woke up and had a big breakfast and went straight to work. So the bullet point I want to add is when you do difficult things with the good energy you have, your body develops a tolerance for doing difficult things. So when you do hard things earlier in your life, things become easier later in your life. So health and fitness are really important, but I wanted to add that to that one, Rich, because I don't know how you feel after a good workout or a good meal, but it's almost like a uh it's like rocket fuel, low-key like a cheat coat.

SPEAKER_01: 34:39

Yeah, it's like a dopamine hit. It's like a perfect uh baseline to start your day with. And you're right. It's once you do hard things, you know, in the morning before you start work, everything else during the day just seems a lot easier, right? Like you get that aggression out, you're you're not as angry, you're you're in a better mood, you just lifted 100 pound weights, right? What's harder than doing that? This PowerPoint can't be that difficult. I was just lifting 100 pound weights, you know, a couple hours ago.

SPEAKER_02: 35:08

Yeah, I ain't gonna lie, I'd be at work, and if if I just had a good lift, man, if I just squatted like 225 pounds, yeah, and my bullshit shift manager is talking crazy to me, and I'm coming into work with that energy. Yeah, you want to kick them. I'm thinking to myself, this person has no idea that I could throw them on my back and slam them into this fucking table. So I really believe that that energy you go into the world with, people can feel that. People can feel your presence. People can feel that not only am I a problem solver, but I'm designed to do difficult things. How do I know that? Because I was just at the gym doing difficult things. So, to your point, this little bullshit task that you put in front of me, I'm gonna get it done because I got everything done. I think it creates like a really good psychological loop for someone that's in a rut. I know we talked about this in other episodes, and I don't want to get into it, but if you're in a dark place, your mind is not being your friend, it's not helping you, you're starting to feel down on yourself. Nothing could kick that fucking ignition into overdrive, like some sun, a good walk, a good workout, some good music when you're in the gym. I think that shit all helps you develop a pattern in your life that's starting also when you start your day off well, you want to finish the day well. If you start your day off with bullshit, you want to smoke a little bit in the morning, you're kind of starting off at a rut. So you're cool with the rest of the day kind of being on bullshit. So I love that as number seven. Rich, I do want to get to my number eight, which is a compliment to this one. You know, I'm big on this, bro. One skill that I think all dudes in their 20s should master is getting rid of the victims in your life and the complainers in your life. That shit did a lot for me, bro. And that's a skill because you got to look out for these people in your life that are constantly complaining about shit, constantly playing the victim role. To become a victim, you have to understand the language of victims. I don't know if that makes sense. So I found that in any neighborhood in the world, you're gonna find people that have it bad. And you know what? God bless them. I hope they get an opportunity to change their situation and their circumstances. But what happens a lot in these inner cities and places that we come from is that people start developing the language and the mentality and the mindset of a victim, of someone that was victimized. And I'm not saying victims don't exist, I'm saying a victim mentality is optional.

SPEAKER_03: 37:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:36

The one thing that separates a dead man from a drowning man is that a drowning man is fighting for his life. He's trying to stay above water. If you're drowning, you're not dead. And I think that's important when you think about life hacks in your 20s. Skills that you should develop. Get out of a victim's mentality, clear yourself away from people who complain because the circumstance is not going to change overnight. You have to believe that you're gonna be able to get out of this situation. So, not necessarily a clear skill, but I think it is crucial. I'm not sure what you think about that, Rich.

SPEAKER_01: 38:11

Man, that was so perfectly said, bro. That victim mentality could by far be the single most deadliest handicap that you can possibly live with throughout your life.

SPEAKER_02: 38:21

Why does that resonate with you? I don't you don't have to tell any personal stories, but why when you hear a list like communication and finance and health, why does that one stand out to you? Because man, I I feel that one can handicap you so much. It's silent, right? Like you don't even know it's stopping you. You could be doing all those other things, but if you're a victim, none of them count.

SPEAKER_01: 38:40

Bro, the victim mentality stops you from doing all the other things. You're just frozen, you're paralyzed. You feel like everyone else is the problem. I have no solutions for life. Um, everything is down. My upbringing wasn't the ideal. Um, my parents didn't come for money. My parents never left me money. I have all these student loans, and no one ever helped me pay for school. It's always like this victim. You always feel like the world is the problem, not you. Bro, kill that shit.

SPEAKER_02: 39:11

You went through that whole list, and I know you were just speaking off the cuff, but that's really me and you growing up. Everything you listed, those disadvantages, that was really our situation growing up. And here we are, and we're here to help and give advice. But I have one more question on the victim mentality and complaining all the time. We're not saying that the person listening to this podcast is that person because you wouldn't even have gone this far to search and find something like this. What is your advice, Rich, to a younger guy that has a friend group or family? Like, what do you do when somebody's constantly complaining around you or playing the victim around you?

