12 Notes

As I’ve learned throughout my lifetime, personal growth is just a journey from mind pollution to mind solution. In other words, you have to sift through the dirt of whatever situation it is that you find yourself in, so that your future isn’t polluted before you’ve even had a chance to create it.

With the inevitability of hardship in this often broken world, it’s important to understand what fills your voids and also where you are projecting yours.

I’m convinced there are two kinds of people: those who have been properly nurtured and those who haven’t. There’s really nothing in between. When you’ve been nurtured, you know it, and when you haven’t, you really know it. The after effects start rearing their ugly head through the ways in which you see and treat others, and maybe even less apparently, the ways in which you see and treat yourself.

There will be plenty of moments in which the work you do goes unnoticed, but hear me when I say that someone is always watching.

I may not be able to control the exact opportunities I am presented with, but the part of the equation that I do have control over is whether or not I have prepared myself enough to accept whatever opportunities come my way.

For as long as I can remember, my daddy would tell me every day, “Once a task has just begun, never leave it ‘til it’s done. Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at all.” It didn’t matter what the task was, I just knew that I needed to complete it to the best of my abilities.

Talent comes with responsibility, and managing your gifts can become a burden if you have yet to identify how you will respond to external pressures.

Everything we do is an extension of the history that came before us, and if we don’t recognize it, we’re in danger of repeating some of the same nonsense that went down in the past. It’s a beautiful thing to reflect and learn, rather than to reject and repeat.

We’re all thrown different curveballs, and some may hit harder than others; however, I truly believe that with the proper attitude, the very thing that was intended to destroy you can become the thing that makes you stronger.

Over the course of my lifetime, it has seemed as though God has guided me with an internal feeling that my encounters weren’t meant to destroy me. Rather, they were meant to provide me with the empathy I needed to be able to relate to and help others in similar positions, to give me an undeniable drive that has propelled me into arenas of life that I never could’ve possibly dreamed of, and to generate the deep level of emotion that has been poured into every one of my musical creations.

In the midst of adversity, it’s easy to let disappointment or anger take center stage, but I have found that my purpose is so much greater than my problems, although it’s incredibly easy to place an emphasis on the latter.

Flavors of food and fundamentals of music are very closely related, and it taught me to cook like an orchestrator and orchestrate like a chef. The deeper I got, and the more I understood how to mix different flavors and sounds, the more combinations I was able to play around with.

Hope may be presented in different forms, but it’s always in the fine print. It’s not about starting out on top, but it’s about realizing how far you have to climb and then never giving up. And when I say never, I mean it. I don’t believe you ever reach the top, and well, if you do, you might not be dreaming big enough.

It’s evident that disadvantaged children are not the victims of some kind of natural disaster, but often, of mankind.

Also, when you do a job well once, there’s almost no doubt that you’ll get it again, or get referred to someone else. Everything in your life is a chain reaction, and your ability to deliver will usually be judged based on your last encounter.

A great work ethic is an asset that will undoubtedly carry you through every phase of life because it is ultimately what sets you apart from the rest of your peers who are satisfied with getting a job done, but not very well.

With technology and social media making it easier than ever to grow your own following, our society has placed an incredibly alarming amount of emphasis on surface-level matter, often neglecting the individual person as a whole. Now that such platforms are here to stay, there’s an added layer of scrutiny to every situation. Not only are the embarrassing moments or failures of life dealt with on a personal level, but they are also publicly magnified. That’s enough to destroy anyone without a foundation.

I see way too many cats out there getting caught up in the excitement of fame, only to be met with all-consuming depression on the other side, often because they’ve lost sight of who they are and why they even started creating in the first place.

We can’t afford to raise a generation of creators who think they’re the only people on the planet or the first ones to inhabit it. People who don’t know their history, or how to celebrate cultural differences, are simply left with stereotypes and preconceived ideas, which is a large part of why racism still exists today.

On one hand, we were celebrated entertainers, but as soon as we stepped offstage and put our trumpets and saxophones down, we were once again reduced to the color of our skin. My daddy always used to remind me of the phrase “Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me.”

Hear me when I say that this doesn’t only apply to my economically disadvantaged brothers and sisters; it applies to each and every human being. You could have it all, in a material sense, but if you’re assimilating to the wrong crowd or not allowing the right things to come in, then you only block yourself from your potential.