I BEEN BLACK

Being a black business owner has been a consistent spiral of possibilities, leading to new connections with others like minded in their own personal projects. I studied graphic design at the university of illinois urbana champaign, but I didn’t finish. I was busy caring for a loved one who is now an angel, But my love for art never ended. I notice that I am not the only one in my field there are so many talented and skilled creatives giving me competitions for customers. Seeing my brother improve himself didn’t make me want to be better than him, but to be better than myself everytime I do something new. Soon there was an abroad group of people who noticed not just my attention to detail, but the hard work I would put in on assignments. In the black businesses I would work for lacked many things, including the lack of respect for their employees. A level of selfishness consumes my community, most of us have to learn this phrase “there ain’t nothing in these streets” the hardway. My area is surrounded by abandoned buildings, torn down by the dreams that built them. I learned what it meant to own a small business, mixing this with friendship could lead to self doubt then giving up; however, from the ashes we rise. I learned that you don’t stop living and new ideas come and become last week's newspaper, the experience showed me what I should do better from that point on in my life. My passion for art only grew with every mole hill, which seemed so much bigger when I was younger. I outgrew jealousy of the next big thing because I am one of many rising stars, but only seen when the sun sets. No one can carry the number one headband forever, there are kids younger than me writing featured films. My love for music showed me the redundancy of life, how everything follows a certain pattern like a math equation. I could manipulate what I know, producing different outcomes. Experimenting is how you find new things, my interest in science only made me want to dissect in detail everything that makes music. I eventually learned that as an artist confidence in yourself is gaining the ability to share your mind and way of thinking with other people. To be transparent with others is showing your vulnerability and compassion for them. Reflecting on myself has shown me history is important; it tracks the progress of life regardless of how that life is lived. For history to exist a series of events must happen, meaning you must do something whether you fail or succeed there is data to be analyzed. Doing nothing will result in the absence of experience, with experience you're more likely to get it right the next time you do it. Having a business takes trial and error, the hardest part about it is bouncing back after taking a loss that alters the way you think. This process is called “Reinventing yourself”, where you sort out the data producing new questions leading to many hypotheses. Guessing what things do and how they work before doing them produces information on whether you were right or not. This helps with adaptation, finding what’s wrong and adjusting your game plan, if you find yourself where you were then your path is no different than the staircases that lead to more stairs. Walking on a familiar path leads to the same result which isn’t always bad, and as society gets more advanced you notice the staircases moving. This is the moment when direction is lost, being a talented person surrounded by other skilled individuals I could do the wrong thing. Stab my brother or sister in the back for pennies when I can work hard on myself like my video game avatars. As a black business man my advice is to learn from your failures and you’ll always have new ideas in the positive direction. You are robbing yourself of your moment by choosing the “easiest” may not be as fulfilling as the long route, so let your awareness of responsibility grow overtime.