Episode Details

Jess Campbell has always known that the best work comes from the most honest place. She grew up in a Jamaican household, surrounded by music she couldn’t quite name yet, was told to be a lawyer, but was quietly certain that wasn’t her path. Jess knew that storytelling was in her blood.

She found her way to agency world, to IBM, to Fantasy Interactive, and eventually to a project that stopped everyone who touched it in their tracks: the Slavery and Freedom exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture for the Smithsonian. It was a monumental moment in her career, and for everyone else on the team. And somewhere in that experience she understood, for the first time with complete clarity, exactly what she was put here to do.

This is the season finale, and it feels like one. We talk about what it costs to always care this much, about unlearning perfectionism one messy launch at a time, and about the solo trips she took as a younger woman that she only now recognises as the coming of age story she was writing for herself.

We talk about boredom as a creative discipline, about what AI cannot automate, and about why the most important practice you can build is the one that gets you out of your own head and back to yourself. There is also a candle on the desk with something her Nana told her written on the lid. It is one of those things that has stayed with me long after we stopped recording.

If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes.

Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call.

I’d genuinely love to hear from you.

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