When I spoke to my good friend Thomas Johnson Jr. on our weekly accountability call, we spoke about how epic it was for Lewis Howes to interview one of the greatest interviewers of our time, Larry King. I also shared with Thomas the backstory of how I initially came across Lewis and lewishowes.com, through googling one of my favorite quotes, “Live legendary, leave a legacy.”
Thomas encouraged me to make time to appreciate Lewis via social media for all that he has done for us in regards to sharing his greatness with the world and inspiring others to live the lives of their dreams. We appreciate you brother! May all of your success lead you to achieving your future goals of interviewing Will Smith, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Oprah Winfrey. It’s all going to happen very soon. We’re happy to be a part of your tribe and join you for the ride! #ALOVERSAmbition#SchoolOfGreatness
Here’s the video of Lewis’ entire interview with Larry King:
_________________________
(Uh • Kway • Us) Aquaus Kelley is a forward-thinking Brand Strategist, Cultural Curator, and Social Storyteller. 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.
Earlier this morning, I read a few pages of Tony Dungy’s, “The Mentor Leader.” On page 107, I came across a story that he shared in regards to his days as a student in junior high school. Mr. Rockquemore, Tony Dungy’s Assistant Principal at Frost Junior High School once asked Tony, “Why would you let anything stop you from doing what you have the ability to do?” It was this question along with Mr. Rockquemore’s willingness to get involved with Tony’s academic and athletic development that changed the entire course of Tony’s life.
The lesson that I learned from this story is not to underestimate the platforms we have to impact and touch the lives of one another. Unless we tell someone or we are told by someone, we will never know the impact that one phrase, sentence, word, or experience might have on us or someone else. I have often heard the phrase, “Don’t forget the “small” people at the bottom when you make it to the top.” In my opinion, there are no small people. We all matter tremendously. The fact that we were all born as human-beings is a miracle in itself. Out of the five kingdoms of living organisms, we are just one species. Let’s not even touch on the various groups of kingdoms. We’ll save that for science class!
Nonetheless, it’s important that we are humble and grateful for the lives that we live. Regardless of who we are or where we are from, there will always arise an opportunity which will allow us to make an impact on another person’s life. This will either be for better or for worse. It is up to us to make the right decision. Now the question is, “What will we decide?”
_________________________
(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.
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.”
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.”
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.
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!
_________________________
(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.
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).
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!
_________________________
(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.
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:”
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.”
_________________________
(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.
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!
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:
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
Music by Baptiste Thiry, “Dreams Come True”
_________________________
(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.
“What suggestions do you have for someone who is a kind and positive person yet does not want to be viewed as a liability who is weak and naive?”
Marie’s reply went as follows: “Positivity is a powerful strength. Suppressing who we are is not an option. The future of business is about being more connected to our humanity, not less. This includes our positivity, kindness, enthusiasm, vulnerability, and most importantly our heart.”
Marie goes on to mention, “As human-beings, we need the right conditions to survive and thrive. We are only as good as the people we surround ourselves with. It’s vital that we put ourselves in the right eco-system, one that gives us the chance to flex our strengths. When we put ourselves in the right conditions, we blossom. When we put ourselves in the wrong conditions, we wither and die.”
Lastly, “When we know what makes us strong, it’s important that we don’t settle for less. There is no prize for suffering. We must embrace our strength of positivity and be it daily. Our enthusiasm for life is contagious. It also gives other people permission to be kind, positive, enthusiastic leaders too” says Marie.
What we love the most about Marie’s message is that it covers many critical points when it comes to realizing our greatest potential. Embracing our strengths, regardless of how other people may view them is always vital. Not only is embracing our strengths vital to our success, it is also vital to our overall well-being!
_________________________
(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.
Kevin Poon teams up with Infiniti and Hypebeast to discuss creatively challenging his traditional upbringing, learning new things daily, and the importance of having a global perspective when it comes to ideation, leading a team, and innovation. Overall, Poon’s takeaway message is to “Never stop learning”, one of our mantras here at A Lovers Ambition!
_________________________
(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.
Having worked in “inner-city” schools for 5 years, I have personally experienced the barriers, challenges, and obstacles which we encounter as educators when it comes to connecting with our youth, especially our black youth.
