How A "Hi Level" Mindset Helps You Realize Your Potential: Cordae (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of hip-hop artist Cordae’s talk titled “How A “Hi Level” Mindset Helps You Realize Your Potential” at TED 2022 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

How’s everybody doing today? So for those of you who may not know who I am, which is probably the vast majority of you all, my name is Cordae. I’m 24 years old. I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, but was raised majority in Suitland, Maryland, which made me who I am today.

I’m a hip-hop artist. More specifically, a Grammy-nominated hip-hop artist. A quote-unquote “critically acclaimed, world-renowned B-list celebrity.” But to be honest, more like B minus. But again, you all can just call me Cordae and assume that I’m almost kind of a big deal because I am here doing a TED Talk.

Now I know what you’re thinking. What does a 24-year-old rapper possibly have to say during a TED Talk? Like, who cares what Ja Rule thinks, you know? But I’m here to talk about my mantra and my way of life that has gotten me this far and can hopefully take me a lot further on my journey, as I’m just getting started.

And that’s the “Hi Level mindset.” Now, before I get into the details about the Hi Level mindset, I want to tell you about the original creator of the Hi Level mindset. And that’s my mom. She doesn’t even know it.

My Mom’s Hi Level Mindset

My mom had me when she was 16 years old. She was a single mom with all the odds stacked against her. And yet, from an unbiased perspective, I like to say she did a pretty decent job. We lived in some pretty terrible neighborhoods, man.

I switched elementary schools about five different times. I remember one time her car had gotten stolen twice in one week. She overcame circumstance, obstacles, her environment and negativity. As I watched, our living situations would continue to get better and better as the years went by. Now that’s Hi Level.

Now the Hi Level mindset wasn’t something that she directly taught me or purposefully instilled in me, but something I learned simply by observation. The Hi Level mindset is a philosophy. It’s a wavelength to apply to your everyday thoughts and regiment.

The Hi Level mindset will be of great service to you, especially when things aren’t going as planned. These trying times that I speak of, or life testers, if you may, are what truly make us man and woman. Actually scratch that. How we handle these lifetimes, these trying times, or life testers, is what decides a person’s destiny.

Step One: Always Remain Positive

Which brings me to step one of the Hi Level mindset. And that’s always remain positive, no matter what people or life may throw at you. Now I’m going to give you a little bit of background about myself. Funny enough, I was actually voted most likely to be famous in both middle school and high school.

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Now I know what you’re thinking. I’m sorry. I haven’t always been this good looking, it takes a little bit of time. My goal was to graduate high school and to immediately blow up. But that didn’t happen. So I went to college and as soon as I went to college, boy, did life hit me hard.

Within the first couple of weeks of school, one of my best friends that I called my brother had gotten sentenced to 24 years in prison. I had gotten detained for driving with a suspended license, amongst other things, like having a pound of weed in the car before it was legal. And my grandmother had passed.

Not to mention I was already a terrible student with horrific grades and a broke teenager. And I wonder why my grades were so bad. Now that’s just disrespectful. I wasn’t even trying to hide it. But on top of all of these things, what was really the breaking point for me was that I had released a mixtape that I worked on the entire summer and it had only gotten 200 downloads.

Step Two: Be Intentional with Your Desires

Now my previous two mixtapes got 2,000 downloads, so I was not happy with the regression, to say the least. Again, this almost pushed me to the brink of quitting and insanity. But the Hi Level mindset made me think, “Man. These misfortunes are just going to make my triumph story a lot cooler.”

I used this as fuel to the fire, motivation, if you will. It made me think, you know, life is just a book. Not every chapter is going to be perfect. But it’s about how it ends. Which brings me to the second step of the Hi Level mindset. Always be intentional with your desires. Know exactly what you want. In 2018, I created a vision board — at the beginning of 2018, excuse me — I created a vision board.

And I’m proud to say that with the Hi Level mindset, within one year I almost accomplished everything on here. Ya’ll can clap for that. So I encourage you to just write down your goals. Starting off your day with reading your goals and dreams aloud gives you a boost of positive energy.

