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.
(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 such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers. 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 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.
30 Days To a More Powerful Vocabulary by Dr. Wilfred Funk & Norman Lewis (Book)
The School of Greatness by Lewis Howes (Book)
Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, M.D. (Book)
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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 such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers. 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 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.
(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 such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers. 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 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.
Lewis Howes, “The School of Greatness” (Book)
Kendrick Lamar, “Poe Man’s Dream” (Song)
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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 such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers. 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 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:
Building Relationships Through Vulnerability (9:30)
How to Master the Grind: Jeff Bezos’ $38B Net Worth (Video)
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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 such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers. 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.
Here’s an interesting fact: For those of you who didn’t know, I was actually born and raised a vegan. That’s right…thanks to the decisive guidance of my parents back in the 80s, I was enlisted into the vegan lifestyle prior to knowing what it was even about.
Growing up in the 90s, being a vegan was certainly an anomaly. This was especially true for a young child. Imagine having to explain yourself at school to all of the other students at lunch time. Yes, it was very arduous for the most part. Personally, any moment centered around food was always a sensitive touchpoint for me. Some of my childhood food memories consist of my mother forcing us to drink carrot juice before earning the privilege of eating tofu pizza, traveling with my parents to local health-food stores on Staten Island, and taking family day trips to Integral Yoga Natural Foods in Manhattan. Before the rise of Almond milk, EdenSoy was a staple in our refrigerator at home. In hindsight, I guess that you can call it tough love. Thankfully, I was able to survive and stick it out. I’m also glad that I’m able to fully embrace the wonderful times that we are in now. I’m proud to see that our society is becoming more conscious of what we put into our bodies and the impact that our actions have on the environment around us.
One of my good friends shared this video with me back in August. I definitely think that Vice is a few steps ahead of the competition when it comes to the future of content and covering things that are meaningful to it’s audience. In this episode, Vice takes time to go vegan with NBA baller and UConn Alum Ben Gordon as he invites us to Plant Food + Wine located in Venice, CA. I hope that you enjoy a quick glimpse into his state of transformation. ~ Namaste
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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Educator, and Music Publisher. As the Founder ofA Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group, he specializes in identifying talent and creating opportunities for brand development, exposure, and growth. Aquaus has worked with companies such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers. 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.
Our homegirl Daryn Alexus is back! This time she indulges us with her latest offering, “Wake Up” which she released after hitting her milestone of 1K followers on soundcloud. As she continues to create her own lane, “Wake Up” showcases Daryn’s ability to lyrically empower and encourage people of all ages. She reminds us how amazing and beautiful life can be when we pursue our dreams and wake up to being our true selves. Although many people may not be familiar with the name Daryn Alexus as of yet, we’re sure much greatness is to come for her in the near future!
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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 such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and their consumers. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe.
In 2008, I was an intern for a wonderful woman by the name of Elise Wright. She was the SVP of Urban Music at Universal Republic. At the time, Doug Morris was the CEO at Universal Music Group. It just so happened that his office was in the same building that I interned in on 1755 Broadway in midtown Manhattan. One afternoon, Monte Lipman’s assistant asked me if I could bring lunch downstairs to Doug Morris’ office. As soon as I was gifted with the task of doing so, I knew that I had to handle this particular package with care. As ambitious as I am, I was delighted to make the delivery. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to meet Doug in person. Had we met, it may have led to a very interesting chain of events.
Flash forward 7 years. Doug Morris is now the CEO of Sony Music Entertainment. Doug was recently invited to speak at Midem in Cannes, France. In his keynote speech entitled “Visionary Talk,” Doug shares a plethora of insight that he has gained throughout his 50+ years of experience in the music industry. Throughout the interview, he praises his fellow industry icons and pioneers. These names include, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, Berry Gordy, Jimmy Iovine, Suge Knight, L.A. Reid, and Steve Jobs.
Doug on The Impact of Urban Music
A few interesting stories that Doug shares includes his first encounter with rap music. The first group that he signed was 2 Live Crew. Shortly after, Jimmy Iovine was responsible for introducing Doug to Suge Knight. This meeting would eventually lead to Interscope signing Death Row Records which Doug mentions as an “Incredible moment.” Doug also goes on to mention that his strategy at Universal was to fill it with urban music. “I don’t think a record company can really be successful without urban music” says Doug. “We had Death Row, Def Jam, and Cash Money. Just with those three companies, we probably had 40-45% of all the urban music in America.”
Doug on The Importance of A&R + Content
When asked about the importance of content and distribution, Doug mentions, “If you don’t have a hit you have nothing. We’re all slaves to the brilliant people who are in touch with the culture and can spot an artist. The people who can spot a record that’s going to be important, that’s where we invest our money, in these people.” Although the people and titles may vary, the process of identifying and developing talent at an early stage is what we call A&R. To this day, I consider A&R to be at the pinnacle of necessity in regards to the future expansion and growth of our entertainment and music industries.
Words of Wisdom From Doug Morris
On Leadership – Doug has a philosophy that it’s important to be nice and treat people with respect. It’s important to make the people that work for you feel great. It’s important to make them know that you appreciate what they do. When Doug was coming up, people would degrade others and make them feel bad. Doug runs his companies based on mutual respect and loyalty. This is the culture that he believes in.
