Jordin Sparks On Early Success, Industry Changes & Key To Longevity | No Sleeping In The Trophy Room

On this episode of No Sleeping in the Trophy Room, a check-in with Jordan Sparks. Jordan is widely known as the youngest contestant to ever win American Idol. At 17 years old, her musical talent propelled her career into Grammy nominations, movie roles, and television screens across the world. Jordan Sparks exemplifies sticking to the script and honoring the gift. You see, it's one thing to get into the game, but it's a whole other thing to stay in it. And 14 years later, the multi-platinum singer-songwriter is ever-present and ready for more. Let's get into it. This is No Sleeping in the Trophy Room. What up, what up? My name is Los Antonio. Welcome back to No Sleeping in the Trophy Room, the conversation fueled by motivation, experience, and truth. And I'm extremely excited to be joined by my guest today. I am here with Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, actress, TV host, mother. I am here with the incredible Jordan Sparks. Hi. Jordan, what's going on? How are you? Nothing. I'm good. I'm glad to be here. Man, I'm so excited to have you here in the Trophy Room. Thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah, of course. I need this. Yeah, we need this. Yeah, I need it. So, Jordan, we are here in Miami, Florida at Miami Athletics. I brought my good friend Justin here to come bring us through an amazing workout. Justin, talk to us about this gym and the workout that we can expect to go through today. Man, so here at Athletics, we are an athletically-centric sports and wellness health facility. Man, we focus on the four E's. Education, experience, enjoyment, and overall, it's the engagement of the client. So, man, we're going to break a little sweat, have a little fun. You know, a little athletic side of things. In that order, man. Thank you so much for that. Of course. So, Jordan, are you ready to get to work? I was born ready. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go get it. Hey, look, we're about to get to work. You guys keep it locked right here. This is no sleeping in the Trophy Room. This is the best time. It's kind of become more of the environment. It's giving the atmosphere, get the mojo rolling. It's vibes up a little bit. I call this like the awakening period. I feel everything cracking, everything stretching. Oh, you're getting beat for that? Because I really like to—I'm one of those people, like, once I go, I go. You know, it's either all or nothing. So she really encouraged me. Her name is Massey, and she's incredible. And she really encouraged me to use a foam roller. Dana, my husband, does as well. He works out almost every single morning without fail. Yeah. And so the foam roller is his best friend, too. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we're winding down, watching a show with our little boy or something like that. The foam roller is a really easy thing to just pull out and use, you know, while you're kind of in a resting state as well. So, Jordan, I want to start where it all started for you. Yeah. Talk to me about coming up in Glendale, Arizona. What were some of the things that you learned growing up there? How did that influence impact your life? Man, growing up in Arizona was amazing. I'm not going to lie. It was beautiful. There's so much beauty in a desert landscape. You just have to take the time to look. Arizona is a very spiritual place, so I always felt like I could breathe there. You know, when I traveled, when I would be traveling around the world and it would be crazy, I would come back home, and I would look out the window and see it, and I just felt like I could breathe, which I really love. It still feels like that for me. I haven't lived there in about a decade, but I still – most of my family is there, and I love to go back and visit. But, yeah, I grew up in a place where it was a lot more about the outdoorsy elements than it was about creative elements. There wasn't a lot in terms of doing stuff for music and things like that. I did do community theater, which I loved. I had the best time, and I would do that, and then at school I would try and get into any type of musical program that I could. Choir, or I think I did another creative choir drama club. I was in all that type of stuff. But outside of school and maybe that one community theater, there really wasn't a lot there. So if ever there was a singing competition, or if ever there was somewhere there was a stage, I would find it, and that's where I would be. Right back down into it. Bang. Crawl back out. Boom. Upward facing dog. Point that chin to the sky. Push the hips up to the sky. Push the heels down. Crawl them toes up. Feel that good stretch in the hamstring, lower back, glutes. All that good stuff. Calves. Opens up the whole chain. Oh, yeah. Boom. You go down. You hit it. Raise back up. Lunge in. One after another. It's the opposite side. Beautiful. Lateral lunge. Lateral bend. Lunge in. Rotations. Good. Right hand goes down. Reach under that right armpit. Open up. Chest to the sky. You'll find some stuff that ain't working the right way today. Make sure you guys get a zoom in on the sweat. This is real work going on right here. Look at the slow drop. It's just the warm-up. See, proper warm-up though. If the blood ain't flowing, you ain't sweating a little bit, you ain't warmed up yet. We're doing a real warm-up right now. Good. Full rotation. Try to really rotate that chest to each wall. Punch and drive across. Good. Hand goes down. If you pull the knee through, step and kick. Right into the next one. Now