I talk about reinvention a lot
and I share this story, how being a DJ at the age of 15 has helped me do what I do today at 50-something, five. Four years later, I never thought that that would be it. Now, I’m not a DJ. I do like music and I play music, but because of my mom. My mom, she was the most amazing woman and she went into this place that was just opening up for me to have a job there.
Now, all I had was a record player, one of these old record players that you sort of stacked the records up and you used to have the 45 inch. Hey, some of you guys might not even know what I’m talking about, but I did. I had one of those amazing record players. I remember my mom went to get me a job there, and I that’s it. I started becoming a DJ. He said, “Is your son a DJ?” Said, “Oh, absolutely, of course he is,” and I had no idea about how to mix and everything else, but that’s how I started.
I literally was working in nightclubs till I was 25, 26, I think. Then, I gave up, then I had a family, but I was playing weekends and then the summers and stuff like that. But anyway, the bottom line is, is that it’s funny because I talk a lot of the times that when we talk about reinvention, you don’t necessarily have to reinvent yourself. We have a set of skills, we all have things that we’ve done in our youth, things that we’ve done our middle age, whatever it is that can be adapted you to who you are today. There’s certain skills that you have, I know it. I know it, everyone does.
For me, it was I used to do parties. So, I was a DJ, and then eventually I started organizing the parties as well, and then organizing more of the parties, and then running the clubs. So, I literally had all sorts of jobs, and I remember basically what it was, is getting a lot of people together under one roof and having a lot of fun. Obviously, it was a different time. There was alcohol then, and it was during the evenings and at nights. There was a lot of energy, a lot more energy than there is now.
But having said that, my parties just literally went into a different format. So, what I did is when I, at the age of 38, 40, I started promoting and started running events. Well, I thought, “Well, that’s what it is,” is just obviously instead of going down the beach and go around the places to inviting people to come in, what we are doing is we’re inviting people via email. We’re inviting people by post, getting them to come in and to attend the workshops and the seminars that we do. That’s what happened.
Then my parties, my events just grew and grew and grew. They went from 3,000 to 14,000, which was the last event that we did live. So, yeah, a lot of the skills that we have and those skills, for me in particular as a DJ, working the nights and doing parties and organizing parties, has definitely helped me to do these big gatherings. So, I just invite a lot of people. I invite a lot of people, I invite a lot of friends, and I ask them to invite their friends, and then we all get together.
The difference is instead of me being the DJ and having lots of people dancing, well, there’s 150 people playing music or 200 people, depending on the event, and everyone is playing their tune. So, look, that’s how it’s helped me, and I know that you’ve got a set of skills within you that can be enhanced and can be adapted to what you’re doing today or that you need to do today in order to reinvent yourself. That’s what I love doing, that’s what I love working is to see what tune you have and what party we need to do in order to get you right at the forefront so you can, obviously, rise to the top. So, I thank you so much.