BMWs, VISION BOARDS AND RADIO SHOWS

bygINCpresents... Oronde Ash Author/Educator/Speaker, has made contact.

I got a call yesterday morning --Thursday, July 31-- from Mrs. Saideh Brown, host of Life Remixed Radio. Mrs. Browne asked if I would talk about my reaction to CNN's Black in America special. Was the show fair? Did it change anything? This would be my first interview as a personality/social commentator.

Black in America Interview, Part II --Friday, August 1 (22 minutes in)
Black in America Interview, Part I --Thursday, July 31

The sound quality is a bit muffled in Part I because I was talking through my computer connection but... my motivational speaker and life coaching company, bygINCpresents Oronde Ash, has to start somewhere.

Saideh Browne is President of Platinum Speaker's Bureau. On Monday, I listened to a podcast of her show titled How To Make Motivational Speaking Your Day Job and immediately sent this email to her office

"Missed the live show today. If you will be spending the week talking about motivational speaking, I will be listening. I did my first network TV interview (EPISODE 2325: Black Identity Formation) yesterday and look forward to building a [speaking] business. I'm willing and ready to work. I know it's on me to make it happen. I want to do nothing but share my story and the lessons learned to anyone who wants to listen.

I'd like to talk to you more about the Platinum Speakers Bureau. I have something to say about what it means to go from black boy to black man in America, what it means to come into one's own, navigate through school, excel and give back.

Visit me to get a sense of where I'm coming from. The words are from my books. The narration is me. The production is my amateur attempt at documentary... I have something to say.

Look forward to connecting with you.

I also sent an email to her radio producer asking to be a future guest on the show. In the email, I included a brief personal bio highlighting my educational history, why I wish to be a speaker and the topics I feel most comfortable discussing. I also put a link to my Youtube Page.

On Tuesday afternoon, around 3 PM, I cold-called Platinum Speaker's Bureau. Mrs. Browne was on her way to a business meeting but still talked to me for five minutes, promising to call me back at 6 PM Tuesday evening to continue the conversation. At exactly 6 PM, as promised, she called. (Can't say enough about [business] folks who follow through on their promises. She gained a bit of my respect with that simple act.)

While on the phone, Saideh began reading my email. She made small comments about my bio like, "We can work with that," or "This is a start." When she got to the Youtube link, she clicked, began to watch one of my videos and asked if it would be okay to call me right back. I was hurrying out my house to drive across town and train a group of soccer players so the break would give me time to prepare for what I had to do next.

While driving to the soccer field, Saideh called me back (a woman of her word) and said, simply... "Amazing." She said the word with a soft, breathless whisper and repeated it once or twice more. I asked which video had she seen? She recounted a few images and ideas from --of the three links I sent-- the one I'd rather she had not seen first (Note to self and others: If you want others to see you at your best, only show your best. Simple enough, right?) but her admiration for the video's content, presentation and message was evident.

Saideh said something like, "I don't usually do this, but I get a feeling from you." She told me she was on a New Jersey highway when she got my call that afternoon. She was in a hurry and ordinarily wouldn't have answered the phone, but decided to. Thinking out loud, Saideh began calculating where I could fit on her speaker roster and what type of audience would be receptive to my story and message. She settled on middle schoolers, noting that speakers traditionally concentrate on the college and high school market because that's where the money is. But middle school, she said, is where the problems start. I told her I agreed and mentioned I had a series of six videos on Youtube talking about my middle school years in Brooklyn, NY. What I saw, what I felt, how those years transformed my self-image and shaped me forever.

"You know what?" Mrs. Browne began, and proceeded to tell me that it was great luck we were talking about middle schools, my videos, speaking, etc., because at 5:59 PM that day, immediately before she called me, she had received an email from a middle school teacher's conference happening in three weeks. She read me the email, noting that the teachers were looking for someone to talk about the middle school experience, how teacher's changed their lives, improvements that could be made, etc. All the ideas reflected upon in my Youtube videos were a perfect match for this conference --happening in three weeks.

After another twenty minutes talking, laughing, connecting, Saideh ended the call, promising to email me a Platinum Speaker's Bureau contract on Wednesday morning

My point: Put yourself out there. Go after what you want and the universe will try to work with you.

This week it's working with me. But this week has been a long time coming. I've been putting my name, my company name and ideas out there as a speaker, life coach, social commentator for a while now, specifically since October 2007. On October 14, 2007, I had major ACL surgery on my right knee. I was on painkillers for a few days, unable to stay awake for long stretches at a time or even eat much. I spent the rest of the month and much of November rehabbing my knee everyday.

Slowly, my body began feeling better. With the blood flowing freely through me again, I wanted to do something. I was tired of sitting down with my legs up watching TV. Someone suggested buying a MAC computer because they were good for creating things. I applied for a Best Buy credit card, purchased a MAC desktop on store credit, figured out iMovie and GarageBand, produced videos of me reading from my unpublished, first novel, 17 to Life: A Black Boy Memoir, and posted them on Youtube.

Since then, I've developed a small following. Over two hundred people have subscribed to my channel and thousands more have visited. Viewers are relating to the story of my life, my book and the ideas I share. I have been... speaking to them.