the other knee up. Nice, easy float. There it goes. This is how I get out of bed in the morning. That's how I walk to the fridge. There it is. There's the big draft. I was waiting for it. So Jordan, I want to talk about how did you harness your talent, your voice, at such a young age? The world is our oyster at that age. There's many things that we could get into, but what gave you the belief to really pursue singing, to pursue your voice? To be honest, it's literally something I was born to do. I have to sing. It doesn't matter if I'm singing for a small group of people, if I'm on a stage with 10,000, 50,000. It could be something on TV. It could be just singing to my little boy. I have to. It's in my bones. So when I was younger, sometimes when you're younger, everybody is kind of like, oh, that was so great. You never really know. You never really quite know if they're saying it because you're actually good at it, or if they're just doing it because you're a kid. It was about, I think it was about seven, when I realized that, oh, they're not just saying this. My voice is actually good. I was still singing and doing all that stuff. I had the belief from them from the beginning. My dad knew. He was like, my girl's going to be a star. She's going to be somebody. My mom was just like, yeah, let's do it. Why not? They both really helped both my brother and I pursue whatever it is that we wanted to do. I think having that belief and then knowing just innately in myself too, I knew that my voice was special. It's a gift. I didn't do anything to get this. I haven't taken voice lessons. I just was born. I'm just a conduit for the creator to speak through me. I think I've definitely taken that with me. American Idol was like a boot camp. Anything after Idol is a cakewalk. I want to talk about that. Take me back to 07, to you trying out for Idol. What was your motivation? What was the mentality of you walking into that room? You got the judges at the table. Talk to me about that. What was on your mind? It's definitely a big process. When you see us walking into the audition room, there's a whole bunch of stuff that happens months prior to us even getting to that point. I think just pushing through and pushing forward. Initially, I wanted to audition because I was such a huge fan of the show. I was more excited to audition for American Idol than I was to get my driver's license. I turned 16. I was like, I can audition for the show. I drove out to LA. I was still living in Arizona at the time. I drove out to LA and got in line at 2 AM with everybody else. We were all singing all day, all morning. We get down there and a lot of people don't know this, but I was told no my first audition. I remember walking back because we all have these wristbands on and after you got told no, they would literally just cut the wristband off of you. There was no way you could sneak back in and do it again. I remember walking out and just seeing the age limit was 28 I think at the time. I just remember walking out and seeing people weeping. Maybe it was their last chance or they weren't expecting to hear what they heard. I just remember thinking I can come back next year. I was the youngest you could be at the time. I was like, I'm not going to stop singing. I went home. I did a localized version called Arizona Idol. I won that competition and that sent me to Seattle the same season. I got to audition again and that's where I made it in front of the judges and made it through. My thing is just all about perseverance and pushing through. If somebody says no, that doesn't necessarily mean that's the end. That's just not the door you're supposed to walk through. You know that if a door is closed, you've got a garage window, you've got a basement door, you've got an upstairs window, you've got a sliding door, a pocket door. Listen, there are so many different ways. Our journeys are not linear. They're just crazy. Justin, I think it's about that time to get back to work. We're about to get back to work. You guys keep it locked. This is No Sleeping in the Trophy Room. Rip those hips around. There you go. Good. Your golf swing. Raise up. Boom. Throw it down. Clam up. Throw it down. There you go. Raise up on your toes. Boom. Pull that chest up. This is your time to get a little bit of anger out of your body. This is what's going to make you a little mad this week. Good. That's the one. Beautiful. Beautiful. So Jordan, your debut album sold over two million copies. I want to know what are some of the pros and I'm not going to say cons, but what are some of the pros and learnings of having such success so early in your career? To be honest with you, I don't know how to answer that question. Only because Idol was such an unconventional way to come into the industry and there's no blueprint. There were five seasons before me and some of the winners did amazing. Some didn't quite reach a lot of heights. Some people who weren't winners reached greater heights. For me, looking at that, I was like, there's no blueprint. Anything could happen. I'm so grateful for the support that I had and continue to have. The industry has changed so many times since I got in. It's changed in so many ways. The way that we are able to interact with our fans. The way we can create our own content. The way we can really show things at our own pace and our own time. The way we want to as opposed to the other way around. They still have it that way but the label is choosing when and they've got their schedule and the whole thing, which is fine. It definitely works. I'm really grateful that I came into the industry when I did