By
4 December 2008

Johnny Wimbrey is a best selling author, an international keynote/motivational speaker and a success coach and trainer. He’s also about to host his own television show—“The Johnny Show.” I spoke to Johnny Wimbrey about his road to success, his latest book From the Hood to Doing Good, and about being an entrepreneur.

Young Money: Tell me about your life.
Johnny Wimbrey: I just wrote a book about my life: From the Hood to Doing Good. My earliest memories are of a battered woman’s shelter, street violence and street life, and crazy stuff like smoking weed at age 8. My earliest memories are of being homeless, my abusive, alcoholic father, selling crack at age 14, people selling it for me at age 16.

I was an entrepreneur without direction, a product of my environment. I made a lot of bad decisions, one of my friends murdered at 18—he was a junior in high school. He wasn’t my first friend to die but I knew the guy who murdered him. I went to his wake and had a gun in my pocket. I was going to pay my respects and retaliate. But my friend’s mother forgave the young man who had killed her son. I felt dumb because she had compassion, so I gave my gun to the preacher and I said I can’t live like this anymore. That was February1993. I focused on turning my life around and focused on beating the odds. According to statistics, I am supposed to be in prison, an alcoholic, but I wanted to beat the odds. I had mastered the art of taking risks in the street so when I got into the business world I didn’t lose my fight or my hustle. I brought my street mentality to my business mentality.

I got involved in life insurance. I became Regional Vice President because I didn’t understand failure or how to give up. The state of Texas declined to give me an insurance license because I had a felony arrest. But I concentrated on becoming better instead of bitter, so I contacted the judge’s office who had given me the felony arrest, in Fort Worth, Texas. I told the judge that I was trying to change my life. I asked him if he could write a letter asking them to give me another chance. One week later my license came in the mail and I hit the ground running.

At age 25 I got involved in Internet marketing. This is where my life was turned around. I was making residual income from the comfort of my home. I was in the top 1% of income in America.

Becoming a speaker and a trainer came naturally to me. I refused to allow someone else’s opinion to become my reality. Most people are moving without purpose. They are moving to someone else’s beat, someone else’s passion. Who would have thought that I would have another chance, knowing that I should be dead or in prison?

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YM: What’s next for you?
JW: I have been all over world speaking. Now I’m working on a TV show—“The Johnny Show.” People are ready to hear from real people who have real stories, who have been through things and made it to the other side. There is no glory without a story. The hardest thing for me was realizing that Johnny Wimbrey deserved the possibility and that the greatest enemy was inside of me. I had to get myself out of the way and accept that winning is a possibility and that winning begins within.

I did not come to Hollywood to be a star. I would be on the road speaking but a person clapping for me isn’t what moves me. I came to Hollywood to get involved in the business; it is about a hostile takeover. I was the youngest person in the world to participate on the stage at the level that I do. I got into it with the mentality that it’s a hostile takeover: Wimbrey’s going for Winfrey and if I’m alive in 24 months then it will be a reality.

By the grace of God I’ve been connected to incredible people, really because I was bold enough to open my mouth. Everyone will be next to someone that can infect and affect their life, if you are the type of person to move with velocity and volume. I asked myself, “Will there be an African American who becomes a millionaire today? Will some young student become a millionaire today? If someone else deserves it then I do too. If someone is going to have a new TV show then why not me?”

It’s all about the hostile takeover, if someone else deserves to takeover, then I do too, I was born to win. You have to subscribe to the mentality that winning is an option.

Most of all, you have to be a student for life. The only difference between me and most people is that I’m coachable, I’m trainable, I’m teachable, and it’s made me unstoppable. I surround myself with people that can teach me what I don’t know.

YM: What advice do you have for up-and-coming entrepreneurs?
JW: An entrepreneur is one who builds a business or works for himself. Someone who takes life in their own hands to build the future they want and who doesn’t bow down to the system we live in now.  The decisions that I made were not someone else’s fault. I don’t feel sorry for people and I don’t feel better than them. I honor titles but I never put someone on a pedestal above me. That makes what they have something that I don’t deserve.

Society’s system cannot become your reality; you need to surround yourself with people that have the lifestyle you want. For example, if you are going to law school, then hang around the lawyers you respect. The lawyers that have the life you want, the family you want, and who are enjoying what they are doing. You need to stay in touch and stay in connection with your purpose.

My #1 piece of advice is for people to find something that they can get passionate about. It’s not really the business itself, you have to find your inner winner within, your why, and it doesn’t matter what it is, if you don’t have the inner foundation then when the first wind comes you’re going to fall because your foundation isn’t solid. It isn’t about the industry. I did a CD series called “Think and Win Big.” In that series I say that “if your why doesn’t make you cry then it’s not big enough.” When my daughters were born I fought so hard for them to have a first memory of joy. My first memory was of a battered women’s shelter. You have to find something bigger than yourself; you have to make it bigger then yourself.

More than anything else you must understand the fact that you will never arrive, that success is a process, a journey, not a destination. This forces you to constantly be in the mindset that you are always a student, you are coachable, trainable, teachable, and that makes you unstoppable. Because when you arrive it gives you the audacity to slow down and have a moment of arrogance.

Check out www.kingofsuccess.com and www.johnnywimbrey.com