 What up fellas, it's your boy Johnny, and I know this channel is mainly my take on fashion, but one thing I've always been into is bettering myself as a person. Now, I already have quite a few videos on personal development on my channel, but I've definitely neglected that part of my channel for some time. Now for this channel yet, we talk a lot about fashion, we talk about how to style this and that. However, this channel is how to be as confident as you can be, and I understand that most of you guys are probably in high school or in college. I've been out of school and in the real world for the past four years, and trust me, I really wish I had this video when I was 18. So it's time to bring back these types of videos. Today I'm going to be talking about the top things I wish I knew before I turned 20. Now first up, I know you guys love these types of videos, but stop trying to be the alpha. Okay, okay, okay, I know you guys see these videos all over the internet. You're practically drowning in these types of videos, how to be alpha, alpha traits, all that stuff. There's nothing wrong with them. In fact, they're actually pretty helpful. But here's the problem. When you are constantly chasing dominance in the room with your friends or your family, it only shows how insecure you are as a person. Believe me, man, I've gone through this. I've always been the type to always want to be the most intimidating in the room, intimidate others, and a big alpha trait is take up more space. I constantly did that. Now, if you really dig deep into why I did that, I was just overcompensating for something else. Now, my ethnicity doesn't really get the best wrap when it comes to getting girls, or being the most attractive and desirable. Shit, I used to care way too much about back in the day. And guess what happened when I chased dominance and being the most alpha in the room? No one was impressed, and no one's going to be impressed if you chase that as well. Trust me from experience, you can burn bridges with your real friends, your business partners, and your coworkers. I mean, it's just too much, man, and it doesn't really benefit you. Like I said earlier, these tips are actually helpful. I'm not saying that they're not useful. In certain moments, sure, they can be extremely beneficial. But how about instead build some real confidence? You know, get some physical activity going, weightlifting, running, whatever you guys like, and get good at something then you can utilize these tips. Because using these tips when you aren't even confident with yourself, isn't going to build confidence. And then if you're overcompensating for something else, does that really make you the alpha male? I don't know, just stop caring about that and just focus on building inner confidence instead of fake outer confidence. Now the next thing, I definitely wish I knew this post high school. Understanding finance and credit cards. Here's one downside of our current education system. They don't teach you shit about real life. For most majors, they really only teach you how to pass exams. They don't teach you how to budget. They don't teach you how to utilize credit cards to your advantage or how to negotiate a pay raise. Trust me, I've had problems with all of these. Getting into thousands and thousands of dollars in credit card debt and maintaining a $2,000 a month income in New York City is a recipe for disaster. And I'll so ignore into a lot of things. I didn't know how to negotiate a pay raise. I didn't know what even factored into your credit score. It's honestly so sad that schools don't even teach this at all to their kids. When you bring your financial literacy up, your future self is going to thank you. Because you're going to have more money later in life for emergencies to help others or even help yourself. A great book I recommend that covers all of this is Ramit Sethi's I Will Teach You to Be Rich. This is one of my favorite books I've ever read. If all high schoolers had to read this before graduation, the world would be in a much better place. Now next up is learn how to confront someone or apologize. Now I don't mean this in like a threatening type of way. I'm just talking about communicating with someone when something serious happens. Look, people are going to do some things that you're not going to like. Now if they really did cross the line, you've got to let them know. Because if you just ignore it, here's what's going to happen. You're going to resent that person and bring it up later when you should have talked about it right when it happened. And trust me on this one again. The last thing you want to do is resent your roommate, your family members, your partner, or even your coworkers. Because whenever you see them, you're just going to be in this toxic negative headspace. So do yourself a favor, bro. Stand up for yourself because my ex did this a ton. She had a bunch of little files in her head of situations I've done in the past, and then she would bring it up later and not at that moment. So it's just like, why are you going to bring it up now and not at that moment? Because you see, you're still bothered by it. Because when you bring it up right away, it's going to save you a lot of time in the short term and the long term. The same is going to go for apologizing. If you have to text someone or message someone through the internet to apologize, then you got a lot of work to do. Apologies in person are more sincere and you can really get it off your chest. And when you do apologize in person, if that person is still mad at you, then that's on them. You're good because you got it off your chest. Be the bigger person because it's one of those things that would have saved me a ton of friendships had I learned this earlier. Next up, everything is going to go wrong eventually. So like I said earlier, I've been in the real world for the past four years in New York City and now back in my hometown of Albuquerque. And for real, man, there's a lot more downs than ups. It's just something that you got to get used to, but sometimes it can all happen at once. You might not get paid in time. Your car breaks down. There's hours and hours of traffic. You poured milk before cereal. And when this happens, man, just relax. Calm down, relax, just chill. Because when you understand that this just happens to everyone, it's not going to bother you as much. And when you're not as bothered, you're a much happier person. And another thing, if things have been great for you, you've got a promotion. It's nice weather. You were successful on the sneakers app. And overall, if you're just having a great time, understand that right around the corner, the real world is going to slap some sense into you. You could prepare for it. And from my experience with having this mindset, my highs are a lot higher and my lows aren't as low. So better mental health, less irritation is going to help you navigate through all the issues. Now, last but not least is one of the biggest lessons I've learned. And if I was told this six years ago, I would be in a much better place. Instant gratification is toxic as hell. In this day and age, everything is quick and instant. Instagram has instant in their name. Plus, you don't have to hunt for your food anymore. You can just go to the grocery store, pick up anything you want. You got Uber Eats, Amazon. Bro, this world just moves super quick. Well, life don't really work like that for your goals. You aren't going to be a millionaire in a year. You aren't going to get a million subscribers in a week. Okay, that's an exception. But whatever your goal is, understand that it's going to take years to make happen. I've been on this YouTube journey for over two years, and I'm not even at 30,000 subscribers. Because other people that blew up way quicker than me, it's called delayed gratification or long-term thinking. When you lift, you aren't going to get your dream body in a day. It's going to take years as well, and everyone understands that, but not everyone understands this concept when it comes to your goals. Just like when you invest your money, you aren't going to get rich tomorrow. It's going to take years or even decades. So my best tip is stop chasing the numbers. Obviously, this isn't going to apply to everyone, but this definitely worked on me. Let me tell you why. There's this boba shop back here in Albuquerque. It was popping when it first opened. It had a dope vibe, drinks was really good, and everyone wanted to hang out there. Now, something weird kind of happened. They converted their boba shop into kind of like a restaurant-themed boba shop. They expanded their kitchen into the hangout space. They took down a lot of decorations that made the boba shop a cool place to hang out. They installed a bunch of restaurant booths and put their focus into selling entrees. And guess what? Nobody really wants to go there anymore. They chased money in the short term and changed their entire branding of their business, and now it's backfiring. Now, the same is going to apply to you. If you chase followers, you're going to do a bunch of crazy shit that's going to ruin your brand. If I were chasing subscribers, I'd go to the Supreme line and mess with the kids. This applies to everything, money, happiness. In fact, I honestly believe you're going to get better results if you don't chase those things. It's going to clear your mind a lot and you can actually focus on the things you want to do. Now, obviously, money is an important factor. You need it to survive out here in the real world. So you're always going to need to care somewhat about these things, but don't chase it, bro. Alright, fellas, I hope this video helps you out. Smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. Follow me on Instagram if you haven't already and subscribe. And yes, I know I said stop chasing followers, but I kind of need it, man. And until then, stay fly and animosity free, and I'm out, bro. Peace.