Turning 39, What I'm Leaving Behind, and What My 30's Taught Me

As I prepare to turn 39, Im reflecting on what Im no longer willing to carry into this next chapter.  In this episode, we talk about leaving behind the expectations of others, poor lifestyle habits, and the silence that can slowly disconnect you from your real voice.

A personal conversation about honesty, identity, growth, self-respect, and what it means to stop shrinking and start living more fully.  More Out Loud!   Happy birthday to me!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

So tomorrow I turn 39 years old. At the time of this recording, it is April the 16th. My birthday is April the 17th. And I will be officially entering in my last year of my peace. Quite naturally, like many of us, birthdays are a time of reflection of the years prior. You start reflecting on life. You start reflecting on everything I accomplished in the last 365. Did I reach my goals? Did I fall short on some? Um, do I find myself in a better place in this point of 2026 than I did in last year in 2025? All the thoughts are coming through my mind as it would when someone is turning another year older, but also as I'm entering into my last year of this decade of my life. And if I'm being honest, I've been thinking less about what I've accomplished. And I've really been thinking more about what I'm no longer willing to carry with me into this next decade and beyond of my life. If you're new here to Out Loud, welcome. You've come on a very important episode about self-reflecting as I'm approaching my 40s. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, whether it's Spotify, Apple, I want to thank you so much. And if you could do so, please subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel if you're watching it on YouTube. That'd be great. But let's get right into it. I I think every birthday gives us a chance to be honest about what's working, what's not, and what version of yourself you keep dragging forward because it's familiar. And I think that's kind of where I'm at right now at this very second. And I am someone that that has a hard time unpacking where I'm at at this very second. I'm a thinker. And sometimes as a thinker, you can tend to think a little bit too deep. You can overthink. You can be too critical, you can be too cautious, you can try to analyze everything before you do something. You need more information, you need this, you need that, because there is a part of you that doesn't want to make a mistake because it makes you feel inadequate, or it makes you feel like you don't know, or you don't have all the answers. And that's where I think I I've spent a lot of my life in that space of not wanting to seem like I didn't have it all figured out. And if I'm being honest, I think that is one of the reasons why my 30s were kind of an up and down roller coaster of a decade. And I know um I have one more year in my 30s, but as I'm reflecting, I'm definitely closer to 40 than I am 30. And one of the most glaring things that I can share or that I'm feeling right now, first of all, this isn't about me and my birthday. This is about are there areas in your life where you're like, you know what? I'm thinking too much, I'm worrying too much, I'm putting too much pressure on myself to succeed, whatever that means, right? And um haven't lived up to the expectations, whatever that means. I think for a lot of my things, I was hovering in this ground of what success actually means, and what does success actually mean to me? Now, I turned 30 in 2017. So we're talking three years before COVID. I moved to California in 2015. So I'm two years into moving into California. When I turned 30, I think I just started my own fitness business. I believe it was, yeah, because I I think I want to say I I started being an independent contractor, just working for myself in 20 in the in the winter of 2017 is when I started. And then I think I officially started my business on my birthday 2018. So 2018 is when I I started it. And um I think at 30 years old, also at that time, I was still living in a three-bedroom apartment with you know six six of us. And I slept on the couch. So I I shared a living room with one other person. And so at that time, when I turned 30, I was uh figuring life out just quit being a fitness director of LA Fitness in Hollywood. I think it was the summer of 2016, and then I started working as a trainer and fitness manager at a private boutique gym in Beverly Hills, and I and then I left there February of 2017. So around April 17th, 2017, I was on my own, and that's when I started hustling and you know, getting as many clients as I could and renting spaces out and doing the whole thing. And at that time, I was still living on a couch, sleeping on a couch. And I think three months later is when I got my my apartment, my first apartment in California. So reflecting on where I was at 30 and where I was at 33, I'm 33 was I turned 33 during COVID. So then there was that whole thing. So I'm three years into my business at that time, and then everything's gotta shut down because I don't have a gym to train anybody anymore. And so now I have to pivot and and move virtually, just like all of us had at, you know, at some point or another, we had to do something. But also when I turned 33, that's when my social media kind of just took off out of nowhere. And so now I go from, you know, being a personal trainer and a fitness coach to now I'm a content creator, where I'm I'm creating content on TikTok and Instagram. And I have, you know, got to the point where it was over 1.5 million followers across all platforms, like out of nowhere. It wasn't something I planned on. I didn't try to, it just happened. And so that created opportunities where, you know, age 33, 