NYC subways… Inspiring the masses… And how my MLK dream can come to fruition.
I’ve got a story to tell and it involves YOU!
5 months ago i was minding my own business, riding the train, listening to some soulful music, getting my hip-hop head-nod on, when SUDDENLY, i had a vision.
It started as i was staring out of the subway car windows and my imagination started to emerge. I wondered… I wondered what effects the advertisements blasted on the station’s walls were having on our society’s minds.
TV, lottery, beer, and vacations… This sounds like a 13 year old’s wet dream. But it wasn’t. It was advertisements specifically targeted to the general public. It boggled my brain so i continued to play with the thought process. I came to the realization that the biggest commonality among all of the ads was to ESCAPE!
What are we trying to “escape” from?
Now I’m not the type of dude to run around with a big bright red bullhorn blasting my opinion in people’s ears. I rarely say shit like, “you know what’s wrong with society…” and you won’t catch me shouting “that person really needs to…” Na, that’s not my style.
I don’t claim to know how to cure world hunger and i don’t have strong political views. I don’t even watch the damn news and it wasn’t till the morning after the royal wedding that i understood what had just happened. For the most part, i stick to myself and limit my interactions so i only connect with likeminded kick-ass people.
Back from my tangent. Back to the train ride… But for some reason beyond me, this load of unconscious corporate crap advertising was stinking up my senses. I felt it physically. Maybe because it was my city, THE BIG APPLE, but not necessarily. More likely, it was because i had just narrowly escaped “the rat-race grind” and my emotional scars weren’t fully healed yet. Whatever the elusive reason… my take is that the subways are already dirty enough without this crap.
But, not being the bullhorn blasting evangelist, i let this pile of pollution sit “stankly” in my subconscious. Not for long though. A day after the event, i was still so inspired that i had to TAKE ACTION!
Inspiration is perishable. If you have it… Use it!
The next day, I went back to the same subway station that stunk up my senses and started shooting.
BANG BANG BANG… FLICK FLICK FLICK…
NOOOOOOOOOOO, not with a gun, with my canon CAMERA. C’mon!
When all was said and done, that next week, a new post on Sensophy had emerged: A Non-Conformists Day Dream. In it, i depicted my dream of riding the train one day while having positive messages put into our minds.
At the time, it was one of my most popular posts. Sensophizers really felt me on this one and offered to dedicate their time and resources to taking action and making something happen. The Sensophy street team gave me the green light and they almost even illuminated the night’s sky with the Sensophy signal. I LOVED how people came together here.
I politely thanked everyone for their heartfelt offerings and left it at that.
One day a couple months later, (February to guess-timate without inspecting my inbox) i got an email from a friend who suggested i check out this website called Loud Sauce.
Now I’m on what some people may call a “low information diet” and I’m really carb conscious of what i let enter into my mind (no junk!!!) So i quickly glance over the website, see some option about submitting a campaign (???), and send these guys a link to The Easy Way To Inspired 8,000,000 People.
I didn’t think much else of it because between me and you, i didn’t really know what the hell i just did.
The story stops here… Or so i thought.
A couple of weeks later, i got an email from their CEO and he said he was really diggin Sensophy… Sweet!! The thing is, I’m so strict about my low info diet that if i go unchecked, i may start skipping meals and showing ribs. But now that their CEO hit me back, i decided to take another look into this whole Loud Sauce thinga’majiggy.
It turns out, Loud Sauce serves as a platform for people who want to run their own advertisement campaigns… on TV, on the streets, and IN THE SUBWAYS!!! They host the platform for people to raise money and then help facilitate better deals with the advertising agencies.
So now that i started to get a better idea of what they really do, i send their CEO an email with a link to A Non-Conformists Day Dream. He responds:
Well, one thing leads to another and last Wednesday i spoke with this dude on the phone. We chatted about if Sensophy would be eligible to have a campaign hosted with Loud Sauce… After an hour long chat, he gave the green light and decided we could move forward and take action. BUT…..
I said not without checking with YOU first!
Essentially this campaign can only happen if the Sensophy community is down with it. That’s why i want you to help decide if we should move forward. There are a couple of things to keep in mind. Let’s get started.
The “Why”…
When starting something big, i find it’s best to have a super powerful reason for it. Something of intrinsic meaning. Something worth fighting for when things seem to be taking a long time and doubts come creeping in. So we’d need to come up with a mega-powerful MEANING for doing this.
