Episode 6: Jonathan Azu
Purpose, Passion, and Risk-Taking with Jonathan Azu
Jonathan Azu, Founder and CEO of artist management company Culture Collective, on meeting Chuck D. and President Obama. In this fascinating conversation, Jonathan reflects on how his career has come full circle, from his first success in organizing a George Clinton concert while a college sophomore, to opening doors for other BIPOC in artist management as an industry-leading executive.
He reveals his habit of scheduling regular meetings with folks who he looks up to, and the importance of doing things with purpose. Jonathan talks about how being one of three executives of color in a room at a prestigious event, none of whom owned their own businesses, led him to start his own management company, and how the events of the last two years have allowed him the opportunity to be in the epicenter of the conversation around diversity in the industry.
To hear about Jonathan’s belief in the concept of the high-performance zone which exists right between danger and comfort, and his advice on risk-taking, tune in today!
Episode 6: Show Notes
Key Points From This Episode:
• The accomplishment that Jonathan is most proud of: Producing his first concert in his sophomore year at university.
• How Jonathan realized what his life’s calling was.
• Jonathan’s goal of doing a Dave Matthews concert and how he achieved this early on.
• What led Jonathan to work in radio.
• How Jonathan’s life came full circle when he started working for Red Light Management (Dave Matthews’ management company).
• Jonathan’s drive to figure things out and how he asks for advice about every two weeks.
• What led Jonathon to establish Culture Collective.
• The need for more diversity in the industry and how Jonathon is making a difference.
• Some of his wins from the past year in business and in driving initiatives to make a change.
• How the George Floyd murder allowed Culture Collective the opportunity to be in the epicenter of the conversation around diversity in the industry.
• Jeremy talks about the Masters of Creativity program at Stanford.
• Jonathan explains the importance of doing things with purpose.
• How Jonathan tries to foster understanding when it comes to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
• A resource that Jonathon recommends to anyone on a similar journey to his own.
• The concept of the high-performance zone between danger and comfort, and Jonathon’s advice on taking risks.
Tweetables:
“I'm one of three executives of color in this room, and of the executives of color that were there that day, nobody owned their own business. That was the moment for me where I was like, 'I'm going to do this. I want to start my own company.’” — Jonathan Azu [0:21:10]
“We're going to be great managers, we're going to make great music, and we do a lot of amazing business things, but we're going to do it for reasons bigger than music. There needs to be somebody out here, carrying a conversation forward that there should be more diversity in our industry.” — Jonathan Azu [0:21:25]
“To me, everything needs to have purpose, personal purpose, then professional purpose.” — Jonathan Azu [0:24:28]
“There’s comfort and then there's danger. Right in the middle is a small lane of highway that's called high performance. You try to stay on that as much as you can.” — Jonathan Azu [0:32:50]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
The Masters of Creativity program at Stanford
[TRANSCRIPT]
EPISODE 06
“JA: It was the pebble in the middle of the lake that created the ripples of my life. I think about that with my 20 years of experience, when I'm talking and sharing people my perspective and why I think they should do things or not do things. It's coming from that. It's like, what impact will I have? We'll never know. Sometimes we will. Sometimes we won't of the impact that we have on people, but everyone should remember that. That's why everyone should be great and positive in life, because you don't know what type of impression you will have on somebody, professionally and personally.”
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:34] JU: Welcome to The Paint & Pipette Podcast. My name is Jeremy Utley. It's my job to illuminate the tactics of world-class performers across domains. As a day job, I teach at the Stanford d.school, helping students learn what it takes to come up with ideas. I've realized I need to stay in the classroom learning myself, and this podcast is my classroom.
[00:01:22] MH: Hey, I'm Marcus Hollinger. I lead marketing and creative at Reach Records in Atlanta-based Independent Record Label. I'm also co-founder for Portrait Coffee, where we are seeking to reimagine the picture that comes to mind for folks in specialty coffee. I'm so excited to pull up my desk alongside my good friend and fellow learner, Jeremy. I think you all are going to love what we have for you this season.
[00:01:53] JU: We've got some amazing stories on deck and we can't wait to dive in and learn alongside you.
