Dear Early 20’s Me,

Life is very real now.

Not the version of real they warned you about in all those cautionary speeches from people who confused surviving with living or the real that shrinks you into practicality and calls it wisdom.

We’re talking about the kind of real that shows up when the training wheels come off and the road has actual consequences, where the choices stack, where the patterns you ignore become the walls you run into, where who you are in private starts showing up uninvited in public.

You are standing at the edge of the most formative decade of your life and you don’t fully know it yet, if you knew the details it would spoil the fun and discovery.

What I do know, standing on the other side of it, is this: the version of you reading this letter is more equipped than you feel, more seen than you believe, and more capable of the life you’ve been quietly dreaming about than anyone in your immediate environment has given you language for.

They meant well, some of them at least. The Caribbean Elder side-eye when you talked about doing meaningful work wasn’t malice, could’ve had more whimsy but it was the survival instinct of people who had been burned by hope before. Try not to hold it against them but don’t let it become your operating system either.

Here’s what I wish someone had said instead.

Validation is a trap set by people who never had to fight for anything.

If they don’t know what it took for you to get out of bed this morning; what you carried, what you survived, what you quietly rebuilt,  they have no standing to assess your worth. You will waste years performing for rooms that were never designed to receive you, stop auditioning.

The people worth impressing will recognize you without a rehearsal.

Learn to tell the difference between supporters and undercover haters. It will save you years and energy.

Some people will celebrate you publicly, call themselves your friend, and won’t hesitate to undermine you privately or when they get an opportunity.

Some people ask questions to gather intelligence, not because they care about the answer. Discernment is not cynicism, in simple terms it is pattern recognition applied to relationships.

You are already good at patterns, use it here too.

The obstacles of your earlier years are building capacity and are not punishment.

When you sit in rooms where other people are rattled, you will be clear and steady. Not out of fearlessness, but because you have already carried and survived worse. Be patient with the process, the weight has its purpose.

The things that feel impossibly heavy right now are developing in you a depth that most people around you will never have to develop and many would crumble under the weight.

Sometimes diplomacy is the right tool. Sometimes you just have to let people know who they’re dealing with.

You were taught that being palatable was the same as being wise. It most certainly isn’t. There are moments when the most loving thing you can do, for yourself and for the other person, is clarity delivered without apology but with empathy.

You are not required to shrink yourself for the comfort of someone who is comfortable at your expense.

Understand the law of thermodynamics as it applies to your life.

Energy is not created or destroyed. It is transferred. Every room you walk into, you are either gaining energy or spending it. Every relationship, every project, every environment is either building your capacity or drawing it down. This is not a metaphor, fundamentally it’s an unspoken law of life. Start treating your time as the finite, non-renewable resources it is.

Go hard with your creativity. Go even harder after your dreams.

You started designing and programming as a teenager to deal with depression and turned pain into craft. That move right there, converting inner life into external work, is one of the most important things you will ever can continuously do. Don’t stop doing it. The world does not need another person who had a gift and was too afraid to use it.

You are Jamaican. You come from people who have built extraordinary things with nothing. Act like it.

Understand your free will, especially as it relates to what you can actually accomplish.

Nobody is coming to give you permission. Not your parents, bosses, institutions, gatekeepers, or the people who gave you the side-eye for dreaming too big.

You will spend your early career waiting for authorization that was never anyone else’s to give. The anointing came before the crowning. You were already in possession of the thing you kept asking for. Stop asking. Keep doing the things.

The generational patterns you were handed are not your permanent operating system.

You will have to consciously choose which things you carry forward and which things you put down. Some of what was passed to you was simply survival code, needing to be refactored, once necessary in the context that produced it, limiting in the context you’re building toward. You are not betraying your heritage by evolving it.

Articulation is not completion.

You will have this problem your whole life if you don’t name it early: you are extraordinarily good at developing ideas and extraordinarily reluctant to circulate them.

The framework in your head is not in the market. The blog post in your drafts folder does not exist to anyone but you. The talk you gave to three people and never wrote down is gone.

