Meet Andrew St Juste

We had the good fortune of connecting with Andrew St Juste and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Andrew, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
I think risk is the essence of life. Too many people let the idea of failed consequences freeze them. I read a book that had a “worse case scenario” exercise in it. It went like this… Imagine the WORSE CASE SCENARIO. Everybody thinks about getting fired. You lose your car. You have to leave the city. You have to move in with a family member (or worse).

It doesn’t matter where the journey ends but spending time going through the scenario to the end you begin to realize the worst case can be avoided. You will live and be able to rebuild. The exercise helped me remove my identity from my job or financial situation And it stopped my brain from spinning out of control.

My entire career is based on risk. I was an engineering major I had a “good job” but it was toxic and didn’t fulfill me. After a toxic event, I left the company on faith and focused on what I wanted to do. Yes, I couldn’t turn up as much. My fun budget was non-existent but owning my time and doing creative endeavors that inspired me meant more. I moved to LA with a daughter with my only job prospect a week-long boot camp that paid $10/hr. WIth that pressure, it opens creativity and before long I found another opportunity and then another one and things began to happen.

If you are scared of risk, you are scared of reward.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
The only genius thing I did was not give up. I started my creative journey as a writer with a book on Amazon and a few finalist awards but when things didn’t progress I had to pivot. I used those no’s to teach myself cam op and producing and began creating on my terms. This changed things for me and opened up the opportunities that manifested.

Years later after producing 1 billion minutes of content and over 500M views and $1M in ad revenue generated for clients I’m recognized for my ability to produce. It worked out perfectly that I continued to write. Sometimes resilience is the way to break through and this November my play hits a stage in downtown LA. Won’t God Do it!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Man, I’m nervous you’re going to overpopulate my favorite places. I’m from the East Coast and Haitian so from that perspective.

Hiking by the beach is my go to. Blanking on a trail but it’s in Manhattan Beach.

Breakfast
– bage Boss in Burbank hits!

But my go-to spot for lunch:
– Fat Sal’s gives me the best sandwiches this side of the East Coast
– Otis has a banging crispy pork Pad Thai
– best K town Fired Chicken Gol Tong Chicken

My go-to spot for dinner:
– The Nice Guy
– (abeautifullife) Jamaican Kitchen

NightLife:
– The Dime
– 7 Grand
– The Continental

Late night eats
– Any taco truck that doesn’t speak English and has an el pastor with a pineapple on top!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
#ShoutOut to Dionna Scales, she was the HR rep at BuzzFeed who encouraged me to apply for an internship after the BootCamp was done. That internship led to a fellowship to a fulltime job and completely changed my job description permanently. That first opportunity opened up many doors in producing for live shows and music videos. WIthout that push who knows how my career would have went.

Also gotta shoutout the Alchemist, my favorite book that inspired me to dream and think bigger than where I was.

Instagram: @DrewDynamite04

Twitter: @DrewDynamite04