Oh boy, this will be interesting…

Born: August 31. 1978

Place: Poland

Blonde * Blue * 6′3″ * Virgo

Came to Canada when I was 3 with my parents, made some money, woke up today, wrote this, will die someday, and try to do some great things somewhere in between….?

Let’s try again:

Came to Canada when I was 3 with my parents, and spent most of my childhood growing up in… well… the bad parts of town really. Looking back now, I was a kid and had nothing to compare to except a few friends who had rich parents.

Had to grow up rather quick due to both the neighbourhood I was in, and the issues in my home that pretty much made me the man of the house at an early age. This was my true beginning in what has now grown to be my success to date. I feel that those who grow up without silver spoons, earn the instinct to survive much better and more aggressively than any perfect family or university can teach, you can’t buy street smarts. I simply had to make money/survive.

My first days of thinking smart not hard for money came in highschool actually. See, I’m at artist at heart, all these wonderful branding treatments and money makers all stem from a love for art. What started out as drawing, painting, playing piano, singing and expressing myself with whatever platform I could, has now grown into websites, audio/video campaigns, tv shows, commercials, print campaigns, full business launches, overhauls etc.

Anway in highschool I was going through my ‘DJ’ phase of the entertainment ladder, and had many friends and contacts from various schools, so I use to look for clubs that were ‘not doing well’, and offer them an opportunity to fill their club, get more DJ’s, and I would keep door money and sometimes a % of the bar too… This turned into a good 4-5 year run for me. I remember many nights where I would walk away with up to 2-5K cash easy. Think 300 people, I let 100 of my friends in for free, the other 200 pay $5=$1000 cash! The more people that came or the higher the door charge, the more I would bring in… Some nights were bad though, and with some events I lost lot’s of money too (any promoter out there that is reading this - can feel this pain, fluctuation sucks!).

This money both funded my college, my studio add-ons (keyboards, computers, mixers, instruments, cameras, etc), and after a while the partying/promoting and DJ’ing got boring, however I saw that I had a knack for designing all the flyers and marketing material we would have to make for the parties and corporate events, and so in college I took graphic design/advertising - It came so naturally to me that I actually skipped a year  of college (well that and my highschool REALLY overqualified me for first year as it was all fundamentals of art, my talent level and my highschool made that first year look like kindergarten). I took a year off between highschool to college to figue out what I wanted to do, and still found myself with some of my highschool friends a year later, and they were all shocked that I’m already in year two! lol this was a cool little highlight for me.

Once I was in my last year, I had opened NCmedia, and started to actually get quite a few clients that were huge! I almost failed my last term however what did I care, i was literally attracting 10K+ projects and was only 19, college isn’t going anywhere… One of my projects got recognized by a large Canadian media mogul (CanWest Global), and I was almost going to start negotiations for their production arm Fireworks Ent. to buy out my company, however instead I came on board as a staff member on salary and spent 2.5 years with them as creative and new media director (age 19-22). These were the best days of my life to date actually, such a young director, bought an executive home, my first beamer, money in the bank, the good life

Once my days at Fireworks ended, I literally took a break from life for a few years and didn’t do much work at all! Started a social networking site called websocials.com in 2002 and was hoping it would become a myspace or youtube, and in all reality it could have! Problem was we are in Canada, I am funding the whole project independantly, all shareholders are also developers, designers, coders etc. and we weren’t sure how to monetize our 50K members yet - then myspace/youtube/facebook all came along and swallowed us whole (along with 90% of the rest of the social sites out there). Anyway, a lot of my resources and time (years!) went into this, with little financial return, however more experience than any school or amount of money could buy so it was worth it.

Now, second beamer, been through a few other businesses, had partners, made more money, lost more money… haven’t made my million(s) yet however I’m in no rush and am confident that I am on my way and will retire well, and in the not too distant future.

Let’s see, some cool highlights - I almost married twice, I still have no kids though I love them(currently 29 y/o)! I’m a real dreamer and put myself out there 100% and nothing less, perhaps to a fault. I’m very analytical due to having to problem solve so much, and I’m very good at it, thus can read people and actions well - and unfortunately I must say that my industry has a lot of ‘actions’ that must be filtered… So this rolls over into my personal events, and I am thankful for these skills and the way I’ve conditioned myself to think.

I’m happy & enthused 80% of the time, curios 10%, exhausted and kranky 3%, unmotivated 3%, idle 3% and sleep 1%. Most visionaries work better at night, or without interruption when in their creative zone - including me. It is relative to trying to grab a DJ’s arm while they are trying to mix, or bumping into an artist as they are painting, or pressing a bunch of random keys on the piano as the symphony is performing a masterpiece… might sound silly but it’s true - any media producer can attest to this, any artist or expressionist can also relate. We need our time to ourselves when creating, and that is when the best creations are made, and true expression comes out.

I consider myself one of the ‘indogo’ children, one of the people that helps create positive vibrations on the planet. One that helps others and creates good karma through my talents and interactions with the things and people I and my efforts touch.

I might update this page one day however I tried to keep this as raw as possible and can confidently add: Even though I come from a crazy place as a kid, and now have both street smarts, book smarts and good karma, it still all stems from having a great mom and lot’s of love in my life during those crazy times. That is what really shaped me into who I am today. There is nothing like the will and power you receive when it is fed through love and your own determination to make yourself and others proud. I love you mom!

Norb Czufis.