[00:01:58] MH: Grab your pipette and your paintbrush, and let's make something beautiful together.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:02:06] JU: Today, we talk to Jonathan Azu, the Founder and CEO of the Culture Collective who crafts the blueprints for artists careers. We talked with Jon about meeting Chuck D., George Clinton, and President Obama and what it was like to bring a George Clinton concert to Drake University as a sophomore in college. He shares with us his habit of scheduling meetings regularly with folks who he looks up to, and also illuminates the art of finding the high performance zone between comfort and fear. We know you'll love this conversation. We're excited to dive in.
Not knowing much about your background Azu, I feel like I'm a little bit lucky, because I can ask you to brag on yourself, maybe whereas Marcus can’t. What creative accomplishment are you most proud of?
[00:02:54] JA: I still go back to my sophomore year of college, which is how I got started in this business. I grew up in a very interesting household. My father is Nigerian. My mother's from New Orleans. They met and moved to Nigeria. My dad was initially brought to the US by immigrants, I'm sorry by missionaries. He was adopted by missionaries to come to the US to have a better life and education and became a surgeon. Wild, right? Became a surgeon. We moved to St. Louis and he worked with the population in East St. Louis. I got this perspective of that side of medicine, of working with people that are disadvantaged.
My parents lives in Africa for a while, moved back. I have a twin sister. I have an older brother and an older sister. Everybody has one to two masters. Everybody is in some form of science. My brother was an engineer. My twin is a surgeon, my sister’s in health management, my older sister, and then there’s me. If I were to say, what's the word that you heard the most in the household was, what is John doing? Because it was like, “What's he doing? What’s he up to?” Not that I was a bad kid, but I just definitely marched the beat of my own drum. I can't tell you that I had science was a talent of mine. It just wasn't, I tried. It was not a talent of mine.
I went to Drake University. Initially it was interested in playing football. I blew my knee out before attending university. I had some friends that played ball there. I felt comfortable at the University. I went there, but I really went there blind not knowing what I really wanted to do with my professional career. I thought maybe I could do field of science. I was horrible at the science courses. My sophomore year, I've always been into music. I'll say had older siblings have those experiences growing up with their listening to what you're into, but I never saw it as a career is what I wanted to do.
Sophomore year, George Clinton's coming to the state of Iowa. I packed the car with a bunch of friends. We drive about an hour and a half away to University of Iowa in Kohrville to see them perform. It was the 25th Anniversary of the Mothership. I'd never seen George Clinton before. I was familiar with his music and the whole experience when I remember the most of, was like, I was the one that bought the tickets. I was the one that organized the friends. I was the one to figure out who had the car, what time are we leaving. I've always had that in me as being the ringleader of fun, if you will.
Went down there had the most amazing experience at the concert. I remember telling my friends that we should book this. This should happen at Drake University. This band should come to Drake University. My friends thought I was crazy. I had a sneaking backstage that night and I met the producer of the show, we exchanged information. A lot of small stories in between there, but a year later, I produced my first concert, which is George Clinton, and people like all-star at Drake University with that same producer. That was really the start of my career.
To me when I think back the most creative moment was all that was encapsulated into that of how are we putting tickets on sale? How are we promoting them? What are the tickets look like? What is the poster – because to me, I mean College, and it's all to me, it was like, I just couldn't wait to put the poster up, because it was all about the visual manifestation of the show. I want the show to be amazing, but I can't necessarily control what happens on that stage. I can control how it's promoted. What that feeling is and that experience going to a concert doesn't start when you walk in the door. It starts when you find out that your favorite artist is coming or you want to go see a show. That's when your experience starts.
That gap of we put these posters around campus a week before we announced that said, The Mothership is landing, that's all I’ve said. People were like, “I don’t get it. What is that?” The posters everywhere says, the Mothership is landing. What is that? Then we announced the show and we had this awesome poster Drake University ticket price. I was so proud of all that. I didn't know back then that, 20 years later, oddly enough, my first concert post-pandemic, Four months ago, my first concert that I saw since this all started with the pandemic was in Central Park and it was George Clinton. I was lucky enough to be backstage and I sat with George. We had a whole conversation about that show 20 years ago, he remembered it. I got a chance –
[00:06:55] JU: What did he – about it?
[00:06:57] JA: One, I was surprised he remembered, because he's got a lot of reasons to not remember stuff. He's sober now, but he's had a quite a journey. Amazing book, if you haven't read George Clinton's book, amazing book, what a journey. But it was funny, we were talking about it. I was sharing stories that I remember his granddaughter was there and she performed with him that night. He says, “Shonda, yes.” He said, “Shonda, come on over here.” She was at the show, and she came over, and I have a photo with her hanging out from 20 years ago, over 20 years ago. She's a real estate agent now in New Jersey.
