Meet Jonathan Harris aka AUTHORJON | Author, TEDx Speaker, Success Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jonathan Harris aka AUTHORJON and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jonathan Harris, is there something you believe many others might not?
“You can change the course of your life with your words”~ Anonymous. Growing up, many of us are taught how to survive in this world. A piece of advice that many of us are given to survive is not to talk too much about our accomplishments. That is one piece of conventional advice I have always struggled to connect with and here is why…

We have all heard the famous quote “Out of sight, out of mind.” Simply put, a lack of presence in a space will not grow your brand, it will hurt it. Some people I know will not post an achievement they want to share on their social media for fear of being perceived as bragging. I love games, so we are going to play a quick game of word association. I am going to say a word and I want you to tell me the first person or thing that comes to mind regarding that word:
1. Fast food spot
2. Basketball player
3. Television show
4. Singer
5. Car

With each one of those categories, there was likely something that immediately jumped to the front of your mind. For example, when you saw number 2 listed as “basketball player”, your mind likely went to Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, or Lebron James. Even if after further thought, your mind may have given you a different answer. However, initially, you thought of the person or thing that has left the biggest impression on you. High visibility is usually how that name or thing jumps to the front of your mind. I know for a fact there are other amazing basketball players but the guy who plays a few times per year will likely not hold the same weight in your mind as the industry greats who are constantly on your television screen and talked about in the media. Now here is the real question you have to ask yourself, does your name come to people’s mind when speaking about your industry? If you have a car wash business and someone is looking to have their car cleaned, where do you fall on the list of people they automatically know to call for car cleaning services? If the answer is not you being the first person on the list, we have some branding work to do.

If you are worried about how you are labeled, let’s look at some actual definitions; more specifically, the words bragging, arrogant, proud, confident, and jealous:

1. Bragging- excessively proud and boastful talk about one’s achievements or possessions.
2. Arrogant- having or showing the insulting attitude of people who believe that they are better, smarter, or more important than other people
3. Proud- very happy and pleased because of something you have done, something you own, someone you know or are related to, etc.
4. Confident- having a feeling or belief that you can do something well or succeed at something
5. Jealous- feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages.

Let’s use the example of a promotion at work with a massive salary increase. If you announce that you are applying for a promotion at work and you are looking forward to a great interview, you are displaying that you are “confident.” Using that same example, if you announce that you actually got the promotion and you are grateful for the massive salary increase, you are displaying that you are “proud.” If you announce your promotion and tell others how they need to step their game up to get on your level, you are displaying that you are being “arrogant” by “bragging.”
Now if you post about that promotion, and someone gets frustrated because they are not where they want to be in life, they are being “jealous.” While you are worried about who is jealous or how you are being perceived as arrogant from the fact that you posted good news, you are making yourself irrelevant. It is not your responsibility to manage the emotions of others, please put that burden down and let them carry that.

I am a firm believer that you are your biggest marketing manager. You are your very first brand ambassador. You are your very first logo. You can hire a public relations team for your projects but if you as the face of the project speak with doubt and disconnectedness, that is how your audience will likely process what you are saying. As an award-winning author and success coach, I am constantly working with clients on how they speak about their brand. I require on each coaching call that my clients practice for at least 15 minutes per session on their pitch. I truly believe all of my clients are smart and capable of achieving peak success but if they cannot talk about what they are working on with others, their growth will be stunted. I can hold you accountable for productivity, and I can even give you technical strategies for business, but the number one skill to advance in life is articulation.

As a lifelong WWE (professional wrestling) fan, would you believe that those who had the best careers were not the best technical wrestlers? That’s right! It was not the wrestlers who spent years in training to hone their craft. The household names like The Rock, Stone Cold, HHH, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, and Trish Stratus were household names because they had the best stage presence compared to their peers. I am not taking anything away from their craft but it was their ability to speak well that catapulted their careers. The wrestlers who had great technical ability and no charisma did not get as much television time, thus stunting their career growth. I quickly learned that lesson of how important articulation and charisma were when I became a WWE fan at the age of ten, and I have lived by that ever since.

