Adrian Jstn, A King Watering His Garden

What has been the biggest reflection you've gotten from planting your garden and how it relates to 77?

Adrian Jstn: In the garden the other day, all the flowers on the left side were blooming and beautiful and the flowers on the right side just looked dead for the day. I realized maybe I'm not giving this area enough attention. Maybe I just, allowed this area to do what I feel it's doing because I feel these things could hold their own. It reminded me that I have to tend to all the parts of the garden. Even in the magazine, I just had this whole revelation just yesterday. Since the magazine has been established for a little while, in a lot of places I kind of took a step back because I was like,” Okay these people got it.” I had to realize after a few conversations yesterday that some of those parts need to be watered a bit more. That’s my job and my responsibility as the one who's running this race and leading everybody in this company is my responsibility to make sure that everybody has what they need to succeed. If that means that I need to extend myself a bit more and be a bit more strict and exact about all of the things that I need and want for & from my team and all the things that I need and want for & from my garden then that's just exactly what I have to do.

What does the term visionary mean to you?

Adrian Jstn: I was thinking about this earlier today and I realized that all of my life whatever I wanted to do, I just did it. I'm just not scared to do it because if I fail, I fail and I don't really like to call it a fail l because I think it's just a lesson. If this doesn't go the way I plan for it to then it just doesn’t. That's not a scary thing for me. For a lot of people that’s something that kind of shakes them up a bit but I don’t care. I don't care it's a part of life and every single thing. That's the biggest part about what Visionary means to me. Having the vision and being able to just do it whether it's the right time whether it's this or that. Just being able to do it and learn from it and if it's not the time, pause, and pick it back up later because at least you've learned.

Talk about starting the garden in your own home, in your own backyard and doing all by yourself.

Adrian Jstn: Here's the thing. I started it at my aunt's house in her backyard. My aunt lives in Ohio and Ohio to me is the most peaceful place in the world. That is just where I truly just have no ego, no cares, just barefoot and looking crazy out in the streets. That's truly where I could be the most grounded and I was like, if I can be that here then how can I bring that back home? I was just like I need a space here for myself where I could learn and I could grow and I could translate it to what's going on in my life. If I'm not comfortable doing it here, then it doesn't make sense for me to start it anywhere else.

I chose to do it by myself because something that I struggle with is my solitude. After all, I’ve always been an only child. I have siblings, but they’ve never lived with me. I was raised by my grandparents and my grandparents don't want to go play with no little boy. For the most part, we stayed at the house. It got to the point, that once you go up in age and grades and you get technology, especially us growing up in the time of the touch screen phone and all the different social media apps. Being only child and longing for that connection. Starting at such a young place and finding that connection with other people on social media is something that I did not realize affected me as much because I sat down and realized that I have not been by myself. You pick up your phone & you have all of the useless relationships at your disposal. I picked up relationships that did not feed me and that are not supposed to be in my life.

For so many people that’s just that's all they know. They form their personalities and who they are around what they've seen on TV and on their phone. That's why I chose to do it by myself because it has shown me and matured me in such a short amount of time that, I could be comfortable by myself. I do not need anyone. It has allowed me to set boundaries. and tell people “Hi, this is just not for me right now.” I’ve never minded saying no to people but when it comes to relationships, I've always just kind of kept people just in case I need you, but if this is allowed me to be like, “No, I don't need you.”

What has been the biggest lesson and take away throughout this whole journey?

Adrian Jstn: I think something that gardening is constantly reminding me of is that it’s okay to begin again. This phase in my life is so weird, I call it chapter 1 because I'm starting over. There has been too much trauma. I really feel like I'm becoming a different being than I was before that's okay, thats more than okay.

I put myself as a little boy as my wallpaper and I did it because I have to remind myself that I'm taking care of him. A lot of people mishandled him but it's my job now to take care of him and heal him. That has been the biggest lesson because where I am now is exactly where he wanted to be. I have to remind myself of that in times where I feel like I'm not doing enough or I feel like I'm not where I want myself to be. But if he could see me and look at me on the television he’d be like, “My God, I love him.” & I love that!

