Dear Younger Me: Everything I Wish I Knew at 15, 18, 25 & 30

🎂 If you could go back and talk to your younger self...

What would you say?

For my birthday this year, I decided to do something different.

Instead of celebrating another year older, I sat down and wrote letters to the younger versions of myself at 15, 18, 25, and 30.

We talk about:

✨ Confidence 🧠 Mental health & anxiety ❤️ Relationships 💼 Career changes

🌎 Reinvention 💭 Comparison 🎨 Creativity 🎉 Growing older

This is one of the most honest episodes I've ever recorded, and I hope it reminds you that no matter your age, you're never too late to become the person you were meant to be.

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Visit: HotAirWithJoshuaRobert.com to submit listener stories, topic suggestions and shop merch!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Hot Air with me, Joshua Robert. And I was just gonna say it, I'm your host, Joshua Robert, but I already said that. Clearly, we're off to a good start. So, FYI, this is my birthday month, and I wanted to do something a little bit different and take a pause from, you know, the Pride Month heated conversations that I've been having with myself and you. And birthdays always have a funny way of making us reflect. We think about where we've been, where we've been going, where we are going, the mistakes we made, the lessons we've learned, and all those like little cringe moments and like some of our fashion choices, even that haunt us for the rest of our lives along the way. So I want to take you on a little bit of a journey through my life as I speak to and write letters to younger versions of myself at 15, 18, 25, and 30 before finishing with a letter to my future self. And this isn't about regret. I think a lot of people reflect and they regret things. And honestly, there is nothing in life I regret at all. I don't wish that I could go back and change anything. Every mistake and heartbreak and wrong turn and unexpected detour has helped shape who I am today. And I am honestly pretty proud of that. So if I had the chance to sit down with those younger versions of myself with a cup of coffee or a martini, depending on if I'm of age, like I often think about what I would tell them, what lessons would have saved me years of stress or motivated me differently. What would I tell them to stop worrying about things that are not important, things that are important that should take my focus? Like maybe, just maybe you'll hear something today that your younger self needed as well. Or if you're somebody listening, that's 15, 18, 25 in your early 30s, whatever, you might hear something that might resonate with you. So that's kind of why I am doing this. And before we jump in, don't forget to follow me on Instagram and TikTok at underscore hot airpod, where I continue to share posts of fun things. And you can also visit hotair with joshuarobert.com to shop my merch, submit your listener stories, and suggest future topics for future episodes. And also, I don't have any visuals today. I'm sorry that hasn't happened in a hot minute, but I am traveling. I am so busy the last few weeks. Like I don't know why I packed my schedule with so many flights. I counted today. And in 2026, I've already been on 17 flights, both domestically and internationally. So after this weekend away, I'm gonna be chilling. Okay. I'm gonna be relaxing. We'll be back to the visuals, but I also didn't want to just not give you an episode at all. So let's talk to younger versions of me that could use my now older wisdom. And let's hit it.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

H-O-T-A-I-R, hot take therapy, no filter. Say what I mean. H-O-T-A-I-R. Let's be real. You listen into hot air.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Part one. Dear 15-year-old Josh. All right, let's kick this whole birthday series off by talking to someone I haven't seen in a very long time, which is 15-year-old me. And honestly, this episode is probably going to be cheaper than therapy after I went through and had some conversations with myself, hopefully just as effective as therapy. But every birthday, I find myself looking backward before I look forward. I fucking love a birthday celebration, but also a birthday just to reflect for a hot second. I start thinking about all the different versions of myself that got me to the point I am at. The confident versions, the very insecure versions, the wildly delusional versions, the ones that had very questionable haircuts. Like, trust me, there were some of those. If you know me, I've had some insane hair. The versions of me that genuinely believed that wearing whatever we were wearing at the time was a good idea. And every year I realized something. I don't actually wish I could go back and change my life. I like where my life is today. But there are absolutely conversations that I wish I could have with the younger version of me. So for the next four weeks of this podcast, that's kind of what we're gonna be diving into. A lot of reflecting, looking forward, planning, motivation, positivity. That's the vibe we're doing in July. So 15-year-old Josh, let's start with him, okay? Because he was um he was an experience, okay? Let's say that he was somehow incredibly confident, but also painfully insecure at the exact same time, which is what happens. You know, you overcompensate by pretending you're confident. When honestly, I kind of did not like myself or my life or anything around me at 15. I genuinely believed that I was destined to do something that was creative and huge and big and exciting with my life, but I also spent like an embarrassing amount of time wondering if everyone thought I was weird, if everyone was talking shit about me, if everyone was judging me, because I was just bullied all the time. So I assumed, because that was the center of my world, that I was also the center of the world in a negative way, which to be fair, they probably did think some shitty shit about me. And I mean, since I've been 15 years old, a lot of the people that bullied the fuck out of me have, you know, ran into me or messaged me and just think I'm cool now. But I'm like, well, you didn't think I was cool back then. But like, listen, okay. A lot of the things about me being weird, they were not entirely wrong. And now I know weird is fucking cool. Okay. I was weird. I am still weird. And the difference now is like I make money off of being weird with my personality, being weird, my art when I sell it, which is far and few between, but like being weird, being creative, everything that makes me me that once was like I tried to shy away from. That is me. And that's what makes me stand out, right? So at 15, my life revolved around figure skating and dance. That's all I did. Every afternoon, I had a practice of some sort that went into the evening. Every weekend almost, I also had rehearsals and competitions. Every spare second was spent doing choreography in my bedroom. Like MTV had somehow called and asked me to prepare a music video for them. Like I would hold a brush, pretend it was a microphone. I had a dance studio. My parents built me a dance studio in my basement. I was performing like nobody's business for absolutely no one. And my audience, yes, consisted of my bedroom mirror, a dog, if I had a dog at that time, and occasionally like my parents or sisters, if they would walk in, like who were probably trying to figure out why Christina Aguilera had been on repeat for the last three fucking hours while I am trying to belt and hit every high note. And the thing is, I have always loved creating. I loved performing. I loved making people laugh. I loved entertaining. Looking back now, it's funny because I realized I basically built my entire career around those same things. My fitness classes, I turn on. It's almost like a performance. This podcast, it's performing, it's creating. My art is creative expression. Apparently, 15-year-old Josh wasn't nearly as lost as I thought that he was. He just hadn't figured out what the stage was going to look like just yet. And that's what I wish that a lot of younger people understood. Like, it's hard when you're a teenager. We put so much pressure on ourselves, and adults often put pressure on kids to figure out their entire future before they're even old enough to rent a fucking car, right? Like they always ask, what do you want to do for the rest of your life? And I'm like, huh? Excuse me, I don't even know what I want for my lunch today. Like, why are we deciding my career? I think we confuse purpose with profession. And at 15, I thought that I needed to know exactly what my job would be, my future would be. Luckily, I didn't have parents that were like, you have to be a lawyer or a doctor. They were just like down for whatever. I did always know that I wanted to be creating in one way or another. I wanted to create. I wanted to inspire people. I wanted to make people feel something, regardless of what art it was I was putting out there. So the career, that part changed like 5,000 times throughout my life. But the purpose at the center of it never has, never did. Highly unlikely that it will. But if there's one thing that completely consumed me, 15-year-old Josh, it wasn't