So isn’t that a quite journey that that everybody's taken. I have the greatest conversation with him. I just wanted him to know, and I'm not, I've been in this business a long time. I love the business. I consider high level talent, emerging talent, my counterparts. I don't fanboy that much, probably three or four times where I've been like, my wife looked at me, she'd be like, I'll figure it out for you. She's the one that actually went to George and said, “Hey, I want you to meet my husband, because I was too nervous to do it.
[00:07:55] JU: That's the truth. That's the truth. I love it.
[00:07:57] JA: Because she really knows me. She knew I wasn't going to go over there. I really, really wanted to. The other time it happened was I saw they're honoring Big Jon Platt, who is now the chairman of Sony Publishing. But that time, he was at Warner Chappell. Chuck did the introduction to his award. I mean, Public Enemy was everything to me. I wore the medallion, the t-shirt, had the poster above my bed, I was in. That ended, it was 30 minutes after the event was ended. They're cleaning up the tables, and my car’s waiting for me outside and my wife's like, “So you're not leaving, but we're still – you want to meet them, right?” I'm like, “Yeah, I really do, but I'm nervous. I just, Chuck D. So she went over. We had two partnerships. She went over and said, “Chuck, I want you to meet my husband.” Brought him over.
[00:08:39] JU: Wow. Thank goodness for your wife.
[00:08:41] JA: Yeah. Meeting my heroes. George Clinton was one of them and Chuck D. the other. Then there's an Obama story, which we may get into, which is also incredible. But it was neat to share with him, that moment changed my life. To me, that was probably one tour, pretty positive. That was just one coordinate of many for him. He went in there and did his job and he went to the next one and didn't think about it again. For me, it was everything. It was the pebble in the middle of the lake that created the ripples of my life.
I think about that with my 20 years of experience when I'm talking and sharing people my perspective and why I think they should do things or not do things. It's coming from that. It's what impact will I have? We'll never know. Sometimes we will, sometimes we won't have the impact that we have on people, but everyone should remember that. That's why everyone should be great and positive in life, because you don't know what impression you will have on somebody, professionally and personally.
[00:09:35] JU: What was the next ripple in that pebble sequence? You did the Clinton show. You have the starship is landing. It's like this amazing for a lot of people. I mean, that could be all right, it’s like, “Well, I can't believe I pulled that off, Junior year at college.” Was it clear to you? Like this is my life's calling or how did you continue on that creative journey?
[00:09:57] JA: Well, I had success with my first at bat. Sometimes that can be a dangerous thing. You bat 500 your first season and you think, well, this is easy. Tom Brady talks about that. I saw the interview with him. He won his first Super Bowl he was like, and then it was I think, 10 years or whatever before he won his next. Because of that I was hooked, and the university, saw something in me and they're very supportive and I went on. That show was actually my sophomore year. I went on to the next three years and did a variety of shows. My goal through feedback from students and all of my own personal love of variety of genres of music, I wanted to do a Dave Matthews show. That was my goal. I really wanted to do a Dave Matthews show.
[00:10:35] JU: Carter Beaufort is my hero.
[00:10:38] JA: One of the nicest guys ever.
[00:10:40] JU: Oh, you've met him?
[00:10:42] JA: One of the nicest guys ever.
[00:10:44] JU: Dude, Carter, the guy. I'm transfixed, anytime I saw him drum. Anyway, I just got to say, I'm right there with you on the Dave Matthews thing. So you wanted to get Dave Matthews there.
[00:10:52] JA: Yeah. I wanted to bring and of course, that was another thing where everybody thought I was crazy. I didn't know how, i just put these things out to the atmosphere. We'll see what happens. The variety of different things, I learned that they were going to be touring universities my senior year. We put a offer in, and I ended up booking Dave Matthews to perform at Drake University. We had to put the show off campus, because of the size of it. I was like, wow, this is my senior capstone. If there's, what is your last senior research project? It was this event.
I remember working so hard on it. The night before tickets, were going to go on sale. I was in the student union. I had an office in the student union, because at that time, I was head of entertainment activities or whatever for the school. I left at midnight. One thing that's still proves factual today, as it did then, was you don't know how your show is going to go until you have you're on sale.
[00:11:51] JU: Okay.