Publish the things, ship the imperfect version and evolve, the market cannot assess what it cannot see.

The people you build with matter more than the things you build.

You are going to meet someone who becomes your partner in every sense of the word. What you build together, the company, the family, the life, will be evidence that you chose right. Fight hard to protect that. Not everything or everyone will deserve your time, not every opportunity is worth what it costs.

Some of the best decisions you’ll ever make will look like walking away. Fomo isn’t real unless you make it.

Burnout is not a badge.

You will push yourself into exhaustion so many times that hospitals will become familiar. You will call it dedication but if anything it is a failure to believe that you are worth protecting. The work will still be there when you rest, the version of you that doesn’t rest will eventually not be, learn this earlier than I did.

Grief is not a detour from your life.

You will lose people and animals and versions of yourself that you weren’t ready to release. The weight of it will feel incompatible with being a functional human being.

Grief and productivity can coexist, grief and joy can coexist. What grief cannot coexist with is pretending it isn’t there. Let it move through you at its own pace. It is making you more capable of the depth the work ahead will require.

Success will feel different than you imagined. Don’t let that confuse you.

The room you dreamed about getting into will feel ordinary once you’re in it. The project you fought for will feel like Tuesday by the time it ships. The goal was never the feeling. The goal was always the building. Stay focused on what you’re constructing, not on how the milestones feel when you arrive at them.

Always Upward is not just a motto.

Not a destination. Not a performance. A direction.

When life knocks you down, and rather creatively it will, repeatedly, in ways that will feel unfair and sometimes are, the question is not whether you fell. The question is which way you’re facing when you get up.

But here’s what I really need you to hear.

You can put it down now.

The weight you’ve been carrying, the need to prove yourself to people who were never paying attention, the guilt of dreams that outgrew the rooms you were handed, the exhaustion of translating yourself for spaces that weren’t built for you, the quiet grief of becoming someone your younger self would be proud of without anyone around to witness the becoming; you don’t have to carry all of that into what’s next.

You earned the next chapter. Not because you suffered enough. Not because you finally got it right. But because you stayed and showed up when showing up was the hardest thing to do. You kept creating and going when you couldn’t see the point and things felt pointless. You loved when love required more than you thought you had left.

That’s enough. It has always been enough.

Put it down.

Walk forward.

Always Upward,
David

The post Dear Early 20’s Me appeared first on David Yarde.

If you tell yourself that you can, you’re more likely to try.

When you’re more likely to try, you’re more likely to win.

Achieving the unimaginable doesn’t require any special skills, it does require a willingness to show up.

More importantly, how you show up.

If you’re going to a party, chances are you bring something along.

Why not take the same approach with life?

So here we are at this pivotal point in history, hopefully asking ourselves, what unimaginable things can I accomplish in my life?

That’s the question I asked myself as the dread of becoming a year older crept up.

It was time to set the theme for the next year of my life.

Besides, what’s the sense of creating an entire brand development framework and program if I don’t take my own medicine?

The rules are simple, look at three areas that I want to focus on or improve in. 

From there the overarching theme often arises. 

So after reflecting on the past year of returning to the stage after burnout, reigniting my loveable core, and finding the passion to create again, the answer became quite clear.

In order to reach the next level as a creative and entrepreneur, I would need to be relentless in my pursuit of my ambitions, while removing the fear of setting healthy boundaries.

Most importantly, in order to heal, I’d need to create deeply.

Let’s break it down.

Chase Your Ambition

Often we’re told to chase our dreams but what about chasing ambition instead?

Dreams come and go. 

Ambition however requires a much different approach.

The long game, where the endurance levels intensify and only those who see it through will make it to the promised land.

In this lane, it comes down to how bad you truly want to reach a better level that goes beyond financial gain and fame.

We’re talking about the kind of ambition that wields true influence where it naturally sets the standard everywhere it goes.

This only happens when you set your focus on something bigger than what the status quo offers.

It’s an opportunity to stretch farther than your current comfort zone suggests but only if you dare to answer the call.

