FRIENDS OF D.UH OUTDOORS #002: JAYDEN ONG

A WARM HUG.
A steamy cuppa tea on a rainy day.
A twinkle in the midnight sky.

If you’re lucky enough to have met this free-spirited polymath, you’d know that Jayden is a gentle force to be reckoned with. She epitomises the term “expression session”. Mixologist. Farmer. Bio Tech guru. Plant lover. The list goes on rather exuberantly.

Be it hiking up unpredictable trails, dancing through the rain, or strolling down Kallang river, she’s got an infectious love for life that has seen her navigate through a career concocting flavours that tickles tastebuds to waste-infused soil recipes that are better for your plants.

The wonder in which she views the world, the openness to the many paths life has to offer, and the groundedness she exudes makes her such a curious personality.

I am honoured to have spoken to Jayden (and long-time friend), about her atypical journey and learnings as she went about her day-to-day at Soil Social.

Enjoy!

HI JAY! please tell us about yourself!

First and foremost, I aspire to be a fun polymath! There are a lot of things that are very interesting in this life. Interesting people. Interesting things to do. That’s why I’m always up for adventures and new learning experiences.

WHAT’S A polymath?

Someone who has a few things they know pretty well and enjoys doing!

I’ve been trying to collect skills in my little tool pouch. I started my career bartending, which I felt was a really portable skill I can bring anywhere in the world. That is something I want to explore in my 30s!

My endeavour now is in gardening.

YOU HAVE AN OPENNESS to experiencing new things, and seeing where life takes you. CAN YOU SHARE WHY YOU HAVE THAT MENTALITY AND APPROACH TOWARDS LIFE?

Before FOMO was a thing, I’ve always had the mentality of trying something as long as it looked fun! If it didn’t stick, it didn’t stick.

Sometimes you just have to put your head in and experience the situation. Once things flow, you might actually find yourself loving it.

SO TRUE! One of OUR tag lines is “In the name of fun”. it’s easy to get caught up in wanting to excel at something, AND THAT TAKES THE FUN OUT OF THINGS.

In our society, we are taught that you have to do all things well. And I feel like that kind of pressure can be very counterproductive. We punish ourselves mentally when we’re not good at something we want to try.

PEOPLE HAVE A TENDENCY TO MIX UP “WELL” FOR “PERFECT”.

What I’ve learnt is that the magic happens when you just try.

You tend to also produce the best work when you’re actually having fun. There’s no point trying to obsess over perfection.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good and the great.

We don’t have to be perfect. When we think too much, we are killing the potential and magic before anything can even happen. We only have one life. We need to learn how to enjoy it.

Putting down our egos and opening up ourselves to new, FUN experiences could even open new doors. IT COULD HELP YOU FIND YOUR PASSION AND PURPOSE IN LIFE.

I’m extremely inspired by the Japanese concept Ikigai.

Leading a fulfilling life to me is the ability to combine the things you are passionate about, the things you are good at, the things that can bring impact to the world, and the things that you can be paid for.

We all find life more enjoyable when there is meaning. I am still trying to figure out what that means for me. But fun is always a good starting point.

It’s quite funny to try things and laugh at yourself when you suck at it.

WE HAVE TO SEARCH FOR MEANING. AND YOUR LIFE IS SUCH A GREAT EXAMPLE OF THAT. YOU WENT OUT THERE TO EXPERIMENT. EXPERIENCE. EXPLORE. COULD YOU SHARE MORE ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY?

I did not want money to be the key driver of my 20s. Shouldn’t I do something crazy in my 20s while I still have the energy and don’t need to support a family of 5?

I love talking to people. I find people very interesting. I wanted a job where I could interact with people instead of a computer. Lifestyle also came to mind. Something dynamic and fun. I love drinking. I love flavours. So what can I do?

I decided to apply randomly to a bar called Jigger & Pony. My friend Ellie took me there for a drink, and I asked if I could be a bar apprentice.

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE AS A mixologist LIKE?

I resonated with you when you said that the purpose of work is to make people happy with every shirt. For me, I felt so much joy listening to my customers, and then creating a drink that made them happy after a long day at work.

Like therapy! You get a soothing or exciting drink, whatever you like, and you also get good conversation. That gave me a lot of purpose.

IT’S REALLY fascinating HOW YOU PROGRESSED TO WORKING AT AUDACITY, AN INNOVATION PLAYGROUND.

It all began when I met 2 guys while dancing at the techno club Headquarters. One of them told me about very futuristic ideas and innovations and I was really interested because nobody in my social circle was talking about it.

He had this opportunity to build an innovation sandbox and ecosystem for startups who want to create audacious ideas to impact the future.

I was very excited about it even though I had zero experience in tech. I just knew I wanted to create impact, I just didn’t know how.

Audacity is a movement to catalyse a humanity-centric future supported by innovative technologies. We orchestrate amidst chaos and seek aufheben moments with our philosophy of Unlearning conventions, Unlocking innovation and Unleashing transformation.
Audacity welcomes innovators who can look beyond the current technology paradigm and test hypotheses across our agenda focus areas. With inclusivity as a core value, our initiatives are guided by a values-based culture to solve issues in communities, food, energy, work, education, healthcare and urbanisation.

I LOVE HOW YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE FOOD & BEVERAGE INDUSTRY NATURALLY CONVERGED WITH YOUR WORK AT AUDACITY.

