Modern Creator
Brandon Carter · YouTube

I'm 43. Here Are the 10 Things I Wish I Knew in My 20s and 30s

A 31-minute unfiltered breakdown of the mindset shifts a fitness entrepreneur says would have made him rich and confident years earlier.

Posted
2 days ago
Duration
Format
Talking Head
educational
Views
5.8K
343 likes
Big Idea

The argument in one line.

Standards are non-negotiable floors you refuse to live below, while goals are wishes you hope to reach, and that single distinction determines whether you actually get what you want.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…
  • You work hard but keep missing targets you set for yourself, and suspect the problem is commitment rather than effort.
  • You feel a quiet lack of confidence and have never connected it to breaking private promises to yourself.
  • You run or want to run an online service business and spend most of your day on tasks that feel productive but generate no revenue.
  • You want a raw, story-driven perspective on money, discipline, and environment from someone who built real financial outcomes.
SKIP IF…
  • You need a structured, step-by-step framework with worksheets and accountability checkpoints.
  • Direct profanity and abrasive delivery are dealbreakers for you regardless of content quality.
TL;DR

The full version, fast.

The central argument is that most people fail not from lack of talent but from treating their goals as preferences rather than non-negotiable standards. Carter argues that confidence is built by keeping private promises to yourself, not through affirmations, and that every broken commitment chips away at self-belief in ways others never see. He extends this into environment design: willpower is finite and depletes across the day, so the goal is to engineer your surroundings so discipline is rarely needed. The video closes with a personal account of his father's suicide as the event that made financial success a standard rather than a goal.

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Chapters

Where the time goes.

00:0000:29

01 · Introduction

Establishes credibility through physique and outcomes: multimillionaire, thriving businesses, great relationship, strong father.

00:2903:46

02 · #1: Standards Over Potential

You fall to your standards, not your potential. Goals are wants; standards are musts. Heroin addict analogy for non-negotiable drive. Father's suicide as the moment his own standard changed.

03:4606:48

03 · #2: Confidence From Self-Integrity

Confidence comes from keeping promises to yourself, not from affirmations. Every broken private commitment chips away at self-belief.

06:4807:09

04 · #3: Be It Till You Believe It

Act your way into confidence. You do not fake it till you make it; you be it till you believe it.

07:0908:38

05 · #4: Stop Trying to Impress People

The people you are trying to impress usually do not matter long-term. Reference to How to Win Friends and Influence People: be interested, not impressive.

08:3812:29

06 · #5: Money Reveals Who You Are

Money does not change character; it exposes it. Military school rank analogy. Notoriety amplifies consequences. Work on yourself now, before money arrives.

12:2914:43

07 · #6: Busy Is Procrastination With Good PR

Email, logo tweaks, calendar organizing feel productive but do not generate revenue. Sales calls, workouts, conversions move the needle.

14:4318:07

08 · #7: Your Body Keeps Receipts

Physical neglect compounds invisibly. Stopped smoking and drinking in early 30s. Claims 11 years without a cold. Blood work perfect at 43.

18:0720:36

09 · #8: Nobody Is Coming to Save You

Hardship builds resilience, like calluses. Reframe: each challenge prepares you for the next, harder one.

20:3626:44

10 · #9: Environment Beats Willpower

Willpower is a depletable battery. Library vs. strip club analogy. Phone in the bathroom. No junk food in the house. Obesity study: 40% transmission rate through social proximity.

26:4429:27

11 · #10: Focus Is a Superpower

Calendar-blocks every hour. 168 hours per week; after sleep and work, 72 remain unscheduled. The problem is choreography, not time.

29:2731:15

12 · Money Makes All Your Decisions

Money shapes every life outcome. Father's suicide made financial success a non-negotiable standard. CTA: free guide to $500K/year as an online trainer.

Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

  • A standard is a floor you refuse to live below; a goal is a ceiling you hope to reach, and that difference determines whether you actually get there.
  • Confidence is not self-belief you manufacture through affirmations; it is a byproduct of consistently doing what you told yourself you would do.
  • Every time you break a private promise to yourself, you train your brain to distrust your own word, and that erosion compounds silently.
  • Willpower depletes across the day like a battery; the people who seem most disciplined have simply engineered environments where they rarely need it.
  • The people you are trying to impress are almost all too busy trying to impress others to notice or care what you do.
  • Money does not create character flaws; it removes the financial constraints that were previously keeping those flaws invisible.
  • A 32-year study found that having one obese friend raises your own obesity probability by 40%, your social circle shapes your biology whether you acknowledge it or not.
  • If you sleep 8 hours and work 40, you still have 72 hours per week unaccounted for, the problem is almost never time, it is that those hours are unscheduled.
  • The task that makes you most uncomfortable in your business is almost always the task that actually moves the needle.
  • Answering emails, tweaking logos, and organizing calendars feels like work but produces no revenue; the sales conversation is the only activity that closes the gap.
  • Physical neglect in your 20s compounds invisibly until your late 30s and 40s, when the receipts arrive all at once.
  • The right frame for hardship is not when will this be over but this challenge is preparing me for the harder one that comes next.
Takeaway

The standard is the goal, not the ceiling.