skating or dancing. It was worrying about what everyone else thought of me all of the time. And things when you're 15 are a lot bigger than they are when you're 35. Like you think this is the end of the world. But like my focus was so honed in and focused in on what everyone else was thinking about me. And when I say everybody, like I mean everybody, friends, teachers, random people at the mall, the cashier at the grocery store. Someone could look at me for a half second and I would spend the next two days wondering if I had somehow offended them by existing. My brain was like an FBI investigation into absolutely nothing. Nothing was happening. Every conversation got replayed. Every awkward interaction became evidence. Every little embarrassment felt like a federal crime. Like, you know that moment when you wave at someone because you think they're waving at you and you realize that they're waving at a person behind you? At 15, I have would have, I would have been like, I'm changing schools if that happened to me. Like now, it's still a little awkward. I laugh and I'm like, well, that's embarrassing. Like, I'll just yell that out loud and keep walking, right? That's obviously growth. It's been a long time since I've been 15. And not because embarrassing things don't happen now, but they absolutely do. But like because you eventually realize that nobody cares nearly as much as you do. Nobody cares about anything as much as you think that they do. Teenagers have this incredible ability to believe that they're the center of everyone's attention. Like obviously, I was one, so I know. I walked through school convinced that not only was everyone watching me, they were plotting against me, they were ready to bully me, which that was pretty factual, but everyone was judging me, everyone had an opinion about me. Then you become an adult and realize something hilarious. Everybody else was way too busy worrying about themselves to spend much time thinking about you. They're all starring in their own movie. You are just an extra that is walking through the background, and then they go home and think that everyone else is worrying about them. We all did the same thing. I wish that I could just sit beside 15-year-old Josh and also tell him to relax. Take a fucking breath, bro. Not because life is easy, like because it certainly isn't, but because he was making it so much harder than it needed to be. I spent so much energy trying to fit in and fit into rooms that weren't necessarily built for me instead of realizing maybe I wasn't supposed to even be in that room at all in the first place. Maybe I was supposed to find a different room and fill that room and hang out in that room with people like me. I think that is one of the biggest lessons I have learned today that not everybody is your audience. Okay. When you're younger, you think success means getting everybody to like you. And somewhere along the way, you realize success is finding the people who already speak your language, the people who laugh at your jokes, the people who understand your weirdness, the people who don't just tolerate your personality, they celebrate it. And 15-year-old me was constantly trying to edit himself. Maybe don't be so loud, don't be so excited, maybe don't care so much, maybe don't be so emotional, maybe tone yourself down a little bit. And thank fucking God, I never did any of that. I thought about it, but I did not do it because every single thing that I spent years trying to hide or trying to convince myself to hide eventually became the reason that people connect and connected with me. My energy became my career. My creativity became part of my business. My sensitivity became the reason I can have a meaningful conversation on this podcast and also communicate with the people that I care about the most. So the parts of yourself that you are trying to shrink today might actually be your fucking superpower tomorrow. And another thing that I wish someone had told me is that confidence isn't something that people are born with. Like I genuinely believe confident people had cracked some secret code at the time. I thought they woke up every morning feeling incredible about themselves. Well, I somehow completely missed the mark. Now I know that confidence is much less glamorous than that. Confidence is built, it's accumulated, it's earned through doing scary things over and over until they become normal. And although I exuded confidence on the inside, I wasn't confident at all. And so the same probably goes with a lot of the people we look at now and when we're 15, that we go, oh, they're so confident. On the inside, they probably aren't feeling that way and are overcompensating, just like most of us do. Of course, there's some genuine confidence out there, but like there's gotta be people overcompensating because been there, done that. And reminder, confidence isn't thinking you're amazing, right? Confidence is trusting yourself even when you have absolutely no idea what's gonna happen next. Kind of fake it so you make it, right? There is a big difference. One of the biggest traps that I fell into as a teenager was believing that I needed that permission to be confident, permission to try, permission to take up space, permission to call myself an artist, permission to chase something different. And looking back now, I realized that nobody was ever gonna hand me that permission slip. And I think I kind of knew that then because I just wrote it myself and handed it to myself. I was like, well, I'm just gonna do it, whatever the fuck I want. There came a day when there was a bit of a shift, you know, when I decided to stop hiding as much. And I was like, fuck this. I'm here, I'm queer. I think it was my last year of high school where I was just gung-ho and going for it. I also wish someone had told me that life isn't always linear. And at 15, like you think your future is a straight line. You pick a career, you find a partner in your early 20s, you buy a house, you have figured everything out, and that's like pretty much it, right? And you just live a lavish life. And that's adorable. And for some people, that's that's the reality. But my life has looked less like a straight line and more like someone handed a toddler a crayon and said, like, draw a map of an imaginary country. I have been a dancer, I have been a choreographer, I am a trainer, a group fitness instructor, I'm an artist, I am a marketing director, I'm a graphic designer, I am a podcaster, I am constantly writing music and working on projects. I am writing a book. I've reinvented myself honestly more times than Madonna. Seriously. I could give her a run for my money. And truly, I think I am just getting started. That's something I desperately wish that 15-year-old Josh understood that reinvention is not failure, it is growth. We put so much pressure on ourselves to have one identity forever. But maybe life isn't about finding yourself. Maybe it's about creating yourself over and over again, learning some lessons, taking the tools you learned in those different versions of yourself. And I promise it will all lead to something bigger. One version of you gets you to the next version of you. And every single chapter is gonna prepare you for the next one. I'm gonna say this a lot. I also wish I could tell Josh, 15-year-old Josh, to stop comparing himself to everyone else. Like comparison is exhausting because the finish line keeps moving. At 15, you're comparing yourself to who's popular. At 25, you're comparing careers. At 35, you're comparing relationships, houses, vacations, salaries, followers. It never ends. It never ends. Comparison is always there. And social media has somehow convinced us that everyone else has life figured out and a life that we want to live. And spoiler alert, they don't. Okay. We're all improvising. Everyone is improvising. We're making it up as we go. The happiest people I know are not the ones who have the perfect life. They're the ones who stopped measuring their life against everyone else's. And finally, if I could say one thing, one last thing to 15-year-old Josh, I'd probably just smile and tell him, you're gonna be okay. Everything is gonna work out. Everything is going to be fine. Actually, you're gonna be better than okay. You are going to build a life that you cannot even imagine yet. You're going to meet fucking bomb ass people. You're going to lose a lot of people. You're going to fail so many times in such a great way. And you're going to completely reinvent yourself more than once. You're going to question what the entire existence and the entire point of this is. You're going to discover talents that you did not even know that you had. You're going to create things that make people feel something. They make people feel seen. And then one day you'll stop waking up wondering if you're enough. You're going to stop wondering where your path is headed. Not because you're going to become perfect, but because you finally realize that you just like kind of always were. You're perfect just as you are in every iteration of yourself. And I think that 15-year-old Josh would probably look at me and be like, what the fuck are you talking about? And also, did we make it? Are we happy? Do people like us? Do we ever stop caring what everyone thinks? And I will just laugh. I'll be like, honey, we haven't figured it out yet. But things are certainly bomb as fuck. My current life today, 15-year-old Josh dreamed about. And it's even better than I dreamed about. I always knew I was going to live in California somehow. 