Aydika James – Minisode

Aydika James is an entrepreneur, artist and innovator who combines her talents to innovate for social good. Founder of Secret Samurai Productions, Aydika combines art, play, psychology, technology and more to create mobile marketing vehicles – including some incredible “art cars” at Burning Man through to epic social impact works like the transformation of an old WW2 ship into a giant sculptural “Art Reef” eco-dive site in the British Virgin Islands. We talk about what to do when we feel blocked, experience self-doubt or hold ourselves to impossible standards.

Show Notes

Aydika James describes herself as part geek, glam and granola.

An artist, adventurer, ocean lover, neuroscience fan, and engagement art producer, she’s a founder of Secret Samurai Productions— a team of change-focused creative artists and engineers who leverage art and play to rally and unite the world’s best skills and talents around a common vision that changes the world.

In this episode, we get ‘serious’ about play, and also the roles we play as women leveraging our masculine and feminine energies to lead and inspire.

Along with her team with Secret Samurai Productions, Aydika is fascinated with how art and our human nature to play can be used to rally and unite the world’s best skills and talents… and how the right shared vision can change the world.

Aydika and her team fuse art, science, technology, music, psychology and collaborative play to create everything from mobile marketing vehicles – including some incredible “art cars” at Burning Man – to private works that express someone’s life story.

Her biggest project to date was accepting a challenge from Sir Richard Branson on Necker Island to turn an old WW2 ship into a giant sculptural “Art Reef” eco-dive site in the British Virgin Islands. It is serving as an ocean rehabilitation zone that stimulates the local economy as well as coral rejuvenation, and supports youth education.

What you’ll learn on this episode:

• What do to when you feel blocked or experience self-doubt
• How to recover from perfectionism
• How to infuse a culture of collaborative play into workplace culture to build motivated and successful teams
• How to leverage (and balance) our masculine and feminine energies for a confident, empowered and successful life
• How to combine the seemingly ‘uncombinable’ right and left brain skills, practices and talents to innovate at the cutting edge
• Evolved impact business models to achieve big social impacts

And much more!

Read the full transcript here:

186 The Art of Play in Entrepreneurship: Aydika James on Innovating for Social Good

More about Aydika here 

Aydika’s entrepreneurial journey started as a set monkey in her dad’s video production company back in the 80s (when VHS was hot) and led to a blackmail-worthy collection of after school films, from rude fairy tale spin-offs to rock ‘n roll infomercials, directed by young Aydika and cast by her unwitting neighbors and friends.

Inspired by her father’s entrepreneurialism but determined never to be a starving artist, Aydika chased the “create and direct” side of business, from her first venture as a “hippie hair wrap artist”, to launching an international wine export management company, to developing a SAAS tool for the soon-to-be disrupted retail clothing space (and surviving art school along the way)… …All of which taught her many lessons and left many bruises, and eventually after a period of burnout, looped her back to what she did from the beginning: Doodling, daydreaming, writing, herding teams, producing and directing crazy visions. And this is where the fun began again…this time with meaning.

Where to Find Aydika on Social Media:

• Personal: https://www.facebook.com/aydika.james
• BVI Art Reef: https://www.facebook.com/bviartreef/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/aydika-james-60042760/

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