Author Archives: A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group

How Might We Close Our Creative Gap?

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When Chase Jarvis appeared as a guest on Lewis Howes’, “School of Greatness” podcast, Chase referenced the work of Ira Glass and the concept of closing our “Creative gap.” Who is Ira Glass I immediately asked? Because I am constantly curious, I decided to look into his work. Ira Glass happens to be a radio personality as well as the host and producer of, “This American Life.” One of the first videos that I decided to check out is a video that I came across on Vimeo entitled, “The Gap.”

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The Gap is shot by visual storyteller, Daniel Sax and was inspired by David Shiyang Liu who created his own version back in June of 2011. Both of these videos were created using the audio from Ira’s interview with Current TV. In his interview, Ira discusses the creative process behind the art of storytelling.

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What interests me the most about Ira’s piece on storytelling is that it addresses the creative process throughout all of it’s stages. For example, when we initially begin to create, what we actually create rarely yields a good product in the beginning. However, as a beginner at anything in life, we usually have a particular taste or vision that we’re looking to fulfill. The space between our ideal taste and the fulfillment of that taste is what Ira calls, “The Gap.”

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When it comes to closing our creative gap, it requires a few key components. The one major and most important component entails not quitting. Our creative process can certainly take a while. It may take 5 years, 10 years, or possibly even 20 years before we begin to see the fruits of our labor. Despite this, we must get over the phase and possibility of creative disappointment. It will happen. The good news is however, it will not last forever.

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Creative disappointment is totally normal. The most important thing that we can do is produce a large volume of work. “It’s only by going through a large volume of work that we’re actually able to catch up and close the gap” says Ira. “When this happens, the work that we create will be as good as our ambitions.” Until we achieve our ambitions, and even when we achieve our ambitions, we must keep fighting!

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Cultural Curator, and Educator. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Behind The Hustle, Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about bridging the gap and building value between brands, communities, and culture. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

7 Days of Wisdom (Episode 27)

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7 Days of Wisdom is an original weekly video series presented by A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group and hosted by Aquaus Kelley. Our mission is to foster growth and create a community of success and significance. Through sharing meaningful advice, knowledge, and insight gathered throughout our daily experiences, we aim to empower, encourage, and inspire our community to achieve their most passionate aspirations.

In This Weeks Episode We Discuss:

  1. The Creative Gap (0:13)
  2. Quotes of the Week (13:20)

This Weeks Resources Include:

  1. Closing Our Creative Gap: Chase Jarvis

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

Closing Our Creative Gap: Chase Jarvis

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In an interview on Episode 321 of Lewis Howes’, “School of Greatness” podcast, the award-winning director and photographer, Chase Jarvis talks about the importance of visualizing success for everything that he does. In reference to the work of Ira Glass, Chase mentions, “When we are first starting out on something, what we see in our mind and what we are actually able to create is our creative gap. Through repetition, practice, skill, self-talk, and visualization, our goal should be to close the gap between what we envision and what we will someday produce.” Ultimately, the practice of acknowledging our creative gap and moving towards closing our creative gap is what separates those who achieve their ambitions, dreams, and goals from those who unfortunately do not.

When Chase talks about closing in on his creative gap, he mentions that he believes he can make the things that he sees in his mind. This is because he has developed the experience, resources, and tools that have taken him years to build upon. As Malcolm Gladwell denotes in one of his best-selling books, “Outliers,” it often takes close to a decade or longer before we really begin to zero in on our life-long creative gap(s).

How Can We Apply This Method To Our Life?

Lewis Howes and Chase Jarvis

Photo courtesy of lewishowes.com

Are you one of those people who feel as though you are just not a creative person? Guess what…our personal belief is that we were all created therefore we are all creative. We can all create a vision. Our lives are a creative process. As Gary Vaynerchuk would say, we can all reverse engineer our ideal outcome. If our creative gap is unfulfilled, most likely we will be unfulfilled! Think about the impact this has on our careers, lives, and relationships. This causes us to think, what is the correlation between lacking creative fulfillment and living an unsatisfied life? How might our creative gap affect our economic, educational, and social gaps? This may serve as a great hypothesis for a research study. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted!

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

3 Ways To Get Unstuck: Chase Jarvis

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When Lewis Howes recently interviewed Chase Jarvis on Episode 321 of his “School of Greatness” podcast, they discussed many topics. Some of what they discussed include the topics of creativity and the art of entrepreneurship. In particular, they also discussed what it takes to get unstuck and overcome creative blocks. “When it comes time to overcoming our creative blocks, it’s important that we have many solutions” says Chase. We at A Lovers Ambition couldn’t agree more. Facilitating creative ideas requires a certain type of freedom and headspace that as Chase mentions, “Requires us to have a variety of tools in our toolkit.”

Thanks to Lewis Howes, here are Chase Jarvis’ 3 Ways To Get “Unstuck:”

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1. Have Many Solutions

As creative people, it’s important that we learn how to extend our artistic expression across various mediums. For example, if we are a writer, we may want to have an essay, a journal, a novel, some poetry, and a short story. Having multiple activities to tap into within the same main sphere of artistic expression allows us to stay fresh and shift gears from one project to another when necessary.

