Meet Jennie Mae Sedlacek of JéMaeSM, Fiercedreams and JackandJylleofallTrades

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennie Mae Sedlacek.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jennie Mae. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Born in Irving, Texas, I grew up a straight country girl. Step-Dad had a pickup truck, we listened to Tobe Keith and ate chicken ‘n’ dumplings I reckon just about every night for months at a time. I was taught the meaning of a dollar at an early age and learned that life isn’t always rainbows and butterflies. Most importantly, I learned that I could do anything I put my mind to. (Thank you Mom.)

According to my mother, at the ripe old age of three, I began to imitate commercials and wanted talk to EVERYONE. Miss Chatty Kathy as my mama would say, I always seemed to want to make people laugh and wouldn’t leave their side without seeing a smile on their faces.

I moved to Naples, Florida when I was six. This is where my childhood resistance to leaving people unamused morphed into a love of theater and all things creative. Never being able to stay still, I was performing in dinner theaters and busting out the Macarena any time I had the chance. It wasn’t long before I was coming into contact with actors from NYC who were booking shows at the local Naples Dinner Theater. I soon caught the Broadway bug and fell absolutely in love with the freedom of the Thespian lifestyle.

I continued my bohemian pursuits, diving into focus on becoming the so called “Triple Threat.” At the age of 12, I was signed to a local agency for commercial acting. Each year they would invite their best talent to a showcase in Los Angeles, California where they had a chance to be seen by agents, directors, and studio executives. I am Czeck and Mexican-American by heritage, and being different or interesting was considered a wise commodity for an agency to keep around. However, at that time in 2001, being ethnically diverse had not yet achieved its modern level of universal appeal. I decided that I wouldn’t let the lack of diversity in available roles or the threat of being type-cast detour me. So that year when I was chosen to join the group of budding stars bound for LA, I didn’t hesitate to start preparing. I thought, “Oh, this is it!” After the showcase, in a meeting with potential agents and managers, I was promptly informed that I would have to move there in order to be taken seriously in the industry.

This hit my twelve-year-old mind like the ten commandments. I looked at my mom with such desperate yet determined doe eyes and nodded my head YES as if to say, “When do we pack?” To which she preempted, “Well, you got a taste of what it would be like and that makes me happy. If you work hard and want it bad enough, you can do anything.” OUCH!! This postponement of the inevitable, in my childish judgement, represented a devastating lack of urgency on the part of my mom and was a discouraging setback. It wasn’t until later that I realized what she was really trying to teach me: Developing real-world self-sufficiency is critical for the avoidance of enslavement to windfalls and to living by the seat of your pants. That core philosophy turned out to be the one most valuable in the maintenance of my sanity and integrity throughout my life.

At seventeen, my father would end up at the center of my most earth-shattering life event to date. He overdosed and passed away, two weeks before I was set to begin what I ironically believed would be the most monumental character-building shift of my life; my departure to Hofstra University in New York City to my chase my dreams. Apologies that such an intense reveal is the first mention of my dad so far in this piece. It even felt strange to write it this way. But if I’m going to be real with myself, the only way is to take you through it as I experienced it, which has often been in the form of hindsight realization.

Picture Jim Carrey in Liar Liar with a dripping coat of Ace Ventura – That’s my dad. The life of every party and never hesitant to place himself at the butt of any joke worth a good laugh. But as Robin Williams once said, “To find the greatest jokes, you have to flip over all the rocks – And when you do that, you’re gonna find everything. All the slimiest, most awful things too.” I feel like that describes my dad’s fundamental struggle with the world and his place in it pretty well. That said, the depth of his passionate love for fun will forever be intricately woven into the tapestry of my story. In retrospect, my dad took that philosophy to an unhealthy extreme. His lifelong battle with the endless playground which sadly would one day take his life was a complicated thing for me to unpack. His battle with himself, more so still. While loving someone so dynamic can sometimes be very painful, the purity of his joy in the playground he made of life showed me that you never really have to grow up.

In fact, all three of my parental influences were keen to demonstrate that a life without childlike wonder and playful spontaneity isn’t one worth living. I am infinitely grateful for the abundance of laughter, dancing, singing and full-on goof-offs that filled all the homes of my childhood.

So there I was in New York. Having just lost my father and not yet knowing anyone, the coldness of “The Lonely City” began to feel paralyzing. That said, I had a deep internal sense that I had already arrived at the place where my journey was truly to begin. In a sense, I knew I would be required to fake it till I made it, and sometimes I felt like I was running on nothing but raw determination and phone calls to mom. Thank God for her.