While you should never dominate an entire conversation only talking about yourself, do not leave the space without branding yourself properly. If you get in a habit of always dumbing down your accomplishments, you will also do so during major occasions including interviews, business meetings with investors, networking, and more. It is crucial that you are seen as knowledgeable and credible. Especially now in a world where artificial intelligence(a.i.) is taking over, a lot of jobs will be obsolete because a company can save money getting a computer to do it. Jobs that have more public speaking requirements cannot be as easily replaced by AI. Ultimately, your work is what will be the final test of your capabilities, but it is your marketing of yourself that determines if you even get the opportunity.

Let’s look at the fast food industry for example. Several places sell burgers, but it is the marketing of that fast food restaurant that will determine who gets your hard-earned dollars. Imagine if McDonald’s decided they did not want to make commercials anymore out of fear of coming off as arrogant. Imagine if McDonald’s reduced their entire marketing plan out of fear of what Burger King, Wendy’s, and KFC thought about the success Mcdonald’s was seeing. Do you know how much money McDonalds would lose? Billions!!!

The number one comment I get when I am meeting about a potential opportunity is “I checked out your website/ social media.” Your brand speaks before you do. I look at my social media as my digital portfolio. After I had a book reading partnership with a local Chick-fil-A and Tropical Smoothie Café, I saw more opportunities come for me where the organizers commented on my social media and were impressed with the achievements that they saw online. How are you utilizing social media and other platforms to expand opportunities?

Here are some tangible ways you can build your brand without coming across as arrogant:
1. Stay away from quotes and captions that belittle others (i.e. “You need to get on my level.”)
2. Focus on the facts (i.e. “I am blessed to be promoted to director of operations.”)
3. Creating a family and friends’ newsletter- a couple of times a year you can send a friendly update with different things going on and encourage others to share their updates too. Keep people in the loop regularly. Remember out of sight, out of mind!
4. Tell the whole truth- If you are going to share about your weight loss, it is okay to also tell that it took over ten years for you to meet the goal. Do not always make things seem like it is always perfect for you because it will feel inauthentic. Tell the truth and the whole truth!
5. Give proper credit where credit is due. If someone helped you get on featured in the media, get a job, or any form of a successful pursuit, honor that person by shouting them out. Do not take credit for something you did not do on your merit.

If you are a business owner or a creator, I want to give you a challenge. When thinking about everyone who follows you on social media, I should be able to reach out to any five random people from your follower list and ask them about your brand. They should be able to clearly tell me about what you do. If you are an author, they should know you have a book, and as a bonus, they should know the book’s title. If you do music, they should know about the songs you have released. If you believe that 100% of your followers are aware of what you have going on, I encourage you to continue branding yourself well. If there are any people/ followers in your life who do not know what is going on, I encourage you to bridge that gap.
Remember it is your story, it is your responsibility to tell it and share it proudly!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I am blessed to celebrate eight years this year as an award-winning entrepreneur. I want to say that it was an accident but the reality is that there are truly no accidents when it comes to your life’s purpose. My love for business started when I was young. I was the elementary school store manager at the age of nine, making sure students could buy school supplies. I would get to school earlier than everyone else and make sure everything was perfect for each day’s business operations. There were times I would even make flyers on Microsoft Word (yes Microsoft Word, it was the 90’s so you have to do what you have to do). Although I had a teacher supervising me because I was nine, I was given a lot of creative freedom to make the school store grow through my ideas. Although I cannot say I knew I would always be an entrepreneur, I did discover early on I had big ideas and enjoyed spaces where I had creative freedom. The rest was history…

My first love is speaking so anytime I am standing in front of an audience whether it is one person or thousands, I feel genuine joy. My favorite toy as a kid was a toy WWE microphone and I used to give short speeches (in the wrestling world, they are called promos), pretending I was like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Stone Cold Steve Austin.
I am the proud owner of a few different platforms. I am an award-winning three-time published author, and I also provide author coaching. My books are my kids! My first book “Master of Ceremonies: A Male’s Guide for a Successful Life” helps young men see how to be better young men through learning about self-esteem, healthy choices, and professional development. I also have two books for children “Growing Gents” and “Girls With Pearls” which show kids through animal characters how to be kind, courteous, helpful, punctual, and more. As an author client of mine, you will leave with more copies sold than you ever imagined as well as a newfound confidence on how to speak about your book. Through my publishing company, Jharris Publishing, I am excited to release even more books that encourage, challenge, and educate others. As a black male writer, it is the best feeling knowing that I use my story to let people who look like me know it is possible to work within your calling.