SPEAKER_01: 39:48

My default quote saying is just your past does not define you. Whenever I've faced difficult decisions, bro, I'm guilty of this. I've felt like the victim growing up all the time. And I don't know where I found this quote from or where I read it or where I saw it, but it was like your past does not define you. Just because I grew up without a father doesn't mean that when I become a father, I need to therefore be a shitty father. No, bro, be the person that breaks the mold. Don't look at yourself as the victim. If you didn't come from money, then look at yourself like the first person who will obtain some money and break that mold. You can't be stuck in the past and just feel like, oh, well, I guess this is how we're always gonna be. Like that, that's sort of the victim mentality you need to break out of. And I'd be lying to you if I told you that that's completely gone away. You know what I mean? Sometimes I do feel like I I feel like I want to blame somebody else for my shortcomings. But at the end of the day, bro, I just I just stop, I pause, I reset, and I'm just like, nah, bro, you're you're not the victim here. Like, you want to make a change, stop, pause, assess, figure out the problem, figure out what it is you want to change, and then move forward. Man, that one's killer, bro.

SPEAKER_02: 41:04

That naturally brought us into number nine, and I know we both agree on this one because I I got a chance to see your list in advance. You have to be optimistic and you have to have an action bias. These two things go together. It's very important. Skills to master in your 20s. If you are in an area or a community or around friends and family, we always talk about family because I feel like that gets overlooked a lot in when I see the content that comes from like the world that we're in. I don't know if it's just our family rich, but a lot of that fucking energy and a lot of that predisposition for feeling handicapped, even when you are not handicapped, comes from the way the people you're around and the family you're in. And I think being optimistic, training your mind to believe that what you're doing is eventually gonna stack up and change your life is something you have to go into everything with. If you're not optimistic and you don't have action bias, it's fucking impossible to get out of your situation. Because what you're looking at right now is not what you want. And that sucks. And if you continue to take this reality in as permanent, kind of like you said, and you don't embrace action and optimism, you're gonna be stuck there forever. And I think you have to master the ability to look around in real life and be like, okay, it's not what I want it to be, but it can be different. And I'm gonna take action. I know that was one of your points. I just wanted to bring it up early before we got to 10. Because why is that so important to you?

SPEAKER_01: 42:36

Man, the the whole mentality of like, I'll start tomorrow, I'll do it tomorrow, lack of motivation, the anxiety of having to do a task, right? The ability to want to feel like everything needs to be perfect before you start. Those will disable your actions, man. And procrastinating is deadly. And that's definitely one we're gonna talk about in the sort of waste of times.

SPEAKER_02: 43:00

And but the word action bias. I hear that word a lot, and I feel like that's like that kind of came from the tech space because a lot of these guys have hacked the world and they use coded language. But how would you simplify that to like let's say my nephew Damien? What are you really saying when you say action bias?

SPEAKER_01: 43:16

I mean the the ability to to move forward, to take action. Bro, we live in a culture where these kids are just doom scrolling, like we've said in previous episodes all day long. They sit on their couch, they they get some snacks, they order pizza, and they're just on Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube, doom scrolling for hours on end. And it's just like, bro, you want to lose weight, but you're sitting on the couch doom scrolling for hours on end. Like, how are you going to lose weight? You're not taking action. And, you know, to me, it's it's procrastination is like one of the biggest sort of setbacks.

SPEAKER_02: 43:50

Do the thing. I think I think that's what you're saying. And and I just like you got me annoyed when you characterize this person that is not taking control of their life. You have to do the thing. Linking up with the homies to talk about the thing is not doing it. Hitting the group chat and saying what you're gonna do tomorrow is not doing it. Tweeting about it is not doing it, posting a video about it is not doing it, watching a motivational documentary or or watching a Kobe montage video about all the shit that he did is not you doing the thing. In order to get the thing done that's gonna change your life, you gotta get the fuck up and do the thing. That's what action bias means. I'm starting to learn that a lot of our teachings are coming from textbooks and we're losing a lot of the community that we're trying to talk to. I couldn't put it any simpler than that. Do the fucking thing. Stop talking about the thing, stop posting about the thing, stop reading about the thing, stop watching about the thing. Do the fucking thing that you know you gotta do. That's what action bias means. Actually, we're not gonna use that word anymore now. We're gonna say do the fucking thing. And I think it's way easier to understand that because I have family and friends that are like that, bro. They're just like, yo, I'm not happy with my situation, I'm not happy with my bro. You have to do the thing. Explaining is not even worth it anymore because you can fucking write it into Chat GBT. You know what it's gonna tell you? Do these motherfucking things and your situation will change. Now that now we know there's no guarantees, but it's just you have to have action bias. And I think being optimistic, believing that it will work out for you is also those two have to go together. Because sometimes, Rich, you know how it goes. We grind it for a long time, and sometimes the fruit doesn't come off the tree, even though you've been planting a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 45:38

