Hello and welcome to the GRACED podcast, where we infuse everyday magic into your everyday life. Today’s podcast guest is none other than AdamJK, author, speaker, and artist and we talk about the themes of the Fool card – spontaneity, being a free spirit, purity, and new beginnings. He’s also created a tarot deck called OK Tarot and we talk about his process of creating a tarot deck and how he infuses his honesty, humor, and relatable way of drawing and writing into this deck. We talk about taking the leap and trusting the universe, which can feel scary, especially when you don’t know what’s on the other side. We also talk about taking small steps versus taking big leaps and how progress over perfection can help you gain momentum as you move forward. It’s okay to not have all the answers, and in fact, on the back of Adam’s OK Tarot box, it says “It’s not perfect, but it’s ok.” Listen to this episode to gain comfort and wisdom that finding your process takes time and you can often find the answers when you take that leap into the unknown – trusting yourself in the present moment.
00:00 Introducing podcast guest AdamJK & OK Tarot Giveaway Announcement
01:47 Diving into the themes of the Fool tarot card
02:51 What does taking the leap mean for you?
05:27 Taking small steps
08:12 Creating the Mystic Mondays Tarot Deck
09:09 Creating the OK Tarot Deck
14:01 Spirituality vs religion in Tarot cards
15:48 The Process of Creating a Deck
18:48 Trusting the Universe
19:28 Creating the It’s a Sign Oracle Deck
24:46 The Power of Collaborating vs Solo Projects
31:59 AD – Join the Create Your Deck Club! www.createyourdeck.club
34:51 Creating Work for a Younger Version of Yourself
37:21 Advice for your Younger Self
41:56 Taking the Leap and Moving
44:56 Grace Leaps Off a Cliff, Literally
46:39 Transitioning
47:26 Adam’s Sun, Moon, Rising Signs
48:34 Adam’s Current Creative Rituals
50:57 Grace Gives Adam a Tarot Reading
54:54 Clearing Space to Manifest
01:01:29 Outro & Giveaway Details
Check out the OK Tarot deck unboxing and giveaway details on YouTube!
INTRODUCTION
Hello hello! Welcome to the GRACED podcast where we talk about how we can infuse more everyday magic into your everyday life through rituals, wellness, tarot, creativity, and more. Today’s guest is none other than Adam JK, an author and artist known for his simple illustration work which is rooted in honesty, humor, and as he describes it – a little bit of darkness. I find Adam’s work so relatable because it’s usually thoughts you’re thinking but not actually saying – and you can find Adam’s work through his many books, planners, and other knick knacks like pins. Adam is also the artist behind the OK Tarot and It’s a Sign Oracle deck and today we dive deep into the Fool card and his creation process behind his decks. We talk about uncertainty and pushing ourselves beyond our comfort zones – even if it’s a bit scary. Like the Fool card, about to leap off a cliff into the unknown! I’m so glad to have Adam as my first ever podcast guest and you can find wisdom through his honesty that life is not perfect – and that’s more than okay. If you want a deeper dive into what his deck is all about, you can check the unboxing video I did of his OK Tarot deck on my YouTube channel, linked in the show notes. Also, we are doing a special giveaway of three of Adam’s OK Tarot decks, which happen to be SIGNED, but you’ll have to listen through to the end of the episode of how you can enter. Hot tip – follow us on social media and find out the rules through there too! GIVEAWAY DETAILS HERE __________01:47 Diving into the themes of the Fool tarot card
Grace Duong: Hey, Adam! How’s it going?
Adam JK: Hi! Thanks for having me on the podcast. It’s going really great!
Grace Duong: Awesome! I’m so glad you’re here and today we’re going to be diving into
Grace Duong: the themes around the Fool card which is all about leaping into the unknown,
Grace Duong: going into the next adventure of life without necessarily knowing what’s going to happen on the other side,
Grace Duong: and really trusting in the universe that everything is going to be okay.
Grace Duong: This something I think that you’re really great at.
Grace Duong: You know whether it’s taking the leap into your own personal work, encapsulating really complex emotions
Grace Duong: into really simple, relatable, funny, sometimes dark, relatable…
Grace Duong: Did I say it again?
Adam JK: It’s relatable. Listen, listen, we’re relating.
Grace Duong: Totally relating and I just feel like what you do speaks to a lot of people,
Grace Duong: because you’re able to capture things that people might not be comfortable saying.
02:51 What does taking the leap mean for you?
Grace Duong: So, I kind of just wanted to talk about what does taking the leap mean for you?
Grace Duong: And how do you trust yourself to make these big decisions for yourself?
Adam JK: So, I don’t always know that I do trust myself.
Adam JK: But I think what I trust in is just that, it doesn’t matter if you fuck up.
Adam JK: and historically in my own life, it hasn’t.
Adam JK: I have fucked up many times and then people don’t notice, or they do,
Adam JK: or like the fucked up version is somehow like the most popular work I’ve ever made that ends up changing my life.
Adam JK: So, I think that there’s a lot of times when you don’t need a 100% trust.
Adam JK: You need like 90% trust and then I don’t know 10% intuition/stupidity, right?
Adam JK: You need to be a little bit… you need to be the Fool.
Adam JK: You need to be a little bit dumb dumb dummy dumb.
Adam JK: Let me, you know… apple and my little stick bag thingy.
Adam JK: because I’m on the journey and I don’t know what I’ll need but I bring my tools with me.
Adam JK: I don’t know. It’s so early in the podcast to tell your listeners that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,
Adam JK: but I don’t and I never have.
Grace Duong: I mean that’s the secret sauce to a lot of things, right?
Adam JK: I think the secret sauce is maybe just embracing your own reality.
Adam JK: And some people really do know what they’re doing and then they kind of down playing it,
Adam JK: They’re like; “Oh, I don’t know! I don’t know!” it’s like “No, no, no! Just just own your shit!”
Adam JK: Whatever your shit is, own it!
Adam JK: I own what I’m good at, but I also really really own not having necessarily a plan,
Adam JK: not really knowing where I’m going next, not really knowing how to do something until I start,
Adam JK: and then kind of do it wrong and then figure it out as I go.
Adam JK: When you own that for yourself and when you make that truth for yourself, then it’s a lot easier to take the leap.
Adam JK: And to jump, and to trust, because you’re like:
Adam JK: Well, I don’t know. True, I acknowledge the truth of that,
Adam JK: but I also acknowledge that I have some tools, skills, resources, friends.
Adam JK: I can just try and and hope for the best and like if I fuck it up, it’s fine. I’ll figure it out eventually.
Grace Duong: Yeah, definitely!
Grace Duong: So, I feel like some people might be afraid of taking that first step to take the leap,
Grace Duong: and so I’m wondering what ingredients do you have or do you think you have
Grace Duong: that allows you to take that leap over and over again?
05:27 Taking small steps
Adam JK: You know, I think “leap” is such a big word. I don’t think I’m taking leaps. I think I’m taking steps.
Adam JK: Now, it is scary to take a step in the dark, right?
