Its true! I’m WINNING!!!! But how did I get here? I’m not in my 20′s, I didn’t win the lotto, and my career has had extreme highs/lows. But today I’m winning because the path I took was not the fast track Generation Next focuses on, it was a path that has trained me as if I was an Olympian, I’m READY, because ultimately THE SECRET HERE IS AN OLD ONE, it’s still not whether you win or loose, it is HOW YOU PLAYED THE GAME!

I will never forget the feeling I had on a conference call one day in 2000 when I worked for Tommy Boy Records and my boss the Sr. Vice President of Promotions said that we were changing our focus. He said that the group known as the Crooked Lettaz were no longer a PRIORITY for us. I was in shock! Never being afraid to rock the boat, I did the unthinkable and objected to my bosses new order. I told him we should give the group more time…I told him how amazing the lead guy was. His name was David Banner. This guy would get on stage and during the course of one of their songs called Firewater, he would actually blow real FIRE as if he was performing in a circus! It was a sight to see! My boss silenced me almost as soon as I had begun and ended the phone call with an even more heated tone! THE CROOKED LETTAZ…ARE NO LONGER A PRIORITY FOR US!

I’m not sure how David Banner got the news delivered to him or maybe he just simply saw the signs. He called me repeatedly on my cell; I would not answer. He caught me one day on my home office line and addressed me sounding as desperate as John Q, saying “You are taking food away from my families mouths!” I was silent, I could say nothing and he hung up that day not knowing that I was not the reason.

The label and it’s hope for the future left with acts like David. Adding insult to injury for me I had heard that David was spending alot of time in Atlanta. We would loose touch and I would hear of him sleeping on peoples couches recording anywhere and everywhere like a rapping Gypsy. Years would pass and something special would happen. You see…DAVID BANNER KNEW THE SECRET ALL ALONG; IN LIFE, YOU MUST ALWAYS MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE YOUR OWN PRIORITY. When we all forgot about him, when I felt pity and shame, David Banner was somewhere FEELING HIS OWN STRENGTH, STAYING FOCUSED ON HIS OWN PRIORITY, WHICH WAS TO KEEP HIS FAMILY FED.

The picture taken above was on a video set for the Shop Boyz featuring David, I sat with on his tour bus as he was about to leave for Germany, that’s right Germany. He looked like money! For those of us who knew him back in the day…David was always dusty. (smile) But not now, the Mississippi clay was now absorbed into his glistening regal skin. He had the aura of a man whose family would be eating good for generations to come!

This post is not meant in anyway to defame Tameka!!! However…that’s right…Tameka Foster, Glover, Raymond once made me cry on the set of a video for a short lived group called the ATL. We were already 3 hours behind and she was not allowing the group to get dressed because…hummm…her creative vision AS A WARDROBE STYLIST was being compromised! I believe that was the line she gave me! I was the second assistant director and my SOLE job for the day was to the get the Artists’ and the models to set, and of course they couldn’t get there… if they didn’t have their clothes on! I begged and pleaded with Tameka which seemed to only fuel her fire. She insisted I go get the Director’s, the Fat Cats… IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SHOOT she wanted to go over the creative vision for the group and video once again!!!

That was in 2003 and boy I didn’t know the SECRET then. The SECRET in this entry is a bit complicated but let’s try to walk through it. You see there is a thing in life called the path of LEAST RESISTANCE, the more I pushed, the more she resisted. Have you ever used a screwdriver and actually the pressure ended up “stripping the hole”? However, if you had just used a more calculated slower force, the result would have been better. Well, people like Tameka are much the same. Now some negative folks may say she is a CONTROL FREAK; I would prefer to say that she is a person who “needs to feel in control”. You see people who need to feel in control are usually out of control in other areas and are “overcompensating” for their feelings somewhere else. THE REAL SECRET HERE IS: let’s stop bitching about peoples habits and start learning how to deal with them so that we don’t CREATE NEGATIVE COPING MECHANISMS of our own!

