“Inspiration on Fire Part One: Unlocking the Boss Within” by Christian “Thaahum” Abrokwah
I am HONORED to be included in this ground-breaking cd project! I was interviewed by Christian Abrokwah (Thaahum) about various topics pertaining to the MANIFESTATION of goals/dreams & LAW OF ATTRACTION & he put it to music & a beat. (…along with other authors, thinkers, and entrepreneurs!) I will be listening to this every am to get me & keep me on track for 2010! Check it out & do your dreams a favor by downloading these tracks right now!!!!
“Inspiration on Fire is what happens when “The Secret”, “As a Man Thinkith” and “The Power of Now” meet an urban audience.”
- Christian “Thaahum” Abrokwah CEO of Keneteph Entertainment
You can purchase individual tracks or the entire MP3 album by clicking the link below.
If we wait until we feel motivated to work on our dream, chances are our dream will remain just that, a dream. I remember when I was in my late teens, I had the opportunity to live with my dad in his condo a few miles from where I grew up. (My parents divorced when I was 9 and I lived with my mother.) My father was very active – he played basketball on a league, he biked 20+ miles every week, he regularly went on long hikes, and he went running every day. I envied his energy level and commitment to being active. I started going on 13-mile bike rides with him and although it kicked my butt, I really enjoyed it! I’m not one of those people who dislikes physical activity. I love it!! My problem is that I don’t stick with it and then “starting over” feels like crap. I let things get in the way and I tell myself that I’ll do my workout “tomorrow” until a month (or two or three) has gone by and next thing I know, I’m completely out of shape again. And then starting over again becomes an uncomfortable reality that I avoid until I can’t stand how I feel anymore and so I get out there and get active again. Every time I wonder why I gave it up in the first place because it feels so good! I tell myself I will never let ANYTHING stand in the way between me and my exercise ever again – but then (like clockwork) the inevitable “thing” comes along and messes up my schedule (I get a cold, I go out of town for work, I have friends in town, etc.) and I am unable to get out there and then I get discouraged, and so the cycle continues.
One day I was talking with my dad about this and I said, “I’m not like you, I have to push myself to go running. But once I’m out there, I’m okay.” What he said completely spun my world around. He told me that although he has been active since he was a teenager, ran in 5 & 10ks, biked for miles miles, jogged every day, and was in tip top shape, every single time he went out to start his exercise he had to overcome a feeling of not wanting to do it. WHAT? I couldn’t believe it. I said, “You mean, just every now and then, like when you haven’t been out in a while, or when you were sick or injured for a while, right?” and he responded with “No, EVERY time.” He went on, “It amazes me how it never gets easier. After all these years you would think my body would just know that by exercising I will feel great but instead I am met with a feeling of resistance every single time!” I honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So the difference between myself and the people I envy who exercise every day and are in great shape isn’t some genetic thing that they have and I don’t, but rather, it’s a CHOICE that they make, each and every day, to OVERCOME that voice that tells them NOT to do something, to settle and to stay “comfortable”. So if I wait for that resistance to go away, I will be waiting forever because even people (like my dad) who workout every single day experience that resistance! The trick is to push past it and not let is control my day.
Dreams are the same way. The passion and excitement for our dream rises and falls. Life has a way of taking the wind out of our sails at times. Maybe we want to do something that helps people but then we get sick of people and so we think maybe our dream isn’t what we want after all! Or, we may want to be a writer and then we hear some negative feedback and we think all of our potential readers may have the same type of negative feedback so we decide we don’t want to be a writer anymore.
The bottom line: We won’t always feel excited about our dream.
Nobody ever tells you about the mundane aspects of “living the dream” because well, let’s face it, we don’t want to hear about it!! We are working in jobs that make us unhappy and the excitement we get when we think about our dream is like oxygen to a dying man!! The last thing we want is a cup of “reality” thrown in, taking away our hope of a better life, our reason for getting out of bed in the morning. But I’m telling you this because I think a lot of us give up on our dreams once “the honeymoon is over” and we are just faced with the day-to-day aspects of it all because we initially associate our dream with the feeling of “excitement” and when we wake up one day and that excitement has turned to just another day, we get discouraged and fall back into old behaviors and give up on our dream. Don’t get me wrong, the day-to-day aspects don’t have to be boring, we can make any and every part of our lives as fun as we want them to be, but I’m just saying, there are parts to all life that are just … well, mundane! But don’t let the mundane, repetitious, or boring parts of your dream discourage you from working at it each and every day. Don’t listen to that voice that tells you it’s not worth it. Don’t listen to that feeling that tells you that it’ll never happen and what’s the use? Every day that you put energy into your dream, even if it’s not the big, sweeping progress that you can Tweet about and receive all kinds of “ooohs” and “aaahs” for, but instead maybe you just mailed a letter you were supposed to mail, or looked something up on the Internet that you’ve been putting off, or made that phone call you’ve been avoiding, whatever! No matter how “small” the action, any and all action is another chuck of wood that you have cut out of that big wall that stands between you and your dream and so… you have made progress!! And even if you make no measurable external progress, the reason you must face that feeling and push past it is to prove to yourself that YOU (not your schedule, your job, your family/friends, etc.) but YOU are in control of your destiny!! Every time that you face that resistance and you tell it to sit the EFF down – you take the control back, and you are stronger and happier for it!