According to a study read by Chase, he mentions that the ideal number of creative projects to have for a designer is five. It’s important to keep in mind that there are certainly different levels of attention, development, and intensity required for each project. However, if we’re stuck on one thing, having a few options allows us to shift gears and work on something else.

2. Get Away

Sometimes walking away from something allows us to come back with a fresh state of mind and a fresh set of eyes. At times, this may require going to bed. At other times, this may entail seeking adventure, exploration, and discovery. As author Charlie Hoehn would say, “Play It Away.” One of the best strategies to relieve anxiety and stress is to get outside and let it all go. We must ask ourselves, what gives us joy? Is it playing frisbee, going for a walk, people watching, etc? The choice is ours!

3. Tap Into Our Creative Community

“Whether we have mentors, friends, business partners, or teams, we always need people to exchange ideas with” says Chase. Through communicating with other people and sharing ideas and perspectives, we are able to see the world from a different point of view. What better people to reach out to and seek inspiration from than our own creative community? Keep in mind, this doesn’t have to be limited to the people we know in person. Why not seek out some “Virtual Mentors?” There are so many creative and inspiring thought leaders across each and every industry who are delivering highly valuable content on a daily basis. As we like to say, “Find the leaders, learn from the leaders, become the leaders.”

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

7 Days Of Wisdom (Episode 26)

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7 Days of Wisdom is an original weekly video series presented by A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group and hosted by Aquaus Kelley. Our mission is to foster growth and create a community of success and significance. Through sharing meaningful advice, knowledge, and insight gathered throughout our daily experiences, we aim to empower, encourage, and inspire our community to achieve their most passionate aspirations.

In This Weeks Episode We Discuss:

  • Quotes of the Week (1:07)

This Weeks Resources Include:

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

3 Ways We Can Be Just Like Gary Vee!

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In February of 2016, LinkedIn hosted it’s local edition of the LinkedIn Speaker Series in NYC. The purpose of LinkedIn’s local edition is to extend it’s global speaker series program through highlighting local rockstars who inspire and inform people to spark conversations and start connections. These conversations are often the result of many of the amazing ideas that are new, next, and noteworthy across various industries and fields.

In this edition of LinkedIn’s Local Speaker Series, one of our favorite guys and LinkedIn influencer, Gary Vaynerchuk chats with LinkedIn’s Senior News Editor, Chip Cutter. Throughout this discussion, Gary offers his advice, insight, and input as unapologetically as always about everything and to everyone within his reach. This even includes telling LinkedIn how their business can be better if their Snapchat account had it’s own version of “The Office” as an effort to make their brand feel more human. “I have very good intuition on what everybody is going to do a lot of times before they even realize they are going to do it” says Gary.

With so much more to offer, please read along for the “3 Ways We Can Be Just Like Gary Vee!”

1. Pay Attention:

One of the reasons why Gary has a very good intuition on what everyone is going to do a lot of times before they even realize they are going to do it is because he pays very close attention to his environment. “Everyone can do what I do.” says Gary. “I wake-up in the morning, grab my phone, look at the App Store’s “100 Top Free Apps”, and look at the charts. That’s real data. I’m not predicting the success of certain companies. This to me is very basic. Don’t be a headline reader. Really read and listen.“

2. Train Towards Opportunity:

“I look at history to repeat itself quite a bit” says Gary, “I think pattern recognition is extremely important in what we are living through now because the internet itself is really changing the game and we’re still only 20 years into it.” We have to condition ourselves and train for our future. It’s as if we’re preparing for a marathon. Our life’s destiny is always on the line. We must develop the cadence and context to prepare ourselves for openings and opportunities when they present themselves. “When we know what we want for our lives and we make that shift at all costs, we win” says Gary, “Playing a game that doesn’t map what we actually want it to be is a really big mistake.”

3. Reverse Engineer Everything:

“I sell a ton of stuff by following the people who I want to sell to on social networks, figuring out what they like in the world, and using that information as a way to sell them” says Gary. It’s all about learning from your lead and selling what they need. Gary also mentions that we must eliminate romance. “It’s important to understand what they care about more than what you care about” says Gary, “Build a business that allows you to scale your capabilities and passions. Be a practitioner and engage yourself in what you do. Recognize Patterns. There will be a lot of money to be made if we can buy the companies that we know the big companies in the world are going to have to buy to be successful” says Gary.

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Photo courtesy of garyvaynerchuk.com

Quotes We Love

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

Idris Elba + Purdey’s Inspire The World To Thrive On!

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When we saw a Facebook post from one of our clients yesterday, we couldn’t help but to click for sound and decide to watch the video. We must say – we are certainly pleased that we decided to do so. We learned a lot!