I am a co-owner of B n’ H Vending, which is a vending machine company. Although passive income is always great, the best part is doing this business alongside my favorite cousin, Kenneth. The vending business has also provided some amazing opportunities including being a speaker at the Black Wealth Summit alongside prominent actor, Morris Chestnut. I provide business coaching where I put them on a 30-day plan to get their business up and running. I am a firm believer if you can do it in an hour, do not make it a seven-hour task. This year, we are proud to be launching our online vending machine business school so that people can learn at a self-paced format. We also recently announced our first-ever “B n’ H Vending” Scholarship to help send kids to school who want to further their education.
Lastly, I established the Million Paths Foundation, Inc. which is a relatively new non-profit organization. The Million Paths Foundation, Inc. focuses on educational programming where the community can receive fun and enriching events for no cost. Through my non-profit, several dozen people have been trained in suicide prevention. Thousands of dollars in food, toiletries, clothes, toys, and school supplies have been given to the unhoused. Despite my non-profit being brand new, I was honored as a finalist for the Emerging Leader of the Year Award through the service provided from my non-profit. God has been so good!

Although it has been a blessing to be involved with many amazing things, this did not happen overnight. There have been a lot of setbacks, some external but many internal. On this journey, I have learned the importance of praying before pursuing. I have experienced first-hand that not every opportunity is good for you. Through various challenges, failures, and even moments of feeling completely stuck, this lit a major fire under me.
A new lane I am looking to explore very soon will be utilizing my love for speaking to talk about my journey to losing over 100 pounds. It took me 295 days to lose weight and it was truly one of the best decisions I could have made. It has changed every aspect of my life for the better. Weight loss/healthy living is a desire many of us have and I want to always use my platform to spread a positive message. Whether I am on a stage speaking, working with clients in a one-on-one setting, or publishing another book, my ultimate goal is to create a global presence that encourages others that their dreams are possible.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Los Angeles is one of the few places you can go where there is truly no wrong answer as to what you choose to do. Some of the most fun I had was exploring the city and at the same time, family dinners with my aunt and uncle and their lemon tree in their backyard. If someone were visiting, I can honestly say they would be in tears by the time the trip is over because there is so much to do. You would have to make multiple trips to truly get in everything. If you are into action and adventure, Universal Studios has some of the most fun amusement park rides and exhibits you can do. If you love sports, the Crypto.com Arena (previously the Staples Center) has many of your sports and entertainment needs. My Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Bill were season ticket holders to the LA Sparks so those were fun times for sure. Speaking of family time, growing up, I had my fair share of Marie Calendar frozen dinners so when my aunt took me to the actual Marie Calendar restaurant in LA, I was in paradise. I am a dessert guy, so the apple pie was five stars.
The movie theaters are some of the best in the country so me being a movie buff made for great memories. If you love art and plan to be in town for an extended period of time, I have even taken an art class at the local community college. I was not that great at art, but it was amazing just having the experience. If you are into sightseeing and you want to see something you spot in many movies, LA is very close to Hollywood, California so you can actually drive past the famous Hollywood sign. As a lifelong lover of volunteering, one of my favorite moments was talking with the young African American men from A2Mend Conference, a program focused on helping young men in the LA Area as well as other communities to pursue higher education.
However, you choose to spend your time, in Los Angeles, California is a beautiful place with a rich history. LA is filled with so much star power, that it is almost certain you will something or someone cool. I randomly saw LL Cool J in the airport once. TV and film directors are shooting episodes/movies around town. There are award shows and other major events taking place. It is impossible to be bored. I promise you will enjoy it.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I dedicate this to all of my mentees. Although mentors show you the way to your next step, mentees also keep you accountable for how you are going about things. I pray that my journey helps you find your way in life.

Website: www.authorjon.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/authorjon

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jonathancharris/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/authorjon

Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorjon

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MisterJonathanHarris

Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@authorjon

Image Credits
Nancy Minor, Tabitha Duncan, Nkoyo White Robinson, Julia Gafney, Dashon Mockabee