The people who achieve success are the ones who put energy into their dreams every day – no matter how they’re feeling or what’s going on around them. They put their happiness FIRST. They put their mask on before they assist others. They don’t let the “boring” parts of their dream discourage them because they know that ultimately, for them, it’s about living the life that they chose to live because even the most boring day of living their dream is one thousand times better than the most exciting day of not living their dream. If you are waiting for everything to “feel right”, you are wasting valuable time. NOW is the time. NOW is all we have. Go out there and get em tiger! EACH AND EVERY DAY… no matter what!
Yep, I’m leaving my job at Paramount so I can finish my documentary and pursue my dreams. I LOVED my time there, love the people I met there, and I learned sooooo much about the “real world” of the film industry and I’m happy to say that I’m STILL going to go for it!! haha
I just woke up from a dream and I wanted to write it down before it faded back into my subconscious. Every year (this is real and true) since I was about 18 years old, I have had some type of a holiday gathering. I just had one last week, on the 18th, and it was very fun and successful. But now for my dream…
My holiday party December 18, 2008
It started off as my mom’s house, the real-life house that I grew up in. It wasn’t a great house, but it has cute aspects. The worst part about that house was how many layers of dirt and dust there were everywhere – in real life (growing up) and in the dream. And here I am having a party with my boss and everyone else under the sun expected to come. Even for my real life party last week, my apartment wasn’t as clean as I would have liked it to be. It’s hard to just turn around and scratch your ass in the confinement of an apartment when you are used to a house. It’s great that it’s smaller than a house because cleaning is faster but because it’s small, it’s harder to feel like you have made progress because I really just end up moving the same stuff from closet to room to room back to closet. I can’t stand living like this.
But back to the party…
Anyway, as people were showing up, the party was morphing into this beautiful place and not an unfamiliar place either. It was morphing into my real-life grandparent’s house in Winnetka, Illinois. But in my dream it was MY house. My grandparents had a beautiful house (real life) and one that inspired me to be prosperous in my own life. After my grandmother passed away it was sold by the bank that managed my grandmother’s affairs. It was devastating to me as I had always planned on getting married there. The house was magical and healing for me spending summers there as a child. Coming from a dysfunctional and extremely stressful home life in Arizona, it was like a dream to be there. Everything was as it should be. There was a place for everything and it was always neat and organized and clean. I even wrote my first screenplay there when I was 10 on a manual typewriter I found in the attic. But as my grandmother grew older and needed 24-hour nursing care, her estate, her money, her investments and her home were all transferred over to her bank, The Northern Trust Bank of Chicago. Over the years I really came to hate the trust fund officers at this bank.
The back of my grandparent's house in Winnetka, IL
Side Note: If you ever consider setting up a trust fund for your beneficiaries, please make sure you set up a proper Power of Attorney. The way my grandmother’s estate was set up was that the bank was the judge and jury for how every single penny would be spent and there was no third-party representative to make sure the decisions that were made by the bank – as to whether to pay for something or not – was executed per my grandmother’s wishes. But they would twist and turn the written word until it wasn’t recognizable anymore. I’m sure they had their pressures from their bosses to behave in ways that were, well, just downright rude and unacceptable, but treating the family like scum for wanting to utilize our grandmother’s money as she had intended (school, medical bills, etc.) is just something that to this day I get angry about!
But back to the party…
So as I was cleaning all the last minute areas which really wasn’t “last minute dirt” which is why I was partially mortified and stressed out as the party was beginning. It was the kind of dirt that I should have cleaned a week before the party! Dust and dog hair behind the couches. Lots and lots of dust on primary pieces of furniture that were in the midst of the seating areas. God, as I write this a part of me cringes because I know I have lived this scenario from my dream so many times in real life.
