 Hi everyone, it is Brandon of Happily Dressed, the fashion blog dedicated to self-acceptance, self-confidence, and self-sufficiency, and welcome to this video. I actually don't know how long this video's gonna be, but I'd be grateful for any amount of your time, as I explained something very important to me and very crucial to the core of Happily Dressed and why it exists. So I've had this conversation with a few people actually recently, and it inspired me to do this video because just the things that I said resonated so hard with me and the people that I was speaking with that I think it's important to share, and that is the idea of how to get everything you want and need out of life. And what's so important is that I've had this revelation over 2020 and I've been trying to live in it in 2021, and it's that the road to everything you want and need in life is not this way. It's not some external goal. It's not a five-year plan. It's not external. The road to everything you want and need in this life is this way and it starts with self-acceptance because there is a value that we all intrinsically have that we oftentimes deny or compromise or shush or mold into something different for the expectations of other people. Everything you want and need goes this way. And you can't even start on that journey unless you like who you wake up and see in the mirror every day because if the road goes this way, this right here is the door and you have to see it and believe in it and that this is a part of who you are and important to your being. Everything you want in life starts with an honest acceptance of who you are and who you are becoming. If you notice in your life that people around you aren't always as supportive as you want them to be or that you feel devalued or mistreated by your job, your friends, your community, your family, are you giving them an honest representation of who you are? Are you speaking your mind? Are you giving your opinions? Or are you staying quiet to keep the peace or to not rock the boat and keep things the way they are? If that's the case, you're not living honestly and accepting this as the start to everything that you want. It's not about the approval of other people. It's not about keeping the peace externally. I believe that there is a path for everyone and it is self-sustained. So if you want a new relationship, if you want a better job, if you wanna make a lot of money, if you wanna, it doesn't matter. Whatever your external expectations are, they all start this way. You don't go after them this way, you go after them this way. With an internal deep dive, really getting to know yourself, really getting to know what you like and what you don't like and not letting other people make your mind up for you. Because the more you're in tune this way, the better you line up this way for everything you need to come to you. And that's not with this idea of you can just think happy thoughts and blessings and money just come rushing to you. When you go this way, you are doing inner work that inspires external work. You are figuring out what motivates you, what inspires you and all through yourself and self-discovery. You're not weighing other people's external opinions more than your own. You're trusting that the role you deserve to be on is already yours and it's about discovering how to get there. So as you're going this way, it's like, oh, I really like this. I really enjoy this. Let me learn more about it. Let me do more with it. Let me go out and make my mark in some way or somehow, even if it's the tiniest action, that's what I'm talking about. Because yes, thoughts are extremely important because thoughts inspire action and actions without thought are empty. But anyway, I'm getting a little sidetracked. I just want to let you guys know the road to everything you want and deserve in life is this way. It'll never be given to you by someone else. It can never be taken away from you by someone else because it's all this way. You have everything you need. It's about discovering what that looks like for you and discovering what are your true wants and desires and not something imposed by society, your family, your culture, being able to step back outside of all those things and decide who do I want to be in this world? Who do I want to be on this earth today, tomorrow, the next day, and it can look different for everyone and every day. We are dynamic human beings conditioned to take one part of ourselves and blow it up to 100% as if that's all we are. Whether that's in career or race or gender or sexuality, we are dynamic human beings with so many facets and faces and we need to start giving each and every one of them our attention. And that takes time. It can be very cumbersome but it can also be extremely rewarding. Self-discovery is one of the best gifts we have while we're here because it can take us so many places and it doesn't start out this way. It starts this way and it saddens me because there are so many people who wake up every day and because of those topics, whether it's their culture, their race, their sexuality, their gender, they wake up and they don't like the person they see in the mirror and it's not because they don't see value in them. It's in the fact that their culture or their environment does not see their value. Fuck them, 100%. But truly, their opinions do not matter to your end goal and to your purpose here because that's all this way. They can't reach inside you and snatch out something that does not belong to them but you have to know that. And also too, this is a great segue to the fact that your opinion about someone else's life does not matter. Just as you need to value the delicate and complicated path to your purpose, to who you are, you have to give other people that same grace and space for curiosity and to fall and to make mistakes because as you polish your diamond with many facets of who you are, you're gonna be knocking shit off. You're gonna be in battle with different parts of yourself that have been conditioned and programmed in you to believe. So it's not gonna always be pretty discovering who you are. So give people that same grace. As someone's like, I wanna be this person today and you're like, that's not who you've always been. That's none of your business who they wanna be. We all have self-made success, purpose, determination, inspiration and support right in here if we just wake up and choose to acknowledge it and give it the value it deserves. Happily dressed exists because one day I woke up and thought, you know what? I have a passion for self-discovery and I do that through the clothes that I wear. I love to express myself through the clothes that I wear. What I wanna do is get rid of the middleman. Why not start making the