Definitely not Dame Taylor

I decided to take my mind off of my tasks & responsibilities, because I’m getting tired of driving myself through walls.

Recently, I came to a realization that when I die, people will forget about what I’ve done and probably won’t speak of a lot of my efforts while I was here, so what’s the point of giving your life to helping others, to the point of stress, anxiety & exhaustion?

I’m finally getting it, yes — but I’ve been this way my whole life — I can’t just hit a switch and have a life outside of that… I wish, but no. It’s going to take time for me to develop new habits… I’ve never out myself first in anything.

Today, I decided to travel, hike and eat. I drove about 100 miles today and visited some of the areas I grew up in, found new spots, tried them, ran a mile and went on a 3-mile hike in some random woods.

My migraine magically started to dissolve, which NEVER HAPPENS I always have to take Ibuprofen for them to go away, and it’s been that way since I was 8 years old. — proof that I think HARD when my brain is on. I’m a compulsive thinker, and I won’t stop thinking until my thoughts are created, built, structured, planned & strategized.

Find a medium between posting content & trying to sharing my story vs. being active offline.

For me, it’s either 1,000% in social mode or nothing, and when this happens, something gets neglected. You don’t have to neglect important areas of your life for others — learn to manage both, with balance.

Post your best content on your channels, not social channels.

Blog on your website, answer questions from your list — post them here and on your site(s).

- Finish the Discord by Wednesday

For years, I always took pride in properly articulating & representing myself professionally — but yesterday, I broke that and I’m pissed about it.

I sent out an email blast, promoting my upcoming Elite Producer Camp and I posted a flyer with the wrong dates in the email.

To make it worse, I sent myself a Test Email last night before I scheduled the blast for this morning, reviewed it and STILL messed it up.

This is coming from the same dude who created two websites in 2016 and I’ve ran & managed both sites for the past 9 years with ZERO grammatical errors.

But recently, I’ve posted maybe 4-5 Instagram posts that also had grammatical errors that I missed AFTER reviewing them.

This means that I have an internal clock that is moving way too fast and I need to slow TF down.

My migraines also came back. I’m super anxious and I know this is something I have to do a better job of controlling this time around.

My rationalization: Only 30% of my email list opens my email blasts anyway — and most of them have been to camps already, so I don’t think they’ll judge me or care that much — but it still pisses me off and it’s unacceptable.

I want to start back blogging regularly, too, hence this post.

I can’t wait to get back in the studio — I can’t wait to help producers & artists again.

The past 2 years have been me processing my past 10 years and thinking, if I did this all over again, what would I do differently?

1.) I would do a better job of pacing myself.

2.) I’d do a better job of separating my emotion from the business.

3.) I would prioritize business over the love for what I do.

4.) I would only operate from the business plan(s) I create.

5.) I’d have better work/life balance. I will actually work on getting a life while running my business.

6.) I’d be more ballsy — pushing out harder to other cities & states.

7.) I will create strict budgets and work solely within those budgets.

8.) I will outreach for outside resources, instead of pushing to do everything on my own and using my personal finances to fund business ventures.

9.) I will have a more defined vetting process, making it not as easy to attend or participate in Monster Sessions events.

10.) I won’t function out of void and feeling that I can’t do this without having a team of people around me, and expecting/hoping to see some of me in them.

11.) I won’t be as accessible anymore.

Whenever you experience jealousy or envy from a “hater”, you are dealing with someone that wishes they could be in your position.

Since they don’t have experience channeling their emotions properly, they go to the easiest emotions: fear, anger & sadness.

People will not react with envy or jealousy if it’s something that is unimportant to them – so if they’re hating, they care.

Even if them niggas won’t/can’t admit it, they care and they might not even be aware of it.

Anyone that is dumb enough to publicly project hate/jealousy is most likely dumb enough to not realize that they are showing love backwards.

(This is all figurative, but the 80/20 reference really helps me to understand the position I am in today)

I’ve spent my entire professional life listening to people 80% of the time, and people have spent 80% of their time talking to me about their life, goals, aspirations, dreams, desires, problems, obstacles, insecurities, etc.

I am interested. I am curious, I CARE, so I listen - and from listening over the years, I’ve developed a special ability of quickly assessing viable & workable solutions to nearly everyone I talk to.

In relationships, it never works, which makes me realize that women talk for a completely different reason than men.

Women aren’t talking to you to come up with a solution, at least in my world, and from my personal experiences - but men do. All of them.

When people I ‘help’ show appreciation - and the people who show the most appreciation, I view them as a FRIEND, mutuals, an equal - I give them the same respect they give me.

The Problem: I am always only interacting with people who value and benefit from me being a good listener and problem solver.

They don’t view me as a friend. I thought a lot of them were friends. I helped because I considered them friends. They were never my friends.

I listen with intent. I help & come up with solutions with intent, meaning, I am solving this problem with and for you because I know exactly why and how this will help you.

I then have to sit and listen to them share with me how I’ve helped them, when I already know that my help would work.

Irony: They don’t realize that every single person you’re helping is doing the same exact thing, the same exact way - they think it’s just them.

Also an irony - my help, advice & solutions come from experience & me knowing what I’m talking about, and them not knowing.

I never want to hear them explain how I’ve helped them because I already know how I helped - I knew the outcome before they even believed what I was saying. But often times, I come off as a bad guy for not wanting to listen to the outcome of something I intended, because I’ve already listened to so much to get to this point, from HUNDREDS of the same type of people.