WHAT TO LEARN

Every principle in this video traces back to one root: the difference between a goal you hope to reach and a standard you refuse to live below.

  • A goal is something you want; a standard is a floor you enforce. The same outcome approached as a standard produces fundamentally different behavior than when approached as a goal.
  • Confidence is not a mindset you adopt; it is a record of kept promises. Each private commitment you break trains your subconscious to distrust your own word, regardless of what you tell others.
  • Willpower is a finite daily resource. High performers do not have more of it, they design environments where they spend less of it, so it remains available for the decisions that matter.
  • Busy-ness is a productivity disguise. The uncomfortable task you keep pushing back, the sales call, the hard conversation, the direct ask, is almost always the one that moves the needle.
  • Physical choices compound in both directions. Neglect taken on in your 20s arrives as accelerated aging in your 40s; consistent care taken in your 30s extends your physical prime by years.
  • Your social environment shapes your outcomes biologically. Research shows obesity, behavior, and standards spread through social networks, often through people you have never met directly.
  • Hardship does not stop, but each challenge you survive improves your capacity to handle the next one. The useful reframe is not when will this end but what is this preparing me for.
  • Money does not change who you are; it amplifies it. The character work comes before the financial success, not after, because resources simply provide more leverage for whatever is already there.
Glossary

Terms worth knowing.

Standard
A non-negotiable minimum condition for your own life that you enforce regardless of difficulty, as opposed to a goal which you merely pursue when convenient.
Willpower battery
The idea, supported by behavioral research, that self-control is a finite daily resource that depletes with use and is not easily replenished mid-day.
Friction (behavioral)
The number of steps or obstacles between you and a behavior; adding friction to bad behaviors and removing it from good ones changes outcomes without relying on motivation.
Self-integrity
The practice of keeping the private commitments you make to yourself, independent of whether anyone else ever knows you broke them.
Resources

Things they pointed at.

07:15bookHow to Win Friends and Influence People
22:20bookWillpower (book)
Quotables

Lines you could clip.

00:33
You will not rise to your potential. You will fall to your standards.
Single sentence, no setup needed, immediately actionableTikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
06:58
You don't fake it till you make it. You have to be it till you believe it. You have to do it till you prove it.
Triple parallel structure, memorable cadenceIG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
09:59
Money doesn't change you, man. It just reveals who you are.
Punchy, counterintuitive to the common money mindset narrativenewsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
12:29
Busy is often just procrastination with good PR.
Eight words, no setup needed, high shareabilityTikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
23:03
Discipline is for amateurs. You need to set up your environment where discipline is not necessary.
Contrarian opening line that reframes the whole discipline conversationTikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
30:01
There is an amount of money that if I had it, my dad would have made a different decision. I still have a dad.
Raw, personal, emotionally resonant closeIG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
The Script

Word for word.

