 So much on my mind, so much on my conscious. Heavy weighted goals, left too much up for assumptions. It's always something. Damn if I do, damn my thoughts keep on running. They keep running... How do I stop them, I was tired of fronting. Speaking up for myself the words can't backfire. Jammed with the decisions, they say keep it 100. My numbers left others in the crossfire, isn't that something. Someone was bound to get hit, I sprayed, everyone started running... Not anymore, I don't keep anything in anymore. Lost some friends, mixed feelings, I've been here before. Gained some family, told me I don't have to speak anymore... Sleepless nights, got caught up and they want to fight. I don't fight, I'm a lover but I'm free to preach my mind. The limit, I was reaching mine. Put it out in 3D, had to read between the lines. Conversations with God, he said keep pushing, everything will be fine...
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 We always see the VVS diamond chains, the large stacks of cash and the expensive bottles of champagne. Our eyes are used to gravitating towards the beautiful women and foreign whips. We are even starting to understand the music business more. However we are missing the education. We get the game from the likes of Master P, Diddy, Jay-Z, and Birdman etc. But we are still missing the formal education. Why do so many artists have issues with their labels over money? How are artists still getting trapped in deals that leave them stuck in their own career? The music industry is growing at a rapid pace. There’s more money and opportunities for an artist to succeed. With the growth of the Internet came an evolution of a creative’s canvas. The problem is that when we have unlimited ways to make money, it gets hard to truly know our value. A million dollar deal isn’t broken down into how those million dollars have to be paid back. How is an artist supposed to not only make money, but also keep it coming past the deal? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Create Your Art An artist is not an artist without art. The first step to making money off of your art is to create it. You have to live your art in order to survive off of it. Creating should never be forced. What we create at our most vulnerable moments often times leads to our most beautiful outcomes. Dedicate your time and money into growing your art Nothing in this business or life in general comes easy. It takes years to get comfortable in your skin. It takes practice and failure to learn your speed. In the beginning you will put all of your time and effort into one direction of your art. As you get older your palette will grow and so will your patience. The more money you invest into improving your craft, the better you will manage your time. Your priorities will go towards what makes you feel good and profitable.  Track Your Spending Part of making money off of your art requires discipline. You have to treat yourself like a business. You have to embody your art so that wherever you go your art is represented through your image. With making art comes a lot of adrenaline that will cause you to spend money on more ways to improve your art. The high from creating something out of nothing can get mismanaged if not tracked. You have to get into a habit of tracking your spending. Whenever you spend money, know why you are spending it. All money out needs to serve a purpose. Every dollar has a job.  Find a Market That Appreciates Your Art After investing your own money into your art its time to see how the rest of the world perceives it. Don’t show the core of your art without planning the rollout. Perception is reality and the failure to prepare will lead to a world of misunderstandings. Create your own blueprint and stay in your lane. People will begin to follow your aura. Your art is an extension of you so networking is key. The more people you know, the farther your art will go. Put a price tag on your art or the process of receiving your art Once you are comfortable with your art and know how much it costs to produce your work you can then upcharge. If it cost you $5 to make your art and you add $10 to make it $15 for the consumer you would make back twice your investment. You would make a 200% profit off of your own art.  Start a Business When you make your first sell you are technically in business but to be officially in business you would start an LLC. That LLC will legally separate you from your business. Your business is its own entity. Your art has its own identity. Starting an LLC is the first step to owning your work and earning residual income. Those royalty checks hit the owners of the company first. Creating a business around your art will protect you in the future. Track your spending and record who supports you As you sell more of your art, track how much you are spending and record who is supporting you. Find out why they are supporting you. Get to know more about them. Having the pulse of your supporters is very contagious. The attention on your art grows exponentially the more you know about your support system. The more time you invest in them, the more they will reciprocate it.  Assemble Gatherings of Supporters When your supporters begin to grow, start gathering like-minded groups together. The common saying is that your network is your net worth. This is only part of the equation. Grow your audience one person at a time. Be relatable by being understanding. The more people you genuinely know the faster your growth will be in the future. Anybody can hit the lotto. The key is keeping the jackpot. You want to make those that support you feel special because they are. They could be supporting a million other people or things, yet they are supporting you. Grow with your support. If you do that you will always have a core base to keep you afloat.  