This is me and even if it doesn’t look like it, I’m meditating.
As a kid, I was never anyone’s favorite.

Not my parents’. Not my uncles’. Not my grandparents’. Not my siblings’.
That turned me wild, the rebel. The second brother. The lover. The bandit…
lots of skills, but none that made me “the best.”

Nothing that made me stand out.

So I had to try harder.
Be the one who explores the mountain, plans the trips, the parties, the birthdays.
The one who cooks for friends, builds the fire, always has a plan.
The one who draws trees, houses, characters… because if I wasn’t anyone’s favorite, at least I could create fantasy worlds where I mattered.

That’s how it is…
I’ve been an artist since I was a kid, even though sometimes I forget I have dyslexia.
Which reminds me I’ve been dancing for years and I still lose the musical timing, the most basic thing for a dancer. The thing everyone else does without thinking.

Like I told you: I’m not the most amazing.
But I create powerful experiences, and strong pieces of art, that speak for me and cut through space.

If you’re not number one, you have to work harder.
I know that corner, the place of the ones who don’t fit, who create because there was no other option.
If you see my drawings, they have thousands of strokes until the right line appears.
That’s what I do with my experiences, my work, my texts.
They come from that place: the real one.
The one that hits the heart.
The one that doesn’t lie.

Maybe you recognize that part of yourself, the thing nobody applauds, but that keeps you standing.
If you also come from the land of #2…
this might work for you… if it calls you:

Subscribe to my list to feel something again that isn’t just exhaustion.

Leonardo Trujillo
8Lab . Art With Consequences

PS. I write one email every day. I show you what I do…
and maybe you’ll find a part of yourself you haven’t seen in a long time.