because right now you could have something today and tomorrow nobody is even worried or thinking about you. They forget because everything is so quick now. I'm just really grateful because I still have amazing fans. I still have people who want to know what I'm doing and are interested in hearing my voice still and wanting to hear me sing and know what my thoughts are on certain things. I'm really grateful to be able to have that because not everybody has that. Now, 15 years in the game, what are some advice that you would have for somebody who was in that position that you were once in 15 years later? What's some advice that you have? I think the biggest... I have a couple of pieces. I think the first thing that I would say before I would go into advice is, is this really what you want to do? You really have to want to do this to do it. It's a lot of sacrifice. It's a lot of hard work. People see the red carpets and they see the free stuff and they think that's what it is but that's just a small piece of what you have to do. You're sacrificing being at home for certain things, birthday parties. You have to cancel different things on a friend. You're on tour sometimes waking up and not knowing where you are. There's a lot of different things and it can get very lonely. It can get very lonely because it's a very fast-paced universe where only you are really feeling it. You have people around you but they don't know. I think that's why athletes and entertainers really have a love for each other because it's very similar. You're on a team but you still have to mentally be strong yourself in order to make the whole team work. There's a lot that goes into it. First I would say make sure this is really what you want because if you don't then you're going to be miserable and be in a life that you don't want to be in. My second thing if they say it's yes is be on time. Please respect other people's time. Be kind to everyone because you never know what people are going through, what battles they're going through. Maybe they even have a similar situation to you but the same people you see on the way up, same people you don't see. If you slip or there's a little even out time or the valley, at the peak you'll see the valley. I think those things are really important and also I know it's going to sound so cliche. Being yourself is really key. You really have to know who you are so that the outside influences don't make you question who you are and make you go into that spiral of am I good enough? Should I be here? Should I be doing these things? No. Know who you are. Stand firm in that because the world needs that. The world needs who you are. Man, I'm sorry. There's just a lot of things. Listen up. Jordan Sparks is dropping unlimited gems right here. Listen up. Free game. Free game right here. You heard it first, you said it best. Unlimited free game right here from Jordan Sparks. Right here on No Sleeping in the Trophy Room. We're about to get back to work. Keep it locked right here. Jordan, I want to just go right into the next segment that we have right here on No Sleeping in the Trophy Room. It's called Picture Me Rolling. What I did is I went through your Instagram. I selected some photos. You've been on there for a while. I'm trying to archive. I'm so sorry. Early adapter on the platform. I have some photos here. I would love for you to break them down. I'm going to start with this one right here to the left. It's going to pop up on the screen right here. Talk to me about this photo right here. That's me and my dad. I don't know how old I was there but little. I'm probably like nine months or something. That was him up at training camp. He was going to training camp for the Giants. Wait, no. Not the Giants. You might have been in college there. No. Hold on. I got to think. 89. Yes. This was ASU. Arizona State University. Go Sun Devils. My mom showed me this picture and this was a picture that she took of him. Actually, I don't know if it was a sports photographer or if it was her. She brought me up to training camp and that was just him cuddling me. We still make each other laugh and smile like that. My dad is amazing. He's the sweetest man in the world. He'll make you feel like you've known him forever. He's your best friend. Watching him actually really helped me for what I do now. He played football. We moved every year. Twice a year. I was always the new kid during the season. I lived in New Jersey. Ridgewood, Wyckoff, Roseland, Riverdale. Are you a Giants fan? I am a Giants fan. I have an allegiance to the Giants. I do. I'm a Cardinals fan because I was born and raised in Arizona. When they're not playing each other, it's all good. Super Bowl. I don't know. I need Arizona to win a Super Bowl. The Giants have some. I'm going to go right ahead into this next photo right here of you and the family. This photo is going to pop up on the screen right now. Talk to me about this photo right here. It's a lovely photo. It's so weird to even say this sentence, but this is where we basically introduced DJ to the world. It's so weird. This was a People Magazine shoot. It was Dana's first time really seeing a big photo shoot type thing. It had been a long time since I had been in one. Then we had DJ and I was a little bit nervous because there were a lot of people around and he was so small. We did the thing and look at him. He's just looking at the camera smiling. I just can't take it. I can't take it. He's exactly like that now. He has a big smile and he's got such personality, but this was a big deal. He was about a couple months old when we did this. He literally had his little