Jay-Z (regardless of what your thoughts are on him as a person) just recently hit $1billion net worth (Forbes).
First off, that’s just damn impressive. From the Marcy projects to a billion before the age of 50.
Nuts.
But what I also find to be absolutely fascinating is how Jay-Z made his billion. Jay-Z is known first and foremost as a rapper (and objectively one of the best to ever do it. He’s worth a BILLION after all). However, only ~7.5% of his net worth comes from his music. The rest comes from various investments, business ventures, and other holdings (i.e. real estate, Art, etc.)
Now, it’s hard to scoff at $75million. But if you were to look at a pie chart, it’d be really easy to overlook the 7.5% piece of the pie (see below).
From this view, it’d be hard to just say Jay-Z is first and foremost a rapper. Now, there are a ton of reasons why people identify Jay-Z in that way, despite it being such a small part of what he does, especially now (but that’s another, deeper, conversation for another day/platform/medium).
But the point I want to make here is about labels. We can get so caught up in them. What we identify by, how other people view us, who we think we need to be. This applies to both personal and professional labels. When we put ourselves (or let others put ourselves) in a box, we can really miss out on the bigger picture out there waiting for us.
So try on some different hats, let yourself be more than what people identify you by (or what you think you can only be).
You can be a lot more than you, or anyone else, thinks you can be. And you might even find you like it too.
From “Creative Quick Takes” circa 2019