A Potential For Success

This is my very first article. Originally written back in 2015, it was part of the unreleased youth magazine, Acure (formerly SWVNK). At the time I was very pleased with the way it turned out, as not fulfilling my potential has always been my biggest fear.

6 years later and I still think there is value in it, if I little played out now. This was the beginning of my foyer into the world of marketing and entrepreneurship, and so as you read it, you will probably notice that this was a culmination of hours and hours of watching Gary Vee videos and listening to podcasts before they were a thing. Along with plenty of references to youth and hip-hop culture.

Without further ado.

Potential isn’t real, it’s a concept based on what could happen as opposed to what will. Synonymous with living on the internet, if nothing comes of it, then it’s wasted potential as a medium to make what you want to do, happen. As there is nothing of substance that warrants appraisal if the words “fulfilled” or “realised” don’t follow.

The competitive nature of hip-hop culture flows throughout the scene, and as we are all starting our journey on the road to riches and diamond rings, what we can do, is usually far greater than what we have done. Unfortunately, it’s our insecurities that are our undoing, with many young creatives feeling the need to proclaim to be somebody or something they aren’t. Of course what these same people fail to realise is that the famous term “fake it till you make it”, only worked when no one was watching. - Click to Tweet

*Checks Snapchat*

Parallel to rap music of today, there’s a lot of noise made in the scene with which the content isn’t the centrepiece anymore, rather saying something just to sound cool and garner numbers. This way of creating may win you the short-term game, but in the end, no one remembers the Pandas and everyone remembers the Butterflies (To Pimp).

The best content you can provide comes from an original thought, yet, when was the last time you thought about the information you consumed? In our everyday lives, we are bombarded with so much information that we rarely have a moment to think about what we have just consumed, analysing it to form our ideas and opinions. This is, I believe, one of the reasons for a lack of originality within the scene as our ideas aren’t ours, they’re a cocktail of information we have consumed because the lives we live are so fast-paced that it’s easier to regurgitate ideas than it is to create new ones.

With this statement comes the notion that we generally believe the things we read on the internet, because that’s just how it’s always been to us, from school and reading chapters of a book which took years to create by the world's leading experts, to now scrolling past a 140 character tweet and only consuming it in our minds because we don’t have the time to digest what it is.

At the end of the day we are the students of the game and have a lot to learn, so that’s why when Kris Van Assche - the man at the helm of Dior for almost a decade and a pioneer of today’s luxury streetwear scene - had to close down his eponymous line because of the “economic context”, we need to be aware that not everyone will make it.

Whether you’re on the ‘25 Under 25’ list or not, the cream always rises to the top and so will the creatives that are able to be part of the professional industry. The major key is self-awareness, knowing what you can and can’t do will save you from the inevitable heartache. Even if you want it so bad sometimes the practicality of it is that you will be more successful being a number four, five or six in an established company earning in the top 1%, compared to your billionaire Silicon Valley start-up dreams of being the next big number one alongside Mark Zuckerberg.

If ‘The Youth’ is, in fact, a mentality rather than earmarked as an age group, then it’s probably more accurate to describe the current demographic of aspiring professionals as millennials. Threatening our generation’s development, today’s ever urgent search for the ‘next big thing’ has caused burnout within every industry whereby the same people who told you that ‘patience is a virtue’, have pushed us beyond our capacity.

Everyone wants to make it now but what millennials have to realise is that in this window of opportunity, you are allowed to be slaving away working numerous jobs whilst being high risk and chasing your dreams because you’ll never have less pressure or responsibilities, if only you view this moment as a learning curve to turning the needle towards fulfilling your potential.

Time is free and is the biggest asset you have, yet this year has seen a low-key movement within the scene criticising the notion of working for free, this is bullshit. As an entry-level person in the industry, working for free is an understated tactic towards creating opportunities for yourself. Use it to create your own luck and build a network with established people who otherwise wouldn’t pay for your time, and in turn, the work you put in now will reap dividends later.

Every day on the internet you can find someone asking the question of what they’re doing wrong because success hasn’t followed their hustle, and the answer to this can be found once you reverse engineer it, into its two main parts. The first part being that they aren’t doing anything to create opportunities, learning and planning yes, but taking action is something else entirely.

There are only two reasons why people don’t take action and that is through either fear or laziness. Most of the time, if you delve deeper into this, at the roots of the fear is parents approval. Far too often you see parents putting immense pressure on their children to do something they simply don’t want to do, even though the world our parents grew up in is totally different to that of today’s youth. It’s this sad truth that will stop some of us from becoming successful, and the only way to get past this is by laying it all out on the table with your parents and asking for their support. Unfortunately, it’s never that simple as many parents are blinded by their regret, but don’t make it yours as this is the biggest poison with age, so don’t wish what could've been, live it.

A lack of action through laziness feeds into the second part, and that is that you are working, however, your behaviour doesn’t map towards this here lifestyle. You become what you do every day, and so if your habits and routines aren't geared towards your work, you will not achieve the consistency that is paramount for success. Build a structure to your day and stick to it, then watch the compounding effect happen over time.

Before we go any further, you need to answer this question truthfully:

What is success to you?

This is where you become part of the magazine, write whatever it means to you and look at it every single day. There is no right or wrong answer, but it should be whatever makes you happy and this is why there is no formula to success, it’s all relative. If you’re working a 9-5 and then come home to binge-watch another series on Netflix but you’re happy, then you’ve won.

However people everywhere regularly get together with their friends & family to do nothing but complain about their position, not realising that it adds zero value to their lives, and it’s this complaining that is the biggest tell to whether someone is a winner or not, if someone is going to be successful or not. You might be going through some tough times, things might not be going your way but at the end of the day only your actions can help change your outcome in life, complaining doesn’t.

Ultimately we are born sinners, giving into our gluttony and feeding ourselves with excuses until we become sick at the very idea of doing something. Guilty of this in creative industries, you will find the recycled excuse that it’s the racist, white, rich, old man’s fault for your lack of opportunities, and whilst this may be true, guess what? The market doesn’t care, and in a way acts as a pre-stage entry quality control so that only the people determined enough can survive the even harsher conditions of the actual market. A far cry from the rebellion lit response you are normally told, yet the outcome is still the same, it’s an excuse.

There’s always going to be someone who’s had it worse and so if someone who looks like you has made it, then so can you. Quite simply, the sinful greed of men will always trump the prejudice you may experience.

Signing off with an original thought for you to think about:

We are essentially the first generation of people for our families legacy, never before in human history has our lives been documented to this degree, there is no further person in our family tree who our children’s, children and their children will look at. We are the beginning and it’s our digital footprint that is the Egyptian hieroglyphics and cave paintings of modern time. It’s this unprecedented responsibility we hold for our family name, for which future generations will be historically looking back on and know, “What’s Happening?”.