[00:11:51] JA: It's all about the on sale. It's how you come out of the gates, and you don't know if it's going to be success or not success. I left the office at midnight that night, I walked out of the Student Union, and there was already about 20 tents being set up for people to camp out to buy tickets for the next day.
[00:12:06] JU: No way.
[00:12:07] MH: Wow.
[00:12:07] JA: I said to myself, I think this is going to be all right. I think we're going to be all right.
[00:12:11] MH: Nice
[00:12:12] JU: That's incredible.
[00:12:13] JA: We ended up selling the show out. It was an amazing time, an amazing experience. I left school thinking, I'm a badass. Who wouldn't hire Jonathan Azu? I went to New York for a couple of weeks. Had trouble finding a job, ended up on my parents couch and got a call about working in radio. I never thought radio would take me to where I'm at in my career, but I had nothing else going on for me at the time. I joined CBS Radio locally in St. Louis, and eventually found myself in New York working corporately for CBS Radio. That's for me, was a real tipping point, because that's where the mentors came into my life. The people that I still call upon today, all these years ago, just to listen and get their perspective and take that in and give me a chance to apply it as I will.
Then I started working corporately at CBS Radio, went into live events for a little bit with my friends at Superfly, who are the founders of Bonnaroo and Outside Lands Music Festival along with a bunch of other things. But I always want to be really close to the artist. I've always been a big Dave Matthews fan. I've always respected everything that his manager Coran Capshaw had done to build that band. By that time, he had built a business of hundred artists that he was managing, not just Dave, and started a record label. He was also our investor in Bonnaroo and Outside Lands. I got to build a really great relationship with him.
Then, luck would have it. He was looking for a GM. I left that world. I became General Manager at Red Light Management. I didn't manage Dave Matthews as a day-to-day, but they were one of our artists. I thought back to myself, I said crazy, at that time, 13 years ago. I was a kid in
Des Moines, Iowa, that wanted to do a Dave Matthews concert. I still have the contract today, that Coran Capshaw signed when I did my show and all these years later, I'm working for him.
[00:13:58] JU: Yeah. That's so cool.
[00:13:59] MH: That is amazing.
[00:14:00] JA: He's one of those many people too, that I do try to get together with even though I'm doing my own company now to get their perspective on things, because again, these are all players. I can name them off John Sykes, David Goodman, Coran Capshaw, Cliff Chenfeld, Louis Carr. These are all individuals in my life, that I still lean on heavily today for perspective and guidance. I can better apply myself personally professionally. I feel honored to take that on and sharing that with my colleagues or whoever else will listen.
[00:14:35] JU: What's the last time you asked for guidance or perspective, one of these big ones?
[00:14:41] JA: Well, I have a call with a gentleman by the name of Channing Johnson, who is an extremely talented bright attorney in entertainment. I know Channing for a very long time. He's always given me great advice over the years. We've worked professionally with each other over the last couple of years, but known each other much, much longer and at five o'clock, I have a call with him to get some perspective of things, more macro navigational type stuff, as I look into 2022. It's ongoing.
I saw Cliff Chenfeld, who’s former co-founder of Razor & Tie. It'd be best known as the creators of Kidz Bop. He's no longer in that business. He sold his business and is doing a lot of other interesting things. I got together for breakfast with him two weeks ago. I'd probably say every week or two someone's on my calendar that I look up to, that I'm looking for guidance from on how to play something professionally and personally too.
[00:15:34] MH: I hear a discipline of searching out that wisdom, even in that expertise that you talked about there. This is like, a tools of the Titans thing. I'm teasing that out for folks who would listen to this. Okay, did you catch that? Someone's always on his calendar for some perspective.
[00:15:53] JU: Yeah. That's exactly what I was going Marcus. I was – in Tools of Titans. I think it's great. You're the Titan John, you're the Titan here. Talk to us about how you manage your calendar, because I think that's pretty cool. Do you think, hey, it's two weeks out, who's next up? What drives it? Is it, for example, I have a daily blog. If there's no post, it's oh, man, I'm looking for material. Is there, that sense of commitment as they say, nature abhors a vacuum? Do you see a vacuum on your calendar and you just fill it? Or are there temporal needs or strategic questions that prompt you to reach out? What is it? You said, every two weeks, somebody who I admired is on my calendar. How do they get there? How do you manage that process?