At what point did you one realize you were a king and then to accept it and start walking in the light of being a king?

Adrian Jstn: I knew I was the King when I realized that the men who came before me were not. My father is the root of a lot of my trauma. He spent 12 years of my life in prison. He went to prison when I was four. So being raised by his mother, my grandmother who wasn't married until I got a bit older. There was not a consistent male figure in my life for the seven crucial years of the child's life. The foundation of who you are as a person is laid from when you’re born to when you're seven years old. All of those years I had only been raised by strong black females. Which is a humongous reason why my Feminine out weighs my masculine. My grandmother was a director of public schools and My aunt is one of the largest architects in Georgia. My other aunts are doctors, surgeons, nurses, and all these different kinds of stuff. So that's what I saw my first vision of success. it was not the white man, it was not the black man, it was the black woman! So it made me look at the men who came before me differently and then I realized that they were not kings. They’re princes that never grew up and the men who came before me were the same, princes that never grew up. So who was the last king & who’s going do the work to be the next?

All of these princes have gone through life and if we get biblical here, they have not atoned for their father's sins. They all lived the same horrible lifestyle. Beating on women, drug abuse, liquor abuse, deadbeats, etc… And generations of these men continue until you get to me and I'm the one who is sent to break this generational curse of what the men in this line have created because they have not atoned for their father's sins, because I'm not passing this mess on my children. I’m ending this right now! I have to be the one to say, We will no longer treat black women like this. We will no longer treat ourselves like this. We will no longer neglect our mental health. We will no longer degrade people.

I knew that I was the one that had to break it when I broke it in myself. Because there was once a time when I could tell that, that was the man that I was becoming. I had to say no and that's when I said accepted & decided that I am the king. I have accepted this role because the ones who came before me did not do the work, but I am doing the work to redirect & change the future my bloodline.

What do you think about reflecting on yourself the phrase,“A king planting and watering his garden?"

Adrian Jstn: I see the garden as everything. My being and the ones who came before me, each flower is a different part of my universe My father's, my great-grandfather's, my children. my mental health all of these different things are different flowers in this garden. Now when I say watering, watering each of these parts of who I am. And as i do the work to make them get stronger & grow, I am growing with them. That's what the garden is to me, who I am as a person, and making sure that I take care of that.

What standard would you like to see set for mental health amongst black people?

Adrian Jstn: I think there's a chain that has to be broken. That's been continued forever because black people don’t do counseling. Lucky for me, my grandmother has a degree in psychology so that was never a problem it was always go to counseling. But most people are not as fortunate as me. Counseling should not be something in our community that you are required to do only after judge forces you to do it or only after you've had a horrible situation happen in your life where you almost passed away. It should not be after the end all be all, it needs to be from the beginning.

That should be the new standard. Counseling needs to begin in the beginning and it needs to be free like most of the other stuff we require in this life. That's one of my duties and one of my passions as when we grow as a magazine and when I grow as an entertainer. I want to be able to provide that free kind of Mental Health Care because it's something that starts at the root. I think that needs to be the new standard that I'm trying to set and that should be set for black men and black women in general. Counseling is a requirement and there's nothing wrong with it. It doesn'tmean you're crazy. It doesn't mean any of these kinds of things but it just means that you are actively working to understand yourself and understand your mind.

With the gardening, did your aunt teach you, have you been learning on your own, or have you been outsourcing resources?

Adrian Jstn: I don't know why I do this to myself but anytime there's something new I want to do. I just take the hard way, I like to make all the mistakes. I could have been like hey, can you come teach me and show me but I'd rather bump into the wall a few times and then learn to go through the door because then it just sticks with me more. That way I really know what I'm doing not because it wasn’t given to me but because I learned it. So I was just in her garden one day she showed me how to pick up the soil and put it down, and that was the last day I worked in her garden.

Then I said I'm gonna do this on my own from this point on came to the house. I’ve made alot of mistakes but I'm just figuring it out more and more & i love love love that. That's what I do with every part of my life. It's all a learning process. I really make use of learning and allowing myself to make mistakes and learn from them.