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analogystory
00:00I'm 43 years old. You may not be able to tell by looking at me because I'm in way better shape than almost all of you. However, over the last forty three years, I've accumulated a lot of knowledge that has helped me become wealthy, multimillionaire, successful, thriving businesses, fantastic relationship, amazing father.
00:19And had I known what I'm gonna teach you today, I would have got there a lot faster. So here are the top 10 things I wish I knew in my twenties and thirties. Number one, you will not rise to your potential.
00:31You will fall to your standards. Right? You don't get what you want.
00:35You get what you have to have. So I want you to think about every goal you've ever had in your life. Think about all the ones that you did not accomplish.
00:45Were they things that you had to have? Was it a must or just things that you kinda wanted?
00:50I already know the answer and you know the answer. They were just things that you kinda wanted. They were good ideas, but you didn't have to have them.
00:58It was not a must because because if it was a must, you would have had those things. Think about it. Do you know that heroin addicts spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?
01:08They find a way to get that heroin, that smack, white China.
01:12No matter what, when you gotta have something, you'll find a way because they'll get sick. They'll get dope sick if they don't get it. They have to have it.
01:20They might end up doing some nefarious things to accomplish those goals, robbing people, stealing, breaking into homes, sucking dick in alleys.
01:29I'm not saying you gotta do all that to accomplish your goals. I'm saying that you need to really think about raising your standards.
01:37Do not set goals. Set standards.
01:41So instead of saying, I wanna make $10,000 a month. You say, I will not make less than $10,000 a month.
01:49I refuse for my income to remain under $10,000 a month.
01:55You know I'm saying? When you do that, you will approach things with a whole different kind of energy, a whole different kind of ferocity. But if it's just, yeah, man.
02:04I'm hoping I can do this. Man, I'm trying to get this. My students who I teach to grow the online fitness business, I do calls with them every week, and I do not let them say the word try.
02:15Motherfuckers will come on a call and say, yeah. I'm still trying to grow my try? We're not fucking try babies.
02:22We don't try to do shit around here. We do it or die trying. That's the only context in which it's acceptable to use the word try.
02:31Is it a fucking standard or is this a good idea? Because if it's just a good idea, you're probably gonna fail. But if you set a standard and you refuse to have anything less than that, I promise you, you will win.
02:44The thing is almost none of you have ever held a goal to that kind of standard.
02:51You never held yourself to that kind of standard. That's why you fat now. That's why you broke now.
02:57It's not the Democrats or the Republicans keeping you broke. It ain't the fucking immigrants keeping you broke and fat.
03:03It ain't the Jews keeping you broke and fat. It's you not setting the standard for your own goddamn life high enough.
03:11And when my father shot himself in the head when I was 24, it changed since I had to make a bunch of money to take care of myself, my family, my mom, my sister, her son, my grandma, and I started approaching things with a way different amount of intensity. And it took a while.
03:27It took a long time, but I got rich enough to take care of everyone and myself and live a great life. It wasn't until the standard changed. You gotta take it from a good idea to a goddamn standard.
03:38If you do that, I promise you, you will win. But you won't win until you do that. Next thing I wish I knew in my twenties was confidence comes from keeping the promises you make to yourself.
03:52Alright? Most people think that confidence comes from affirmations, feeling ready.
03:57No, motherfucker. That is not how it works. Every time I say what I'm about to say, some fucking dumbass says, nah, man.
04:05You should just have confidence in yourself. You should just have confidence yourself. You bitch ass up.
04:09You're confusing confidence with self love. Love my son, but I don't have no confidence in him. I have so little confidence in him that I wouldn't leave him alone for the day.
04:20Hey, man. You just hanging out at the crib. Don't get no trouble.
04:23Of course not. In fact, I probably get arrested for that. The government doesn't even have confidence in a child.
04:29That don't mean you love them any less. Confidence comes from competence. And when you start keeping the promises that you make to yourself, you have confidence in yourself.
04:39You start to believe in yourself. But the reason you lack confidence now is because you make these promises to yourself all the time. You say you're gonna do this.
04:47You say you're gonna do that. You say you're going to follow your diet. You say you're going to workout.
04:53You say you're going to work on your business, but then you break these promises that you make to yourself. Sometimes nobody knows it but you. You're the only one who knows that you're out here fucking up breaking these promises to yourself.
05:04And every time you do that, it chips away at your confidence. It chips away at your self belief. It chips away at how much you like yourself.
05:13Because I want you to think about this. Imagine someone who you love is telling you every day, hey, man. I'm a do this thing for you.
05:20Hey. I'm a do this for you. I'm a do that for you.
05:22And they're telling you this every day, every day, every day. They keep saying they're gonna hold you down and do something for you, and they keep letting you down day after day after day after day after day after day. How much confidence would you have in that person?
05:33Probably very little. But more importantly, you probably start to dislike this person because he's fucking lying to you every day. You probably start to not actually like this person that much.
05:44That person is you. You're him, and that's why you don't have confidence. That's why you don't have confidence.
05:50And you don't wanna say this out loud, but you don't like yourself as much as you should. And the reason you don't like yourself as much as you should because you're not keeping the promises that you make to yourself. Yeah.
06:00You can bullshit yourself. You can try at least or you can bullshit everyone else. But in your heart, you gotta sit with yourself and you gotta know that you're full of shit.
06:09You gotta know that you don't deserve to be confident. The truth is if you lack confidence, it's probably for a good reason.
06:17You probably haven't given yourself a reason to be confident in yourself. But once you start keeping the promises you make to yourself, then what happens is you start to believe yourself a little bit more.
06:28You do things that are difficult, but they are good for you. Start to like yourself more. You start to feel like you have integrity.
06:35You start to feel like a motherfucker who should be counted on. Not by anybody else, but by you. And then it starts to compound.
06:42It starts to stack. And when you start keeping the promises that you made to yourself consistently, what happens is your brain starts to believe in yourself.
