In 2017 I faced one of the biggest economic setbacks anyone could experience. In 2015 I made 700,000 dollars. In 2016 I made 300,000 dollars. In 2017 everything was gone. I tell the story and explain how losing half a million dollars was a matter of making a conscious decision after making a lot of poor business decisions. I drove Lyft for an entire year. Instead of crying and sulking, I began reading about Mandalas and I would meditate in the car between rides. I bought several books discussing meditation practices and I learned to still my mind.
I didn’t give up on the sneaker business. I diverted all of my attention to developing AHN and working with my partner Tayib at Housakicks to take the business plan I wrote in October of 2016 and put in place via a consistent investment into writing and researching the sneaker industry. It’s something I began doing in 2015. In 2018 via an understanding of breath and meditation combined with a concentration on the business, this year has turned into one of the better years of my life emotionally and financially.
During 2017 once a week I would align my chakras by lying still and listening to tuning and healing chants. All of those balancing chants began with one thing and ended with one thing, the Singing bowl. When I was in college I remember a rapper named Sole who was dope, but she also was fine and then she disappeared. This weekend while I was looking for new music this track showed up in my suggestions and I’ve been listening to it since. Sole is back after an almost 18 year hiatus and she’s arrived with a renewed sense of being and focus based on prana, the regulation of the breath through certain techniques and exercises. Her new single is named Pranayama and it reminds me that I should still be meditating just as much as I did when things were a lot more difficult. It begins with one sound and ends with one sound and it’s dope.
