Dreams… You Got One?" or "In My World, I'm That Dude!

I talk to my friends all the time about following their dreams. I am completely amazed at how many of them don't have a dream! They are unable or unwilling don't take the time to paint the picture of their future selves. Now, I understand needing to make money in the now… the future seems so abstract. But dreams are necessary. Just the simple fact of having that dream in your head pushes you closer to making it a reality.

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.

Meditation is a big part of what I do, visualizing exactly, in the present tense, what the whole experience looks like. I visualize what I'm packing for the trip. I visualize how comfortable I am in first class. I visualize the customs officer putting a stamp in my passport. I visualize the person with the hand-written sign saying "BEAS" who leads me to the limo. I visualize getting dressed in my 5 star hotel before the event. I visualize the email from the bank telling me another 4-figure deposit has hit my account. I visualize the line outside the event that I'm about to rock. I visualize a sea of beautiful people dressed in suits and ties, dresses and heels, dancing in every corner of the venue to my blend of old school, neo-soul, house, smooth R&B and hip-hop. And I love visualizing the COMP's excitement in their event being a smash hit.

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!

Practice is very important also (yes, AI, we're talking about practice). About three years ago I realized that practice helps me even though I'm already great at what I do and I've been performing for many moons already. Practice allows me to 1) know exactly how to get in and out of every song I play while keeping the crowd partying; 2) get away with playing new music without losing the dance floor; 3) bring back old songs that everyone forgot that they loved; and 4) freestyle when I need to, because sometimes the crowd is going left when I'm going right.

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.

Posted via email from nineteen degrees