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Show business is hard enough for performers in one medium but being skilled enough to see success in two entertainment mediums is immensely harder. This is part of what makes 22-year-old musician, actor, and singer Trevor Jackson so rare. The Indiana-bred native is a multi-disciplinary artist with a starring role on the Freeform television show, "grown-ish", and garners hundreds of thousands of streams of his music monthly. This is an extremely hard feat for anyone never mind somebody in his age group.

After the release of his latest project Rough Drafts, Pt. 2, we had the chance to catch up with Trevor and talk to him about how he juggles all his interests and career, embracing failure, navigating social media, and his music. Read the full interview below.

Were there any polymaths that you looked up to when you were growing up?

Absolutely. Gregory Hines was the first. At three years old, I started tap dancing and he was the guy I looked up to. Growing up, I did Broadway for three years and it exposed me to professionally trained singers and dancers that could do multiple things at a very high level and it helped me become more aware of what was possible.

I moved to LA when I was 11 to audition for guest spots on different television shows and when I was 15, I got signed to Atlantic. During that process, I was doing what they told me to do and wearing what they told me to wear. I was basically a reincarnation of other R&B artists at the time and I realized that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to be me. Even when I wanted to write and record myself, they would just tell me no. I just figured if I'm gonna go down in flames, I might as well do it my way - so I left them. I went to Empire with Gazi and he told me that he's been wanting to work with me since I was at Atlantic and he recognized how creative I was and wanted to let me do my thing. Rough Draft Pt. 1 was the first project I wrote by myself and the rest is history.

How did you learn to not limit yourself creatively?

It goes back to being unhappy with the way that people were doing things. When other people were doing my videos, I would hate them and wanted them to look different so eventually, I decided to direct my own. When I started doing that, I started loving my videos because they actually reflect how I see the world and I feel like that's how it's gotta be. For me, I've just always liked doing everything - surfing, basketball, skateboarding, etc. I see new things as a challenge and doing them makes me feel like I'm living.

How do you navigate social media as a creative?

It's hard to do. If I could, I would never touch my phone. Sometimes I lose it on purpose just because I don't want to be around it. I feel like social media forces you to think a certain way and I hate that. It makes you feel like you're in the matrix. That's why I like to go surfing. I like being at the beach for nine hours with my own thoughts. So I try not to use my phone a lot. It's more for music and other creative stuff.

So you naturally enjoy the process of learning new things?

Yeah. I like to say that life is like a grocery store and whether you like someone or not you can always pull something from them. Your shopping cart is who you are and what you decide to learn, you put in your cart, and you leave everything else on the shelf.

How do you handle failures?

Like a gift. I've started to trust in God and in the process. I tell myself to sit back, do the work, and be good. I feel like that's all that's necessary for life. It's also about self-discovery. I feel like the more you know about yourself, the more you'll understand where to place yourself at all times. My faith in God and my family keeps me motivated to keep learning.

How do you balance everything?

Am I really balancing? (laughs) I feel like I'm rocking all around. Just knowing that the mission and the dream are more important than the discomfort and anguish that I feel at any moment has helped push me through.

What does success look like for you?

Happiness without dependency. That means you should be able to be happy without feeling like your blood is getting sucked out of you from something else. I also want to be a good father. Even though I don't have kids, I think that there is nothing more successful than raising a kid to be great and being a good dad.

Why is this so important to you?

I don't know, I think it's just because my family has been so monumental in my life and I've always had them to fall back on - so I want to be that for someone else.

Where did Rough Drafts as a concept come from?

It came from me failing at a lot of things. People assume that great things happen on the first try but they don't realize that all of these books, movies, and things that you love had about five rough drafts. Sometimes they have up to ten or twenty versions until they got it right. So instead of being sad or depressed, I had to embrace those moments of loss and being confused. It made me happy because it showed me the steps that I needed to take in order to get to the final and best version of something. With this album, people would always tell me that it wasn't the right way, but I'd tell them that it was right for me. It's my rough draft and I'm gonna do it the best way I know how. People should embrace the journey and stop being so attached to the fake images that they see. We're all rough drafts. We're not perfect and we never will be. No matter how old we get, we still won't know everything. We just have to keep figuring it out as we go along. It's okay to be a rough draft because it's a part of the process.

What is your advice for multi-hyphenated creatives just trying to make their way?

I would say just do it because you love it and not for any other reason. I feel like love is the only thing that gets you through all the hate and BS that comes with it. I always tell people that the only way to lose the game is to stop playing the game. Just focus on putting in work and being a good person.

Stay tuned for more from Trevor Jackson in the very near future!