34, um, 35, I'm doing coaching. I'm traveling around the country speaking on stages and doing speaking engagements virtually in person. I'm coaching people one-on-one. I'm coaching, you know, people in groups. Um, you know, I'm being brought in to speak at leadership meetings at companies. It was like a whirlwind of change that was going on. Then when I turned 36, so that would have been in 2023. That's when everything really started to fall apart. The wheels started to come off. I'm in the worst shape of my life. I'm 270 plus pounds. I'm burnt down on both ends because, you know, I'm saying yes to every opportunity. I'm coaching people, I'm back training again. So I'm back doing that thing. And, you know, I also was helping start the uh the youth ministry in my church. So Sundays um became um a job to some degree, you know, the demands of that, the expectations. And so I didn't really have a day off. And next thing you know, I have a breakdown and I have to move back to Michigan for two years. Well, originally I thought I was gonna be there for a month. I ended up staying there for two years. I just felt like there was something for me that I needed there, and I couldn't explain what it was, but I felt like I had to get it right, where it was almost like it was a rehabilitation for me. It was almost, I tell people, it's like I went to rehab for two years, but I was at home, you know? And um in that period of time, you know, I I was faced with a lot of things that I had pushed to the side for a while when it came to, again, like in your 30s, you'll figure it out, right? Like you always make it up. You make it up, and then everything happens and collides at the same time. And it's just like, nope, you know, have any time. You got to figure this out now. And so I had to reclaim my health and I I made my health priority number one. Um, I got closer to God. I helped repair some relationships. And also it gave me a chance to really think about what did I really want for me? What did I really want as this version of myself at that point? What vision do I have for my life? Because I never really asked myself that question. And no one's really asked me that either. Like, what do I what what's my vision for my life? And um, it was the first time I took some time to kind of ask myself, what what is it? What do I want? Like, who do I want to be? And, you know, you listened to the episodes before, if not, this is your first time. You know, I grew up as somebody that I just wanted to be what everyone wanted me to be because I just didn't want to cause any trouble. And growing up, the youngest of six boys and um coming from a blended family, no one looks like you, sounds like you, talks like you, your outlook on life is a little different. I was, I was afraid to be me. I was I was afraid to stand out because I I thought I was gonna be viewed as different and uh I was gonna be viewed as a nerd or a loser, um, you know, someone that wasn't worthy of attention and love. That's the story that I made in my mind. So when you bring that into your 30s, you end up just saying yes to things and doing things because you feel like it's what you're supposed to do. And next thing you know, you're backed up against the wall with all these yeses you committed to, and you have no energy to fulfill it. You, you, you, you have so much demand that you've created that you have no way to supply it. And so I I needed to completely reset myself. And in that resetting, it got to the point where it was just like, bro, what do you want? Who do you want to be? What is it that you feel led to do? You may not know what you're called to do or what your purpose is, but you can ask yourself, what do you want right now? What does it feel like right now? And and as I'm making this podcast, I had no intention of making this podcast today. And I decided, you know, I'm turning 39 and I wanted to make something about what I'm feeling right now in this moment. And maybe this can help you navigate some things that you're going through. Maybe you're in your 30s and you're hustling and grinding, maybe you're in your 40s and your 50s and you're wanting to pivot and do something different. I don't know where you are, but as I'm turning 39 tomorrow, the biggest takeaway that I have is not necessarily looking at all the things that I've done and that I want to do, but more so what do I want to leave behind that I no longer want to take with me? And the first thing that comes to my mind is expectations. Not just my expectations, but expectations that others have on me. Because that's something that I'm never going to fulfill. I'm never going to be able to fulfill everyone's idea of who I am and who they think I should be in their eyes. And I believe that was one of the issues I had, you know, a few years ago with the social media part of everything, because I created this following of, you know, prayers and encouraging words and speaking, you know, make basically faith-based content. And then it got to the point where it just felt like this is all that people want from me. They just want me to be this person. So I'm just gonna keep doing these prayers, I'm keep doing these words. And although I'm not doing things that I normally wouldn't do, but I know that there's more in me that I want to say, and I have more perspective and I have more to add to the world than just this. And now I look at it like, oh, this that was a checkpoint of my life. I needed that at that point to get me here. And but it's it showed me that expectations is not something that that you can fulfill. It's not my job to be the person that people want me to be. It's not my job. My job is to be who God's called me to be and how He's made me to be uniquely and how different that is. Not better than, but different. And