15-year-old me knew that. And when I look at the things I've just bought for myself, the apartment that I live in, the people that I formed important friendships with, 15-year-old me would be so proud. And no matter how old you are listening to this, there's probably a younger version of you who would be unbelievably proud of the person that you have become as well. They wouldn't care how much money you might make right now. They wouldn't care how many followers you have. They wouldn't care if you own a house or drive a nice car. They'd probably just be relieved to know that you survived and you're making it out there on your own. And maybe just that is worth celebrating on your birthday, but also every day. Part two, dear 18-year-old Josh. So we're gonna fast forward just a little bit, three years, but a lot happened from 15 to 18. So 18-year-old Josh thought that he was officially an adult, which is hilarious because I can confidently say now 15-year-olds are or 18-year-olds are basically just 15-year-olds with like a little bit more freedom. I mean, in Canada, you can start drinking then. So things do change a lot. At 18, you have this independence that comes out of nowhere, but absolutely none of the wisdom to know what to do with it. It's like someone hands you the keys to a Ferrari before you've learned how to parallel park. I mean, some of us don't learn how to parallel parallel park ever, but like I'm pretty good at it. And I remember thinking that by 18, I was supposed to have everything figured out. And adults kept asking the same question over and over and over. What are you going to do after high school? What's your career going to be? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? And looking back, those are kind of insane questions to ask someone whose frontal lobe isn't even finished cooking. I barely knew what I wanted to eat for Breckie. I think I always ate the same cereal, so I didn't really need to think about it much. But like, let alone knowing what I wanted to dedicate the next 50 years of my life to, other than being some sort of performer and creative. If I could sit down with 18-year-old Josh over coffee today, I don't think I'd spend much time talking about careers at all. Instead, I would tell him something that is much more important. I would just say, go. Just go for it. Do exactly what you think you need to do. Travel, move, chase the opportunity, audition for the thing, apply for the job, book the flight, introduce yourself to the person, say yes to the adventure. Because one thing I've learned is that life has a funny way of rewarding movement. You don't have to know exactly where you're going. You just have to be willing to leave where you are. And I would say this to him because that is exactly what 18-year-old Josh did, right? I left Canada as soon as I turned 18. I moved immediately to Nashville to start rehearsals to dance on a cruise ship. And I would tell him, you're doing the right thing, travel, move, chase the opportunity. So I would not change that, even if I could. I think one of the greatest gifts ever that I've given myself was saying yes to those experiences instead of waiting until I felt ready. If I had waited until I felt completely prepared for every opportunity that has come into my life, I would still be waiting. Confidence doesn't show up first, action does. Confidence is usually just the receipt that you get afterwards. And at 18, I also believed that I had one perfect path. There was one perfect path. I thought if I made the wrong decision, I would somehow ruin my entire future. So I treated every choice like it was the season finale of my life, like which city I should move to, what career I should choose, whether it was a dancer, a choreographer, a singer, an artist. What if I failed? What if I make the wrong decision? And now looking back, I realized there was not one perfect path. There was no end trajectory from point A to B. There were hundreds of paths that would all have taught me something equally as important. Some would have probably been harder, some would have been easier, but none of them would have been wasted because every experience becomes part of who you are. That is something we don't tell young people all that much. We talk about making the right decision as if life is some giant multiple choice exam. But life is not a test because we have only got one of them. It is an experiment. You're supposed to try things. You are supposed to discover what lights you up. You're supposed to realize halfway through that something that you thought you wanted actually isn't for you anymore. That's not failure. That's information. Another thing that I would tell 18-year-old Josh is to stop putting people on pedestals. Oh my God, I wasted so much energy assuming everyone else had something I didn't. I would meet successful people and immediately think they must have some magical level of confidence that I could never achieve. I'd see someone who seemed charismatic and think like, well, they were just born like that, especially in relationships. I would just put these people I dated on a pedestal and they would become my entire world. And I would just forget that I even existed. Now I've met a lot of incredibly successful people. And the funny thing is that they're just people. They get nervous, they doubt themselves, they procrastinate, they have imposter syndrome, they forget why they walked into a room. Success doesn't magically remove insecurities. It just teaches you how to keep moving despite those insecurities. And that is a huge lesson. I have friends that write movies and direct films. I have friends that are actors on TV shows that you've watched, like Black Mirror. They still go to auditions and get nervous. They are nervous when they're filming, but when that camera rolls, you know, something switches in them. They keep forging ahead, regardless of some of those insecurities that might be living in the back of their mind. You don't have to eliminate fear before you do something brave. You just have to decide that your excitement is far louder than your fear. I also think 18-year-old me worried way too much about being behind. And like, isn't that funny? Like, behind who? Who the fuck was I racing? Like, life has this invisible scorecard that we all seem to invent, I guess. By this age, you should have nothing, right? By by this age, you should have this. By that age, you should own that. By 30, you should be married. By 35, you should own a house. By 40, you should have your dream career and be a gazillionaire. Like, says who? Seriously, who made up these rules? I know society has changed. Society pressures a lot of different generations to do a lot of different things, but like, who makes up these rules? Because from where I'm sitting now, everybody's timeline has been completely different. Some people find the love of their life at 19. Others find them at 59. Some people discover their dream career in college. Others stumble into it after quitting three jobs and having an existential crisis in the serial aisle at Target. Like your timeline is your timeline. Stop comparing it to someone else's highlight reel. Another conversation that 18-year-old Josh and I should probably have is about people pleasing, because he wanted everyone to think that he was funny, that he was nice, that he was just like the coolest guy in the world, which sounds like a lovely quality until you realize that I was saying yes to things I didn't want to do, apologizing for things that weren't my fault, bending myself into a pretzel so that I could try to make everyone else feel comfortable because I just wanted everyone to fucking love me, right? Here's something I wish I had learned. Being kind and being liked are certainly not the same thing. Kindness comes from authenticity. People pleasing just comes from fear. One is generous, the other is exhausting. You don't owe everyone access to your energy. You don't have to say yes because you're afraid that someone will be disappointed. You don't have to shrink your opinions to make someone else more comfortable. The people who truly love you are not asking you to become smaller. They're asking you to become more yourself. And at 18, I also wish I understood how valuable failure is. Because failure felt very permanent when you're 18. If something didn't work out, I thought it meant I was not good enough and it was the end of the world. Now I almost get excited, not too excited, like a little bit, when something falls apart because I'm like, hmm, experience has taught me that some of the best things in life happen because another plan completely failed that inspires something else, right? It's not the end of the world. It could be the start of a new venture. I've had jobs I thought would define my life and they didn't. I've chased opportunities that disappeared overnight. I've watched plans completely unravel. And almost every single