“….An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people. The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you closely associate for the good and the bad.”
Often I see people (myself especially) being accused of being “impatient” or “mean” when it comes to dealing with negative people. This quote dispels that myth. If you’re a positive person and a person striving for success, you deserve to surround yourself with people who are on the same path. Anything else is uncivilized.
“No one is better than you, everyone is your equal”
The words of Vice Presidential hopeful Joe Biden during his speech tonight.
That quote means so much to me. It means that no matter how low you might get or high you think you are, you are still the same as everyone else. I pride myself on never thinking I’m above anyone or thinking anyone is above me. Elitism is something that ruins a lot of people who had the potential to become great. They think that race, income, degrees, or a job title makes them better than others and then sooner or later it all comes crashing down.
All of us deserve respect and we should never settle for less because no one is better than us and we are all equals. Keep that in mind.
Aight so I got this idea while I was driving last night. Recently I’ve found myself on some sort of insane grind where I’m just doing a million things at once. Similar to a running back in football when he just puts his head down and runs with forward progress in mind…regardless of who’s in front of him.
I’ve noticed a lot of the readers of this blog and the people who comment are also on intense grinds (missions) right now. It might be with school, work, relationships, a career, sports, whatever.
The purpose of this post is for everyone who reads it that is on some sort of hustle or grind or mission to Check-in. All you have to do is comment and you’re checked-in. If you want, you can even discuss what it is you are working towards. Like I know Sean is going for that Dodge Challenger.
(I read in the Kanye West book that stating your goals publicly makes you work that much harder towards it because people are going to hold you to it. So I’ll go ahead and state mine in the comment section)
No goal is too big or too little. It could be that you working towards a billion dollars or you just want your first kiss, doesn’t matter.
One year from now, August 26th 2009 we can all look back to this post and see if we achieved the goals, came close, still in progress or maybe even switched them up completely.
One video is of me performing two of my songs. Went pretty good. Had my first request from females wanting to come on stage…more importantly after I walked off stage I had a kid ask for my autograph, first time that ever happened…that was surreal to me.
And the second video is of me and Articulate doing “Oh Really”…about 40 seconds in check out the clip of the toddler “blood”…he’s a Lil Wayne imitator..a lot of people gotta kick out of it but I hope there is also someone at home guiding him in the right direction.
So the tour landed me in Darby, PA right outside of Philadelphia. This wasn’t a college campus. It actually was a car show for Philadelphia Custom Motor Sports. Author/Businessman Nasir Aleem was our host. My job:spread word about The Famous Firm and perform a few of my songs, including “Oh Really” with Artic who was also performing.
Plenty of car trouble, an attempted drive by, a 5 year old thug imitating Lil Wayne, a decent performance by myself, a classic performance by Freeway and a tour of some exclusive whips from Nasir and I am back home. Tired, excited, exuberant, and a bunch of other things are what I’m feeling now. Videos of as much as I could capture below:
My first ever post on this blog was about Freeway. It was a video of him and the Roc crew performing “What We Do”. That song is easily in my top ten of all time and Free for the past 6 years has been one of my favorites. He captures the struggle and the plight of the inner city the way few rappers can and still makes it sound dope.
Seeing the kind of love and respect he gets from people in his hood really raised the respect level I had for him. They treat him like the mayor or the savior over there. I don’t really get star struck or in awe of anyone but the Freeway situation meant a lot to me. I remember using his cd Philadelphia Freeway to make it through the days like 4 or 5 years ago and now I’m sharing the same stage and chillin with him. Definitely something I’ll remember forever.
Ab Liva and the whole Re-Up Gang crew also influenced me heavily when I was coming up. The Re-Up Gang mixtapes vol. 2 and 3 are better than most albums I’ve heard in my life. Liva is another cool Philly dude. Mad laid back and humble.