Like so many aspiring, college-bound entertainers I was strongly “warned” by my friends and family to make my primary academic pursuits business-related and to make my performance studies an extracurricular engagement. Instead of taking that advice personally or seeing it as a reflection of my talent and my chances of success, I tried to find a way to do both. I became convinced that many artists are too dependent on industry specialists to brand and market their talents. As such, I hoped/figured a degree in Marketing with a Public Relations emphasis would be an effective way to have this fabled “back-up plan” while simultaneously learning how to provide many of those services for myself.

I grew up with a beautiful richness that few have the privilege to know, but it wasn’t the kind that could afford to pay the four-year, out-of-state tuition tab at a private university. Again, my afterburners of perseverance had to be kicked on: Mamma and sheer force of will. She was willing to co-sign the loans I needed, and I was off to the races. Again, thank God for her.

Even with her support, it was no picnic. I had to uncover the spinal fortitude to work my way through full-time semesters at full-time employment while somehow finding the time to become a so-called entertainment “Triple Threat.” I set about the task immediately and with my usual childish enthusiasm, but this time with a newfound gritty, adult persistence. I began by taking 18 credits, working doubles in restaurants or bars, and doing a marketing internship.

While I was on my educational pupil grind, I was also continuing my creative hustle or shall I say my FIERCEDREAMS? Yes! This is my life motto. The phrase just came to me while trying to describe the intensity of my aspiration and passion for life to a roommate.

I joined the Imani hip hop dance team at Hofstra and took classes at Broadway Dance Center, which I was able to afford by participating in their work-study program. I started private vocal coaching with Stephen Horst, who made his performance debut in a Broadway production of “The Phantom of the Opera.” Diving into the world of cattle calls and rejection, I couldn’t believe I was actually putting my dreams to the test. I was working my pretty little booty off. Amidst this beautiful trudge, for the first time in my life I sustained a serious physical injury. Performing on stage one night, the sweat left behind by a carelessly placed drink caused me to slip and tear my ACL. While this didn’t end my dancing career on the spot, it did hinder my performance enough to inspire a strong gravitation back toward my love of acting.

At this point of my life, I was working seven days a week to support myself and my “triple threat” momentum. It became almost unmanageable. I stretched myself so thin I was unhappy everywhere. Unhappy at work, at home, with friends; even when I was acting, dancing and singing. I found myself burning out. I honestly don’t remember who told me this, but I was advised that I had been mishandling my situation and that if I was going to really make it, I needed to focus solely on one aspect and truly master it. So, having grinded hard enough over the preceding five years to fund an entire year off in pursuit of an acting career in cinema, I made a deal with myself: I vowed that if I booked a “real” acting job within that year, it was meant to be and the next logical step was the journey to Los Angeles. But if I didn’t, I would seriously consider it a sign to reroute my life and choose a more “conventional” or “realistic” path. This is when my rigorous training at The Acting Studio began. I dove into the study of Meisner, which transformed my idea of acting – it made things become real. “Living life truthfully under imaginary circumstances” just felt so right.

A few months into training, I began booking multiple shorts films, music videos, commercials and was a segment introducer on a National Television station. It wasn’t until the six months mark that I booked an Independent Horror film. This would prove to be the most pivotal moment for my career. The vow I made to myself had come true. However, during these years of “grind-ation” my knees continued to deteriorate, resulting in the need for another two ACL surgeries (one on each knee) accompanied by the corresponding operations to repair both torn meniscuses. Each surgery would have been around $50,000 without insurance. Being 25, now broke from the year I’d taken off work to study, and entering the last year in which I would qualify to be on my mother’s insurance – I had two choices. I could A. Make a gamble on my knee to keep pursuing my acting career and mitigate the temporary threat to my momentum, or B. Move back to Florida with my mom and step-dad to get my surgery, potentially taking a full 18 months to recover. I wanted to choose “A” so bad, but my doctor said that if I didn’t have the surgeries, it would most likely have a major effect on my immediate future. But the real influencer that changed my mind was, you guessed it, good ol’ Mama. I was bugging, per usual, thinking and feeling like this decision would make or break me. She calmly reminded me that, “LA will always be there Jennie.” So in 2015, I decided to take a hiatus.

