Will your Vision fill a stadium?
Last night I listened to a replay of Hilltop Hoods live show with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. It was the perfect end to a week where I have found myself musing a lot about Being the Difference that is You. In other words, Being a R.E.b.E.L.
Hilltop Hoods are an Aussie hiphop band who have been around for as long as I can remember. Their most recent album Walking Under Stars has been in my playlist for months. After a lifetime of being a one-eyed-metal-monster, Hiphop is fairly new to my world. I’m fascinated by the combos of sounds, by the ability to put things together that aren’t supposed to work. The passion and intensity of lyrics inspire the shit out of me! The writer in me loves the poetry. Overall, I’m fascinated by the ability of hiphop artists to Be the Difference.
My ear, my eye, my heart is tuned to the people on this planet who are R.E.b.E.L.s : Renegade Earth-born Evulvalutionary Leaders. These are the people who are choosing to Be difference because they know that their unique Self is really their true nature. They are the people who choose to create their own reality, even when it doesn’t fit with what has been before. R.E.b.E.L.s choose authenticity over convenience, even when the rest of the world thinks they’re crazy. R.E.b.E.L.s create the new reality by opening a door for everyone else to step through.
World changers are the people who do differently to everyone else. Author John Eliot tells us “History shows us that people who end up changing the world — the great political, scientific, social, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries — are always nuts, until they are right, and then they are geniuses.” This quote is on my wall so that I relate to it everyday. It’s a reminder that the Vision I have in this world IS unique, and that’s what makes it power-full. Being the Difference is not just important for me, it is important for the world.
Although I’ve never been a musician, I’ve spent my life around musos. Musical people inspire me, not because they are rock stars (that part is really boring once you talk to a few “celebrities”) but because they are following a call that comes from within. Good musicians break rules (Renegade), they share their work with everyone who will listen (Earth-born), they are creative, changing, evolving (Evulvalutionary) and a really good, world changing muso follows their heart, rather than a trend, even when no one else is doing the same thing (Leader).
Howard Thurman’s words seem relevant here : “Don't ask what the world needs. Rather ask - what makes you come alive? Then go and do it! Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” It is my observation that a really good, passionate, inspired musician is Alive! Which brings me back to Hilltop Hoods, and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Imagine being the leader of your game and still being inspired to create more… Imagine Being the Difference so much that you take perhaps the two most opposing things that aren’t supposed to work : hiphop and classical : and creating with that. Imagine going out into the world and saying “this is what we are doing” and the world saying “okay” with ease!
If you can imagine that, perhaps you are a R.E.b.E.L. too. And perhaps, you have a reality you’re holding onto that could contribute to the world in ways you haven’t even imagined yet. Perhaps your Vision will fill a stadium. Because your difference, that thing that isn’t “supposed to work”, could be the contribution the world is waiting for. And all the problems that you’ve created to stop you from birthing your vision into the world, could be lies that you’ve told yourself. What if when you birth your vision, the world accepts it with open arms? What if when you say “This is what I’m doing” the world says “Okay” with ease?
“You can choose to live your lives as demonstrations of your highest and grandest beliefs, rather than as denials of them.” Neale Donald Walsch
What choice will you make today?