[00:16:33] JA: It's much more from the gut. It's just one of these things that plays in the back of my head, and I say, I haven't spoken to this person a while. I want to check in. Sometimes just to check in from, “How are you doing?” person-mentor. Then other times, it's can we get on the phone, I want to get your perspective on something. It's really plays in the back of my mind, and it gets scheduled versus every Friday, I go every Friday of the year is to connect with somebody, it's definitely not that. It's more of something that's playing in my head. I think I got to do this. That's also an interesting thing, because that's not a skill thing, that's a gut thing.
For me, when I look back in my career, I always say is the closest I'll get to being an artist is me manifesting my ideas into actual things. Artists talk about, this song was in my head, it was in my head, and I just had to get it out, I had to get it out, because I was dry, I couldn't sleep. To me that's my life, but not music, it's, I really need to talk to this person, or I really have an idea business idea that I really want to do it. Now I got to figure out how to do it, because I don't do it, if I don't figure it out, it'll just drive me nuts. I have to get it out in some way or have a conversation about it.
I think now that I unpack that, that's what drives a lot of it is that I need to figure things out. I'm in 2022 right now from a business standpoint. So that conversation at five o'clock is what's been playing in my head is just one quarter left in the year. That's what's been playing in my head. So for me, I was like, I want to get on the phone with Channing and have a conversation with about a couple of things, because there's one quarter left in the year.
[00:17:59] JU: I love that.
[00:18:00] MH: But before we have off, I'd be remiss if we did take the conversation this direction. We talked about these pebbles. We talk about you being in positions where you're doing new, fun and interesting things. Well, a couple years ago, you started an interesting big adventure Culture Collective. I'd love to hear, I know what you're doing there, we've had this conversation. It's all about honoring and respecting culture with skill, and expertise. Now I just love to hear your perspective on what is it that fascinates you about culture, where you have continued to dedicate your expertise and your skills to honoring it, investing in it, building it up?
[00:18:48] JA: In just a little bit of context, after all those years of working with other Titans, if you will, great people in the business, I decided to start my own company. I've been, again, that thought thing of in my head was playing. I guess the wrong side of 40. That was one thing. I guess the wrong side of feeling, it happens.
[00:19:09] JU: It happens all of a sudden.
[00:19:10] JA: It's a hard battle to fight. I'm already been complaining, because I think everyone's birthday should have paused going to the pandemic. I feel like I don't think it's fair that we have another year life, I think we should be the same age we were –
[00:19:20] JU: Yeah. Run it back –
[00:19:22] JA: Go over it. Run it back. That happened it did a couple years since I lost my father. I had at that time we were pregnant with our second child. You start to think a lot about how you got to where you're at in life, and who were the people that help you get there. Personally, professionally and from a professional standpoint, I'd said most of the people that helped me get to where I'm at in life, the shoulders that I stood on were of the individual that did not look like me, and didn't have the same background as me, but they saw something in me, as everybody that I mentioned before, mostly everybody that I mentioned before.
Then you start thinking, what's the back night of life look like for you? If you're going to the middle of another 80 plus years, what is it going to look like? What do I want to do? What impact do I want to have? I've been lucky enough to be at a young age where at accomplish a lot of things that I had set out to do. So for me, it was I can continue to work for other people and do great things and have a great career and still have an impact or do I want to be much more visible, much more, yeah, much more visible, much more recognizable, much more prevalent around who I am as a Black executive in this industry and the fact that a lot of us don't own our businesses.
I was at a kickoff event for a charity fundraiser, where they honor a person every single year and they raise a bunch of money, it's a big deal. I do a kick off breakfast. It’s the who’s who of the industry. It’s 50 of the top executives. I was lucky to be in that room. It was to honor John Sykes. John Sykes is who I worked for the outside after college. So for me, it was like a full circle moment. I talked about the Dave Matthews to Red Light, full circle moment, this is another full circle moment seeing John, we get a massive honor. I looked around the room. I said this is making it because I'm in this room and it's a full circle moment. I'm one of three executives of color in this room, and of the executives of color that were there that day, nobody owned their own business.
That was the moment for me where I was like, I'm going to do this. I want to start my own company. We're going to be great managers, we're going – great music, and we do a lot of amazing business things. But we're going to do it for reasons bigger than music. There needs to be somebody out here, carrying a conversation forward, that there should be more diversity in our industry.
