"My Promo-Mentors Writing Challenge" *How I went from growing weed to running an underground club in DTLA

HOW I WENT FROM GROWING WEED TO RUNNING AN UNDERGROUND CLUB 

It all started with a one way ticket to LA

Sure I was planning on coming back home but had no idea when. My lease was up and I was left with no obligations and the money that I saved up from running a successful Hoverboard business over the holidays. 

After the holiday sales slowed down, I closed the business and was temporarily living with a very close friend. With all of my most important items secured safely away in storage, I bought a one way ticket to L.A. The plan was simple, I would spend a week or two living in Airbnb's while searching for adventure. I wanted to see what I could find and if money started getting low, the way out would be simple, head home and continue life as usual from there. So, before I knew it I had my one way ticket. Which was amazing because my entire life I've always felt California calling my name, this was truly a dream come true.  

When I landed it wasn't long before I realized why they call L.A the land of oppurtuitity. Quickly I noticed how everyone I would meet seemed to be trying to become someone. Trying to get somewhere. Perhaps due to the law of attraction, this is how my world was shaping but everyday I seemed to somehow find myself around like minded young entrepreneurs. Anyway, through a couple of these random encounters I ended up in a business meeting with a person who seemed like a character out of a movie. 

This guy had so many stories, so much going on that I honestly couldn't tell what to believe and what not to believe, but one thing about me is that I believe what I see. As we sat inside of his warehouse, he showed me a tent filled with plants. Informing me all about how his partners run a completely legal school for teaching people how to grow marijuana. A school where they promised to not only teach you how to grow, but to then take care of the distribution of the plant through their dispensiaries and delivery service to their patients. 

To be honest this was the type of adventure I was looking for, a way to make money and extend my trip to California even longer, so as I saw this door open up almost without question I was ready to walk through it. Quickly I asked, "How soon can I start?"

"As soon as you can move here." they replied. 

So I called my friend back home and told him, well I guess I've moved to L.A. 

The next step was to find a place to live which was close enough to the school, since I had no car. Just my luck a brand new luxury apartment complex was opening around the corner. Since they were so new that no one lived there they were accepting anyone to move in. It was a breeze getting approved, and in a couple of days I had my brand new apartment. 

I was ready to start growing.  

 

So there I was, it seemed I had found the exact adventure I set out too. Things were unfolding in a way that I couldn't have planned and so fast that life seemed more magical than ever. Before I knew it I found a way to provide for myself, while learning a trait that I had always been interested in. This company set everything up for me and taught me how to grow and even handled the selling side of the business as well. Quickly I found out that I've got a green thumb, I was a pro! I'd spend my days at the coffee shop next door to the dispensary socializing and my nights would be at home with my plants. 

This coffee shop next door to the school/dispensary was the perfect place to hang out. Imagine a 5 star hipster coffeeshop where the owners were a young couple. I always thought of them as Neo and Trinity from the matrix. They would smoke all day and talk conspriacy theories while serving their customers. Eventually I ended up being apart of there circle and would DJ at their shop while they served the coffee. As I got closer to them this shop became more of a focus. I loved the fact that I would meet the most interesting characters there. Eventually I started socializing more than focusing on the plants. I would spend most of my day sleeping recovering from the partying and the plants started to suffer from that change of focus. 

The funny thing about that is thats the main thing the owner of the school warned me about, don't fall under the spell the L.A scene and lose focus. Looking back that's honestly what happened, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Over the course of the next couple weeks my house became a hang out spot for many of the people who I was meeting. We would hang out at the coffeeshop, then walk over to my apartment and party for the rest of the night. Having food by the pool or just playing music and hanging out in the apartment. Soon word got to the owners of the school and they set up a meeting to talk to me about the problems with this. Basically according to them although what we were doing was completely legal, it's not wise to have a party in one room when you have 20 plants growing in another. 

Luckily for me they could still see the potiential that I had to make it in LA as the the industry of partying is just as profitable as the industry of growing. So they presented me with another business opportunity that really caught me by surprise.

 The lease at the shop was close to being up and they were ready to move out. One of them had the idea to hand the warehouse over to me and see what I could do with it. I would have 3 months until the lease was up and since they've already found another place to move into, they would hand the keys over to me and allow me to do whatever I want with this space until the lease is over, as long as I made a profit.  

And so I got together with the few friends who I felt I could rely on the most and No Choice World was born! The plan was to run an Art Gallery slash Underground Club which I found out is very easy to do in DTLA because everyone is always looking for a party.( At least in the circles that I was moving in) The coffee shop served as the perfect place for me to network and meet more people to set up events with and our first month was a hit! Right away our parties were reaching max capacity, I hired a staff/security and would handle the drinks, sound, lights, anything that was needed. I was meeting people everyday and showing them the space then figuring out whatever needed to be figured out to host an event. Everything was happening so fast and I was enjoying every minute of it because I was learning so much. I've always been a believer that the best school in life in experience. Just diving into opportunities and trusting the universe to work out the details later is what I do best. If there is a chance, then I take it...everytime. 

For the three months that the space was under my care we had a great time, of course it wasn't all sunshine and roses. Everytime we ran into a problem it would never be anything that my friends and I couldn't handle and we would use this experience as a lesson learned. Sadly my plants were suffering more and more and I focused on running this business and by the time the three months was up and the club was over so was my career as a grower. That was fine with me though to be honest I wouldn't take back or trade the experience for the world. More importantly this is where the story really gets interesting because I didn't come back home yet. Through another magical series of events I ended up working as the personal assistant for a Grammy nominated artist and moved into Beverly Hills, but I'll save that part of the story for another day. Please leave a comment below if you enjoyed this and would like to hear more! 

Until then I'd like to send a huge thanks to @futurethinker for holding this challange!