Success........Only in your mind!!!

There is a definition of insanity and it goes like this.........."If you keep doing the same thing you're doing....you're going to keep getting the same thing you're getting............so insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results."

Many of us want different, better and bigger things in life.  But we wonder why the things that we want elude us.  We are sooooooo busy trying to convince the world that we are all of that, that we never take the time to really and truly become all of that.

I was listening to Pastor Meeks Preach via TV............and he said something that was soooooooooo true but is the one thing that many many many of us are TRULY lacking. He said that many of want to be Made OVER.....but what we really need to do is to be made UNDER.  A make over is from the outside in, but a Make under is from the inside out.   Now I don't know if this a true scientific statement, however it was a true spiritual one.

I personally believe that many of us don't want REAL success we only want the appearance of success.  True success NEVER EVER EVER EVER begins looking like success.  That is because before success can ever be achieved on the outside it must first be conceived and believed on the inside. 

Many of us are so busy looking for the end results or manufacturing the end results that we lose sight of the process.

I took another trip to Motown a couple of weeks ago.  And they have put up new exhibits since I went last time. This time there was a whole lot of Jackson 5 things on display. They have beautifully displayed, the first of the Jackson 5 costumes that they used to perform in.  And these were costumes that Katherine Jackson (their mother) made from her own imagination.  I am sure that when she was making these costumes 40 or so years ago she had ZERO idea that these costumes would end up in a museum where people from ALL OVER THE WORLD WOULD COME TO SEE.  But I believe that what she did know is this...........I'm going to make my boys the best costumes that I can make in my power so that they will be looking good and will be dressed for success. 

I am sure that living in a small house in Gary, IN, Katherine did not have access to the most luxurious materials for these costumes.  But she used what she had.  And eventually the Jackson 5 were world famous. She began with what she had outwardly and infused it with what she had internally.  I don't think that there is anyone who will disagree with me about the successfulness of the Jackson 5.  But when they began their journey they began it right in the midst of what they already had. 

Many times we want to jump onto a ship when it is already a Royal Carribean Cruise ship.  None of us really have anything to do with that same boat while the materials to build the boat are still in their natural form or their original compound.  That is why when you have success on your mind you cannot let ANYONE..........I DON'T CARE WHO IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell you that you are looking raggedy or that you can't make it.   There are not many people who can look at a tree and wrap their minds around the fact that one day this tree can be part of a beautiful cruise liner.  No one can look at the bare roots of where you know you are going and call you into what you vision.

While I was producing and directing my wonderful stage play "The Retreat", people were doing me the exact same way.  People were TRYING to treat me as though I was a dead tree in the woods while I saw myself as the beautiful cruise liner that would take us all on a beautiful journey.  Instead of believing in the success that was in my hearts vision.............Many of the people involved on the inside track were constantly and continually trying to tear me down before we even set sail.   But that is because I had the heart and the mind of Katherine Jackson.  Look I don't have the money YET to allow for us to rehearse at a theatrical studio with full mirrors and professional sound.  We rehearsed in my comfortably modest home.  And many of the actresses treated my home like it was a snake pit not worthy of any respect. ( all the while they kept coming to rehearsal just in case the play really was a success).

Here is the thing.  Just like Katherine Jackson.............I still don't know if my play will end up in a museum some day.  But I am treating it TODAY as though it will.  Katherine didn't know if her son's would be on the Ed Sullivan Show or American Bandstand or any secure a record deal with Motown.  But she made those costumes in love so that when and if the chance did come around..............her baby's would be ready.

The other thing that I love about visiting Motown home of HITTSVILLE USA...........is that Motown began with extremely humble beginnings.  Berry Gordy had a dream and he went to his family for a loan of $800 to begin Motown.  The Studio where they recorded ALL MUSIC from 1961 to 1972 was in Studio A...........The BASEMENT OF BERRY GORDY'S HOME.  When you walk through the house they show you that the upstairs is still set up as an apartment for Berry Gordy and his family and the downstairs is where Stevie Wonder played and recorded, Marvin Gaye played and recorded, Smokey Robinson played and recorded as well as all the others.

Dr. Margaret Burroughs began the Du Sable museum in her apartment.  Not even her home........AN APARTMENT.  After she made a little bit of money she then rented out the entire apartment under hers for the Du Sable museum.  Then after a few more years she then moved it to its current location at 740 East 56th Place. 

All I am saying is that I have success in my heart and soul and although I may not look on the outside what other's may call successful...............I am never giving up my pursuit of success.  Nasty backstabbing people passing through your life is to be expected!  What is also expected is that as long as God leaves me here on earth and as long as there is a vision of success in my heart and mind I will do what God has told me to do with what God has told me to do it with.

Also let me say.  This theatrical run of "The Retreat" the play that I wrote, and wrote and produced all of the music too.  Was a raving success.  The play was performed up on the North Side of Chicago and I have to say that many of my white brothers and sisters as well as my black brother and sisters left the play in complete JUBILATION. I am not afraid of success because success is in my blood, and I am not so feeble and weak, that I will let someone come into my life during the building stages and laugh me out of business before I even get started! The mother of one of the people working for me called and told me that I had made a horrible mistake in a typo that was in the program and that I didn't give her child a shout out at the end of the play.  I scoffed at her ignorance!  During the curtain call the only people who get to take a bow are the actors on stage.  Her child was NOT one of these people.  But I laughed from a good healthy place at the gall of someone telling me in one breath how unprofessional my show was because I made a typo in the program and then in the same voice mail message curse me out about how I didn't lift up and shout out her daughter. If the play is so substandard why would you want your child's name called?  Oh and did I mention that the "child" was over thirty five years of age?  And the mother was over seventy years of age?  Need I say more?

Trust me I have to be tightly cosumed in God's vision.  If I were to let this kind of laughable ignorance define me.  I would never even attempt a play. 

Come on people let's take it to Another Level and Another Harvest.