Guest Writer: CZA The CEO
It is easy, unimaginably easy, to get lost in the hype. To fall victim to the throes of will of men who breathe the same air as you and look upwards to the same inspiration as you. To spit it clearly, all that extra gets pushed to the left when you alter your way of thinking and reprogram your Hustle. When you have a success-driven mindset you begin to not care as much about the secret societies that your favorite rapper supposedly has ties to. You begin to lose interest in the rumor mills who desperately grasp for anything hen house approved to further their stupid-mongering. You start to see things…differently. I read a quick article earlier on Jay-Z and his non-approach on acquiring LeBron James to come play for the Nets. I’m no basketball fan, as you can tell from my analysis of Kobe’s concrete focus however Jay’s branch out into the world of sports sparks my curiosity. Truthfully, every new venture S dot goes into grabs my attention like few other hip hop cats.

Here’s Why:

Uninhibited Grown Man Growth…

The 40-40 club. RocNation (both the legitimate label and management company) . Partial ownership of the Nets. The J hotel. All of these fill in the blanks about the man’s financial upward climb and tells us the entrepreneurial mode he’s on right now. It is cliche that rappers start clothing lines, alcoholic beverage companies and night spots. We’ve been there and done that time and again. Even the buying into a sports franchise has been mimicked to a lesser extent. What proves his genuine love of Hustle is how next level his moves are becoming and how far he is pushing the boundaries of what critics call acceptable norm in urban music businesses. The cliche attitude is turning from Mr. Me Too to Mr. Me Next and to that I can’t do anything but tip my hat. He knows that just as water flows from more than a single faucet, chips can come from a myriad of imaginative angles. The key is not being confined to debilitating opinion and conjecture.

Look past the ceiling above you…

The following quote from Jay-Z is the root of this article and a perfect way to summarize what I’ve been on and trying to get all my CEOs, future and now, to understand and actualize:

‘I’d been staying there for 10 years, and I always thought I was at the top level,” Jay-Z said. “But when I met [Mikhail] Prokhorov (owner of the New York Nets), they took me up to this extra, extra room that I had never even heard of before. Now there’s something else to shoot for. There’s always an extra level you don’t know about.’

Part of the reason I started 10Facets.com (which turned into CZATheCEO.com and eventually AIS.com) originally was to express the “crazy” thoughts I had in my head about re-defining success and making the acquisition of it a core value embedded in the foundation of our lives. Jay’s quote exemplifies exactly that in most people think too damn small. There is no one shot deal that will get you rich; no simple goal will ever equate undying happiness. Happiness is the pursuit, not the catch and if you are always looking at what’s around you, how can you see what’s attainable upstairs? Seek out that person that can show you where the stairwell is and meet him in the penthouse suite! We can do this, y’all and To Read The Rest Go To AmbitionIsSexy