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43 There’s no turning back now, and this fearless foursome is set to keep chasing that calling. Jake wants to keep doing what he’s doing and build on his foundation at CJ Entertainment. He has accepted his role as an English-language representative of Korean mu- sic, and one of his aims is to show the best of Korea to the world through every medium possible. “I kind of like having that responsibility, and so I’d like to not let people down with regards to showing a good side of Korea through my eyes.” Jesse is taking every day as it comes. “There is no sta- ble gig. I work show by show, season by season,” he says. This year is seeing him in Vegas, Barcelona, Berlin, Italy and wherever LG sends him to promote its latest innovations. He adds that he’s finally comfortable enough to be able to save away some money, and now he just has to be careful about not sitting back. “I’ll be content in my career when I can appear on TV regularly, similar to Sam Hammington and Robert Holley.” Bronwyn, already a mainstay on Korean morning TV, hopes one day to have her own show in Korean, where she can pick her own topics and ensure balance and accuracy. “(I want) to be able to lead the conversations and be able to de- bate about stuff without having someone to pull the foreign card on me or the female card on me,” she says. “I’m hoping in the next two years, but nobody knows. So, my goal would be 2015. I still have a way to go, but we’ll see.” Pinnacle is already taking on the world, forging connec- tions in the U.S., Germany, Guam, the Philippines, Italy and wherever else he can throw the line. In the next five years, he hopes to establish Planet Hustle well enough to be able to sign other artists and help them to achieve their goals, and gain enough stability to start a family. But for a man whose life’s mission is fighting com- placency, when will TheHustler finally be satisfied with what he’s achieved? “My end goal is just to maintain happiness,” he says. “I’m happy where I am, but I feel I have more things to do. Once I get to that point, to where I have a successful business, I have enough time for family and I can use my art to move forward, that’s pretty much all I need.” That’s it? “Yeah, that’s it.” Introducing groovecast Groove Korea is launching GrooveCast, a podcast hosted by Chance Dorland. In the first episode, Chance and Groove’s music and arts editor Emilee Jennings sit down for a chat with Pinnacle TheHustler and Jake Pains. Check it out at groovekorea.com. The calling says. “When I meet with other Koreans … I talk to them appropriately, I say the things I’m supposed to say in Korean, I bow to them as I’m supposed to, I have respect for their culture and they appreciate that.” “You have to think like a Korean,” Bronwyn adds. “You have to accept that you have to work 20 hours a day and that what the production designer says, goes. Accept, at least in the beginning, that you’re gonna have to make extreme sac- rifices.” There’s no 9-to-5 schedule or vacations when you feel like it, and she was tired, stressed and high-strung for a good five or six years before she could relax enough to have a life. “If you want to make it in the Korean entertainment industry, basically you have to put parts of your life on hold until you have established yourself.” Establishing yourself is easier said than done. It’s a catch-22, Jake notes, that you can’t really land jobs until you’ve had experience and proven yourself, but the only way to do that is to land a job. So he advises doing as much as you can on your own to get yourself noticed. Though he was known in Korea’s music circles for a while, Jake’s TV break came after someone at CJ discovered a silly YouTube video he did for fun on the streets of Itaewon (check out “Trade Up Chopsticks” with comedian Albert Escobedo). “If you want to work in entertainment, you gotta get your- self out there, you’ve got to be known. No one really trusts you just from a picture and a video,” he says. “Put yourself out there, make lots of videos and get yourself around. Try and be performing. Show that you’re confident.” A quality that Bronwyn finds vital is the strength to endure it all. You can’t go into the entertainment industry unless you have a very thick skin and you can look into the mirror and know who you are, she says. You’re going to be hurt and brought down, but you need a supportive group of peers and the confidence that you can move forward. “There are days I have to go to work and smile and do my job, but when I come home I cry or just vomit from the stress. Then, as a few years go by, every time you do well or every time there’s a good news story about you, or every time you earn a paycheck and it’s a lot more than you earned the year before, you kind of feel good about yourself and it encourag- es you to keep going,” she says. “People say, if you love something and you have enough passion about it, it kind of works (out). You don’t do some- thing for the money or the fame. You do it because you feel like it’s your calling and you love it.”