When I launched the company, everybody was in full support of me, Red Light, core, everybody was in full support of me. I can't tell you that everybody fully got why I was doing it. I even had one comment from somebody that said, I think that's really smart, because you're of color. I mostly work with R&B centric artists, and the Billboard charts have more people of color in the top 50, so that's a really good idea. It's like, that's not really why we're doing it. We're doing it to make a difference to be an example and to push the conversation forward.
First, the business was amazing. We did a lot of awesome things. Then the second year of business, it was much more difficult, because of COVID. Then you had the George Floyd murder and then you had our industry look at itself in the mirror and say, I don't like what I see. I always have that gravestone that says, I told you I was sick. I was like, I told you all, we were sick a long time ago. That became our focus over the last year and a half. We've been out with the pandemic doing dealing with a lot of stuff. We're still doing our things as managers, but we got a chance to be in the epicenter of the conversation around diversity in our industry.
A lot of this, because if you read the press release, when we launched the company, you would maybe think that it was done today in response to our industry having a reckoning, but it was done a long time ago. It was cathartic for me too, because I was going through a lot of things emotionally, like a lot of people in the US. It was great for me to really talk about the core values of why we do, what we do and why other companies should do the same. I'm lucky enough for the last year to have had a lot of great wins from a business perspective. But even bigger wins, from an industry perspective and being a part of or driving the initiatives of things that are making a change.
[00:23:27] MH: Wow.
[00:23:28] JU: That's awesome. That's awesome. That's incredible. As an aside, I think whatever we can do at Stanford to shine a further spotlight and celebrate the change that you're leading in your industry. I'd love too, as an example, we have a program, we've been doing once a month called the masters of creativity, where we just invite folks who are creative practitioners from a range of industries, whether they're entrepreneurs, or artists, or authors, or scientists. It's another opportunity to extend the platform and to extend the reach of what you're doing. If there are things that I can do to be helpful, please, I want to throw my hat in the ring and support.
[00:24:10] JA: I appreciate that. The world needs more of it. I mean, that was the other silver lining of losing as many people as we've lost over the last couple years, is I think that it's hopefully going to change how people think about what they work on, how they work on it, and with who they work with it on. To me, everything needs to have purpose, personal purpose, then professional purpose. I told somebody last night I had somebody give me a call last night who lost her husband during the pandemic. I hadn't heard from her in a long time. She's in the business. She reigned me and said – she goes, “I'm two weeks back at the office.” I think has been eight or nine or 10 months that she'd come back. Unexpected loss of her husband.
We left the conversation saying in going forward, I only want to work with people that I like on things that inspire me. Yes, a lot of this had to do with the loss of her husband, but a lot of it had to do with where the world is at today and the things that we've learned. I think that's so important. For me the things that we all witnessed and saw, and I carry it forward as well, especially as a father, and I have a different perspective. Again, wrong side of 40, father of two, you learn a lot of things. Even with this diagnosis for me, and I'm going to be fine. At the end of the day, I'm one of the extremely lucky ones in this situation. But it changes your perspective on things, on what you want to work on, how you want to work on it, and who do you want to work on it with.
I think that those are really important. Ideally ends up happening in that situation, is that since passion is behind a project, it becomes the greatest project ever. It yields something awesome. If people are working on things that they don't care about, that's where you get really subpar experiences. That's where you get really subpar products. I appreciate your willingness to jump in and be a part of this effort over at Stanford. I think that if you're able to do it and do what purpose and have a real impact, it's going to mean something.
[00:26:06] JU: Just as a story that you might enjoy. I remember reading it, Steve Jobs biography. He describes why Microsoft failed with the Zune. He said, “They're not music people.” He said, “At Apple, we love music, and we wanted to make a product that we would love.” He said, “The Zune, nobody cared about music.” There's something to that and interestingly, I don't know if this, Jeff Bezos loves two things, you know what they are? Books, Outer space.
[00:26:42] JA: There you have it.
[00:26:43] JU: Blue Origin thing.
[00:26:44] MH: Wow.
[00:26:44] JU: I mean, I first heard about it, I thought, dude, that's so goofy. Then I read his biography, you know what? When he was a high school senior, he's valedictorian of his high school class. You know what he gave his high school speech on? Meet me in outer space.
[00:26:59] JA: Wow, I did not know that.
[00:26:59] JU: He’s been – life about it. That puts everything – to me it I mean, I get chills –
[00:27:04] MH: It's everything in perspective.
