The Viable Alternative

So, I’m still riding high from completing my last event about a week ago called, “Expressions of Divinity” – Ike Love Holiday Showcase/Reception. I have this feeling that I can accomplish anything I put my mind AND my heart to, and I’m looking forward for the next step on my journey. Due to the momentum I feel, I’m looking to take on bigger endeavours, and also looking to working on areas that I was hitherto intimidated to face.

As I continue to reflect on the event, I’ve come to see how the “mystery” of my own purpose is unraveling through a combination of harnessing my gifts, pursuing my passions, overcoming my obstacles and delving into areas that pique my curiosity. These different components, and how I came upon each of them are starting to reveal to me the bigger picture and show me everything happens for a reason.

Working Out

Right from when I was a little kid, though I was skinny, I always seemed to have a natural muscular definition. As a part of the gymnastics team in high school, starting from my sophomore year, people started complimenting me on how “diesel” I looked due to the calisthenics I had to do for upper body strength. Even then, I would look at magazines of bodybuilders and wonder what my body would look like if I took exercise to another level and started to lift weights regularly.

In college, I started a regular pattern of working out for a few months, getting big, quitting after that, and returning to my normal size, and starting the same pattern all over again the following year. During this time, I saw a lot of athletes in my school with amazing physiques and was inspired by that (and the adulation that came with it) and would again wonder to myself what I would look like if I were to harness the potential of my own natural cuts by working out more regularly. I recognized my natural defined physique as a gift, and knew that If I harnessed it, I could create something “awesome.”

Unfortunately however, I was never able to muster the desire to cultivate the discipline needed to work out consistently.

Finally, about xix months after I graduated college, I decided it was time to make use of my potential, and I joined a gym and started going four days a week. In a few short months I wound up transforming my body to the astonishment of some of the people in the gym who I had originally looked up to when I first joined.

Modeling

As a teenager, I was called “ugly” by many girls because due to puberty I had severe cystic acne and just looked straight up awkward. Because of that, I placed a high value on looks and used to envy those who were considered “good looking,” thinking that was the most important quality one can have, even above intelligence. After my face cleared, and I grew out of my awkward stage and started getting compliments, seeing professional pictures taken of models inspired me to want to be a model myself.

Starting at about 20 years old, I started getting approached on the street by photographers who wanted to shoot me, but they all wound up being dead ends. Eventually, over a year after I graduated college and nine months after I started working out, I was approached on the street one day by an image-maker who was eventually to become a mentor/older brother/father figure in my life who asked me if I ever considered modeling and offered to help me become a model.

This started my journey as a model.

The journey to becoming a model had been a difficult one. Despite being extolled by all corners of the industry for having an amazing physique, I faced a lot of rejection by people who said either I was too big, too short, didn’t have a commercial look, or who didn’t know where to fit me because of my ethnically ambiguous look.

Faced with competition from and constantly being picked over for others who were taller than me and had more “commercial appeal” than I did, I knew I had to come up with another way to stand out.

Enter in my passion for self-improvement and inspiring others to bring out their own uniqueness.

Self Improvement

If you haven’t already noticed, I love self-growth, I love inspiring people, I love reading about and sharing success stories, and I love inspirational messages.

I started to see that modeling in and of itself wouldn’t fulfill me, and actually was just a reflection of my insecurity of wanting to be admired by others for my “beauty” to compensate for being called ugly in middle school and high school. It was a way to attempt to fill a cup with a hole in it and would ultimately never make me happy. However, using my image and modeling as a platform to inspire others was a way to feed my soul rather than my ego, and transform past pain into POWER.

Intertwined with my passion were my own experiences dealing with the challenges I faced while developing my art as a model – being too stiff in front of the camera and having my pictures come out as “flat,” appearing too stiff and nervous on the runway, constantly being trapped in my own head so I was rarely if ever able to be in the moment, being uncomfortable in my own skin, being unable to tap into my emotions, having no self confidence, etc.

My long, tortuous journey of overcoming these challenges one by one slowly but surely with persistence gave me the “street cred” and the substance needed to inspire people, especially those who knew me when I first started and saw my struggles (some of whom who told my mentor to get rid of me), or those who were able to look at my body of work over the years and see my development as a model starting from pics from the very first shoot I did.

On top of all this is the fact that I’ve never had any commercial success as a model. I’ve never been signed to a major agency, just small ones along the way. I’ve also never booked a job that landed me in a magazine ad or anything like that. This is where The Viable Alternative came in, where I use the pillar of “self appointment” to give my own self the permission to be successful by finding my own unique path to greatness using my own internal resources and treasures.