With that in mind, I assembled a traction list aka a list of things that I want to accomplish before 2020. 

The plan with this strategy is to leverage the trade winds of turning a year older to finish the year strong and build up the needed momentum to crush the upcoming calendar year. 

In short, it’s an ambitious effort to supercharge my loveable core to an intensity that it hasn’t really seen before.

Surprisingly I’ve accomplished a little over 30% of the things on the list with a few months left in 2019 to spare at the time of writing.

That’s the thing about being intentional when you’re chasing your ambitions. It allows you to reach into a source of energy far greater than what the gurus and self help experts can ever offer.

Ambition however, is limited by the boundaries you perceive and the boundaries you set with those around you.

Set Your Own Boundaries

Protecting your energy as a creative and leader is key to being successful.

Let the wrong energy into your life and you’ll spend more time trying to balance things out than anything else.

This is one area where prevention is definitely much better than the cure.

However, if you limit yourself to only achieving what you think is possible, you’ll never go farther than I what you can see.

Setting your own boundaries requires a different type of faith, one that is only acquired by passing through the valleys.

Experience is the only teacher that can deliver this perspective effectively.

As you set boundaries the key here is to balance making the map and filling in the details.

Lean too much in either direction or on anyone’s shoulder too much and there could be a problem.

There has to be a point in time when you’re simply comfortable in your own skin and content with who you are as an individual.

No one else can determine what’s ok for you. 

Only you can decide if you approve or deny of an experience.

Above all, only you can limit yourself. 

It’s about time you started to view your life with a little more appreciation and with the perspective that you can accomplish the things others say you can’t.

There’s a certain level as an individual that you realize that you need to find the limit and push it.

When you think you can’t.

Keep going but be respectful.

Like seriously, if you need to reach that next level.

Like you’ve been dreaming about it until you want it so bad until you want it badly at every step of being awake…

Max it to the limit.

Dig deep into your creative self and unleash ALL the dreams.

Too many people out here in this world living with regret.

Too many people wishing they could just be unchained from the expectations and created the good they wished to see.

Goodness. At what point does that change?

Let’s get real, if you don’t value yourself then chances are others won’t value you either.

The boundaries you set will either give you room to heal or they’ll constrain you to continue suffering in pain.

Create To Heal

Creativity is all about solving problems, so why not utilize a little creativity when it comes to healing?

Whether it’s establishing boundaries, setting goals or in this case with healing, creativity can go a long way.

If there’s a most important thing or “growth hack” it would be this; your creativity shouldn’t be overlooked in the healing process.

Often the emotions and thoughts that don’t fit within the normal boxes of expression find their way out through ones creativity.

When they do the first response is to fight the thought away.

The problem is that the thought builds up to a feeling where at some point the dam bursts.

In some cases that burst is expressed in a constructive manner and in other ways through unhealthy behavior.

One of these allows you to heal and face the fears you’ve been avoiding while the other ends up creating a much bigger mess to clean up later.

Immerse yourself in the creativity of life. 

Take the scars of life and turn them into stories that leave an impact.

Push back on the negative thoughts and reinforce your spirit with love and hope.

Establish the boundaries necessary to protect your soul, extend the vision of your ambition, create that which allows you to heal.

Keep the receipts of thy accomplishments and frequently give gratitude for the experiences that lead to each one.

Find your others, the ones that push you to be better in all the things.

Quality is the result of intentional and intelligent action.

Remember why you started but focus on why you kept going.

It’s not about being liked. 

It’s about being respected and learning to respect yourself. 

Do you respect yourself enough to attempt to achieve the unimaginable?

If you do, go out and live like it.

Live like you’re actually aiming upward and not just wishing it.

The post 2020: Achieving The Unimaginable appeared first on David Yarde.

Believe in what you do and the energy to endure will be present.

Approach life half-heartedly and it’ll be difficult to see the next step.

So what level do you want to be on?

Depending on the answer you may want to roll up those sleeves and prepare to dig deep in the mud.