Begrudgingly, I moved from New York City – the concrete jungle – if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere – Back home to Naples, FL. Despite knowing that what I had achieved over the last decade was deeply significant, being back and having to live at home was kind of mind-fucking. Nothing has really changed there but you have, ya know? Having to rely solely on my mom was also very hard to wrap my head around, and I had a lot of mixed feeling around the added pressure on her. The back-to-back surgeries and subsequent 6-moth recovery periods sent me in and out of pretty grave depressive cycles during that time. It was really hard to “keep my eye on the prize” without feeling like life was passing me by. Social media was an ironically alienating influence, as I watched my peers go on to book jobs on Blue Bloods, Walking Dead, OITNB, Luke Cage, and the like. I was floored by seeing them book job after job. It somehow kept me alive while simultaneously eating me alive. Despite the discomfort, I’m very grateful for that time looking back. It was a chance to rekindle past relationships with friends and brought me even closer to my mother as an adult. It also afforded me a chance to strengthen the already tight bond with my little cousin Sammy before she was tragically taken in a car accident while driving to school for the first time on her sixteenth birthday. My desire to honor her memory and lost potential, as well as the memory of my father, ended up fueling my determination when it felt as though nothing else could.

But alas, after physically healing and beginning to emotionally regroup, the quest for the west was near. Los Angeles here I come! I moved to LA in June 2017 and set out on my next chapter – Making my fiercedreams a reality. The first thing I did was write out all the trials and errors I had either failed or succeeded to overcome in New York City. I focused hard on what worked and what didn’t. I set boundaries and goals, challenging myself and holding myself accountable. By April of 2018, I became SAG-AFTRA. On June 7th 2019, I was flown out for my first premiere in Las Vegas at the Days of the Dead Horror Film Festival for the Indie horror film Theresa and Allison, Which you can now watch on Amazon Prime. https://www.amazon.com/Theresa-Allison-Arielle-Hope/dp/B07Z5DKFT3. FACT: my twelve-year-old self is dying right now.

Then, the strangest feeling began to settle in. While my acting career is not yet where I ultimately envision it, the closer I get to what I thought was the most important thing to me, the Tripple Threat dream, the more other things have started to rise in importance to meet it. I had believed performance was the only thing that could ever give me this feeling, this natural high on life I’ve been chasing. If you don’t live with passion, why live at all right?

As fortuitously as ever, the universe chose this moment of dissonance between my lifelong “dream” and “something more” to deliver the person into my life who could help me see the falsehood of such a dichotomy. Almost too perfectly, I met the love of my life in acting class. Though unlike me, he did not end up there by way of lifelong dreams. He in fact proved to have a philosophy of wariness regarding long-term dreams. His remarkable intellect, memory, and diversity of interest has given him a uniquely “Slumdog Millionaire” form of brilliance and deep respect for the worthiness of pursuits which appear in one’s periphery. He was enthusiastic in showing me that the dissonance I had been experiencing was not limitation, but fuel – That my lifelong gravitation toward micro-ambition was not aimless but had in fact given me a scope of aptitude and ambition comparable, yet beautifully complementary, to his own. When COVID hit, the industry changed drastically and suddenly, leaving me with plenty of time to reflect upon the true potential breadth of what the “Fiercedreams” philosophy could become in our new, shared life.

I have always been a strong advocate of CBD products for healing and relaxation. Years of added post-surgical strain on my knees along with the carpal tunnel I owe to years of bartending have been more than enough to prompt a thorough investigation of my own. I have found nothing else that provides comparable relief, but always wanted a little something more from the products I could readily purchase. When professing this difficulty to my partner, Dillon, he (as usual) explained a series of odd life events which had provided him with some level of expertise about how I could make my own.

And so our joint business ventures were born. With Jack and Jylle of All Trades being the umbrella under which we have begun to manage our desperate pursuits, and JéMaeSM being the brand through which we offer the CBD products I make and love for myself. This venture is in its infancy to be sure, but it has already sparked a new-found enthusiasm for the passionate dedication to short-term goals. As Tim Minchin said in his commencement address at UWA, “Your next worthy pursuit is likely to be the shiny thing in the corner of your eye.” Truer words have rarely been spoken.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Three ways in which to keep your FIERCEDREAMS on track>>>

1. THE FEAR OF FOMO:
– I think for me, the biggest struggle along the way is to really take what everyone says with a grain of salt. The most important thing is to develop a true sense of focus, with zero percent of ‘FOMO’ or as the kids say, “the fear of missing out.’ Since I was young, people have told me all along the way the most bizarre things. I’ve been told about their dreams, passions, and desires, I see that little twinkle or glimmer of hope while they’re explaining it to me slowly dwindle down back into the reality of what not chasing that feeling is. In fact, resulting in all the reasons for why having my ‘FIERCEDREAMS’ is a hobbie and to be careful i.e., have a backup plan!

