How To Make The Most Out of Your 20s

What's the worst that can happen? Yeah. And you just, okay, be explicit. This happens. Okay. Well, that happens Yeah. Then what can you do? Could you go get a job?

They're like, yes. And I'm like, okay. So The worst case. This is Dalton plus Michael and today we're gonna talk about how to spend your twenties. Yeah. We are as people who are no longer in our twenties Yeah. We're qualified. Extremely.

Extremely people on the internet, man. We have all the answers on how to live your life. We're we're older millennials. In all honesty, I think that we see a lot of young people at YC become really successful. And so there are some lessons that probably can be pulled out and that would apply to people who might not even ever wanna do a startup. So where would you start? How about how about here?

Do you know what the hedonic treadmill is friends? It's this thing where no matter what's going on in your life, you will get used to it. Yes. And so when you get a new cool thing, when you're a kid and you get a new toy, you're like, wow. Yeah. This toy is awesome. What a great Christmas. I'll never want for anything again.

And then two days later you're like, oh yeah, this toy sucks. It's just like a I want more new stuff. Yes. And so whenever you get new things, whenever you get new rewards you get used to them and they no longer are awesome the way you thought they would be once you get them. Okay? And so the treadmill is you're always trying to walk forwards on achieving new goals or getting new stuff Yes.

And it never feels satisfying and you just keep running on the treadmill forever. Well, and I think that there's some dangerous hedonic treadmills in your twenties. And what's funny is like Instagram kind of blew this up in a really awkward way because it's like everyone's sharing videos and photos of them living their absolute best life. Yeah. It's fake.

Like they're they're clipping the point 01% of their lives that are awesome. Yes. And they're putting it on a site and you're like, wow, everyone is living a more awesome life than me. Like every day. Every day. All the time. My life sucks. And and it changes kind of what you think your goal should be.

So I it what's what's sad and unfortunate is that like there's only so many mean, wow, this is gonna sound really depressing. There are only so many good things. There's only so many toys. Yeah. And like This isn't a speed run to get through them.

And you know you know, people who grew up super rich like have this problem of like, oh crap, like I already did all the fun stuff and I have a lot more life to live. Oh man, this sucks. So we definitely see people screw that up in their twenties. And we're arguing or we are arguing that there is a way to hack this. There's a way to hack academic treadmill. It doesn't mean you shouldn't seek Yeah.

Like enjoyment. And the hack is to intentionally delay each step Yeah. And to give yourself room and upside Yes. So there's always more steps for you to climb in the future versus speed running it and getting it all at once. Yes. So for example, you gave this example. Yep. The first place you live after college should not be much nicer than your dorm room.

Yeah. Even if you got a job in Facebook and you can afford it. Right. And and the reason is you're living your you're leaving yourself a lot more upside there. Yes. Yes. Your first vacations should probably not be that nice. Yep.

There are lots of examples. Your first car should probably not be that nice. I think this applies in so many areas and I think that like if you can get those hedonic distractions a little bit out of your twenties, you can focus on other stuff. What should people be focusing on?

The best way I've heard this, said is to do the most hardcore thing early in your career because you can always mellow out. You can always pull the rip cord and do less hard things. Yes. It's very hard to go the way other way around. Yes. Like if you've been on mellow chill mode Yeah. And then you decide you wanna be very ambitious and hardcore. Much harder to do it that way.

Why do people It's it's interesting to me because that seems obvious. That seems like obvious advice. But I also are like afraid of it somehow. No. I think you're bombarded with you wanna have a good work life balance. I think Yeah. Think you're actually bombarded with like You might burn out. The opposite of that.

Yeah. It's it's weird messages very confusing when I was younger. Well, it's I I might argue maybe I was just kind of in in a weird bubble but like, I feel like I hear those messages now. Mhmm. I didn't hear those messages then. Like, almost all of my friends were trying hard. But now it does it almost feels like, oh, if you try too hard you'll pull a muscle. Yeah.

Which is so weird. It's kind of like, oh, if you run too hard when you're young you'll hurt yourself versus like, you'll definitely hurt yourself when you're old and you run too hard. Like being young is when you actually How about to riff on it this way? Yeah. If you choose to go to med school, that is a hardcore thing. And once you get your MD, you could be a more mellow doctor.

