Latest / Practice Ground / Jason Mayden: I'm Creating for Centuries, Not Seasons | Practice Ground Ep 3

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Jason Mayden: I'm Creating for Centuries, Not Seasons | Practice Ground Ep 3 · Practice Ground

• Nifemi Aluko: i talking to friend from stanford and i was like he started a podcast and i was like man i used to have a podcast back when we were in school and i don't know if you remember i interviewed you and like the d school at some point this was like 10 years ago It's always good to to to reconnect with you. I always love hearing your thoughts. just to give you some background, right? Writing my fifth book, it's about how to curate or nurture meaning as we're going ⁓ deeper into the automation age, And ⁓ What I'm saying now is like we're we just finished, we're just about to finish Q1, right? Of the 21st century. it's, you know, we're about to go into Q2. And I'm trying to thinking through ⁓ is about the principles around ⁓ how to find meaning, right? primarily thinking through the lens of if somebody eventually reads this book in 2099. Right, they'll be like, man, this people were really talking about some foundational principles that still apply right now, right? So that's the lens, right? so I'm just gonna go into it. Like for you, ⁓ know, I've watched your journey, I've seen you create so many different things, brands, fresh shoes and kicks. I've seen you make clothes. I've seen you draw, I've seen you like build businesses, I've seen you invest, Like I was to I was just like so many different things. For you, what what I don't see you as someone that has one medium, but if you did have a medium, what does it allow you to express that words or logic don't? Jason Mayden: ⁓ I maintain a childlike curiosity. You know, so I don't I don't start anything with the intention of developing a skill set getting to a binary outcome. It's more of I'm interested in that. What is that? Why is it interesting to me? And I I just go down that rabbit hole. I think what precludes a lot of people from taking those leaps intellectually or creatively is the fear of embarrassment, the fear of judgment from other people. ⁓ I've never fit in, so I genuinely don't care what people think of me. because it's none of my business to begin with, what someone else's thoughts are towards me. And and B, when you grow up in an environment where you don't fit in and you know you're considered different or weird or a nerd or unlike your peers or unlike the city you're from, you have two choices either believe their narrative or create your own. So I created my own reality. Nifemi Aluko: Yeah. Jason Mayden: And my job has always been to make sure my imagination and my reality are in alignment. So I don't just leave these ideas in my mind. I actually try to bring them into the world because I want to see them and I want to experience them. and so it's more of a function of a desire to just express myself in a way I feel is authentic. It's never really been about achievement, just more about the pursuit of of fulfilling that that that that that that hunger to feed my curiosity, you know? Nifemi Aluko: Mm, mm-hmm. Yeah. Someone just asked me today, dude, you're writing another book. Why? And yeah, I you know, I was thinking it, I was just like, you know, it's hard. There's a part of me that just wanna say, Why not? ⁓ You know? And yeah, it's like I never of ventured like as a kid to be like, ⁓ one day I'm gonna write, but I started writing, I'm enjoying it. Jason Mayden: That's it. Nifemi Aluko: ⁓ same way I enjoy making music, the same way I enjoy trying to figure out how to build the business or understand the market. but you as you said, curiosity plays a big role in all in all of this. ⁓ So what what roles do symbols, tools or rituals p play in your creative process? Jason Mayden: Facts. I think, you know, the truth of the matter is being part of the African diaspora, a lot of my rituals and behaviors are so culturally ingrained in who I am, but they're disconnected to the origin of where they came from. So like you think of the power of storytelling in our community and our culture. That's that's been around for millennia of how we told who we are, how we navigated the transition from adulthood to I mean childhood to adulthood. You know, and so I've always looked at my tools as a as a form of cultural expression. And when I'm able to identify the origin of those tools, I celebrate it. So case in point, I was having a discussion with the young person on my team around why black people specifically wear jewelry. in their mind they were like, ⁓ because you want to look fly. I'm like, No, because ancestrally, that was how you showed your hierarchy within your tribal structure. Nifemi Aluko: Yep. Yep. Jason Mayden: That's how you adorn yourself. So I'm like for black people, when we get dressed and we adorn ourselves, we're not dressing to be impressive or socially acceptable. We're dressing to show our reality and our strength and our value within our context and whether or not we know where it comes from, we all innately feel that. That when I put that shit on, I put that stuff on, I'm dressing like a