Yeah, I love that. For me, bro, number 10 is, and this should have been higher up, but educate yourself, never stop learning. Time is a luxury. I think for me, bro, I I've been a lifelong learner. It's probably one of my silent most powerful skill sets. It's just the ability to learn, absorb information. And I in one of our earlier episodes, we spoke about learning from an Uber driver. I mean, you can get information from anyone. Um, in my leisure time, I would nine times out of ten will choose a documentary over a movie. Why? Because I know I'm gonna that documentary is gonna teach me something. I'm either gonna see the path that someone else followed and sort of what made them successful or what didn't make them successful. Even wild shit like true crimes or or or a documentary on the mafia, like you'll learn little pieces of information like, damn, the mafia moved efficient in the underworld, right, for the wrong reasons, but damn, they were a well-oiled machine. You know what I mean? Like for sure. I don't know. Take that information away from how they operated, not what they actually did. And yeah, uh educate yourself, just be a lifelong learner. And I I couldn't emphasize that enough. That should have been higher up.

SPEAKER_02: 46:54

That is a good number 10. Rich, we should do a bonus because I have one that I have to get to. And I realize that we're at 11. All right. But number 10 is learn how to learn. I love that one, Rich. Learn how to learn, educate yourself, but don't think because you're getting a little older and you graduated from high school and college that you can't learn how to learn. I think it's easier than that. And it's actually like more meta than the greater point. If you're listening to a podcast about the skills you gotta master in your 20s, how the fuck do you master a skill if you don't know how to learn a skill? But you have to learn how to learn how to master a skill. So I think you're right, it should have been higher. It's fundamental. It's something that you have to do, and you have to approach learning with an enjoyableness, like that. You know what? I'm enjoying what I'm learning. And that's what we talked about earlier. Kind of follow your drift. Go do something that you're truly curious about, you're genuinely excited about learning. And then learning doesn't feel like middle school. It doesn't feel like, oh, remember the capital of this state. No, no, no. You're learning about shit that you're interested in, and that's perfect. That's the easiest way to learn how to learn. Number 11, and a bonus that I want to add before we tier out these skills that you should learn in your 20s. Number 11, Rich, is master the word no. Say it with me. Master the word no. This is something you struggle with, and I struggle with, Rich. For sure. What does it come with? Closest friends, family, co-workers, your boss, your girlfriend. This might lean on the side of toxic, and trust me, Rich and I have already been accused of it with a few episodes we put out, but we don't say shit just to get a reaction. That's not what this platform is about. We really believe the things that we're sharing with our community are going to be helpful, even if it's something you don't say out loud, but you just you just know deep inside. Here's an example. You have a shitty Honda Accord that you finished paying off that you've been able to drive to college or to your job with. You put a little bit of money you have into gas and insurance and making sure your car is clean. You're on your way to meet with some friends that you guys are starting a business, and your grandmother tells you, Hey, can you drop off my friend at this hospital that is 40 minutes in the other direction of where you're going? It's a tough one. And I like this situation because I can see somebody going through this. First of all, you barely have money for gas, so you know they're not gonna give you gas money. Second of all, you only, according to Justin and Rich, you gotta do the seven seven seven. So these are the only three hours you have free. You're really trying to maximize your free time. You gotta spend 40 minutes driving in a whole other direction to come back 40 minutes and then whatever. You just lost an hour and a half of your day. It's okay to tell someone no if it's not a part of your mission. And they may make you feel guilty for that, but you shouldn't. Because you're learning how to master skills in your 20s that are gonna be absolutely crucial in your 30s. You're gonna have to tell grown people no all the time in order for you to do what you gotta do in order to get done the shit that you have to get done. So you have to master the ability of being comfortable with telling people no, or I'll let you know, or maybe. But saying yes to everything is only a deficit to what you want in your vision. So that's a skill that's really hard to learn, but it's like one of those nuanced ones that we brought up earlier, Rich, that if you don't know how to do that, you just might as well just forget the rest of the list because it's so important, but it's so low key.

SPEAKER_01: 50:36

Yeah, sort of like buying your time back. I think I say yes to one out of ten invites. You know what I mean? Like in your 30s. Really? Is that real? I mean, in your 30s, you say no to everything. It's just like, bro, honestly, having a child is like the biggest cop-out for any event if if you want a cheat code.

SPEAKER_02: 50:53

Wow. So maybe I should have a kid so I could as I could stop going to fucking weddings and birthday parties. Can I buy send me a picture of your daughter? I'll just use her as my excuse. No, but you're right. You're getting your time back, but you're putting it into things that are necessary. Yeah. What is necessary? I think that's important. When you say no to something, all you're doing is freeing up your time for something that will be more valuable. Correct. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01: 51:18

Yeah, yeah. I love that framing. I think that's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02: 51:21

Rich, I don't know if you have a uh a 12, but if not, we should get into the tier list because we're gonna take the master list and we're gonna group them into what we think is the priority of what is the most important to not so important.