In F&B, there is a lot of food waste. That always frustrated me. We are part of this system that takes things for granted, resulting in a lot of waste. I wanted to do something to make the future of food more sustainable.

At Audacity, I dived into the world of hydroponics, and that made me realise that we are mining finite resources, such as phosphorous, for plant nutrients. Current day nutrients solutions are into rapid growth. That causes a lot of harm to our ecosystem.

However, if we look at the longevity of this earth, we need something that is renewable. We need a circular system.

The eureka moment for me was when I found a calling to help support more regenerative practices. There’s this thing called permaculture — how do you actually grow food while respecting and protecting the environment.

I really like the philosophy because the development of humans cannot be at the expense of the earth. We’re not such big shits!

Another concept which I love is biomimicry — how do we actually emulate the intelligence of nature to actually solve some of our biggest problems.

So while hydroponics is a great high tech solution, I wanted to see how we can use nature based solutions to create a more sustainable future.

That’s when you eventually ventured INTO BUILDING Soil Social?

Yeah! My partner and I realised that one of the nature based solutions that is a good segway into the fundamental basis of life is soil.

There are 2 major problems we’re trying to solve at Soil Social —

One — soil is degrading at an alarming rate because of industrialisation. We just use too much synthetic fertiliser.

Two — there is so much waste in Singapore and around the world. From horticulture, agriculture (poultry, livestock) and more.

We wanted to figure out if it was possible to use waste as a resource for agriculture. One that would result in a circular system.

One cool thing I learnt is that there is so much life in our soil. One teaspoon of soil can have billions of microbes that does so much good to plants. Because they have this relationship with the plants where they can extract nutrients and form nice soil structures.

Going back to basics was very important for us.

Converting waste to wonder, trash to treasure. This philosophy eventually guided me to creating compost from urban waste.

How do you create compost from urban waste?

We look at the different waste streams in Singapore to yield different types of compost. Some compost are more fungi dominated, some are more bacterial dominated.

This benefits different plants differently. House plants love fungi dominated compost because they are native to the forest. For leafy vegetables, they prefer bacterial dominated compost.

It’s really about how we can make compost that has a lot of life.

Current day compost doesn’t have a lot of life. When you make compost on a large scale, it becomes difficult to control quality.

Life is essential if you want your plants to have good health throughout its life cycle.

It’s amazing because the compost is made of waste but actually feels and smells like the forest floor.
When you smell it, it smells like nature. It’s a sensory experience.

we could all learn from you! it’s amazing how YOU CAN CREATE impact ON OUR PLANET THROUGH SOMETHING AS FUNDAMENTAL AS SOIL AND WASTE.

YOU KNOW, it can get really DIFFICULT TO GET PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT NATURE OR THE ENVIRONMENT WITHOUT THEM INTERACTING WITH IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. IF YOU DON’T LIKE OR LOVE SOMETHING, WILL YOU CARE ABOUT IT?

In order for people to care, they need to go out and experience nature first. That’s when they’ll realise they’re part of the big ecosystem And every action counts.

If you don’t go out there, you don’t feel like you’re part of this problem. You don’t feel like you need to be responsible and participate.

That said, we are all on our different journeys. Without our exposure, we probably will not be having a conversation like this, being environmentally engaged, and contributing to that.

Was there a moment in time where you felt like you established a DISTINCT connection with mother nature?

I feel like everyone has a different eureka moment. For me, one of my most memorable moments was climbing Mount Rinjani, an active volcano in Indonesia.

It felt like I was just a tiny part of a piece of nature that has such a long history. There was also so much litter as I was hiking up the mountain. This was utter disrespect from human kind. I felt the urge to do something about it.

Another thing that could help — if we do something that we’re interested in, a fun activity like hiking or a picnic by the beach, that could actually be the gateway to learning more about nature. You may even start observing how you interact with nature. How good and bad things coming out of our interactions.

There is a lot of abundance in nature, which is what Soil Social wants to showcase.
We want people to see how nature provides when you take care of nature. And to bask in all of that.

THAT’S A BEAUTIFUL WAY TO PUT IT. you can’t only take from nature, you have to remember to give back.

before we wrap up our conversation, do you have any Words of advice for our readers?

I’d say look within yourself to find out what really excites you. Try not to be afraid of looking stupid or failing.

I know it’s tough but you just have to take that first step and believe that good things will happen.
The magic will come. If you’re not open to any magic, none of it will happen.

If you’re doing good things, be ready to also receive the good stuff that’s about to come out of it.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST! What does being wavy mean to you?

Being in a flow state. It could be a personal or group flow state

Feeling good, enjoying myself when I dance. I get a lot of wavy moments when I dance, doing a new sport, wearing an outfit that makes me feel and look cool. Like when I wore my Dimension.uh Sunshine Camp Shirt for the first time. I was like yEAAAAH IM WAVY!! IM WAVY. Because when you wear something nice you feel good.

Being wavy is feeling comfortable and at peace in your own skin. If you’re not, it’s hard to feel wavy. You gotta feel like “i’m me, i’m in this world. I’m excited to be alive”.

FRIENDS OF D.UH OUTDOORS | AN EDITORIAL SERIES

Friends of D.uh Outdoor is a series featuring wavy people in Singapore that have chosen to zig when everyone zagged. Join D.uh Founder, Jess, as she speaks to them and seeks out the secret formula to flow, balance and how one’s life can change simply by going out into nature to experiment. experience. explore.

THE FREE-SPIRITED FARMING POLYMATH