The first music video, I ever got paid for was TLC’s “What About Your Friends”.  One of the locations for that video was what is NOW the Cabbage Town Mill Lofts in Atlanta.  At the end of the night I got paid a whopping ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS and I couldn’t believe I made that much for one day’s worth of work (smile). Well, What About Your Friends was, and still is, one of my favorite songs.  It has lyrics I think we all need to revisit from time to time: (feel free to sing along)

Every now and then I get a little easy
I let a lot of people depend on me
I never though they would ever deceive me
Don’t you know when times got rough I was standing on my own
I’ll never let another get that clost to me
You see I’ve grown a lot smarter now
Sometimes you have to choose and then you’ll see
If your friends is true they’ll be there with you
Through the thick and thin

(repeat chorus)

The SECRET here is WHO ARE YOUR FRIENDS…WILL THEY LET YOU DOWN, ARE THEY GONNA BE AROUND, OR WILL THEY TURN THEIR BACKS ON YOU!  AND MORE IMPORTANTLY WHAT KIND OF FRIEND ARE YOU?

The picture above was taken with Chilli, her son and I, on the set of DJ Unk’s new video for “Show Out”.  Chilli is ageless, it’s almost shocking and her son is one of the next stars of the next generation.

I couldn’t resist here is TLC BELOW… PERFORMING “WHAT ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS” you gotta watch!!!

That’s right, I actually got a chance to work with James Brown on a music video in 2005, and here is a post about why I never showed this picture with him before now…

James Brown had always been one of my mom’s favorites and I knew I was going to bring her to tears with this photo of me along side Mr Brown with an autograph just for her. I remember going shopping for a special frame suitable for my masterpiece you see, and I found one. However, it was when I began to put the picture in the frame that a panic attack actually came over me!

I starred at the photo long and hard and began to think to myself “WHO IS THAT WOMEN STANDING NEXT TO JAMES BROWN? SHE IS SOO FAT!!” I was talking of course about myself! Now the thought of my mother taking my gift and placing it on the family entertainment center was too embarrasing. That was almost 5 years ago and I am still embarrassed. Not because of the picture, and not because of my weight No, I’m embarrassed that it was not until he died that I was able to find the real value in this image.

I was blessed to have been able to work with a man who lived up to all of the stories I had ever heard. His stamina and graciousness are what stick out most in my mind. I am proud to have been able to stand along side of him.

SO HERE LIES THE SECRET: Don’t let hangups or prejudices keep you from finding the real beauty in life. “Thankyou, Mr Brown, you are one of the legends that will continue to make an impact on us all!”

We all know that Mystikal is a Cree man these days and I hadn’t thought about him in a very long time until I ran across this picture the other day. We were on the set of the “Move” with Ludacris music video and I can recall being captivated by his presence. Here was a man who smoked more “weed” than any rapper I had ever seen and chased it with Hennessy, sipping the liquor as if it was gatorade. And yet when you would go get him for his scene, he would be remarkably alert, taking direction well and staying focused on the task at hand. He was quite a paradox! I remember one instance I came to get him for a shot and walked onto his tour bus and saw a young lady giving him comfort and joy on her knees before him. I was stunned, to say the least, but he simply said to me “Here I come”. The irony tickles me to this day.

The next time I would work with him was on the set of Lil Jon’s video “I Don’t Give a F@#K”. He was consistant with his disposition and as usual great to work with, but you could always see the angel and the devil at work within this talented man. I have seen the same saga play out so many times within my industry and quite frankly even within myself. I remember living my own life as if I had no consequences, justifying my actions, surrounded by people who were ticking timebombs and not knowing the SECRET at all. When I heard of Mystical going to jail for a sex crime that was committed on tape, I was horrified! I was more upset when I read the blogs with comments from indivduals who focused on the “hairstylist who was a thief” as justification for his actions. It is not what the hairstylist did to him that is the SECRET to this entry but yet how he came to serve a 6 year jail sentence.

My mother always said to me growing up “TELL ME WHO YOUR FIRENDS ARE…AND I WILL KNOW WHO YOU ARE.” Mystikal performed these acts of abuse with his “homeboys”. It was a COLLECTIVE effort. We must all examine our relationships around us. A person should chooses their friends, lovers, and associates consciously. We should actively seek out the company of people who inspire and challenge, and willingly shed those who hold us back. Check out the formula I learned in the video clip below. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE! Perhaps if Mystikal had known these PRINCIPLES OF THE SECRET, he might have made different choices. I am praying that now he is released he will have grown to be a a better man who will fulfill a greater destiny than a great rapper I simply forgot about.