You don't have to be some heart crazy ER doc. Yes. You could be like a part time plastic surgeon once you go through med school. You're doing the hardcore things early and you have like a lot of choices. Yeah. Same thing with law school I would say. Yeah. Same thing with people that work at hedge funds or investment banks.

Yeah. But I think a lot of people that opt into other careers do the less hardcore thing. Mhmm. And again, maybe they should. Maybe if you wanna be a novelist you should be a really hardcore novelist in your twenties and write a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think regardless of the career you're going down Yeah.

The more hardcore path just gives you more optionality when you're And I think this comes back to a point we talk about a lot which is that like you don't really know your capacity. Yep. Don't speed run all the fancy things in life and do hard shit early. Get used to it. Get comfortable.

I think the third thing that comes up a lot in your twenties is it's an opportunity to be risk seeking versus risk avoiding. And it's hard to contextualize how much of your life you'll spend being risk avoided. Yep. But it's like you have kids, you have a mortgage, you have elderly parents, you yourself are elderly, you are less willing to take risk.

It's like most people in their twenties don't have any of those things to worry about or many, shouldn't even say most. Yet sometimes it seems like they're not taking as much risk. Yeah. What what do you think is going on there? From talking to founders, a lot of them are told by their parents to not do something risky and to not take risk in their twenties. Yeah.

Again, I'm not really sure exactly where that's coming from but doing a startup is seen as risky like you can destroy your life if you do a startup Yeah. Or something like that. So I think it's fear. And again, perhaps justified, I don't really get it. This is the thing that always gets me.

It's it's it's not the idea that you get a job and you can do that job at that company for the rest of your life has already been disproven. Yeah. Like, so it's like I understand the feeling of fear but like the result like, oh, if I get a job at IBM today, like I go there until I'm 60? Like, not. Sorry.

And so I think the other thing that happens when people think about risk is they have to test themselves. It's hard to kinda know what you're made of.

It's easy to like think you know what you're made of and never test it than to actually be out there uncomfortable area and like have to put a push I think one good exercise you could do on that point whenever people talk about risk or they're worried about it is I encourage them to just be like, okay, well let's talk about it. Yeah. What's the worst that can happen? Yeah.

And you just, okay, be explicit. This happens. Okay, well if that happens Yeah. Then what can you do? Could you go get a job? They're like, yes. And I'm like, okay, so The worst case. Like it's like I would just I would advise this for everybody out there.

Yeah. You know, talk through explicitly what the worst thing that could happen Yeah. If you take a risk is. Yeah. And it might not sound as bad as you think once you name it, once you talk about it explicitly. Well, and and here's the interesting thing because we're making this for general audience. I wanna leave open the door that maybe it it is really bad. Yeah.

Right? Right. Like, and if it really is bad Don't take risk. Don't take the risk. Like, we're not saying you should always no matter what starting conditions be risk risk seeking. I think what we're trying to say is there are a lot of people who their starting conditions would allow them to be risk seeking but they don't realize it. Yep. And that's Or they realize later and they're like, wow.

Yeah. Whoops. Like that was dumb. Yeah. That's a tricky one. You brought up parents. I think it's probably worth revisiting. We're parents.

Yep. It's hard to not want to have a vision for your kids. Yeah. It's hard to not have expectations. It's hard to not have dreams. And maybe they're not like, Oh, I want them to be a doctor. Right? For some people it is.

But it's hard to not have that. Right? It's hard to not feel responsible. Yeah. But your twenties is really the first moments where your plan's kinda your own. If you're following your parents plan you chose that. What? Right?

When you're 14 if you're following your parents plan maybe your parents chose that. Yeah. But when you're 23 and you're following your like that's your plan Are you living your own life with the expectations of you? Yeah. Because at some point you're gonna wake up and Realize this is my plan. This is my life. Yeah. And I think what's interesting is like maybe your parents plan's great.

Maybe it's bad. Like who knows? But I think there are a lot of people who kind of look back and they're like, oh, I didn't question my plan enough in my twenties. Yeah. Like I woke up in my thirties and was like, wait. Did I really like the path that I walked? Did I ever spend a lot of time thinking about what, do I want that or not?

And then they realized in their thirties, like, that's a little, some of that's baked. Yep. I think the biggest point around these lines is also peers and who you spend time with. Like I always like to reference your personality is just an amalgam of whatever the six or seven people you spend the most time with. Yeah.