On Thursday April 14, 2016 I came across a video on LinkedIn thanks to Danielle Lucido. This video consists of one of my favorite inspirational and influential figures, Dr. Eric Thomas. After being interrupted on several occasions, and out of nothing but pure love, Dr. Thomas feels the need to sincerely express his heartfelt message with a room full of high school students at Vashon High School in St. Louis, MO.
In this video, Dr. Thomas makes time to hit on many important points. Some of these points which he shares with both students and faculty include: the importance of taking care of the few people who actually care about us, being disrespected by his own kind whenever he comes back to speak at black schools, and being embarrassed by how people perceive our black youth.
Dr. Thomas mentions that while pursuing his Ph.D, he was embarrassed when his colleagues and professors would ask him, “What’s wrong with our urban schools?” and “What’s the problem in the school system?” He then brings up the fact of how resilient we are as black people and how our only true setback is due to a lack of effort. “You can’t take our people from Africa, put us in a diaspora, spread us all over the world, and we survive slavery yet we can’t pass a test” says Dr. Thomas, “Have you lost your mind? We are survivors! That’s all we do is survive!”
After offering up his very inspirational and moving message, he then challenges our black youth to go to class, sit down, listen, pay attention, and get an education. “You know how to sit down and shut up” says Dr. Thomas, “You do it when you’re watching videos.”
Despite all of the obstacles and setbacks Dr. Thomas had to encounter prior to achieving his B.A. and then his Ph.D, he did it anyway. “Win, lose, or draw…don’t die not trying” says Dr. Thomas. Keep pushing, keep pushing!
_________________________
(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.
“The sooner we figure out what our competitive advantage is, the more likely we are to be able to compete” says Tai Lopez. It seems quite simple, doesn’t it? Well…lets get started!
The first question that we may want to begin asking ourselves is, “What is our career destiny?” It’s important that we know ourselves and know where we need to go in an effort to showcase our competencies, skills, and talents. However, before we do this, we must conduct a pretty intense evaluation when it comes to running our own self-assessment. In reference to Friedrich Nietzsche, “As extraordinary individuals, we should all seek to rise above the crowd.”
Eulerian Destiny
Tai talks a lot about identifying what he calls our “Eulerian Destiny.” Our Eulerian Destiny gives us hints as to what our competitive advantages are as well as our potential career destiny. The Eulerian Destiny chart consists of 5 circles, each of which asks one of the following questions:
1. Who and what did we grow up around?
2. What did we want to be when we were 14 years old?
3. What have we been doing for the past 10 years?
4. What do strangers, or even people who don’t like us compliment us on?
5. What can we talk at length about with our friends?
As I mentioned in a previous post of mine, When I was a child, I was infatuated with architecture and construction. My siblings and I grew up in a working class family in the New Brighton section of Staten Island, NY. I was always amazed at how structures were built and developed. More than anything else, I loved playing with legos. The idea of connecting tiny little pieces of plastic together in an effort to form a finished product is what enamored me the most. As I had grown older, I eventually gravitated over to drawing, playing sports, and creating music.
When I was 16 years old, I made the decision to quit playing football. Deep down inside, I knew that continuing to play football was not going to be a suitable career path for me to follow. One thing that I have always possessed was a strong sense of following my intuition. I would find myself repeating this same scenario again when I attended Middlesex County College as a Freshman in 2005. This time, I decided that it was not in my best interest to continue pursuing a degree in Construction Engineering. Although it was something that as I child I believed I wanted to do when I got older, my interests at the time gravitated elsewhere. From here, I would continue on a path that would lead me to obtaining my Associate in Fine Arts Music degree from Middlesex County College. A few years later, I obtained my Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication from Rutgers University.
Today, my creative outlet is essentially a combination of all of my childhood endeavors. I may no longer build blocks, connect legos, create music, and play sports. However, I do build brands, connect people, identify talent, and create opportunities. Ultimately, I’m in the business of helping others to identify with the sense of their own “Lovers Ambition” in regards to achieving something of significance and value in their lives.
_________________________
(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.
A Lovers Ambition Lifestyle Group 