Mental Health Awareness Month: jump.global's Nick Maiale on Making the Music Business 'More Human'

For Mental Health Awareness Month this can Advertising sign works with Brandon Holman of the Lazuli Collective in a series of articles focused on mindfulness and professional development for executives, creatives and artists in the music community.

Today's chat is with Nick Maiale, founder/CEO of jump.global, a community-first marketing agency specializing in working with music business executives and music labels. Last November, the company launched its first summit, which prioritizes professional and personal growth, and will return to Los Angeles later this year (November 17-20). Throughout the year, jump.global hosts various “No Ego” events in major cities, which are open to everyone (translation: no guest list) and focus on interpersonal connections through networking. Maiale previously spent a decade at the Music Business Association and the Music Biz Conference and is now driven to “make the music business more human.”

I think before the pandemic, my whole life revolved around work. Very rarely would I think about my growth. It was always like, “How can we grow the company? How can we influence the bottom line?' And I quickly watched the pandemic of them losing jobs or losing their sense of self. And that was very disappointing. I saw this for my friends, but I also saw it for myself. I realized that I worked for a company for 10 years and never did anything to develop my skills and my life except maybe sell sponsorships. So I think that was the number one thing I noticed coming out of the pandemic. And I would say the one good part of it is that it was a bit of an awakening.

My mom is a social worker. And I often heard her on the phone talking about very human things…things that we don't often talk about in the music industry. We go to conferences to learn about streaming, distribution, artificial intelligence. I love all of that, but when was the last time you heard of someone going to a conference to learn about themselves and how to improve themselves in the areas of leadership, effective communication, financial well-being, mental well-being -being? I wanted to create this environment where executives, not artists, could be considered human and talk about things like addiction or parenting. It was a bit cheesy though [the conference tagline was], “Make the music business more human.” At the end of the day, it resonated with the world.

I'm really proud of what we've created, but at the end of the day, my job is to let thousands of people into my life every week, which is really, really scary. It's a beautiful thing, but what I learned was [I] we need to figure out how [to] you do things for people in a really structured way. I have calls with people all the time [so I now] post about my calls on LinkedIn, tag a few people and say, “This person is your person now.” I gave that responsibility to my audience or other people so that I wouldn't have to feel that burden or that responsibility. And this little thing helped my life dramatically. It just became very difficult to be that person who does everything for everyone. My mind was so overwhelmed with all this information that it started to shut down. My body started to shut down. And I said, “What am I going to do? I built a business based on connecting people. And now this is the thing that's killing me.” So I teamed up with a health coach to fix it. I still want to build community, but now I do it in a much healthier way.

I started working professionally at 19. Now I'm 32. And I started my company almost four years ago. I spent 10 years doing things and connecting people and going to every event. And yes, part of me loved it and part of me didn't. I had to look back and go, “Where am I now?” I realize I'm building a business. I'm building an agency. None of this makes me money. The reason I wanted to do that was because people in the music business don't often get those opportunities to think for themselves. They often think about the business. So I wanted to redefine what it means to be a communications agency. We focus on thought leadership who speaks at conferences. communities and commercial work, so if you want to get involved with the Recording Academy. academics, we won't work with a client if they don't want to inspire the next generation, if they don't want to speak in schools. and international representative programs, helping executives speak abroad.

I have so many clients who are going to be on their first panel and they're so nervous because they're like, “I don't know what to say,” or “Am I going to be as cool as some? from these other participants that you know have been doing this for years?' We talk them through it. We watch them on the panel. They kill it. Gems fly. This happens to me every day for my clients. We had a few other cases where, for example, one of our customers was going to talk to Iceland Airwaves. Normally they would just go, do their panel and leave. But we convinced them to extend their trip and they got to see the Northern Lights and that was always personal [dream]. It's little things.

Four years ago I was in a strange place. I really never thought I would be where we are today… We often do things to fill other people's pockets, which is fine, I understand that, but I really feel satisfied with what I'm doing right now. And I don't know if I'd be in the music business if I wasn't doing what I'm doing right now. At the end of the day, the biggest thing I care about is that I want people to learn — and jump.global will ultimately be that — but I want us to be the professional and personal development company for the music business. I am a very careful businessman. I am not in a hurry. I don't work until 3 in the morning. I just say, “We can do that, but we still go out and have dinner with our families.”

[I want to see] more people focusing on their first and last name business. If we're going to have professional development, all your clients know best, all artists know best. [We need] More companies investing in personal capital and more conversations around this type of wellness. Meditation is just as important as putting yourself in an environment where you can speak clearly and be spoken to clearly.