[00:27:05] JU: It’s nerdy. I get chills about stuff like this. It's like, oh, it matters to him. It's not just like a peeing contest with Richard Branson. Yeah, he cares about it. There's something there the passion –
[00:27:18] JA: That’s so interesting. It's so interesting, because you think about, if you try to roadmap a life like that, and you're like, what were the connective tissues that led us to where we're at today? There's so much in between there, that because I know the in between part. The in between part is until that same story, and between part says, he's a high net worth individuals, and this is what high net worth individuals do. They go to space.
[00:27:41] JU: Right.
[00:27:42] JA: I didn't realize it, you go to the very, very top of the roadmap, you'll see a young kid in high school that talks about one day, I want to be in space. It reminded me a little bit of my son was playing in the shower the other day with a little plane in the water was going against the plane. He said, and he says it is almost looks it's going through the Earth's atmosphere. I was like, I said, I'm so excited to see what you become when you get older. There's something there. There's something there. I don't know what it is. I don't know if he ends up being working for NASA, or SpaceX, or he ends up just teaching science in high school. I see that element at the beginning of a roadmap. I'm like, that's going to carry through this in. So it's an interesting thing.
We should all know – to share. That's everything I talk a lot about when we're discussing diversity and inclusion in the workplace, is giving employees an opportunity to share who they are and their background, because you'll never understand it unless you hear from somebody, because you didn't experience the same thing. Then sometimes understanding that helps you understand the person. I don't know Steve Jobs. I'm sorry, I don't know Jeff Bezos. I only know what I've read, but just in this little nugget, you've changed my perspective of him – Just imagine if we were employees and I got a chance to hear something from you that changed my perspective as a colleague and the impact that that can have.
[00:29:09] JU: That's incredible.
[00:29:09] MH: Our stories. Pretty full circle moment, because I think we started here. We hear about this college student at Drake University, who gets his friends together to go see George Clinton. Right there in the seeds of that moment. That's the beginning of your roadmap of being that same guy. Years later, who really enjoys and is really passionate about bringing people together to experience music and now on the other side, bringing people together to get into creating experiences for music. It's a very full circle moment right there for me.
[00:29:47] JU: Last question I've got for you, Jon. Very simply, if you had one resource you'd recommend to others on this journey, you said you got to get this, you got to check this out or read this or watch this or listen to this. What's the one resource you'd recommend to others seeking to live their most impactful, creative, purposeful life, what would it be?
[00:29:47] JA: Reading is important. The one thing that I give to.
[00:30:15] JU: Okay, so we’ve got it.
[00:30:17] JA: One would be reading. I say that loosely in the sense of professional standpoint, one of the reasons why I miss New York, living in, I live in I'm one of these COVID nomads right now. I live in Los Angeles, but I'm speaking to you from Central America, where I've been since late last year with my family.
[00:30:32] JU: No way. Are you serious?
[00:30:34] JA: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. My wife's from here and last year, obviously, America and I would go through a separation – Decided to see another country.
[00:30:45] JU: To see other people for a little bit.
[00:30:46] JA: See other people for a little bit. So things, more back online. We will be back, but really the reason why I live in New York for 12 years, one of the reasons why I miss New York is because I used to live – for a long time, I lived in 125th street and my office is on Wall Street. The whole subway ride down, you didn't have cell phone connectivity. I would have my New York Times my Wall Street Journal, and maybe one other and I would get through on this train ride down to Wall Street.
Over time, it was fun to read about things that I knew were happening that would show up in the business side of it, or I'd see a name in there if somebody actually know. It was inspiring to me to know that these people were being talked about and written about, and I knew who they are, I've done meetings with them where I'm one step removed from them. It was just really, really inspiring for me. So for me you read for knowledge, but you can also read for inspiration is really important.
The second thing I was going to mention is great podcasts like yours, and hearing people's stories, because what I love about podcast is for the most part, there's no cut off. If it's going well, and you're vibing, you're getting more information out of it, or you can come back to it. I would say I'm a podcast junkie. I've really enjoyed listening to a variety of different people. It's always the people that you wouldn't think that I'm going to learn anything about this podcast and you do.
In a Tim Ferriss, did a podcast on the founder of Spanx. I've nothing – it's like so far removed from anything that would apply to me. I got so much out of that podcast. That was a really, really great podcast, or there was another one with this gentleman who is a mindfulness coach. That is the mindfulness coach of great NBA athletes, Kobe Bryant being one of them. I found that fascinating. I've never played basketball really a day in my life, but I just found it very, very fascinating. You find all these little nuggets that you can apply towards your life. That was one of the two things.
