SPEAKER_01 0:02

At 21 years old, I stopped making payments on that car loan that I took over from my ex's parents. I stopped paying it. I had a really big 6'5, 300-pound repo man come take the car along with all of my possessions away.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

I'm sorry about No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Laugh on my pain.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yeah, wait, did you see him in person?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I saw him through the window. I was like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Was he a lot bigger in person?

SPEAKER_01 0:29

I was like, oh my god, this guy is very big.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Not any habits, life-changing habits that can ruin your 20s. Caution. Or you know what? Rich and I are in our 30s, so we can't really change our habits now, but we're gonna go back back into time and dissect the seven habits that we wish we would have changed in our 20s. If you're in your 20s right now, you still have time. These habits can supercharge your 20s. If you're in your 20s right now and you feel like you're doing everything right, but it's just not clicking, things are not coming together. You're working, you're grinding, you're staying up late, you're just trying to figure it out, but it's just not happening for you. And it still feels like you're running in place. Don't worry about it. Rich and I got you covered. This episode is for you. Rich, what's one thing in the preparation of this show, knowing the topic that we were covering, habits in your 20s that could have ruined your life? What's one thing that came to mind? Don't do the typical content creator thing. Like, really tell us the truth. One thing that came to mind in your 20s that you wish you would have been able to fix or change?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Bro, what immediately comes to mind is I felt like in my 20s, I was trying to rush into adulthood. And 19, going into 20, moving with a girlfriend at the time. We were together for five years. Four months into living together, we broke up and I had to move back to my parents' house. During that relationship, I maxed out my credit cards. Also, during that relationship, I took over a car loan that her parents had for her. Her parents had bought her a car, but transferred the loan to me because they were like, Well, you're a man now, right? So you have to take this loan over for her.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Wait, they made that decision for you?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah, bro. They were like, You want to live with her? Like, this is one of the things you have to do. And bro, me 19, 20 years old, blindly in love, I said, you know, it doesn't matter. I'll figure it out. This is the love of my life. We're gonna be together forever. Let me take on this financial burden, bro. All of that came crumbling down less than six months into us living together. And bro, that resulted in me filing for bankruptcy. That resulted in me having to move back home and completely rebuild my financial life from zero at 20 years old. And I just remember as I reflect on this show topic, I'm like, damn, what were the things, what were the habits in that relationship that caused all of that? And one thing that immediately comes to mind is, bro, I was really, I was rushing into adulthood. I wanted the girlfriend, the wife, the kids, the white picket fence, the car, right? Like I wanted to feel like I was an adult already. And there's this weird thing that happens in your 20s where you feel like you're an adult already, and you want to start to make adult decisions because you feel like you're really far removed from 18.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