SPEAKER_01: 51:36

Yeah, we should probably rank these because I don't think that they were in order. And we want to help you guys prioritize all these uh hard skills.

SPEAKER_02: 51:44

All right, we're getting into the skills that you have to mandatory master in your 20s. Rich, I think the way this tiering list of these skills from this top 10 list that we already created is gonna work, we're gonna do tier A, tier B, and tier C. Because you know, somebody might feel a little overwhelmed with this list. After we rank them, we're gonna pick one of all of them that is the S tier, the absolutely non-negotiable. But we'll get into it. Just as a recap for our listeners, if you ever felt like, damn, I'm in my 20s, I really don't know where to prioritize my time and energy, but I want to make sure that I'm ahead of the curve and I'm successful in my 30s. What are the skills that I should master now so I can be rolling into my 30s with crazy momentum? Here's a list that Rich and I worked on already. I'm gonna go one through five. Rich, you could do six through ten. Number one, communication skills. Number two, learn how to manage your time. The 777 rule. Number three, problem solving. Number four, escape a small town mentality. Dream bigger than the neighborhood you came from. Number five, dream big, but root your decisions in reality.

SPEAKER_01: 53:06

Number six, financial literacy and delayed gratification. Number seven, health and fitness, building up a workload tolerance. Number eight, cut out the victim's mentality and being a complainer. Number nine, optimism and action bias. Believe that you have control of your future. And number 10, learn how to learn. Educate yourself, never stop learning. And then we had a bonus. Number 11, master the word no. Very important.

SPEAKER_02: 53:36

All right, let's start with C tier, Rich. Let's try to weed out the one. We're not saying these are not valuable. We're just saying this is a grail list. We want to make sure we're giving our viewers the right information to get started on immediately. I could identify one or two C tiers that we can weed out right now. Do you have one that you could put in there?

SPEAKER_01: 53:57

I think escape small town mentality is one. I do feel like that's important, but I also feel like there's been plenty of successful people that have come from small towns. I think that's something that you can develop early on. You can always get up and move to another bigger city, LA, New York. I don't think that's so much important as to fixing the foundation that is yourself. And then you could work on that later, later on in your 20s.

SPEAKER_02: 54:23

Yeah, and in 2025, I really believe somebody can be be a billionaire in their grandmother's bedroom if they if they play their cards right. So it's not necessarily about physically relocating, but it's definitely about a small town mentality. So it's more of a mind frame thing, but I think if you master the other 10, you'll be straight. So I'm I'm cool with moving that to the C tier. Is there any other ones that are feeling obvious for you on the C tier?

SPEAKER_01: 54:47

No, I think all the other ones are extremely important. They'll definitely belong in the A and B.

SPEAKER_02: 54:53

I'm gonna move dream big, but root your decisions in reality into the C tier. Obviously, C tier is still very important, but the reason why I hesitated on that one was because I feel like when you're in your 20s, bro, you should just dream big. Like you should just go for anything. Like we did it growing up, Rich. Like a lot of people were asking, what is this media company you guys brought up in your failures resume and in your real resume?

SPEAKER_03: 55:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 55:18

The media company was the thing that got me a job, and it was the thing that gave you some work experience, and you helped build that company, Rich. So if we would have listened to reality at that time, I feel like we would have easily been talked out of it. Who in the world was doing what we were doing at that time? I feel like it was like a crazy, unrealistic dream to pursue.

SPEAKER_01: 55:36

Yeah, no, no one. And it was only because of how naive we were about building this company that we even got success in the first place. We just sort of blindly all work towards a common goal. Yeah, you're you're right. It's it's still big, but I feel like it's less important to place in the tier A and B.

SPEAKER_02: 55:55

All right, we're gonna identify the A tiers because everything would fall in the middle after that. So if we were framing this, Rich, like think about the headline. Mandatory skills you have to master in your 20s to set you up nice for your 30s. And we could each pick two to go on the A tier. What's like something that it's almost like um it's almost like a protein in a meal or salt to a recipe? Like, no, you have to have this if you wanna be set up solid in your 30s. Yeah. By the way, I think you could be fat and still thrive in your 20s.

SPEAKER_01: 56:32

Nah.

SPEAKER_02: 56:33

I don't, I don't, I don't health and fitness.

SPEAKER_01: 56:35

That's actually that that's actually, nah, you're you're bugging. That's actually my number one.

SPEAKER_02: 56:39

Nah. Health and fitness?

SPEAKER_01: 56:41

Bro.

SPEAKER_02: 56:41

All right, yeah. I mean, it's your pick. It's your pick. Make the argument.

SPEAKER_01: 56:44

All right, I'm gonna make the argument.

