 This video is sponsored by Influnex. I'm also not a teenager and I've been in the working world for one year now. And that's because I've only been out of college for one year and a few months. To give you some background information about me, I'm 23 years old. I was born on Thanksgiving in 1995. I graduated high school in 2014 and I graduated from college from Ohio University in 2018 with a computer science degree. So my experience of being in the real world, I know people who are older to me are probably laughing at me right now because they're like, I've only been in a real world for a year. But I think it's important for me to make this video and talk about my experiences. One thing I learned is that a lot of people didn't have it figured out in their early 20s and that's okay because a lot of successful people and people I look up to will tell you they definitely didn't have it figured out in their early 20s and some of them will even tell you they were on the wrong path. My takeaway from that is that when I think about being in school, it almost seems like you have to have it figured out by at least the age of 22 or when you graduate. So anywhere between the ages of 18 to 22, so figuring it out in college or figuring it out at the end of college, or at least it feels that way. And in the reality, that's not true at all. When you graduate from college, in my opinion, is like the starting point to figuring it out. In my field, which is software engineering, I think the average amount of time people spend at a company is two and a half years and most people are going to work 40 plus years. So I guess people take some time to figure it out. You get a chance to work towards your dreams and aspirations with trial and error. You have some successes and you have some fails and that's what makes life beautiful. You graduate from college before you drop out and figure that college is a waste of time and you go into industry and you figure out what you love and figure out what you don't love. I will say that I really do enjoy my job and I love the people I work with and it's a blessing to be able to say that because a lot of people don't get a chance to say that right out of college. The one thing that I do love about adulting, you know, outside of bills and extra stresses and worries is not having homework, not having assignments outside of the time that I work which allows me to spend more time on my hobbies and things that I love outside of my daily job. So I have time to explore, try out other things, become a YouTube influencer if you want. School took so much out of my time and whenever I wanted to focus on YouTube, I'd always feel guilty about homework assignments, projects, group work, and you know, college stuff. All right so right now I have, it's good bro, how you doing? Right now I have a little break so I'm just gonna get some more work done. Got a programming assignment, how cliche right? But this past year has taught me a lot about myself and what it's actually like balancing being a YouTube influencer you could say and having a full-time job as a software engineer. This has been a really fun process and it's great to be able to share with you which is why I'm happy to be sponsored by Influnex. Influnex is one of the best ways to find YouTube influencers online. One of the first things I noticed when going on their website is how clean the UI is, how the website has such ease of use and I can appreciate that as a person who focuses on front-end development in UX. Influnex allows you to search influencers so you can browse popular influencer categories with more than 200,000 YouTubers in the database. For advertisers it's easier to line YouTubers with rich filtering options. Also there is suggestive search supported and recommended YouTube channels. In terms of analyzing influencers there is a multi-dimensional data analysis for objective evaluation of influencers which helps advertisers fully understand an influencer. Also you can check performance and engagement. I also find their precise sponsored price evaluation system to not only digital marketers, advertisers, but also for the influencers themselves. You can also contact influencers with one click. You can contact influencers with a group message and there is email template support. Last but not least, agencies can manage influencers that they're interested in. There is an option to manage influencers in a group and bookmark quality influencers for re-operation. So yeah, three big takeaways from my experience outside of college, into the real world. I wanted to keep this video kind of brief and just kind of have like a heart to heart and share what's been going on in my life the past year or at least the professional part. Number one, trial and error is important. Get out of your comfort zone and try new things, especially the real world can seem so, you know, I won't say predictable, but a lot of your day-to-day can be predictable. You get up, go to work, or you work out, then go to work, you leave work, go home, or you leave work, you work out, then you go home. Add some spontaneousness to your life because, you know, in college we had a lot of spontaneousness, which made it fun. So you're gonna have to kind of make yourself be spontaneous in the real world. Number two is patience. I know this is cliche, you've heard it over and over again, but trust the process and not Joel and B's process, but your process. And also dreams and aspirations won't happen overnight, you know, what's the fun and not working hard toward something that you love. It takes hard work and experience to get your dream job or dream situation. Trust me, you'll appreciate everything you have if you work hard for it. No shortcuts people, no shortcuts. Number three, support group. In college I had a, I won't say a wide variety of support, but I did have a good amount of support. Find a group of people who support you and have more wisdom than you. You don't want to be the wisest person at the table. That's something I live by. Draw on yourself with people who are always looking out for the best interest in your life for you. So for example, this can be a small group of people from your church where you meet, you know, once a week at a cafe, grandparents, people you play basketball with, or even a meet-up that you found online where people do hiking and photography on Saturday mornings. This goes a long way. Don't try to do life alone. That is all I have folks. Thank you so much for watching this video. If you're at the end of this video, give it a thumbs up. If you haven't already, subscribe to my channel. I love for you all to be a part of this family. Also give this video a thumbs up if you liked it at all. If you found it interesting, if you can relate to anything I talked about, and that's, you know, that's all I got. As always, stay blessed. I'll see you all later on this week or next week depending on when I drop this video. Anyways, peace out. See you soon.