Wholesale Prices/Bulk Orders Always have a wholesale price for bulk orders of your art. You don’t want to limit yourself or put boundaries on your potential. Even if you don’t get bulk orders for another 5 years, you still want to be prepared for moments of rapid growth. If you sell your art for $15 for one purchase, discount it at purchases of 10 or more. Remember that you are a business. You are an asset. Set up your price-points so that can have middlemen in distributing your art. That gap in your retail price and wholesale price allows money to be made for others as well. Your wholesale prices allow others to eat off of your leadership. If you are moving units of your art you are believe it not inspiring someone behind closed doors. Reward those that want to invest in you by having fair numbers.  Look for Partners Never sign a contract without knowing how much money you can bring in on your own. Contracts are partnerships. Don’t sign your time and life away to terms that you don’t fully understand. If someone wants to partner with you, they see value in you. They see an amount of money or opportunities they can get by being associated with you. There is nothing wrong with this but make sure you go back to what you tracked and recorded internally. You know exactly what you bring to the table. Never take less than 51% in a deal pertaining to your art. You own your art. You own the rights to it. Never let someone take what you live and sacrificed your life for. Understand your value and keep doing what you love to do…  God is all around us as we are one with the universe. I sit down and reflect underneath a tree. A tree that I've seen grow from its root, surviving storm after storm. I sit underneath this tree and I count my blessings. The backyard doesn't feel the same as it did before. The signs of aging has made it's mark. I can see years of laughter and pain running through the waves of the pool. I reflect. I ponder. What does the future hold for me?
 Words can sound great, they can sound beautiful but they don’t mean anything when the actions don’t align. I am a wordsmith. I know how to utilize words extremely well. However I am a man of superior discipline and movement. That is the distinct difference between greatness and normal. My aim isn’t to be at the top of a profession, but to consistently get closer to my peak within myself. I aspire to consistently sharpen my communication with God. I fear no man nor mortal. Divinity within is the ultimate apex. Your intelligence is currently being artificially created, it is your soul that keeps you alive. You must master your breathing in order to channel your thoughts. The same way the computer can give the output based on your input, is the same way you can breakdown and ask within. Only your ears can hear what God has in store for you. The universe listens and is actively aware. Your dreams are awaiting…  This is the 6th episode of my podcast Conversations with Kasey Render. I put in a lot work but it is important to listen to your body. When it is time to rest, you have to rest.  One of the biggest blessings in disguise for me was my Instagram account getting hacked in September 2021. Not having access to my account for 10 months allowed me to focus on my personal life and mental health. When I finally regained access to my account in the summer of 2022 I was a lot wiser and more patient in life. God has a mysterious way about teaching us lessons. Every moment is filled with blessings. Sometimes the blessings are hidden in the nightmares.  Getting older is a scary yet beautiful part of life. As the days go by, my frequent weeks of solidarity in Orlando helps me truly understand my life. This past week has been a very pivotal time. 7 years ago to the day I was in a behavioral hospital. I was suicidal and needed professional guidance to help me reset my mind and future. 7 years ago I did not fully know myself or my history. I was a young man fresh off of being a boy handling a lot of new responsibilities at once. At the time I was engaged and had the weight of marriage on my shoulders, on top of that I was trying to balance my personal family life at home in Miami. These were emotions that I was never taught how to cope with. This was pressure that I wasn't prepared for no matter how far I excelled academically. Emotionally, I was very immature and naive. I didn't grow up in a home with a healthy marriage. I grew up in a home with parents that had equivalent love and concern for me but I didn't witness a healthy relationship. So when I got into a relationship I repeated both of my parent's qualities but most importantly I repeated their flaws. My arrogance and inability to listen at the time cost me more than I could handle. I was stunned because I was lost. I didn't know who I was. The fear of myself led me wanting to just leave Earth the way it was. My mom's scream on the phone was my biggest wake up call. God works in mysterious ways. During my relationship, I did not use my voice as much as I needed to. I didn't express my feelings and I always had a wall up when it came to my life. All of that silence built up in me and caused me to lash out at my loved ones mainly my mom and significant other. 7 years ago I was insecure and controlling. As a mama's boy I was attached to the unconditional attention that only a mother can give a child. I didn't connect the dots until later in life when the heartbreak evolved into more patience and understanding.  