Shama Hyder:
Parents, right. It comes from your parents. And here’s the thing about parents that you have to absolutely know. Your parents want you to be safe. Every parent out there wants safety for their children, more than they want for them to be successful.
Shama Hyder:
Hey there, Shama Hyder here, and I want to talk to you about a topic that keeps coming up. I’m getting so many messages, especially these days. My DMS are full, my emails are full, from 20 year olds asking me, “What they should be doing right now?” Right? And I get this question so often from people that are 22, 23, 24, 21, and they all want to know, “What’s the advice?” What advice do I give to people who are starting out in their careers, who are trying to figure out college majors, who are maybe just graduating and trying to figure out how to enter the workplace?
Shama Hyder:
There’s so many different variations, but what I find fascinating is that it always boils down to the same thing, which is this, right? They’re dissatisfied. So something is making them unhappy and they’re trying to fix it. So it’s always the same thing. And here’s what I find really, really fascinating, and maybe if you’re watching this, you are one of those 22 year olds, 23, 24, maybe you are in your twenties, and that’s why you’re watching this, and you’re looking for those same answers, and here’s what it really boils down to. All of them are trying to achieve something that they don’t have yet. Right? Which is very common. In our twenties we all, I think, feel some unsteadiness, some sense that we were meant for something more, and that’s completely natural. That’s completely normal.
Shama Hyder:
It’s so funny. I remember being in my twenties and feeling that way, feeling like, “Why isn’t stuff moving faster, Why isn’t more happening right now in my life? I’m working so hard.” And maybe if you’re watching this, you are among that core people in their twenties, who are also struggling with these very similar things, right? Something in your life, or you’re dissatisfied, that you’re really trying to find the answer, trying to figure out how to get there, wherever that is. And in my experience, here’s what I found. Here’s what it always boils down to, whether it’s about relationships, it’s about business, whether it’s about success, how to get there. It always boils down to the exact same thing. Every conversation I have, and that’s this. All right? You paying attention? Good. Expectations. That’s what it’s all about. It’s all about expectations, understanding expectations, managing them, and keeping yours in check.
Shama Hyder:
All right guys. If you are in your twenties and you are watching this, and I really hope that you are, I hope you’re in your twenties. I hope this helps you because it’s so useful. I wish that someone had sat me down when I was 20 and said these exact things that I’m about to say to you. So these exact words. If you are watching this and you know a 20 something year old, that could benefit, please share it. I’m not even going to ask you to subscribe to my channel right now or anything. All I want you to do is share this video, because this is gold guys. If you’re really, really paying attention to this video, if you watch nothing else on my channel, but you watch this one video, and heck, if you’re 30, if you’re 40, I think this still applies, but it really, really applies… If you’re 60, it applies, but it really applies, I think when you’re in your twenties, because as you get older, hopefully in an ideal world, you started to figure this out a little bit and unravel it. All right?
Shama Hyder:
So let’s hit this head on. It’s expectations. Let’s start with often where these expectations come from, which is, ring the bell, parents, right? It comes from your parents. Trust me, we’ve all do been there. And if you’re like most 20 year olds, at some point you felt some sort of expectation for your parents. In fact, I was just talking to a wonderful young man who started this really cool app, and when we were talking, he was all about monetizing this app. And it was for mental wellness, it was something he’d been struggling with himself, that he created something awesome to help people.
Shama Hyder:
And as I talked to him, let’s call him Josh. I said, “Josh, this is really cool. But you keep asking me about monetization. Why do you care so much? Why does it have to make money for you right away?” And as we dug deeper, as I dug deeper and asked him questions, it came down to this very simple thing. He wanted to make his parents proud. He wanted to make them feel good. He wanted them to be proud of him, but he wanted to show them that he didn’t have to go to college, that he could blaze his own path. And here’s the thing about parents that you have to absolutely know. Your parents want you to be safe. Every parent out there wants safety for their children, more than they want for them to be successful. Right? This is the God honest truth.
Shama Hyder:
I am a mom now. So I can tell you being on this side, that what I want for my son, is I want him to be safe, right? Risk for most parents is risky. Most parents don’t have a high threshold for risk. Now you might be different. Maybe your parents do it, and that’s great, and that’s awesome. And maybe you’re struggling with this in a different way, but it does come down to expectations. If it’s not work expectations, it might be relationship expectations. Your parents expect you to get married, do certain things, be with a certain type of person. And it really comes down to these expectations, because here’s the heart of it, every parent out there, no matter what kind of parent you have wants happiness for their children, right? They want their kids to be safe. They want them to be protected.