18 is like that age where you're like, oh, I'm a man now, I'm an adult. But when you're in your 20s, there's this false sense of like, oh, I'm an adult now, I'm really far removed from 18. I'm way smarter at 23 than I was when I was 18 years old. And you really start to tell yourself that you could make some big boy decisions. And unfortunately for me, I rushed those decisions into adulthood and really didn't take the time to craft adulthood how I should have during that time.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Damn. I, you know, you've mentioned that story before, but you never went as deep as you went into it this time. When you look back at it, is there something that you would tell young rich or even your 14-year-old son right now, hey, this is something you should be watching out for in your 20s. A habit that you don't even realize you're starting to create, but it will affect you in your 30s going into your 40s.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah, certainly, bro. I think during that time, unfortunately, I made love my identity. Like I felt like I needed to do things in order to have this person love me and for me to stay in love with this person. And that's why I incurred the debt that I incurred, right? That's why I took that car loan over from her mom. Because I was like, it's all in the name of love. It's justified. And it's this crazy, like, mental thing that I told myself that justified why I was maxing out my credit cards and getting into all of this debt. In my mind, I'm like, I'm with my forever person. It doesn't matter. We're gonna figure out this debt together. And that was such a false sense of reality. And I thought I could make some big boy decisions at 20 years old, and I was mistaken.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Anyone who's listening to this on the podcast side is basically gonna get a bar for bar, pick-for-pick draft style approach to toxic habits or habits that could have ruined our 20s. And when I was doing this list, Rich, what you just said about I was living to love, I think that even made me think of a deeper issue that I have. And I'm curious to know if you had it as well, is that when you come from an unstructured household or a lot of chaos at home, you kind of yearn for some stability, and you think that you're gonna find it in a girl because in your teenage years or in your 20s, sometimes if your life is fucked up, a girl could be the last safe haven that you have that makes you feel happy. And when you're in your 20s, you've been working a lot through your teenage years just to get one girl in your life. So someone that's constantly gonna love you, pay attention to you, be your friend, and is gonna allow you to fuck occasionally as your girlfriend, this person easily becomes your world because it's the only time in your life you feel seen, you feel whole, you feel like, man, this is everything. And I remember being in my 20s and really believing the girl that I was dating was gonna be my life partner, like you said. And I look back and I think about how ridiculous that idea is. And it was only because I was missing something in my young life that I didn't have control over. But in my adult life, I wanted to, I wanted to make up for it and I wanted to treat this girl like my everything.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, I think that's exactly what was my issue in my 20s. It was like you you sort of rush your way into adulthood because not only do you yearn for that love from a partner, but you also want to show your parents like, hey, look, I have a girlfriend, like I'm moving up in the world. I have structure, I have stability, like I'm making big boy decisions. And, you know, unfortunately, in trying to prove to our families that we're an adult, we end up making a lot of decisions that reflecting back on it, you you kind of like regret.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, Rich, I do want to set up my number one in this habits that could have ruined my life in my 20s. And one of them, I'm gonna be honest with you, this one, when I think about it, I actually thought it was a strength. If I went back in a time machine and saw a photo of myself in my early 20s, I would have told you this is a strength. I would defend that to the end of the days in my 20s, but at 39, I look back and I think to myself, damn, I was a fool. This was not a strength, it was something that could have easily ruined my life. And I also have another one that I wanted to mention that's more about loyalty and how loyalty really, really plagued my 20s. And at 39, I look back and I think to myself, what the fuck was I doing? Why was I loyal to those people? But we're gonna unpack those a little bit later. I do want to get to this first one, and the first one was living for validation, Rich. I'm going to give our video editor pictures of me in my 20s. You knew me very well. When it came to like girls, girls that I was interested in, girls that I was dating, friends, bullshit friends that I haven't spoken to in decades. People, just simply people in my life that I wanted to impress that meant nothing. I lived for validation, Rich. And I look back as an adult and think to myself, why did I live for validation so much? And the first thing that comes to mind is hanging around with a group of guys that we both hung out with, that it's almost laughable to think about it in your late 30s that you're like, damn, I can't believe I hung out with those guys. We did illegal shit, we did dumb shit. It was fun. I can't lie. We did a lot of fun shit. But when I look back, it's like, man, that time could have been way better spent in my 20s because I was seeking validation from people that I didn't care about, just so I could gain some sort of status. And to be honest, a lot of the validation came from me wanting to be around beautiful women in my early 20s and be accepted by the cool guys. And when I look back, I think about my 20s and if I could share anything with our community, it's like, man, don't live for validation of others. Spend your time trying to understand who you are and what are the things that speak to you naturally. You genuinely are interested in. Who are the people you genuinely want to be around? And I think probably most important is who are the people that accept you for being you. I had conflict with that when I was younger for sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah, so did I, right? And I think even when you do approach your 20s, you're very much still trying to figure out who you are and what you tie your identity to. And sometimes it's easier to tie your identity to a group of friends who are already doing something because now you feel like you're a part of something. You're a part of what they're a part of.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah, you're right. They they were a little older than us, those guys we used to hang out with.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, I mean, they were into music, they were into women, so they were sort of like a shortcut gateway to these things that we wanted to be closer to, which was music, entertainment, girls, rap, music production. Like there was a lot of things that we wanted to be closer to, and those type of friends were a gateway to that. But this notion that you're gonna have it all figured out at 21, it's a fallacy, bro. At 21, hopefully, if you went to college, you're on the cusp of graduating or just graduated, and you're still figuring out life. You're still figuring out your career, where you're gonna live. If you have a partner, if you don't have a partner, where are you gonna find them? What are your interests, your hobbies? What are you passionate about? What motivates you? Like there's a lot of figuring out at 21, 22 years old that you have to do. And unfortunately, sometimes we take the path of least resistance and we just go to flock to a group of friends that'll give us that validation or that could tie us to an identity that's um a bit closer to where you want to be, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah, I'm actually smiling thinking about my early 20s because I mean, shit, I didn't need a 30-year-old version of Justin. I had an older brother, and he was he was literally telling me all of these things we are saying right now, and I happily ignored everything he said until he passed me the keys to his Honda Civic and let me use it for the weekend, or let me wear his clothes, or let me wear his shoes, or his new fitted hat that he bought. It's kind of crazy when you think about it. I'm curious to know what you think, Rich, because you do have a son that is a teenager, soon to be a teenager. What is it about that conviction and that firmness and the stance of who you are as a young person that doesn't allow advice from someone older to seep in? It's just I feel like it's like oil and water at that age because you're really learning who you're becoming, but you're learning all the wrong things.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yeah, listen, that's another thing, right? In your 20s, you're not trying to hear, hey, you gotta do these top five things, right? Or top 10 things, or don't do this or don't do that. In your 20s, you're trying to have fun, bro. Life is exciting, the world is opening up for you. Options, opportunities, possibilities feel endless. And you do have time on your side. This is the time to sort of make mistakes, go through failures, and figure things out. I think the cautionary tale here, and why you have two older unks telling you their failures and what not to do is because the opportunity cost is that if you're a little bit more focused in your 20s and more intentional about what you're doing, it's gonna save you so much more time in your 30s. I didn't feel like I started living, actually living, until I got to my 30s, where I was actually making good money and I was thoughtful enough to make intentional decisions that would pay dividends in the long run. That could be you in your 20s if you got your head on right. You know, so this advice is not just, oh yeah, these these guys are just sharing their failures, but they gotta let me do me, right? Like I gotta fail and I gotta learn the hard way. We're telling you that, yeah, bro, explore, figure out who your flock is, go through failures, jump through hurdles, do whatever you have to do to derive at your identity, but at the same time, doing that for too long is just going to delay the things that you could be doing when you reach your 30s.