chief, I'm dressing like a king, I'm dressing like a notable philosopher in my tribe. And you may just be a philosopher on your block. Nifemi Aluko: Yep, yep, yep, yep. Jason Mayden: You may be a chief on your block. You may be a king on your block, but it never, never escapes us that the way we adorn our bodies is the way we show our worth within our context. And so the tools I use are all reflective of that desire to celebrate my culture, bring me closer to my ancestors, but also to bring me closer to my people around the globe. As a person that's been a displaced indigenous person, which is who I am. I'm displaced from my origin and the knowledge of where I come from. Nifemi Aluko: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Jason Mayden: But I also now can reclaim that I am part of the original group of humans that inhabited this planet and we have value, we have a place, and we we we see it show up in our art forms. So that's all I've tried to do, man, is to be a bridge between the past and the future, authentically. Nifemi Aluko: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you say something very interesting about like storytelling, right? Because for me, I find like I'm just trying to tell a story. That that's the clearest thing that's come to me now is like with the writing, with the music, with the with trying to tell a story to build a brand for your business. It's all a story. And you know, is like one technology that's always been with us is storytelling. Right. That's how we coordinate, that's how we pass information. Jason Mayden: Yep. Yeah. Nifemi Aluko: For you, I think one question I'm very curious about, like you work you you work with a a lot of athletes, right? And you know, we're in the space now where we're talking about a artificial intelligence, right? it's a v it was a very visual technology, right? Right now we're seeing text, everything is like based on the eyes, right? You see text, there's a little audio going on, a little audio with the AI. But there's no smell, there's no, there's no tactile inform ⁓ intelligence. but there's a claim like this is this is the new intelligence that is going to take over human intelligence. How how do you ⁓ include sensory or ⁓ practices? How do how do those give you access to like creativity or or truth or even ⁓ of the athletes you be you you're around, like their body is there for Jason Mayden: Yeah. Yeah. Nifemi Aluko: Source of expression. Jason Mayden: Yeah. I mean re the for me It's less of about it's less about the tools we use. It's more about the mindset that's eternal. And whether you're an athlete, whether you are an artist, an entrepreneur, I try to focus in on the indomitable spirit of of disenfranchised people or old people who have to overcome things. incorruptible people, people who have morals and values and ethics, because when you don't have a lot of socioeconomic You know, power, you typically lean heavily into my name is my worth, my word is my bond. Who I am is is my is is is my indicator of my worth. If I say I'm gonna do it, I gotta follow through. Right. So so I think the people that I'm fortunate to serve, whether it be athletes or entertainers or just students or entrepreneurs, the ones who drawn to me the most or the ones I build better relationships with, are the people who have a vision of themselves that no one else can see. Nifemi Aluko: Mm-hmm. Jason Mayden: And so that that can never be replaced. Self-belief in human will will never be replaced by automated outcomes because the automation is based on historical dot you know knowledge and data repositories. What it isn't based on is free choice and free will. And humans can change their mind based on the conditions of the game changing in real time. It's really hard for a large language model or machine learning to change how it's processing historical data to anticipate what's happened next. Even with the advent of AGI, it still requires human inputs. But because it's it's it's it's like I said, human will, the ability to respond in real time, to discern how to show up, what not to say, how to say it. You can't automate that. So much of it is is processing in real time things that don't have words, things that you can't study, things that you have to feel. So that's what I look for is what is the consistent and eternal feeling. Nifemi Aluko: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Jason Mayden: That's indescribable. And the feeling in my industry and emotional resonance in my industry really is around creating people's favorite memories and moments. Because the brand that I work for, the things that I've done, the stuff I've experienced, I have to look at all of these things as future ancient artifacts, ways that people would be remembered when they're not here. So creatives, they work on different seasons. I'm trying to have a conversation across centuries. Cause people will study this time period. And they are like what are you leaving behind worthy of being studied? So when I present that to creatives, like are you doing anything that would be worthy of being remembered by history? Or are you just trying to be relevant right now? I'm I'm I'm not