2. COMPARE; DON’T CARE:
– Another crucial thing to remember is to not compare yourself. With the social media era, everything seems to be keeping up with the Jones’s times a million. We all have something to offer. No one person is the same. We all see the world through our own lenses. There are nearly eight billon people on this plane they want to see their truth through your eyes, so being perfectly imperfect is beautiful and actually what people relate to.

3. JOURNEY IS THE DESTINATION:
– And last but not least. The pivotal development of one’s fulfillment. Chasing gets dreary, you can totally get burnt out. I found myself falling into a thought defined by an obsession with the idea that “once I book this job then ill be happy.” FALSE (at least in my experience) Geez, I became thirstier and thirstier until I STOPPED and realized that the journey toooooooo my FIERCEDREAMS is what I am proud of, finding meaning in the pursuit itself. I needed to step back and realize that every experience in my life is one that can be used to make me better and truly fulfilled.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Technically, I have a few brands. I myself am an actor, JéMaeSM, and Jack and Jylle of all Trades.

JéMaeSM has a variety of CBD products, Massage oil candles and our Pain sticks are what we are most proud of. I have always been a strong advocate of CBD products for healing and relaxation. Years of added post-surgical strain on my knees along with the carpal tunnel I owe to years of bartending have been more than enough to prompt a thorough investigation of my own. I have found nothing else that provides comparable relief, but always wanted a little something more from the products I could readily purchase. When professing this difficulty to my partner, Dillon, he (as usual) explained a series of odd life events which had provided him with some level of expertise about how I could make my own.

Cannabidiol (CBD) oil is derived from the cannabis plant. It has many therapeutic benefits and may help ease the symptoms of conditions such as anxiety, epilepsy, and cancer. Many CBD products only contain trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), so they won’t make you feel high. THC is the main psychoactive cannabinoid in cannabis.

The human body contains a specialized system called the endocannabinoid systems, which is involved in regulating a variety of functions including sleep, appetite, pain and immune system response. The body produces endocannabinoids, which are neurotransmitters that bind to cannabinoid receptors in your nervous system. Studies have shown that CBD may help reduce chronic pain by impacting endocannabinoid receptor activity, reducing inflammation and interacting with neurotransmitters. For example, one study in rats found that CBD injections reduced pain response to surgical incision, while another rat study found that oral CBD treatment significantly reduced sciatic nerve pain and inflammation. Several human studies have found that a combination of CBD and THC is effective in treating pain related to multiple sclerosis and arthritis. Anxiety and depression are common mental health disorders that can have devastating impacts on health and well-being.

According to the World Health Organization, depression is the single largest contributor to disability worldwide, while anxiety disorders are ranked sixth. Anxiety and depression are usually treated with pharmaceutical drugs, which can cause a number of side effects including drowsiness, agitation, insomnia, sexual dysfunction and headache. What’s more, medications like benzodiazepines can be addictive and may lead to substance abuse. CBD oil has shown promise as a treatment for both depression and anxiety, leading many who live with these disorders to become interested in this natural approach. CBD oil has even been used to safely treat insomnia and anxiety in children with post-traumatic stress disorder.

These qualities are linked to CBD’s ability to act on the brain’s receptors for serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood and social behavior. CBD may help reduce symptoms related to cancer and side effects related to cancer treatment, like nausea, vomiting and pain. Researchers believe that CBD’s ability to act on the endocannabinoid system and other brain signaling systems may provide benefits for those with neurological disorders. In fact, one of the most studied uses for CBD is in treating neurological disorders like epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. Though research in this area is still relatively new, several studies have shown promising results. High blood pressure is linked to higher risks of a number of health conditions, including stroke, heart attack and metabolic syndrome. Studies indicate that CBD may be able to help with high blood pressure.

Fiercedreams is not only a philosophy but also myself as a brand. If I were to put myself into words, I would describe my character type as such. I am that dedicated brunette with an infectious smile. I am the female lead with a menacing, tenacious twist. My soothing, sexy voice entices all those who come across it. Posing with my innocence and poise, I am undetectable.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Believe in yourself!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jenniemaesedlacek.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @FIERCEDREAMS @JeMaeSM @JackandJylleofalltrades
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7003696/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Image Credit:
Michael Levy, Nogen Beck, and William Siliezar.

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