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah. I mean, Rich, if I really think about habits that I look back that could have potentially destroyed my life, I think about a lot of the illegal things I would do based on the identity of who I thought I was at that time. And it doesn't have to be illegal to our viewer, but it's stuff that you know in your gut that is just not right, but you're doing it to just kind of roll with your friends or do whatever's the thing to do at the moment. And I would say, like, if I were to bucket that into something, it would be just the tribe and the identity that you develop based on the little bit of fake grown-up access that you have from your late teens into your early 20s. If you're a guy that's aggressive and you're the guy that always confronts people at a party or at a confrontation at like a high school football game, or then you become that guy in your 20s. But there's something about having the ability to shed the old identity of who you were and being comfortable with who you're becoming. I think the ego and the pride and the identity that comes with, oh, I'm Justin. I'm the guy that is always funny. I'm Justin. I'm the guy that always makes everybody feel comfortable, I'm Justin, I'm the jewelry and fashion guy. I didn't make those characteristics up. Those are the characteristics that I held very close and tight to myself when I was younger. And if anything was away from that identity that I created for myself, I immediately denied it. I immediately did not want to do anything that wasn't a part of my identity. And to know me in my early 20s is to really understand what I'm saying. I was glued to the fact that I was nominated best dressed. So I felt this need to always have an appearance in college. I spent all of my money on clothes. I spent all of my money on jewelry. I remember being, no lie,$30,000 in debt at Rutgers University, but having a$3,000 shopping bill at Macy's that night, going to Macy's, running my credit card,$3,000 so I can wear an outfit to the annual ball that we were having and I was DJing the event. Who has that much debt and also goes to the mall and adds more debt? These are the things that happen in your 20s that can affect your 30s and your 40s. And I wanted to say, oh, be more financially responsible. That's a habit you should have in your 20s, but I think it's deeper than that. And I I love that we have this platform because we could dive in deeper than that. And I think identity is a big issue and something that you should get a hold of and check in your 20s. Because if you can't control the fake identity you have in yourself, you're gonna lose control and it's gonna affect your later years. Now, I'm not saying don't get fly. Trust me. I did it then, I do it now. I'm not saying to ignore all your friends and not be a part of your group of people in order to get girls and build friends. That will be contrary to all the other episodes we created about making friends and being on your best behavior and being your best version of yourself. I'm saying just be careful in your 20s how you tie identity to what you do and you become closed off to a lot of the development you can make as a young man.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah, and listen, that leads me to believe that you should be trying to derive at whatever that personal identity of yours is, and also have that personal acceptance, right? Like fill those shoes, right? Like if you're the music guy and you play a bunch of instruments, like don't shy away from that. Like you are the musician, you are the music guy. Like, this is what you're passionate about, this is what you are. I feel like society, friends, flocks, certain circles, there's a lot of not manipulation, but that there's just a lot of different influences that are around you. And sometimes you look at certain friend groups and you're like, damn, but I kind of also like theater, so maybe I want to do that. Or I like this group of friends because they're like the athletes. And in your early 20s, you're still trying to figure all of that out, right? But I think having the personal acceptance of deriving at your identity and really classifying like who you are, I think is extremely critical because that thought of identity of who you are, you can build upon that once you know what that is, right? But if you only find out later in life at your 30s, now you're just starting to become successful, maybe in your 40s, right? Because you've worked on this for 10 years, but you only derived at your identity in your 30s, which is sort of like your story and my story, just is we done had so many failures in our 20s that it took a really long time for us to climb out of debt, climb out of certain uh living situations, friends, family. Like there's a lot that we had to go through to get to this point in our 30s where we're like, oh, okay, this took a long time to get here, but I think we have a clear understanding of where where we're headed, who we are, and where we need to be.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know what? I enjoyed doing this show with somebody that's known me my whole life. Because you bring up things that I've forgotten about, and they're slightly embarrassing, but I'm glad you bring them up. You reminded me of how late I graduated high school. You reminded me of how late I graduated college. You reminded me that I almost didn't even get into college if it wasn't for the radio show that we were doing. So when I think about Justin in his early 20s and habits that could have ruined my life if I didn't fix them, I think about me not prioritizing anything other than girls' clothes and a good time with the homies. And if if I knew one very easy rule that I now do in my late 30s that saves me a lot of pain and avoiding a lot of bullshit that I don't need to be doing, the one thing that I always do, and it's really easy, is I ask myself, okay, I want to spend time doing this, or I want to spend money doing this, or I want to give my energy to this. How is this gonna affect me in three years? What is this one seed that I'm planting with this person going to pay off in three years from now? It's a little trick that I've done in my 30s that has really set me up for my 40s. And if I knew this little trick in my early 20s, I wouldn't have graduated high school late fucking around. I wouldn't have failed two years in high school. I failed eighth and ninth grade, back to back. I graduated high school at 20, bro. I was the person that could buy liquor and drive everyone to our prom. I did do that. I did do that. It shit is embarrassing when I think about it and I look backwards. Parents seeing a grown-ass man graduate with their kids, thinking to themselves, like, why is this guy graduating with our students? It's because I didn't factor in the idea that a lot of the decisions I was making today, how they were gonna affect me three to five years in the future. And I know that sounds like old man shit if you're sitting listening to this right now, watching this right now, but it's a simple little framework. Damn, I I do want to hang out with my boy Eddie, but my boy Eddie be on fuck shit a lot. And he be wasting time and doing illegal shit, or just doing dumb shit, gambling, or just running around. How is this hour gonna benefit me in three years from now versus what I can be doing something else with this hour or the next four hours? Or I could wake up early tomorrow and go to the gym. There's so many things that you could do with the time you have now that's gonna affect you three or four years from now, but you don't necessarily see it that way. Just a little tip to help you with decision making in your early 20s that can avoid a lot of pain in your 30s.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I love that. Bro, and you're not thinking about consequences in your 20s, just you know what I mean. Like, like you said, bro, you're thinking about girls, you're thinking about money, you're thinking about having a good time. You're not really looking past, you know, five to ten years or Or really making some hard decisions to better your life. And I think that's part of the danger is that you don't have the ability to detect what the consequences of wasting your time is. What's the consequence of being with this said group of friends? What's the consequence of me not getting into a good college, right? Me deriving at my identity, me playing a sport, right? Like it's hard because I don't want to sound like an unk because I know you want to have fun. Because trust me, we had our fun too. But we're not telling you to not have fun. We're telling you that you need to have the ability to think about the consequences of the decisions that you make in your 20s because everything comes back around. Bro, segueing into the first portion of my story, right? 1920, had this girlfriend, lived with her for four months. We were together for six years, but we lived together for four months. We break up. I'm 23 years old. I uh reconnect with a high school friend who we had a good chemistry with, dated her for a year, she gets pregnant. At 24 years old, now I'm having a child. Once again, in my mind, I'm thinking, bro, love is the answer. As long as I find my partner, as long as I find the person who I believe I'm meant to be with for my entire life, everything else should fall into place. By the way, at 24 years old, I'm still thinking this, right? So this wasn't a like 19 to 20 year old mistake. At 24 years old, I'm still thinking love is the answer, and love is gonna solve all my problems. As long as I find the right person and she's with me and she's by my side, and she's giving me the stability that I think that I need during this time, everything is gonna be okay. Well, guess what? We didn't end up together. I had a child, my son is 13 years old now. Fortunately for me, we have a great uh co-parenting relationship, and you know, she remarried, I'm with uh in a happy relationship, and everything worked out. That might not be everybody's story because I've heard some really horror stories with other situations with parents and co-parenting and that relationship not working out. But my point is that even then at 24, I was still making love my identity. I thought that I needed to be with someone in order to feel stability, and that ultimately led to me having a child so early on. Damn.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

