Zach Touchon is a Los Angeles-based American author, musician, and fine artist. He was born in Dallas, Texas in 1980. The sudden loss of his mother began his self-development journey and eventually inspired him to write his book, “You Have Everything You Need to Get What You Want.” Through dramatic and heartfelt stories, the book teaches lessons that may have life-changing potential. Touchon explains not only how to survive as a creative person but also how to thrive. He shares the story of his entrepreneurial success, which is a result of applying very simple strategies that anyone can use to make dramatic changes in their life. All you need to do is utilize the things you already have.
FMM: Share your background and what led you to the Arts.
I was born with a brush in my hand so to speak. My father Cecil Touchon is an artist and my first room was also his studio. Although I wouldn’t become an artist officially until my late 20’s this experience watching my Dad work would influence me heavily. Art and creativity have always been in my DNA.
As a child I always loved performing so I took to acting like a fish in the water. I was always an energetic, “in your face” kinda kid and had a big personality. I also always loved to breakdance which was the “fine arts” of the neighborhood I grew up in. This environment would cultivate the Hip Hop spirit inside of me. Then in my teen years I began making music.
Years later, after taking on being a film actor, I fell in love with writing screenplays. Along the journey I fell in love with writing. This would eventually lead to me writing my new book, “You Have Everything You Need To Get What You Want.” Now, I’m falling in love with helping people get where they want to go.
Through my creative career, I uncovered something very interesting and powerful. The process for creating is pretty much the same no matter what area of creativity you are in. As I have become an entrepreneur and business person I’ve discovered that this process is pretty much the same in business as well. I believe this process is similar in all aspects of our lives. In my book I say, “Life is a process driven art form. If you want to get to “the art,” you have to go through the process.”
Everything starts with creativity. Life is an art form.
FMM: Your sudden loss of your mother began your self-development journey. Tell us about this time.
I was in Fiji at the time. I was on a weekend stop there after filming a movie in New Zealand. Early the next morning after arriving there my cousin Kyle called me and said she was gone. We went on a video call and there he sat next to my momma, holding her hand. He said, “I’m here with your mom. She’s gone.” He slowly turned the camera to her hand and in that moment, I burst into tears realizing she was not there. My life changed forever that day.
My mother was my inspiration and my guiding light. She had donated her body to science so there was a limited time to view the body and Fiji is a long way from Texas where I grew up. We packed up and were out of the hotel in under an hour and on a plane in 2. Of course, I was not good. I was so devastated, and the feeling of powerlessness was unbearable.
We made it with just five minutes to spare. My mom was lying there, cold and motionless. Although her spirit had left her body it still felt like she would wake up. I actually said to her, “Mom, wake-up.” Although I have told this story many times and in the book, I still tear up writing about it. I tell the whole story in the book. I have already experienced that by sharing this story with others I’m able to help someone else process deep loss in their life. Sharing is so powerful.
After losing my mother I was struck with the reality that the clock is ticking. Time is running out and eventually my time will come to pass as well. When we lose someone so close to us, we become very aware of our mortality. This feeling gave me the drive inside to really go after my life, my dreams, and my ambitions. So, I dove in, working through my pain, pushing harder than I ever had before. There I was with no witnesses working around the clock until my fingers would bleed renovating the gallery/studio space.
Through this experience I realized that we all have so much more to give than we allow ourselves, but we never push ourselves to the limit. One morning after working alone for over 48 hours straight I realized that when you put your mind to it, have a deep driving force, and never give up, anything is possible. That’s why I want to help people “see it”. When you can see it, you can believe it and when you believe it, anything is possible.
FMM: Tell us about some of the challenges you faced along the way and lessons learned.
I think the greatest challenge that we all face is sticking to it. We all fall off track, make bad decisions, are faced with self-doubt, get bored, and there are so many other things that keep us from sticking to it. There were, and will be, many times that I feel like throwing in the towel, but quitting is never an option for me. I have to keep going. It’s part of my nature now that I have trained myself to never give up. Many times, this is because I put myself in situations where there is “no other way” but somehow, we always find a path to make it through it. Sometimes I even create a “No Way Out” situation so I will be unable to quit.
As far as personal challenges that I faced would lie heavily in the area of self-doubt. Fear has been a major challenge for me. The fear of others judging me, the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of being afraid. When I finished the first draft of my book, I was slapped in the face with this deep paralyzing fear and anxiety. My fear was all over the place but mostly it was the fear of judgment and not being good enough and the fear of failing. I have discovered now that most people face all of this.
