Finding and Achieving “Soulful Success”: An Interview with Author Johnwick Nathan
In many ways, Johnwick Nathan’s story is that of the quintessential American self-made man. Born and raised in Haiti, Nathan has built a multimillion-dollar enterprise from the ground up, achieving a remarkable degree of success by the age of 27. But it isn’t a competitive, entrepreneurial spirit that has driven his work; he attributes much of his stellar achievements to a unique “Primary Principle”: love. He has outlined the thinking and beliefs that serve as the foundation of his approach to business and life in his book, 12 Principles of Soulful Success, published with Networlding’s support. I recently sat down with Nathan to talk about these principles, and how his book developed from his personal history and experiences.
Melissa: How does “Soulful Success” differ from traditional success?
Johnwick Nathan: Traditional success means, “If I make money, I’m successful,” whereas soulful success comes from love, from the heart, from actually supporting other people. We have this saying, “Success has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with what I do for other people.” That’s what initially makes us successful.
M: That’s beautiful. Can you tell me about your path to publishing the book, and how you came up with the title?
J: People see my success, and they ask me, “John, how did you get here? If you could talk about success in 12 different principles, what would they be?” And boom, I just knocked it out. My thought process simply traced the beginning of my business up until now. Initially, I didn’t realize, “Oh, this principle led into this principle, which led into this principle…” I just listed exactly what my life became.
M: You’re the first author who has said that to me, that the idea came to you in such a powerful way, and all in the order as it is published in the book. I’d like to give people a sense of some of these principles and how you came to write about them. Let’s talk about the first principle—the Mindset Principle.
J: Mindset is the first principle because if a person cannot adjust their mindset, they can never adjust the outcome. It’s as simple as that.
M: Did you always have this very soul-centered mindset?
J: I had to change my mindset. Not that my mindset was wrong or bad, but I knew if I wanted to be considered the best—I said to myself, “John, if you want to succeed and go above and beyond, this is what you have to do.” I realized that in my generation, everyone has the same thought process. What I did was to create positive habits, which replaced old habits, and put those positive habits into play. That’s how I elevated my mind to a different level—I said, “John, you have to push so much harder than the average person.”
M: Ergo the first principle. And how does it morph into Principle 2, the Cohort Principle?
J: The Cohort Principle actually comes from the Bible. The verse states, “Where two or three are gathered, they’re here…” So, when two people touch and agree, there’s power shared by those two people, because they are no longer lone wolves. According to the Cohort Principle, you find people with shared mindsets to support you, and you support them as well. Sometimes the people who are the most familiar with us are actually the worst candidates for such a position. You need people who are going to believe in your vision. If they are your cohort or part of your cohort team, they believe in your vision, they believe in you, so you create an environment for yourself where this team of people gives you the push you need to not give up.
M: And in your case, can you describe what you did to come together with your cohort team?
J: I had a few different mentors, people that were in positions that I wanted—not that I was envious of them, I just wanted to know how it was that they became successful, and how they maintained their success. For some reason, there were always people that came into my life and said, “John, I want to help you.” The first person was a behavioral health business owner, which is the same field that I’m in. I worked in her business and she really clicked in my mind as an example of how to think the right way and deal with stressors.
Then I met another individual by the name of Dr. Michael; he specialized in internal medicine and was a businessman. The most important thing about this particular individual is that for some reason, he’d call me around 11:30 at night, sometimes even 1 a.m., and he’d say, “John, what are you doing?” I said, “Well, I’m in bed.” Then one night, he said, “How could you be sleeping when there’s a business on the other side of the world opening up?” It’s funny because now, I have a business in Ghana. At that time, I didn’t have anything. I was just a regular employee at a job trying to get where I needed to be.
He was molding and shaping my mindset. He’d say, “John, there’s so much more out there. I don’t know if that’s where you want to go yet, but it is where you can go. So don’t just think short-term; think, this is where I need to be two or three years from now. Start preparing yourself.” So every single time he would call me, even if I was sleeping, I would act like I wasn’t. I would wake myself up. I’d see his phone call, it would ring two or three times – I’m slapping myself in the face, “Get ready, get ready. Get up!” That’s what I had to do. He stressed, “You’re preparing yourself,” and it wasn’t a joke for me.
As far as support, they’re obviously in higher positions than I was, at first. So their impact when I speak to them comes from, “Hey, John, I’m really very proud of you because you put what we taught you into practice.”
M: That’s very well put. I don’t think a lot of young people realize the extent of power in that exchange. And it makes a huge difference with mentors, especially when you’re mentoring other generations because that feedback can be very instrumental in helping you help others even more.