time something better eventually showed up that I could not have predicted. Sometimes rejection is just redirection that's wearing something like kind of an ugly outfit. Let's also talk about money for a hot second because nobody really teaches you anything about money, okay? Or anything about finances or taxes. But Josh, 18-year-old Josh, please start saving a little bit of money, okay? Just anything. I don't care if it's $20. Compound interest is sexy, honey. Like, I know that's not a sentence that anyone really wants to hear is save money, but it is the truth. Because future me would have been incredibly grateful that like I put some money aside. I went on some cruise ship contracts for six to eight months. I spent a lot and was also able to save $15,000 while also spending probably $20,000 on those contracts. But as soon as I got home with that $15,000 saved, I just blew it because I was young. I like was like, I'm gonna go shopping, I'm gonna do this and that. $15,000 feels like you could buy a house when you're 18, but you cannot. It doesn't go very far. But also that, like, you know, save your money. Don't buy those wildly expensive shoes because shoes don't impress people. Like, you don't need to spend every dollar trying to impress people who won't even remember what shoes you're you were wearing, regardless of how expensive they were. So put that $300 not towards some shoes, put it in the bank in a savings account, okay? Speaking of impressing people, stop trying so hard. Honestly, Josh, 18-year-old Josh, stop trying so hard. The coolest people I've ever met aren't even trying to be cool. They're just curious, they're passionate, they're genuine, they're comfortable enough to laugh at themselves. That's another thing. Laugh more, laugh more. You're going to embarrass yourself anyway. You're gonna look a fool regardless. You may as well enjoy it and laugh about it. One thing I genuinely love about getting older is realizing that perfection is unbelievably boring. The people I'm drawn to now aren't the ones who seem flawless. They're the people who tell the awkward story, the people who admit when they're scared, the people who laugh when they mess up instead of pretending that they never do. Imperfection is relatable and perfection is intimidating. Like, choose relatable. And when I say to people, I'm like, oh, you're perfect. You're perfect. I mean like you're perfect in your imperfections, you're perfect in your flaws, and you're perfect in your pros and your cons. Like you're just perfect as you are, because perfection A doesn't exist, and perfection is like so fucking stale. And finally, before I let 18-year-old Josh like leave the coffee shop, I'd probably say one last thing to him. And I would say, I would tell him to trust himself. Not because he'll make the right decision every single time, because he won't. Not because he'll never get hurt, because he will. Not because suddenly life becomes easy, because it does not. I would just tell him to trust himself because every challenge he is about to face is going to prove something incredible. That he is more resilient than he thinks, that he can survive a heartbreak, that he can change careers, that he can reinvent himself, that he can build a business, that he can fall in love, that he can lose everything he thought he wanted and still build a beautiful life. I don't think 18-year-old Josh needed someone to hand him a perfect roadmap. He just needed someone to remind him that it's okay not to even have a map at all. You don't need to know exactly where you're going, honey. Just don't let the fear convince you to stay exactly where you are. Part three. This is where things start to get interesting. On paper, I looked like I had my life together, kind of. I was working, I was chasing opportunities, I was staying busy, I was saying yes to almost everything and checking off all the little boxes that I thought meant I thought meant I was becoming successful and that I was on my way to absolute stardom. I was living in LA. I would worked at a hair salon from 8 a.m. to like 5 p.m. Sometimes later, I would close the salon. I would have a few-hour break where I would go home, maybe go to the gym. I would eat some Subway or some Domino's pizza. Actually, I think it was a little Caesar's pizza back then. Then I would go work at a nightclub until 3 a.m. Then I would do it all again, waking up at 7 a.m., like barely sleeping. Like that was my life. Going to auditions. I was still creating. I was writing music. I was filming music videos. I was working with my agent in LA, but I was like, you know, I thought I was on this track to absolute stardom. And if you had asked me back then how things were going, I probably would have smiled and been like, they are great. Things are good because I mean, that's what we all do. We all say we're great. Meanwhile, internally, I was certainly having a little bit of a crisis while I was like brushing my teeth and looking in the mirror, being like, where is your life going? You still have no money in the bank, even though like you're living this life like you have a lot of money. You're just working, working, working, spending, spending, spending. You're partying a lot. Like there were a lot of things that were fucking wonderful. And there were a lot of things that I could have done a little less of. But like being 25 is like strange. It's a weird age. You're not a kid, but you also don't feel like an adult. You're old enough that people expect you to know what you're doing, but you're young enough that you still feel like you're just making it up as you go. And I think most people spend their 20s pretending that they're far more confident than they actually are. So I think everyone on the outside looking at my life thought I had it all together, thought I was killing it. I also didn't really ever express that I needed help sometimes, whether it was for rent or I would never call my parents. I would always just be like, Roomy, I don't have rent right now. Like, can you wait a few days? Like nobody really knew that like life was hard for me then because on the outside, it just looked like everything was hunky-dory. And looking back now, I realized that 25-year-old me wasn't necessarily chasing success nearly as much as I think I was chasing validation at the time. I would have argued with you if you told me that, which is why I kind of sound a little like, hmm, I would have said, like, no, I'm just ambitious. Now that's it, ambitious. But there is a very big difference between ambition and validation. And I certainly did not understand that at 25. Ambition comes from wanting to build something meaningful, and validation comes from hoping other people notice what you're building. One is very fulfilling, and the other is a hamster wheel that never stops spinning. I spent so much of my 20s looking outside of myself for proof that I was enough, that validation that I was enough. If someone complimented my work, I felt so incredible. If someone criticized it, my confidence disappeared like at the drop of a hat. Like if people liked me, I liked myself. If I felt ignored, suddenly I questioned everything and I thought everyone hated me. Like that is a dangerous way to live because you basically handed the keys to your happiness over to strangers. And that's exceptionally hard when you're in LA and you're trying, honestly, you're trying to be a star. You're asking other people to decide how valuable you are and how good you get to feel today. And that is like a terrible business model. What's funny is that I don't think validation ever actually satisfies us. Maybe for a hot second, but not forever. It's kind of like eating junk food, which I love. It feels really good for about five minutes, then you're hungry and might have a cavity. Okay. You get the compliment and you get the promotion. You get the followers, you accomplish the goal that you've been working towards for months, and you think, finally, now I feel successful. Then about 24 hours later, your brain goes, okay, cool. What is next? That is me to a T. It's exhausting because the finish line keeps moving. It can be both a positive and a negative. I have so many goals. Once I accomplish a goal or learn a new skill, I'm like, okay, on to the next thing. And I'm like that today. I've always been like that. But I think it just depends on how you approach it and why you're going after those new skill sets or those new outlets to create. The problem isn't that you haven't accomplished enough. The problem is that you've convinced yourself that your worth is waiting somewhere in the future in this new skill set, in this new project, in this new career, instead of existing right now. And around this age, at 18, I also became very good at staying extremely busy. I wore being busy like it was some kind of metal. If my calendar was not packed with work or social outings or like, or auditions or creative projects, like I felt guilty. If I wasn't working, I felt lazy. If I had free time, I immediately started wondering if I should be doing something more productive. And on the flip side of that, if I did have free time, I would isolate myself. I would hide in my bedroom, like in the dark, watch movies, which sometimes we need