SPEAKER_02: 56:45

You want to know why I can make the argument? Because I was fat in my 20s.

SPEAKER_01: 56:48

So Okay, nah, but listen. We're here now. Yeah, but we're we're talking about someone in their 20s and focusing on a particular skill and mastering that skill. If you are not healthy, nothing else matters. How can you be successful if you're sick or you had diabetes or you have cancer or you have an ailment or you have an illness, nothing else matters. I literally have coworkers who are going who are terminally ill and going through the worst moments in their life.

SPEAKER_02: 57:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 57:26

If you don't prioritize your nutrition, your body, and sort of like your mental health, bro, to me, nothing else matters. That is sort of the baseline foundation of every human being. And unfortunately for us in our 20s, we didn't give a fuck about that. We were outside. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're outside. You're trying to eat, you're trying to pop out, you're trying to smoke, you're trying to drink, you're trying to chill. But you're not worried about going to the gym. You're not worried about your mental health, you're not worried about feeling good or watching what you eat. You're worried about just being cool and being in the pop-out. Yeah. Like I said, if I had to do it all over again, that's one, bro, that I'm like, damn. Like I feel fit now, but I got fit in my 30s. Like had I known what I know now, I'm like, damn, I would have definitely started when I was 18, 19, 20, and I would have felt much better in my 30s. Like, I'm in my 30s, my late 30s, and everything still hurts. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02: 58:24

Like, yeah, yeah. When you say this is A tier, what advice would you give 21-year-old rich if you can go back in time and say, hey, this is something you should master now? And 21-year-old rich is uh ask you why and what should I be doing?

SPEAKER_01: 58:40

Bro, if if you're dealing with past trauma, go see a therapist and clear that that mental trauma, going back to the victim mentality, right? Like you have that mentality because you have bad mental nutrition. Go back and fix that, fix the past traumas in your life so that you can start life with a clean slate, not this like past victim that can never escape this negative loop that they're in in their brain. So that's what I mean by fix your mental health, nutrition. Like I said, if you're fucking going to Five Guys and McDonald's and Burger King and Taco Bell and White Castle all the time, bro, you and you wonder why you're depressed. It's because you feel like shit all the time, because you're putting shit food inside of your body, right? And then the physicality of it is like, damn, I don't have a girl, but I want a girl. Damn, I want to see appealing to women. Damn, I want to be more social. All right, but bro, but you're overweight. You're overweight. You're not focused on your physical personal image. You feel like you're unattractive. That contributes to the depression. And now you have this negative cycle of like, you're eating like shit, feel like shit, you look like shit. And bro, you're never going to accomplish anything. Like, like fuck being successful. Bro. How can you be successful if your core foundation of your health is broken? You'll never get there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:06

I love that you went on that ramp because it gave me clarity as to why it should be tier A. I think you just bumped it from B to S tier for me because you made one edit. You said it's about a mental health. Your physical body and what you put into it all affects your mental. So if you're in a fucked up situation or you actually are a victim because of something that happened in your life, this doesn't help you. This is the fuel you put into this vehicle that moves you. So I love that, man. And I didn't realize that you were going in the angle of like, you know, what you've been through, which is it is true that you grew up without a father, but you're saying you never got rid of all that clutter that was in the attic that was in your brain, and you allowed it to affect everything else. So it's bigger than health, it's mental health and nutrition and fitness.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:00

Yeah, yeah, bro. Most of my 20s, I was very angry, angry person. And it was I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And it was just, you know, like you said, it's just clearing yourself of that past trauma and um and gaining that clarity of like, all right, well, we're this new person today, right? We're 20 years old. This is us today. And going forward, we're going to be different than whatever happened prior to me being 20. Um, because by the way, you have no control. Most of the time, you have no control over what happened in your past. If you were fucking, God forbid, if you were 10 years old and got molested by a family member, like you had no control, you had no prevention for that situation happening. It's an unfortunate situation. And, you know, in that circumstance, you you are the victim. But at some point, if you live with that moment in your brain forever, you'll just always be handicapped.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:51

Listen, that's such a powerful point. We're saying mental health, fitness, and understanding for nutrition are definitely in the A tier. That is something that you can't do anything else without. So that's why it's up there. Yeah. For me, what goes right into the A tier after looking at the list a few times was learn how to learn. To me, that's a skill within a skill. And I'm glad that we went through the list first because it hit me when you said it. It was like, man, if your situation is fucked up and you went to public school or your textbook education wasn't a priority growing up, what happens is you lose this skill to get yourself out of a situation. You think get rich, quick schemes, backdoor plays, gambling, uh, crypto, this is the best way to get out of your situation. Running credit card scams, dope game, whatever. You automatically start putting yourself in this situation where I don't have any other skills, so I got to make money fast. The quickest way to get out of that situation is to give yourself that free time. Like we said with the 777 rule, seven hours need to be dedicated in your day to either following your passion, following your curiosity, or learning a new skill that is eventually going to be able to make you employable or useful to your tribe of people or an employer that can make you more money. How do you do that? You learn to learn. You have to educate yourself. And Rich, that might be the most underrated one in this whole list because it's something that I was doing by accident and you were doing by accident, but we learned it's what gave us an advantage. Yeah. You could be 35, but as long as you're still learning something new, you're in the mind space of a 25-year-old because you're still sharpening your sword. So learning to learn is huge to me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:40

