Gaining confidence

Once upon a time when I didn’t feel I had confidence, I had an ambition to be an events promoter, but I had no idea how I could achieve it because I didn’t know how to get into that industry. I needed money at the time and I had none. At that point in time, I was heavily into dance music, specifically Jungle/Drum & Bass. I used to blag my way into other people’s events for free by posing as a photographer.

Even though I spent most of my time in clubnights, I struggled, daily, to have enough money to even eat for the day, sometimes scraping together just enough money to buy myself fried chicken and chips from the local chicken shop. But that didn’t stop me having a strong belief that someday I would make my dream come true.

I was sat at my home one day and I rang a local nightclub in Brixton, I wanted to find out if they had any events coming up in the next few months so I could map out which events I would be going to and there hadn’t been anything at this club in a little while. When the phone was answered, I asked this question “do you have any drum & bass events happening at your club any time soon?” The man on the phone asked me “are you an events promoter?”… I said yes and it would be another essay to tell you exactly how it unfolded from there.

Three months later, I was in that very same club at 10pm, waiting for the doors to open, someone came up to me and said “Darren, is there anything else you need me to do, the security are asking if we are ready to open the doors now?”.

Outside the venue was 1,800 people aged 17 – 40 waiting in the longest queue the venue had ever seen, and I was the man in charge.

So many things can be learned here, such as:

Say yes when opportunity knocks your door

You can plan some of the best things that will happen in your life

Anything is possible if you put your mind to it

And so much more. One thing I learnt from that experience though, is that faith, confidence and self-belief can make your dreams come true