Adam JK: Because you don’t know what you might step into or you might fall off a ledge,
Adam JK: But once you’ve taken the step, it’s like no take backs.
Adam JK: and so sometimes for me, it’s just push yourself off a cliff, you know?
Adam JK: Now I’m using hyperbolic language! But most of the time we’re not talking about cliffs.
Adam JK: We’re not talking about jumping over a pit. We’re talking about like…
Adam JK: Upload that post or send that email, right?
Adam JK: I’m not a cliff diver but l can send an email.
Adam JK: If I jump off a cliff and it doesn’t work, I’m dead at the bottom.
Adam JK: If I send an email and it doesn’t work, I just never get a reply.
Adam JK: It just doesn’t matter, and so I think…
Adam JK: Yes, some people listening are going to be potentially embarking in much bigger things, right?
Adam JK: The leap feels like a leap, but if we just think about the scale of the universe
Adam JK: and the enormity of how big everything is?
Adam JK: And then we think about how we want to make a book.
Adam JK: The book is just not a big deal, it’s just not a big deal! So I think thinking about scale, thinking perspective, thinking really objectively,
Adam JK: about our place in the universe can help us shrink those leaps into steps
Adam JK: and to realize that even the biggest leap we’ve ever taken is truly just like one small step for mankind.
Grace Duong: I love that! I love that because I feel like people might get really intimidated by steps.
Adam JK: Of course! Everything is intimidating.
Adam JK: Everything is intimidating until you do it, and then it’s just a thing you did.
Adam JK: Sorry, I interrupted you. I just feel so passionately about this.
Grace Duong: Yeah.
Grace Duong: Yeah!
Adam JK: Yeah! Of course, it’s intimidating. You’re not weak for being scared.
Adam JK: You’re not weak for being afraid of doing something you’ve never done before.
Adam JK: That’s scary! It’s scary to do something for the first time. It really is.
Adam JK: But then, it’s just a thing you’ve done, and now in my day to day
Adam JK: you know, I do things that I once did for the first time all the time.
Grace Duong: So, I did want to talk about your Tarot deck that I have one of the self published versions here.
Adam JK: Oh, yeah!
Grace Duong: I also have your book which I got from you at Adobe MAX.
Adam JK: Back in that day!
Grace Duong: Yes, back in the day when people were mingling and talking about design.
Adam JK: Yeah.
Grace Duong: All of it is coming back now.
Adam JK: You and I were much younger creatives at earlier stages in our journeys and it’s cool to come back in this podcast.
Adam JK: Which you have a podcast now! That’s fucking cool and we get to reconnect over that
Grace Duong: Yeah!
08:12 Creating the Mystic Mondays Tarot Deck
Adam JK: and your Tarot deck blew the fuck up so congrats, and also, no surprise because it’s a very beautiful Tarot deck.
Grace Duong: Thank you!
Grace Duong: It’s been cool! I mean that’s the whole thing about creating your own Tarot deck.
Grace Duong: Which is also I think a leap, it was definitely leap for me because at the time I was really intimidated by Tarot.
Grace Duong: I had been receiving Tarot readings for many many years because it felt like a form of therapy for me.
Grace Duong: And it helped me get a different perspective on my life situations at the time.
Grace Duong: And for me making the cards was very much about learning what these cards meant.
Grace Duong: and after making it you’re like “Oh, that’s what that thing means?”
Grace Duong: You know, retrospectively, might kind of reflect and think of it in a different way.
09:09 Creating the OK Tarot Deck
Grace Duong: So I was wondering what was your journey like creating your own Tarot deck and the inspiration behind it.
Adam JK: My approach to the OK Tarot deck, like a lot of my work, is really just about transforming pencil and paper, right?
Adam JK: My whole thing. My whole ethos. This idea of things of what you make of them is a guiding principle for me
Adam JK: where I am saying to myself “Okay, here’s what life handed you. What can you do with it?”
Adam JK: Life handed me paper and pencil. Life handed me I worked at a photocopy shop.
Adam JK: Life handed me I worked in an office where I could steal cute pastel-colored paper.
Adam JK: The OK Tarot was an exercise in taking something that I had seen
Adam JK: which was the Rider-Waite deck and using the limited skills I have
Adam JK: You know, my simplistic illustration and my personal aesthetic taste.
Adam JK: which is very simple, I love like a one color line art.
Adam JK: And just trying to put my spin on things.
Adam JK: To me, I really believe that paper and pencil are magic. That’s a word that I would use.
Adam JK: Or I would say it’s “magical” not “magic.”
Adam JK: There’s something very magical about… I mean what are cards? This is so literal…
Adam JK: I apologize in advance for whoever has to edit this because I’m formulating thoughts as I speak them.
Adam JK: I really felt like Tarot cards are just paper.
Adam JK: No matter what deck you have, it is 78 pieces of paper in a box, or in a bag, or with a rubber band.
Adam JK: and everything else that Tarot brings to us is about internalizing an intuition and we’ve all agreed.
Adam JK: “Hey, this means something!” we have all agreed.
Adam JK: “Hey, I am going to put my faith into the meaning of this. I’m going to allow this to guide my intuition.”
Adam JK: And that’s very cool! That’s a lot of power that we are finding in this very humble material of paper.
Adam JK: And I love that shit! I really do.
Adam JK: I think that if paper can be so powerful then we as people can be so powerful.
Adam JK: I love all the metaphors of art and creation, so I was like I will make a Tarot deck.
Adam JK: I will take all the white dudes out. I will take all the religion out.
Adam JK: Because I’m very religion averse having grown up in a religious community.
Adam JK: You know, I just saw the Rider-Waite and I was like “What the fuck!?”
Adam JK: How is this representing for— what in my mind—
Adam JK: When I think of the Tarot community I’m thinking of people who are finding spirituality
Adam JK: finding guidance and intuition from the universe outside of the traditional structures of organized religion.
Adam JK: And then you hand me the Rider-Waite Tarot and it’s all white dudes and crosses and shit?
Adam JK: It’s so catholic. It is shocking to me.
Adam JK: So I was like “That’s all out! We’re pulling all that out!”
Adam JK: And we’re pulling out all depictions of gender because I am actually a white man.
Adam JK: So for me I look at the Rider-Waite Tarot and I’m like:
Adam JK: Oh, that’s me with my hobo stick, and that’s me as a priest, and that’s me with a sword in my hand.
Adam JK: but for everyone else, how is that supposed to represent for you?
Adam JK: I was like, rather than create new depictions with new human figures
Adam JK: I completely skipped that. I was like “No, no, no! We’re just not doing that at all.”
Adam JK: and in some ways it makes the deck really fun and friendly and we can all find ourselves in it.
Adam JK: in some ways it’s a little more complicated because it’s a little bit less pictorial and it’s a little bit less
Adam JK: in some cases, literal, but that was the fun exercise for me.
Adam JK: It was just to try it, and just to do it, and just to see what happens.
Adam JK: It’s just paper, right? If it’s bad then we can throw it out!
Adam JK: If it’s bad then no one buys it. If it’s bad then it sits in a box.