But back to the party…
Mr. Roarke
And so in my dream, I am cleaning and there is a worker following me around asking me what I need help with. He was a very pleasant and soft-spoken man and never questioned my decisions but he was the kind of person who would give you a look if what you suggested wasn’t the “best” route of action. Kind of like Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island. Mr. Roarke would do what the “guests” requested, but he always gave them a “look” which was their opportunity to rethink it. However, there would be no show if they did rethink it and only the audience was left to move forward with the knowledge that whatever this person was choosing for their Fantasy Island experience was one that would be riddled with trouble.
But back to the party…
So I was moving through the rooms dusting, lighting candles and putting sheets which were turning into perfectly tailored couch covers over the old couches. As I was doing this, more people and workers were showing up. My really cool real-life boss was there and was preparing for Michael Bay to come and wanted to make sure we had enough paper. She actually snapped a little and said, “I don’t know who put two pads of paper down here. This clearly isn’t enough! I don’t know what they were thinking!” And I responded, “Oh, it was me. I didn’t realize we needed more paper than that.” I then asked her if we were going to transcribe by hand, word-for-word everything Michael Bay was going to say (ie: his demands for Transformers 2), she said, “Yes”. Whoa. But I couldn’t deal with that because the house wasn’t clean all the way and so she gave me a look like, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll enlist someone else to get more paper” and with that I was off.
Rob Moore
Soon after that moment, I lit a cigarette (I don’t smoke) and then I felt bad because I noticed Rob Moore, President of Marketing and Distribution for Paramount Pictures, and his wife were sitting at the dining room table (at opposite ends) eating dinner. I think his kids were there too. (I know, weird huh? During MY party in MY house! LOL Whatever, that’s why it’s a dream!) I quickly put my cigarette out and moved into the next room so I could continue to set things up for the party. I think at this point it was an hour into the official start time of the party because I thought to myself, “thank god people don’t come on time!” because that gave me more time to prepare. But then what was I thinking? I was JUST putting couch covers on? And dusting? And putting food out? An hour into the party?? What the hell. And I wish I could say that this is something I have never done before in real life but… back to the dream.
So I’m out front and this is where the house doesn’t look like my mom’s house nor my grandparent’s house but MY house. It is a hybrid of my grandparent’s house and some big ass Los Angeles house – just like the kind I picture myself living in someday. It had a gate and then a long circular driveway with parking spaces all along the circle that faced out. So I could have like 20 cars parked along the long circular driveway and still have cars pull up and go around the circle. I love that!! That’s actually a big part of what I will be looking for in my ultimate “Sky Home” – parking. Because what’s the use in spending millions of dollars on a house where you plan to do a lot of entertaining and then have nowhere for your guests to park? That always annoyed me and this is a more prevalent issue here in Los Angeles than in Scottsdale due to land availability and costs. I guess for the right amount of money, I can find a big Los Angeles house with a long driveway and parking spaces. I just have to be willing to pay for it.
So there were already some very nice cars parked along the driveway and there were two valet parkers standing by ready to work. One was very tall and had dark hair. He was very respectful when speaking with me. He asked me if I should have my dad’s BMW moved into a proper parking space. First of all, my dad doesn’t drive a BMW. He has driven a Pinto, a Celica, an El Camino and a random pick-up truck, but BMW, no. Although, when we first moved to Scottsdale, Arizona from Geneva, Switzerland, my father ordered a Ferrari to be delivered to the house in Scottsdale from Europe. He said it was for an investment because it was inexpensive to ship them overseas but then people would pay good money for them once they were here. I just heard that story recently which I have to say, sort of busted my bubble. The bubble I had about the reasons behind the silver Ferrari with red leather interior in the garage in the middle of the desert was because my dad was cool, plain and simple. I thought he was stylish in a quiet way and I liked that. But then cut to his pooh brown Pinto during the divorce that he used to pick us up in and take us to our Sunday dinners. God that was depressing.
NOT a Ferrari
But back to the party…
So the nice valet parker asked me if he should move my dad’s BMW so that nobody tried to lift up the back seat. What?? I know, it didn’t make sense to me either. And apparently, it didn’t make sense to the valet parker either because when I looked at him like, “what?” he said, “I don’t know, that’s what your father said”. I told him it was okay for him to move the car into a parking space. The driveway, as I had mentioned previously, was a long, circular driveway, but there were trees planted all along the driveway on both sides of the circle. It was an oblong driveway really, not necessarily “circular” but that’s just semantics. The point is, when I look at it right now in my mind, I can see the blue light of the full moon illuminating the light grey cement that makes up the oblong driveway, and the reflection of the moon on the roofs and hoods of the nice cars littering the driveway as I am standing there discussing my father’s car with the valet parker. It’s really nice.