a little bit of that. But like it was two complete opposite ends of the spectrum. And somewhere along the way, our culture convinced us that exhaustion is impressive. I think we all know that now. We glorify burnout, like it's proof that we're ambitious. But looking back now, I think I was just afraid to slow down because when you stop moving, you actually have to sit with your thoughts and you have to ask yourself whether you're building the life you actually want or simply the life that you think that other people are going to admire. Another less, another lesson for 25-year-old me is to stop confusing productivity with purpose. They are not the same thing. You can fill every hour of every day and still feel empty if you're running toward someone else's definition of success. There were moments in my 20s where I was very productive, but not really fulfilled. I was very busy, but not fulfilled. Then there were moments in my 30s where I spent like an afternoon painting or an hour writing a song or sitting down and recording a podcast or just taking my dog for a walk. And somehow those days felt infinitely more meaningful, those moments, not even days, than checking 15 things off my to-do list. Sometimes it's good to check all those things off your to-do list and feel productive, but sometimes the smaller things that nourish you and make your heart feel good are far more meaningful. I also wish that someone had sat me down and explained that comparison is one of the biggest scams you'll ever fall for. I feel like it gets worse as you get into your 20s because by 25, social media had become a thing and a huge part of our lives. And suddenly everyone else's highlight reel or photo or whatever was available 24 hours a day. And someone was getting engaged, someone was buying a house, someone was launching a business, someone was traveling Europe, someone had six-pack abs that looked like they were carved by Michelangelo himself. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on my couch eating Little Caesar's Pizza, wondering why I didn't order Thai food instead. Um, and maybe I should order Thai food and order enough for a family of six. Like those were my worries while I'm scrolling and comparing myself to these other people who probably are doing the same thing. And comparison is a funny one because we always compare our behind the scenes footage to someone else's movie trailer. Let me say that again. We are comparing our behind-the-scenes footage where we're stuffing our face on the sofa to someone else's movie trailer fitness photo shoot. We compare our Monday morning to someone's vacation in Greece. We compare our insecurities to someone else's filtered confidence. It's an impossible game to win because no matter how well you are doing, there will always be someone who appears to be doing better. And the moment you understand that comparison has no finish line is the moment you can step off of that treadmill. Get out of the race, honey. If I could give younger Josh one practical piece of advice, I'd probably say spend less time trying to impress people and more time investing in you. Probably take more dance classes, read more books, learn some new skills, again, save a little bit of money. Still travel when you can. Again, save a little bit of money. Go to therapy sooner. Oh my God. Actually, I would tell every version of me, go to therapy sooner. Protect your mental health the same way you protect your physical health. Because by then I was working out a little bit more, but mental health wasn't even a concept for me. Nobody tells you when you're younger that your relationships with yourself determine almost every other relationship in your life. So therapy, therapy, therapy. Like if you don't trust yourself, it's hard to trust other people. If you don't believe you're worthy of love, compliments feel suspicious and you probably won't find legit love if you don't think that you are enough. No amount of external success will ever convince you otherwise. Around 25 was also the age where I started realizing not every friendship is meant to last forever. I've talked about this before on the pod. That is a very hard lesson because we tend to think that if someone leaves our life, we've somehow failed. But sometimes people simply serve as a chapter in our book, right? Not the whole story. They're just a chapter. They might even just be a paragraph in a chapter. There are friendships that were absolutely perfect for like 25 years, right? And for 25 years, they were great. They were a good version for 25-year-old Josh. That would not make sense for 37-year-old Josh today. That's not because anyone did something wrong. It's because people grow. Imagine, like, imagine how you've changed in the last decade. Your friends have also changed as well, most of them. Sometimes you grow apart, sometimes you grow together. Priorities change, life changes. The most loving thing you can do is appreciate what someone has brought into your life without forcing them to stay in your life forever. And listen, since we're kind of on relationships, dating also deserves its own chapter at this age. Like I actually should do a whole series about dating at 25. If I could tell Josh, oh, I'd, oh God, if I could sit down with him, I would probably laugh my ass off and tell him to stop giving a fuck. Stop trying to convince people to love him. You cannot audition your way into being someone's person and so desperately be looking for love in all the wrong places. You cannot become more attractive by sacrificing your boundaries, your time. You can't earn healthy love by overextending yourself. The right relationship does not require you to perform. It requires you to just show up honestly. And that's hard to do when you still don't know who you are at 25. So I'm not being too hard on 25-year-old Josh, but I would have been like, you are giving these men all of you, and they're literally probably don't even know your name. I wasted so much energy wondering how I could become what someone else wanted, instead of asking a much simpler question. Do I even like who I am and who I'm about to become and who I am around this person? No, none of the above. One thing I am incredibly grateful for now is that life didn't happen according to the timeline that I thought I wanted. There were moments that I felt behind, of course, moments where I questioned my career, moments where I wondered if I would ever find the relationship or just would I see my name in lights? And like, spoiler alert, I did many times, not as much anymore. But growth isn't just about getting like what you want in that version. It's about becoming the version of yourself who can actually handle it when it arrives. And looking back, 25-year-old me thought that success meant proving something. And 37-year-old me now thinks success feels very different. Success is waking up excited about what you're building, is getting inspired. Success is surrounding yourself with people who genuinely celebrate you and protecting your peace and creating work that you are proud of, even if not everyone understands it, even if you're not making any money from it, as long as you are proud of it and you feel like you're doing something like that is success. Success is being able to laugh at yourself when life inevitably goes sideways because trust me, it will. And if I could leave 25-year-old Josh with one final thought before we wrap up this little letter to our imaginary me, I would simply tell him, stop waiting for someone else to tell him that he is enough. There is no moment, like some magical moment, where the world is suddenly gonna hand you like a certificate that says, congratulations, you are now enough. Like that moment comes from you and the day that you stop chasing approval and that validation, and you just do what you're passionate about and you fucking go for it. That's when you're gonna make it big and things will feel lighter. And ironically, it's also the day that people tend to notice you more. Not because you're trying harder, but because you're finally living authentically instead of performing for an imaginary audience. Part four. Dear 30-year-old Josh. Ugh, 30. I remember being so scared of 30. I don't know why we put so much pressure on turning 30. I think it's exciting and it should be celebrated. And I'm all about like fucking throw your dirty 30 or flirty and 30 and thriving party, like love it. But I think we put a lot of negative pressure on ourselves. I mean, every time we turn a decade older. But somehow society convinces us that this is like a magical checkpoint again, where you're supposed to have all these things figured out. You should have the career and The relationship, the financial plan, the retirement account, like all these things that we had planned when we were in our 20s. They're just that, but bigger and more important. The perfectly decorated house with matching towels that somehow never get stained because they're decorative towels. Okay. We all know a decorative towel. I don't know who invented this imaginary checklist, but I need to have a conversation with them. And then I guess a conversation with 30-year-old me. So when I turned 30, I think I actually had, I did. I had a birthday party that