Two weeks ago, July 11-13, 2008, I was invited to deliver a seminar at the Lutheran Social Services Teen Haven AIDS Retreat in Maryland. The lady who hired me, Kristen Mehr, is a friend of a friend who also saw my Youtube videos. She emailed my friend saying I was a bit critical of [white] America. I knew exactly why she would have thought that too.

Anyone who only looks at only my first two Youtube videos, The New Immigrant or Dining in America may think I'm being critical. But those were my initial impressions of America as a nine year old, immigrant, [black] boy in an all white New Jersey suburb. The rest of my videos and my book talks about getting over that impression and discovering truth --about America, blackness, malenesss, what it is to be a decent human being.

I immediately called Kristen back and, rather sternly, demanded she look at all my videos before judging either me or my message. In fact, I told her, I would call her back later that week to make sure she did... I called her back. And the next time we talked she said my message was perfect for the black kids she would be dealing with in a few weeks. "What kids?" I asked. Kristen then told me about the Teen Haven AIDS Retreat. I didn't know she was hosting a retreat for young AIDS patients about empowerment or living your best life. I didn't know the attendees would be teens... mostly black teens from Washington DC's inner-city. I didn't know any of this. If I did, maybe I would not have been so aggressive or forthright with her? Maybe I would have held my tongue in check, hoping to get hired?... But then again, maybe my aggressiveness and willingness to defend my stance, my work, my message and my story is what got me to Teen Haven --my first paid speaking gig.

The first night of the retreat, the other guest speaker, April Snell, finished her seminar on meditation and experiencing the things we cannot necessarily see, hear, touch or smell. She then had the teens and the staff create individual vision boards. A vision board is a collage you create with pictures, objects or words about the dreams and goals you want to make real in your life.

So like a kindergarten student, I cut out photos from the magazines April provided or headlines that spoke to my vision. I crazy glued my scraps to a piece of blue construction paper. My vision board. It is hanging on my closet door, facing me... reminding me... directing me everyday.


When I made my vision board, I gave myself 18 months to make it happen. I know you shouldn't put a time limit on the will of the universe, but 18 months kept ringing in my head. I mean, if, for example, singer Jennifer Hudson can go from American Idol nobody one minute to Oscar winner in 18 months, I can belt out my truth loud and strong and accomplish a few things. Like Ms. Hudson, mine will not be overnight success. I am willing and ready to work for whatever is coming to me.

Jennifer Hudson sang for years in obscurity but she kept singing. Me? I've been crafting my vision for a minute now. Sometimes I didn't know I was but I was. In college the community outreach coordinator regularly asked me to talk to local school children. I talked to recruits, university donors, anyone who could benefit from hearing my story. Then, I didn't see it as public speaking, building a name or developing a platform. I spoke because I liked to. I like that someone other than me was benefiting from my words.

In college, I wrote my first memoir, 17 to Life. Didn't do it as part of a college English class exercise or writing workshop. Nobody has given me or promised me money for the manuscript. I wrote it simply because I have something to say about what it means, how it was to go from [black] boy to man in America today.

A funny thing happened the night I made my vision board. I took part in the meditation session about twenty minutes prior so maybe the universe and I were in sync with my past, the present and my possible future.

Along with other images, I began frantically looking for a photo of a BMW 325i. Perhaps it has something to do with my BLACK BOX concept. A black 325i is the sleekest, coolest black box I've ever seen. To me, BMWs represent young, fresh up-and-coming greatness. That's me. I'm greatness up-and-coming. I want to own one. It's my sleek black symbol.Unfortunately, BMWs were not advertised in the mostly black magazines we were using, like Ebony or Black Enterprise. (What's up with that?) I had the teens at my table scouring through their magazines to find me a BMW. No luck.

The next morning, the campers were scheduled to climb a rock as an extension of the vision exercise. They were told to see the thirty-foot rock-face as a representation of whatever obstacle was holding them back from being the person they wanted or getting the things they desired. In scaling the rock, each teen would be surmounting whatever hold was preventing them from getting the most from their life.

I was directed to drive ahead with another staffer so an adult would be waiting for the teens at the staging area. As the car I was in made a left out of our cabin driveway, I screamed at the driver to STOP! We were at the top of a hill and she hadn't seen the car racing up, cresting, ready to smash into us. My driver slammed on our brakes with a sudden jerk.

After my life returned to me and blood stopped racing, I relaxed, breathed a sigh of relief for not being killed. I looked up to see that the other car racing towards me was... a BMW... A blue Roadster. (By the way, they seem to have excellent brakes.)

As we drove past the Roadster, I noticed one BMW, then another and another. BMWs of varying models, colors and ages were lined up back to back to back to back, stretching for at least 200 yards down the hill. On a two-lane mountain road, there was no way I would miss the BMW parade. I had to look at them. In fact, the only way I would have noticed was if the lead car --the blue Roadster-- was forced to stop suddenly so that the fifteen or twenty other BMWs behind it had to do the same.

