Meet Waladi Ali

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Waladi Ali a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Waladi, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.

I’ve kept my creativity alive through the grace of God absolutely, and living life. I sometimes enjoy looking at myself as the main character in a story. Looking through this lens allows me to identify my weaknesses, desires, possible opponents, and how I’ll establish a new equilibrium at the end of this chapter. With that it lets me take more risks and participate in more things my “character” would do within and outside the concept of my story. Same with the people and events I see around me. The people within the spaces and places I visit or perhaps see online make me want to tell their story or flip it in a way that is new or against the current testament of fate. With this creative ability, the story doesn’t always have to be objectively how we see it, continually asking “what if” is big for me.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’ve always been a visual artist, though since beginning my business “WBA Art LLC” it’s allowed me the opportunity to create a bit more purposefully in a way that is simultaneously meaningful to me and others. In particular, we give our audience of creatives the opportunity to tell their story through our artwork, artwork we create for them and or show them how to create themselves. We are very active in the Colorado community, always attending various vending events selling our original comic book titled, “Justice Rain” and our original art prints. We’re always happy to serve and if you are an organization or individual looking for custom artwork, or a guest artist speaker at your event, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at our website: wbaart.com.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Immediately I would say the three biggest are: self-sufficiency, empathy and community. When I was a sophomore at Morehouse college in Atlanta, GA, I defined self-sufficiency for myself as: knowing the difference between what I can do alone and what I shouldn’t do alone. I’ve always been self-driven and self-motivated, though at times it could be a bit destructive, so the next portion of community became very important to me. Not only in my profession, but my personal life has benefitted from not always doing things alone. Thus, allowing for new opinions and opportunity for me to be challenged intellectually and sharpen myself as I sharpen them. Lastly, empathy has been very important to me. Emotional intelligence in general has been relevant to me, so I could seek to understand before I sought to be understood. Allowing the gap of love and community to be bridged effectively. I recommend to all reading this section to improve upon all three to the best of their ability actively, not passively. These three qualities of a person will attract and serve you the rest of your life indefinitely. We wish you the best!

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

I truly believe it’s important to go all in on your strengths, specifically in business. Though a close second would be the skill of delegation. It wouldn’t help much to be spread out in many different areas where someone else can do it at least three times better than you. Realistically, I can’t be everywhere at once, nor would I want to be. I understand my strength in art and communication with those that value what I do. Though, other areas I could handle, I’d rather delegate elsewhere an allow others to have some shine as well. I learned that important skill from my brothers Anthony Hunter, Mansa Aziz and my father Halim Ali. If I could do it all that would be lovely, but I know what I’m excellent at and can only get better in. Business aside, in life being well rounded and experimenting is certainly important. Go for broke in trying everything, learning what feels natural, and creating balance in your own way.

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Image Credits

Courthney Russell, Tigris Begay

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