You're making me want to talk about my exes, but I feel like I feel like I don't want to give them that much energy, but I do feel like our community does deserve to know that you know, lose like los golpes in English means like the pain of growing up, you know, like the bumps and the bruises of growing up. And Rich and I talk about this all the time. Navigating a business, navigating a relationship, navigating your career, navigating life is like walking in a dark room, and there's a little bit of light peeking in maybe from under the door or a shade, but it's pretty dark most of your 20s. You're trying to figure things out in a room that has a lot of furniture in it, and the only way you're gonna get out of the room or navigate your way through the room that is your 20s is by putting your hands out and letting them guide you and trying to feel where you're at. But every now and then you're gonna stump your toe or your shoulder's gonna hit something, and that's life. That's okay. But what you can't do is just collapse and fall in the room and start crying or blame everybody for you being in a dark situation. Everybody has to find out their own path. Everybody has to figure out what are the things that prevent them from excelling and being great. And a lot of those things are bad habits. We develop a lot of our habits in our younger years. A lot of our habits come from just the cultures that we come from, the communities that we come from, the people that we surround ourselves with, our teenage heroes. It could be a dude from the block, it could be a streamer or influencer that you love. A lot of these identities and habits that we create, they come from things that we don't even know that we're developing them. And as you get older, it's not cute anymore. You're not a kid. And these habits, they kind of roll with you. So I use the analogy of being in a dark room because yeah, you might think these things worked for you when you were a teenager, when you were in your early 20s, when there was less consequences for what you were doing. But every time you bump your toe, every time you make that left in the room and you bump your toe every time, that's the world telling you this shit is not working out for you no more. Go around it or push it out of your way. And that's what a bad habit is. And what Richard and I are trying to identify in this episode by sharing personal stories is these things don't go away until you address them. A lot of what makes us us is developed in your later teen years, especially for men, your later teen years and your early 20s. I'm not a scientist, but I did read in our pre-show prep that a lot of the prefrontal cortex, a lot of the brain development for a man happens a little bit later than it does for a woman. So a lot of these bad habits you've developed in your teenage years and in your early 20s, they stick with you until your adulthood. So now's the time. You still have time to correct or fix or edit unless you feel like it's a problem. If it's not a problem to you, then it's fine. But unless you can already tell in your gut, damn, I don't like how this is going for me, then now's the time to start making those adjustments. Because the greatest lie is I still have time. That's the greatest lie. I used to suffer from that. Now I'm good, I still have time. Now I'm good, I'm young. Uh no, no, I'm good, I'll do it tomorrow. My nickname used to be Mr. Manana because I always thought I'd be able to do it tomorrow. That is the greatest lie. If you can address something right now or fix that bad habit that you have, get ahead of it. Start fixing it now. And I don't want to go on a diatribe or some sort of rant, but I do want to express urgency about how much luxury you have when you're in your 20s. You do have the luxury of time. But if the time is not unlimited, you do have to start addressing those things now because bad habits could become signature things that hold you back later in your life. And I think health is actually a good subject we should stay on, Rich, because the bad habits you develop with dieting, exercise, just wellness, mental wellness. You've talked about this before. I think that stays with you for a long time. If you don't know how to take care of those things or manage those things, they can be very difficult to change when you get older.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Yeah, listen, I agree with you. I think things around you naturally influence you, and by proxy, you can pick up a habit from the people around you, which for me was smoking cigarettes. I saw my mom growing up my entire life smoking cigarettes. I picked it up at 15, didn't drop it till I was 30.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Damn, you started smoking at 15?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah, bro.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Bro, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah, for that time period in my life, my identity was tied to the guy who smokes because his parents smoke and his whole family smokes, and they're the smokers and cultural norm. Yeah. And listen, bad habits can come by proxy of like trauma too, bro. I have one more story to share, and it's crazy because as as we're going bar for bar, I think I just made a connection to something that I think is really interesting. So, post-breakup of my son's mother, right? Now I'm in the headspace of like, man, I really need stability, and this can't be about a woman anymore, right? Like, it needs to be about me, right? So I started making a lot of changes, physical uh fitness changes, you know, started educating myself more, picking up some certifications, and I land this uh corporate job at a bank, right? Great, fantastic. I spent seven years in this bank. Great experience, right, for me post-college graduation, gained a lot of knowledge. It really helped me build up my career, except one problem. During the seven years, I thought this is great. This longevity is great. Like I'm building financial stability for myself. Finally, this one thing in my life is stable and consistent. And I was living in that comfort, right? And what happened was that for those seven years, my salary naturally struggled, right? Like I didn't get the big jump in pay that I felt like I should have gotten. And that was because I stayed in that job for so long, right? Now I'm of the mindset of like, I think I think you should change job every two, three years if you have the ability to do so, right? Because the job market is very competitive and there's always another company willing to pay you more than you're currently getting paid. But I say that story just to say, like, damn. And I just came to this realization right now where I was seeking validation, comfort, and stability from a woman all throughout my 20s. I abandoned that idea, picked up the idea of like, all right, we're gonna focus on me, my son, my future, my career. And I did that for seven years. And then I struggled financially because I wasn't where I needed to be pay grade-wise. So two extremes is not good either, right? My past trauma of like failed relationships spilled into like career, and I thought that I needed to be somewhere for an extended period of time to feel stable and comfortable. But that comfort also came with not getting paid what I thought I should get paid. So I'm just like connecting all these dots to say that.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Oh, this is great. I mean, I've said this before. This show, when we look at our numbers, we're shocked at how many people are watching the content, downloading the content, leaving comments in our community. There's a lot of side benefits, but the one greatest benefit for me is there's a level of catharticism that comes with, I don't even know if that's a word, but there's a level of catharticism that comes with diving back into a lot of these head spaces that we were in when we were younger. And I still feel like I'm in these head spaces now. And I think what you just mentioned made me think of something. It doesn't matter how old you get, you sometimes forget how old you are until you see yourself in the mirror, or you see a picture of yourself at a family gathering, or like your girlfriend takes a picture of you and you're like, God damn, I'm getting old. You don't realize what the outer shell is because a lot of the inner working and the brain and your conscious is still operating from like a 20-year-old operating system. You haven't addressed a lot of these things, these poor habits, and a lot of this identity you have that comes from way back when. And it's crazy to think about it that way. It's almost like if you don't solve these bad habit issues, it's like your car showing you a check engine light, and you just put black tape over it. And you're like, I'm going to ignore that for now. I'm going to keep moving on with my life because I can't address that habit, or I can't address that pain that I have in my life. And I'm going to keep driving and driving and driving. And what happens is if you don't address these bad habits in your 20s, in your 30s, or in your 40s, you wind up breaking down. You have to look at that check engine light and leave it on. Let that motherfucking bright light shine in your face until you fix it. Because I can speak from experience. At 39 years old, there's a lot of unaddressed trauma that I have that unfortunately my girlfriend got to deal with. My nieces and nephews got to deal with, my co-workers got to deal with. Anybody I'm playing basketball with, and I'm out there playing with little man aggression, they got to deal with it because I'm not addressing these fundamental problems and habits that I should have corrected in my 20s. So I think this show for us can be very cathartic because you're unpacking things that you probably should have addressed a long time ago. Shit, Richard, this is like free therapy to me.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Man, that's such a good point. You said on an earlier episode that sometimes now that you're in your 30s, whenever a lot of things are working out for you and everything is going right, and five things just you got five really good pieces of good news, you're expecting something to go wrong.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