The post Select Your Level appeared first on David Yarde.

I was apologizing for not sending over some information based on a tweet she made and battling the creeping imposter syndrome feeling of not being good enough.

Next thing I know, she asks me, “Why are you apologizing?!”

My response was literally, “Honestly, I don’t know and now you’ve made me realize I’ve probably been apologizing for existing.”

Truth is that subconsciously I was feeling sorry for existing and frankly wasn’t sure why.

But then she adds that there are far worse things happening in this world and it wasn’t so much about the deliverables but the conversation.

In one small moment, I saw a rare glimpse of humanity that I wish existed in more areas of life.

If you’ve ever been late to work, a meeting, or a special event because life had other plans, this one’s for you.

Take a moment to breathe and remember that you’re human, with responsibilities and emotions.

That baggage you’ve been carrying that makes you feel as if you need to apologise for your existence, it’s time to let it go.

If you know you’ve been doing the things to move the needle forward, it’s ok to acknowledge that.

Sure I still felt bad about things but I also felt human.

Surrender to the core inside that seeks to make a difference, the core that pushes beyond feeling jaded and into feeling victorious.

Why?

Because you’ve carried the dream this far, why would you turn back now?

Get real with your humanity and embrace your mortality.

The fear shouldn’t be of failure or even death but it should be of not living fully.

If anything, the only apologies you should be giving are to yourself for not being more forgiving and empathetic to yourself as well as to others.

Life is too short to be living afraid of your own shadow.

You’re way better than that.

In fact, your important in the grand story of moving humanity forward.

So change that thinking process.

Tweaking The Thinking

Stop saying “if” when talking about your goals and dreams.

Speak from a place of faith and say “when” instead.

For instance, instead of saying “if I can get this organized”, imagine if you said, “when I get this organized”?

Watch the change this makes in how you execute.

With just one simple word change, you’ve moved yourself from a place of wishing, to a place of intentional action.

Thinking from a stance of “if” leaves things open ended while a stance of thinking that involves “when” forces you to determine exactly when will be.

Chances are with such a change in mindset, especially when practiced daily, will make you feel better too.

Take some time to make a list of the things you tell yourself.

How many of them are actually positive? Are they mostly negative?

What you think versus the reality may shock you.

Besides, if you don’t know the details of what you’re dealing with, you can’t effectively come up with a plan to improve.

Accepting You

Do you accept you for who you are?

When you accept your origin story, you’ll begin to notice that there were many areas in life that you weren’t accepting of yourself in.

Meaning, imposter syndrome may have told you that you don’t belong for one reason or another, leaving you to wish for greener pastures and happier days.

Yet upon further inspection, you find that your list of accomplishments, experiences, skills and even the community around you say otherwise.

The aspirational side of things is generally fed by your insecurities and often because the “glory days” of the past have been put on a pedestal.

So here we are with the pressing question of, “Do you accept you for who you are?”

Because if you do, then no one else’s success comes at your expense and the only competition that you have in life is you.

Starve The Excuses

I’m not good enough.

I don’t have a large following.

I don’t have enough money.

I don’t have the time.

Often, these are the excuses we feed ourselves when the reality is that the goal or task at hand isn’t truly a priority.

It’s time to starve those excuses and doubts.

You’re capable of so much more than to live a life you’re constantly feeling sorry over.

If today was the last day of your life, would you still be sitting around waiting on opportunity?

You are able to be the person that breaks the cycle of excuses in your world.

Let the naysayers and doubters sit outside.

Your mindset, energy and future depends on it.

If they bring excuses, you bring the solutions.

Live Deeply

Your story isn’t about anyone else except you.

There is only one of you, even if you’re a twin.

You can’t stand out while also trying to fit in.

Do you and do you deeply.

So what’s the story you want to share? Is it one that shows a victim or victor?

That’s what it all comes down to, especially when we’re looking down the road at your legacy.

Ultimately the choices made along the way of your journey are all on you.

Show up for your dreams, your choice.

Don’t show up for what you believe in, also your choice.

