Today we’d like to introduce you to Kosh.
Kosh, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
At 14, in junior high school, I use to ride Razor scooters and my friends would skate [board]. Around that time my father got a Canon digital camera for his business. This was 2005, so it was not like a DLSR. Just a camera that shot 5-megapixel photos and recorded some low-quality video. He would let me use it to shoot the things I was doing with my friends. I knew sometime then that there was something about cameras and editing that I really liked when I made my first “video” (which was a slideshow I made on windows movie maker of the photos I took).
As I entered high school, my friends were heavily into music and they knew how to produce and record. They ended up teaching me a lot about the recording process and classic Hip-Hop. Before I was even in college, I was learning the basics of what would be considered sort of a digital media major in college. By the time I made it to college, I knew I wanted to pursue audio/video production. This is also when I co-founded The YES Life. In college, I learned the fundamentals of video production and audio engineering. I knew at that point I could pursue both, but I was living in Cincinnati at the time and I felt that video production would allow me more opportunities there, considering Cincinnati is just a flyover city.
Not many artists became successful from there and not many major artists came to town. I even “attempted” to move to Atlanta at 20 before finishing school because I was impatient and bored with Cincinnati. But, after a long stint with major health problems and the obstacles of living on my own, I moved back to Cincinnati and finished my degree. From there, the health problems continued, but I kept trying to pursue the things I wanted while keeping the balance of life. In 2013, near my sickest point, I was able to do a red carpet premiere sponsored by Scion for my documentary. It was very hard, but after 5-6 years I finally got healthy enough to make the transition back to Atlanta to continue to build my career in a media market.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not smooth at all. At age 20, when I originally moved to Atlanta in 2011. I was renting a room. Four days after moving in I got bit by fleas. I had to move out immediately and I didn’t get refunded. I had to stay with extended family until I found a new place to stay in the city. I moved three times in three months. Eventually, I finally got a place with someone I thought I could trust, but I had to evict him because he was just leeching off me. Around that same time, my job as a server was becoming toxic and I knew it was time for me to move back to Cincinnati.
While in Cincinnati my career was rising, but my health was declining and at one point I had lost 20-25 lbs. I was searching for the help I desperately needed while trying to educate myself on functional medicine because conventional medicine activated my illness. Around 2015, after finally finding a doctor and implementing the protocols I started to improve, but it was short lived as I caught Lyme Disease and was officially diagnosed with that the first week of 2016. On top of getting laid off for the 2nd time in 18 months. From that point, I knew it was time to start working for me.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about The YES Life – what should we know?
The YES Life is a lifestyle platform and media company creating content to inform, inspire, and influence. We are most proud of our ability to always keep our word as we believe relationships and communication are the most important attributes in business. Doing right by people because we want them to respect us just as much. The thing that sets us apart is our focus on telling a story in a beautiful and authentic way.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Anxiety. Anxiety motivates me to do everything I need to do. If I don’t follow through on something, it eats me up inside. I’ve used it to benefit me and my career.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yeneurodollar.com
- Email: koshjelly@yeneurodollar.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/yesxlife
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/yesxlife/
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYESLife
Image Credit:
(Top two photos) – Larry Brown, (center left) – Mark B. Wavy, (Center right) – Scrill Davis, (Bottom two photos) – David Price
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