was like a golf. Um, how did I describe it? Oh, the Kardashians meets the craft, and everyone had to wear black and the drinks were black, the food was black. It was like a morning, the 30s, but in a fun way. Whatever. I had a good time. But I felt a weird mix of excitement and also like a little bit of panic. Pretty sure I had been going through a breakup as well. Like part of me felt like I was finally becoming the person I wanted to be. And the other part of me was looking around thinking, like, wait, is this it? Like, where am I? What am I doing? What is going on? This is not where I thought I was gonna be, but also is like it was a very confusing, confusing year. Like, I think we all compare our real life to like a fantasy version that we created of our real life when we might have been a little bit younger and it doesn't always match up. 18-year-old Josh thought 30-year-old Josh would probably have life completely sorted out. Meanwhile, 30-year-old Josh was like still Googling things like, can you eat yogurt that's been in the fridge for three weeks? And the answer, by the way, is like maybe, but like, don't take nutritional advice from me. Looking back now, I actually think turning 30 was a very healthy thing for me, one of the healthiest things that happened to me because it forced me to let go of the fantasy version of adulthood. Somewhere around that age, I stopped trying to become the person I thought I was supposed to be and started paying a little bit more attention. Not like everything was perfect. It still took me the next five years to really get into it, but things did start shifting around 30. So I stopped focusing on becoming the person I thought I was gonna be, started paying attention to the person I actually wanted to be. And those are two very different things. For most of my 20s, I think I was chasing an image. And by my 30s, I finally started chasing a feeling. I didn't just want success anymore or hot bot. I wanted peace, I wanted fulfillment. I wanted more internal positivity as opposed to this external validation. I wanted work that energized me. I wanted relationships where I could be myself. I wanted to wake up excited instead of simply like I'm gonna just be productive. I wanted to be excited about life. And again, that didn't just happen when I turned 30. It began when I turned 30, but shifted over the years. And one of the biggest shifts that happened around that time was realizing that I was not limited to just one identity. And up until then, I think I'd always looked at my careers and was like, you have to pick one, right? You're supposed to be one thing. You can either only be a dancer. And when people ask me, what do I do? You could I have to pick one thing of what I do now. I give them about three things when they ask me. But at the at 30, I was like, you gotta be one thing. You can only be one thing. And I started realizing that you are allowed to evolve. In fact, I think you're supposed to evolve, right? I had already lived several different lives by 30. And since then, I've added even more lives. Again, a dancer, choreographer, trainer, fitness instructor, marketer, artist, podcaster, and now I'm building more music, more books, more this, more that, more things. I'm always creating. Like years ago, I would have looked at that and been like, Jack of all trades, master of none. But with a plan, a detailed plan, some focus, a calendar, and some organization. Like, you can fucking do it all. Years ago, I would have looked at that list and worried that it made me look unfocused. And now in my 30s, I think I look at it and I go, that's who I am. That's exactly who I am. I am curious. I love creating, I love learning new things. Reinvention is not an identity crisis. It is one of my greatest strengths. I would probably also tell him to stop apologizing for changing. People love to tell you to pick a lane, but what if your lane has multiple exits and detours and reroutes you, who knows where? What if your purpose is not one career, but one way of showing up in the world? No matter what I've done professionally, I've always been trying to do the same thing. I've always wanted to create something that either help people or inspire people, entertain people. And when I understood that, I guess I felt a little less alone, less like I needed to figure it out. Like, like I spent too much time worrying that shifting directions or changing my opinion or deciding I want to try this as a career meant failing, but I was just really growing. I also think my 30s were where I finally started understanding how important mental health was and understood that in a different way. Anxiety had been a part of my life for a very long time, but like it was starting to get really bad. And somewhere along the line, I stopped seeing it as something that was happening to me and started asking, like, why is this happening? I need to figure this out. Therapy became one of my greatest investments that I have ever made, not because it fixed everything, because that doesn't happen. Uh, it gave me the tools that I've shared with you, a lot of the tools I've shared with you to understand myself. And it taught me that not every thought deserves my attention. It taught me that anxiety is loud, but it's not always truthful. It taught me that confidence isn't the absence of fear. It's learning that fear doesn't get to make every decision anymore. And I laugh now because there were so many situations where anxiety convinced me that something absolutely terrible was gonna happen. And I'd send a text and immediately assume it offended someone, I'd have one awkward interaction and convince myself they'd hate me forever. My brain loved writing fictional stories with absolutely zero evidence. Therapy has helped me realize that just because my brain tells me something does not mean I have to believe it. Around my early 30s, that point in my life, I also started to be even more intentional about the people I surrounded myself with. Cause like, let's be honest, I was in not a good relationship. Okay. I married that person and it was a toxic relationship. I, in retrospect, like I don't regret it because I learned so much and it led me to where I am. But like I knew for most of it that I should not be with that person, but I was too scared of being alone. And so I was beginning to sort through my relationships and become more intentional with my friendships when my romantic relationship started to started to end around 33. I think I want to say. So, like when you're younger, your friendships happen by proximity. You become friends with people that are at the same school or that you work with, or that you happen to be, I don't know, standing beside each other in the line of life. Like as you get older, that inner circle becomes smaller. And also that inner circle becomes even more important because it becomes smaller. You get closer to those people. And those people around you influence a lot of your confidence and your habits, your outlook on life, your ambition, your happiness. So I started choosing relationships that felt peaceful instead of performative and let go of the ones that just didn't really serve as a positive connection anymore. I wanted relationships where I didn't feel like I had to like earn my place every single day. And we're gonna bring it back to relationships and romantic love because I think one of the biggest gifts my 30s gave me was realizing that healthy love feels very different from exciting, chaotic love. Like when you're younger, it's easy to make mistakes. It's easy to mistake intensity for compatibility. Like you think that butterflies are the goal. If there's no butterflies, they're out. You think that uncertainty means that there's passion, that there's this magnetic connection. You think constantly wondering where you stand and if they're gonna text you back and if they're fucking somebody else is romantic and it is not okay. That is exhausting. It's not healthy. But I get it when you're in your 20s. Okay. One of the things I appreciate most about um, I I almost said something else. My current relationship is how calm it feels. And I've said that before. Just the calmness. That doesn't mean it's perfection, right? Every relationship has learning curves, things that you need to communicate through, and people are always gonna have uncomfortable conversations. But healthy love isn't about never having a conflict. It's about knowing that conflict isn't bigger than the entire relationship. And years ago, I would have been terrified to be vulnerable because I thought that vulnerability gave someone the power to hurt me. And because I was in a relationship where being vulnerable was kind of looked down upon every time I tried to express myself and communicate, it was either used against me or questioned. And it became an interrogation about why I felt that way. Well, why, well, why, why, why? Instead of someone just being like, okay, like I understand, let's talk about this. Or I don't understand, but I can accept that. Like, try to explain it to me more. Like, there's a way to nurture someone and there's a way to interrogate someone. So vulnerability for me has been very difficult. But in my 30s, after therapy, I've really learned