If I told you, “Hey, the Powerball is hitting for several, several millions of dollars, you should go by a ticket!” your first question might be, “Okay. What are the odds of winning?” A recent Powerball carried 1 in 305 million odds. Some would say “No problem! Gotta play to win!” Others might be scared away and say, “I’ll never win with those odds.”

But what if I told you that you’ve already won the lottery! That Powerball jackpot pales in comparison to the prize you’ve won! How? 

Consider this, out of the over 8 billion people on the planet earth, there is only one you. Full stop.

There was no luck required to win. You don’t have to buy a bunch of tickets to win. When you wake up in the morning and choose to love yourself, you have won. When you choose to be confident. When you choose to take care of yourself and value yourself and commit to being the best you possible. Then, you’ve already won! 

1 in 7.8 billion chance and you’ve already won. That’s miraculous. Each of us is a walking miracle. In fact, we always celebrate ourselves for this very reason! As I said in my song “Exodus”

we spend a whole lot of time glued to the screens/scrolling and being bombarded with images of peeps that appear to be successful, on the surface at least/We’re constantly inundated with messages about how we should look, speak, what we should be doing, what to think, how we should dress… 

That’s why it is important to know who you are, what you believe in, what you stand for. Having ourselves “figured out” in this sense allows us to operate within certain guidelines of being. We have a benchmark by which to base our actions, to weigh options presented to us, to make sure that in an ever undulating environment of tumult we are able to remain rooted, not swaying or swirling helter skelter. 

Hence, knowledge of self is the truest knowledge one can acquire. But we mustn’t stop at knowledge. It must transcend even higher into a celebration of the self. Because not only do we have to withstand the influx of external cues about how we should govern our internal, we live in a society that isn’t always ready to be our cheerleaders, to put it mildly. 

When this celebration becomes practice, no matter how much anybody, any system, any naysayer or critic, tries to tell us that we ain’t shit, we become equipped to counter these critiques with an internal assuredness that we are stronger than what they tell us. That no matter what label they place on us, we know it to be AGAINST the truth of our being. 

I know that greatness is in my DNA by the mere fact of my existence. 

“In a world that tries to make everybody else like everybody else, it is revolutionary to say I am!”

I am strong. I am important. I am. I am. I am. We can use these affirmations or statements of power to remind us of our greatness, to inspire us to dream and keep reaching higher. 

The moment you were born the universe came together and said, “Be!” So now we must become that which they were put on earth to become. It is to align to our highest selves, the best versions of ourselves. Before we go and tell the world who we are, we must sit with ourselves and figure that part out. And we do ourselves a major disservice if we give that power to anybody else. 

It is our divine birthright to shine as brightly and authentically as we are able. Treat yourself like the queen or king that you are! Everyday is your birthday. 

Peace and Love, 

Rankofa