Shama Hyder:
It is innate. As a mother, I can tell you, I would throw myself in front of a bus, a truck, a train, to keep my kids safe. All right? And so what I want for him is safety, most parents do, and they just stop there, and they might encourage you to do certain things. But remember, they’ll always want what’s safe for you, because it’s very innate to being a parent.
Shama Hyder:
Success sometimes requires… Well, I take that back. Success always requires some amount of risk, whether it’s risk talking to your boss, whether it’s risk starting a venture, there’s risk involved. So, part of what you have to learn is how to unravel yourself from the expectations of your parents, while still being immensely respectful, and grateful to them. Let’s face it, you would not be here if it wasn’t for your parents. All right? Even the worst parents, I put this in quotations, because even the worst parents at some point had to manage to keep you around. And let me tell you as a mom of an 11 month old boy, that is a hard job. I never realized how much it goes in to keeping a human being alive. I’m constantly mesmerized, that there’s so many people walking around on the planet because it is hard. And so even the worst of parents, want the best for their kids. They want them to be safe and they’ve done right by you.
Shama Hyder:
And it’s very important to keep that in mind and be immensely respectful of that, right? You owe your family, you owe your parents, a gratitude, a debt that honestly you can never repay. So here’s the good news. Stop trying to repay that debt and start thinking about how you can still be respectful of them, love them, give back to them in every possible way, shape, form, and unravel yourself from their expectations. Okay? Because their goals, their beliefs, are going to be different. And you know, it’s very easy to look at someone and say, “You’re wrong. That’s wrong.” God, we see it in our culture right now, all the time. Very easy for us to point to someone else and say, “You’re wrong about this.” So you might find yourself, in that rut with your parents, where you constantly feel like, “Oh, their beliefs are so outdated.”
Shama Hyder:
But here’s the thing, you can still love your parents and have separate beliefs. You can still respect the fact that they believe what they believe. Maybe they believe the nine to five is the safest best way to live life, and you don’t and that’s completely okay. You can love mom and dad and still do your own thing, and the sooner you figure this out, the better. All right? And here’s the flip side of that. When you do that, inevitably, you will make your own mistakes. The key when you make those mistakes, is to take responsibility and not the end up back at mom and dad’s doorstep expecting them to bail you out of the mess, right? That you created, and mess, lesson, call it what will, it’s yours to deal with.
Shama Hyder:
And I have to tell, I grew up in a conservative household. My dad was super conservative, love him to bits, huge daddy’s girl, but there were no boys allowed. You had to be home before sunset. I grew up in a conservative household, I don’t know how else to say that. Right? And there were certain expectations of me, and I can tell you that I did not adhere to those expectations. I had my own beliefs, my own way of approaching life. And I will tell you how I got my parents to respect it. Right? And I’m very lucky, my parents prioritized my happiness above everything. I hope that as a parent, I can do that for my son.
Shama Hyder:
So part of all of this is, that they really stood by me, because I stood by myself. And this is what I mean by this. When I made mistakes, when I didn’t have clients, when I was trying to build my business, I didn’t go to them and say, “Guys, can you pay my rent? Guys, can you buy me this car? Hey, can you pay my phone bill?” Nope. Nada. Never. If I couldn’t afford it, I didn’t have it. Right? They knew that I had so much belief in myself, my expectations, it was my bar, and they were my mistakes to make, and my lessons to learn, and I never put that on my parents.
Shama Hyder:
This is absolutely key. If you are going to march to the beat of your own drummer, then you have to do it wholeheartedly. So don’t expect that entitlement. Don’t have that entitlement with your parents. Love them, respect them, but make your own beliefs. Choose your own beliefs. So many times the things our parents believe, we don’t question, right? Because they’re our parents, but the truth is if you actually dug deeper, you’d find they believed it because their parents believed in it, and so forth. Right? And so I think we live in cool times where you get to question the beliefs that you hold true. What is the story you keep telling yourself? And it does not have to be the same as your parents, and you can still love them. You can still be a part of their lives.
Shama Hyder:
I have an outstanding relationship with my parents. I can tell you that my life has turned out nothing like they thought it would, and they see how it’s very much in line with what makes me happy. I’ve charted my own waters. I’ve made my own mistakes. I’ve fallen a million times, but guess what? I have picked myself up a million and one. Right? And that’s what I want for you. I want you to really put those expectations in check.