playing for now, I'm playing for forever. Nifemi Aluko: Yeah. Yep, yep. And Jason for for that situation, like, you know, two hundred, three hundred years, maybe even a thousand, right? People are like out there digging up stuff and they're like, ⁓ man, these people were wearing like these fresh sneakers or they're wearing this type of jewelry or whatever it is, like wristwatch. What do you want them to kind of remember? when they bring out these artifacts. What do you what do you want them to ideally, if you were looking from floating around looking from above and they say, ⁓ those people were doing X, right? What would that X be that'll be it will make you very proud? Like, ⁓ okay, we achieved what we're trying to achieve then. Jason Mayden: Yeah, we I I will want people to look back and see the work that I've done and been a part of as as altruistic rebellion. Like we use creativity to show a counter-narrative. You know, we use creativity to document our brilliance and our ingenuity, uninterrupted brilliance and uninterrupted ingenuity. Like I think about a lot of the the art from antiquity that's been scrubbed and painting over, or they change the color of the the protagonist, or they deface the sculpture to remove the nose to give us credit. You know, so now I'm in a position where I'm an industrial artist. The things that I make are mass produced, but they also are an asset class. And I want to create in a way that prevents erasure. Where they can't just say, ⁓ well, yeah, that's a that's a brilliant person or a brilliant idea, but it's not attributed to the culture from which I come. Cause when I hear people talk about North Africa and its accomplishments, Nifemi Aluko: Yeah. Jason Mayden: Аз існа і Африка. Nifemi Aluko: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They kind of separate the kind of Jason Mayden: It kind of separates. And when the fact that people don't even realize that the name Africa is not even the original name of the continent, it's the last name of a of a Roman emperor who decided it would be called Africa. His last name was Africanus. He's not that's not the original name of the continent. So I'm like, if history can easily be altered, then the way you defend against that is to create things that are permanent and emotionally resonant and other people can tell the authentic version of the truth. And the only way to do that is to be inclusive in my design ethos. Nifemi Aluko: Mm-hmm. Jason Mayden: So that I can evangelize people to tell the rumors that we want to spread. Similar to I'm not a person that pushes my faith, but I think about the gospel, how it reached me. It took people in the business world, the first deacons of the church, who literally had to lay down their lives in some instances, and in other instances, they had to leave their homeland to tell the story of Yeshua. And so by them leaving and spreading the narrative, that narrative reached me thousands of years later, and I believe just as much as they do. So we have an example of the world's greatest. Nifemi Aluko: Yeah. Jason Mayden: marketing campaign, which is the spread of Christianity, which we know Christianity existed in Africa before it existed in Europe. And so how did it spread through millennia and still reach all of us in a way that felt pure? That's that's great design direction. That you know and so so I have to think about my work in that way. How I'm gonna have people evangelize and tell the story of what we create, even though they didn't experience it and see it themselves. Nifemi Aluko: Yep. Yep. Yep. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So in you know, in that case, like, you know, you mentioned something around long term versus short term. You're obviously like a huge mentor, you're an educator. I see you do do the stuff probably for your team, obviously for your family, but just young people, I've seen you do it over time. How do you advise people or how do you do it? How do you stay aligned with your taste and values in such a noisy environment? 'Cause it's noisy out there, right? How do you stay aligned with your taste? Jason Mayden: I mean, this is where you have to just trust. You have to trust yourself. You have to trust your intuition. it's not easy to do because it's easy to compare yourself and see what's popular right now. But I think the philosopher that I respect the most, Nipsey Hussle, said, I don't f what they're doing, I'm doing this. ⁓ I don't care what they're doing, I'm doing that. I it don't matter. ⁓ you doing that? I'm happy for you, I'm doing this. Nifemi Aluko: Yep. Jason Mayden: It you gotta constantly be willing to say, I'm happy for you. However, I'm doing this. This is what makes sense to me based on my context, based on what I believe is right for how I want to deploy my gifts and talents and bring this thing to life. And you you you oftentimes, if you start to p pursue, what I tell a lot of my team members, myself, students, is that my strategy's never been to find a way for people to tell me yes, it's to eliminate the way they can tell me no. Nifemi Aluko: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jason Mayden: And that that comes down to