A Morning Thought

Straight from my notebook | 2.05.25

The last page of this notebook. Started in August 2022, and ended on February 5, 2025. Not the end of writing in the mornings, just the end of this notebook. A Ford Coppola quote: “You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you’ll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.”

It feels like an accomplishment to finally be on the last page, an accomplishment that only I feel. A private, personal win. Other than a couple times in school, in a hard and long class, did I use up an entire notebook. It’s kind of like finishing a pen - a small win, indicative and representative of productivity and care. Productivity to get through it, care in the sense you stuck with the same object until the end, giving it everything, and extracting all the use from it as possible. It is undeniable that without the courage to trust your gut, your instincts, and your creativity, you will knuckle under the influence of others to be mundane, and what could’ve been great, or memorable, will disappear.

There’s a difference between not trusting in your instincts to pursue your creativity, and pursuing something, but ultimately letting it fly away because you didn’t care enough. I have recently been considering the idea that, when looking at projects/ideas I’ve pursued in the past that didn’t work out, they didn’t work out because I didn’t care enough about it - to work hard enough to make it happen. And because of this, I no longer view these situations from the negative lens of giving up, but from the lens that it wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing. I tried it out, didn’t care enough to bring it through to fruition, and moved onto the next idea that would fuel me with fulfillment and the desire to love to work hard on it, and succeed. I can’t think of the last time that I grinded on a project, really truly grinded, with love and care, that I didn’t pull it through to the finish line. I take this notion and apply it to business, and the idea of target market segments, specifically that kids my age are not of importance to go after because the price-point of a brand may be too high, or the clothing too pushed and sophisticated. This isn’t our approach at Tibi, which I am grateful for, as we recognize the importance of bringing my generation into the fold with my influence on the ways to do so. I do, however, see this frequently at other companies, and it’s also what I was taught in school. That said, through deep observation, always, of the people and places around me, I simply don’t see this play out in reality, for both girls and guys. Whether it’s the trust fund kid decked out in Balenciaga strolling through SoHo, or my chill barista wearing his Rick Owens dunks that he saved up for, it is clear to me that, as I mentioned above in so many words, if there is a will there is a way. If you can nail your branding, your genuine story telling ability, and make it compelling enough, not solely by a nice product shot or piece of copy about the tailoring, but through meaningful content that resonates on a layered level with immense depth, to a range of people in their own way, you will bring that untapped customer into your fold.

Now, I am running out of lines, and I didn’t mean for this morning thought to be about my ideas on how to approach marketing and branding, but alas here we are. I love the challenge of bringing Tibi to the younger generations of critical thinkers and intellectuals - those that look at clothing as a means to express themselves and how they think and feel, instead of as a way to fit in and/or stand out. With the latter mindset, it will almost always certainly flop, or knuckle under, in the words of Coppola. It’s not surprising that this is where my mind wandered to this morning, it happens randomly and frequently. I’ll be out at a rave, it’s 5 am, and I’ll have to whip out my phone and write down the ideas that just started to flow, uninvited, but not unwelcome. These ideas, surprisingly, end up being some of my favorite, not always loved by others, but special in my mind - the ones I care enough about to work hard at and bring through to the point where, eventually, others will recognize the vision. Or not, and that’s okay.

At my present age, it’s a weird time - not really an adult just yet, not given immediate respect and recognition in rooms amongst elders, yet not a student or a child either, with the excuse of school or immaturity to fall back on - another thought that was taught to me recently. But, as I think about it, there is a tremendous freedom in this stage of life. This isn’t to say that freedom doesn’t exist at different phases, all phases, in different ways. Rather for me, presently, there is the freedom of having nothing to lose - not old enough to worry about tarnishing a resume I worked my whole life for, and not young enough to be immune to the more profound aspects of life. Hidden in this freedom are those instincts Coppola mentions that have a chance to be memorable if you trust in it - you just have to be open, honest, and vulnerable to dig deeply enough to find it and harness it, selfishly at first, so that it can grow into whatever it is your beautiful mind sees it can be.