Adam JK: It just didn’t matter that it wasn’t gonna be perfect.
Adam JK: So I wrote that on the box. I wrote on the very back of the OK Tarot box, it says:
Adam JK: “It’s not perfect but it’s OK.”
Adam JK: And that is true of the project itself. That is true of me and you as people. That’s true of life.
Adam JK: And that’s what I wanted to do was I wanted to take paper and make something magical from it.
Adam JK: And then let individual users do the rest.
Grace Duong: Yeah, I mean that’s really beautiful because there’s so much potential that can be held back from this idea of perfection,
Grace Duong: And what is perfection that someone else made up for us, you know?
14:01 Spirituality vs religion in Tarot cards
Grace Duong: I felt the same way actually with the different Tarot cards that I had seen.
Grace Duong: I really couldn’t relate to any of them because, like you said, it was very religious
Grace Duong: and like not even a religion I had grown up with..
Grace Duong: and also I’m a woman of color so I’m like looking at all these old white guys on these Tarot cards and I’m like:
Grace Duong: I don’t see me in these.
Grace Duong: and I think that’s really nice that there’s all these different decks coming out now
Grace Duong: that are representations of all kinds of different people and beliefs which I don’t feel like Tarot is strictly religious.
Grace Duong: I think back in the day it probably had a tie to like the churches and what not.
Grace Duong: but nowadays it’s just more of another way to access your spirituality in whatever way you defined that for yourself.
Adam JK: Yeah, I mean that’s I think the key word is spirituality and not religion.
Adam JK: and so for me that right that was the new jerk reaction is like this
Adam JK: is a tool for spirituality why is it so full of religion
Adam JK: how can separate the symbols of religion and not just like any religion but like an oppressive religion
Adam JK: that is like famous for stamping out— Sorry, this controversial hot take…
Adam JK: The catholic church is gonna cancel the OK Tarot deck.
Adam JK: I think it’s the same conversation of like how could this represent for for everyone let’s find our own way in.
Adam JK: and I think you and I were sort of like earlier in the current wave of artists Tarot decks.
Adam JK: but it’s very cool seeing how many are out there and it’s very cool being part of something
Adam JK: so much bigger than being part of a community.
15:48 The Process of Creating a Deck
Adam JK: And I would say that the number one the number one thing that I would say about the OK Tarot is that,
Adam JK: at no point in the process did I stand up and say I’m a Tarot expert I know everything.
Adam JK: I will be the first person to tell you that I don’t I don’t know anything about anything.
Adam JK: And even I can make a Tarot deck! And so maybe if anyone who’s listening has ever thought about:
Adam JK: Hey! I want to make my own Tarot deck or I want to work on Tarot artwork.
Adam JK: Maybe I’ll make one art work and then I’ll make two
Adam JK: and then I wake up in three years and I’ve made 78 and I print it.
Adam JK: Do it! Go for it.
Adam JK: I had the idea for the OK Tarot deck in 2016 and I tweeted about it
Adam JK: and I was like: “Do you guys think I should do this?”
Adam JK: and people were like: “LOL! I don’t know. Like a shitty Tarot deck? I don’t know about that.”
Adam JK: And one person who is very in the Tarot community and does a lot of readings for themselves and others said that based on the little—
Adam JK: I doodled a few just to be like “I don’t know it could kind of look like this.”
Adam JK: they were like based on what you doodled, if you had drawn those cards and I was doing a reading for you,
Adam JK: I would tell you right now that doing this deck will change your life.
Adam JK: and that spooked me actually and I was like,
Adam JK: Okay! I don’t want to change my life yet. Things are pretty stable actually right now.
Adam JK: So that’s part of the reason that I sat on that idea for 2 years.
Adam JK: it was also laziness. It was laziness, it was fear, and it was not wanting to rock the boat.
Adam JK: and then eventually I was looking around, and I was like,
Adam JK: Okay, there’s like a new wave of artist decks happening.
Adam JK: If I don’t do it now, I don’t want to be too late.
Adam JK: I just knew like I knew I wanted to be part of something at that time.
Adam JK: I was like, “Let’s go! Let’s just jump in.” and…
Adam JK: You know, the OK Tarot for me has been yet another lesson in my life of like it’s okay if you’re not an expert,
Adam JK: it’s okay if you’re not the best artist, it’s okay if you don’t have the budget for fancy production details necessarily
Adam JK: You know, it was just a little Kickstarter project. I don’t know, it really did change my life.
Adam JK: It really did find a home within the Tarot community and it continues to reach new people.
Adam JK: and after years of self publishing Penguin acquired the rights to publish it.
Adam JK: And they were able to lower the price which is the best!
Adam JK: The best thing for me as an artist is to make accessible work that people can easily afford.
Adam JK: I’ve just been super happy lately.
Adam JK: I adopted a dog two weeks ago and the joy is so palpable.
Adam JK: It’s like new dog, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s, family in town like—
Adam JK: Just excited about new creative projects. Excited about not working.
Adam JK: Excited about my 10 year anniversary with my husband. This month as well.
Grace Duong: Oh, my god!
18:48 Trusting the Universe
Adam JK: There’s so much joy that I feel being joy bombed.
Adam JK: And I’m like actually overwhelmed.
Adam JK: I’m kind of like need someone to die just to temper it—
Adam JK: Oh my god! Why did I say that?
Grace Duong: Well, that’s the thing about the human mind, right?
Grace Duong: Everything is going so well and then like thinking about worst case scenarios just to counteract that.
Adam JK: Yeah!
Adam JK: I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why is that?
Adam JK: Why can’t I just trust in the universe that maybe there’s not another shoe.
Adam JK: Maybe I’m already wearing that other shoe? That’s how I took this step in the first place back to our original metaphors.
19:28 Creating the It’s a Sign Oracle Deck
Grace Duong: So true. You also made It’s a Sign oracle deck recently, right?
Adam JK: I did.
Grace Duong: And it looks like it was a collaboration with your husband and internet strangers?
Adam JK: Yeah! So I in 2022 I had a mail art subscription club where like 800 people signed up
Adam JK: to get quarterly packages from me not knowing what they would be.
Adam JK: and in March I sent a little packet asking people to email me a photo
Adam JK: of something you know like a cell phone, like something off their phone, of like something that they saw.
Adam JK: where they felt compelled to take a picture because it felt like a sign from the universe in some way.
Adam JK: Whatever it is, it was totally up to you. Just send me a photo
Adam JK: and maybe a sentence or two about what, why, when.
Adam JK: And I promised I wouldn’t share. I would not share the story.
Adam JK: And I ended up getting quite a few photos, and a lot of stories, and some of them were upbeat, fun, and exciting.
Adam JK: I was on a trip and I saw this bird and it meant a lot to me.
Adam JK: A lot of the stories were really heavy.
Adam JK: Really, really heavy. Like I had a miscarriage
Adam JK: and I needed to go to the desert and be alone because I was processing and that was the most devastating experience of my life.
Adam JK: And when I was there I saw this tree, and this tree reminded me that I am where I need to be.