In other words, I’ve had to use the “Do It Yourself” (DIY) Model to be successful. This means I do my own events and showcases to promote my own brand as a model. I do for myself what agencies and companies do for their “stars.”

Do It Yourself (DIY)

Funny, I’ve always been inspired by individuals, groups and nations who, in the face of persecution, oppression, tribulation, wretchedness or rejection were able to take their own gifts, resources and treasures and appoint themselves to build their own.

Examples of this can be seen in stories of those who weren’t able to find a job, so they started their own business. Or in the example where a guy with no film making experience bought a video camera and a boom mike and assembled a group of non-actors to film a web series called “Money and Violence,” which, through an eventual massive YouTube following was able to sign a deal with Lionsgate Films and Jay-Z.

I’ve preached about the importance of building your own through the DIY model for a long time, and have been frustrated when I see people and communities who fail to do that and settle for seeking handouts from others including the “right” to be successful. Instead of just talking, it seems as if through my own struggles, I’ve been “called” to lead by example by putting my money where my mouth is and doing the same in my own life.

My most recent event, “Expressions of Divinity,” was inspired by Greek mythology, my relationship with the Creator, and my fascination with spirituality and spiritual power. As a child, I was in LOVE with the stories of Greek mythology. At an age where kids were unwilling to read textbooks for any reason other than homework, I read the book I was given on Greek mythology from cover to cover even before other parts of the book were assigned to read for homework, all the while imagining myself as a Greek god.

The event showcased images I took in a photoshoot with a female model where we were painted from head to toe with copper bodypaint to depict the statues of divinity from different ancient cultures. The aim of the event from the theme and by likening my own physique/image to that of a god, was to inspire guests to recognize their own divinity and express it to the world to the glory of the Creator.

People who came to the event told me how they were inspired by its concept and one person applauded me for starting this type of “conversation.” Another person told me that my event led him to contemplate more deeply the concept of “Divinity” and has inspired him to take his artwork and product line in a new direction.

Now that this event is finished, not only have I been reflecting on my journey of putting this event together, I’m also thinking about what’s next. How do I do something bigger and better? I’m even seriously thinking of incorporating my talent with languages into my next event. I’m conversant in Spanish, so I want to somehow incorporate that.

Also, as I continue to take action down this path, it fuels my ability to write for this blog via the lessons I learned. As I garner success, it also substantiates and validates The Viable Alternative.

In one way or the other, everything seems to be working together in synergy to gradually unveil to me my purpose, and whatever comes into fruition will be a reflection of my gifts, my curiosities, my interests and passions, and also the wisdom required from my struggles.

Discovering Your Purpose

What’s the point of me explaining all this?

It’s to illustrate that fining your purpose is more often a gradual unraveling until eventually you’re able to identify it. If you have some type of gift or talent, physical or otherwise, it starts with harnessing it in whatever way you can. It doesn’t have to be in a BIG way. You can harness it little by little, just as long as you stay consistent.

If you don’t think you have an identifiable talent, then start to explore your curiosities, the questions you have in life, and whatever your interests are. Again, you don’t have to write a 20 volume encyclopedia about it, just start little by little to explore them and delve into them.

Some interests or curiosities may lose your interest after a while, but others may stick. Continue to follow them and let them lead you down the rabbit hole.

In addition, if you have obstacles or challenges that are seemingly keeping you from a certain goal or desire, look for ways to overcome them and DON’T GIVE UP until you do.

The act of overcoming these obstacles may give you the wisdom that leads you to your purpose.

Do you have any gripes or complaints about things going on around you or in the world at large and are utterly disgusted and FRUSTRATED that no one seems to care about it or be doing anything about it?

Well, maybe the fact that you seem to care the most is because YOU were the one who was called to do something about it.

Start thinking of SMALL, even tiny ways you can make moves towards addressing this issue. It could be something as simple as sharing consistently on social media articles you read about on this issue to call people’s attention to this issue.

The combination of these things on a consistent basis will take you places where you’d never thought you’d go, teach you things about yourself, open new doors of possibility, teach you some valuable lessons, and lead you into some interesting twists and turns along your path.

As you go through this process, your purpose will become clearer and clearer and you’ll be able to see how all the pieces of your life came to “magically” fit together and how EVERYTHING happens for a reason.

The key is, to just get up and do SOMETHING.

This is The Viable Alternative.

Hope this helps,

Ike Love