"Started from the bottom, but I don’t say that casually. // I slept on the floors like all I knew was gravity. //" - Call Me Ace, Full Capacity

Don't let the Ivy League degree, multi-year corporate resume, and squash-playing skills fool you.

I did not grow up with a silver spoon. Nowhere close. I grew up in Bridgeport, CT, the most unequal place in America, according to this Business Insider article.

"Home sweet home." Ironic phrase given that, growing up, we moved from house-to-house so many times that, at one point, we were homeless.

To this day I get itchy feet after being in "the same spot" at the 3-year mark.

Are you living below the poverty line?

"Baby girl growin' on a diet full of oats // like her papi back then, but only difference – we ain't broke.//" - Call Me Ace, I-80

What I've learned after traveling to 25+ countries, working alongside some of the world's brightest minds, dealing with multi-million dollar problems to solve, etc...

...is that many people look at life from the lens of what they "don't have."

To me, "have nots" shouldn't describe a group of people below a financial poverty line. It should describe living below the creative poverty line.

Don't get it twisted, from a materialistic standpoint it was obvious we ain't have much growing up. But, still we had something.

Since a toddler, my mom always stressed the importance – and power – of being a creator. At the very least, I can make something.

I can freestyle a song with my siblings about how hungry we are – using a shoe and hardwood floor as a drum set.

I can draw pictures of Superman trapped in a burning building to express how it felt to be me at five (these are true stories – the child therapist was impressed a 5-year old had that type of emotional range lol).

When you create something from nothing, that's a difference type of resource. More intangible. More innate.

The 3 Limits Blocking Your Creative Potential

I believe there are 3 limits many people have that are blocking their creative potential to achieve something greater within the circumstance they're already in.

I'm gonna assume you're not the richest person (financially) in the room, so you can always "have more money."

But rarely is it access to more money / resources that leads to much of the groundbreaking impact that shifts culture. Many times actually, the ingredients for success are: constraint, scarcity, and discomfort.

So what are these 3 limits then blocking you? And what can you do to break free:

  1. Belief in yourself. What we say about ourselves get stored in our minds as beliefs that we then fulfill. "I can't do math" means that every time math comes to your doorstep, you hide instead of answer. Instead: frame what you "can't do" as something you either a) don't want to do, b) have never tried before and it's scary, or c) want to do but is difficult.
  2. Belief about your situation. Life is always changing, but in the thick of a rough patch it's easy to believe "things will never change." You may have seen generations before you struggle in the same way as you are today. Instead: remind yourself that every thing in life has a beginning and an end. And if things haven't changed before you, then by God's grace they'll change with you.
  3. Others' beliefs about you. People online – maybe people closest to your heart – may have opposing, negative beliefs about you. Not constructive critiques, but rather phrases like "You'll never amount to nothing" or "You'll never leave here." Instead: prove them wrong by breaking limits #1 and #2.

You'd be amaze how much can be done with little. Partnerships. Cross-collaborations. Bartered value exchange. Building intangible cache that, in time, can become materialized.

There's truly no limit once you remove them. So will you?

"My life now is better than it's ever been. // Still I'm never settling 'cause this home ain't my residence. // Steppin' on that pedal, man, ain't nothin' but adrenaline. // Nobody gonna stop me – settin' limits is irrelevant." - Call Me Ace, No Limit Freestyle