Adam JK: and what I was really struck by was how many stories were similar.
Adam JK: You know? When I was really—
Adam JK: And I read all the stories in one day. I saved them for like a quiet morning and I let them wash over me, and it hit me!
Adam JK: We are all looking to create meaning in our own lives. We are all looking for signs.
Adam JK: And we’re finding them. Actually, there are so many signs in the universe.
Adam JK: Actually, there is beauty, and magic, and love, and light, and all—
Adam JK: Whatever we want to call it, right? Whatever we want to call that amorphus thing that we may have faith in.
Adam JK: It’s out there! So I took those images and I translated them into like an aesthetic language that’s a little bit more me.
Adam JK: Where I reformatted the images and then I printed them out on colored sheets of paper.
Adam JK: Which I then rephotograph— You know?
Adam JK: I wanted to make these digital photos tangible. I wanted to say:
Adam JK: Hey! This is real. We can hold this. This is paper, this is magic, here it is—
Adam JK: And then I crafted them into these cards with short phrases based on the stories that I was told.
Adam JK: And the result is this—I think deceptively simple oracle deck, right?
Adam JK: Because you don’t know what these powerful stories are,
Adam JK: and that’s really fun. It’s like when you’re drawing cards, they might really mean something to you,
Adam JK: but each card is also imbued with a very strong real power from someone else’s life,
Adam JK: who to you is a stranger and so this sign that was so powerful and meaningful to someone in the world
Adam JK: now gets to serve as a sign in your life and it’s just like…
Adam JK: the overlapping power of it all is wild and then once again it’s just paper.
Adam JK: I like it more than my Tarot deck! I’ll just say it. I’ll just say it out loud.
Adam JK: I love the OK Tarot. I think it is really cool and special in a very unique way,
Adam JK: but for me making a deck of signs out of other people’s signs that’s like
Adam JK: Wow wow wow wow wow! And so I love it so much!
Adam JK: I did make it Tarot card size. That was the one point of connection where I was like,
Adam JK: No, no, no! I like the tall cards. It feels really substantial and so
Adam JK: going back to our conversation about the leap at the beginning, when I did the OK Tarot deck.
Adam JK: That was so intimidating. Where do I get it printed? What size?
Adam JK: How do I format the deck, and the cards, and the templates in the computer, Photoshop, or whatever?
Adam JK: For this newer deck it was like,
Adam JK: Oh, yeah! I’ve done that before. I know how to make a bar code.
Adam JK: I know the size. I know how to format the box.
Adam JK: So, that’s a great example of how being afraid on round 1, set me up to do round 2.
Adam JK: and I like round 2 more, and I think it’s a more ambitious, emotional project.
Adam JK: Where because some of the logistic stuff wasn’t as hard,
Adam JK: I could dedicate more mental energy on the emotional, creative side.
Adam JK: Man, I just love it! I LOVE paper and making things real.
Adam JK: It is such a privilege to be able to facilitate some of that using my little graphic design skills.
24:46 The Power of Collaborating vs Solo Projects
Grace Duong: So there seems to be a common thread between the power of storytelling through the cards,
Grace Duong: and I was wondering what the significance of collaborating versus doing solo projects mean to you?
Adam JK: So, I often work alone as a product of just the nature of my work is really confessional and emotional,
Adam JK: I’m emoting these relatable human expressions and sometimes they’re quite dark,
Adam JK: and because it’s all coming from me, a real person, I think it’s safe to grasp on to
Adam JK: because you’re not the one saying that you want to die, I’m saying it.
Adam JK: and you’re just double tapping so that’s not as scary.
Adam JK: But on occasion, it’s really cool to say “Hey! I have tools, resources and skills.”
Adam JK: I am acknowledging that though I am a huge dummy, I know how to use the software.
Adam JK: And I know how to Google to find the right printer.
Adam JK: And I know how to mail out five hundred packages.
Adam JK: And I’m going to use all those skills to make something that includes other people.
Adam JK: and so I don’t always have the chance to do that or I don’t always have the financial resources,
Adam JK: or the time resources to do that?
Adam JK: But with the It’s a Sign deck, by design, I want to make a project that incorporates all those elements.
Adam JK: I think it would be really powerful for all of us and really special for me to work on.
Adam JK: I’m going to make space to do this!
Adam JK: And it was hard and it was a lot of work, but I love it and I’m glad that I was able to do it.
Adam JK: And people whose cards—people whose images and stories were chosen to be in the deck,
Adam JK: have sent me messages that were liked and I didn’t tell them.
Adam JK: Oh, I skipped the best part! I didn’t tell anyone who was in and who wasn’t.
Adam JK: So, people found out when they received the deck and flipped through,
Adam JK: and people were like “Oh my god! That’s my dad’s flower.”
Adam JK: or “Oh my god! that’s the time that my dog did that thing!”
Adam JK: and even now I’ve gotten messages since that are just like “Thank you so much!” or “I teared up.”
Adam JK: or “This really meant so much to me and I was able to share it with my sister who was also there.”
Adam JK: Those little stories, the little connections that are a result of the things that we’re able to make and put out to the world are so cool.
Adam JK: Right? Cause like when I die,
Adam JK: it’s not going to be like “Here lies Adam JK. He made OK Tarot deck which sold 600 copies… blahbablah!
Adam JK: It’s gonna be like—Well, I’ll probably be cremated but…
Adam JK: The things that we leave behind are those human connections and the ways.
Adam JK: The ways that people were able to bond.\NThe ways that our work helped facilitate those things.
Adam JK: I will be nothing. I will be dust.
Adam JK: But maybe the person who’s really difficult story became a card,
Adam JK: and then they took that card, and they framed it in their office, and it’s yellowed with age,
Adam JK: and then their daughter finds it in 30 years, and on the back they wrote a note.
Adam JK: That stuff gives me goose bumps! I love that stuff!
Adam JK: That’s what I want my legacy to be.
Adam JK: That I think is the power of putting putting faith and belief into the sort of humble materials.
Adam JK: That is just the special magical goop of being alive and ascribing meaning to things.
Adam JK: It’s so cool!
Grace Duong: Do you assign meaning to things?
Grace Duong: Do you see things out in the world and you’re like “That means that to me.”
Adam JK: Yes, absolutely! I am that person. You know, that is
Adam JK: That’s really my relationship to spirituality now.
Adam JK: I grew up orthodox Jewish. So I was very entrenched in a religious environment,
Adam JK: and raised with a certain type of faith that I didn’t question for a long time.
Adam JK: For a long time I was like:
Adam JK: Oh yeah! God is this, and we can’t eat pigs, and this is what we do, and we pray this many times a day.
Adam JK: As I got older I was able to make decisions for myself.
Adam JK: And realized that, for me, spirituality is found in
Adam JK: different environments, different things, different experiences, different people, and different relationships.
Adam JK: And the older I get the more and more I believe in the transformational power of love.
Adam JK: And love has, you know, there’s so many forms of love.
Adam JK: The version of love that, for me, I connect with the most is:
Adam JK: It’s not being nice but being really kind and the different ways that kindness can exist,
Adam JK: and my favorite way is just little gifts, the sentimentality of objects.
Adam JK: A key chain can be a sign. A sticker on a water bottle can be a sign.
Adam JK: These short phrases that might be sort of corny on your aunty’s fridge magnet.
Adam JK: But then one day you’re having like a small nervous breakdown and you go to the fridge to
Adam JK: eat something in case that helps, and instead you read the fridge magnet and you’re like:
Adam JK: Oh, this hits different today.
Adam JK: To me, that’s incredible! And the person that made that fridge magnet?
Adam JK: A beautiful soul. And so hopefully I made it, because I want the little credit in heaven for saving you on that day.
Adam JK: I want to make the fridge magnet that stops you from killing yourself.
Adam JK: That sounds so dark, so…
Grace Duong: It’s a ray of hope!
Adam JK: I’ve said it before—yeah, you know what? Because I have been absolutely short circuiting.
Adam JK: and then just seen someone sent me a postcard and it’s a picture of downtown St. Louis and I’m like:
Adam JK: Oh, there’s so much hope for me.I’ve never been to St. Louis yet.
Adam JK: You know it’s like—these things are so dumb, but in the moment can be so powerful.
Grace Duong: And meaningful! Like whatever way you wanna—
Grace Duong: Someone can look at the same picture and think something else.
Adam JK: Yeah!
Adam JK: Yeah! It’s all about how we feel. It’s all about what we intuit from an experience.
Adam JK: And coming back to Tarot cards, that’s exactly what we’re talking about.
Adam JK: Because a Tarot card and a post card are both card stock, right?
Adam JK: It’s four-color printing on a hundred pound stock. Whatever! Hundred—
Adam JK: Whatever! You know what I mean? It’s like ultimately it’s very similar.
Adam JK: Ultimately, Harry Potter and the Bible are both printed on paper…
Adam JK: We can’t use Harry Potter for anything anymore… Goddamn it!
Adam JK: I just think that it’s not about the materials, it’s about the power that we give them,
Adam JK: and the way that we let them guide our intuition.
Grace Duong: So at the core of your work I feel like there is a combination between self help and art.
Grace Duong: And I was wondering if there is a version of you that’s making it for a younger version of yourself?
Adam JK: Yeah, and a very recent younger version, right? I feel like I’m making work for like myself last week.
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Adam JK: I often think about my work as sort of like a bread crumb trail for myself and others to find our way back.
Adam JK: You know, in those moments when we start to lose our shit?
Adam JK: In those moments when you’re so overwhelmed with emotion that logic goes out the window.
Adam JK: Because we’re all smart, right?
Adam JK: I’m not like a wellness guru genius. I’m not emotionally stable 24/7.
Adam JK: But there are moments when I am, and those are the moments when I’m creating
Adam JK: art, reminders, messages, or tokens that can help me get back to where I need to get back to.
34:51 Creating Work for a Younger Version of Yourself
Adam JK: Right? It’s like when you save your game a few times before you go fight like a really difficult boss.
Adam JK: It’s like “Okay, if I die I can just go back to my save file.”
Adam JK: Maybe some of the work I’m putting out there is the save file that says:
Adam JK: Hey, hey, hey! No, no, no! At this time you knew all these things,
Adam JK: this was the emotional intelligence you had gained by that moment and and this is your new foundation.
Adam JK: We are not going to rock bottom. We are now like ten flights of stairs up.
Adam JK: You don’t have to start at the floor any more.
Adam JK: And I love that I have been able to grow with people.
Adam JK: That I’ve had readers and fans come along on the journey with me,
Adam JK: from being a teenager on Tumbler, to being a 34 year old on Tumbler.
Grace Duong: Yeah!
Adam JK: I’m still on Tumbler.
Grace Duong: Tumbler is still a thing?
Adam JK: Tumblers a thing, baby!
Grace Duong: Alright!
Adam JK: I mean, the internet I feel is so toxic in so many ways that it really is about finding these smaller pockets of community,
Adam JK: and just like cozying up in them because if you just try to rawdog all of Twitter, it’s gonna hurt.
Adam JK: That’s a terri—I am so sorry for saying rawdog Twitter.
Grace Duong: It can be overwhelming for sure.
Adam JK: It feels…
Adam JK: Twitter feels like going into like a crowded airport in like the second month of COVID and no one is wearing a mask.
Adam JK: Twitter feels like April 2020 at like Six Flags.
Grace Duong: Yeah, yeah.
Adam JK: I don’t know what that means, I just mean that it’s overwhelming.
Adam JK: It’s overwhelming, I don’t trust anybody, and I feel like I’m going to die.
Adam JK: And so we need our small safe fun pockets of people that—
Adam JK: Maybe we don’t need people to echo our sentiments back.
Adam JK: We don’t need to be only amongst people who are exactly like us but people who maybe have a commonality?
Adam JK: Who share some amount of interest.
Adam JK: Who are passionate about whatever the crux of that community is.
Adam JK: And that can be a really cool fun thing about the internet that I still love,
Adam JK: that still helps me, that still helps—I don’t know.
Grace Duong: Yeah.
Adam JK: Tethered me to something bigger than myself in a fun community way.
Grace Duong: Definitely!
37:21 Advice for your Younger Self
Grace Duong: If there were any advice that you would give to your younger self, what would it be?
Adam JK: Don’t kill yourself.
Grace Duong: Straight forward.
Adam JK: Yeah! Pretty on the nose. Hey, younger Adam! Don’t kill yourself.
Adam JK: Because in fact a lot of really awesome things are coming,
Adam JK: and love is real and it will change your entire life.
Adam JK: and it starts not necessarily with romantic love but with the love that we have for ourselves,
Adam JK: and our families, our chosen families, the people that we let into our lives,
Adam JK: the love that we put into our work, the bread crumb trails that we put out into the world,
Adam JK: that might eventually attract a partner for life, or a partner for a decade,
Adam JK: or a partner for three years that helps us see ourself in a new way,
Adam JK: helps us grow and transform into ways we are are meant to, or could be meant to,
Adam JK: I started with the really scary negative, but I think what I’m actually trying to say is:
Adam JK: Hey, love is real! Love is actually real!
Adam JK: It’s not just like a thing from songs.
Adam JK: It’s a real thing and so if maybe you haven’t felt all kinds of it yet?
Adam JK: or maybe if the kind of love that you were raised on is ringing false, you know?
Adam JK: If you’re processing trauma. There’s so many reasons why we might not be able to internalize that feeling of love.
Adam JK: But love is real, and it’s out there, and it will change you, and it will change everything.
Adam JK: And belief in that, participating in it, magnifying it for others, sharing it with others,
Adam JK: will change absolutely everything, will open so many doors, so many pathways.
Grace Duong: Do you feel like going through these darker moments have given you this optimism?
Adam JK: Yes! Oh my god, yes! I mean this is like what we were talking about at the beginning.
Adam JK: Taking one step proves that taking one step won’t kill you.