Life... the universe... a brush with death stopped me, jerked me to life and presented me, not a picture, but a living, moving collage of what I wanted. I was present in the moment. That moment was my present. And I was open to what was happening.

Perhaps I had willed that moment into being by meditating on it the night before. Even the other passenger in the car was quick to remind me that I finally got my BMW. Everyone making their vision boards the night before heard knew I wanted a picture of a BMW to find a BMW. Some were looking in their magazines for me. Maybe we all willed the moment into being? Maybe I was doing some good talking to teenagers the world has already condemned to die, so the universe gave me some good in return? Or maybe... maybe it was just a BMW driver's club going for a Saturday morning jaunt through the countryside --a bunch of rich suburban professionals flaunting their affluence

Whatever was going on, the universe had awoken me that morning to exactly what I was searching for. And it didn't give it to me once. The universe reminded me in spades, in different colors and models, a veritable collage, a vision of BMWs coming up as I was driving down a hill to climb up a rock that represented overcoming the hurdles in my life, to get the things I want most.

My point, again: Put yourself out there. Go after what you want. Climb your rock. Drive you car, your will. Plan to get going and the universe will conspire to work with you. You may not get things exactly when and how you want them, but your vision will come to you. You just have to be ready to see, appreciate, take note and act accordingly when it does.

Since last October, slowly but surely, especially when I'm sharing my life story with others, showing love to my family or teaching, the universe has reminded me that my vision matters. Whether it be an intrinsic understanding felt, like the soothing wave pulsating through my body while I meditated that first night of the retreat, massaging away fatigue and worry. (I'd meditated before but never felt anything real from it.) Or whether it is astonishment felt in a profound question from my five year old son --some question I may have already been asking myself in another form-- the universe has often returned me a sense of awe, respect, of being a part of something much bigger than myself. Those instances have always made me feel good about what I was doing and the people there.

So four days ago, I cold-called the President of Platinum Speaker's Bureau. Mrs. Saideh Browne called me back the next day. A day after that, I was a guest on her radio show, speaking to her radio audience, showcasing to her I can do what her clients are paid to do. My point: I'M BEING!... MY VISION.

This blog, this entry will be another snapshot for my vision board. I'm putting my thoughts, my wishes, my dreams --myself-- out there, attracting the things I want in my life. Contact with folks in the speaking industry. Becoming part of a speaker's organization. Developing a name, a voice, a brand. Building platforms to share my story and message. Earning a living. Creating a stable life for my family and me, so we can raze each other and others.

In the next 18 months, my plan is as follows:

(1). I plan to command no less the $2500 for major gigs as a speaker --specifically, on the college and high school circuit. I plan to schedule at least 4 major gigs/months while still devoting time to teaching, coaching children, and volunteering in local youth organizations.

(2). I plan to get me and my wife caught up on our bills, be significantly out of debt and buy her a real wedding ring.

(3). I plan to be living in a 3-4 bedroom house with my wife and son. There will be an additional room for my office, hardwood floors, rugs instead of carpet, two sinks in the master bedroom --one for me, one for her-- a walk-in closet and grass in the backyard for me and my son to play soccer.

(4). I plan to co-create and help facilitate a 10-12 week program that focuses on the personal development of adolescent males. I want to encourage [black] boys to be honest, have character, pursue greatness no matter their circumstance. The program will fall under the bygLIFEcoaching arm of my company bygINCpresents. Participants will be shown simple skills to become more productive college-ready students. How to take notes or how to effectively read a textbook? They will be trained to communicate better through the spoken and written word and, among other things, learn to critically analyze media, pop culture and literature for the stories behind the pictures and the words. At the end of the program, each participant will make a 5-minute presentation on what they have learned and where that knowledge may take them.

(5). I plan to be known for THE BLACK BOX AND YOUR FLIGHT TO LIFE concept

(6). I plan to solicit funding and develop an organizational structure for my free Saturday Morning Soccer Clinic in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and be able to spend July and August running a youth soccer league and personal development program there.

(7). I plan to meet Steve Nash, talk to him about his philanthropic efforts in the third world, have him sign a jersey I can give my father --named Alban Nash-- and be invited to play in Steve's charity summer soccer game in NYC --alongside Thierry Henry.

(8). I plan to drive a black BMW 325i with a tan, leather interior and a movie screen in the roof so my son can watch Ben Ten Alien Force and play video games.

Simple enough, right?

Don't leave this article thinking I'm far-fetched, materialistic or solely into status. Not at all. The BMW is a black box. It's a symbol.


The 325i will serve as a symbol of what I've made manifest for my family and me. It will be the sleekest black box reminding me of my flight to life, where I've come from and where I still need to go.

I recognize that journey will be the most important thing. I will hold strong to the journey I'm on and whatever the next 18 months will bring. That will be my status. I will be a model for someone else.

So I'm off to grind, to market, promote and sell myself, book speaking engagements to colleges, high schools, middle schools, teacher organizations, youth groups, businesses, more radio shows, more documentaries, more gigs, better digs more of me out into the world so more of the world can flow into me. A vicious cycle of goodness transferring back and forth, inspiring, creating, inspiring creation, creating inspiration... and change.

Bless.