This is simply the funniest thing I have seen all year! DO NOT watch this at work if you can't laugh out loud. I am not responsible for you getting fired.
One of the best and worst things about the Internet is that everyone is at your fingertips. I have signed up for so many self-help, informational, "be a better man" sites, that my email is completely clogged up… and I end up only reading a select few. Google Reader is even worse, because I get full news stories every minute of every day. I'm so backed up that I just found out that Kim Kardashian just got engaged! I'm just playing, but only slightly.
But here are 3 blogs/sites that I read religiously and am excited about. Some are about the life I want to live and some are just escapism. But all are cool enough for me to clue you in about.
I absolutely love this blog. I understand that in the Blackiverse "bougie" has a terribly negative connotation, but Michele Grant @onechele celebrates bougie as upscale, upwardly-mobile, socially-savvy Black folks. I'm with it.
Bill Simmons @sportsguy33 (pictured) is my favorite writer on ESPN (aside from Jemele Hill, who gets my vote for more than just writing ;-)). He became so successful that when the idea for Grantland came up, ESPN let him run with it. I must admit, the website design overwhelms me most of the time (it's not very easy to figure out what stories I missed). But every time I'm there, one of his many world-class writers is shedding light on a topic, whether related to sports or not, in a way that is enlightening.
Crazy title, right? Let's be real, if it was easy to be rich, we'd all be driving around in Maybachs. But Ramit Sethi @ramit is not handing you a magic elixir to drink, asking you to swallow blue and red pills or passing you the combination to the secret lair of the Illuminati. He is giving you systems, scripts, and new ways of thinking about how to find and get your dream job and how to maximize the money made from that job. He gets you to answer hard questions about exactly what you want to do, and gives you proven ways to attain it. But he makes no bones about it… it is hard work. His theme for 2011 was "hustling"… that doesn't sound like he's opening up the back door to the bank, does he? But that's why I'm in it 99%, and seeing if that extra 1% is worth it (you'll understand when you go to the site).
I joke that I have a reality radio show called The Comforter, where I talk to my female friends about their relationship issues. Sometimes I tell them what they need to hear, sometimes I tell them what they want to hear and sometimes I don't want to hear it. In the course of talking I come up with statements that speak to reoccurring themes with my friends. If you read something that resonates with you, please take it and run with it. At some point, each of these quotes will be a blog post of their own.
From now on, I'm not going to talk about dreams. I'm redefining the term "dreams" as "creating my reality." Creating my reality means looking forward and figuring out how to make the reality I desire happen. It's like starting at the end and working back to where I am now… reverse engineering my life, if you will. I'm going to illustrate creating my reality by writing about what I'm doing to do just that in my DJ life. What you read in my real life experiences may be the catalyst you need to start down the path of creating your reality yourself.
The reality I'm currently creating is having COMPs (club owners/managers/promoters) consider me the premier upscale urban DJ in the world. COMPs fly me out to their city, put me up in an elegant hotel, and let me do what I do on the ones (shoutouts to @msalissap). It is a concept I started actively working on a year and a half ago when I became the resident DJ for 30+, a monthly upscale event in the Boston area catering to the urban socialite.
But visualization is not my only weapon. I also write out in detail the whole process. It's like writing a script for my life, how I want it to play out. It helps slow my mind, letting the visuals stick in my brain, allowing my body to "feel" the experiences. I go to 750words.com and do just that, writing my reality in 750 words (or more) a day. It sounds crazy, but ever since I started writing my reality in March of 2010, I have been more successful in my nightclub DJ career than I was when I was on the radio as the program director and afternoon personality at 97.7 WILD-FM in Boston and Hot 102.9 in Dayton!
And my actual gigs help create my reality also. When I'm performing at 30+, I'm visualizing myself rocking the industry after party for the BET Awards. When I was on stage opening for Musiq Soulchild at Showcase Live in Foxboro, MA, I was visualizing myself on stage at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans. When I'm creating The Vibeology MixCast, I'm visualizing myself doing a radio show on WBLS in New York City or WGCI in Chicago. I call my gigs paid practices because every time I'm performing, I'm practicing for the next time I'm performing, trusting that the next time is on a bigger stage.
