Meet Sean Grand

We were lucky to catch up with Sean Grand recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sean, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I believe that finding purpose is an ongoing journey throughout our lives. The curiosity I’ve had towards my purpose has been alive since I was a teenager more or less. I’ve always wondered why we exist. For many years, life’s miracle was very confusing to me, and, while I grew up Christian, eventually I fell away from God for a period of time because I wasn’t sure if a higher power existed. Without faith in the present & future, all we have is our past.

I always had a passion for music & apparel. I focused hard on school. I got accepted to art school for fashion design, but decided to study business. I paid my way through college and my master’s degree (& am still paying). I did three internships to get as much experience as I could in different areas of business before I went into the corporate world. Landing a good job during the recession was challenging. It took months, but thankfully the Universe blessed me.

I worked hard for a conglomerate for 7 years. I learned a lot about international business, sales & marketing. I studied how strategy worked at many levels of the organization. But, I became very frustrated. Having always been very ambitious, I lacked patience. I wanted more — immediately. That’s not how life works most of the time.

While I’m appreciative of the experiences I had and the people I met, I remember looking at my life and its trajectory thinking: is this going to be it? I became certain that there was something more for me that’s more aligned with my interests & passions. I remember when a teacher had told me that happiness could not be achieved by making a lot of money, but I didn’t believe her. Suddenly, I knew she was right because I definitely wasn’t.

I was maybe 5 years into my 7 year corporate career when I decided I was going to start my own companies and move to Los Angeles. I had no idea what I was in for, but that didn’t scare me. I was excited. As much as I had a plan in my mind, I had no business plans written down on paper, but was well on the way to developing the new brands. I figured that everything would fall into place — and, in the greater sense, it has — but not knowing much about two industries (music & fashion at the time) meant that I had to learn everything from the ground up which took a lot of time & resource.

Discovering my purpose drove me to make that decision. Purpose is the crux of human experience, underpinning our pursuit of happiness, motivation, and connection to the world around us. Without it, we’re just running in circles. I didn’t know what my purpose was exactly, but I felt that, if I applied what I knew in business to helping creatives become more successful, I would be in a more interesting space where I would feel more connected to what I do. The rest, I would figure out.

Almost six years later, through some of the most challenging years of my life, I’ve discovered more about who I am than I could have imagined. While I’m still exploring my purpose, I’m clear that it has to do with inspiring others to live boldly, being a trusted confidante in many different circles & helping communities unite. I look at purpose throughout our lives in layers. I will reach new layers at different points in my life. I can’t see all the layers clearly yet. I won’t know until I get there. For now, I’m here and the purpose I feel every day is to inspire others to be the best versions of themselves.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Along my journey, with the help of many, I founded three companies. Two of them are active today. I’m the CEO of adjacent.la, a multi-genre talent management company, and alivemedia.la, a digital media agency that specializes in organic growth for creatives & brands.

adjacent.la was founded in 2019 back when I first moved to LA in an old RV with my first two clients: Jan Tolu & LeChris Williams. We built a professional recording studio from the ground up in Downtown Los Angeles along with a few others in the industry that they knew. Running the studio is how I found my third client, Averi. He helped a lot too. The relationships I formed through the studio led me to expand my roster to 7 at one point, which was too much for where I am now in my career. I decided on having less clients in order to focus on delivering more results for each. The Universe made that happen in different ways.

Pretty much from the start, adjacent.la was also a marketing agency offering promotional services. In mid-2023, I met Gio Dekano who had also run a digital media agency since 2019 and we decided to partner in early-2024. In that time, I had closed adjacent.la’s recording studio and was now moving the agency side into his company of which I am now a partner: alivemedia.la (@alivemedia.la). adjacent.la would house my management company for the first time. Everything was making more & more sense. Time & continued hard work will do that. You’ve got to persevere through the many challenges to get there.

We just reincorporated the agency as alivemedia.la after completing a full rebrand. I couldn’t be happier & more proud of the progress we’ve made together, and am so excited to see where it takes us in the future. As for adjacent.la, that’s my baby, so rest assured there’s a lot more to come there, too.

“It’s a marathon not a sprint. Build it a brick at a time.” — Nipsey Hussle

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. Stay in action: be curious. Don’t wait for the answers. Go find them. Do the research. Roll your sleeves up. There’s no time to waste. Go for it.

2. Don’t take “No” for an answer: Don’t let what others believe is possible define what is possible for you. Similarly, when a door closes or gets closed on you, understand that that’s just an opportunity for another to be opened as long as you continue on your path. Stay in action.

3. Look beyond problems to find solutions: if you’re problem oriented like I was, you’ll block your growth. Instead, look for solutions to problems and your results will improve dramatically in many areas of your life, personally & professionally. I continue to work on this every day.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Always. Here’s what I’m looking for:

INTERNS: reliable, hungryyy, organized & passionate about learning. I have openings in content marketing & brand partnerships (adjacent.la) and sales & marketing (alivemedia.la). If you want to find out more, email [email protected] or [email protected] along with your resume.

PARTNERS: for adjacent.la, I’m looking for reliable content partners who deliver great work consistently & on-time that are building their brands and want to be part of our journey. For alivemedia.la, we’re looking for agencies, managers & record labels who are interested in partnering with us. If either of those sound like you, email us at [email protected] or [email protected], respectively.

STUDIOS: I’m interested in connecting with studios in different parts of LA that I can send my clients to when they need a space to work. If you are inspired by our story and would like to connect, please email [email protected].

Contact Info:

• Website: https://adjacent.la https://bio.alivemedia.la
• Instagram: @seangrandforever @adjacent.la @alivemedia.la
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seangrand

Image Credits

@seangrandforever (no other credits available)