And it's that past trauma of what you live through in your 20s that makes you feel like uncharted territory, right? Like all this success is uncharted territory. Something is bound to go wrong. And to your point, that's why it's so important to solve for that pain in your 20s. So you're not carrying that stuff into your 30s. And you start to reinvent who you are, reinvent your identity, and and that becomes a new starting point for your life going forward, not anything post-30s where it was potentially trauma-filled. So I think that's great advice.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Rich, I do want to prompt you, and I I love that point you just made, and I do want to give you a question to build on that point you made because you've said it before. Imagine Rich with the glasses, the SIG, and the long white T. And think about that guy and think about the identity that he had in his mind. Did you know that you were partially playing a character and you were locked into an identity that you weren't proud of? And I look at you now and I feel like you've done a 180, but I would like you to speak for yourself on it.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Not during that time, bro. During that time, it's a lot of it's a lot about fitting in. It's a lot about being accepted in whatever group that you're in. I wanted to look dangerous. I wanted to look fearful. I wanted people to look at me and be like, oh, don't mess with him. Like, you know, and that was part of my identity. Like I was so broken inside. I had a lot of anger, a lot of trauma. And I didn't want people to get close to me. I wanted to very much appear like that's a guy you didn't want to mess with or be around. I thought cigarettes made me look cool. I thought the long tee made me feel like I fit in with everyone else who's wearing those long tees at that time. Everything down to my haircut, right? Like all those decisions were made to fit in, to feel like I was a part of something, and also to numb the pain of whatever I was feeling. That's why cigarettes were involved, that's why alcohol abuse was involved, because I was just in a very, very dark place where I was numbing myself from all the things that I didn't want to think about or reflect on.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Assuming there is a 20-year-old version of Rich watching this and he's going through his version of that, what would be your advice?