06:51You start to believe in yourself, and it compounds over time. You can't just think your way to confidence. You can't believe your way to confidence.
06:57You act your way into confidence. You don't fake it till you make it. You have to be it till you believe it.
07:04You have to do it till you prove it. That's why it's very important to have self integrity. The next thing I wish I knew when I was in my twenties is the people you're trying to impress usually don't matter, especially in the long term.
07:17What you really need to focus on is liking yourself, like I said before. Instead of trying to impress others, instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses and all the other shit, you need to learn to like yourself with what I said before. But and this is critical.
07:30If you ever read my favorite book, how to win friends and influence people, if you do want to impress people, it's you don't try to be impressive. You want to be interested in them. Right?
07:40Be more inquisitive. When you start showing interest in people, they'll start to like you more. But if you really want to impress them, you impress them by being impressive.
07:48You don't have to put on a fucking show. Sometimes you can be around somebody, and I'm sure you've been there, and you can kinda just feel their energy. I know I'm at the risk of sounding like one of them white girls who wears hemp jewelry and collects crystals by her bed, but just fuck with me for a minute.
08:05You can feel people's energy when you're around them. And some people, when you're around them, you start to feel like there's fucking nothing you can't accomplish. You start to feel like, fuck, I'm the man.
08:15The way you can become that person is being that person. Being that person and you do that by what?
08:21Keeping the promises you make to yourself is probably the most If you don't get nothing from this video, there's nothing to improve your life more than keeping the promises you make to yourself. And if you stop worrying about what other people think, you will become more impressive to them if you are keeping the promises you make to yourself.
08:36Next thing I wish I knew when I was in my twenties is money does not change who you are, it exposes who you are. So I had a friend, and we we were growing up together.
08:47And we kinda started to drift apart during college because he started to become one of these guys who only thought about women. You know what mean?
08:56He's got he's just no matter what's going on, it's like, where the hose at? Where the hose at? And that's fine within itself.
09:00I get it, especially as a young man, but he was doing it to a weird level. I have difficulty explaining it. It seemed to be his only thought.
09:08And we were just on different paths. We were just doing different shit because, you know, I got shit to do. Right?
09:14I can't just be chasing hoes all the time. I got shit doing trying to get this degree and get some money at the same time. I'm working.
09:20All you cared about was getting hoes. He eventually graduated. He started making some good money, but money reveals who you are.
09:25So this motherfucker, you know, he's still that guy. Next thing you know, man, this motherfucker is on the news. Yeah.
09:32You guessed it. He got caught with some fucking hookers and cocaine, but that's who he was. Right?
09:38He didn't do that because he had money. That's who this motherfucker always was. He was a hookers and cocaine kind of guy.
09:44Right? Money reveals who you are. So I've met other people who were very nice, kind, generous people before they got money.
09:50When they got money, they became more of that person. They were able to give and be generous and do positive things in a way bigger way, in a more dramatic fashion. Money doesn't change you, man.
10:00It just reveals who you are. And I wouldn't even say just money, just power in general. I got sent away to military school for high school because I got into some trouble, fights, skipping school, shootouts, you know, regular South Side Chicago kid shit.
10:12And I got sent away to military school. And in the military school, we had, like, ranks, and we would get different ranks. And the higher rank, you were in charge of other high school kids.
10:21And some of these kids, as soon as they got some rank, man, they started being fucking assholes. But the thing is they was always assholes. These motherfuckers just couldn't be assholes because they weren't in position to.
10:31But soon as they got a power, it's like, oh, it's time to be an asshole. Same thing with money. If you was a bitch nigga or a jerk or a fucking loser, you get some money, you're gonna be even more of a loser.
10:41It reveals who you are. So it's very important to work on yourself. And here's another thing about money.
10:45Like my boy, who I mentioned earlier, the more successful you come, the more money disciplined you have to become because it's kinda like a car that's moving really fast. You have to really hold on to the wheel when you're driving a car like that.
10:59And when you're going fast, you gotta focus. Right? When you're driving slow, you can one one hand eat, drinking soda, talking to motherfuckers.
11:07You can do all types of shit when you're driving slow. But when you're driving fast, you might put both hands on wheels. You might turn the fucking radio down when you're driving fast.
11:16Right? Because you gotta focus. Because one small turn can really derail you.
11:20That's kind of what money's like. Because if my boy, who I mentioned earlier, if he didn't get any money, he wouldn't have fucking got caught with the mookers because he wouldn't have had money for cookers and cocaine. That's an expensive habit.
11:31And then if you get famous or, like, have some sort of notoriety, imagine me right now if me and my girlfriend got into a fight and she beat me up.
11:41Now, she gonna go to jail. It's gonna be like news like Greg Doucette's gonna make another video about me getting beat up by my girlfriend. Well, they he's never made a video about that before.
11:49He's gonna make another video about me, and this time he's gonna be like, Brandon's got his ass beat worse than last time by his crazy Latina girlfriend. It's gonna be like news. But domestic abuse happens all the time, and we don't hear about it.
12:00But because I have a certain amount of notoriety, it's news now. Someone in my son's school, one of the other children made they tell my man, your dad your dad got beat up by a Dominican shit. It's fucking news at that point.
12:11That's why it's very important to work on yourself now. If you're not rich now, to work on yourself now because if you're fucked up now and you get some money, you have way more opportunities to fuck your life up. And you can fuck your life up in way more dramatic fashion because now you got leverage.
12:27Alright? So keep going. Busy is often just procrastination with good PR.
12:34Right? So, you know, a lot of times people do like bullshit and they say they're busy, but it's not shit that's really gonna move the needle. So it could be something like answering emails, tweaking websites, organizing calendars, like that shit is helpful, but you can spend a whole day doing that and not make no motherfucking money.
12:48What you really need to be doing is probably sales calls, your workout, conversions. Right?
