Sean "Big Sean" Anderson is sharing how meditation and the power of visualization have profoundly transformed his life and career to the extent that he now implements these practices into his daily routine with his son Noah Hasani Anderson.
The rapper-- who has been in the music industry for nearly two decades-- was discovered by Kanye West following a chance encounter when the emcee was interviewed at a local radio station in Detroit, Michigan, where Anderson is from.
After spitting a couple of bars for West, Anderson was ultimately signed to his G.O.O.D. Music record label. Since then, the 35-year-old has released five studio albums and sold millions of records worldwide.
In addition to professional success, Anderson has settled down with singer and longtime partner Jhené Aiko. The couple welcomed Noah on November 8, 2022. In a recent interview on Amanda Seale's Small Doses podcast, the "I Know" lyricist opened up about the way his mother, Myra Anderson, introduced him to meditation and visualization and why he follows similar practices with his son.
Big Sean On How His Mother Introduced Him To Meditation
In the July discussion, Anderson revealed that the topic of meditation and visualization came up when he was 11 years old after telling his mother that he wanted to pursue music as a career.
"My mom. I had an angel for a mama for real. She was the one that introduced me to meditation, and I decided that I wanted to rap," he said. "Back when I was 11-year-old, she was always telling me like 'you can do it. You got to understand like the universe is working with you.'"
Further, into the interview, the "Mercy" rapper disclosed that as he got older, Myra gave him a couple of books to read, including Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra and Ask and It Is Given by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks. Both self-help books delved deeper into meditation and visualization and how to use it as a spiritual practice.
"So then, when I turned 17, she gave me some books to read like Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra and Ask and It Is Given by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks. One of the main things was about meditation. She was like, just visualize it. Who do you visualize yourself on stage."
Following the lessons over the years, Anderson explained how it all paid off when he manifested being signed to Kanye West's G.O.O. D Music label.
"Being signed to Ye, that's what I wrote in my notebook in my goals," he said. "That was my first choice. Obviously, he didn't know who I was. I ain't know how I was going to meet him, but I just visualized it happened. That was my first example of really manifesting and realizing that God got my back."
Big Sean On The Meditation And Affirmation Practices He Does With His Son
As the subject shifted to fatherhood and some of the practices he implements into his daily routine with Noah, Anderson shared that because the pair have several hours alone together in the morning, he meditates with the infant and goes "over affirmations."
"So I like to meditate before, and I meditate with him too, like I hold him in my arms because he likes for me to hold him every morning," he stated. "Me and him have a couple hours every morning to just ourselves. I go over affirmations with him. I'm happy and fun. I'm brilliant. I'm grateful, all these things."
Anderson wrapped up his statement by gushing about his son and mentioning the lessons he's learned about fatherhood.
"We haven't posted him to the net or nothing you see he's something special... But he's happy, you know what I'm saying. He's just pure love," he stated. "So it's just like I don't really know how to be a good dad, I just know how to be there. That's all I'm going to do, I'm going to let him be who he is and nurture that. I ain't going to try to control him. I'm just going to let him discover the world."
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak