We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jonathan Johansson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jonathan, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I think my resilience stems from a family ethos of hard work, even if it never got directed into entrepreneurial endeavors by my parents the ” ‘hard work and no free lunches’ mindset” was something I was brought up with.
This in combination with an exploration and a realization of different ways to view the world and life encountered in my early teens through books and the internet set me off in a pursuit of a greater self.
Being the only one among my family and relatives to kinda go out on my own and start my own businesses etc I always expected to have to do things nobody I knew had done in order to achieve a different outcome. This also set my expectations for things to be hard from the get go and therefore I’ve been amble to embrace and welcome it even in the earlier days.
I now view challenges more as opportunities. When facing hardship, I ask myself, ‘Will this matter in 6-12 months?’ This pragmatic approach helps me refocus and take action rather than feel pity.
A mantra I sometimes recite is “You don’t get harder challenges than you can bare” and that mindset for me sprinkles a lil optimism on any situation.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Having a background in national economics, finance and sales my journey propelled into the E-commerce space a few years ago, selling my first bootstrapped business at the age of 25 and now most recently the Founder and CEO of Coffydoor.
Coffydoor is not just a lifestyle brand with premium coffee capsules delivered directly to your door, nor just curated blends roasted in one of Italys finest roasters.
For me it’s more than just coffee, even though I don’t take my morning espressos lightly..it’s the embodiment and the opportunity to energize people to make them feel ready to go after their goals and dreams on a daily basis.
After having coached friends and clients for many years in various disciplinary verticals through life I’ve come to realized that there are few greater pleasures for me than to see the selected few around me achieve their goals.
Coffydoor is my attempt to achieving being just a tiny part of that for people at scale.
We have tons of news in the pipeline, among other things a brand new website, a decaffeinated flavor and whole beans brewing in the horizon.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I would say as Meta skill probably human psychology, because in any interaction and or transaction you are doing dealing with humans it’s gonna play a big part.
Subset here you’ll find things as persuasion, communication and if you wanna go even more granular it will take you all the way down to the practicalities as sales, copywriting, digital marketing (sales online) and so on.
Without being able to generate agreements between two or more parties it’s very hard to conduct business.
So for whom ever needs to hear it out there, shift your mentality from sales “being a sleazy salesman” to acknowledging it playing a huge part in everything from marketing to recruitment to fundraising and more.
If we are continuing on a more big picture theme I’d vouch for Openness/Curiosity.
The three biggest obstacles an entrepreneur can face in my opinion comes from either a lack of skill, lack of character or due to lack of beliefs where the latter is usually the hardest one to shift.
In today’s rapidly evolving world it’s more important than ever to always be open to exploring new ideas, finding new mentors, seek feedback.
It’s a continuous balancing act between trusting your instincts and strategy and seeking better ways to go about moving the needle.
The last one goes hand in hand with the above as I’d like to circle back and underline the importance of resilience once again. Any journey you will enbark on with a great destination will automatically come with big obstacles, especially in new ventures in new areas there will always be an “ignorance-debt” you will have to pay down to propel.
Expect it, embrace it and see any turmoil as part of the process, just make sure to spend time and reflect on the lessons from the hardship that sometimes are not what you initially thought they were.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
Reading has always been a big thing for me and one of the habits I try to stick with even if the volume varies. I would start of with just putting out there that I rather read a great book 5 times than to read 5 mediocre ones for the sake of “getting titles in”
But the two books I recommend to everyone seeking to enbark on a personal development journey is:
Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill
The power of now by Eckhart Tolle.
The reason I always give these examples is because I feel they are the books that advance with you as you progress on your own journey, the key takeaways you had the first time you read them will most likely not be your key take aways or interpretations if you re-read it two, three or five years later.
They are although two very different books where Think and grow rich touches a lot more upon career and excellence while The power of now deepens your understanding of yourself and your inner journey.
As a bonus I’d say for anyone wanting very practical business literature everything that Alex & Leila Hormozi puts out is worth checking out.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Coffydoor.com
- Instagram: JonathanAJohansson
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-johansson-/
Image Credits
BREATHE MAGAZINE. first image of me JOHN FORNANDER (the image sent by email)
