Meet Josan Callender

We were lucky to catch up with Josan Callender recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Josan, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience is the key characteristic for any type of success. No matter what life’s downturns may be it keeps one in the “game.” In comments by famous people in sports, academics, financial, and the Arts, I’ve noticed that many declare this single trait as the one factor that provided them with exceptional achievement in their life’s pursuits.

While none of us are born with this invaluable trait, many discover it through looking at the lives of others (biographies) or are taught skills related to it by their parents. I was blessed to have parents who were diligent in teaching this and other success-producing traits and am still in the process of learning how to use their life-lessons and examples.

My parents were people of the Great Depression, now known as the “greatest generation.” Not only did they have to find ways to manage or “make ends meet,” financially because of the Great Depression, they were only two generations from slavery. They had living slave ancestors who taught them how to live on very little. They accomplished what seemed to be impossible tasks by using their wits and learning from the examples THEY were taught as they grew up in what has become known as the Jim Crow South. It was not an easy time by any stretch of the imagination.

However, they pursued beginning their own businesses, as they saw this as the best way to help them to get ahead. They knew that the hard work of being their own bosses would keep them financially agile, despite the closures, layoffs and the ups and downs of the various economic cycles.

Due to their resourcefulness (my dad had his own refrigeration and air conditioning service, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom with a thriving seamstress business), I thought having my own business would be a great way to pursue my own life’s dream — making film! When I left the field of special education to take on this challenge, I had carefully planned for a five-year hiatus in Los Angeles to study film financing and independent filmmaking with friends that I had met in Michigan at Lansing Community College’s film program. Aa I was about to leave for California, I took part in a Q & A for young filmmakers in downtown Detroit. It was the early 80s and independent filmmaking was beginning to take a new level of prominence in the film world. As the only Black independent filmmaker represented on the panel, I was asked by a young Black woman, “Who will let you make a film?”

This question amazed me! My family had always taught us “If God puts an idea in your heart, He must have made a way for you to accomplish it!” I thought about my answer and quietly told her that “no one has to give any of us permission.” I stated that I will succeed as long as the Lord was with me and that would be all I’d ever need.

However, her question marked the beginning of a career in helping others to become resilient risk-takers – of ditching the mindset of “waiting for permission” to excel in life.

It has been said that in order to become better at a given task or field, teaching and encouraging others to do the task is the best way to become better at it oneself. I emphatically state that if they follow through on what they were commissioned to do by God, they will see their life take on a whole new dimension. I didn’t realize that my background in education would take me to this new level — and frame my mission as a publisher and an author!

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I’m an author of the picture book series “The Happy Little Garbage Truck” and young adult Christian books series, Believe: Tuskegee Strong! I started my professional career as an educator|filmproducer|writer.

While The Happy Little Garbage Truck is a picture book based educational series that teaches social skills, it focuses on building self-esteem in primary grade students. The educational program teaches students (in a fun way) how to feel good about themselves, make friends and developing oneself to be a better person in their community.

The young adult novel, Making Do: Growing Up Colored in the Jim Crow South During the Great Depression shares “history with a face.” Its main characters (Dee Dee and Charles) navigate 1940’s Alabama during one of our nations’ most turbulent times (as stated in the title). It shares how one is able to develop resilience through love of family, friends, and faith in God.

My interview on YouTube Channel’s “It’s Your Life” with Dr. J.C. Cooley focused on the resilient themes behind this novel and drew 5.9K viewers: @itsyourliferadio

I’m also excited to share our products: Audiobook of Making Do (on Audible, Spotify, The Nook, Google Play (and soon to be on Audible) as well as the summer release of Making Do: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South During the Great Depression, Vol. 2!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities or skills that have propelled me upward in every area of my quest for independence and financial freedom are the same items that helped me to succeed in life: education (building knowledge); faith, or the hope for the obtainment of higher goals and, of course, resilience.

Early on, my parents were proponents of seeking higher education. They knew that while the information might change over the years, the one thing that we’d gain would be the method of seeking this information, which gives the seeker strategies and tools that can be used in other areas of life. Education has been a great adventure, and its strengths have definitely carried over into other fields of study!

Faith and hope are sometimes lumped together; however, hope increases one’s faith. While hoping, we are seeking the obtainment of the unseen. At times, this is unrealized. However, we can benefit, again and again from the quest. This quest builds faith muscles – which keeps one in “the game” of life!

Finally, resilience is the victory we receive by continuing to persevere in these pursuits. While it isn’t gained overnight (by any stretch of the imagination), resilience is a birthright that we can share with family, friends, and acquaintances that flows through to our colleagues and neighbors.

Resilience is a legacy of victory!

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

My parents showed me how to develop faith in God. Their example was such a loving one and their story so compelling, that they became the two characters that I represent in my novel, “Making Do: Growing Up Colored in the Jim Crow South During the Great Depression.”

While the novel sounds somber and does cover the period of time in our nation’s history where Black Americans were not treated fairly in the post-slavery (Reconstruction period) through pre-Civil rights, the novel seeks to show how the Black Americans sought to keep their families together. They managed this with faith in God, humor, oral traditions that taught lessons about their legacy and teaching their children to always be their best.

These were the attributes that my parents portrayed. They knew that they COULD make choices that would lead them to new heights of greater resilience.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Josan Callender
Emily Miller
Kevin Kelly

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