21st Century Hustle

“Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.”

-H.L. Hunt

via nytimes.com

Asio Highsmith does not want to sell you a pair of shoes. He wants to sell you a lifestyle. He wants to sell you your life.

When you walk into his Pedigree Sneaker Gallery, soon to open on Willoughby near Adelphi, wedged between the pet-supply store Who’s Your Doggy and the laid-back BidonVille café, Mr. Highsmith or one of his appointed acolytes will seat you at a computer and administer a 100-item questionnaire about every pair of shoes you have ever owned, your favorite colors, your high school’s colors, your college colors, and significant dates, places and people in your life.

From this information, he will generate your Lifetime Style Heritage.

He will then scour the Internet and his fetishist’s knowledge of sneaker-maker back catalogs and track down your perfect shoe. Or perhaps he will recommend that one of the young artists he plans to retain draw a custom design on a shoe for you.

You will pay serious money for this — $600, $700, $800– because, Mr. Highsmith says, he will have written your cellular autobiography in footwear form.

“That’s what pedigree is,” Mr. Highsmith said yesterday morning outside his storefront, which he hopes to open in early summer. “Pedigree is the search for particular traits in an organism. I’m looking for a particular shoe trait in you that I can impose on you and on a shoe. Read entire story @ nytimes.com

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

-Lao Tzu

I will not be outworked PERIOD.

-Will Smith

Last night I was getting my Sunday inspiration in at Barnes & Noble. I was halfway through the Cigar Aficionado story on Jay-Z when something said that I’ve read enough and it was time to go. That was strange because I usually stay until they have to come and kick me out. Nevertheless I packed it up and headed back to  Bed-Stuy. And no sooner than I hit Stuyvesant Avenue who’s standing on the corner but Alastair “Gee Lock” Christopher, with his trademarked larger than life smile . He’d just rolled into town from Boston and we were serendipitously crossing paths.

Gee Lock is a filmmaker known for his 2004 documentary “Through the Fire” which chronicled the journey of New York basketball pheom Sebastian Telfair from high School to the NBA. As we talked on the corner in front of the Bodega Gee was telling me he was in town for the Sports Emmy’s where he is nominated for his work as Director of Photography on “Streak”, a documentary about a high school wrestling team that holds the longest winning streak in high sports period. Whoa!! That’s big news. So of course we had to interview him and share it with the rest of the Hustle community. interview after the jump.

(more…)

In this economic climate, Its not only the people in the cubes getting fired these days, corporate structures are all about the money. Today the founders of Myspace have been forced out of running the company they started, then sold to Rupert Murdoch. Though, we all know, once you sell your company you become another employee, its still a hard pill to swallow. Just ask David Neeleman, Dame Dash, Steve Jobs etc.

Via WSJ.

The founders of MySpace are leaving the helm of the pioneering Web site that made social-networking a mainstream phenomenon, as owner News Corp. seeks to reinvigorate the once-hot property it scooped up four years ago.

The stepping aside of Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, whose contracts weren’t due to expire until October, represents a pivotal test for the viability of social-networking sites. While social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have exploded in popularity in recent years, they have struggled to generate the kind of revenue and earnings prospects that can sustain them as businesses over the long haul.

Don’t cry though they sold out out for plenty money.

“Dedication, absolute dedication, is what keeps one ahead.  A sort of
indomitable obsessive dedication and the realization that there is
no end or limit to this because life is simply an ever-growing process,
an ever-renewing process.”

-Bruce Lee via Be. Moore (Bruce Leroy)

Celestial Seasonings is a brand that has been as ubiquitous in my life as bread and butter. My mother used to buy it from a place called Unicorn Village in Miami which was a 70’s predecessor to Whole Foods. The type of grocery store that had beads hanging from the ceiling and astrology books where the magazines would be in a regular store. As a kid, what intrigued me the most about Celestial’s colorfully designed packaging was the quotes about life that were printed somewhere on the box. It was almost like the cerebral version of the prize in the cereal box(yet not as fun!!), as it gave me something to look forward to.

It always made me think why would they care about printing inspiring words on a box of tea. However, as I look back it is clear that no matter why, they managed to make herbal tea synonymous with thought and introspection and position their brand at the center of a health food movement.

Now, herbal teas are everywhere, .where as before, in the United States, tea was just the weaker cousin to coffee. Here we are decades later and Celestial Seasonings is still here serving up inspiration [albeit sold out to Kraft in 1984]

The more I think about it, the more see how those quotes planted seeds into my subconsciousness and have become a part of my business. For example, I still find inspiration in quotes (as in Fresh Bread Daily) and tea continues to be my drink of choice. I even threaten to open a tea lounge every so often. Stay tuned on that! As I researched the beginnings of the company i realized that we even share a common theme with our businesses. In their about us section it says “Celestial Seasonings has always been about people and passion” and 21st Century Hustle is about the same thing. (more…)

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within.

“Lo, money is plentiful for those who understand the simple rules of its acquisition.”

1 – start thy purse to fattening
2 – control thy expenditures
3 – make thy gold multiply
4 – guard thy treasures from loss
5 – make of thy dwelling a profitable investment
6 – insure a future income
7 – increase thy ability to earn.