Step Three: Discipline

This energy can be transmuted into something we call faith. Faith in your ability, faith in yourself, faith in a higher power will take you to places you can’t even imagine. Know exactly what you want. How can you be Hi Level if you don’t know what Hi Level is to you?

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And in order to do all these things, it brings me to the third step of the Hi Level mindset. Discipline. Growing up, discipline was always taught in such a lame way that I always tried my best to avoid it. But where motivation is low, that’s where discipline kicks in. Anybody who’s done something noteworthy with their lives all have one thing in common, and that’s discipline.

Mastering the art of discipline will literally change your life. I witnessed this close hand by studying a friend up close. This friend of mine noticed that every time he stopped doing drugs and alcohol, something good would happen. He felt as though this was a divine calling from heaven above to halt all his vices.

Now can anyone tell me the three main vices of a 19-year-old college student? It’s sex, alcohol and drugs. If you all didn’t know that already. And after the first six months of him stopping his vices, I seen his whole life change completely.

Confession

Again he thought this is a sign that maybe God doesn’t want me to do drugs, drink alcohol or have sex. But no, that’s not the case. Thank you. He was just simply learning discipline without knowing.

Alright. I have a confession to make. Because I don’t want to make this entire TED Talk about myself, I lied and said that this is a friend. It was actually me. Now a cheat code to ensure that you’re staying disciplined to whatever you’re striving for is to prime your environment for success. Your habits are based on your habitat. And the main product of your habitat are the people in your life. Which brings me to a very important step of the Hi Level mindset. The fourth step, to be exact.

Step Four: Remove Negative People

Remove all negative people out of your life immediately. Anybody that’s semidoubtful or naysaying, get them out. If you’re talking about your dreams and goals and they give small, sarcastic remarks … boot them. Just an all-around negative Nancy? Kick them out of there, man.

Does anybody in the audience know somebody that’s like that? Please raise your hand. I need you all to do me a favor. Pull your phones out and block them immediately. No, no, no. I’m dead serious.

Don’t let someone else’s negativity cancel out your light, for it can temporarily get in the way of you achieving what’s owed to you. You are a product of those who you hang around. Let’s make sure we’re hanging around other positive, Hi Level individuals. Now — Thank you.

Personal Struggles

Now I like to consider myself a master at this Hi Level stuff. I mean, I am here for a reason, right? But that doesn’t mean things always go my way. Even now, I just recently released my sophomore album “From a Birds Eye View” that I spent two full years creating.

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My debut album, “The Lost Boy,” was met with massive critical acclaim and success, and I had a lot of pressure on myself, to outdo myself. And in my eyes and in the eyes of many, I did. I had huge expectations for this album, but when it finally released and it wasn’t received as well as I’d hoped, I completely broke down.

I did my fasting. I stayed positive. I wrote down my dreams and goals. I was disciplined. I was doing this every day to make sure that this big moment that it was leading up to, that would change the entire world, would go perfectly. But that didn’t happen. I did not meet the expectations that I had set for myself, that the world had set for me. And this is the first time as a major artist that I had received mixed reviews of my art. And again, it broke me down, man.

Overcoming Setbacks

I became unmotivated, I started overindulging in things that I’m not proud of. I was almost thinking about canceling my upcoming tour. I was in a very dark place. But then I heard this Yiddish proverb that A$AP Rocky actually told me about at a most important time, and I’m sure he didn’t even know it. It’s “We plan, and God laughs.” And that made me think.

The Hi Level mindset is not a recipe for perfection but a commitment to honoring your potential and what you have to offer the world. Don’t let your small failures make you lose sight of your bigger picture.

Conclusion

I’ll leave you all with this. We only have one life to live. 110 years maximum if you are a health guru and you have great health insurance. How are you going to maximize your time on this Earth? Do you want your name to be remembered long after you’re gone?

The Hi Level mindset is about doing everything that you put your hands on at the highest level that you’re capable of doing. Think of your life as a book. Again, each chapter isn’t going to be perfect. But how do you want your story to end? In anguish? A bunch of what-ifs? Or leaving a legacy? I choose legacy. The Hi Level way. Thank you.

How A “Hi Level” Mindset Helps You Realize Your Potential: Cordae (Transcript)