Russ - Its all in your head: get out of your way

YOU ARE HERE.

If you have a dream, read this book. If youre flipping through these pages you probably have a little flame flickering, waiting for you to pour gas on itsomething you want to do, to be, to make. There is nothing thats impossible.

Music is the lens through which I see the world. I express my truth through my music. Music is one of the most pure examples of a higher power. You cant touch music. Its a feeling. Music is the soul stripped away from the body, in audio format. When you record music, you transcend your body. It is an example of manifestingbringing something into existence using whats in your head.

Making music teaches me so much about myself and the world. But it isnt music itself that teaches me, it is the pursuit of my greatest passion. Whatever that thing is that takes you to a higher level, that connects you to the best possible version of yourself, that helps you live purposefullyTHATS YOUR PASSION.

But my success actually has very little to do with the music. Im simply a vessel that communicates my higher purpose. Connecting to your higher purpose is essential. All the tools I used to create my success in music is easily applicable to just about anything you are passionate about, whether it is starting a business or following an artistic calling or strengthening a community. But passion and self-belief are paramount to any endeavor. Your success is directly related to your self-belief. I couldnt even get to the point where I could make a song that you love if I was not mentally equipped to go through ten years of sounding terrible. Sure, now the song sounds good, but that took years, not just of practice but of delusional self-belief. It was a long process of anonymity, putting out songs that no one heardand the whole time maintaining an unwavering belief that on any given day I could wake up and discover that my music had blown up.

There are three essential qualities required for turning your real life into your dream life: delusion, persistence, and gratitude.

Delusion will give you faith when there is absolutely nothing in your present life that indicates you should believe. It is ABSOLUTELY all in your head.

Persistence will provide strength to keep going.

Gratitude allows you to appreciate all that you have and the achievement of your goals, both small and large. What you think about, you bring about. The positive energy generated by your gratitude will yield more blessings, and you will see that your dream will continually unfold.

Get out of your way.

* * *

As far back as I can remember, Ive always had pure, undiluted confidence. I was confident in myself before I even knew myself. In high school, before Id turn in a test, Id write 100% at the top of the page. (Yeah, my teachers were not fond of me. I was voted Most Likely to Make a Teacher Retire. But I always made really good grades.) When I was fourteen, I started making beats. Although now I can tell you objectively that they were terrible, back then I thought they were the most amazing beats ever. Even as a little kid I was obsessed with being the best. At five years old, playing basketball with my brother, I was a veteran shit-talker. I have always had this stain of confidence, even when I didnt really know what I was being confident in.

I know it sounds nutty, but I genuinely believe, with every ounce of my body, that I have never failed. You could say putting out eleven projects and none of them blowing up was a failure, but I dont look at it like that. Where you see failure, I see stepping stones.

To win, you need to get out of your own way. You decide whether to be your greatest obstacle or your biggest fan. The secret is being able to ride out the time between when youre the only one who believes that what is in your head is actually going to come to fruition, and the moment when it actually does. That period is when everything can go left. It can make the most confident mind doubtful. Thats where you lose. You dont lose to a competitor or to an industry or to a bossyou lose to yourself. Defeating your own self-doubt is the biggest obstacle to overcome.

At seventeen, when my best friend, Bugus, and I started to navigate this musical journey, we equipped ourselves mentallybesides being each others biggest fans and best sounding boards, we also educated each other. We acquired a small arsenal of books that empowered us to stay positive, to build immunity to self-doubt, and to weather the years of waiting for the rest of the world to recognize what we already knew. I was never a big reader, which is why this whole venture is kind of hilarious to my family, especially to my brother, Frank, who seems to read a different book every day, but the books that I did read were instrumental in arming me with the mental artillery to succeed. I wanted to read them because they offered me something I could use. Thats what I want this book to be for yousomething you can use.

My confidence, or cockiness (whatever you want to call it), isnt fueled by a sense of superiority and it isnt based on my success. Yes, I believe Im great, but I believed that when I was a kid making shitty music in my basementthats how I got to where I am today. Im successful because I am confident, not the other way around.

I want you to understand that Im not shit. Truly. But the fact is that I always believed I was the shit, and thats the trick. Look at me and think, If he believes in himself, then I can believe in myself, because who the fuck is he? Look at me and know that you can absolutely do it. You can instill that insane confidence in yourself and get wherever it is you want to be. All my confidence and success should do is make you feel like you can be great too.

After eleven albums, ninety-six singles (Im probably missing a few...), and ten years of sitting in a basementliterally and figurativelyI finally made it to the proverbial penthouse. Some of you might feel trapped in the basement. Some of you might be stuck on the third floor. Some of you might not even realize youre in an elevator. What Ive laid out in these pages are tools you can use to fix your own elevator, or at least help you see that you are in an elevator, and then we can both celebrate in the penthouse and shoot through the ceiling of the whole place, because... THERE IS NO CEILING. Its all in your head.

YOUR THOUGHTS HOLD WEIGHT IN THE UNIVERSE.

A long time ago, this woman told me, You have to be careful what you think about, because it comes true. You can think things into existence. You can speak things into existence. You can believe things into existence. This is manifesting.

Music is an intangible embodiment of ideas that can permeate a room in this beautiful harmony of emotion and sound. It can fill space and enter bodies and minds. It can transport people too. My body is certainly not in the room while you are listening to my songs, and yet I am. Making music is a kind of manifesting. To make music, you take nothing and turn it into something. When you walk into a studio, it is dead quiet; there is nothing going on. There arent any chords. There arent any drums. Yet, with your imagination, your work, and your belief, you can have a song that changes the world. That in and of itself is manifestingalbeit a little bit quicker ROI (return on investment) than manifesting an entire career, but the same rough concept.

All my success is a manifestation of whats been in my head since I was this scrawny, little seven-year-old kid standing on the fireplace hearth in our living room, clutching the notebook that Id written my songs in and rapping my heart out as if I were onstage. Before I knew who I was, I knew