I think that's for sure in the eights here. Yeah, bro. Like taking it back to tribal days, you you had your hunters and gatherers, you had the the guys who who knew how to sew and make clothing, you had the Smithson, the guys who knew how to sharpen iron and make weapons. Like you have to be useful to your tribe. Like everyone had a purpose in their tribe. And I think it's it's lost, I feel like, in society today to learn how to learn, which is why you know we we go on platforms like YouTube to learn things. We're not necessarily going to college or courses because you you could learn about anything on YouTube versus just sitting at your couch at home, doom scrolling all day. Like that's the paradigm, right? It's like, bro, not only do you need to learn skills, but you also need to learn how to learn. And it's never been easier today, right? Shout out to YouTube University. Yeah. Saved a lot of us, bro. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:39

You you can learn anything on YouTube, bro. Bro, listen, learning to learn made me think about a dinner I went to. And I'll I I'm not gonna say everybody who was at the dinner because, as you know, I try not to mention the people that I work with professionally because that's not what this platform is about. But just know there were some artists there, a few of my coworkers, and someone that's really a close friend of ours that is very successful and he's very driven and he's very smart, which is Chris Scott. And Chris and his friend was there, and we took a ride back after the dinner, and um Chris and his boy were asking me questions because I think it was the first time they got to see me in my profession. And I think they were like either curious or charmed or both because they got to see me in my domain. And they were just peppering me with questions while I was in the back seat, and I felt like I was being interviewed by them. But what I found out at the end of the conversation was that they were trying to figure out how someone that came from the the environment that I came from, the the community I came from, the life circumstances I came from, and how the fuck did I get here and why was I so good at what I did. And Chris's boy mentioned the word agency. He said, Oh, you have agency. And I promise you, at 39 years old, I did not know what the fuck he was talking about because he kept saying it. And I was like, nah, bro, I do marketing. I don't have an agency, I work for a company. He was like, no, bro, agency, you have agency. I still barely understand what he was telling me, but I went and I act like I knew he was talking about in the moment, but I went home and I Googled it and I looked it up. Agency is having the ability to take control over your own life and your own circumstances and be clear on what actions you need to take in order to change your situation. You take full ownership of everything that has to do with your situation, and you have the agency to say, this is not how my life will be forever. I will do everything possible to change it. And the reason what you just said made me think of it was because that word is so powerful to say you have agency over your own life. You're not a victim, you're not a witness, you're not the C-level character in your own movie. You're the star, you're the hero. You have to have agency. And shout out to Chris and his boy, which next time I'll say his name. I don't know if he wants to be mentioned on these shows. But when he said that, I was like, damn, it's crazy. I had this skill, but I didn't have the word for the skill. So part of that, learn to learn, Rich, is that you don't always have to get everything through a textbook. Sometimes you just got to go out there and change your situation by absolutely fucking going ham and trying to figure it out. But that's a part of it. Part of learning to learn is not just textbook. Because if you give our community too much information, they want to get it perfect before they go out into the world and try it. The best way to learn how to swim is not watching professional swimmers swimming.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:36

It's getting in the fucking water and moving your arms forward and trying to figure it out. It's the best way to learn, and that's agency. So I don't want to over-articulate or be too educated on this platform where we lose our viewers, but learn to learn, have agency, take control of your own life. So that's definitely in tier A. Rich, is there anything else that's standing out to you in the eight that we have left that's tier A?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:57

I would bucket cut out victims mentality with the mental health. Really? No, I'm saying like I would add that to the mental health. Oh, okay. You would add cut out the victim's mentality. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I would add that in in conjunction with with the mental health. The other one that I would say is a non-negotiable. I mean, we could bucket the learn how to manage your time with learn to learn too. Because that's that's all sort of related.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:24

For sure.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:25

Yeah, we're sort of trying to consolidate these.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:27

So because they're valuable. They're all very valuable, but you could get more within the one category.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:33

For me, man, problem solving. That's tier A. Who doesn't love a problem solver? This is what I taught my nephew Damien, and I swear I think it changed his life. When you're in the room, don't be a liability, don't be an expense. Be useful, be a problem solver. And I'm going to make sure our editor has the photo and the video of the day I told my nephew this story. I flew him out to LA because he was getting in trouble and he wasn't living his life in the best way. He just left college and he wasn't going in the right direction. My brother begged me, yo, take Damien, my nephew, his son, to LA so he can see more. He needs to see more. So I did a whole week of just popping out to all the stuff that I do for a living as a music executive. And from the outside looking in, it looks very glamorous, but there's a lot of work in it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:27