So as I’m talking to the valet parker outside, I look into the double glass doors behind him and I see that there is a huge walk-in wine cellar and I want to turn the light on inside of there because it’s a beautiful feature of the house and I can’t believe I didn’t have them turned on already. I also start thinking about all the cabinets in the living and dining room that have lights inside of them and I become obsessed with going back inside and turning all of those on. So I am finally able to leave the driveway and I immediately head into the living room to turn on the cabinet lights. It’s such a good feeling because now the party starts to come alive in my mind. It’s interesting because until this point, the living room had been dark and empty! It’s weird because that’s the room where all of the entertaining normally takes place. But there were other rooms near the dining room (not real-life rooms from my grandparent’s house but dream-style rooms, rooms that I made up for the purpose of my “dream party” I suppose) that were filling with people, but not in the living room. As I enter the living room from having just been outside with the valet parker, I am turning on lights and I walk by the grand piano and I can’t believe I haven’t gotten that going!
It’s like the magnitude of what is available to me for this party is like a clown car. What starts off as a one-room party at my mom’s house in Scottsdale, Arizona mushrooms into this sprawling Los Angeles mansion mixed with my grandparent’s estate in Winnetka, Illinois! And then as it is expanding in front of my eyes, it is up to me to “turn on the lights” and bring life into each previously ignored area. It makes me think about how we limit ourselves in thinking about what the possibilities are in our lives.
And so right when I saw the piano I remembered that my mom had converted the player piano to play midi files/discs and she had purchased The Nutcracker disc – true in real life and in the dream. It is the coolest thing to watch and listen to a player piano play something as beautiful and holiday-inspiring as The Nutcracker on a grand piano in a room with hardwood floors and great acoustics. I dream of being able to have live piano at one of my holiday parties! And so before I could turn it on I turned on all the lights in the living room and headed all the way to the cabinet all the way in the back. I pulled a chair over and I stepped onto the chair and I opened the cabinet and I turned the dial inside the cabinet. As the cabinet filled with light, I stepped off the chair to admire the way it lit up the room and I felt filled with possibility for this party. I could see how much room there was for the party to get really big and fun. I felt really good about it. And with that, I woke up. That was it.
That was my dream party. ☺ Except if I could do it all over again, I would already be 100% ready for when the guests arrived. I mean shit, if I had that kind of money, why wouldn’t I hire people to help me clean and set up from like a week prior? You know what I mean? Shoot. Maybe the meaning in the dream was for me to open my mind to all of my resources and utilize them all fully – to not limit myself. And also, that prosperity is alive and well and it is on the horizon! Woop woop! In all seriousness, whenever I dream about my grandparents, their house, Jim Carrey, Madonna or Oprah, it’s always a good sign and after the depressing day I had yesterday, I’ll take it.
Dapo will be interviewed LIVE tonight on BlogTV.com by FansOfDavid.com. (A David Archuleta fan site.) Come show your support for our favorite music producer, DAPO!!! LIVE INTERVIEW at 6pm PST / 9pm EST at http://www.blogtv.com/people/fod […]
“Inspiration on Fire Part One: Unlocking the Boss Within” by Christian “Thaahum” Abrokwah I am HONORED to be included in this ground-breaking cd project! I was interviewed by Christian Abrokwah (Thaahum) about various topics pertaining to the MANIFESTATION of goals/dreams & LAW OF ATTRACTION & he put it to music & a beat. (…along with [...] […]
If we wait until we feel motivated to work on our dream, chances are our dream will remain just that, a dream. I remember when I was in my late teens, I had the opportunity to live with my dad in his condo a few miles from where I grew up. (My parents [...] […]
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I am HONORED to be included in this ground-breaking cd project! I was interviewed by Christian Abrokwah (Thaahum) about various topics pertaining to the MANIFESTATION of goals/dreams & LAW OF ATTRACTION & he put it to music & a beat. (…along with other authors, thinkers, and entrepreneurs!) I will be listening to this every am to get me & keep me on track for 2010! Check it out & do your dreams a favor by downloading these tracks right now!!!!
