Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. – Thomas Merton

We’re standing at the bottom of the steps, watching our friends peak in at the top of the stairs, shrug their shoulders and waltz right of the venue.

The venue? Cotton Club.

The event? Energy… which lacked tons of energy to say the least.

It was my second after an amazing first event, expectations high and tons of people on the bandwagon saying they’re coming to support us. But from the looks of it, it would only be our closest friends and family this time around.

Despite all the hype and excitement this second event ended up being a bust, but it taught me something very valuable from early.

HUMILITY!

Not to say that I was a gloating ass or anything, but having a flop event reminded me very quickly to always remain humble no matter what.

It’s one of my favorite values from promoting events and no matter how big the promoter or marketing company we’ve all had to eat some sour humble pie.

It’s one of the reasons why I always laugh when other beat their chest and claim to be the biggest and baddest in the world. Because the day will come, whether it be weather, whether it be just lack of promotion or lack of support from the target audience… the day will come when they too will have to eat some humble pie.

The great thing about remaining humble, is that even when you mess up, the world will give you multiple chances to make things better.

Stay humble!

- TRENDS

( Image via daveschapell )

I’m spending the first few weeks of this year brushing up on my required reading and the more I read, the more I reading I realize I require. Sucks right?

Anyway… one of the books I’m following up on is Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson, an absolutely amazing read and actually one of the books I recommend to friends who ask me what books should they add to their library.

It pretty much outlines the lifespan of successful businesses and what steps and priorities they should have at each stage in the business growth.

I could go into a whole shpeel about how great the book is and why you should buy it, but I’m not getting paid to do that, so why bother?

What I can say though is this, if you’re looking to grow your business and make it soar this is the book for you. I’ve listened to it many times and have found hidden gems each time. Great book.

So check it out here!

- TRENDS

A person starts dying when they stop dreaming. – Brian Williams

You’d never see me without my Adidas back in the day. ( Only 8 years ago!)

From head to toe I use to rock My Adidas and you couldn’t tell me nothing.

But to me it meant more than shoes and clothes. Adidas was how I lived my life, Adidas for me was an acronym that stood for:

All Day I Dream About Success ( ADIDAS )

At some point though, I took off my Adidas and with each piece of the item i took off, a little piece of my dreams died.

As crazy as it sounds, I stopped dreaming about my successes to become more responsible, to be more adult, you know… to be more realistic.

It’s funny how unreal your life gets when you choose to be real. Real problems, real concerns, real limitations, and real emergencies take up our real days.

And any chance someone catches you dreaming just a little bit, you’re told “Grow Up, Get Real!”

No matter how real life gets, it doesn’t seem to get a whole lot better. So why not make the best of it and chase your dreams while you’re living life?

This year I may not be literally all dressed up in Adidas garb, but mentally I’m tricked out in A.D.I.D.A.S.

But there’ll be one change. This time A.D.I.D.A.S. means

“All Day I Dream Deliver A Success”

- TRENDS

( img credit )

Is it really too early to be planning for the Atlanta Carnival?

So may think that it’s crazy and others may say “well damn, you really should have been planning since last year’s carnival ended.”

Either way we’ve decided to start our preparation early this year and not wait ’til the month before the holiday weekend. ( Yes crazy, we know. )

We’re kinda looking at it as a battle, you’ve got to plan, rally the troops, acquire ammunition and resources and all that good old world war mess.

For some reason over the past year, it seems we love the chaos, stress, uncertainty of the last minute rush though. Maybe we’re thrill seekers or just plain stupid, but we usually get it done.

The problem with the last minute atlanta carnival planning is that a lot of things tend to fall through the cracks and a lot of times we miss out on the best talent, venues, sponsorship opportunities amongst other things.

This year is different though (war terminology aside), a five 4 meeting on Tuesday was an example of that. This year for Atlanta Carnival we plan not to be as stressed out about getting things done last minute. Maybe it’s because we have bigger plans. But that’s for a later post.

Anyway like a good army, we’re planning, strategizing and weighing all tactical approaches.

Yeh as the the saying goes, “You’ve got to burn the boats to take the island!” Or something like that.

Burnt boats and all, we plan on making Atlanta Carnival an exciting adventure. We hope you get to join us.

- TRENDS

It’s the day before New Year’s Eve (New Year’s Eve Eve i guess) and the whole city is buzzing.

Everyone and their grandmother is promoting some new years party, people are trying to figure out if they want to sin or go to church and for the most part it’s just another day and another party.

Either way, i’m happy to have made it to the end of 2009, a somewhat challenging and “interesting” year for our team.

2009 was a year when people valued every penny and for the most part chose staying in and playing scrabble, over partying with friends.

With that being said, we’ve still managed to have tons of successful event and experiences.

Still managed to test the boundaries, still dared to be different and still able to beat the recession and stay standing.

That’s a lot to do when a lot of big names have gone under, been forced to collaborate for scraps and cry about the glory days ( 2002 – recession ). Lol

Anyway…

This is just my long winded way of saying thanks to our whole community, the whole Trends team (Kevin, Rachel, Leo, Kimmie, Floyd, Jerry, Wiz, N’Akia, and Giselle).

Our collaborators throughout this year, especially Prophecy, Urban Ent, Blazin, MoSAIC, Cover Image, Takeover DJs and many more.

Our extended family, Soul Rebel, RepJa, Unitec and tons more.

The many local and international djs, the venues and their great staff, our many service providers that make us go.

And of course to you the people of Atlanta who believe in us and continually support us, give us chances to grow and expect the best from us.

I’ve probably forgotten many people in this post. But do know i thank you, team Trends thanks you and here’s to an amazing 2010.

- TRENDS