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

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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.

What’s rarely paid attention to is the long hours and valleys that brought them to that point.

It’s easier to grab hold of a motivational quote or inspirational meme and share it.

With just a few taps or swipes, you can now be a motivational coach, with a few more likes you’ll be an “influencer”.

Now you’re running a rat race to show how awesome you are.

We tell ourselves how successful we’ll be if only we can get a post to go viral.

We make a huge deal about all the awards and accolades yet still end up battling the empty feeling on the inside.

The truth is that in a world where everyone seems to want to be a thought leader or someone in the spotlight, it’s key to have a solid grip on who you are and the things you give value.

Not everything is of equal importance.

Foundational Clarity

Once you establish the foundations that should include basic human rights and respect, everything else has the ability to be a priority that leads to greater progress.

The key is to toss out the notions that hold you back and embrace the ones that allow you to place the right priority on the things to be done.

If you fear change or think that bad things are destined to happen, you’ll never allow yourself to be pushed to the levels of greatness.

However, if your heart is all in on growth, you’ll seek out every opportunity to grow.

Excuses will fall away.

Clarity will emerge as the blur fades away.

Only if you take the time to toss aside the people, places and things that hinder your progress.

Additionally, you have to be authentically present which isn’t possible when hiding behind a false notion of who you are.

Challenge The Bias

We are all biased.

Whether that’s towards people, things or places.

We’re even biased towards our biases.

The truth that we avoid here is that we rarely ever challenge those biases.

What notion are you hiding behind that’s holding you back from aiming upward?

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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.

Meaning, people who have bad intentions and carry them around wherever they go. To the point it infects everything they say and do.

Which brings us to the importance of taking the high road in all you do.

Always be transparent in your dealings as an entrepreneur, creative, heck as a human.

Whether that’s free or paid work.

You’ll never know when it’ll truly matter.

Above all, try to be fair in all you do.

For it’s not always about you.

Yes, empathy should matter to the process too.

Do keep in mind, that despite your best efforts, you may not always be able to avoid the badmind and grudgeful folk.

But you can always make the choice to take the high road.

As it’s often said, “misery loves company’, and when people get cozy with misery; most everyone suffers.

So how does one avoid the badmind & grudgeful? How to walk the high road when others are scheming and plotting with your demise in mind?

While there’s no easy answer or even path, there is always a choice that can be made in the high roads favor.

At the end of the day, there’s more important things for you to be focusing on.

Especially when those things are focused on moving the collective good forward.

The distractions that arise when others are unhappy can bleed into not only your perception of yourself but also into how you interact with others.

Sure, stooping to their level and playing that game may feel good in the beginning but what will that cost your soul?

Leadership demands a higher level of excellence, transparency, and dedication.

Often, how you act will say more than the words you speak.

Think and act accordingly.

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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.

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If anything it’s about finding the right stones to turn over. 

As Seth Godin points out, “Pick the right stones and cherish them as you turn them over.”

The key isn’t to pursue quantity but an in-depth appreciation for quality. 

Otherwise an overabundance of anything often leads to waste. 

The efforts of today compound over time when done with consistency. 

So bring your heart and fill it with quality.

Anything else is a pursuit of insanity thinking that to have more leads to success.

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If you’re constructing a house, you don’t start by putting in windows and doors before the foundation and frame of the building.

It’s easy to lose focus on the important things.

It’s even easier to get caught up in trying to please others.

However, both of these things will often take you farther from where you need to be.

The smart thing to do is to respect the process.

When you do, you’ll be able to be proactive and make progress.

When you don’t, things can get messy, quickly.

When you show up for yourself, it shouldn’t be in a haphazard way.

You are worth more than you’ve probably told yourself.

But that doesn’t mean you get to have an ego.

The process isn’t an obstacle, if anything it’s your friend.

So go ahead, disrespect the process and see what happens.

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