So I kind of ran him through the gamut and I ended the week that he was out there with a dinner. And in that dinner, you'll see in the video that I'm whispering to him while everybody's cheersing with their glasses up. And it was about 12 people I went out to dinner with, all people in the business in LA. Chris was actually at that dinner. Shout out to Chris. And I whispered to my nephew, I said, yo, I want you to look around. Everybody that's sitting at this table is a problem solver. Everybody that's sitting at this table has a skill. They have a job, a different skill, a different job. You're the only person here laughing at jokes, drinking all the tequila, eating all the chicken tenders that doesn't do anything. You don't have a skill. The next time you come to LA, you can't come as the guy that doesn't contribute. You have to be useful. You have to be the person that's not only laughing at the jokes, but also is able and capable to solve a problem to anybody sitting at this table. So enjoy it. But this is the last time you eat for free. You have to chip in. I love it. That was October last year. My nephew started his own digital agency. He does like a PR for artists that are in different cities and he helps them uh link up with content creators. He started his own company. He's doing very well for himself. One year since we had that conversation. You know what he texted me the day that I hired him to help me with one of my clients? He said, I guess I'm not the guy laughing at jokes, drinking all the wine, eating all the chicken tenders. I'm useful now. I'm a problem solver.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:03

I love it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:04

So I'm glad you put that one in the tier A list because that one's personal to me, Rich. I think people that are in fucked up situations, especially if you're in your 30s trying to figure out your life, being a problem solver is a secret, secret sauce. It's a cheat code.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:18

I love that story. I feel like that was a sink or swim moment. It's like you're in your 20s. And by the way, I I love how aggressive you were, how urgent you were about the problem. It's like, are are you gonna contribute to this table or are you just gonna be eating everything for free?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:35

And la and laughing at the jokes, just laughing. Not everyone here has something to do. That's why they're enjoying themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:42

Yeah. I mean, bro, that could have been the single moment that changed his whole life. So I'm glad you were like aggressive with your delivery and the urgency that you brought to the table. Like, bro, you you're here, but you have nothing to contribute to this table right now. You know what I mean? Like, it's different when you pick up the phone and say, hey man, you got to be doing better. You got to do these top three things. Bro, you flew him out and were like, look what we're doing. Look what everyone around me is doing. Look what we're building. Like, how can you contribute to this structure that we're building? You have nothing to contribute? All right, bro, go kick rocks. But if you want to make yourself useful, like this is what everyone else is doing, I think that's super powerful. Like sometimes you just need to see something in order for you to snap back into reality, like, nah man, I need to get up off the couch and do something, take action, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:36

But what it's really rooted in is in you brought up that point, the problem solver. That is a skill that you need in your 20s. Now, I just applied it to a real life story that changed my nephew's life. And I want to be clear on failures podcast on all platforms. Rich and I are really like that in real life. We're actually more harsh with each other. If we would have recorded the not so happy meeting we had with each other about this business that we're building before we got on air, it was uncomfortable, but we held each other accountable. And we believe what we talk about. And I just wanted to put that family story in there because at Failures Podcasts, we eat our home cooking. We don't serve you something that we wouldn't do with our own family. So I had like about 15 things on my skills to master your 20s, and you brought up the problem solving. And that shit is so important that I forgot that I actually did that with my own family. So, Rich, I don't know how that applies to you when you think about problem solving because I think it's very important. It's urgent. You have to have that in your toolbox.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:38

Yeah. And, you know, I've always considered myself the sort of like get money guy. And I didn't really start to get motion on the getting money aspect of things until I figured out, well, wait a minute, how can I multiply currency? Oh, you have to solve problems. Okay, cool. Which problems am I really good at solving? You know what I mean? And then you sort of micro-dissect your skills, match them to problems, and that outputs more currency. So when I went down the rabbit hole of going to college for information technology, I was, I started out help desk, then I started out working with systems. Then I'm like, damn, I actually really good at reading like security logs and finding different forensics on devices. Like maybe I should double down on that. And it turns out that's one of the most lucrative jobs in in today's market is cybersecurity engineers, cybersecurity professionals. But it was only by me sort of identifying which problems I was good at solving did I get a chance to sort of work in in the field and and continue to build up my experience. So that one alone has been extremely valuable for me.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:52