clothes that I really enjoy wearing and discover new silhouettes and new ideas and new pieces that haven't always been accessible for my race, my gender, my class, et cetera. I took my self-expression and my passion into my own hands literally and thought, I can do this for me. And also anything that I make no matter how good or how bad or if I'm just a beginner or I'm an expert has value because it came from my two hands, it came from my heart and it came from going this way. Not anyone else's external opinion on the clothes I should make or how I should dress. It all started with being brave enough to go this way. And this can apply to so many other people's talents, wants and desires and what you wake up feeling inspired to do but you don't give it the chance because of society or your community. Those people aren't for you and the moment that you start choosing you, you'll realize who's not for you and who is for you. Support starts with you and if it's not echoed in your environment, it's time for a new environment. As we discover new facets of ourselves, it's only natural that other things people wants and habits fall away. That's how life works. So don't be scared if you start to express yourself differently and really start to see who you are in the mirror and accept that and know that you are always becoming who you're meant to be. Don't be sad if people fall away or old career goals fall away, old career paths that you thought you once wanted fall away, that's natural because new ones are coming to replace them. I think there's a trust that's also involved with knowing that this path is one that is not faulty. It is one that will never let you down and as you're on this path, as you see things falling away, know that but this is the path to me, to my purpose, to why I'm really here and it can't let me down. It's not designed to let me down. So even though my external reality is like, oh, all these friends are gone. Ooh, that job that I thought I wanted, oh, it's now gone. Oh, I don't wanna do that anymore. Well, what do I wanna do? Keep going this way and you'll find it and more. I guarantee that. I give you a 100 day money back guarantee if it doesn't. So the money you spent watching this video. But yes, it's just so important because it makes me so sad and like it comes out as like frustration and like a passionate speech but it makes me so sad to see some people wake up and not trust their own intuition, not trust their own wants and desires because other people are whispering in their ear and they're letting them. At the end of the day, we let people convince us not to do the things we want to do. We let people come in and try to devalue something that is priceless, that they don't get a choice to value in the first place and yet we give it to them. That makes no sense. So please stop doing that and start waking up, looking in the mirror and saying, hey, this right here, cause you know, I can see myself. I'm doing this on my front facing camera. This right here, this is the starting path to the road of who I wanna be, of who I'm always becoming. It starts with accepting this, seeing it, loving it. And if there's something that you don't like, have this question, is this from an external opinion or an external group think mindset that something here isn't lovely, something here isn't worth being loved? And that's the case. Fuck that mindset, get it out of your head. If there's something here where you're like, you know, I don't like the way I always feel, that's different. Feeling goes this way. Address that, start that journey, but it starts with seeing this door and accepting it and being ready to open it and discover so much more of yourself that you would have never allowed yourself otherwise. And that society doesn't always allow you to take back the reins of your own ambition, of your own discovery and know that that path will always support you. I said something on my other account before that others can't lift you up if they don't know where you stand. And I think that's so important. And if you yourself don't know where you stand, that's okay. You have a whole lifetime to figure that out. Give yourself the grace and the flexibility to be the dynamic human that you were already born to be. We all have several facets of us that are untapped and yet to be discovered and we have to give them the room to breathe. We need to stop taking one part of ourselves, whether that's a career or a personality trait and posturing it up like it's all that we are. There's so much more that's left in the dark that needs the spotlight, that needs time for you to shine on that part of you. And then another time to shine on this other part of you. Anything less than that is a disservice to who you are. Okay, I think that's the end of this video. I feel like I hit all the major points that I wanted to go this way, always go this way. If you catch yourself going this way, it's time to stop, rethink and go back this way. Also, knowing the value of this, you are not allowed to ever go into someone else's life and be like, hey, you should do it this way. You need to do it that way. I don't know why they're doing that. That's so stupid. That is none of your business. Your opinion means nothing to the weight of their soul's value and to the weight of their purpose in their own road. That's just like being like an annoying gnat that people have to swap away and you'll get those people to where you just have to like swap them away and keep moving. But your opinion has no weight or value against someone else's purpose, road and destiny. So keep that in mind. And also, step one to this wonderful life and wonderful road always starts with seeing this bad boy or girl or non-binary human and accepting them for who they are always becoming. There is no end to this. You end when there's no more breath in your lungs. So as you grow, you will always be continuing to change and grow and discover more of yourself. And it might be different opposite 360, 180, 270 of who you were yesterday, last week, three months ago. And that is okay. Now I'm really done. This was lovely. Thank you guys so much. If you watched to the very end, I really appreciate that. Having this conversation with me, it's been actually extremely satisfying to like say this to a public audience and not just have it live in conversation with good and amazing friends. I definitely want to do more videos like this because I think happily dressed, it really comes from this part of who I am and not just this ability to make clothes or this want to make clothes and express myself. It comes from something deeper and acceptance of who I am and an acceptance of the dynamic human being that I'm always becoming. Until next time, we'll talk soon. Bye everyone.