SPEAKER_01 37:07

My advice is like, bro, you're in a loop. You're in the loop of negativity. You're in a loop of sorrow, right? Because you're marinating in the pain and the hurt that you feel of whatever your circumstance in life is. And there has to be a shining light somewhere, bro. It could be that you saw your brother go to college, and maybe there's a glimpse and hope that you could potentially follow his footsteps, or something like maybe you gravitate to music and your parents bought you a piano and it's still sitting in the corner collecting dust. And maybe you can pick up that skill. Um, and and that's your way out of the pain and the trauma and potentially substance abuse. But I feel like that if you look deep down in your life and your circumstances and who you are as a person, there's always some glimpse of hope for in everyone's situation. But if you keep just continuing that negative uh pattern and negative headspace that you're in, you're never gonna get out of that loop.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

Yeah. I mean, Rich, you know what's one small adjustment I made that I wish I would have made in my early 20s that wasn't really that difficult for me to do. But it took me until the later years of my life, my mid-30s, is really just understanding what the crystal clear dream outcome is for a future version of myself when I'm uncomfortable with what's happening in my current moment. And that doesn't take money, it doesn't take resources, it doesn't take uh hitting a parlay on fanDuel, it doesn't take any crazy thing outside of your brain and some mental clarity and just thinking, man, what is my dream outcome for myself? It's a very small like adjustment I made to the way I look at where I was currently at and where I wanted to be. What does Justin five years from now look like? Ask yourself that question. If you're struggling in your 20s and you feel like, man, am I wasting my 20s? I'm doing this wrong, I can feel it. Just really sit with yourself and ask yourself, what is my dream outcome? What do I want to be two years from now, three years from now, five years from now? And if that version of yourself that you can close your eyes and see is not aligned with the person you're becoming today, I think it allows you to take that little gap of years and put it on paper. I'm a pen and paper guy. I do understand that's an older man thing, whatever your instrument of use is, but put it somewhere where you can see it every day. What is your North Star? And don't pick a million things, just pick one thing. Because the man that says yes to everything is the least helpful to himself. You have to pick yourself in this moment. So dream outcome is so important to me. And I know that sounds corny, but it helped me before. I have a picture that's on my Instagram and we'll post it of me laying on a bed with billboard magazines, variety magazines, uh hitmaker magazines. And I was 23, 24 at that time. And I remember telling myself, I don't have it, but I'll close my eyes and imagine it. That's a Kanye line. When I didn't have it, I would close my eyes and imagine. And it's ironic that today at 39 years old, if you Google my name, Justin Duran, Variety Magazine, I've been featured as an executive of the year in both those magazines multiple times. That's what all these trophies are behind me. But it was the power of just knowing the current situation I'm in right now will not be my situation permanently. And I had to believe that and I had to do the work. But I'm trying to think of ways to get someone out of that headspace so they can get rid of those habits that are not moving them forward and start creating new situations and new habits that can help them move forward.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

I love that. What would you say to somebody who says to you, well, just the future gives me anxiety, right? I can't look five years down the road, ten years down the road, like I don't know where I'm headed, I don't know what to do, I don't know what's for me. Just posing the steel man argument, like what would you say to a guy like that?