This is just a sliver of the total reality I'm creating for myself… I've created a whole alternate universe in my head! It is all about how I move through the world… health, dress, relationships, how I'm living, what I drive. It sounds delusional, but the more I visualize, the more I write, the more I know exactly how I want my life to be, the faster it becomes a reality.
It's not even how great you are.
It IS "what makes you special?"
The key is getting club owners/managers/promoters (COMPs) to understand that your name will bring people in the door, that your skills will keep people in the building, and that their patrons' experience will get them to come back.
How to do that? Have easily identifiable attributes that resonate with the COMPs you are trying to reach. What are your unique selling points? What are the things about you that compels a COMP to say "I need to hire you?"
Idris Elba (picture 1) spun before he became famous, and he still spins now. Selling point. Sky Nellor (picture 2) is a female former model turned DJ. Selling point(s). ?uestlove (picture 3) spins when he is not drumming for the premier Hip-Hop band, The Roots. Selling point.
Now, 99.9% of DJs don't have those selling points, but there are plenty of DJs who have parlayed their unique selling points into gigs making thousands of dollars a night. Some of them are on the radio. Some are doing remixes. Some dominate their city to such a degree that their name travels on its own.
What are not selling points:
Playing the best music (you're SUPPOSED to play the best music!)
Being great at cutting and scratching (almost every Hip-Hop DJ can do that… it's only special if you are a turntablist), or at blending (that is rule #1 for House/Electro/Dance)
Rocking the mic (depends on the COMP, whether they value it or not)
What ARE selling points:
Other people consider you the best/most prominent/go-to DJ in that genre. Your name is the first that comes up. In Boston, Chubby Chub is that dude for Hip-Hop. DJ Bruno is that dude for Deep House. Junior Rodigan is that dude for Reggae. I'm that dude for Old School.
An affiliation bigger than yourself. I had never heard of DJ Spider, but he was a "Myspace DJ" (waaaay back in 2008 when that was a big deal). DJ Mark Da Spot is down with Monster Cables. There are a bunch of DJs that are signed with agencies such as Deckstar, Moodswing 360 and S.K.A.M. Artists that are the Ford, Elite and Wilhelmina's of the DJ world.
A tag line next to your name that is impressive. Or at least "sounds" impressive. I love DJ Dru Nyce's "The Most Requested DJ". Las Vegas' DJ G-Squared looks nice because we know only major DJs play in Las Vegas. NBA DJ Dallas Green makes you look twice. DJ Timbuck2, tour DJ for Lupe Fiasco… sweetness. I'm still wrestling with a tag line I can go everywhere with. Big Chicago Reggie Beas, the Upscale DJ, is cool, but that doesn't have that "umph" that tips the needle (and it makes it seem like I'm spinning in a tux).
Ultimately, it really comes down to your value. If a COMP spends $3,000 on you, will that translate into higher profits at the door and bar than spending $300 on DJ WTF? It doesn't even have to be true, the COMP just has to be convinced that your value is worth the extra expense. Your goal is to define yourself in such a way that COMPs see the value in flying you in, putting you up and letting you play.
*I put "celebrity" in quotes because anyone who is traveling worldwide as a DJ I consider a "celebrity" DJ, not just celebrities who decide to DJ.
My litmus test on whether I like a song or not: do I jump around the room, scream "yes", then do my Snoopy dance?
This song made me do my Snoopy dance. Just one of those cool songs that is instantly identifiable, yet unique. It has that "IT" factor that I know when I hear it... too bad I can't bottle "IT" and sell it. This song may not be that one that breaks her out, but this is that buzz record that puts her on the radar of tastemakers everywhere.
More on Elle Varner:
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http://twitter.com/#!/ELLEVARNER
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