12:53You guys probably do a lot of this shit just watching YouTube videos. Say yes. Hey, man.
12:57I'm working. I'm I'm grinding. And then, well, we're just watching YouTube videos all day.
13:00Right? Some of y'all right now, some of y'all thinking that's me. Thinking you fucking doing something.
13:04You just watch you passively watching YouTube videos, which is I mean, it's cool, but it's like, it's not thing that's gonna move the needle. I see that with a lot of entrepreneurs. When they first start, man, motherfuckers be all concerned about their logo.
13:14Man, what should my logo be? I see motherfuckers spend weeks on a logo. I see motherfuckers spend weeks on a name, and I'm like, bitch nigga, that shit ain't gonna make you no money.
13:22Who cares what your name is? The fucking most profitable company of all time is a computer company named after a fruit. That shit don't make no damn sense.
13:31Imagine, you never heard of Apple before. Motherfucker's scam. I'm thinking I'll start a computer company.
13:35What are gonna call it? Man, I'm a call it apple, and I'm a put a fucking logo or my logo is gonna be a rainbow apple. Because initially, was a rainbow apple with a bite in it.
13:43That would be this one of the dumbest shits I've ever heard. Or, man, you know, I'm I'm starting this Internet website. Man, what you gonna call it, man?
13:50I'm a call that shit Google. Right? Who gives a fuck?
13:53Right? Who gives a fuck? It doesn't mean anything.
13:54What you need to be focusing on if your business making money because until you fucking make sales, you ain't got a business. You got a hobby. You out here hobby maxing.
14:03You get what I'm saying? You really need to focus on the things that will move the needle in your business or in your life. Whatever your goal is, you gotta figure out the things that will actually move you forward and focus on those things because you can get busy doing shit that doesn't matter.
14:18Side note, this is why I hate when you motherfuckers be asking me about no fap or semen retention or any of the other nonsense because that's fucking bullshit.
14:30Ain't nobody ever made no money, no fabbing. Right?
14:33It's not the thing, man. You wanna make money, gotta sell a product or service at a higher price than it cost you to deliver it.
14:40That's it. Doesn't matter how much you motherfucking touch yourself or not.
14:44Doesn't matter, man. Who gives a fuck? It's bullshit.
14:47Nonsense. I read hundreds of books from successful entrepreneurs, a lot of them biographies, autobiography. Not one of them says, man, yo, no fat was the thing that really helped me get to fucking billions.
14:58Not one of them. Why? Because it's bullshit.
15:01But basically, what I'm saying is you can major in the minors and end up not being successful at all. Alright? Focus on the things that matter.
15:08Alright? Next thing I wish I knew in my twenties, yo, man. Your body keeps receipts.
15:13Right? You know, in your twenties, you can do a lot of things to your body pause that are almost abusive and get away with it because you're young.
15:22But as you age, a lot of that shit will stick with you.
15:27So if you're not getting enough sleep, if you're not taking care of your body just in general, it's gonna start catching up with you. People start looking super old, super early, and it's because they're not getting enough sleep, they're too stressed out, they're abusing their bodies, you know, with partying, clubs, drinking, recreational drugs, shit of nature.
15:49All that shit starts to catch up with you over a while. And it can manifest itself in you just like being ugly. You can be out here ugly maxing.
15:56Some of y'all ugly maxing. But not on purpose just because you like smoking cigarettes, staying up late, getting drunk and high all the time.
16:03You gotta start taking care of your body now. Alright? Because once you start taking care of body now, it's gonna serve you well as you get older.
16:10For example, because I took care of my body really when I was in my thirties. I mean, I always looked the weights. I always ate right.
16:16But in my thirties, early thirties, that's when I stopped smoking. I smoked cigarettes from age 14 to, like, age 30. Alright.
16:24That's when I stopped smoking cigarettes. That's when I stopped doing all recreational drugs. That's when I stopped drinking.
16:29And I dialed in my diet a lot more. Right? That's when I really got even more serious about my diet.
16:35And I really believe it's helped me prolong biological use.
16:40Right? I'm 43 years old, but my health is perfect. I get blood work about every ninety days, and my shit is perfect.
16:47Last time the doctor was like, oh, he was looking at something in my blood work. I don't remember exactly what it was. He was like, wow.
16:52You must never get sick. I'm like, yeah, man. I have not been sick in eleven years.
16:56I have not had a cold, not had the flu. My girlfriend had COVID three times in a row. Three times in a row.
17:02I would take no precautions. We was making love while she had she would have to stop to blow her nose during sexual intercourse. And I'm a gentleman, So I just stopped, you know, I just stopped stroking for a minute.
17:14I ain't taking out or nothing, but I just stopped smoking. It's too much information. Too much information.
17:19But she's sneezing on me with COVID, and I still ain't catch it. When you really take care of your body, it starts to compound in a positive way as well.
17:27And, you know, some people say, I hear sometimes that I look younger than 43. Some people may disagree, but I'm definitely in better shape and I'm more active than most 43 year old guys. Right?
17:37It's because I actually took care of my body and my youth. Right? The next thing I wish I knew in my twenties is that, yo, man, nobody's coming to save you.
17:46And that's good news. That's really good news. And the reason why that's good is because I have a family member who I I won't mention his thing.
17:54For whatever reason, he lived a really sheltered life. His mama did everything for him, made sure if he was in any trouble, she she took care of him. His dad wasn't around.
18:03And I wasn't around either. Right? I got sent to military school and I went to college.
18:06And his mom would just baby them and, like, wouldn't let him make no mistakes. It wouldn't let him fail.
18:12And as a result, you know, this guy's, like, in his thirties now, and he's super just soft. Like, soft, soft, soft. He hasn't had the opportunity to to fail, right, or really experience hardships.
18:25But the hardships are what make you tough. It makes you more resilient. It's kinda like when you lift weights.
18:31If you when you first start lifting weights, they hurt your hands. Hopefully, you're not using gloves. If you're using gloves in the weight room, then well, I hope they at least match your purse, sweetheart.
18:41Right? But if you're a man, you started lifting weights, initially, it hurts. But then what happens, man?
18:45You start building calluses, and then it doesn't hurt anymore. You can lift more.
18:49Right? Same thing when I started playing guitar. Like, it would hurt my hands, my fingertips.
18:53But that pain forced me to build calluses on my another example would be your muscles. When you lift weights, you put a lot of stress under the muscle. It's it's painful.