Adam JK: So then you can take a second step, and a third step, and a fourth step…
Adam JK: Going through really dark moments, surviving really hard shit, proves to you that you can.
Adam JK: And not just that you can and it was a fluke, but that like
Adam JK: No! There was some sort of power in you that enabled you to get through this.
Adam JK: And I will also say that in my case, going through a really particularly dark time in my early 20s,
Adam JK: taught me a kind of empathy that I don’t know where else I would have gotten it from.
Adam JK: Some people are more empathetic than others. I was already pretty empathetic but
Adam JK: I learned a new form of empathy for people experiencing mental illness and mental health issues whether genetic, lifelong, temporary…
Adam JK: Whatever! And it really informed my entire creative practice.
Adam JK: It shifted the direction of what I was doing from sort of like graphic design in-house sort of employee.
Adam JK: Making things to sell things. To someone who uses their tools, skills and new found empathy and trust in their own voice.
Adam JK: And belief that they can get through a hard thing and find love and magnify love, informed my entire practice.
Adam JK: the last 10 years has been books, and journals, and interactive stationary,
Adam JK: reminders, and knick knacks, and uplifting, and affirming things
Adam JK: filtered through my jaded sort of blunt voice that maybe connects with people who are who are currently in a dark place.
Adam JK: Yeah, all all of that has come together to to help me build a life of trying to help other people.
Adam JK: While really helping myself, my family, the people that I love.
Adam JK: It is so cool to survive the hard thing, make art out of it,
Adam JK: and then have that art generate enough income for yourself that you can care for your family.
Adam JK: Holy shit, right?
Adam JK: We were not told that you could live from art in fact we were told that you can’t.
Adam JK: And so to prove that wrong, is really really really cool.
Adam JK: For anyone who’s listening who has a sort of creative passion, we’re not talking about being a millionaire.
Adam JK: I’m not a millionaire but I am happy.
Grace Duong: You can’t put a price on that.
41:56 Taking the Leap and Moving
Grace Duong: So part of you taking the leap is you moved, right? From New York to Hawaii.
Adam JK: Yeah.
Grace Duong: Is that part of this happiness?
Adam JK: It is. I think in a very literal sense to leave a busy dirty city and move to place like
Adam JK: Honolulu which is beautiful and there’s trees and nature.
Adam JK: Really cool, really beautiful.
Adam JK: The flip side of that is that I don’t like warm weather. I’m not a beach person.
Adam JK: I’m from Canada and I love New York and I thought I would die there.
Adam JK: I didn’t plan to move here but i fell in love with a person who’s from from Hawaii.
Adam JK: So we moved home and take care of his family and—
Adam JK: This—I mean, I didn’t see this for me. It wasn’t in the cards. Grace, It wasn’t there. I didn’t see it
Adam JK: But I have made it through the really hard transition part
Adam JK: and now I’m in the “I have trees in the yard and a dog” part.
Adam JK: and so I miss being in a city like New York where everyone is also a psychopath?
Adam JK: Right? I am a very special kind of Jewish brain.
Adam JK: I missed being in a place where I make sense. Here, it’s like “Is this man lost?”
Adam JK: Are you are you trying to find your way back to your hotel and do you need help?
Adam JK: But it’s cool. It’s cool to be in a new place and more so than just moving.
Adam JK: I also I use the move as a moment to create meaningful change in my life,
Adam JK: by changing up my systems of care, by changing my medications, by getting a new psychiatrist/therapist.
Adam JK: At any point in time, in your own life, anyone’s life, we can say “Okay! Enough is enough. Let’s make some changes!”
Adam JK: And I did that. I was like shit is so—like there’s so much upheaval anyway
Adam JK: What’s a little bit more? At that point when you’ve already jumped off the cliff and you’re sort of like
Adam JK: just in the air traveling down? 00:40:19:01 Let’s forget the cliff.
Adam JK: When you’ve already taken a step, what’s another two steps? What’s another five steps?
Adam JK: Maybe we sprint for a minute and and we go 20 steps?
Adam JK: And maybe that’s okay. It’s new year, new me energy.
Adam JK: I just cut off a foot and a half of hair growth that I have been growing all of the pandemic.
Adam JK: And once again I’m saying “Let’s sprint! Let’s take a bunch of steps!”
Adam JK: Once again, I am the Fool. I got my apple in the little sack over my shoulder.
Adam JK: I got my ignorance is bliss hat on, and we are just going to go for it and see,
Adam JK: We’re just going to see.
44:56 Grace Leaps Off a Cliff, Literally
Grace Duong: You know that reminds me that when I was studying abroad we went cliff diving.
Adam JK: No!
Grace Duong: In Italy, yeah. And I didn’t really know how to swim.
Grace Duong: but I decided to jump off this cliff and I remember it being one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done
Grace Duong: because it was like 3 stories high and my heart dropped.
Grace Duong: It was just like you literally walked off a cliff.
Adam JK: Yeah!
Grace Duong: And you’re supposed to get into this straight pencil position, which I did not.
Grace Duong: Because you just walk off a cliff and I just remember in the middle of the transition from dropping into the water,
Grace Duong: my heart just stopped and I was like “I’m never fucking doing this over again!”
Grace Duong: I hit the water not knowing if I would make it, because I wasn’t sure you know about my swimming skills.
Grace Duong: But I floated to the top, broke the surface, and I have the pictures to prove it.
Grace Duong: but the thing about that is just being scared and doing it anyway.
Grace Duong: and then once you make it on the other side you’re like
Adam JK: Yeah.
Grace Duong: I can do that. I can make this. I’m stronger than I think.
Adam JK: Yeah, how did you save that story for this long into the episode?
Adam JK: That should have been the opening of this
Adam JK: Oh, Adam said cliff dive? P.S. I’ve done that.
Adam JK: That’s crazy. You are so brave. Holy shit!
Grace Duong: Thank you. I totally forgot actually until you said transition
Adam JK: I will never do that.
Grace Duong: from like when you jump off to when you hit the water.
Grace Duong: and by the way, I had a huge bruise on the back of my leg from the impact of hitting the water.
Adam JK: Yeah.
46:39 Transitioning
Grace Duong: People won’t talk about the transition part, you know?
Grace Duong: Because it’s like probably not even that long, but it felt like forever.
Adam JK: Oh that’s wild, right? Yeah, we think about—maybe that’s like a whole other episode, right?
Adam JK: We think about the jump. We think about the landing. But what about those seconds in between,
Adam JK: and the knowledge gained, and the feelings felt in those seconds?
Adam JK: Oh, that’s scared me—I’m like heebie-jeebies. I’m like you know when your arms just hurt
Adam JK: and you feel like you can feel all of your blood pumping through your veins?
Adam JK: That’s how I feel right now.
Grace Duong: Yeah.
Grace Duong: So this was wonderful and I’d love to wrap up our conversation with some rapid fire questions.
Adam JK: Okay!
47:26 Adam’s Sun, Moon, Rising Signs
Grace Duong: Do you know what your sun, moon, rising is?