My parents separated at the end of my senior year of high school right before I went to college. However this was something that was brewing my entire life. It's almost as if there was an agreement that they stayed together solely so I could witness two parents in the same household. When I went to college everything changed. This is a common thing for most college students. Your whole life changes not just because you are in college but because you are away from your parents. But for me the big change was the dynamic between my parents. Granted I was all the way in Orlando and was living my best life. I was on my own and doing my thing. However the dynamic between my parents had an underlying effect to my whole psyche. I never witnessed my parents reconcile and resolve their issues. There was always tension and distance. I had a general feeling that they loved each other or had love for each other but the tension was always there. It was always a heavy feeling. This heavy feeling was buried inside of me and revealed itself the deeper I got in my relationship. I had my mom's extreme firmness and hardhead with my dad's distance and secretive DNA. I was too much to be around because I was unpredictable. I could be charming and romantic one minute then I could be cold and distant. Part of my influence was my mother's words and the other part was led by my father's actions. I was loving to the core but the closer you got to me, like the layers of an onion, the harder it began to be stay near me. 7 years ago I was fighting a lot of demons. And not just my demons because I genuinely came from a pure soul. However, no matter how pure your soul, the curses embedded in your DNA will always appear until you acknowledge them.  7 years ago I was a college student that was always focused when I needed to be. On the flip side, I was a college student that fully enjoyed the party life. I come from a very rigorous academic background. To go with that I was also involved in competitive sports my entire life. So all day was school and sports, no partying, no late nights. Just school, homework, practice, games, repeat for my entire life until college. I made sure to enjoy the moments while I could because I knew when the real world hit, it was going to HIT! 7 years ago I was in a behavioral hospital and while I was in there I told myself that I wanted to speak to my uncle about mental health. He was my uncle but our relationship felt like a big brother little brother bond. My mom was his sister but she was also another mother figure. Before I was born, my mom would treat my uncle like he was her son. When I was born her undivided attention shifted to me. This happened at a pivotal time in my uncle's life. A time when a child can turn to the streets if the lack of love isn't there or dramatically altered. I wanted to have these conversations with my uncle 7 years ago. 5 years ago my uncle did what I tried to do 2 years earlier. I was once again stunned and heartbroken. I never got to have those conversations with him. I never got to tell him how the behavioral hospital saved me from myself and changed my life. I wanted to tell him about the feeling of finding yourself. I wanted to know more about him and how he felt in this world. I wanted to know his perspective on life as an adult.  The past 7 years, my life has been filled with trauma. I moved to Miami in 2016 because I was suicidal and was coming back home to focus on myself and my family. Little did I know that I would lose so many loved ones back to back to back to back. I went to UCF as a young man with a promising future. I wanted to make my family and city proud. I came back home and loss my uncle, then my grandma, then my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimers, then lost my aunt, then another uncle. Despite all of the pain and losses, God has kept me here. I am stronger than ever and the feeling of completion continues to roam in my head. 7 years after moving back to Miami I am back in Orlando as a new man. As a mature, patient and understanding man. I first came to Orlando as a boy learning how to survive on his own. I am now a man with a lot more wisdom and direction. I understand my purpose in life and love myself. I am at peace with my past shortcomings and mistakes. I have forgiven myself of the hurt that I have caused others and see life from a new perspective. My 30s is all about continued patience and elevation...  Every day it feels like we are in a race. A never ending race to a finish line that keeps getting pushed further and further away. Everyone and their grandma is on social media putting on fake personalities in hopes of being the next viral sensation. Now, with the likes of Facebook and TikTok paying users to make reels, social media is becoming the new workforce. In theory this is cool. It's innovating. Millions of people are changing their lives for the better financially but at what cost? This rat race of a society that we live in today is detrimental to humanity. We are losing our souls at the expense of money and feeling included. I admit, I am guilty of the trends as well. As a naturally quiet and laid back person, I too find myself trying to step out of my comfort zone in an attempt to hit the social media lottery. On the first day of the year, I had my first semi viral moment and to be honest it felt pretty cool. On New Year's Eve, I was laying in my condo in Orlando reflecting on 2022. I was very appreciative and grateful to be back in Orlando and living alone but I was still a little down. I had a lot of different emotions going on in my head all at once. While laying down I was thinking about past shortcomings in all aspects of my life. One in particular that was eating at me during the time was my love life. One of my crushes or love interests moved on from my inconsistencies and found someone new. When I saw this on social media I thought to myself, not again. I let another good woman slip away because I wasn't ready for a serious commitment. It was at this moment that I decided to just relax, take deep breaths and go to sleep, knowing that I would be bringing the new year in solo dolo but at the same time still very blessed and full of momentum for a fresh start. It was my goal in 2022 to bring in 2023 in Orlando and that was happening. Before I fell asleep I looked at Deion Sander's Instagram account. He was giving a motivational speech to his new team in Colorado. His message resonated with me so much that I decided to screen record it and post it on my TikTok. I didn't think too much of it other than reposting the motivation to my, at the time, small audience on TikTok. I had less than 100 followers and only had one post that received more than 1000 views. Little did I know, this video would be my first taste of a viral moment. Before I went to sleep, I noticed that the response to this video was different. My phone instantly started buzzing and wouldn't stop. People were liking, sharing, saving and commenting on this video at a rapid pace. It went from hitting 1000 views in less than 10 minutes, to over 5000 the next minute. I thought to myself, oh shit, I finally caught one!  As the minutes passed, the views jumped to 19,000 and kept climbing. My initial sadness about my love interest moving on from me immediately vanished as my followers continued to climb. I went from 60 followers to now over 100 instantly. Before the end of the night my views went up to 25,000. My goal was for this video to possibly hit 100,000 views when I woke up the next day. The video surpassed the 100,000 mark and continued climbing. All of this was new to me. I've never gone viral in my life. My views on social media and YouTube never matched the true impact in real life. This was different. Not only did it align with my message of positivity and motivation but it reached the masses instantly. This was perfect timing for me because my billboard in Miami was up at the same time with a motivational message "Never Stop Pushing Forward". I wanted to capitalize off of this much needed momentum so I made sure to keep posting content of me and others that matched this same type of energy. I wanted all the new people that were following me to see all of my work. I thought that if I could use this moment to my advantage then I should be able to make life changing money. Still relatively new to TikTok, I didn't know the details on how to get paid, or when that would happen. I just knew that if I can convert my new followers to supporters then maybe they would buy my books or visit my websites. Throughout the month, I continued to use the momentum of this video to grow my audience. I am currently at over 1,100 followers and get more engagement on my posts. The Deion Sanders video is now at over 400,000 views almost 2 months later with over 50,000 likes, 450+ comments, and over 9500 saves. However this still hasn't converted over financially. To be honest I was a little disappointed not seeing the conversions that I wanted to see yet but I am still appreciative of the blessing. My audience is significantly bigger than it was a couple of months ago and my support system is locked into my mission even more. I am starting to believe that my next step in this process is to begin going live on TikTok. This is where I will be able to interact with my new audience even more, allowing them to get a taste of who I am as a person and not just a motivational clip on my page. I've been hesitant in going live due to my anxiety as well as not knowing exactly what to say while staring at the phone. I tend to do this a lot, not just with TikTok but in life in general. I overthink things because so much is on the line these days. You can say one wrong thing and offend an entire population. You can make one wrong move and BOOM, you're cancelled. Now in my personal real world life, I don't care because what truly matters is my happiness and making sure my mom is good. But as far as social media and the internet, that is a different ball game. When I am my natural self, I don't have a filter. I can be very blunt and cut throat at times and won't flinch to backpedal my words. This could work in my favor or it can backfire, so this is what leads my hesitancy. At first I planned on setting up a specific date to go live but like with all things that you plan, life happens and alters those plans. So now I am going to go live the same way that I posted the video that went viral. I will do it the moment I get that gut feeling to hop on. When the energy is there to speak live, I will trust that feeling and finally do what so many have been patiently waiting for me to do... take that leap of faith...   Focus on yourself and your family. Your mental health is dependent on the quality of love you pour into your own life. This episode is dedicated to everyone dealing with family trauma and issues stemming from deep rooted pain. It is ok to love people from a distance as they find themselves. Stay true to yourself and protect your energy at all costs... |
Kasey Render™ 2023
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All Rights Reserved
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