I think maybe subconsciously, I assume reciprocity at this point - and it never comes… but, you don’t help to be helped, you help because you have considered it a duty - so you don’t trip too much and just keep helping. 🤦🏾‍♂️

So then there comes a time, a very rare time where I feel I need help, and no one is available to help me. Either they don’t know how to, or they have never had to listen to anyone more than 20% of the time.

Funny thing is, I don’t even required anything close to 80% of listening, but I think people fear the burden of losing part of their 80% speak, they avoid compromising that, and I sense it.

Shit is crazy.

… and because I always view everyone as an equal, I assume that people will have me the way I naturally have them, and I’m confused when they don’t seem capable of doing so…

100% my fault.

What a fucking life, man. What a fucking life.

If I were to die today, in my heart, I feel like I’d go down as one of the biggest idiots to ever live for not knowing this.

I grew up in a family that ate anything that came to mind, at any time of the day or night.

My dad used to eat MASSIVE bowls of cereal at 1 in the morning while lying on his stomach watching TV.

My grandma used to wake up in the middle of the night to fry chicken and/or an entire pack of bacon for everyone to “snack on.”

When my grandmother made tacos, she would yell from the kitchen into the living room, “How many tacos do you want?!” And if you said anything less than 4-5, something was “wrong with you.”

When I was in high school, I used to brag about being able to drink an entire Minute Maid carton per day… like, I actually thought it was cool.

We only ate vegetables out of cans, and they were always made the same way - with nearly half a stick of butter, seasoning salt, garlic powder, etc.

Thankfully, no one in my family has any significant health issues today as a result of all this, but I wanted to introduce you guys to the eating lifestyle and the only way I knew to view food growing up into my adult life after leaving my family.

In 2012, after I almost died from a pulmonary embolism, I decided that I wanted to change my eating habits. My PE was a result of a basketball injury - it didn’t have much to do with internal health. I was actually in pretty good shape at the time. The PE was the first significant injury I had ever had, so while I could barely walk, it was the best time to think about health and improvement.

This was the first time I had ever stopped drinking juice and soda. I started drinking water instead and lost 20 lbs, despite not being able to do cardio, just by replacing soda and sugary drinks with water. But that was as far as my health consciousness went back then - I still ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, because that’s how I grew up.

There is a rite of passage in my family where everyone (even the boys) learns how to cook at a young age, so I’ve been cooking full meals since I was 8 or 9 years old. By the time I was 10, I was cleaning, cutting, and frying whole chickens. Today, I can pretty much cook anything on a restaurant menu, and if I don’t know how to make it, give me a few days, and I’ll figure it out.

Fun fact: I was planning to attend culinary school in 2013 to become a chef once I stopped making music and after my leg injury. Culinary arts have always been a passion of mine since I was a kid, and I always said that I would become a chef after music and open my own restaurant… but music had other plans for me. Anytime I tried to do something outside of music, an opportunity brought me right back into it.

For the past three months, after all these years of bad eating habits, I have finally been learning about proper dieting.

This is the first time in my life that I have cared about and monitored everything - from sodium and sugar intake to calories, ingredients, and making sure that when I eat, I include all food groups: fruits and vegetables, dairy, grains, and protein.

For example, dairy: The only dairy I consumed over the years was from eating cereal like my dad. Now, I’ve learned that I really like yogurt, so I’ve been trying different kinds daily, to the point where I’ve made it a habit to include one yogurt per day.

Fruits and vegetables: Nearly every day for the past three months, my daily diet has included two bananas, an apple or an orange, and I alternate other fruits weekly - pears, plums, peaches, and watermelon. For fun, I even bought a dope-ass $90 combat knife just for cutting fruit… I used to buy apples and not eat them because I hated having to wash them. Now, I can wipe them off and cut the skin off - the knife has actually encouraged me to eat so much more fruit.

I no longer eat anything processed, or I’ll say, I have drastically cut down on eating processed foods - I’m not trying to sound like I’m some food or health guru after 3 months. I have always had a bad habit of eating chips & candy, but I’m proud to have been able to replace a lot of that with healthier options - Raisins, organic nuts, organic fruit bars, etc.

I have eaten more steak in the past 3 months than I have in, probably my whole life. I’ve been doing a lot of cooking at home, preparing meats to eat for the week. A lot of sirloin, rib eye with rice, potato’s… man, it’s been a lot of change & growth.

I used to always hear people say that dieting was more important than working out, but I wasn’t ready to stop eating whatever I wanted. Even though I believe you should eat what you want - but in moderation - I’m proud to say that I have finally adopted dieting into my daily habits.

This is a new journey for me, but I have already lost 8 lbs (since December) just from changing my diet and working out nearly every day.

I’ve been so enamored with exploring & discovering healthy ways of eating, on top of learning so many other things that one of the last things on my mind as of late has been to stream all day, when I felt like shit (because I was eating terrible) any time you guys ever saw me on cam.

I made a promise to myself that the next time you guys see me on cam, you’ll notice IMMEDIATELY how different I look, and hopefully it’s because I am much healthier & conscious of better life habits.

Thanks for reading, y’all.

Shoutout to my real supporters. I love y’all for real.

We still don’t turn down no fades. That ain’t ever changing. We’ll let these corny niggas breathe until I come back. It’ll be quiet again.