“There are no division lines between my work and my hobby and that’s a double-edged sword; it’s fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate because everything that I do, I absolutely love doing and it’s unfortunate because it’s very difficult to then prioritize and rank that on a hierarchy.”
Eugene: Could you give an example of how your overarching approach to things has value in terms of things you create?
Jeff: Yeah, we recently did a project where we went out to Bangkok and one of the largest real estate development companies in Bangkok is called the Ananda group. They own a lot of residential buildings. They asked me to design a room with the concept of ‘urban soul’. That’s their term, not mine. But essentially they wanted me to take what I’d learned from living in the streets of New York and growing up through street culture and then design a living space for their residential units. I went out to design the space; I went up to Bangkok and then launched it. And that was cool, I mean it’s not rocket science, it’s not saving the world, it’s nothing massively groundbreaking but I thought it was interesting because a real estate company in Bangkok recognized what I was doing in one sphere and wanted to apply it to their world. Then when I went there and got to meet with the CEO and the COO of the company it was just interesting how far the culture, that I’ve been existing in for almost three decades now, has gotten to, both geographically but also in a different universe. It’s even gotten to that point now where they want someone like me to design them a space.
Eugene: So this overview of many things allows you to cross over into other worlds.
Jeff: Yeah. I want to add one more thing because you mentioned this: I was saying I have multiple passions and I turned them all into my profession type thing and you asked if most people are like that. I wanted to say that unfortunately, 90 percent of the population doesn’t even know what their key passion is yet. They just get up and plug into the Matrix and then go to happy hour, go home and plug out.
Eugene: Another cog in somebody’s machine?
Jeff: That’s their lives, you know, and then they add other things into their lives, other positivity receptors to fabricate that they have a good life but it’s actually because they haven’t found their passion yet. So, a lot of this, the academia-like public speaking and talks and Skillshare that I do, it’s not trying to necessarily turn people into streetwear designers. It’s to be: just first look in the mirror and find out what it is you actually want to do. Then start at least doing that as a hobby and then pivot to being able to make five dollars from that. Once you’ve done that it’s like, “Wow, you’ve just taken the veil off your face and taken the blinders off and you’re like, ‘Holy shit.’” Now you can start progressing into actually having a fulfilling life. Really, I feel honestly blessed that I have more than one thing that I’m into that I’m able to monetize. I meet people all the time that are just blinded because they haven’t even discovered the one thing and some of these people could be 50 years old and they’ve lived half their lives not ever discovering something that they actually want to do.
Eugene: I think that’s the end right there. I don’t even need to ask the last question!