Adam JK: I am a Libra Sun, Aquarius Moon, and I forget my Rising.
Adam JK: It might be Cancer, I forgot.
Grace Duong: I feel like that all makes sense.
Adam JK: Thank you.
Grace Duong: Do you have any favorite rituals?
Adam JK: I love to wake up and immediately look at my phone and answer work emails.
Adam JK: I find that that’s really healthy.
Grace Duong: You really do that every day?
Adam JK: I do look at my phone more than I should.
Adam JK: I just bought one of these—I don’t want to say the brand name, it’s not on add—
Adam JK: I bought one of these meditation alarm clocks that’s for leaving your phone downstairs,
Adam JK: and it costs like a hundred fucking dollars!
Adam JK: I bought it off an Instagram ad and I haven’t set it up yet.
Adam JK: It’s been in my office for three weeks.
Adam JK: But in the new year, I’m going to be doing sleepy time meditations.
Adam JK: and I’m not going to look up my phone and I’m going to be so healthy and physically fit.
Adam JK: And I’m not going to use food or weed as coping mechanisms anymore,
Adam JK: and I’m also going to become really good at drawing and my whole life’s gonna change.
48:34 Adam’s Current Creative Rituals
Grace Duong: Do you have rituals when you get into like your creative space like writing or anything like that?
Adam JK: Well, I think this year the ritual has been like hit the bong and then like…
Adam JK: The rituals haven’t been healthy they’ve just been super fun…
Adam JK: I think that a lot of the times it’s like you got to feel it first?
Adam JK: For me, my creative work is not really about execution as much as concept.
Adam JK: So there’s a lot of thinking. I’m always—back in my mind I’m just always thinking, thinking, thinking.
Adam JK: and then when there’s a strong emotion
Adam JK: that starts to settle into some sort of phrase or something more graspable,
Adam JK: then it’s like “Okay, well what could that be?” and I’m looking beyond my webcam right now.
Adam JK: at the wall, and sometimes it’s a key chain, and sometimes it’s a ribbon,
Adam JK: and sometimes it’s a Christmas ornament, and sometimes it’s just like a note that I wrote to myself,
Adam JK: and then sometimes it’s a sticker, sometimes it’s an an enamel pin,
Adam JK: I don’t always—I don’t always know.
Adam JK: I think graphic design is all about what’s the end product, work backwards, build out your parameters.
Adam JK: But with art it’s so much more about like what do you actually want to say, right?
Adam JK: What not how are you communicating, but what are you communicating.
Adam JK: So the process for me is really just think and feel.
Adam JK: and sometimes that’s bad for business because you haven’t made anything in a while,
Adam JK: but you also don’t want to make garbage, so give yourself time and space to think and feel.
Adam JK: And sometimes that looks like taking a walk, sometimes that looks like watching like a really bad reality TV show,
Adam JK: or just doing something totally opposite from work.
Adam JK: I wish I had like a clear good answer. I wish I was like:
Adam JK: Yes, I do my morning pages and then I have a cup of coffee,
Adam JK: and then I walk my dog, and then I come home, and I sharpened my pencil,
Adam JK: then I rub my lucky stone—But, no. I don’t have that.
Adam JK: I don’t even have a lucky stone.
Grace Duong: It’s not very realistic, right?
Adam JK: For some people maybe it is.
Grace Duong: I mean, yeah! That’s true. Maybe.
Adam JK: It hasn’t been for me, and I will say that I’m relatively successful at what I do, so perhaps
Adam JK: we don’t need to be evolved beings in order to make art?
Adam JK: It might help, but if you’re listening, and you’re like:
Adam JK: I’m not evolved! I’m a dumdum dummy dumb!
Adam JK: That’s okay too. It’s allowed. You’re still allowed to make art.
50:57 Grace Gives Adam a Tarot Reading
Grace Duong: Alright! So would you like to end our conversation by pulling some cards?
Adam JK: Yes!
Grace Duong: Okay, do you have any questions or intention?
Adam JK: Yeah! I mean we’re about to enter the new year, so I I would love—
Adam JK: I don’t know… is there— do the cards have something —
Adam JK: You know, I think I know what I want and then I’m often wrong.
Adam JK: You know, I think I know what I want and then I’m wrong?
Adam JK: I wonder if we might draw a card that helps give me some sense of of guidance,
Adam JK: or like a watch out, or like something to be aware of,
Adam JK: something that you might not have considered yet.
Adam JK: as you step forward into the new year and really try to make these meaningful
Adam JK: life changes about as far as relationships and health and that sort of thing.
Grace Duong: Yeah, totally! So I’m shuffling the cards.
Adam JK: Yes! Cards, will I be healthy? Will I stop stress eating? Cards, please?
Adam JK: You’re gonna somehow draw the weed and pizza card that doesn’t exist.
Adam JK: The deck’s gonna be like “Fuck you, bitch!”
Grace Duong: Amazing!
Adam JK: And while you’re drawing the cards, I’m going to squish my face like this in case the video footage is ever used.
Grace Duong: Have you been waiting on something to wrap up for you to start something else?
Grace Duong: Like any decisions that you wanted to make?
Adam JK: I think I am just waiting for the holiday season to be through.
Grace Duong: Yeah! So I’m getting the Hanged Woman reversed and that’s why I asked that because
Grace Duong: usually there’s some sort of delay or sense of sacrifice,
Grace Duong: but since it’s reversed, it’s kind of like those things that we’re holding you back
Grace Duong: it’s kind of like a green light to go ahead and maybe do those things that you’ve been waiting on.
Grace Duong: The Queen of Pentacles is a very nurturing and has a motherly energy and so…
Grace Duong: I feel like from what you were talking about earlier with these new routines that you’re having for yourself
Grace Duong: like having a trainer and really caring for your health, well being and fitness?
Grace Duong: That’s like another way of—I mean, it’s obviously a way of caring for yourself
Grace Duong: but like really acting as that maternal figure,
Grace Duong: you know, that’s like really caring for yourself on the level of like
Grace Duong: making sure that your needs are met and not in a way—
Grace Duong: making sure you’re getting your needs met for your best interest
Grace Duong: and not for anyone else’s agenda or anything like.
Grace Duong: Nine of Wands reversed. It can indicate you’re like you’re almost at the end of something?
Grace Duong: So the end of a transition. You know, about to start at the end of a new chapter kind of thing.
Grace Duong: I think that really speaks to like you know you were talking about this transition
Grace Duong: from your move and getting used to being in Hawaii and like
Grace Duong: It’s almost like an acceptance into this passage of new life,
Grace Duong: and creating the passage way for you to be that nurturing presence for yourself
Grace Duong: and you’re not relying on other people to be that for you.
Adam JK: Cool! Yeah, and there are some things that we didn’t talk about in this episode
Adam JK: that I think these cards are really reflecting and affirming.
Adam JK: So, yeah! That’s cool.
54:54 Clearing Space to Manifest
Grace Duong: Like what?
Adam JK: How much time do we have? I’m ending my business. I’m closing my business.
Grace Duong: Oh my god! I didn’t know that?!