SPEAKER_00 41:15

If the future gives you anxiety and you don't know what to do, that's fine. Rich and I are a little different when it comes to this because I believe you have empathy because you have a son and a daughter. I lack empathy because I don't have kids and I could be a little more cold. My advice straight up, it's probably not what you want to hear, is if you're scared, go to church. These monumental achievements, these like once-in-a-lifetime achievements, this Kai Sanat, I Show Speed, Joe Rogan, LeBron James, Shea Gilders Alexander levels of achievement in life, this shit is reserved for people that want it. People that get up every day thinking about it. If you can't go to sleep thinking about your dream, then it's for you. But if you could easily knock the fuck out after playing video games for eight hours and you know, hitting the pen and then hanging out with your boys, one of one achievement is not for you, and that's okay. That's why it's called one of one. So my advice to that guy, Rich, unfortunately, he got no spark. If you're scared, go to church. My advice to the guy that does have that pit in his stomach, and he's sick with his life situation, and he's 26, 27, and he's realized he's developed some fucked up habits in his life. My advice to you, bro, is I've been there before. I was very much overweight in my late 20s. I was$80,000 in debt in my late 20s. I remember having a conversation so embarrassing with my ex-girlfriend who I moved in with that I damn near fucking went into the bathroom and shed thug tears because I was so embarrassed by her response. We never had a conversation about how much debt I had. And this young lady was doing very well for herself financially, and she was planning for our future. She randomly asked me. And when I told her, bro, I literally almost like fucking threw up when I was trying to tell her, like, I said everything but the number. She was like, But how much? Because I I need to know. And I was like, Oh, it's about like$78,883. She was like, Oh wow. And I remember how she reacted fucked me up because I felt incompetent. I felt like someone that didn't deserve to be with someone that was financially responsible. Like I felt little, bro. I felt like a little person, and that is a big chip I've always had on my shoulder. I was unfortunately born in a world where most people that grew up the way I grew up are deemed insignificant. People that are driven by every day that nobody thinks about. I am From a place where no one gives a fuck whether you succeed or fail. No one gives a fuck if you do crimes or don't do crimes. Coming from where I come from, you're constantly overlooked and you're insignificant. So I never planned to be where I'm at now. I just had big dreams. So me sitting with my ex and telling her I was$80,000 in debt really made me feel small. And I spent a lot of my childhood feeling small. Not physically small, even though I'm not the tallest guy, insignificant small. Like I didn't matter to the world. And I'll never forget that feeling, Rich. I'll never forget that feeling. And that feeling right there drove me. And I I'm sorry to take a long road. No, no, I was just gonna ask you like how did you reframe that? Yeah. Man, that was the motherfucking engine that drove this car from 26 to 39. And no flex, no flex. You know, Rich, we come from the same place. What I've been able to accomplish in my lifetime is something I dreamed about. Insert photo of me on the bed with all the billboard magazines around me. I wanted to be something more than I was at that moment. And it took me looking at the man in the mirror and telling myself, damn, you have to fix these things if you want to be better. And I prioritized my health because I was very much overweight, and I prioritized my finance. And you know what, Rich? It taught me a valuable lesson. I tried to fix it overnight. I remember running like 10 miles that day, and my fucking knees were killing me. My legs were killing me. I remember trying to like reallocate all my money into paying down my loans. And just like we've said on this show before, the beauty of time is that everything worth having takes time. So if you're in a hole, one day at a time, just pay down that debt. If you're overweight, one day at a time, fix your diet, get active, move your body. If you don't have a girl right now and you want a girl, one day at a time, make yourself better. So when that opportunity presents itself, you'll be a great guy when that girl appears in front of you. All this shit takes time. Don't squander your younger years, but also don't rush into trying to improve habits that you already have that are terrible. So, yeah, my advice to that guy is you have time, but you got to want it. And if you find a reason to want it, let that shit drive you all the way through the ribbon. Run through the tape, keep running. When the race is done, keep running because that momentum is gonna benefit you in so many ways that you wouldn't even understand.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Yeah, exactly. And listen, if you're a young guy on there and you're 20 years old or in your early 20s, like you're on a journey, bro. And what are some of the things that'll contribute to your life while while you're on that journey? It's going to be positive habits, right? It's going to be things that are going to propel you forward. And I think once that vision and that journey becomes crystal clear and you have the motivation and the discipline to like drive that dream that you have forward, life only gets that much better and easier, and that vision becomes clearer. I remember 24 years old, fucked up my back, going to therapy, met this chiropractor, great guy, right? Like, build like a really personal relationship with him, doing very well for himself, like clearly uh multimillionaire. And he goes to me one day, he's like, Rich, have you ever thought about getting into physical therapy? I'm like, No, why do you why do you say that? He's like, I have an empty office back there. If you got your certification, you could come work for me. He's like, I guarantee you, I can make you a millionaire within the next five years. Bro, that to me was like it took me back. Like, someone's actually reaching out and and giving me an opportunity. And I processed it for a little bit, right? Like I went home and I thought about it, and I'm like, damn, this could be like something we could do, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Like a millionaire in the next five years.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Sounds like he was selling a YouTube course.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Yeah, seriously. But needless to say, I quickly caught myself and I'm like, that's not the journey we're on. Like I appreciate it. Thank you for the intention, right? Like, I think it was a good gesture, but that's not my journey, right? And that's not my story. Like, I never dreamt of being a physical therapist and being stuck in the office, like doing physical therapy and having patience. Like, I knew it took me a day to rationalize this, but that wasn't my story. So sort of long-winded, just but I say that story to say that once you understand the journey that you're on, life is a lot clearer. You're not deviated by different opportunities or swayed by different opinions and different outside forces that can manipulate the journey that you're on, essentially.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Yeah, Rich, there's no way we can do an episode about habits that almost ruined our 20s or could have possibly ruined our lives without discussing procrastination and finances. And I actually think those two things go together. We were trying to stay away from the very cliche, easily chat GPTable advice. Obviously, build your 401k. What else? What else, Rich? Save some money, uh, three months. Well, like what else? What are the basics? So we so that guy knows that we know these things. We're trying to get to something more nuanced.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Yeah, stock advice, 401k, build your emergency fund, yeah, save high yield savings, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

Car payments, don't don't get in over a car. You shouldn't be paying$800 a month for a car if you work at fucking Burger King. Anyway, this is the real one I wanted to get to, Rich. Understanding your relationship with procrastination, because procrastination and feeling paralyzed and crippled by your circumstances usually comes from money. Either you don't have enough money, bro. Both of us have been in crazy debt. Looking at debt, sometimes I would get the fucking envelope and just throw it out. Like I would get the mail of how much debt I had, and I would literally just throw it in the garbage. Because I couldn't even stand to open it and know that I was 30 days late on payment, 60 days late on payment. Legally, they can take action after this date. Your credit will be ruined. How do I know all this? Because I opened all those letters and read my life literally falling apart. Meanwhile, I was spending money on dumb shit. I was spending money on looking good, popping out, hanging out with my friends, booking trips I had no business booking, flying to places I had no business flying to, buying fucking dumb shit. And that was me procrastinating what inevitably was my fate. And procrastination is an emotional regulation problem. It's not a time management problem, it's the relationship you have with the boogeyman. You don't want to deal with it, you don't want to address it. That bully, that bully called debt, is waiting for you behind that door. And you refuse to open that door because you think avoiding it and not paying attention to it, it's gonna go away. I have news for you, it's not gonna go away. And that's something that the minute I fucking started addressing, I put a name on procrastination. This is what I'm afraid of. I'm putting a name on it. Once I did that, Rich, it's like the doubt monster. That doubt started going away as I started feeding the solution. I started chipping away at it. And I think money and procrastination go together because it cripples you. And if you ignore it, it's not gonna go away.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Yeah, those are great. And I'm careful with the word procrastination because I feel like I find myself procrastinating all the time sometimes. Like there's certainly a happy medium between like taking a rest and taking breaks in between things. Like, we certainly don't want to reach burnout. But if you have an issue and you have a crisis and you have debt or you don't have a job and you are procrastinating, like you have no business sitting on the couch, my boy. Like, you got to get up and tackle this issue.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Yeah, I believe, Rich. I know you said what you just said, but you're one of the most productive and accomplished people I know. So I think somewhere in your hind brain, you think you're not doing shit, but you actually are. But I think a lot of the anxiety comes from standing still.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