In 2007 Souljaboy became the youngest person ever to write, perform and produce a NUMBER 1 song on the Hot 100 Billboard Chart. This is the Soulja Boy you see pictured above with me in Jan 2008. He was a pleasure to work with and had the disposition of young man who was enjoying life and success but still staying a bit grounded. However, in less than 3 years something happened to this young artist. The picture below is how Soulja Boy looks now. Tattoos cover almost all of his upper body and he has even begun putting them on his face. A run in with notorious groupie Kat Stacks had the world speculating if he was on drugs or not and to compound matters he released an album in November which sold only 19,000 copies its first week. While the blogs all crack jokes, the unraveling of Soulja Boy for me is no laughing matter! Cont…below….

The SECRET TO THIS ENTRY IS NO GREAT MYSTERY. In life we need a system of checks and balances. When setting up your empire you MUST be sure that you keep people around you that can help you to grow in a positive direction. Form allegiances and associations that will enhance your character. From the looks of it, Soulja Boy should be choosing his associates more wisely. JUST IMAGINE IF USHER HAD DISCOVERED HIM AND JUSTIN BEIBER I DOUBT WE WOULD EVER SEE A VIDEO LIKE THIS ONE BELOW. UNBELIEVEABLE!!!

No, Robert Townsend is not my Daddy but he was my Dad’s favorite comedian. My Dad passed away 2 years ago and his death really made me wake up and begin to understand THE SECRET for the very first time. I was raised Catholic by parents that were more spiritual than religious. However, my mom does love her saints and one of the saints she would always tell us to pray to was Saint Jude. So, I kept the prayer to St Jude in my wallet in my back pocket (not a purse, ya’ll already know, smile). Anyway, the prayer on the little card is the “prayer for hopeless cases”. When my Dad passed, I took the prayer out of my back pocket and began to read it over and over again because I was a mental wreck and… a HOPELESS CASE so I thought. Wow, I DIDN’T”T KNOW THE SECRET. First of all, THAT prayer did not help me at all!!!! You cannot carry your faith in your back pocket, just like you can’t only carry it to church on Sunday. You have to LIVE your prayer. Imagine if every-time, you said the words “hot mess” or were tempted to talk negatively about someone, you simply replaced it with a more positive thought or action. Every-time, I got sad about my dad, I replaced it with a positive thought, a funny story, a memorable moment. In a short time I became entrenched in the GOODNESS of the life he had lived, I was able to celebrate it and share it with others.

NOW FOR THE SECOND PART OF THIS ENTRY’S SECRET. I began to focus on other things I wanted to happen, I saw how easily I was able to ease the pain of my dad’s death once I changed my thoughts. It was startling! Try this out, take one hour out of your day and write down all of the thoughts that pop into your head, you will be amazed. Most of us don’t realize how NEGATIVE we really are. Change comes from within and it doesn’t cost anything for us to make it happen! I know my dads light and positive energy are within me. Find out what energy is within you to reveal YOUR TRUE SECRET TO HAPPINESS!

Last night on Real Housewives of Atlanta, my homie Kandi asked “what is your Freak Number” meaning how freaky are you? Well, if you know me, Im not gonna touch that but it did get me to thinking. What if we asked ourselves what our “Positivity Number” is, which means ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10 HOW POSITIVE DO WE THINK WE ARE? That may not be as fun as figuring out your freak number however, it can be very rewarding. YOU SEE THE SECRET HERE IS, When you take the time to look at yourself and your thoughts you might be shocked at just how negative you really are, I WAS!! When I was honest with myself I realized my number was about a 4 or 5 on any given day. Just think… every time you call someone a hot mess, or yell at someone in traffic, or any of the negative things we do and say throughout the day it takes away from the POSITIVE energy that should flow through our lives. One of the true SECRETS is that OUR BRAIN BECOMES LIKE A CLOGGED ARTERY. I started working on my thoughts about a year ago and it took a minute but the results have brought me towards a happier life, because I made room for the GOOD and let go of the NEGATIVE clutter. What’s my score now…about an 8