First, if you are reading this then I want to start by saying how thankful I am for you & how much I appreciate you! Without you & your support, this “project” of mine would amount to nothing. I started this LEVEL UP. blog as a way to connect with the supporters, the community, in a more relaxed sense. I also started this to help benefit those that have supported me, as this blog will be filled with several nuggets of knowledge, things of importance that I have taken notice to, & ways in which my most loyal supporters can receive benefits from any future drops. With this being a bi-monthly occurrence, I will always focus & reflect on the recent events that have garnered my attention & bring those to the forefront here. Whether it be a specific event, person, item, etc., think of this as a space in which I will be a lot more open about myself with those that participate in reading. Hopefully down the road I can return to this 1st blog and reflect on just how far we have come as a community & be grateful of the fact that we have a lot more as a community to accomplish.
LEVEL UP. has gone through more than its fair share of changes. When I first started working on this brand/project in 2016, it had a completely different name & logo to go along with it (shout out to those select few that know what LEVEL UP. was before LEVEL UP.). From then until now, March 16th, 2021, I have been working my way around figuring out just what it is I want to represent & the message it is that I want to convey with this brand. Anyone can make a clothing brand, but what is it that you stand for that is going to set your brand apart? Are you making clothes just because, or are you doing it for a purpose? Figuring out that purpose can be the hardest thing you ever do, & after years of soul-searching, mindfulness training, and self-awareness development I have figured that out for myself. With LEVEL UP., I want to accomplish 3 things:
- Provide a wardrobe for this entire community of like-minded individuals who are consistently looking to better themselves.
- Provide valuable knowledge on a plethora of subjects to the community, educating everyone who is willing to pay attention to the brand.
- Provide a service that funnels the money spent on various LEVEL UP. items for those in need. Whether they be entire organizations or individuals, the transparency of the brand will showcase how the profits of each sale will be directed to assist someone in need.
If I can accomplish these 3 steps with every single item that I drop, then it has been a success. This has become more than clothing for me. This has opened an alley for me to combine 3 concepts that I value tremendously: clothing, education, & assisting others. This is also why I refer to LEVEL UP. as a “project” as well as a brand. I have visions down the road where clothes are actually a very minuscule part of what LEVEL UP. will be. I’m trying to turn this into a resource, something someone can use to actually help them get better.
As I stated before, LEVEL UP. will be more than just making clothes, but it will also act as a service to help those in need. 10% of the profits from all of my sales will be directed toward a specific organization or one individual in need. I will always remain transparent with the community of my choice so that you all know where your money is going. This is a way that we can all be contributing members to individuals in need, as we know that a portion of our money spent on LEVEL UP. is going to benefit someone who truly needs it. Sometime this year, I also plan on implementing something that I have titled “Community Service” (for the time being). This will be a program specifically designed to help the homeless. More information on that will come down the line.
Every post, I will highlight specifics that I noticed about previous drops as well as digging deeper into any future drops that I am planning. As of right now, I have 4 more releases that I have planned this year: “LIFE, ON REPEAT” on March 29th, one in June, one in September, and the last in December. Man…..I’m really excited to get these collections out to yall. In the midst of the upcoming releases, I want to showcase just how much I want us, this community, to grow with each other. I take the LEVEL UP. motto “Be You, But Better.” very seriously, and one of my goals is to use this brand, this community service, to better everyone involved.
With this upcoming drop, “LIFE, ON REPEAT.” I want to use it as a moment of reflection regarding the hectic last 12 months that we have all experienced together. When I got to thinking about how I would describe being quarantined, having to abide by somewhat strict lockdown rules & having no ability to deviate from the mundane lifestyle we were accustomed to living for several months, the phrase “LIFE, ON REPEAT” immediately came to mind. Conveniently, this same phrase came to mind when I though about our lives before COVID & how our lives will translate into something new when the issue has been settled. What our lives were like pre-COVID, during COVID, and hopefully post-COVID is what inspired me to develop the “LIFE, ON REPEAT” collection. I like this collection because I touched on some personal things through the art, such as doing a personal reflection & highlighting some of the things that I have cherished most throughout my life & some of the more valuable things that I learned to help guide me through COVID. Hopefully the collection offers some insight to who I am as a person & can be a way that the community can understand me better as a person (I got something special for you all regarding the collection at the end of this blog too, so stay tuned).
Each post, I will also take the time out to highlight someone or something that has inspired me over the past couple of months. I want to start off by highlighting not one individual, but my entire group of close friends. I don’t even need to list them all but they know who they are! I have the best friends in the world, and not a day goes by where I feel like that statement is anywhere close to being false. All around me, I am surrounded intelligent, caring, hard-working individuals. It is hard not to stay motivated when the people I surround myself with are all winners. Every day I am blessed & grateful to be in the group that I am in, & I cannot wait to watch all of them succeed with their respective talents.
I honestly envision the later blogs to be shorter than this one so bear with me, but I needed to lay out exactly how these will go and what it is I will touch up on. I want to wrap this up by asking you, the reader, an important question: why not? One thing that I’ve learned over the years is that some individuals have replaced chasing what they love with doing something they would consider “safe”. But why not take that risk of doing what you want? Why not do something for yourself that will increase your overall happiness by millions? There is never a “right time” to do something, so why not get started now? Being completely aware of the situation in which we are given, we are given one opportunity in this life to be what it is that we want to be. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has the ability to get to that stage in their life, no matter if they start the chase at 13 years old or 40. I want everyone to work towards becoming their “full self”, and with the help of LEVEL UP., I hope everyone can get there.
Each blog post will include 5 things that I have discovered that I feel would be beneficial to the community to read/listen to/interact with, etc. These are all things that have affected me in some way that I felt the community needed to get in touch with as well. The links will be clickable so you don’t have to go searching the internet for the subject. For this blog, those are as follows:
- Pyer Moss Collection 3.
- Pharrell’s Skin Care Routine.
- “FREE SOLO.”
- Coming To Our Senses, By Jon Kabat-Zinn
- “I AM ATHLETE” S2E25 “Real Men Cry Too”.
Finally, each blog post will also include the monthly LEVEL UP. playlist which includes music that I have been listening to when I am creating, cooking, researching, relaxing, etc. Think of it as my audio mood board. I hope you enjoy this one from February. March’s playlist will be coming soon.
& for those of you who stuck around, the 1st 5 people to share this blog post & tag myself as well as LEVEL UP. on their social media will have the opportunity to receive the next basic LEVEL UP. tee for $10 (if you choose to buy it). Enjoy.
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