self-discipline, preparation, self-governance. Because you get to study your own gaps, your own, your own, you know, lapses in defense. And be like, man, they can stop me if I didn't think about the financial model. They can stop me if I didn't vet my insights. They can stop me if I didn't necessarily have an answer to these types of questions. And so that helps me to realize that A, being divergent and having neurodivergence isn't a bad thing. I look at problems differently than most of the planet. And be, I don't wanna be like nobody else. I wanna be the first me. I don't wanna be, you know what I'm saying? I don't wanna be the next anybody. I'm cool on that. Like they already did that. Michael Jordan already existed. I don't I don't wanna be the next Mike. I wanna be the first Jason Maiden. You know, because that means something to me to add my name to the history books so that my family can look back and say that somebody did something. Somebody did something so worthy of being remembered that this person has a day named after them and a street named after them. Nifemi Aluko: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Jason Mayden: Why did they do that? Because that's how I went through my neighborhood. I'm like, man, why did they name a school after that person? Why is this street named after this person? And I always wondered, what did they do? And then I found out half of them killed people and just took the land. The other people, you know, were prolific entrepreneurs and and gave. Some people were, you know, religious people who really showed up and served people regardless of what they looked like. But everybody did something that they thought was right. Whether or not we agreed with what they did, they did something they thought was right with conviction. Nifemi Aluko: Yeah. Jason Mayden: And and and it was worthy of being remembered. And that's all I want to do, man, is is live a life of conviction that's worthy of being remembered. Nifemi Aluko: Yep, yep. And you you touched on, you know, same. I have the most inspiring philosopher as for me as an entrepreneur in this generation is Nipsey. Yeah, I think we've talked about him so many times. and know, he has the whole the marathon continues. it actually influenced ⁓ what a lot what I've been doing and I started off with this, you know, practice ground and practice ground for me is this. Hey, this just into the practice, man. Like every day is a practice. Just show up. Just show up, right? For you, what what rituals do you rely on rely on when your meaning starts to get blurry? Right? When things start to get blurry. What what what do you fall back to? Jason Mayden: Yeah. Well. Man, you know, honestly, what I fall back to reminding myself of what I know to be true. My wife loves me, my kids love me. I can call my parents, they still answer the phone, I still have them. My siblings, I can talk to them, they're still alive. That's it. I'm content. Cause we we we we we we've been tricked. Nifemi Aluko: Yup, yep, mm-hmm. Jason Mayden: And Western society to think contentment has a number attached to it and it doesn't. You know, I've been fortunate to travel to visit family in South America, live in an Amazon, have friends from parts of the world that honestly would love a day of being impoverished in the US versus being impoverished in their country. Cause poverty here is is the most luxurious form, even though it's horrible. There's people who still have access to a roof over their head and electricity and So, and there's some people here who don't even have that. So I I do want to be honest, but I I feel for the most part, we have a lot of advantages here in the US that no one else on the planet has, as as as black people. You know, and I I don't take that for granted because I've been privileged enough to see every version of blackness on the planet for the most part. And man, we're we're very privileged here. And so that's what I that's what I I simplify my day. with is when I feel overwhelmed, man, I just say, what do I know to be true? And I tell myself out loud, my wife loves me, my kid loves me. I can call my mom and dad. I can still talk with them. I'm healthy. I have what I need today. I'm content. I'm okay. And I I just do that checklist. Nifemi Aluko: Yeah, man. It's is is the gratitude checklist, man. Come back come back to foundations, man. Jason Mayden: That's it. That's it, man. You know, that's it. Cause when you know what it feels like to starve, man, it's like you realize most of the things we call problems are really just inconveniences. They're not problems. You know? Nifemi Aluko: Yep, yep, yep, for sure. And you know, you you kind of the one that really like when I interviewed you for press play, this is almost six six years ago, you you you you kind of opened my eyes to asking questions, right? You were like, There's a real question and there's rhetorical questions. Like a lot of people ask rhetorical questions where you know the example you gave was someone ⁓ asking, hey, why are you mad? Jason Mayden: Yeah. Nifemi Aluko: And they're not necessarily trying to figure out why you're mad. They're just trying to tell you, like, you're acting you're