I personally find meaning in doing this because it exemplifies why Realism Can Suck It and shows the Sensophy community that it’s possible to achieve your dreams!! It’s pretty similar to The Gary Vaynerchuk Challenge but i think this has the potential to affect more people’s lives if we do it right.
How about you, what meaning can you find in this, if any?
The “What”…
The next step as i see it is to decide what the hell we’re looking to say on the campaign. For instance, we could have positive quotes put up in places that a targeted demographic enters and exits the subway. It could be messages of hope, inspiration, comfort, compassion, and purpose.
So for instance, a chick that’s on her way to her job sees a sign that says:
“It is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting… For guidance and support on following your heart, head to Sensophy.com.”
And then we’d set up a specific article for her to see with the best information and actionable steps on following our hearts and actualizing our dreams. That’s just an example. I’m sure we could come up with a couple REALLY powerful poster ideas. I generally think BIG BOLD WORDS that STANDOUT capture attention best but I’m no expert at any of this.
What do you think? How can we have the biggest impact on the most amount of people’s lives?
The “How, Who, When, and Where”…
Next comes the specifics. We’ll need to raise some cash to pay for the posters… I think $3,000 is the number to shoot for. I’m not sure the best way to go about this but i can offer my services to people who are willing to contribute some cash to the campaign.
For instance, if you donate $25, you could get a link sent out to the entire Sensophy mailing list publicly thanking you and linking back to your website with a description of who you are and what you do. Or donate $100 and talk to me for an hour on Skype about anything you want from blogging to life coaching. Donate $1,000 and I’ll be your butler for a week which includes cooking, cleaning, and cat teeth flossing.
We would also want to get clarity on who this campaign is targeting and the most effective way to get them to take action. These are things i think about all of the time when creating impacting content for the blog here. We’d wanna make sure there’s a “call to action.”
Since these posters are gonna be placed in the NYC subway, we’ve gotta come up with a way for people to DO SOMETHING NOW! Remember, inspiration is perishable.
Most subway stations don’t have cellphone service in them, but some do. We could target those stations that have service and then on the poster say text “55555” right now get instructions for taking action. At this point, we’d have a service set up to send them the information they need to get started.
Before we go any further, let’s keep this completely honest. Here are my hesitations with this project.
Why I Dislike This Idea…
We could be giving this money to people who will be more directly affected by our donations. For instance, what the hell is happening in Japan and should we be spending this money to help them? Know what i’m saying…? Maybe.
On another note, from a personal standpoint, I’ve got what feels like a gazillion and half projects going on right now… The podcast, the purpose finding book / guide, the redesign of Sensophy, and converting Sensophy from “just a blog” to a business.
These projects are important to me and I’ve gotta get them done in the next couple of months or else no food for me mouth. That’s not a good look. So essentially, I’m not sure if this is the right place to be spending my energy at the moment. It just may be tho.
Inspiration is perishable, and momentum is momentary.
That’s why i need you to be brutally honest with me and let me know if you’re inspired by this and are willing to support the cause. Either way, i’ll still love ya.
Why I LikeThis Idea…
It’s ridiculously inspiring to take action and do something that seems so farfetched and unrealistic. It’s another one of those, you did WHAT, WHEN, HOW, and OMG, you did it for THAT reason?!
Hells to the yayuh!! We’re about making dreams come true, living extraordinary lives, and serving other people in the process. This project exemplifies the hell outta’ that.
I feel that rocking this campaign will inspire other people to follow their hearts and take risks to actualize their dreams. It can impact people on an soulfully inspiring level and if we document it and do it right, it will empower them to live a better life.
So what do you think we should do?
What do you think? Should we move forward with this project? It is pretty bad ass isn’t it!! What message should we send to people and what’s the best way to do it? Are you willing to contribute some cash to making this come true? I’ll pull a small chunk of change out of my own savings to get the momentum moving. Remember, we need to raise about $3,000.
Be honest, be authentic, and speak your mind here. This project is just as much yours as it is anyone else’s here.
And if it doesn’t happen, no feelings will be hurt. Either way, i think it pretty damn dope that we’re here speaking about the possibility of sparking spring off with this inspiring stuff…
Thanks for being a part of this wild ride… Let me know where you stand on this idea by leaving a comment below… Or if you’d prefer to keep your ideas private, email me!
Talk soon yo…
On purpose,
Jacob