if people want to leave, if they want to unfollow, you know, if they want to dip and bounce, great. But as long as I know that I'm being as authentic as I possibly can and being true to myself, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with, and listen, I'm losing on TikTok alone, I probably lost, I don't know, 150,000 followers over the last two years. Instagram probably 20,000, 25,000. Because I I I've I've been doing like a slow, like a soft launch of where I'm headed. And to be honest with you, I don't even know where I'm going when it comes to that. And I think that's a part of one of the reasons why I'm at peace with turning 39 and entering this new phase is because I'm okay with not knowing. I'm okay with not knowing what kind of content I'm gonna put out or who am I for and what am I supposed to be doing. For the first time in my life, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with being in the wilderness. I'm okay with this journey of being navigated to where I'm supposed to be. But the one thing I know that won't get me there is trying to figure it out. Like sitting here and writing down and and and trying to get more information of what I need in order to do something when in reality is, look, my job is to be. It's not to know. I don't know. I didn't know that my social media was going to blow up July 2nd, 2020. I didn't know that. I wasn't recording things on TikTok to to go viral. That's just what I felt I was supposed to do creatively, and then it just happened that way. So I don't know what 39 and 40 and 45 is gonna be like. I don't know, but I can tell you right now what I'm feeling, and what I'm feeling is I feel like I have a voice that's very important, and I feel like I have a voice that's really timely. And when I reflect on social media going the way that it did, it made me realize that one of the reasons why things happened the way that they did is because God was showing me to me, in my opinion, was your voice is now it's timely. And people needed it at that time. So people needed me to talk about what I was talking about at that time, but we needed it. And now I feel like what God is revealing to me is we don't need your preaching anymore, we need your living. And people need to see you in the light that is truest to you. And talking about and and documenting that and helping people see themselves in you to give them hope that they can and whatever that thing is. I've always had a perspective on things ever since I was a kid. I asked a lot of questions. I was uh, you know, I wasn't the easiest to submit to authority. You know, I was a class clown. I I have hot takes, I have ways of looking at things that God just wired me that way. And I think He's wanting me to deplore that now. And so as I reflect on, you know, my life over the last handful of years in this particular decade of my 30s, as I'm entering my last year of my 30s tomorrow, the first thing that enters my mind is letting go of expectations and letting go of the expectations of others. And the other thing that I'm note-taking in my mind is how freaking important it is to take care of yourself physically. If that was one of the biggest takeaways of my life in my 30s, was how important it is to take care of your health. Like making your health priority number one. Because if you're not healthy, you're of no good to anyone. End of story. And if you're not making your health priority number one, you're losing. I'm telling you right now. I'm not telling you you got to do what I did. You know, I've been sober now since uh for over two years. You know, my my eating is pretty simple. You know, I still listen, I had a lunchable yesterday. I'm I I have pizza almost once a week. I'm I'm not someone that's like, no seed oils and this, this, and I'm not that guy. But I am someone that pays attention to how his body feels based on how he treats it and how I want to feel on a day-to-day basis. And I can tell you, for pretty much most of my threes, I treated my body like shit. Straight up. And it showed. And at some point, you know, your body is a manifestation of what you're doing internally. Your physical body will start to show what's going on on the inside. Whether it's stress, whether it's, you know, poor eating, whether it's too much alcohol, whatever it is, your body will reveal the truth. It will. Making the decision in 2023, late 2023, to take control of my health, get sober, and make my health priority number one is probably the best decision I ever made besides giving my life to Christ. Because the the way that I was going with my life at that point, that there's no telling where I would have ended up. There's just no telling. And the the sad part about it is, and I know I'm not the only one, I was functioning at a very high level while being unhealthy. And so when you're, when you're killing it and you're making moves and you're traveling all over the country speaking, and people are inquiring your services and people are demanding that they work with you while your lifestyle sucks, why would you want to change that? You just wouldn't. But now I think about, man, what if I was healthier 10 years ago? How many of the decisions that I made 10 years ago I wouldn't have made? And so the other thing that I'm leaving behind is poor lifestyle choices. Like, I'm talking down to the sleep. Like, I take my sleep so seriously now, like there are days I stay up late, you know, because I love movies, I love shows. And sometimes the only time for me to get those in is at night, like many of us, but I take my sleep so seriously, dog. Like I leave my phone in the living room. I don't take in the bedroom most nights. I take my sleep seriously. I'm mouth taping, I wear nose strips, I want the room cold. I sleep on my side. I take my