acting strange, right? And it really like it really changed my mind in terms of paying attention to language and what people were actually saying. Because when they ask a question, is it a real question? Are they being or are they trying to communicate something else? And you know, one question I have for you now is like, what role does technology Jason Mayden: Yeah. Facts. Nifemi Aluko: and AI in particular, as we see it now, have in how you currently make sense of the world. Jason Mayden: Yeah. You know, I think for me, AI, machine learning. Intelligent systems, you know, I've been working in that space for such a long time. I just look at it as for me, I look at it as another tool to ideate and prototype and reduce unnecessary spend. Because when you're starting something or you're a person from a disadvantaged background, you have to find ways to express yourself at high resolution, but without wasting the money. You don't get a chance to just say, I'm gonna go spend a hundred thousand on a prototype in an inner city. But I can go use nano banana too and and show something to someone that that gives them an emo immediate emotional reaction. But it just costs me a few seconds to sketch it and convert it to something that's more resolute high resolution. So I look at it as prototyping tools to gut check in real time if it feels right. And before we invest in pursuing it in physical form or in a physical experience or in a narrative that we want to double down on. So I just use it as a testing environment. ⁓ I've been fortunate to build systems where I can use it as thought partnership because I I know exactly what I need it to respond to. So, like most people do market research and they have to go out and pick respondents. You can you can build models that pretend to be a crowd with varied interest and varied taste levels and will give you a broad, you know what I'm saying, perspective on how to first think of a problem. So I don't use it for empirical, definitive. Nifemi Aluko: Focus Yep. Jason Mayden: decision making, I use it to amplify my intuition, not to replace it. Nifemi Aluko: Exactly. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I love that. I love that. just be before I get you out of here with this last question, right? If the entire world went dystopian, and what I mean dystopian, you know, the the the dark picture, the the the machines are in control, right? Humans are scraping by, ser serving serving the machine overlords, and then if it went Utopian on this other side where it's just like, the machines are working for us. We don't have to do anything. Life is good. They keep serving us this, you know, universal basic income. Nobody's comparing stuff. We're good, right? Either of those choose one, right? What would be the daily practice that you would do to just enjoy your life? Jason Mayden: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, in in both scenarios, the truth is neither one of those environments, at least in my humble opinion, replace the need for love. I and I really think that's the only reason we alive is to give and receive love. That's it. Cause cause we're we don't really own anything. I think we've tricked ourselves to believe in ownership. We really are stewards of everything. I also believe that we've tricked ourselves to assume that, you know, consciousness requires thinking. Like there's a ton of you don't have to be thinking isn't required. Thinking we that's the problem is we believe our thoughts too much. But we don't necessarily need to think to be alive. Right? But if you're not conscious and you're not then thinking doesn't occur anyway. But turning off my mind has been my daily practice. You know, just sitting with my Nifemi Aluko: Yep. Yep. Jason Mayden: my my ability to feel. And so I think that's gonna make regardless of the outcome of utopia, dystopia, and and and anything in between, the need for feeling, the need for love, the need for for human interaction will never go away. It will never go away because we're we're creatures, we're animals, but we're also we're not we're not soloists. We we run in packs and herds. Right? We call them families. Nifemi Aluko: Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep, yep, social. Yep, yep. Jason Mayden: That never will go away. I don't care what amount of technology dependence they try to force upon us or what amount of, you know, being in nature and being disconnected from the grid they try to, you know, inspire us to pursue. At the end of the day, none of this matters if you don't know how to feel, give, and receive love. Nifemi Aluko: Exactly, exactly. And I'm glad you said that. And a good way to end that. That's why I believe a lot of the stuff you're working on, I'm working on, which is storytelling, always to bring people together, to amplify what I say our human side. ⁓ Yep. So Jason, once again, ⁓ know, thank you very much for your time. I always appreciate talking to you. Always ⁓ look up to the things you're doing. You're always inspiring. Jason Mayden: Amen. Nifemi Aluko: a whole bunch of us to to keep going. So just keep doing your thing, brother. And Jason Mayden: Thank you, bro. Appreciate you.