J: Absolutely. So I am now in a position where I’ve changed lives, whether it be through my platform, or whether it be through my initial business—my mental health program, where I help addicts and people who suffer from mental illness. I’m changing their lives every single day, even if it’s no longer directly because my business has grown. I would hope that if they’re reading this article they would understand that their impact on my life impacts lives all across the world.
M: Let’s move on to the third principle, the Above and Beyond Principle. What does that involve?
J: The Above and Beyond Principle is what separates us from regular people—we should be eager to be ourselves and not a regular person. A friend of mine who’s a motivational coach has an entire course of classes on how to become the “obvious choice.” In other words, if I walk into a room and another person walks into a room, what’s going to immediately make someone look at me and say, “Hey, something’s different about you”? What are you doing that everyone else isn’t doing, what makes you the “obvious choice”?
When you’re working 9 to 5, and you work on your job tasks, and you’re making money and you’re happy, and you’ve been there for 5, 10 years… I’m telling people that that’s not enough. People want to be business owners, and they say, “Hey, I don’t want to work my job anymore. I don’t want to do this or that anymore.” I tell people, “Listen – you do the 9 to 5 job, then you go work YOUR 9 to 5.” Because the thing is, it never stops. Going above and beyond means that you are going to work at your craft. If you’ve got a job where everyone’s given equal tasks, it’s your job to finish your tasks and then go to your leader and ask them, “Hey, what else can I do?” It’s your job to be the first person there, and to be the last person there.
Dedication is a problem a lot of us have. We don’t know how to dedicate ourselves—and dedication isn’t just showing up at 9 and leaving at 5. Dedication is showing up at 8:30 just in case there’s something that your boss or someone who’s there early may need. Because you are there first, because you have made yourself available, you become the “obvious choice.”
M: That’s beautiful. And if you had one of the other mindsets to choose to share today, what would that be?
J: I would say Principle 12, which is the principle of Love—the Primary Principle. Love is something that’s so overlooked nowadays. So misused. Everyone wants to become successful, everyone wants to be a great person that has an impact on the world. But the thing is, they cannot even love their neighbor. They cannot even love the person who has hurt them.
In order to become successful, you have to build relationships. So what do you do when that person who’s in a relationship with you hurts you? The average person is going to say, “I’m going to leave you. I never want to talk to you ever again.” You’re going to find people who are going to hurt you. You’re going to find that people will say bad things about you. When things go wrong, are you able to say, “You know what? Despite what you did to me, I’m still going to love you.” Success has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with everyone else that you impact. So in order to achieve success, you have to be willing to love through the hurt, through the pain, through everything.
You have to be able to go through all of that because at the end of the day, a person can do you wrong, a person can hurt you, but are you going to allow that to change your mindset? A lot of our mindsets change because we’ve been hurt. That’s the primary thing—a lot of our mindsets change because we’ve been hurt, but what happens when we control the emotion when we control the love that we give?
M: Can you give us an example of someone that you gave that love to, who others might not have?
J: Oh, absolutely. One of my managers was going through a lot. He had obviously been hurt. He worked for a business I bought, where I kept some of the workers, and he was telling me, “Would you believe that I got COVID and this person allowed me to sleep in the office but didn’t offer me a room in their home? I didn’t have anywhere to go.” And I said, “Wow, that’s very sad to hear, I’m sorry to hear that.” And the situation I came up with, months down the line, when this person needed transportation, I gave him my Range Rover, and I said, “Here, take this car, and you can use it temporarily until you fix your transportation.” Then I had a property that I was listing and he called me and said, “Hey, John, my lease is coming up and I need a place to live. Can you help me?” I said, “Sure.” I furnished the property for him, the whole thing.
It turned out I had to suspend him from work for a bad decision that he made. He then went and worked for another business, and he started demeaning my business. He started putting my business down on the internet, saying, “Don’t ever go there, don’t do this, don’t do that.” And mind you, this person lives in a house I own.
I didn’t evict this person, I just had to let him go. I believe in not responding, I won’t stoop to that person’s level. I believe that people recognize you and recognize your character, which is why after a certain amount of time, this Primary Principle is going to really resound in a person’s life and in a person’s presence; because I live by that principle, people automatically recognize my character and say, “How could you say something about John when you know that he has done nothing to you?”
So he continued to do all these negative things, but guess what? I still love him from a distance, and that’s something that we also have to understand, too. You don’t have to contact them. As soon as they understand that your position is, “Hey, man—I’m not going to do what you’re doing to me, but I still love you. Obviously, you have been hurt and you’re reacting based on a previous experience that you had with a previous individual. I’m sorry, but I won’t pay for that person. But I am going to keep on loving you despite how you feel about me.”
That is where the power is.
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This is just a small taste of the many insights in Johnwick Nathan’s book, 12 Principles of Soulful Success, and how he came to write this inspiring book. Check out his [website] to order your copy and learn more.