3 Things I Wish I Knew in My Early 20's

Much like other YouTubers who like to talk about what they wish they knew earlier in their life, I’m going to give you my take on this that would’ve helped me achieve the success I have today faster. Follow me on Instagram: @masteryourtalk

1. Start listening to podcasts earlier in your life to get clear faster on what you want to do with the time you have (0:47).

One of the tips I like to give is the fastest way to figure out what you want to do in life is to simply learn how 1000's of other people have lived theirs especially in your early 20's because your biggest advantage is time. Podcasting allowed me to step into the life of two people everyday to learn from them and see what they ended up achieving in life and how they got there. I only started doing this at the age of 20 though, and had I started when I was 17-18, I would have a lot more interviews under my belt and a much more broadened perspective that I currently have today. I prefer podcasts since I can listen to them even when I’m completely exhausted, whereas with reading, if I’m not full of energy, I have a lot of trouble concentrating on the information.

2. Understanding that time is your most valuable asset, not money (1:59).

Growing up as a kid, given that I come from a somewhat poor family, relative to most Canadians, I always had the impression that money is more important than time, because if I have time, but no financial resources, how am I suppose to enjoy the time I have right? Wrong. One of the advantages of being poor is that when you start to accumulate wealth and I’m not even talking about multi-millions, I’m talking about making a top 20% income like 60 or 70K a year especially in Montreal, Canada where I live, you realize VERY quickly that you can meet all your needs with that amount of money, but you can never buy back the time you spent working and that was something I only learned at the age of 23. It was only after I had accumulated some sort of wealth that the equation flipped for me, and I started focusing A LOT more on what to do with my TIME rather than my MONEY and that’s where the idea for MasterTalk as a side hustle became more of a serious project to take on rather than some side hobby I’d just do for fun that I could’ve started earlier than I actually did. I urge you to think about how you’d spend your time if you had ALL the money in the world, that will help you think more about how valuable time is in relation to money. This is also true in relation to how you spend it by the way, because when you’re young, there’s still illusion that you have so much time left, but when you think about it, 33% of your life is already over, so it also calls into question how you spend it and WHO you spend it with. When I got super focused on the importance of time, I started saying NO a lot more to people.

3. The best relationships you can ever build are before you start becoming successful, so prioritize this before it’s too late (3:51).

This is more from personal experience, but I’ve found that there’s a big difference between friends and real friends, because friends are people you hang out with, you grab dinner with and what not, but real friends are people you share your deepest secrets and fears with, where you’re 100% yourself with and don’t get judged for it.

I’ve met quite a bit of people in my life, probably 1000's, but if you asked me the number of REAL friends I have, I’d probably say 5-6, which is a bit sad, but also the truth, there’s very little people I can count on to a level where I'd bet my life on it. I’ve found that those relationships are easier to build before you start becoming successful, because you never know if people want to gain from you or why they want to talk to you.

When I was poor and literally had nothing to give to anyone besides my personality, even if I didn’t have many friends, I knew they were my REAL friends because they had nothing to gain from being around me besides my company.

But, when you enter the business world or you become an influencer, there’s not always a catch, but you can always debate it you know in the sense of, oh this person might be talking to me because I have X number of followers or influence or wealth or they want something from me, or if you have a job, and you have colleagues in your department, yes we’re co-workers and we enjoy each other’s company, but in some sense, we also have our own families to provide for and feed, so there might be some competitiveness too that prevents us from having truly meaningful relationships with each other.

For business or one-on-one public speaking coaching inquiries, you can reach me at brendenkbusiness@gmail.com.

Special thanks to Maison Laporem for letting me use the space.

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