And a lot of the things that we think are our own ideas or our own identity is bullshit. No, it's It's just your peer, like this is, you just soaked it up from your peer group. Yes. And so to the extent you're thoughtful about who you're spending time with and asking are they making me better? Yeah. Am I around people that make me more optimistic? Yeah. That make me wanna do things?

That is kind of a big factor into all the life decisions we make. It's funny, think about how much of our lives are dictated by who we get randomly assigned as roommates in college. Huge. Like is there any bigger decision in what kind Negative or positive, yeah. Yeah, what kind of person you'd grow up to be is like random roommate assignments like freshman Yeah. Okay. Big deal.

So this is hackable, kinda like the hedonic treadmill. Yeah. You could choose to spend more time with different people based on who you wanna be more like. We're not trying to say your friends are bad. Nope. What we're trying to say is like, if you want something different, like if you want to change.

If you wanna do a startup having more friends that are startup people that won't be like startups are dumb, startups are risky, why would you wanna do that? And instead of like, oh yeah, I'm doing a startup too. Do you see how that would? Yeah. Like everyone becomes a centrist in whoever they're surrounded by. Yeah.

And so if you're surrounded by extremists on any topic, you'll think you're a centrist but you're actually an Yeah. And so startups aren't weird at all in certain groups and in some friend groups they don't get it. Yeah. And it's tricky because it's like, you know, we don't wanna make this corporate and transactional.

It's just more like, hey, know how powerful those people are around you and like understand a hack to changing your life is changing those people. And hey, changing those people might require changing where you work, changing where you live, moving to a different city. Like, one of the nice things about your twenties is you can make big decisions like that and they usually only impact yourself.

Yep. You can move to a foreign country, you can move to the big city, you know, you get a job where you don't know anyone Yeah. Period. Yeah. And that's no big deal in twenties. Everyone's doing And I will tell you this, your really good friendships will survive. Like, your really good friendships, you can talk to that person once or twice a year.

You can see them once every three, four years and they'll stay your friends. So you're not maybe risking as much as you think you are by changing where you live or who you're living with or what industry and what job. You you're not changing as much as you think you are. I know it seems scary. Let's move to relationships.

Dalton challenged me to to offer what I might be might say is a controversial piece of advice. And one controversial piece of advice I would have is I think you should seek long term relationships in your twenties. I think a lot of people would say, oh, you don't wanna get tied down with a partner and like yada yada yada. And I'm not saying like get married, buy houses, have kids.

I'm saying I think that there is something really powerful about having a strong partner, especially when you're trying to do hardcore things and you're trying to work really hard and work in maximum effort. I think then having a really good partner actually unlocks some of the gears. I think having someone to come home to that you really enjoy being around kind of recharges you faster.

I also think being in the practice of being in stable relationships is good. Mhmm. Like, it is a good hobby to develop. That's how Your future self will enjoy that you are you you like stable relationships. And I think that the opposite hobby can harm. Right? Like the person who never wants stable relationships that just wants to be on Tinder that like doesn't ever wanna be tied down.

I'd argue that like That ghosts everyone. Yeah. Yes. That's like is trying to do FOMO every minute. Right? You're kinda training your body at the wrong lessons. Like, if you do aspire to have a family one day, you know, just you can start orienting yourself in that direction in your twenties or you can, like, create debt for yourself in the twenties. I'd argue the debt thing is harder.

So yeah, that would be my controversial piece of advice. What's left? What are our final piece of advice for today in the Let's let's rebut ourselves. So so Michael Mhmm. What do you guys know? This is all startup advice. Yeah. Most people don't wanna start a startup.

Why is any of this relevant to me as a person that doesn't wanna do a startup that's watching this video? Well, and and I think this is what's interesting is that I think that we're not trying to presuppose what you wanna do with your life. I think we're kind of trying to say, hey, if you have something tricky you wanna accomplish, here are some tricks that can help you.

And I think that there's a lot of commonality between the startup founder experience and the experience of someone who wants to do anything that's really hard. I think the scary thing that people don't wanna hear is that investments in your twenties pay off for the rest of your life. Yeah. They don't wanna hear that. Whether they're good or bad investments.