socks on and was chilling, but it was a great day. The pictures, I will cherish them forever. Jordan, I'm going to go right ahead to this next photo. This last photo right here. Talk to me about this photo right here. My medal. I ran the LA Marathon in 2017. Oh, Lord. That was easy. It was not. The church I was going to at the time, the pastor was like, I'm going to run. We're going to go with the group. Okay, cool. That was in November. I was like, yeah, we're going to run. We're going to start training. We trained once. We ran around the lake one time and then just kind of forgot. Thursday before the marathon comes up and I go to the church and I see them. They're like, hey, are we going to see you on Sunday? I'm like, no. You're not. They're talking to me and they're just like, you can do this. Every single person is like, you can do this. And then I realized I was the only person telling myself that I couldn't. And I was like, no, no, that's not going to happen. No way is that going to happen. So I was like, I will see you there at 4 30. No training, no nothing. I woke up on Sunday morning, got my number and I made it happen and I did it. I did it. Just thinking back on it. I made it happen. You know what the legacy runners are, right? Legacy runners are 60, 70, 80 years old. And I was like, that's where I'll be. I was just like this. But I did it. We went from Dogger Stadium to Santa Monica. And I stopped maybe twice, once to tie my shoe and once at mile 21 to stretch my hamstring. Other than that, I kept moving. Seven hours and 45 minutes I crossed the finish line. They were tearing it down. I was screaming. I was like, don't you dare tear that down before I get across it because it was an eight hour limit. So I cross, I get my medal and I just start slowing down and my legs locked up. Somebody had to carry me to the car. It was crazy. There's a whole story that goes after it, but I'm so proud of myself for doing that. And now I know that I can do it. So maybe one day I might do it again. Right now, I'm like, I don't ever have to do it again. You can hang the medal up. It's beautiful. Exactly. I made a playlist and everything. It was like a trapped gospel playlist called Just Keep Running and I just had it on repeat and I kept going. I was like, this is cool. People out on the side supporting you. They have no idea who you are. It was a really cool moment. I think it's just a testament to what you said earlier just about you being able to do whatever it is you put your mind to. You did that and you did that. Thank you. I did that. I paid for it, but I did it. Listen, I would not recommend doing a marathon without training first, guys. So I did do it like that. Pro tip. Pro tip. Please train. Train yourself so you don't hurt yourself. Man, so look. We're going to finish up right here. No sleeping in the trophy room. You guys keep it locked. We got George Sparks with us. Here we go. 3, 2, 1. Let's go. Let's go. There we got left right here. Come on. Push it hard. Push it hard. Push it hard, baby. Good. That big squat. There you go. Yeah. Good. Good. Two. Use your legs. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Come on. Almost there. 10. Come on. 4. Come on. Push it hard. 3, 2, 1. Bang. That's work right there. That's work. That's work. There it is. That was perfect. Perfectly timed. For real. We're not going to wrap right now, but we're going to step outside and go get some air. And I'm going to ask you one last question. I'm going to ask you one last question outside, but thank you so much. This is amazing. How do you feel? I feel great. What? I feel awesome. I feel alive now. This is the perfect way to do an interview because endorphins. Endorphins make people happy. Your clarity. You feel good. Thank God. High energy. High frequency. High transparency. Right here on No Sleep in the Trophy Room with George Sparks. We're going to get right back with you in one second. Stay right there. So, Jordan, before you get out of here, how we like to close out these interviews is with your champion mantra. Is there a ritual, a saying, something that you do to remind yourself every day that there's no sleeping in the Trophy Room? To be honest, my thing that I have had to tell myself my entire career, I actually have it tatted on me, it is the prayer that I pray before I perform. It's really just breathe. Just breathe. I'm high off life. I'm a very highly energetic person. When somebody's like, okay, Jordan, five minutes, it feels like five hours. I'm standing there and I get, it's not so much nervous, I just get anxious to get on stage and I'm just ready to go. So I always have to tell myself to breathe and to calm myself down. I think for a lot of people, if we just took a breath, a lot of different things could be solved or taken care of in a different way if we just took that breath first. Definitely breathe in all situations and all circumstances. Make sure you breathe and give your body a second to just be. That's amazing. Can I borrow that? Just breathe. Just do it. Thank you so much for taking the time to step into the Trophy Room, share your journey, share your truth, share your motivation with us. We wish you nothing but the best and we can't wait to see what's next. Thank you so much. And anybody else who wants to do this, do it, because it's fun. All you celebrities watching this, come and do it. Get that workout on. Tell your story. Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Big shout out to my guy Justin and the good folks here at Miami Athletics. This is No Sleep in the Trophy Room. We will catch you next time. Peace. Yeah. Beautiful.