19:01Lactic acid builds up. Your your muscle fibers start to rip, but then they what? They grow back stronger.
19:08You are the same way mentally. You become mentally stronger the same way these calluses on your hands become stronger. The same way your muscles go strong by being able to go through the hardships, by going through the trials and tribulations.
19:21Some of y'all are going through something right now. You're going through a difficult time as we speak. I'm gonna tell you something that I've realized that helps me every time I'm going through a challenge.
19:29To myself, this won't be the last time I experienced hardships. A 100%, it won't be the last time. It might not even be the worst time.
19:37So what I'm going through now will make me stronger from when I go through the next challenge, which may be even more difficult to this. But because I went through this one, I'll be better equipped to handle that. Or the next one, it might not be as difficult as this, so I'll be able to breeze through it because I went through this.
19:53It's a reframe I use. I think it's a good reframe for you to have every time you're going through any challenges. And here's the thing, if you're not going through a challenge now, you will.
20:01The next one is right around the corner. 100%. Everyone you know is gonna die.
20:05Right? So you're have to deal with those things. Nobody's life is a unbroken boulevard of green lights.
20:13All you're gonna have to deal with challenges, heartbreak, financial issues, people you know are gonna die or get hurt or be sick.
20:21All your pets are gonna die, 100%. It's like you're gonna have to deal with these things.
20:25And every time you go through one, you gotta think, okay. This is gonna make me stronger. For me, that helps.
20:29That reframe actually helps me a lot. Alright. The next thing you need to know that I wish I knew when I was in my twenties.
20:35Your environment is more powerful than your willpower.
20:40Your environment will play a huge role in what you accomplish. For example, do you think it would be easier to focus on something you have to do in a library or in a strip club?
20:51If you had to get some work done, you got those two venues, a library or a strip club. I don't care how disciplined you are.
20:58It's gonna be very difficult to focus on your work, like do accounting or something in the strip club. Traditionally, people struggle in those with that endeavor. Where is it gonna be easier to get an erection?
21:09The library or the strip club. Some of you perverts have had erections in libraries, but I'm talking about the general population.
21:16Right? The strip club. Right?
21:17Your environment plays a huge role in your success. It's more important than willpower because willpower I want you to think about it like the battery in your phone or some sort of battery. You start off with a full charge each day, but throughout the day you use up some of the willpower that's in your willpower battery.
21:34Use it up. Use it up. And after a while, it's all used up.
21:38Right? This is why people make bad decisions at night. This is why at night, it's probably when you fall off your diet.
21:45Those of guys who have trouble sticking your diet, it's probably easier for you in the morning. Right? But at night, oh, I deserve this.
21:50Because what happens is you're out of willpower. You start to run out during the day. Like, that's a real thing.
21:54There's a great book on the subject called it's actually called willpower. You only have so much of it through throughout the day. So you wanna conserve it.
22:02A way you can conserve the energy is not putting yourself in a position where you have to use a lot of it. So if you are trying to work in an environment where there's a lot of distraction, where there's a lot of bullshit, or even if the room is just super messy, you can do it, but you have to use more what?
22:19Willpower. But the thing is you only have so much each day. Everybody, like everybody, David Goggins, Jaco, all the all humans.
22:26You're start off with some willpower each day and it's gonna diminish. What you wanna do is don't waste it.
22:32So you wanna set your environment up where you can win. You gotta set your environment up for success. For example, when I have something like really important to work on, I'll put my phone in the bathroom.
22:42I keep a fucking charger in there. I charge my phone in the bathroom. This is why I'm not what?
22:46Distracted. Because if it's right here, if it's if the phone is right here, then I'm a have to use some of my willpower to not fuck with it. Does that make sense?
22:53In the house, there's no junk food. Because if I look at the fucking junk food, yeah, I'm not going to eat it for sure. But I'm a use up some of my willpower fighting the temptation.
23:04But if the temptation is gone, I don't have to worry about it. Now I'm not saying I would eat junk food if it was here. I'm not a bitch nigga, but it will take some discipline to not do it.
23:14I rather not use the discipline. I really believe this is gonna be controversial, but I believe that discipline is for amateurs. You really need to set up your environment where you don't need discipline to succeed.
23:26Because discipline means you have to do something you don't wanna do typically. But if you take away the options, you don't need discipline. It's the concept of friction.
23:33I remember when I first started waking up early, when I first started working hard to wake up early, I would hit my alarm and go back to sleep. Hit the news button and go back to sleep. You guys, some of y'all do that.
23:42Did that this morning. Some of you motherfuckers still in bed. It's motherfucking 6PM, man.
23:47You ain't got out of bed yet. You just kept hitting that motherfucking for twelve hours. You've been hitting the snooze button.
23:52What I did was I started putting my phone on the other side of the room when I went to sleep. That forced me to get up and out get out of bed. Right now, I'm out of bed.
24:01Alright. Now, I'll do it. It doesn't take as much willpower because I I'm already out of bed.
24:05And then I'd have my workout shit ready to go, laid out. Pre workout mixed up from the night before. I just put the fucking shit on, take the pre workout.
24:14There's no friction involved. There's nothing stopping me. In fact, I I made it frictionless, so I didn't need as much willpower to do it.
24:20You can do that with everything in your life. Anything you want to abstain from, you wanna add friction to it. Like, for example, I haven't eaten ice cream maybe in ten years, but ice cream used to be, like, my favorite thing.
24:31If there was a thing ice cream, I'm a eat the whole thing in one sitting for sure. 100%. I love this shit.
24:36Guess what's not in my house? Ice cream. None of it.
24:39Right? Yeah. Sure.
24:40Sure. I can call up Uber Eats and have some guy named Pedro bring the shit over here. Right?
24:46But that's introducing friction. It's an extra step. It's more friction than walking to the fridge and grabbing a spoon.
24:52Right? And the more friction I add to it, the less likely it is for me to do it. Now even if it was ice cream here, I wouldn't eat it.
24:58But I would have to use my willpower not to. I don't wanna have to do that. I think that having to use discipline is for amateurs.