Adam JK: I’m like stopping my brand.
Adam JK: I’m shutting down my e-commerce and I’m just like taking stuff off my plate,
Adam JK: so I can focus on myself being healthy and I’m happy.
Grace Duong: I love that for you.
Adam JK: So I feel like that’s what we’re talking about here.
Adam JK: I am shedding some of the shackles that I created for myself.
Adam JK: I’m letting go of some of the ego that I placed in the work stuff.
Adam JK: and I’m saying “No, no, no!” we need to be healthy or we will suffer and have physical pain for for decades to come.
Adam JK: So I’m being—yeah, I’m really looking up for my truest needs
Adam JK: in the most literal sort of immediate sense.
Adam JK: and so this does really feel like the end of one thing and the start of the next.
Grace Duong: Yeah! And when I say I love that for you—
Grace Duong: I mean, I love that you’re making these decisions for yourself in your best interest.
Adam JK: Yeah.
Grace Duong: Not like tying it to something you think you have to do.
Adam JK: Totally! I mean, it is a real privilege and a luxury to say:
Adam JK: Hey! I do this thing that makes money that I use to live.
Adam JK: But I am in a position to say:
Adam JK: Hey, you know what? You worked so hard that you can now afford
Adam JK: to take some of that work off your plate and work a little bit less
Adam JK: in the service of really caring for your physical health, your mental health,
Adam JK: I’m someone who gets so much of their satisfaction from working really hard,
Adam JK: and now I’m saying “Hey, can we unlearn that?”
Adam JK: and can we really focus on these things that matter for health and happiness long term.
Adam JK: To go from someone who was like:
Adam JK: Well, I’m probably not going to live very long anyway so let me just like burn, burn, burn, grind, grind, grind!
Adam JK: to be like, oh, fuck! I got to live until like 80 or something. I am not even at the half-way point.
Adam JK: How instead do I set myself up for a long term health.
Adam JK: That’s—yeah, that’s where I’m at.
Adam JK: So I love it too and I want it so bad! I want to really do and accomplish this thing and so
Adam JK: Some of us have a dream and we keep it a secret because we’re afraid people might think it’s dumb,
Adam JK: or we’re afraid that we might jinx it, or were afraid that we might fail right away,
Adam JK: and everyone will know we failed because we said we wanted to do it.
Adam JK: I’m talking! I’m talking about the dream.
Adam JK: I’m making it not a secret and I’m allowing myself the grace
Adam JK: to maybe fail, or fuck up along the way, or fall off the wagon and get back on,
Adam JK: but I’m not keeping it a secret because accountability to ourselves and with loved ones is super helpful.
Adam JK: Yeah, I’m trying to make things real.
Adam JK: I think I used to define the word manifest wrong.
Adam JK: You know, I used to think about manifesting as like:
Adam JK: Oh, yeah! You just want something really bad and then it can materialize.
Adam JK: Ands now I’m like:
Adam JK: No, no! Manifesting is like creating space, it’s like clearing space, it’s like welcoming things in, it’s taking steps,
Adam JK: it’s seeing the door open and walking through that door before it has a chance to close again.
Adam JK: It is more proactive than I thought… and so I’m in there.
Grace Duong: Yeah! It’s also like you’re attracting new opportunities to you by clearing the space.
Adam JK: Yeah!
Adam JK: You’re right! If there’s no space—
Adam JK: If you don’t listen to your voice mails, you will run out of voice mails, right?
Grace Duong: I don’t look into my voice mails.
Adam JK: and then people call you but your inbox is full.
Grace Duong: My entire inbox is full.
Adam JK: Yeah, empty your inbox so that you can get new voice mails because the universe is calling.
Grace Duong: That is super exciting.
Adam JK: The universe is not going to call more than two or three times per year so got to be ready.
Adam JK: Better yet, just pick up the phone when it rings.
Grace Duong: They’ll send you very disruptive text message
Grace Duong: if you’re not listening to the messages.
Grace Duong: Yeah! So thank you so much for hopping on and sharing.
Adam JK: Thanks for having me on this podcast.
Grace Duong: Yeah, you’re my very first guest, so you know!
Adam JK: It only gets better from here listeners, don’t forget to like and subscribe.
Adam JK: If you like what you’ve heard, please give Grace’s podcast 5 stars on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your—
Adam JK: Sorry, I know you probably want to say that better.
Grace Duong: You know what? You need to be my mascot.
Adam JK: I am willing to put on a goofy costume and just cheer people on.
Adam JK: I do really believe in the potential of everyone and everything
Adam JK: and if there’s one thing you take away from me on this episode it’s
Adam JK: If I can do this, you can do this! If I can let go of fear, you can let go of fear!
Adam JK: and you might just be really really really really surprised in what the universe has in store for you.
Adam JK: Because I have been completely shocked and I’m just so grateful.
Grace Duong: Yeah, so much gratitude, so much knowledge.
Grace Duong: I love that you’re able to share your wisdom in like a way that
Grace Duong: everyone can get. Everyone knows what it feels like to have those dark moments,
Grace Duong: But being able to transform those dark moments into moments of inspiration
Grace Duong: that can help heal yourself, versions of yourself, but also the people around you.
Grace Duong: It’s really a ripple effect and I feel like you know your work speaks to so many people because they’ve been there before
Grace Duong: And they’re going through those moments that you’ve been through too.
Grace Duong: So it’s really a gift that you’re sharing with us.
Grace Duong: And so I just really want to acknowledge you in your light and everything that you’re doing
Grace Duong: and that I’m really excited for you, and your next adventure, your next Fool moment.
Grace Duong: It’s like cycles of change and inspiration as we keep evolving and growing.
Grace Duong: Thank you so much, Adam.
Adam JK: Thank you! I can’t wait to see who’s on your next episode.
Adam JK: I guess I’ll have to like and subscribe to find out?
Grace Duong: Yes, please do!
Grace Duong: Okay, thank you so much and chat soon.
Adam JK: Bye!
Grace Duong: Bye!
ENDTRO + GIVEAWAY DETAILS
Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s podcast episode with AdamJK!
So grateful for Adam’s raw honesty, humor, and giving us a glimpse into this new beginning!
Take this episode as an invitation to connect with the Fool card and see if you can activate that spontaneous side of you that is willing to take risks, even if you are uncertain of what’s on the other side. Make sure to tell us your experience by writing into the show or leaving a voice message on Spotify!
And now, we’re going to wrap up with the giveaway details I promised you at the beginning of the podcast.
To enter the giveaway, you must leave a podcast review, screenshot your review, and email it to hi@graceduong.com. If you want additional entries, you can follow us on social media and get the complete rules on Instagram over @mysticmondays and @grace.duong.
Also, each follow, like, and comment on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok platform will be another entry for you to win the OK Tarot deck! We will be picking winners on Monday, April 24th at 11:59PM Eastern Time.
Since the GRACED podcast is completely new, I so appreciate your support in sharing the episodes, liking the episodes, and subscribing to the podcast.
Sending you so much GRACE today and everyday. Bye now!