Then the one thing I always tell people, young people, especially that ask me for advice. There are a couple things, one is I talk about the high performance zone. I say that it's comfort, there's danger. Right in the middle is a small lane of highway that's called high performance. You try to stay on that as much as you can. Sometimes you'll lean into danger. Sometimes you lean into comfort, but you hope to re-calibrate yourself to always be on that high performance zone. You always have to think about yourself professionally that way.
The other thing I always tell them is you're going to be all right, you're going to be fine. Try things. If they don't work out, I know that you have loving friends, family, colleagues in your life that will make sure that there's a net beneath you to catch you if you fall too far. Try things get out there. Try not to say no to too much, try things. Don't always think this move on making or this decision I'm making is going to impact the rest of my life.
[00:33:41] JU: Yeah. That's what we call a course I teach at Stanford, we call that the catastrophic expectation. People have this catastrophic. The reality is we already know how the story ends, you're going to die. We walked people through that. It's like, well, what happens if you get that job? Then what happens? If I get a promotion then what happens? Well, and then you play it forward, and then I die. Okay, great. Let's assume that you don't get the job, then what happens? Well, I get a different job that you play it forward that I die. Okay, so either way.
[00:34:10] MH: You are going to die.
[00:34:12] JU: Right.
[00:34:12] JA: Yes. That's a hard technology hasn't quite gotten that advanced yet.
[00:34:18] JU: Right. Exactly.
[00:34:20] JA: It’s going to be –
[00:34:20] JU: You know how this show ends.
[00:34:21] JA: We know how the show is. Now is, what do you want to do with it? To me, as much as you read my obituary, that my sister was joking, my twin sister. She dropped me off the airport the other day, she sent me I was getting out of the car and she sent me a photo and it was like, there’s certain things you can't get in Central America, because I had to bring all this stuff back with me. She took some photo and I'm like, it's funny, please don't use that photo on my obituary. Me like, at the airport, that was my life. This is Jonathan Azu. Easy guy.
[00:34:51] JU: That’s great.
[00:34:52] JA: Jetsetter. To me, as much that I love the artists I work with and I love the accomplishments that I've gotten all the things, to me is like, these are the stories that people that get impacted. Let's start with his family and then go from there. That's what I want to be remembered by. So you live life that way every single day, but that takes the willingness to take risk and do things and do things that you're passionate about and not always be doing things for your business reasons.
You have a skill and talent. That data and gut put them together and you hope to stay on that high performance zone. But it is a short life. I mean, when you really break it down, and you'll find I don't know, in or at Stanford, this has been research, you'll find a lot of people if they're known for one thing in life, it was a short window that that one thing happened. It wasn't a career of it.
[00:35:38] JU: I've never looked into it, but I resonate with it, for sure.
[00:35:42] JA: Yeah. When you look into the lifespan of someone's career and what they've done, typically, it's a small window of what they're known for. Then there's a whole prequel and post of everything else in their life.
[00:35:54] JU: Right, right. Azu, I feel like, just setting ourselves up for a part two at some point, because it's just the tip of the iceberg. Marcus was correct, is a fascinating discussion. Inspiring, invigorating, I'm ready to go and approach the areas of passion in my life with renewed vigor and purpose. I really thank you for your time.
[00:36:13] JA: Thank you.
[00:36:14] JU: As I said, and so far as I can help. I mean, certainly this podcast is so far as it shines a spotlight on the amazing work you're doing that's great, we can make sure to link to any resources that you'd to link to. But then also, if there's an opportunity to collaborate further, I'd love it.
[00:36:29] JA: Absolutely.
[00:36:30] JU: It's a pleasure to get to know you better.
[00:36:32] JA: Thank you for allowing me to share my story and hopefully impact somebody in a positive way. I do look forward to part two. We'll do that one in person. I'll come to you.
[00:36:40] JU: No, no. We'll meet you in Central America, sounds better.
[00:36:42] JA: Or you can come to Central America – the water’s warm.
[00:36:47] JU: Don't tease me. Marcus, what are you doing this weekend?
[00:36:50] MH: Yeah. I think I got Central America on my calendar.
[END]
The quality of our thinking is deeply influenced by the diversity of the inputs we collect. Implementing practices like Brian Grazer’s “Curiosity Conversations” ensures innovators are well-equipped with a variety of high-quality raw material for problem-solving.