sleep seriously. I put on VIX vapor rub over my chest. I put on uh, you know, essential oils on, like it's it's but ever since I've gotten healthy, I realized that yo, I was always going to sleep. And now, like having the whoop band I've had for six years, you know, tracking my recovery and my sleep and my patterns and stuff, it has really like my whoop, I'll show you right now. So you know I'm not lying. My whoop says that my biological age is 31.9. Okay. So that means even though I'll be 39 tomorrow, biologically, internally, I'm 31 years old and going down. My goal is by the end of this year, I want to be 29 years old. So even though I am my oldest technically, I feel really like my youngest self. And so that's great. So one of the biggest blessings I've ever gotten was reclaiming my health. So one thing I'm leaving behind is poor lifestyle choices. And there are things that like I want to get better at. I want to get a more consistent weightlifting and running routine. I haven't been able to run like I used to in 2025, 2026 so far. Like Q1, Q2 has been really busy for me in a good way. So it's kind of adjusted how I run. Cause normally I would run in the mornings, especially with my run crew that you know I haven't been able to run with in a while. But now I have to run like later in the afternoon or late morning, early afternoon, which I don't like particularly. But so I want to, I want to find a better routine with that, you know, and and I want to clean up the eating a little bit, but and I'm always learning and I'm always growing. But most importantly, like I have a lifestyle now that supports how I want to look and feel on a day-to-day basis. And I never had that in my 30s. So one thing that I'm leaving behind in my 30s is poor lifestyle choices. You know, there's a couple other things, but I would say the the last thing that I want to say, because I want to keep this episode short. The last thing is. Silencing my voice. And it's not just about talking verbally. It's my being. It's my person. You know, minimizing myself to make other people feel comfortable. Not wanting the max because I feel like it intimidates people. You know what I mean? Like stuff like that. I truly believe that my voice and my gift is rising up right now because it's needed. I truly feel that. And two weeks ago, I couldn't have said that. I'm being honest, I'm being so real right now. Two weeks ago, I couldn't tell you that I felt like my voice was a leader of this era, this generation. But I can honestly say that now, and I truly believe that. And when it comes to this podcast, too, you know, when I had the first one, the third quarter podcast and Done Not Perfect, and now it's out loud. One of the things that I wanted to change about the pod is I wanted it to be more about perspective and conversations and kind of cultivating, you know, thoughts instead of it coming across as a, you know, your standard personal development, three steps to do this. And here are my five takeaways. I want it to be more conversational. I would rather you leave an episode thinking about something rather than knowing something. Does it make sense? Because information is free. You can get information on ChatGPT or Google, but perspective is something that only I can bring. And I would rather you, I would rather you leave an episode thinking about something, whether it's thinking differently or questioning something, rather than just having new information for you to use. And so out loud, the the reason why it's called out loud is because I don't, for me, I don't want to, I don't want, I didn't want to live my life anymore silent or like at a lower volume. It's like I want to be out loud. I want the full expression of me of how I was created to be to be on display. And it starts with giving myself permission to be me. And I feel like for the longest time, I I never gave myself permission. And then I would point the fingers of why I couldn't be the person that I wanted to be, whether it was this person or that person or this circumstance or this circumstance. But in reality, it's just fucking me. It was just me. I wasn't doing it. And so I'm removing, I'm giving everyone like, you're no longer responsible for this. It is not your responsibility to free me from me. That's on me. And so these are the thoughts that I'm thinking right now at this moment, you know, turning 39 tomorrow is it's more so what am I willing, what am I wanting to leave behind rather than what do I want to accomplish? Because I believe that the more that I'm willing to shed, the things that I want to accomplish will just fall into place because I'm not holding on to excess weight and baggage, right? And so my out loud call to action for you to be what areas in your life do you need to leave behind? And maybe your birthday's not tomorrow like mine. Maybe your birthday already passed, but you know in your heart there are at least one thing that you can leave behind that is no longer serving you. And I challenge you to audit and to bring it to the table and say it out loud. Hey, procrastination. I I struggle with that. Hey, I drink too much. Hey, I eat too much. Hey, I'm not active. Hey, you know, like I'm very critical of other people. Hey, you know, I gossip a lot. You know, you know, I go through the motions. Whatever it is, you have to say it out loud. My challenge for you is to say it out loud. You know, I want to close with this. I have another challenge for you. I was on a coaching call yesterday with a client, and I've been helping her with, you know, sharing her message and whatever that is. Um, and and and, you know, having her share her voice because she has a very compelling story. But she also, like us, at times, we don't think our voice is as valuable because we hear ourselves talk