Man, we could we could do this episode forever because obviously we're speaking to our younger selves and we are the result of all these things that we applied. But Rich, I was trying to leave this one out of the tier A because I wanted to keep tier A just three, but you said it and I live it. I this is something that's really important to me. And we've built this company in what, four months, five months? We're not that deep into the official building of failures, LLC. Action bias and optimism have to be in tier A. I was trying to keep it out, but you mentioned it. You have to have an ability to continue to move forward and take action. I think without that one in the in the top four, it's tough to justify the other three because you could problem solve, you could, you, you could learn to learn, you could read all the books, you can have great mental health and mental fitness. But if you don't have a bias towards getting it done and moving forward and constantly trying to apply problem solving to action, optimism to action, action is action is in all of these. I think you have to have action bias that has to be in our tier A.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:57

Yeah, I agree. And you you have to want to do things or want to get good at things for you to get good at things. So there's that one as uh a tier A naturally flows into our tier B, right? Like if you want to obtain communication skills, you have to take action. If you want to be financially literate, you have to take action.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:24

If you want to master the word know, you have to take action. Just sitting idle is not going to Or just knowing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:32

Oh, I know, I have knowledge, I know these things. What good is wood nails and construction workers if you don't take action? You just have a whole bunch of tools, no house.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:42

Yeah, exactly. And that that one is extremely underrated. Um, and like I said, I constantly take that one and tie it back into like the people who are just sitting on their couch doom scrolling. Because I feel like that's what most 20-year-olds are doing, bro. They're in the pop-out, they're hanging out, they're on TikTok, they're on social media, and they're just looking for the next trend. They're looking at the next meme. And it's just like, bro, you complain about the things that you don't have, but go back and audit your time and find how many times are you actually taking any action towards the things or the problems that you want to fix? True. True. You're not, right? So that that one to me is a perfect way to end tier A. And I think the other ones, I think tier B is just like you can get good at these things at tier B, but only when you go back and take action.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:32

All right, Rich. This is it. This is the uh grand finale of the episode of the tier A. Which one would you personally put as S tier? Like God tier. If young Rich was standing in front of you right now and you could only give him one piece of advice to tell him this is a skill you have to master in your 20s, don't worry about the rest of the list. What would it be?

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:58

Learn to learn, bro. Learn how to educate yourself. You can learn how to be good at working out and going to the gym. You can learn how to find good nutrition. You can learn how to problem solve. You can learn how to take action. If you don't know how to learn and how to learn how it's best for you, right? Some people learn via audio, some people learn via video. Some people are really good at textbooks and just reading books. But learn how to learn, and that skill will compound and benefit every other skill in these teams. I love that one.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:35

And that would have been my number two, but I have a real S tier, which is action bias and optimism. And I think I personally have a bias towards those two because I, like you, Rich, felt like a dark cloud followed me a lot when I was younger. And I noticed it in a lot of the destiny and the fate of a lot of the people in my family, a lot of the older people in my family. It was prison, it was drugs, it was bullshit, it was a lot of violence, it was a lot of fun, I ain't gonna lie, but not a lot of accountability, a lot of dodging, uh phone calls from creditors, a lot of not answering the door when our landlord would come for rent. And I think I don't know when it hit me, but it hit me. This can't be it. There has to be more. And that's why I always add optimism. I know I know I'm packing it in with action bias, but if you're gonna dream, dream that you're gonna be the exception. If you're gonna go in one direction, you might as well believe you're gonna be the one, the outlier. You're gonna be the one that gets to be the richest, be the biggest, be the best. That's something that I've always carried with me. And at 39, I didn't necessarily get to Sylvia Roan's status of running the music business, which I still have a lot of time, but I got pretty fucking close. And I got a lot further than a lot of people that I know because I don't believe they dreamed big enough and they didn't have the action to get them to get there. So that has to be my S tier. So if you're in your 20s and you're around a lot of people, or even yourself that spends a lot of time doom scrolling on TikTok or watching Netflix or just bullshitting, just know that this list that we put together for you, if you stack them up properly, these are gonna be some of the most valuable skills for the rest of your life. And if you take the energy you have in your 20s, I promise you, this is gonna be a superpower in your 30s. People are gonna look at you and try to wonder how the fuck did you glow up so fast in your 30s? So just know most people waste their 20s, but people who are truly successful, way more successful than me and Rich, they capitalize on their 20s and developing their skills. So this toolbox is for life. It's not for tomorrow, it's not for today, it's for life. So this is the official playbook on how to master skills in your 20s and what are the most important skills to master in your 20s. And we even threw a little bonus at the end, Rich. We tiered it out. This is a tiered list, the official tiered list of failures podcasts of skills to master in your 20s. But you got to get on it right now. You have to do it right now.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:24

Yes, sir. I love it, man. It's perfect way to close. But listen, we're on YouTube now. So go ahead and subscribe, watch some of our other videos, give us feedback, comment. We we realize how important the YouTube platform is. And Justin and I are working really hard to get you these clips and these gems, and um, yeah, just give us feedback and subscribe to our YouTube. If we missed anything, drop it in the comments.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:51

Failure spotcast. Peace.