Are You A Firestarter?

Sanyika The Firestarter is an inspirational speaker, a performing artist, and a brand spokesperson. He uses performing art, which is basically the spoken word, music, and storytelling to entertain and inspire people. I’ve seen it in person and it blows me away. He teaches people how to be an innovative leader or how to be a firestarter. He said his mission is to help one million people find their fire and use that fire to light up the world.

You have a big backstory that I want to get into. I know that you’re originally from DC and then you moved to LA, which is where we met. Take us back at the time when you moved to LA at 24 or you can even go back further. How did you become The Firestarter?

Firestarter: I’m just a writer trapped in the body of an NFL lineman.

My first name, Sanyika, means leader of his people. A firestarter is basically a leader. The truth is that I’ve been chasing my name my whole life. I think that was in my mother’s infinite wisdom, her giving me a name that I had to live up to. Somebody asked me, they said, “Are you born a leader, or do you have to become a leader?” I said, “You’re born king, you have to become a leader.” I’m born in DC. I’m the youngest of four. I’m the baby. I am bigger than everybody else. I’m 6’8″ and I weigh about 290 pounds.

As I always say, I’m a writer. I’m a writer trapped in the body of an NFL lineman. I’ve been writing and performing since I was in fourth grade doing poetry and then getting into music in my teen years. When I was about 24, I decided to pursue a career in entertainment. I did a show on Fox called The Complex Malibu when I was in DC. When I got kicked off the show, I went back to DC. I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in entertainment.

I moved to LA to pursue a career in entertainment. In my first couple of years in LA, I did about four national commercials. I did a couple of TV shows and another one on Fox. I did a movie. During that period of time I was like, “It’s going to be like this all the time,” and no. Acting slowed down and then I decided to pursue what I love to do, which is writing. I started songwriting for artists. I started songwriting for artists on Konvict Records.

I worked with artists like Nick Lachey and 98 Degrees. We did their reunion album, rappers, independent artists, rock bands, and everybody. The thing I realized is that when you are writing, you have to have good human qualities. You got to know how to be transparent and be vulnerable and know how to collaborate. None of which I knew how to do. During that period of time, I started to slip into depression. I got into a drinking problem. I’ve got two DUIs. The interesting thing about the DUIs is that I got both of my DUIs when I wasn’t even driving. I wasn’t even a successful drunk.

How is that possible? Somebody else was driving but they gave the DUI to everyone in the car?

No, I was in the car sleeping both times. If you’re in a car sleeping and you’re drunk, then it doesn’t matter. It was a dark period for me. I was in depression. The low point for me is working at this crappy production house in the valley in LA. I was working for this tyrant owner. He came up to me one day and he said, “Sanyika, I don’t want you to use your first name with clients anymore because it confuses clients.” At the lowest point of my life, this guy is trying to strip me of my identity. We were at odds. We were arguing that day. That night, I was in tears. I couldn’t believe that I’d let my life get to that point. That was the turnaround point.

From that point is when I started to rebuild myself. The first fire I had was the Light Within Me. I started to video blog. I realized that the most important thing I needed to do was to start telling my story. I just started telling my story, video blogging. I went through a period where I wanted to pursue video blogging and doing the YouTube thing, but after getting 50 views on one video, you realize that maybe that’s not the move. I started to feel better. It opened the pathways for me to move into the space of the things that I’m doing now.

The three things that I realized is that you got to approach it on five different levels. I had to start moving into I call it YHUTU. It is start learning more about how to be Yourself, being more authentically me. I had to learn how to be H, Honest. I had to be U to be Useful, T to be Tactical and the last U is to be Unique. What happens is a lot of people start with trying to be unique and then they end up with the U. Uniqueness is not a ploy. You’ve got to find your uniqueness. They call it your unfair advantage. You have to find your uniqueness in the process of identifying who you are to the utmost degree.

The search of finding myself is where I’m at now. After going through the process of identifying who I am, I identified that my voice is a powerful voice for change. I decided to use that to inspire people and to talk about innovative leadership. There’s a sexy word that’s going around called disruption and being a disruptor. Everybody wants to sound like they’re doing something different, but nobody wants to change.

The idea is that disruption and innovation, it comes as a result of identifying your unique strengths and being a firestarter. Being not afraid to take a few shots when you go out into the world because people aren’t going to understand what it is that you’re doing. Then you’ve got to take a few shots so that you can start leading the way. Eventually, other people are going to start following your path. I speak and perform, and then incorporate those things into my work.

Being a firestarter is being authentic, honest, useful, tactical and unique. What is the distinction between authentic and unique? If you’re authentic, I would assume there’s nobody else quite like you. Doesn’t that make you unique? How do you distinguish those two?

Authenticity means connecting with who you are. It’s the who. It’s the talents that you possess, the gifts that you have. Like yourself, you’re a pitch whisperer. You’re a storyteller. You have to identify those gifts. It’s hard to be authentic because the wave is one of following what everyone else does. There’s a button that you can click online to become a follower, but there’s no button you can click to become a leader. Being authentic means identification. It’s more about identification of who you are. When you think about unique, then you can start to veer away from who you are to start to twist and refine the gifts that you have to put a unique spin or to put a reframe on them so that they can be a little bit different than what everyone else is doing.

If you’re unique, you obviously want to be authentic. Authentic is what layers everything around that. Is that accurate?

Yes, that’s it.

You went on to create a recent campaign, Thank You for Your Service, which is a tribute to the veterans with the Department of Defense. It went viral and it has over 730,000 views. Tell us how that came about.

Click here to read the rest of the interview

John Livesay, aka, The Pitch Whisperer, is a keynote speaker to brands and shares lessons learned from his award-winning sales career at Conde Nast. His keynote talk '"Getting To Yes" shows companies' sales teams how to become irresistible so they are magnetic to their ideal clients. After John speaks, the sales team becomes revenue rockstars who form an emotional connection and a compelling brand story with clients. Listen to his TEDx talk: Be The Lifeguard of your own life which has over 1,000,000 views. He is also the Co-Founder CMO of QuantmRE which helps homeowners get cash for the equity in their home without taking on more debt.

Get your FREE copy of John's book "Getting To YES" and learn how to climb the ladder from invisible to irresistible! Download the Free Book here- https://bit.ly/2BbJ5kH