all the time. What's so special about us, right? I felt the exact same way. So we've been going kind of back and forth on what outlet she should use on Instagram. And then recently she's on Substack. And then yesterday on our call, she was like, you know what, I really feel like I want to get back on Instagram. I said, okay, bet, let's do it. But we keep getting to the idea of what do we talk about? What do we say? And I said, you know what? What if we did this? I saw someone on social media did this challenge. It was like for a hundred days. His name's Duke. And um he recorded himself 60 seconds, no edits for 100 straight days. And he just completed it like last week or this week or something. And it was dope because you can see it from a consumer watching almost every video that came across my feed. You can see from the very first one to the very last one, and even like as the days were going, you can see like how he was speaking to camera was different and it was changing. And you can also see as time was going on, what kind of content was he grabbing towards the most? What were people wanting to hear from him? Right. Before it was kind of like saying a lot of things just to get the videos out, but then it kind of really boom. And then he was, he shared that, you know, I think it could be butchering the numbers, but he said over the last 100 days, he lost 10,000 followers. But he also gained 16,000. And he gained 16,000 by being the most authentic version of himself. So the other 10,000 were like, well, we came, we came to you for the fitness stuff or for this stuff or whatever. We didn't come to the other mess. And so what was dope was like when you make a decision to be you, it automatically detoxifies the ones that aren't for you, but it welcomes the ones that are. And so I said to her, I said, you know what, how about we do this? What if we took the boundaries off? What if we took um, you know, the worry of what do we talk about? And you just say whatever you're feeling and whatever you're thinking or whatever you're thought of, whatever you thought about in that moment, what's the most fresh in your mind that you can speak about? And it doesn't have to make sense because that's one of the things that I was battling. Oh, my brand's gotta make sense, my podcast has to make sense, my coaching has to make sense, it all's gotta be connected. If it's not connected, how I'm gonna get new clients, how I'm gonna get new words, how am I gonna get this? Oh, it's like that's what your mind does. It starts to it, whenever you come up with a solution, it presents you 10 new problems, right? And I said, what if we just take away all of the things that have to make sense? And all you're gonna do is for 30 days, you're gonna make a video every day for 30 days, minimum 30 seconds, and we're gonna call it the Out Loud Challenge. Okay. The only thing you gotta do, you gotta make a video every day for 30 days. It's gotta be at least 30 seconds. And you have to talk about something that either you're feeling in that moment, you thought about in the moment, you know about. It's gotta be what's going on in you right now, because that's what's going to be the most truth, the most real. That's gonna be the most authentic. That's what's going to connect with people because it's not coming from a place of what you've done, it's coming from a place of where you're at. And when you speak from that place, that is what's really gonna resonate with people. She said, cool. And then I said, you know what? I'm gonna join you on that. I'm gonna do it with you. And so, my challenge for you, if you're listening to this or watching this, if you are someone that has been wanting to create, has been wanting to share, has been wanting to do something, has been wanting to put themselves out there, but you were kind of like me. You're you're worried about how people may perceive you or the expectation, or like whatever thoughts that are in your mind is preventing you from taking that step. I'm I encourage you to join us on this challenge. And you can, the challenge is ongoing. It doesn't start on this day. It's from when you see or listen to this. So I could be on day 10 and you're on day one. It doesn't, there's no official start date. It's whenever you start. So I want to encourage you to do it. I want to encourage you to do the out loud challenge. And when you do it and you put your video, I want you to put hashtag out loud challenge so I can share it and so I can send it to other people. But here's the other key. You have to do it 30 seconds in one take, meaning there's no edits, there's no additional lighting, it's none of that. It's just 30 seconds. Okay. You could put captions on it, that's fine. But like no editing, no trying to make it look a certain way, no fancy edits. It's just 30 straight seconds. So if you stumble, if you stammer, if you stutter, if you get lost in your thoughts on camera, it's okay. The point is, is number one, to stick to something for 30 straight days. But the other thing is to see you get better over time. Just know the very first video you post is going to suck in comparison to the 30th. And that's the point. The point is to give yourself permission to not be good so you can be great. Right. And that's kind of the message I'm giving to myself turning 39 tomorrow. Allowing myself permission to make mistakes or to come up short or to fail. Being me, so I can get to the place where I become great. But it all starts with me. All right. I love you so much. Thank you in advance for all the birthday wishes. And uh, yeah, out loud challenge. I can't I can't wait to see what you guys come up with. I can't wait to to to see your videos. Tag me along with it too with the hashtag. Yeah, let's be great together. Peace out. Love you.