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Multi-vitamin fruit drink brand, Purdey’s teamed up with the multi-talented superstar, Idris Elba in an effort to help us get more out of life while introducing the world to Purdey’s belief that we should never stop growing.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

Seems like a simple question…right? At first, the question received many laughs, a few surprising looks, and some uncertainty. Then, we were hit with a follow-up question:

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Ahhh…as adults, why do we believe that we’ve stopped growing? After all, we never stop growing…right? We actually don’t. In fact, when we are introduced to a fresh new perspective on life, it makes us view our potential quite differently.

Here are some of the inspiring answers we receive when we are able to get others to agree with the notion that we never stop growing:

I Want To …

… Make quilts, amazing quilts!

… Play drums!

… Be Madonna!

… Look after the people I love!

… Be an Actor!

… Be a Spoken Word artist!

… Be a Hot Air Balloon Pilot!

… Be a Football Coach – I think!

So…What Stops Us From Achieving Our Dreams?

There are an endless amount of reasons why we may feel as though we can no longer achieve our dreams. Age, time, discouragement, lack of ambition…LIFE?!? However, would we take the chance to achieve our dreams if we were given the opportunity? Can we get a HECK YES!!! Knowing this, what does it all come down to? It comes down to us, not life. Our lives are largely determined by the decisions we choose to make for ourselves.

From the land of “A Lovers Ambition,” we would arguably say that it’s finally time to spend less energy on creating excuses, and more energy on creating opportunities for ourselves to thrive and live the life of our dreams.

Thanks to Idris, Purdey’s, and Iris Worldwide for compelling us with the compassionate message to move forward and find our inner ambition to achieve our goals and thrive on!

Credits

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Music by Baptiste Thiry, “Dreams Come True”

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

Run Your Life As a Marathon: Gary Vee

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I tell people this all of the time, “I view life as a marathon, not a sprint.” In fact, I’ve shared this analogy in multiple conversations I’ve had this week alone. It is no coincidence that Gary Vaynerchuk preaches the same philosophy.

Life is too long to sprint through. When we are able to acquire patience, which I believe entails both confidence and competence, we are then able to build towards the long-term results we are looking to achieve.

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

G-SHOCK x Greats Giveaway!

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Ryan Babenzien of Greats recently teamed up with G-SHOCK for “The Whiteout Collection” which is a partnership between G-SHOCK x GREATS. In a recent interview, Ryan tells Complex, “This collaboration has been a long time in the making. I’ve had G-SHOCK’s in my life since I was a kid.” 

The result of this partnership is a custom designed pair of Greats’ PRONTO kicks along with G-SHOCK’s new trio of Whiteout timepieces. Here’s what’s even sweeter about this collaboration: For a limited time, G-SHOCK x Greats will be giving fans a chance to win a prize package featuring the complete White Out set of G-SHOCK x Greats brand collaborative sneakers and G-SHOCK watch. 

Please be sure to enter here for your chance to win, the last day to participate is Saturday 4/30/16!

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.

W Hotels + Billboard Present: Next Up

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On Tuesday April 26, 2016, we received the April 30, 2016 issue of Billboard magazine. To our surprise, we stumbled upon W Hotels and Billboard magazine announcing the launch of “Next Up,” an emerging artist showcase series featuring new artists and new music. When we first saw this event advertised in Billboard magazine, we only knew that it was going to consist of 4 artists performing in 4 different cities at 4 different W Hotels.

Upon looking further into the event, we found out that the first official Next Up concert will be held at the W Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA on May 25, 2016. This launch will then be followed by events in Seattle, WA and Minneapolis, MN. The last stop is expected to be at the W South Beach in Miami, FL sometime in October of this year.

In September of 2014, W South Beach Hotel & Residences, in partnership with Vision Compere’s creative house, VISION, extended their W SpeakerBox concert series music program. It was also a live music program featuring intimate performances by celebrated and emerging artists from a variety of international genres.

We personally worked very closely with Vision Compere’s creative house. Our particular focus was to curate and identify emerging artists from various cities throughout W Hotel properties in Chicago, IL; Miami, FL; and San Francisco, CA.

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  • On October 2, 2014, Daryn Alexus was featured as an artist who was #NextUp and performed at W Hotels City Center property located in Chicago, IL.

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  • On October 30, 2014, Kyle Dion was featured as an artist who was #NextUp and performed at W Hotels South Beach property located in Miami, FL.

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  • On April 30, 2015, Lara Johnston was featured as an artist who was #NextUp and performed at W Hotels San Francisco property located in San Francisco, CA.

Overall, we love the fact that W Hotels and Billboard are teaming up to provide a platform for emerging artists to shine! This is exactly why we teamed up with VISION for their W SpeakerBox concert series 2 years ago.

We’re glad to see that Billboard expanded on a similar model of music programming with W Hotels. Lets continue pushing culture forward and allowing artists the opportunity to showcase their talents!

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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder of A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies and organizations such as Cornerstone Agency, City Year Miami, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers centered around love. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe and invest in the collective future of society through the arts, education, entertainment, and leadership.