“What happens when you play the game of life, and the win is not in the bag.”
That's a Jay Z line that has always stayed with me. What happens when you do everything the right way and things don't go in your favor. What happens when people let you down and don't meet the expectations you had for them. What happens when you don't meet the expectations you have for yourself. You know what happens when things don't go as planned, you take a minute to grow and add to yourself. Life has taught me that as soon as you think you got things figured out you realize that you don't. That's a beautiful feeling. Let's look at the saying is your glass half full, or half empty. But what happens when you fill your glass to the top. I think that you should consistently work toward filling your glass up consistently with new water. This means you are always open to receive and learn. You never feel like you have learned everything that you need to learn. You never feel like you completely figured life out because you haven't. Life is forever changing so it's best you change along with it.
You see I use to say that I never wanted to fail and then I started my own business which is KoolforLife Inc. Now the way my personality works is I feel that I can do anything I put my mind to and I can. I believe that my soul can manifest and will anything into fruition. The problem with that perspective is I lack the patience that comes along with this process. You see creating success is like creating a garden in your backyard. Now don't get me wrong this is a process where you work along with nature to make something happen. So when you start your garden first you turn your dirt over and make sure you have healthy soil. Once that happens you make your rolls in the garden. Then you make holes in your rolls and you place the seeds in the dirt. Now remember you are working along with nature to help bring this dream into fruition. It's 50 percent you and 50 percent nature. You see the part you play in this garden is making sure you maintain the garden. That means you have to water your garden twice a day. You put a scarecrow in your garden to keep the birds out. You make sure you keep the weeds out. You make sure that your garden is getting the right amount sunlight. When your plants start to grow you maintain them and make sure you put rods in the dirt so as your plants grow they don't break. Now it doesn't matter how much you want this garden to grow if you don't maintain it that won't happen. If your garden doesn't get the right amount of sunlight it won't grow. There are variety of different things that can happen that can stop your garden from growing. But if you stay consistent, and every day you treat your garden with love and you maintain that garden. Nature and the universe will work with you to help that garden come into fruition. Me and my great grandmother use to do a garden every year up until she passed away in 2003. I didn't know when she taught me how to garden that she was teaching me how to create success as well.
What have I learned about failure? Well, I learned that it has shaped me to be the person I am. All the bad days made the good days that much more sweater. You see on the bad days I had to step outside of my comfort zone. You see when adversity comes you have to use it as a stepping stool to add to yourself, adversity should never hinder you. If that happens it's not the adversity stopping you, it's you - stopping you. You see when you fail and things don't go your way it creates a type of friction in your body. That feeling is energy and you can use that energy to manifest. You see most of the time when things don't go our way we complain or blame somebody weather it's yourself or your friends. Suppose every time things don't go our way we perceived that moment as a blessing because we learned something about ourselves or somebody else. You see nobody said that things are always supposed to go your way. In some way, shape or form we are all drug addicts. We all won't instant gratification and life doesn't work like that. Realities are created through a particular state of mind. Manifesting is a process, it's not an event. So when things don't go your way Just stay grateful and respect the process. You see the process is where you grow and evolve. If your life was a portrait it would have an array of different moments that you have experienced. What will your portrait look like? We don't take pictures and videos when we feel like shit because we don't want people to see our failures but we won't people to cheer when we succeed. We live in a world of duality that means if you want the good days then you best prepare for the bad days. look forward to the bad days, greet adversity with a smile every time because it's helping you add to yourself.
I would say at 32 I failed many times. When I was younger because of my behavior I was placed in special education. I had teachers tell me that I would never make it in life. I remember when I thought I was graduating with my friends and found out that I was missing 21 credits. I remember getting cut from the basketball team in high schools two times. I remember when the social work program sent me a letter and said my GPA was 2.44 and I needed 2.5 to stay in the social work program. You know what else I remember, I remember when I got out of special education because the assistant principal said I didn't belong in that setting. I remember when one of my high school teachers told me that nothing that I learned in high school would help me in the real world. I also remember when I graduated with my Associates degree in Human Services. I remember that after the semester I almost got kicked out the social work program that I got a 3.5 the next semester and was asked to come speak at the Dean’s list ceremony. I remember that I stayed on the Dean’s List after that semester until I graduated and finished my last semester with a 3.994 GPA and I graduated with honors. So the year before I watched my friends graduate and was sad and happy at the same time. They graduated at the Barclays center and when my time came do did I. You see as much as I can look back at think about my failures, I can go back and think about all the success I have had in my life. I don't know if I would have accomplished what I have accomplished without the pain and failure. I use the energy from those situations to add to myself and evolve. Thus far everything that I have set my mind to I have accomplished. By the way I made the basketball team my junior year and made every team after that. I was diagnosed with lupus and the doctor told me I couldn't go in the sun and live a normal life. Well I didn't listen to the doctor and I'm still here. I still do the things I want to do and I'm healthy by the way. You see we define our lives and we create our reality. Yes some days things don't go your way or won't work in your favor and that's ok. Look forward to those days. It's nothing wrong with setting high expectations for yourself but when you don't reach your mark it's ok. Take a moment to breath, re- strategize your plan, regroup and kept going until you bring your dreams to life. Dreams don't have an expiration date, you just have to keep pushing and pulling until you bring those dreams to life. When I was going through some of the stuff I shared I didn't always know if things would work out in my favor but I faith in myself and my Creator. I just always felt like I have what it takes to do something amazing while I'm on this planet. I created a company where the premise of KoolforLife is to bring people together through love, unity and spirit. Then we use that unity to collectively work together as a Human race to make this world better. We should stop waiting to die to get to paradise and we create that paradise while we are alive. I had somebody tell me that the concept of my company was crazy and I would never be able to bring this dream into fruition. Well I could of took that statement as an insult but I didn't. I thought to myself for every 10 people that believe in me, 100 people won't believe in me and that's ok. The goal is to believe in yourself under all circumstances. If you can do that it won't matter who believes because you believe. If I was you I would create a garden that was so beautiful and nice that even your haters respect it. Shine so bright that all you see is light, I never seen darkness in a room full of light. Be great, consistently grow and remember that your KoolforLife.