It doesn’t matter what you have or don’t, what matters is what you choose to do with what you do have.

So if you happen to have the gift of life, experience and the intention to create good, why are you apologizing?

Better yet, what’s stopping you from living like those are things you actually have?

The post Why Are You Apologizing For Existing? appeared first on David Yarde.

Today there are over 700,000 active podcasts and more than 29 million podcast episodes according to the research done by companies like Nielsen and Edison.

What we know as podcasting today was known back then as “audioblogging” in a similar fashion to loading audio onto a USB drive, Radio Computing Services (RCS) were used to provide music and talk-related software to radio stations in a digital format aka the first “podcasts”.

As time went on, the internet came alive and the first online radio shows followed shortly after.

By the 2000’s, Apple released the iPod and gave new wings to the industry.

Today, there are thousands of providers, platforms and networks that have been born thanks to this method of storytelling.

While I’m excited to see what the future of podcasting will be, for now here are a few that I enjoy on a regular basis when it comes to leveling up, learning from others mistakes, and expanding my field of vision.

Your First Million by Arland Hamilton

Your First Million by Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital is a behind-the-scenes podcast that gives insights and lessons on how to make your first million dollars, get your first million downloads, or find your first million customers.

Arlan is one inspiring human. In 4 years, she was able to go literally from being homeless to managing one of the most admired venture capital firms.

Subscribe to Your First Million

Akimbo by Seth Godin

Akimbo by Seth Godin is podcast about our culture and about how we can change it.

It encourages us to look beyond just seeing what’s happening and focus more on choosing to do something.

As an author of over 16 books on aspects of marketing, advertising, business venturing and leadership, Seth Godin’s archives alone are worth poking through.

Subscribe to Akimbo

ZigZag by Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant

ZigZag is a podcast where founders Manoush Zomorodi and Jen Poyant share their struggles on building an ethically-minded company all while investigating how other founders and creators are resisting the “winners take all” mindset of Silicon Valley.

There’s a new movement to chart a kinder, sustainable, and collective path forward for work and life and these two ladies are certainly putting a spotlight on it.

Subscribe to ZigZag

I Hope the Day Has a Good You! by John-Erik Moseler

John-Erik Moseler in the I Hope the Day Has a Good You! podcast shares short but sweet takeaways that include success principles collected over 22+ years in the areas of business, leadership and most importantly, being a dad.

Definitely one of my favorite podcasts to throw on when I only have a minute or two in-between things that I don’t want to go to waste.

Subscribe to I Hope the Day Has a Good You!

Hack the Entrepreneur by Jon Nastor

Hack the Entrepreneur by Jon Nastor is a podcast for people who are looking for their next business idea, getting started online, and how to start a business.

A straight to the point, no fluff or filler podcast that delivers value beyond what’s expected.

Subscribe to Hack the Entrepreneur

The GaryVee Audio Experience

When it comes to creating valuable content at scale, Gary Vaynerchuck and Team Gary V are a great example.

This podcast is a mix of Gary Vaynerchuk’s #AskGaryVee show episodes, keynote speeches on marketing, business, and what’s trending in social.

Leveraging Gary’s document over create content model, The GaryVee Audio Experience provides is a treasure chest of value and insights.

Listener warning: If you’re a parent or explicit language isn’t your deal, you may be better off sticking to reading the quotes that are posted online!

Subscribe to The GaryVee Audio Experience

I hope this list has given you a chance to learn something new and perhaps even find a new podcast that you can enjoy on your journey always upward!

The post International Podcast Day 2019 appeared first on David Yarde.

You can have all of the knowledge in this world, even the ability to predict the future but if you do nothing with it, what’s that knowledge really worth?

We’re in an age where everyone wants to be a star and a few are about the execution.

The greats we from history that we often put on a pedestal, as flawed as they may be were individuals that focused on action.

Time to throw away the excuses and embrace the obstacles.

Because if it’s greatness that you seek, take some of that intellect and turn it into action.

The post Action vs Intellect appeared first on David Yarde.