how to express myself and allow myself to be vulnerable. If you're constantly performing the version of yourself you think someone else wants, they're never gonna get a chance to love the real you. So be vulnerable. Stop performing. And if someone isn't accepting the real version of you and they're questioning it and asking why you are that way, they are not the one for you, 33-year-old Josh. They are not the fucking one for you, okay? I think also early 30s, me needed permission to slow down and appreciate what I had already accomplished. Like, we aren't so quick to move the goalposts. You achieve something you dream about for years, celebrate it for 15 minutes, and then you immediately start worrying about what the next thing is. Like, I still have to remind myself of this sometimes. I do this often. A younger version of me would have thought the life I'm living today is incredible. I get to create, I get to teach, I get to make art, I get to travel a lot. I have a podcast that's introduced me to amazing virtual friends on Instagram and people listen to it. Like, I'm building creative projects and have people that are close to me and support me. I am in a great new relationship. Like that is worth stopping to appreciate, to take it in, to absorb it, and pat yourself on the back. A funny thing also that in my early 30s would have been a bit helpful to understand is that life gets smaller, but it also gets bigger at the same time, which like doesn't really make sense. But smaller because you stop caring about impressing everyone, and bigger because once you stop carrying that weight, you suddenly have so much more energy to focus on what actually matters. I don't need everyone to understand me anymore. I don't need everyone to agree with me. I don't need everyone to think I'm successful. The older I get, the more I realize that peace is far more valuable than approval. And if I could leave 30-year-old Josh with one final piece of advice, I would say this stop waiting for your life to begin and stop judging yourself and stop being afraid to express yourself. And do not let anybody make you smaller than you actually are and dim your shine. There were so many years where I lived with a mindset of I'll be happy when, or I'll be happy when I get the job, I'll be happy when I lose the lose the weight or get the six pack, I'll be happy when I find my true love, I'll be happy when I make more money. The problem with I'll be happy when is that there's always another when. And then happiness keeps moving further away from you because you've accidentally attached it to future achievements instead of present moments. But when I started being happy with the now, that is when everything still got to the next goalpost anyway. Like, let's use money for an example. Be proud of how much you're making now, how far you've come, be grateful for it. I embraced it and was like, this is a great number. I like I'm secure. When I stopped worrying about, but I need more, more came to me. Same with my relationship. When I learned to love myself and I stopped chasing imaginary relationships on Tinder or Grinder or Hinge or Bumble or all the things, just endlessly swiping or hoping I meet someone out or like dressing a certain way to go to this bar so that I can maybe meet someone trying to lock out, like trying because I'm I'm a sucker for love, right? I haven't had it a lot, but like everybody knows, like I've always wanted a meaningful, important relationship where I like have my person. And when I stopped doing that, I found somebody really fucking bomb. So yeah, I think that's what I'd want Josh to remember, 30-ish year old Josh to remember more than anything is that life isn't something you're building toward someday. Like life is happening right the fuck now. Every conversation, friendship, bad haircut again. There's plenty, career change, mistake, breakup, date, birthday. Those are not distractions from your life. That's gonna happen in the future. That is your life. Part five. Dear 37-year-old Josh. Well, we're here. That's me. I'm 37. I'm about to be 38. Now, this one feels a little weird because, like, for the last four segments, I've been blabbing to younger versions of me 15, 18, 25, 30-ish. But now I get to talk to myself as I do all day, every day. The version of me that is sitting behind the microphone right this moment, the version that is celebrating another birthday. And I think this might be maybe like the hardest conversation of all this, because it's much easier to give advice to past versions of me than it is to acknowledge the present. And I don't know if anyone else does this, but birthdays have always, again, made me very reflective. Some people celebrate by going out and drinking or throwing a huge party. And I celebrate by like sometimes accidentally spiraling into a philosophical crisis while I eat cake. I'll be sitting there looking at a candle, thinking, like, wow, isn't time fascinating? Make sure you make a good wish. I like really think hard about my birthday wishes when I blow out the candles. My friends are trying to sing me happy birthday, and I'm over here contemplating like mortality. It's honestly, it's honestly a lot. I can get a little bit deep in this noggin sometimes. But this birthday this year feels, it actually feels, I just got full body chills. It feels very different. And for the first time in a very long time, like I don't feel like I'm chasing an imaginary finish line anymore. I don't wake up every day thinking, like, if I could just get this one thing, then my life would finally begin. Like for years, I lived like that. There was always another goal. And I still have goals, right? I've got a lot of them. It was more like what I accomplished wasn't good enough. So I needed bigger goals, right? There's always another milestone, another version of myself that I thought would finally be enough. But like somewhere along the work along the way, I started to realize life doesn't actually happen after you've reached reach that goal, right? Like I said, life is happening while you are chasing that goal. You are, you still gotta live. That doesn't mean, again, I don't have big dreams because I do, trust me, I have a wild list of things I still need to accomplish. And nothing, no dream is too big for me. I want hot air to keep growing. I want to put out some of the music I've been working on. I want my artwork to continue hanging in galleries around the world, not even just the country. I want to finish writing my book. I, of course, want to continue traveling. I want to build businesses. I want to continue helping my clients through fitness. My ambitions have not gotten smaller. If anything, they've gotten fucking bigger. But the difference is that those dreams no longer determine whether I believe that I'm enough. They're things I want to build, not things I need in order to feel valuable. Because I am a baddie and I'm only gonna be a bigger baddie as I go. I think that's one of the biggest gifts that getting older has given me. I have stopped confusing my achievements with my identity. And if everything disappeared tomorrow, every podcast, art, social media, every project I poured my heart into, it would hurt. Yes, it would not feel good, of course, but it wouldn't erase who I am. 25-year-old Josh probably couldn't have said that. Back then, so much of my self-worth was attached to what I accomplished and external validation. Today, I'm much more interested in who I'm becoming than like what trophies I'm collecting along the way. Like, and speaking of becoming, one thing I don't think that we talk about enough as the human race is how beautiful it is to realize that you're still changing and that you can keep changing. When we're kids, we can't wait to grow up. Then somewhere around our late 20s or 30s, we start acting like we've reached a final version of ourself and we're too scared, even if we want to, to evolve again. We introduce ourselves with labels as if they're permanent. Like, I am only this kind of person. I am not creative or I am not athletic or I'm too old to start over. Like, who says, Who told you that? Says who? If the last decade has taught me anything, it's that reinvention has no expiration date. Some of the biggest changes in my life happened after 30. Actually, not even some, the biggest changes happened after 30 for me. I became a personal trainer. I leaned into my artwork in a way that I had never before. I launched this podcast. I started building an entirely new creative life. And even now, I'm still working on things, things that younger versions of me would be terrified to try. Imagine if I decided I was too old to try something new. And imagine how many incredible experiences I would have missed out on simply because I convinced myself that my story was done and had been written, and that's that. I think we dramatically underestimate how much life can change in just a single year. From 36, or I guess 37 to 38, because I'm almost 38. Get it together, Josh. So much has changed. Think about how much changes in one year. There have been years where I entered January feeling completely different than I did in December. You have new friendships, new opportunities, new jobs, new cities, new perspectives, new