And not doing anything, but knowing that you have to do something.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Yeah. And unfortunately, when you're in your 20s, I think you're hoping someone saves you. You're hoping that your parents come in and help you pay off that debt. Or you're hoping that your friend will tell you, hey, here's this job opportunity, come work for me. And you're looking around you to try to see if someone can help you out of this situation, and you're procrastinating and not doing anything to move you in the direction of solving for that issue. That goes to like just becoming more mature about your situation, bro.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

And Rich, you you this is actually funny, but it's not funny. Story in my 20s about not maturing and hoping somebody will save me. These are two things you just mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

This is off the dome. I I did not have this in my notes. If you want to talk about life whipping my ass in my 20s and my bad habits catching up to me, I think about one of the saddest moments of my life when I did my income tax and I was dodging these emails and letters I was getting from IRS because I had done something wrong once upon a time, and they had earmarked$3,000 that I owed someone, won't say exactly what it is, and these motherfuckers were gonna come and get it, whether I allowed them or not. And I I remember filing my income taxes one year, and I was getting away with a loop that I thought I found. And on year three, when I was supposed to get an X amount of dollars, let's say a thousand dollars back, not only did they take my$1,000, but they also found out when I tried to deposit into my bank account that this was my bank account now, and they emailed me with my bank account information saying, we now have your bank account. We took the thousand dollars you thought you were gonna get, and we will be expecting a payment on the other two thousand you owe us in the next 180 days. If not, we'll be taking these actions. Back in my 20s,$1,000 was enough to keep me alive for a month. Knowing that I wasn't getting that money and they were on my body scared the shit out of me. And it was the rudest awakening that not only was nobody not going to come and save me, but I needed to save myself. So that was another big moment of my life where I was embarrassed because I made plans with that money. I told somebody I was gonna do something with that money I was gonna get. Little did I know the government was like, oh no, bitch, we got plans with that money. That's our money. So yeah, that was a rude awakening about not managing my money in my 20s for sure.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

Just at 21 years old, I stopped making payments on that car loan that I took over from my ex's parents.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Yeah, you never you never broke that down. How did that you just stopped paying it?

SPEAKER_01 55:13

I stopped paying it. I had a really big six foot five, three hundred-pound repo man come take the car along with all of my possessions away.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

I'm sorry, I'm laughing.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

No, no, no, laugh at my pain. Yeah, what did you see him in person? I saw him through the window. I was like, holy shit. You gotta tell the story. Tell the story. Now that I recall, I did go down and I was like, hey, that's my car. He was like, You have to Was he a lot bigger in person? Oh my god, bro. It was like, I was like, oh my god, this guy is very big.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

I never heard somebody say a repo story. So what they just keep reaching out to you and then eventually they take it.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

I think it's like after three months, they hire like a third-party company to come and just take the vehicle. And they they have a machine that if you have it parked, it'll literally like move it to the side and then just pick that bitch up on a tow truck. But the dude took my car, he was like, Here's the number you need to call to try to get your car back or make your payments or collect your personal belongings. Or if not, you could fight me, or you could fight me, which I was not prepared to do.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

I was I'm not prepared to make a payment on this core or fight him. Hey, actually, the good advice here is two financial and physical. You want to be financially stable so your car doesn't get taken, but physically prepared to fight a repo man. You gotta pick one.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

Yeah, bro. But listen, it in all seriousness, man, like there's a lot about being a young man and in your 20s that matters and that you carry over into your 30s. This is why we're sharing these like funny but painful stories about things we went through in our 20s. Yeah, because there's a teachable moment in all of us, right? There's things about your current circumstance and situation that you can modify. And hopefully, you don't have to learn from these failures like the things that we've been through. And we're we're saying all this, bro, because we want our audience. If you're tuning into our audio podcasts or our video uh YouTube channel, we want you to be motivated to better your life. If you can avoid some of the pitfalls that life has set for you and all these traps that are set for a 20-year-old to fail, we're hoping that we shine a little light on how to navigate around those things.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

Yeah, Rich. And and the one last thing I wanted to say is once you see the truth, when it comes to bad habits in your younger years, let's say hypothetically, you had some pretty shitty habits in your late teenage years and you have bad habits in your 20s. One thing I noticed in my 30s is that once you see the truth, once you feel the truth about your situation, once the debt collector hits you up enough times, or you go to run up some stairs to playfully try to catch your girlfriend and you're out of breath. That's the truth. Once you see the truth, you can't unsee it. And a lot of that truth comes from you knowing, damn, I didn't prioritize taking care of this bad habit a long time ago, and now I have to pay the debt. You cannot run from the truth, it will always be there. So, what Rich and I are saying, and uh in closing, Rich, I know that that was the point you're trying to make. We're just trying to help you guys understand that life is gonna whip your ass, but in the ass whooping, try to learn something about yourself that can be fixed, and maybe that's the last ass whooping you get until maybe the next 10 years. But if you don't address it, it's not gonna go away.

SPEAKER_01 58:47

Yeah, I love that. And listen, bad habits can compound too, but we're telling you to focus on the good habits so that those compound and then pay off for you in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

Yeah, failures podcast. If this episode was helpful, uh, you know anybody that uh needs this advice or needs this feedback, share the link, man. Me and Rich don't really sell anything. We're not trying to grift anybody for money. We just want to make sure we share some good energy, some good information for young men that are going through a lot of things that um are holding them back. So, failures podcast.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

Yes, sir. We have