I embrace challenges and accept them with open arms. I’m a kind of “march on through it” kind of guy and I always have been. Did I always take the easy way? No, I most certainly did not. But, what is the benefit of challenges? The benefit is lessons. When we embrace challenges, we gain experience and the lessons in the experience helps us to gain wisdom. I wouldn’t say I’m a wise old man just yet but I would say that I have most definitely learned a lot of lessons.
So many people give up when challenges arise and even never go after things that they perceive as challenging because of this deep-rooted fear. Facing that fear and taking on challenges is what we call courage. So, I encourage people to find the challenges, overcome them, and learn, learn, learn.
FMM: “You Have Everything You Need to Get What You Want.” Explain
I was sitting in my recording studio in Downtown Los Angeles and I “was lost in the mess”. All my dreams had materialized but it was all falling apart. I was sitting in the space I had created and feeling lost then when I saw a projector sitting on my desk and I thought, “why don’t I do film screenings?”
At that moment I began looking around at all of my various equipment etc and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I already have everything I need to get what I want; all I have to do is see it. Right then I wrote down the loose structure for the book on the whiteboard in my studio.
We are all constantly putting our dreams and ambitions on hold because we tell ourselves that we don’t have everything we need to go after it. The reason I titled the book the way I did is because if you only get one idea out of the book, in the limited three seconds I have your attention, then you got one little golden nugget that has the power to potentially switch your perspective. When we are resourceful and on a mission and driven by deep desire, we must find a way.
The history of Hip Hop is riddled with this. Think of the early DJs using old record players that they wired together with old speakers, or breakdancers using cardboard on the concrete, or graffiti artists painting on the walls because this was the canvas they had. This is all throughout history in particular the arts, but you’ll find evidence of this in everything. We can change our lives, our communities, our country, and our world and we have everything we need to do it. All it takes is seeing it and taking action.
FMM: What is key advice from your book?
I want to inspire others to stop making excuses and start utilizing everything they have and get rid of the things that don’t add value to their lives. I want to help others switch their mindset for lacking to one of abundance. I want all of my readers to know that they can overcome their fear and get what they want.
The subtitle of my book is “You Have the Power to Change Everything.” This is something really want to drive home to readers. Your life is in your power and you can change anything or everything you want. In the book I say, “you are the writer of your story and as the writer you can change the next chapter in your life, just like I did.” I come from what I call, “humble beginnings” and what this basically means is I grew up in a bad neighborhood. I was surrounded by drugs, gangs, violence, abuse, and poverty. The thing you hear so many people say is, “I’ll never make it out.” No matter where my readers are in the world, I want them to know that there is hope, there is a way. Is it going to be easy? No. But will it be worth it? Yes. When I was 16, I was homeless on the street after a string of bad decisions. If it wasn’t for a school counselor taking the time to give me some good information and leading me to the homeless shelter for children that was able to change my perspective I don’t know where I would be today. But where did that start? It started with me being willing to do the hard work, to accept I was wrong, and to to get the right information. I needed to forgive myself and start over. I would love to tell you that my struggles ended at 16 but that was just another beginning to many lessons I had to learn.
FMM: Did you learn anything about yourself when writing your book?
I learned so much about myself writing the book that I could write another book on everything I learned writing the book. I’ve discovered that there is still a long way to go. I’ve discovered that I am not a perfect person and I need to constantly start over and try to be better every day. I’ve discovered that what I’m doing does matter and people do care. I’ve discovered that there is so much pain in this world and so many people are going through what I went through and as we share with one another we all grow. I’ve learned that when we are the student, we can eventually become the teacher and eventually even the master.
This is why I encourage the clients that I coach to be the student and the teacher at the same time. I encourage people to cast away that “adult voice” that was trained to think that you can’t do it and it’s impossible and embrace the spirit of the child. There is so much freedom in thinking like a child and just allowing yourself to dream. I encourage people to dream as big as they can with the understanding that right now, at this moment, you have no idea what is possible or impossible. Embrace the challenges, conquer the fear, accept that it won’t be easy, and do it anyway.
IG @zachtouchon
FB: @ztouchon
YouTube: Zach Touchon
The book is available on all platforms including Amazon.
Here is the amazon link…
https://www.amazon.com/Have-Everything-Need-What-