relationships. If you're listening to this and you're in a season where you feel stuck, just remember that your current chapter is not your permanent chapter. It's not your permanent address. Life changes incredibly quickly when you're willing to keep showing up and take some fucking risks. This last year has also reminded me how grateful I am for the people in my life, because I spent a lot of my younger years believing that success was something you built alone. And that is not true. Every meaningful thing I've accomplished has happened because of community friends who encourage me. I have friends that are like my biggest cheerleaders. My friend Jordan is like my ultimate cheerleader. He's will always tell me he's proud of me. He will always be like, you should keep doing this. Like, you're so badass. Like he's always been like ultimate Josh cheerleader. And he's like that with all of his friends because he believes in them and their creativity, like at such a deep level. I am encouraged by the clients that trust me to personal train them and tell me how great their workouts were and how they feel stronger and how their balance has gotten better. And how, like, you know, my 81-year-old client Polly brings me to New York with her, kind of like as a nice reward for like helping her, you know, stay upright and be alive. Like I'm inspired by listeners who download the podcast and send me DMs or emails or comments and people who bought my artwork, like the fact that my paintings resonated enough with people for them to spend $1,400 on one. I there's family who have supported me and family who didn't, but I'm grateful for both because it still taught me something. And also my new relationship, I'm grateful for that. I'm positive and hopeful, but it reminds me of what healthy love actually looks and feels like, which I think my nervous system is still adjusting to. So shout out, boy. None of us build a meaningful life entirely on our own. We all leave fingerprints on each other's stories. Wow, that was deep. I'm gonna say that again because I totally forgot that that was part of this script. Rewind. None of us build a meaningful life entirely on our own. We all leave fingerprints on each other's stories. Hopefully, not like cheese it fingerprints. Cheese-its? What are those? Flamin' hot Cheeto fingerprints. That's what I meant. Okay. But anyway, that brings me to something that I have been thinking about a lot lately as I get older, which is legacy. Insert dramatic music here. But like, not in the dramatic movie sense. I know it sounds crazy, but where someone writes a biography about you or like after you're gone, not like that. Even though, like, I definitely need a biography. But I mean the little things, the conversations you have with people, the encouragement you give someone who needed to hear it, the workout that helped someone believe in themselves again, the piece of artwork that made someone feel understood, the podcast episode that arrived on exactly the day that somebody needed it. Like, I think when I was younger, I thought that legacy literally only meant being famous. That was it. I gotta be famous. People need to know my name. That's it. Now I think legacy is much, much quieter than that. It's just simply leaving people. Better than I found them. And I've said it time and time again. If this podcast is only listened to by one person, and one person gets a little bit of inspiration, I that's all I fucking want. And that has become my definition of success. Like, did I make someone laugh today? Did I help someone feel seen? Did I inspire somebody to take a chance on themselves? Did I create something honest? Was I being honest with myself? And the answer, if it's yes, then it was a good day. And you know, also, since I'm talking to present-day Josh, let's also, since since I'm talking to present-day Josh, I'm gonna remind him like slow down sometimes to celebrate yourself. Because you you busy. You're a busy bee. Like we are so good at just moving and going. As I said, finish a project, move on, finish a project, move on. But like celebrate yourself, okay? Like think about what's next later. Sit down, take it in, celebrate yourself. Uh every month you gotta like rewind, take a hot second, look at what you accomplished, and be proud of it. And I suppose if there's one thing that I could celebrate this year, this birthday, my 38th birthday, I it's not a specific accomplishment. I think it's more just resilience. And looking back over the last almost 38 years, there of course have been disappointments. There have been relationships that like I wasn't sure I would recover from when they ended, like dreams that not only weren't fulfilled, but also changed. Opportunities that were presented and then taken away. Like, you know, inside I was supposed to be on a reality show. And unfortunately, they decided to go with somebody else. But that would have been my, you know, my big break. But I think it all happened for a reason. I do sound bitter, don't I? Because I think it would have been really dope. But there were like moments where I wondered if I was heading in the right direction. Every single time life knocked me down, I got back up. Not immediately, maybe not gracefully. I got back up, okay, looking like I got hit by a bus, but I got the fuck back up. And that I think resilience is the most underrated quality that a person can have. Talent is wonderful. Intelligence is intelligence is helpful, but like resilience, that's the thing that keeps you moving long after everyone else has quit. So going into my next year after I turn 38, I'm gonna tell myself to keep being curious, keep saying yes to ridiculous ideas that other people may not understand yet, but keep making my weird art, keep asking difficult questions on the podcast and keep allowing the podcast to evolve naturally. I'm gonna keep falling in love with new versions of you, Josh, instead of clinging to old ones, keep traveling, keep dancing in the kitchen. That's such my jam. Keep laughing at myself. Like, let's be honest, if you're not laughing at yourself, what's the point? I just laugh at myself all the time. Keep making memories, keep being in love. That would be nice. I'd like to keep that going. And just I'm gonna keep choosing peace over proving myself. And maybe, you know what I might do? I might actually write a letter, like physically, not on my notes or on my computer. Write a letter to my future self for next year with some of the goals that I have, some of the things I want to accomplish. I've always thought about doing this, but I haven't. And I will revisit it next year and do an episode where I read that letter and see how things have unfolded. I've always wanted to do that, but for some reason I never have. So I'm gonna do that because I actually had a whole nother segment that was letter to future me, 40-year-old me. But I'm like, why don't I do this and then revisit this later? So we'll revisit that because also this episode is getting a little long. But if there's one thing I hope that you take away from today's episode, all of you and all versions of you, it's this, okay? Your life doesn't have to follow anyone else's timeline. You are allowed to change careers, change your mind, fall down, start over, reinvent yourself, and become someone completely different than the person you imagined that you would be when you were younger. Even, listen, people don't do this, but like if you've been with your husband and he's treating you poorly, or perhaps you guys just don't click anymore, or you just feel like the love of your life is somewhere else, get a divorce. Who the fuck cares? People are so hung up on not getting divorced. Like, get divorced, okay? That's what I want you to take away from the episode. You only have one life. Like, why waste it being in any situation that isn't making you feel whole and peaceful and energized and proud of yourself, okay? That change is not failure, that is growth. No matter how old you are today, I hope you take a moment to appreciate every version of yourself that got you here. The awkward version, the scared version, the heartbroken version, the confident version, and even the version that had absolutely no idea what the fuck you were doing. They all played a part in creating who you are today. And there's more of you to create in the future. The version you are now will eventually be a past version of you. So if you enjoyed today's episode, obviously I'd love to hear what you would tell your younger self. So feel free to slide in my DMs, follow me on Instagram and TikTok at underscore hotairpod. Don't forget to visit hotair with joshuarobert.com to shop my merch, submit your listener stories, and topic suggestions. And thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. I appreciate you all more than you know, and I'm excited to celebrate my birthday month with much more uplifting, positive, inspirational TED Talks. So go go celebrate yourself, go reflect on the past versions of you and just be fucking proud of yourself. Okay, pat your ass on the back, pat yourself on the back. And until next time, I will see you next Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:16

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