25:04You need to set shit up where discipline is not necessary. That's very important. The one thing more thing you should know about environment, your environment doesn't just count for the things around you or your physical environment.
25:16It's also the people you're around. That's very important. So there's a study here and this study is gonna blow your mind.
25:22I suggest you read it on your own time. You could just search this on PubMed. But basically, in this study, they showed that if you have a friend who becomes obese, you have a forty percent chance of becoming obese yourself.
25:36And this was a thirty two year long study. If just one of your friends becomes obese, you have a forty percent chance of becoming obese. You become like the people you're around.
25:45You know, the people around you can influence you just as much as your environment. For example, let's say you are a recovering crackhead.
25:52Well, it's gonna be way more difficult you for you to abstain from crack if you're chilling at the crack house. If you were a recovering sex addict, it'd be way more difficult for you to get over that if you're chilling at the whorehouse.
26:05Your environment plays a role. Now, back to the study. If your friend gets fat, you have a forty percent chance of getting fat yourself.
26:13That's astonishing. But here's where it gets crazier. According to the study, if you have a friend who has a friend, a third party that you don't even know, that person gets fat, according to the research, you have a twenty percent chance of getting fat and you don't even know that motherfucker.
26:30This is real shit. Go ahead and read the study on your own. This is real shit.
26:34Right? So the people you're around really plays bigger role than I think a lot of people take it.
26:40The next thing I wish I knew in my twenties, focus is a superpower. You actually don't need more time. You probably need less distractions.
26:48A lot of people, they always tell me, man, don't have time. I don't have time. I had time.
26:52And I say, let me see your calendar. Let me see your calendar. And it's blank.
26:56Here's the thing guys. I can look at your calendar and tell your future.
27:00I can tell your future if I look at your calendar. For example, let me show you mine. I plan every hour of every day in my calendar.
27:07This is what it looks like on a month view. Bro. Once you start doing that, I promise, I promise, guarantee, do it for a week, it'll be the most productive week of your life.
27:16Now, it may be difficult for you to start doing it initially because you're gonna mess up. You're gonna have difficulty allocating the appropriate amount of time to the appropriate things, but you'll get better at it.
27:25Week two, you'll get even better. Week three, you're gonna get even better. Right?
27:28Once you start doing it, your whole life will change. I had never seen someone do that for an extended amount of time and they not achieve massive success.
27:36The thing is when you have some blocked out of your calendar, you need to be doing only that. So when I'm with my son, I'm only doing that. I'm not doing shit else, but kicking it with my son.
27:44When I'm on a date with my girl, I'm not out here like unless it's an emergency. But but for the most part, I'm not, like, doing other shit on my phone. Well, it's the NBA playoffs now.
27:53So the last two dates we went on, we I had to so we accept NBA playoffs. I'm black, man. We gotta go to a restaurant where the games on, and I need to sit at a table in viewing distance of the game.
28:04But under normal circumstances, I'm it's just me and you, baby. I'm not thinking about nothing else.
28:08It's just me and you, baby. I don't wanna see nothing else in this room. I got on blinders, and we're gonna get back to that after the finals are over.
28:15But, you know, when I'm working, I'm working, and I'm focused on those things, but everything gets priority. So when people say, oh, man, I would do this, but I got all I got school or work. I'll be like, no, man.
28:27You got enough time. You just don't plan your day right. You just lack focus.
28:30There's a hundred and sixty eight hours in every week. If you sleep eight hours a night, that's fifty six hours.
28:36That's gonna leave you with a hundred and twelve hours left. Right? You work forty of those hours, you got seventy two hours each week left.
28:44Your bitch ass up. That's two almost two work weeks of shit you could be doing. But the problem is you guys aren't fucking planning every hour a day in your calendar, so you you lack focus.
28:54You don't know what to do. You have all the shit you wanna do, but it's not organized in a in a time based format. So you don't know what to do when.
29:01You have all these things you wanna do, and then now you feel lost because it's not choreographed. You gotta start planning every hour of every day to do that. I promise you.
29:08The last thing I wish I knew when I was in my twenties and thirties is money makes all of your decisions. Sometimes people try to downplay the importance of financial success, and they might believe what they say or just might be cope, but it doesn't matter because it's wrong. Money makes all your decisions.
29:24You don't live in the best house available. You live in the best house you can afford. If you take care of your parents, you don't do the best for your parents.
29:32You do the best you can afford. If you got kids, you don't send them to the best schools. You're not doing the best for your kid.
29:37You're doing the best you can afford, and it's based off how much money you have. Some of y'all will be watching this at different devices if you have more money.
29:44You'd be wearing different clothes, you'd be in different place. Even if you really care about spirituality or your religion, you don't donate as much as you can afford to your church.
29:54Money makes all your decisions, a 100% of them or at least it influences it. And I really found out how important money was when my father blew his brains out.
30:05He shot himself in the head when I was 24. And the main thing I had do was fucking start hustling, take care of everyone in the family and really come up.
30:13And that's when I I vowed to never be in a position again where someone who I loved needed my help and I wasn't in a position to help them. Because I I really feel like I really feel like there is an amount of money that if I had it, my dad would have made a different decision.
30:30I still have a dad. I don't know what that number is, but I know it exists. I said that to a therapist once and she said, oh, you can't think like that.
30:38I like, bitch, shut your bitch ass up. Listen, ho. That shit is true.
30:41I know you're trying to make me feel better and you're trying to infiltrate my mind like professor Xavier and shit, but nothing you say will mean that that's not true. There is an amount of money that if I had it, I'd still have a debt. So I have to never be in that position again.
30:55I started working four jobs at the time. Then I started online training. That's how I made my first million as an online trainer.
31:00And now I teach other people how to do how to make money as an online trainers. I've trained over 15,000 students, helped them grow successful online fitness business, and yet this is the knowledge based off my most successful students. I want you guys to have that.
31:12It's a 100% free. Alright?
The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