You see, it’ll be 2020 next year.

Up until this point, we’ve really only scratched the surface of the 21st century.

It’s been a wild ride since Y2K, the year 2000 and all of the joys that came after that.

However, there’s one thing missing.

We really haven’t looked at just how important it is.

Within this new age of work, the new age of education, the new age of family, friends and relationships.

We haven’t taken the moment to see just how important our lovable core is.

Up until now, we’ve really only approached work, life, dreams and goals, with a very general and often naive point of view.

We try to put each of these segments into their own container and we become a different person to meet the needs of each and every one.

Ultimately, we become the type of person that grows to become unfamiliar with oneself.

This unfamiliar feeling and perspective then grows into almost a mold of parasitic proportions.

One that goes on to destroy our family, our goals and mentally who we are.

Understanding your lovable core simply means this.

It means that you understand where your values, your priorities, your skills, and above all, who you are as an individual, and not who you are, as a job title.

The most powerful and courageous way to live in this world isn’t to sit on the sidelines and observe or to wish and hope that something grand and magical will happen.

No, instead it’s to go and live boldly.

To embrace each and every perspective, each and every new level that facilitates growth, that produces empathy and that showcases that you are more than just a cog in the machine.

That is the true power of being aligned with an activated lovable core.

So as you embark into the future regardless of what point in the year or a day or time in the life that you are, remember this; It only matters where you are going and how you’re getting there.

Because where you are right now is only one small piece of the grand story that is your life.

The choices, the people we surround ourselves with and our energy that is brought into each and every day is all that truly matters.

Someone will always be smarter, stronger, faster, richer.

There will always be problems that you cannot control or solve or prevent.

But that doesn’t mean that who you are, is diluted in the process.

So, I hope that you take each and every moment especially the moments when anxiety pops up and tries to paralyze you from moving forward.

I hope that you take these moments to lean in and say “I am going to continue aiming always upward.”

You never know who you’re inspiring just by showing up and you’ll never know the difference you’ll make if you never try.

The post The Pivotal Point appeared first on David Yarde.

So for me as I chuckle and think to myself, “but don’t you mean a 180?”

Why would anyone want to turn around only to arrive back at the same place they started?

True change happens when you stop going down the path that yields average.

The one you’re unhappy with, that when you really think about it, you realize just what your brand values happen to be.

For life is an exploration.

Business is where the passion of that exploration and the value it brings to others meets to provide sustainability and growth.

If your brand, initiative, or organization isn’t living up to those brand values that were drafted up, the consumer often knows.

Worse if you’re ignoring what truly drives people to buy your product because you’re so focused on what you want to do.

Take a moment to examine how fancy you’re trying to be in comparison to the simple solution the consumer or community is trying to receive.

It may be time to get back to the basics.

Give yourself and your ideas a chance.

Take the brakes off of your ambitions.

The more problems you solve, the deeper the relationship grows, the more your brand values align in the hearts of those seeking it.

Try to be fancy and well, consumers get antsy.

It’s time to bust a 180 and remember why you started.

The post Bust a 180 appeared first on David Yarde.

When will you realize that this thing called life can’t be played as an observer? No matter how hard you may try.

When will you learn that all the ways you try to numb the pain won’t truly make it go away?

When will you stop checking your phone and start checking in on your goals?

When will you stop using the past as an excuse and start leveraging it as fuel?

When will you stop letting the “failures” define you?

Seriously, when will you?

The version of yourself, that better version that you see every time you close your eyes is waiting to meet you.

When will you accept the invite?

The post When Will You? appeared first on David Yarde.

To go after your dreams is a risk.

To NOT go after your goals is a risk.

But sometimes you have to risk it all for the invisible that you only can see.

Because the biggest risk of all is to live a life that causes you to look back with regret.

Without the leap of faith, you’ll never know what you truly could be.

So do yourself, the world, and your future a favor.

Take the leap of faith and embrace the risk.

What would your tomorrow look like if you started believing in your dreams and goals today?

The post Everything Is A Risk appeared first on David Yarde.