Like And it's like I I think anyone who lived through a childhood where you're kind of told, hey, every door is open to you. It's a world of opportunities hates being told, hey, this decade doors start closing. Like that. No. That's not feel good, Michael. No. No. But it's true.

But it's truth, man. It's truth. Alright. Other common rebuttal questions? Oh, well what if, you know, I have debt or I have to support people? Like, you guys are giving all this advice. This is just not applicable to me. This is not applicable to most people, you know.

So I think that like that is certainly true. I think that there are a lot of people out there that have extremely specific limitations. Hell, you know, hey, some people are stuck in a country they can't get out. Would say, once again, this is not go do a startup. Startups are for everyone. Like, that's not what we're trying to say.

What we're trying to say is that, like, doing maximum effort is probably the only way you get yourself out of a not great situation. Many not great situations are get out of bull, or at least there you can you can ameliorate them, you can make them slightly better if you work really, really hard.

One of the things I have noticed is that the people who are the most, I don't know, like who who who have the most challenges like when they can be optimistic and when they can see themselves as like agents as opposed to kind of victims, crazy shit can happen in their lives, you know. Like crazy shit can happen by just switching what's in their head. So yeah.

Like you might not be able to apply to YC. You might not be able to move. You might not be like, fine. Yeah. But like there's probably something in your life that you can apply one of these lessons to that has a chance of making things a little bit better. I think the last thing that comes up and this definitely comes in the context of YC like, you know, what if I didn't go to a good school?

Like I feel as though the people who went to a good school, they still have a lot of doors open. I'm getting out in the working place and I don't see the doors. Trying to identify what companies or workplaces have the most interesting people doing the work you're most interested in.

Again, even if it's not a tech startup beginning it could be like magazine or something like, you know, any But where you're like, wow, this is really good work they're putting out. Yes. I would try to get any job there. Yeah. Because once you're in the room Yeah. Once you get into an organization, you will get to meet and be around all these other people and soak up the culture.

And there's so many people I know in Silicon Valley that didn't go to a good school Yeah. That just got in the door somewhere Yes. With any kind of random job Yes. And once they were in there their intellect and their skills and their abilities allowed them to win people Yeah. And then they're good. You're giving subtle advice here because this isn't this isn't go get this brand on your resume.

This isn't oh go get a job at Facebook. Like this is where are the super talented people and can you get yourself around them. Yep. And what's interesting is that like many cases super talented people aren't at the big companies Or if they are, they're not at every part of the big company. Fair. And so many times super talented people are at the beginning of stuff Yeah. Where getting in is easier.

Well, is what's funny about smaller startups is they're not famous yet. They are risky Yeah. But you could get hired there. Like, it's not as hard to get hired there as the larger places. Yeah. But then you're like right in the pit of the craziness when you work in an earlier stage startup. Yeah.

I mean, we had an intern at my startup that went on to get into YC, start a company that's generating tens of millions of dollars of revenue. Yep. And did not go to good school. I remember when he was applying for the job, he was working as a security guard for a housing development. Yep. That was his job. How did he get hired at your company?

You know, we wanted someone to be a content moderator and we were like, what are your qualifications? He's like, well, my qualification is I'm the security guard and I work basically the gate and it's like a college kind of housing community and nights and weekends are just crazy. And I'm and I'm just like, you know You're hired? It wasn't you're hired. We didn't hire him to be a community Okay.

Director. But it was definitely like you're putting your best foot forward and that sounds hard. Like actually like like like I I've been one of those kids. Like yeah, like you you you've done some hard shit. And then what I would say is man like getting in the game is as simple as like like Yeah. Because once he got into your startup then he was hanging out with you guys Yeah.

Like all the founders and It's just you're in the game. You're in the game and I think this is what's so cool about startups is that like, man, small startups, you know, they might say, oh, we're looking at people who only went to this school or only got this job. But like, you know humans are reading every email. Like, you know there isn't a machine.

Like, if it's a 20 person startup, five person startup, it's like your email got read. Like, why? And, man, when people are in those startups and they're desperate, they're open to giving people opportunities. So to wrap this up, probably the overall TLDR we're trying to share with you is, man, don't be the 30 year old who wakes up and says, what happened to my twenties again?

This is one of those things like you know hard life troops, life does move. Yeah. Years don't come back and most of the most successful people we know they were laying that foundation in their twenties. Alright. Good job. Good. Thanks.