At 43, Brandon Carter opens by letting his physique do the talking, then pivots immediately to the knowledge he says would have accelerated everything. The title hook and the spoken hook are the same move: I have proof of concept, here is the lesson.

Frameworks

Named ideas worth stealing.

00:29concept

Goals vs. Standards

A goal is something you want to achieve; a standard is a minimum condition you refuse to live below. Standards produce must-have energy; goals produce nice-to-have energy.

Steal forAny sales or coaching conversation about why clients fail to follow through on commitments
20:36model

Willpower Battery

Willpower is finite and depletes throughout the day. Rather than relying on discipline, remove temptation from the environment so willpower is rarely spent.

Steal forHabit design, productivity content, diet adherence coaching
23:00concept

Friction Engineering

Add friction to behaviors you want to stop; remove friction from behaviors you want to do. Discipline becomes unnecessary when the path of least resistance is the right one.

Steal forHabit formation content, onboarding design, product UX
06:48concept

Be It Till You Believe It

The inverse of fake it till you make it. You act your way into confidence by actually doing hard things, not by performing confidence before you have it.

Steal forCoaching copy, confidence-building content
CTA Breakdown

How they asked for the click.

VERBAL ASK
30:50product
I've trained over 15,000 students, helped them grow successful online fitness businesses. I want you guys to have that. It's 100% free.

Soft sell embedded in the emotional close about his father. The free guide is shown as a screen overlay in the final frame. Low-friction ask, high emotional setup.

Storyboard

Visual structure at a glance.

open
hookopen00:00
standards slide
valuestandards slide00:29
be it till you believe it card
valuebe it till you believe it card03:46
money section
valuemoney section08:38
busy procrastination graphic
valuebusy procrastination graphic12:29
environment section
valueenvironment section20:36
focus calendar
valuefocus calendar26:44
CTA free guide
ctaCTA free guide31:15
Frame Gallery

Visual moments.

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