I've made it the first quarter; 3 months of being bald and talking with people, engaging, and digging in like a shovel trying to figure out (at my own pace), what it is to be bald. I admit, my lack of planning has been my core setback in this project, but you can't plan for every aspect of life and my goal was never to be outlandish.
As stated in the very first opening scene of a year bald; I would be continuing my life as normally as ever, with the added addition of I would be delving into (what it is to be bald in society). This has basically caused me to be a catalyst in bringing up the elephant in the room (the one on the shoulders of bald folks who have a deep seeded concern with their bald heads); that's where my goal has become to be an example of what I seek to bring forth in understanding -
Why people feel this way?
What causes them to seek out remedies?
What have they been lead to believe about baldness, by media, marketing, philosophy, business, social influences; you name it.
So, to move forward - I could write up a massive dialogue. OR I could just show you my point.
In this episode, I discuss every entrepreneur's dream: Doing what they love for a living, every day.
However, I happen to notice that many people who do happen to be independent business owners, family owned practices, or even small collectives of individuals often Fail to Fly.
They set their sites too low or even worse; they only do enough just to get by, and paying their bills Alone leaves them feeling a sense of accomplishment to where they want to celebrate every Friday and Saturday at the bar.
This type of limited thinking is exactly what causes businesses to shrivel up and die in under 5 years.
Due to lack of Expansion. Lack of Hunger. Lack of Obsession.
I reference: Grant Cardone's (Sell or Be Sold) + (Be Obsessed or Be Average)
I also pull from: Robert Kiyosaki's(Rich Dad Poor Dad)
In addition I reference an interview with Equity Group Investments CEO: Sam Zell discussing his early entrepreneurial discovery of supply and demand and cross reference his exposure to Economics and his business development while in College.
And finally I cover a presentation given by Peter Theil (co-founder: Paypal) as he spoke at Stanford University in 2014; his presentation titled: Competition is for Losers
As always, my goal is to enlighten, encourage and put out realistic information to spread positive vibes wherever my work happens to go.
If you enjoy the information I'm curating; have questions or ideas for future ShopTalks.
Shoot me an Email: ThreeGinsMedia@gmail.com
or message me on Facebook (#ShopTalkGuys)
And the title doesn't even describe 1/4th of my projects.
I'm Obsessed. I don't apologize.
But I will prioritize better this year; who knows maybe I'll get lucky and get a few more haters :D
I had a guy attempt to down talk me in my business expansion ideas and I bought him an extra coffee to go. I want him to remember the generosity of the guy he shit-talked, because at the end of the day, my goal will be to hire him.
I've maintained (a year bald) project integrity, though January has been a very inactive month. Mostly behind the scenes work and attempting to make bigger things happen (asAdam h. Michaels says: There's a lot of un-amazing things that take place in business that lead to the achievements stage of every series of seemingly Amazing feats). Having a slow month is really just a time to keep grinding, remind people of who you are and when they're ready to make something happen - they'll remember you.
I just wrapped up with a local furniture revamp and antiquing shop called: Cottage on Main
The kicker is that I started working with them on what was the verge of them moving from one location to another; an expansion. Massive expansion. A street side mom n' pop shop to a Large House/ Mansion; depending on how you look at those structures.
I had been working with them since July 2016 and we wrapped up 2 weeks ago (January 2017).
Their goal was to showcase the progression of their shop and the changes the business has progressed through. Overall, the Dedication and Perseverance of these ladies astonished me and I was pleased to help tell their story. In addition to the four spots we produced; we're already looking into 3 more commercial spots and some new marketing tactics as well. Really excited to continue working with them.
In addition to a year bald and my client work for 3Gins; I've always got personal projects on the sidelines that I'm ready to start planning, coordinating and producing when theres a little free space on the calendar. But to be totally honest, I also don't enjoy free space in my calendar. Boredom breeds the opportunity for old bad habits to get back ahold of me and I don't have interest in anything that's holding me back from being on fire. I enjoy being active, providing information to people and creating my own stories and path. I believe that's the concept of being an Entrepreneur; if not just a heavily marketed term for Capitalist.
The month before I started working with Cottage on Main, I was out at Beast Coast 2016 and being introduced in one fail swoop to the Amazing Community of Parkour - I got to travel to Washington D.C. and meet some of the top athletes of this practice; which would become an official sport only days before a Documentary I was producing on it was released (Good Timing).
Flashback: April 2016: I'm sitting in my office at my old apartment and taking notes down in the middle of the day regarding my agenda. I was working on editing a beer review show I was producing called Brewmergency. I took a break and was looking about my notes; suddenly amid a clutter of notes I kept writing down the word (Parkour).
I had been putting it off for sometime (Imagine that a procrastinator; hell it's like I'm doing my taxes or something...), so I decided I had been postponing it or far too long; I was curious about Parkour - I knew nothing about it and I was looking to change that. I wrote down on each side of the word on the note: (Find - Group). It read (Find Parkour Group) and so as I stood there for a moment in my office just staring at the note - I kind of came to and realized, I guess this is the part where I actually get on Google and look this up huh...
I didn't find anything right away, I got distracted by pictures. But once I regained Focus, I found myself on a discussion forum reading through old posts for 2007, 2008 and 2009. Interestingly enough, there was a link embedded in one of the comments.
Once I clicked it, it took me to Kentuckiana Parkour on Facebook. I was both excited and skeptical; what if I found a group that was no longer active? As I started to scroll the page I noted a post from only 3 days prior that mentioned an open gym on Friday; I believe I reached out to them on a Tuesday or Wednesday and very uncertain of what I was really after when contacting the group.
So after a couple minutes of thought, I realized that there were no videos discussing the In's and Out's of what Parkour actually was - so when I first reached out I was only planning on getting a rundown and maybe creating a short explanatory video for beginners.
After 20mins; Marcus Sumner responded to me and his group was down with the idea and forwarded me a link to their Documentary that they had created the previous year from the event Beast Coast 2015.
The Documentary was still nothing I had planned to do at this point; it would come across the following week when I was visiting my folk's place.
Marcus called so we could arrange a meeting for my visit for the initial project concept and after about 40mins he had discussed Beast Coast (the annual event), that there was a supportive community of athletes, worldwide traction being gained monthly for the practice and so-on.
He wanted to meet up with me so we could discuss it further and so I could get started with training, because Honestly - I was really digging what Marcus was selling. I wanted to know more and how I could get involved.
I began documenting the meet-up and training on my smartphone and once we got through the process of planning, coordinating, traveling and just my immersion into Parkour, I was sold.
Parkour was definitely something I wanted in on. The Documentary was really not a planned thing; I just knew that I was compelled to collect footage of everything going on around me and whatever came of it would need to be something that told my introduction story as well as what I would want to see if I were in my shoes 7 months earlier without a clue.
So what's interesting is that the day after it's release, I was ready to move onto the next project I've been working on since May 2016; yeah, last May-July was a busy month for me. I started a handful of projects that had been getting postponed due to client marketing needs; as I really regretted telling Marcus for a couple of months after Beast Coast 2016. I had to focus on the paid work first because that was my income stream.
Of course, now I'm looking into at least 5 income streams and the goal is to have the necessary bills (aka: monthly crap bills) covered by one avenue of income - where as one of my other streams can fund the things that are more valuable to my time investment.
No one wants to work themselves to death on one job to pay reoccurring bills to barely get by - That's a load of horse shit and it's been marketed (along with many shitty ideas and investments) to the lower and middle class from the day their born until they day they die.
Myself, well. I plan on making a difference and a dent in the universe.