On Identifying Your Talent – Find what you’re good at. Some people are good as recording engineers. Some people are good at publishing. Some people are able to identify great artists. You have to look at what you think your strength is. Don’t listen to the naysayers. It’s your life, live it. Don’t be afraid of anything. When you’re doing something that you love, it’s fun. When something is fun, you actually get good at it. Do what’s fun. Do what you love going to work for.
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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Creative Consultant, 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 such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and consumers. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe.
A few days ago I happened to stumble upon a documentary featuring Pharrell entitled, The Plastic Age. It was released on i-D magazine’s youtube channel back in April and produced by AllDAYEVERYDAY. It was a very interesting watch as it shared a lot of insight into the impact that plastic has on our planet. “In the 1950’s and 60’s, plastic was heavily marketed to consumers as a time saving device and matter of convenience” says Anna Cummins of 5 Gyres Institute. Today, it is estimated that we make 288 million tons of plastic annually. This is more than 1 BILLION TONS every 4 years! So what happens when this plastic escapes or does not make it into our waste management system? Where does all of this plastic end up?
In the Pacific Ocean exists a “Great Pacific Patch” which is approximately 1500 nautical miles from shore. It was discovered by Captain Charles Moore in 1997. This is where anything that we throw into the ocean that floats eventually ends up. Captain Paul Watson, Founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society mentions, “We live in the most highly educated society that has ever evolved on this planet, everybody knows…the real problem is getting everyone to care.” His estimate of the number of plastic in our oceans is around 700 million tons. It’s important for us to think about what we use and how we discard it. Think about this, when we utilize plastic that is not properly discarded, it makes it’s way into our oceans. Shortly after, it is consumed by fish. Eventually it makes it’s way back up our food chain to be consumed by us humans. “The chemicals that are in plastic make their way up the food chain and now they are in us because we’re eating those fish” says Kahi Pacarro of Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii.
So, what is the solution? Well, no one person can solve it. However, Parley for the Oceans unites partners in all categories of industries to develop new ways of doing business to protect our oceans. In an effort to address the issue of plastic in the ocean, Bionic Yarn helps to turn low-grade plastic into high-profile material. Tim Coombs, Co-Founder of Bionic Yarn shares the process of how it works. “Bionic Yarn is a yarn spinning process that takes recycled plastic bottles and turns them into a high-quality yarn and fabric. A plastic bottle is shredded into flakes, melted, extruded into fibers, spinned into yarn, and helixed into another fiber like cotton to create another surface over the recycled plastic.” “Everything has a purpose, even trash” says Tyson Toussant, Co-Founder of Bionic Yarn, “We should be accountable for everything. The basic idea is to synchronize the economy and the environment by pulling out the plastic from the ocean, keeping it on land, and making it into products for us to use.”
RAW for the Oceans by G-Star is a collection of products to make the world’s first denim from recycled ocean plastic. RAW for the Oceans by G-Star is where science, activism, and fashion intersect. “Innovation comes from a lot of different people working together” says Shubhankar Ray Global Brand Director at G-Star RAW. The idea of RAW for the Oceans by G-Star is to establish a new mindset within the fashion industry and inspire other segments of business and economy to follow these models. Captain Paul Watson sums it up best, “The strength of an eco-system is in diversity. The strength of any movement must also lie in diversity. All social revolutions in history have been carried out by passionate individuals who discover, build, and ideate. There are ways of solving these problems if we can harness our imagination to find solutions through everybody’s particular love.”
What do you love? #ALOVERSAmbition
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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.
(Björk, one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2015.”)
Björk was recently honored by Time magazine as one of The 100 Most Influential People of 2015. In her interview she mentions, “If you are really true to yourself and really follow your intuition in the most rigorous way, there is a moment that becomes universal, that reaches everybody.” I find this to be such a profound statement. It also happens to be a re-occurring theme in my life at the moment. Just a few weeks ago, both myself and a good friend of mine discussed the importance of staying true to ourselves. I shared with him one of my favorite quotes, “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” Does this sound familiar? It is argued as to whether it originally stems from Bernard Baruch, Mark Young, or Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel. Let’s leave that for the experts to debate.
I told my friend that when we are true to ourselves and do the things that matter, we attract the people that we matter the most to. On the contrary, when we do things to merely gain the attention of others, we tend to gain the attention of those who see us for someone who we truly are not. When we begin to gain attention from things and people who may not be in alignment with our best interests, we fall victim to the attention that we receive as opposed to what we receive it for. When we do things that matter, not only are we at our best, we are also able to give our best to the world around us. Laurieann Gibson who is best known for her work with Diddy, Nicki Minaj, and Lady Gaga may have said it best, “Be humble and let your gift slice through everything else in the atmosphere.”
I believe that it’s time for us to start giving our best. Within following our intuition and doing what matters exists a certain level of courage and fortitude. It takes a lot to step up and speak out. Whether it’s mentally, physically, or both. It’s time that we become as breathtakingly true to ourselves as we can possibly be. We owe this much to both ourselves and the greater world at large. Be great, be proud, do what’s different, do what matters!
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(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Creative Consultant, 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 such as Cornerstone Agency, Universal Music Group, and W Hotels. He is extremely passionate about helping companies adapt to culture and building value between brands and consumers. His ultimate mission is to use his influence to project positivity across the globe.
A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group 