We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jayda Abello a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jayda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I’m so grateful to be able to do what I love for a living! There’s no better feeling than having your bills paid with money you earned by doing something that lights you up. Especially when it’s a craft that you’ve cultivated over many different phases of your life. I look back to when I first started, playing records for free drinks in dive bars, and I was such a different person then! I’ve grown and so has my craft. My DJ career began as an interest, then a fixation, then a goal, then a side hustle, and now it’s what I’m known for. What makes me an asset is the fact that only I can do what I do how I do it. Even as my skillset expands and my playlists evolve, my craft remains unique to me. Every person on the planet touches the world with their own unique fingerprint, causing a ripple effect that only they can start. I believe that success is sacred and that it’s imperative that people pursue careers that make use of their gifts, interests, and values. When I am intentionally living deeply rooted in my authenticity, I experience the most success. The more I pour into it, the more it gives back to me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Well, I love to do so many things, but most people probably know me as a DJ and vinyl collector!

My clients book me when they want a vibe that will set them apart from anything else going on that night. My DJ sets are often described as fun and eclectic and I’m really proud of that. Music is such an important part of the sensory experience, and I put a lot of care into my open format, genre jumping playlists. I love to bring people together with music that is both familiar and new; one minute, you’re nodding your head to a classic tune you know all the words to, then you’re learning the words to your new favorite song the next minute. That is the vibe I strive for.

I love records and have been building my collection since I was a teenager. I share photos, trivia, and stories about my records on my instagram page, @americansquirm, and I really enjoy connecting with other vinyl enthusiasts around the world. I recently hosted a couple livestream events on FROW, an online marketplace dedicated to vinyl, which introduced me to a whole new international audience which was so awesome! I also currently work in a record store, Daddy Kool Records, where I’m learning a lot about the behind the scenes/retail side of the industry and culture. I get to tap into my inner Rob Gordon and pretend I’m in High Fidelity, but I also do a lot of product ordering, social media, and marketing for the store.

This year has been a really fun one! My brand has been getting stronger, I feel like I’ve really found my community, and I’m doing so many things I used to dream about. Early on this year, I got to play at Dante’s Hifi in Miami for their monthly Ladies’ Night series, which was a goal of mine that I thought was years away in my future. I was invited by Car0zilla, an MC and DJ local to the Wynwood area, who I absolutely adore. I also hosted my second Record Store Day event, so I’m definitely proud of that. I’ve been DJing around the country over the past 10 years or so and up until recently, I have played strictly vinyl. I’ve expanded my sets into the digital realm in 2023 which has been so exciting–it feels great to learn (and, hopefully eventually, master) a new format. Also new to this year is my new monthly event, Thrift Shop, at Lost And Found in downtown St. Petersburg, FL. It’s a really fun daytime party that spotlights local vintage dealers, makers, and artists in a cute, 70’s themed atmosphere.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons that I’ve had to learn is to do less. It sounds simple, but it’s like untangling this huge mental knot. Modern society teaches us to cram as much as possible into each day so that we can go to bed satisfied, knowing we gave 110% percent to every task and every person we interacted with. But I’ve found that’s not really how it works and I take issue with this culture of routine self depletion–I find it just makes life harder than it should be and encourages arbitrary competition that keeps us from taking good care of ourselves and therefor each other. We’re conditioned under capitalism to do as much as possible, as often as possible, for as long as possible. Not only is that not sustainable, it’s absolutely not healthy or enjoyable. When I give cram my schedule with too many things to do, I feel overwhelmed and inevitably disappointed in myself when I can’t complete and excel at every single thing I set out to do. I believe life should be enjoyed and that when you are living an authentic expression of yourself, it is easy to enjoy life. We all have different energy types that ebb and flow and function in ways that are unique to us. When I learned about Human Design a few years ago, I discovered that I am a 5/1 Projector energy type and that I literally have significantly less energy each day than the average person does. I read that most people with my energy type greatly benefit from doing less–resting as much as possible, sitting in silence, even actually moving their bodies slower. I decided to give it a shot. I focused on creating multiple streams of income that wouldn’t require me to work every day, I started being really conscientious about which clients I would work with, started meditating daily, doing yoga instead of intense cardio, taking mid day naps, turning my phone off, going to bed early. Doing less changed my life. Because I was living in closer alignment to my Human Design strategy, everything felt better and things just kept falling even more into alignment. My DJ business is growing steadily every month and my day job became a side hustle. I feel so much happier and relaxed now. It’s money mindset too, that takes so much work for those of us who grew up with very little. When you’ve experienced poverty in your earliest memories, you develop a scarcity mindset and that can manifest itself in so many ways, making success or even stability feel impossible. Diving into my Human Design strategy, EFT tapping, and somatic healing all really helped me and are still helping me make progress on doing less and cultivating an abundance mindset which I believe is directly related to my success as an entrepreneur.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’ve always been an internet person, all the way back to the days of chatrooms, Makeoutclub, Livejournal and all that stuff. I’ve always maintained an internet presence and there are people from way way back in the day that I’m still connecting with online today. I mostly just post on Instagram now, and I would say most people there know me from the music scene in some capacity–either from shows, DJing, record collecting or whatever–and the rest know me because of an autobio comic that I used to do.

Authenticity is always my number one, so my advice for growing your audience is make an impression on people who genuinely love what you’re putting out there and who will actually ride for you. I still have a modest following and for me, it’s not about reaching 100K followers as fast as I can, I just want to follow and be followed by people who I actually think are cool. When I see somebody who’s doing cool shit or has a message I respect, I’m down for them right away. I follow, I like, I drop some comments, maybe I’ll send them a DM and say what’s up. I build a relationship and most of the time it turns into not just a new follower, but a new friend. It’s also important to zero in on what kind of account you are and then stick to posting things related to whatever that is. When you look at my page, it’s obvious that I am a DJ, record collector, and I like pink things. In a very simplified sense, that is my brand. Instagram works on an algorithm and it needs to know where to place you in that algorithm; it’s hard to for it to do that when your content is all over the place, so it helps to kind of fine tune what kind of content you’re going to post so that your overall message is clear. Another thing I’ve found to be crucial to growing your account is engaging with other accounts that are similar to yours. Over the past few years, I’ve been focusing on interacting with the vinyl community more, which is great because there’s always something interesting to talk about when it comes to records! I’ve also gotten to know a lot of really amazing women and femmes who DJ and that has been so rewarding. We’re always rooting for each other and putting each other on to all kinds of knowledge whether its business, music, astrology, whatever. It’s really awesome to feel like I’m in this worldwide friend group of bad ass people.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jayda-abello.com
• Instagram: @americansquirm

Image Credits
Michael Bostinto, Mia Evedith