Shama Hyder:
The other thing, let’s talk about expecting success, because this is so big. Again guys, this is so valuable. As I say this, I’m like, “Man, why didn’t someone say this to me when I was in my twenties?” Don’t expect success, but work hard every single day. I’m going to say this again. Don’t expect success, but work hard every single day. And this is hard, because we live in an era of Tik Tok stars, and Kardashians, and Jenners, and it’s very easy to look at all these people and go, “Oh my God, look at what they have.” Right? “I want to be successful. I’m working so hard. Why am I not successful?” It doesn’t work that way, guys.
Shama Hyder:
I still remember, this is a fun little story, little detour for you. But it’s important. I remember when I made Businessweek’s Top 25 Under 25 Entrepreneurs, someone had nominated me, didn’t know who, didn’t know how that had happened. I made their list and it ended up on the homepage of Yahoo. Okay. And this was when people actually read Yahoo a ton. It used to be quite a popular site back in the day. And I remember that my business absolutely blew up, always been a huge believer in PR. Obviously, look at what I do. I remember the phone walling up, people wanting to work with us, people coming out of the woodwork, right? To say, “Oh my God, I always knew that you would end up here,” or all this stuff. It’s just crazy what happens when something like that happens. And guess what I did the very next day. Heck the same day. I got back to work. I got back to work. Right?
Shama Hyder:
And so success is nice. It’s nice to be able to have that moment, to know that someone appreciates it, to be able to have validation from your marketplace. But I don’t expect it. I don’t expect it because I love what I do. And I think that’s the difference. When you find something you’re really passionate about, you love what you do, then success becomes something fun, but not something you expect to show up at your doorstep. It’s almost like when it does, you’re really excited. You’re thrilled. And then you get back to work. So many times I see people in their twenties, and maybe you’re one of these people, and it’s totally okay if you are, where you think that you should be successful like this. And I don’t know, it happens for a few people, yes. But that is not strategy guys. That’s luck, right? And yes, that’s like buying a lottery ticket, because you win it, sure. I don’t know if you’ll be happy. Apparently most people who’ve won the Lotto aren’t happy.
Shama Hyder:
But I can tell you that I am happy. And I work a ton. I work a ridiculous amount, but I love what I do. And part of this, part of these expectations and unraveling yourself from this, is finding what you love, finding your passions. That’s the other question I get a ton. “Should I be exploring my passions Shama? Or should I stick to one thing and double down?” Listen, the sooner you stick to one thing, and double, triple down, the better you’ll get at it. Right? If you’re a writer and you’re writing every single day, heck, by the time you’re 30, 40, you’re going to be a great writer, because it’s what you’ve done. At the same time it’s pretty important to explore, to make sure that you’ve found your heart’s calling, that you’re trying different things. That you don’t feel like, “Hmm, what if I’d done that? What if I tried this?” Try it. Right?
Shama Hyder:
Twenties are great time to explore, but don’t judge exploration by the same metrics that you would do, if you were doubling down on something, right? Completely different metrics. If you’re exploring, the goal, success for exploration looks very different than, “Hey, I’m doing this every single day.” It’s so true what they say guys, “Overnight success is decade plus in the making,” right? Enjoy the process. Enjoy the opportunities that come to you and unravel those expectations. It’s so absolutely key.
Shama Hyder:
The last note I have on this subject, because it’s so dear to my heart is don’t expect people to read your mind. I think so many people in their twenties expect their boyfriend and girlfriend to know what they’re thinking, their friends to know what they’re thinking. “Oh, my boss should know, of course, it’s obvious.” No, because the world does not revolve around you. Right? People have lots of things on their plate. So don’t take it personally, and don’t expect people to know what you’re thinking. This can really cause you know, miscommunication in the least, and at worst it can cause years of bitterness and resentment. Speak your mind. Don’t expect people to know what you’re looking for, what you want. Speak your mind, be patient, and have your own expectations. Have your own bar.
Shama Hyder:
Please, please share this with someone else in their twenties, if you think that this was valuable. Again, I really wish someone had sat me down and said these things to me. I want you to succeed. I really, really do. And it really does, it starts in your twenties. So I hope you found this useful.
Shama Hyder:
Hey there, this is Shama Hyder again. Thank you so much for watching my videos. I super appreciate it. Please share it, if you find this information valuable. Do comment, I love hearing from you. And be sure to subscribe, that way you don’t miss a single thing.
