Notes from Nathan: Don't Let Fear Choose You

When fear strikes, how do you respond?  Fear, in my opinion,  is the number one thing that keeps us from reaching our fullest potential.   The funny thing is that we can't see, smell, touch or taste it.  I have been working with a top producing executive for several months.  She asked for coaching around how to rid herself of fear.  I suggested that she record herself saying positive affirmations and playing them every night before bed.  After three weeks, she told me that whenever she feels fear creeping up on her, she hears herself giving her permission to take the risk.  I told her to think positive every second, every minute and every hour.  It's like growing and flexing a new muscle.

Our subconscious mind allows us to dwell on the negative more than the positive.  I have seen it time and time again and I myself have first hand experience of it.  We could get 100 praises but it is that one iota of negative feedback that has us retreat to a place of disappointment.  I'm here to tell you my friends that it takes the same amount of energy to focus on the positive as it does to dwell on the negative.  It is a matter of choice and declaration.

I challenge you today to declare that you are a winner.  Empower yourself to believe and succeed!  Surround yourself with people who will lift you up and see you as your higher self.  Don't let fear rule your mental space.  You were designed to win.  Claim your place in the winners circle.  Don't let fear choose you.

Sevenly yours,

It's been a frustrating past few months.  This site has been a labor of love for me.  I've poured a great deal of energy into it along with my partners in media, but for some reason it hasn't caught on in the way that we had envisioned.  It made me start to process things differently and my conclusion was that number one, there are a great number of black men who don't read and number two if it's not gossip or mainstream, gay men aren't interested.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure we haven't always had the most interesting articles on the site, but we do give a different perspective on things.  We have reached out for contributors and hoped to make a difference in the black gay community.

I question where the leadership is in the black community and I can't help but to come back to club promoters.  Club promoters seem to be the only ones who can get a large number of black gay men to 'show up'.  Is that all we are about?  Partying.  Fashion.  Sex.  I was engaged in a conversation with someone recently (a gay white marketing executive) and he told me that according to major companies, black gay men don't exist, which is why there are no sponsorship dollars allotted to us.  I wasn't completely surprised, but he went on to say that black gay men don't provide any information about themselves so they don't know how to reach us.  It seems that the only way we can be tracked is to become infected but that's a whole other can of worms that I'm not quite ready to open right now.

All of this leads me to the question... What are we committed to?  Who are we committed to and quite frankly, I keep coming up with nothing.  Are we committed to each other?  I wonder.

Notes from Nathan: Am I Ready To Die Alone?

I generally like to keep my notes uplifting, but it's been a challenging week for me and life isn't always sunshine and roses.  A dear friend of mine had been out of contact with me for over two months.  I generally like to send out random text messages to people in my phone just to let them know that while they may not be thinking about me, I am thinking about them.  After getting no response from him via text and then trying to contact him on the phone to no avail, I decided to go by his house.  I went to his house on Tuesday around 11am and there was no answer.  I knew that his landlord was home because his car was in the driveway so I rang his bell.  Off to the side of the house came a disheveled elderly black man wearing a t-shirt, sweatpants and unmatched socks.  I inquired about my friend and was told that he had passed away three weeks ago.  I was saddened.  My friend was HIV+ and I knew that he had complications during the latter part of 2009, but I didn't tend to him like I should have.  It made me think about my HIV+ brothers and sisters out there who will most likely die alone unless we learn to better embrace one another.

Black gay men (& some women) have a tough time in communities outside of their own.  I have discovered that in our very own communities, we aren't as loving and caring as we should be.  Could it be because many of us were never taught how to love?  It's a long standing conversation that I have with myself and my friends around the fact that black men are not taught how to love?  If we were, we surely would not be making babies and abandoning their mothers.  We surely would not knowingly pass along viruses and STDs to our fellow brothers and sisters.  This conversation haunts me a few times a week.  I question my own leadership and whether or not I can do something about it and I keep coming up short.

I don't have a large family.  I don't have any children of my own.  My friendship circle seems to shrink with each new year and I'm not getting any younger.  So, I ask myself, am I ready to die alone?  I came into this world alone, so it would be no surprise to leave it alone, but I wonder.

When you think about that special friend who may be going through an illness, take time to comfort that person.  Enjoy that person while they are here in the flesh.  Tell them you love them.  Don't let them die alone.

Enjoy your Thursday!

Notes from Nathan: Give Yourself Credit

hat's up Future?  It's been a few weeks since I've posted.  As much as I love utilizing this interface as a sounding board to express myself and share it with the world, I've just been too darn busy.  By the grace of God, I landed a job where I can not only generate money, but I am also able to use my leadership skills and creativity.

On the train ride to work last Friday, I got into a conversation with this woman.  Articulate, attractive and touchy.  Every other sentence, she placed her hand on my forearm.  Initially, I was like "girl, you don't know me, back up!"  However, I allowed her to be herself on this short train ride.  She asked me to tell her about myself.  I was stumped because rarely does a total stranger to ask you about YOU.  Initially, I was going to paint this picture like I was just an average guy, but instead, I told her who I was.  I focused on my accomplishments during my lifetime because again, it's not very often that many of us toot our own horns, well, there are a select few and they know who they are.  At any rate, before I get long winded as many of you know I can do, it was just refreshing to hear myself talk about where I came from.  And I am proud of myself.  I get those moments where I'm like "God why me?", but then I ask, why not me.  I know I have a purpose for being here.  I just need to acknowledge it every now and then.  You should do the same for yourself.

Give yourself credit today.  Share with someone who you are.

Until next week...