Rap to Riches the Ebb Flow of the Entrepreneurial Spirit

i’m coming here with questions but

nobody giving me an answer ain’t no

backup dancer i’m the man sir address me

peshy casino nestle it’s all white let

me tell you it’s all right it was all

fight never saw a bright future no shoot

shoot you if you want to come prove

you without the slug say otherwise they

never seen you guys you act surprised i

know why you don’t i tucked on you don’t

get high you choke don’t lie you broke

see the correlation

now see the situation you’re facing you

could accept me sneeze and bless me but

don’t bet me could only win i could

hardly see my ten minute round you want

to kill a win for what’s under your chin

listen

no more there’s no choice here gotta

suit up no holy this real life

taking a leave me faking bleeding i’m

treating me appreciate you hating

breathing escape escaping demons

right to my territory my self superior

respect ground inferior don’t ask

deliveries black diamonds

all i really want to do is talk to ted

enough said

was a mimic written lyric i pretended

was a freestyle in the same parking lot

where i was robbed by two guys

in 2005 on my knees gun in my mouth

in my underwear ten years later i signed

a record deal

i’m on a new personal and professional

high i

took a company from zero to 100 hit the

inc 500 list number 13 fastest growing

in new york

number 24 in global marketing and

advertising

i signed an awesome contract with

universal music group i worked with

amazing clients like katy perry and

samsung i produced 10 live two-hour

broadcasts for cbs

and i was creating amazing content with

some of my favorite people

on the planet personally i was traveling

the world

i moved into a new two bed two bath

balcony fireplace pool tennis court all

that

but what i learned is that

no matter the accomplishment and no

matter

how many creature comforts you surround

yourself with it doesn’t guarantee a

peaceful mind

see i was stuck with these thoughts and

i was always complaining and comparing

and criticizing it

i was never satisfied i was never

impressed

and you know it’s not the first time we

heard this right i mean jim

jim carrey famously said he wishes

everybody could be rich and famous and

live their wildest dreams so that they

could see it’s not the answer

and miss sonia wrote two great books one

is called the how of happiness and one’s

called the myth of happiness

in both she attributes only 10 of our

happiness to life circumstances

like marital status education wealth

things we typically

chase so for me this was new

and i was looking for an opportunity to

find a way to kind of combat this

so what i did was what i did almost

every morning i sit in front of my

computer in my underwear again

but this time i’m looking for solutions

and i made a list of the top 20 things

that i thought might make me feel better

some of them are a little bit ridiculous

but i’ll share with you three of them

today so

first we don’t feel good right so we go

see our doctor and i had a pretty good

relationship with my doctor

and um but you know despite my

autoimmune disease and despite my

thick cell wall around my heart and my

herniated discs and that my retinas are

attached by

silicone bubbles i was in pretty good

physical shape

so the doctor recommended that i see a

behavioral health clinic

so they studied my brain and besides 140

they found that i was diagnosed with

bipolar 2

ptsd general anxiety disorder and

other things classified under the term

depression

and i was excited and the doctor looked

at me like i was nuts why are you happy

about this but

to me this was this was exciting this

was now okay there’s medical terminology

for what i’m feeling what i’m

experiencing the things that are going

on in my head this is now

now a real thing like maybe now we’re on

the path to treatment let the healing

begin

right well not so fast

they prescribed me with all kinds of

different medications some made me

really fat bloated sweaty others made me

angry and gave me nightmares and

most all the medication made me really

lethargic

and um you know i just this wasn’t the

solution that i was looking for

so i continued back in my underwear

again on the computer looking talking to

friends and family and trying to find

solutions

and um one of my friends i used to write

songs with recommended that i speak to a

natural channeler from israel

and uh at this time you know i had tried

eastern philosophies and

rituals and i tried western meditation

at this point i was ready to try

anything so i said sure why not

and boy am i glad that i did that

because this was my first

inclination of hope this was my first

introduction to the journey of the soul

and this idea that we’re all just this

kind of speck of stardust riding in this

meat covered skeleton floating on a rock

through space this was

foreign to me but nevertheless it

resonated

and i wanted to explore the study i

wanted to see it from every angle i

wanted to

submerge myself into it i wanted for

this idea

what every human being has wanted for

every idea since the beginning of time i

wanted

this idea to manifest into reality i

wanted it

to play an active role in my life

you know i read somewhere that the

definition of resilience is our ability

to adapt

absorb and anticipate shocks and

stresses

well life shocks and stresses certainly

wore me down

i didn’t want to make music i didn’t

want to tour i didn’t consider myself

worthy of the satisfaction of applause

most days i didn’t want to get out of

bed

and so i looked for another reason i

thought maybe

maybe this definition of resilience is

incorrect and when i visited president

moon in south korea and when i moved

last summer to san juan and missed the

protest

this idea was reinforced that maybe

resilience is not about anticipating the

negative things bound to happen in our

lives

maybe it’s more about just the knowing

and the understanding that we have

inside of us

everything that we need that we’re

connected to this infinite source of

knowledge and wisdom

and i’m not talking about your wi-fi

connection to google

see we have 70 000 thoughts per day

about 50 thoughts per minute you’ll have

700 thoughts

just during my talk alone my thoughts

were out of control

and i felt like a victim of them instead

of a co-creator

and so this was essentially my my

issue is that you know how do we become

aware of all these thoughts that are

bouncing back and forth how many of them

are we really aware of and what are the

thoughts doing

to us that we’re not aware how do we

manage this process

and so i discovered a tool that i want

to share with you today it’s a tool that

it’s called the scale of thought and i

picked this up along my travels and

so the ocean of knowledge reads that

we’re this tiny point of light

in the center of the forehead behind the

eyes and that our purpose here on earth

is to experience and express

the innate qualities of the soul that’s

peace power purity love bliss happiness

knowledge wisdom

and now during our time here in this

world of the five senses

we encounter these five vices

and the vices have a tendency to kind of

dim our light and block our shine

the five vices can be represented by the

acronym algae anger

lust greed attachment and ego now we

have eight spiritual powers to combat

these five vices but i’ll get into that

in another talk

so what i learned is that i never had an

issue managing things out here i

practiced all my life i studied in

school

at work i practiced managing people and

situations and circumstances

no problem my issue was managing here so

i didn’t have the tools

to manage my thoughts until now

so i’d like to introduce you to the

scale of thought it’s really simple

picture this

this ascending diagonal line okay you

have thoughts in essentially five