We recently had the chance to connect with johnny Simero and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning johnny , it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
The first 90 minutes of my day have become less of a routine and more of the way I arrive as myself now. Before I even get out of bed, I start with meditation. It’s quiet, simple, and grounding — not some dramatic ritual, just a way to meet myself before the world enters my mind. It gives me a clean slate and a centered place to start from.
After that, I move into breathwork. It opens my body, regulates my energy, and shifts me into the day without me having to push or force anything. From there I go into Kundalini yoga. I’ve been practicing for a while, but lately it feels different — more integrated, more natural. It’s not about trying to reach something; it’s about connecting to the version of me that’s already present.
I finish with Qi Gong. I used to do it on and off, but now it fits in a way it never did before. The flow, the simplicity, the rhythm — it matches the pace I’m living in right now. Everything feels aligned instead of effortful.
None of this feels sacred or dramatic. It’s not some big awakening every morning. It’s just who I’ve become. These practices feel like second nature now — steady, grounding, and woven into how I start my day.
It’s alignment more than anything.
A way to gather myself before stepping into everything I’m building.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hi, I’m Johnny Simero. I’m a creator and builder bringing a family of connected visions to life — all centered around warmth, creativity, and meaningful experiences. I’m developing the Hollywood Container Hotel, a blend of my 1917 Craftsman home with a modern container expansion, and within it, Simero’s: my Italian comfort kitchen built around the idea that “One bite, and you’re family.”
I also founded Shine the Brightest, a nonprofit whose mission includes creating the Rising Star Academy of the Performing Arts, a full K–8 school designed to support youth confidence, expression, and possibility. Alongside these physical spaces, I’ve been building worlds on the page: I published The Journal of Joy, I’m creating The Frequency Companion, and I’m developing story projects like Candy Works, We’re No Angels, and my children’s universe, Johnny Doodlebright.
What brings all of this together is the same spark: I’m creating environments, stories, and experiences that feel alive. This chapter of my life has been about finally stepping into the visions I carried for years — not just dreaming them, but building them. And bringing them forward now feels aligned, grounded, and true to who I’ve become.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Before the world told me who I had to be, I was a kid who felt different in a way I couldn’t fully explain yet. I had a spark — a natural warmth, intuition, and presence that made me feel big inside, even before I knew what that meant. I also had humor, but not in a performative way. It was how I connected, how I made sense of things, and sometimes how I softened the world around me when it felt too sharp. It became a kind of armor early on — a way to feel accepted, to feel loved, or to keep things light when I didn’t know how else to navigate them.
But underneath all of that, the spark was real. The sensitivity was real. The brightness was real. The mixed reactions I got from people made me pull back, guard myself, or dim parts of who I was, but they never fully erased that original version of me.
Now, in this chapter of my life, I feel like I’ve circled back to him — the kid with the spark, the humor, the sensitivity, the presence. That’s who I’m building from now. Not the guarded version. Not the dimmed version. The real one.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
It didn’t happen all at once. It happened in layers — through grief, through disappointment, and through the kind of moments that force you to see yourself clearly. When my dog Rocky passed after 15 years together, it broke something open in me. He wasn’t “just a pet” — he was my steady companion, the one who knew every version of me. Losing him pulled the floor out from under me, but it also revealed how much I had been carrying in silence. And all the love, care, and heartbreak from that long goodbye needed somewhere to go — and it began pouring into my creativity in ways I never expected.
At the same time, I was confronting the truth of my family dynamic — the realization that the closeness I hoped for was never really there. That kind of quiet heartbreak can shape you more than any dramatic event. It teaches you strength, but it also teaches you how to guard yourself, how to dim your own spark to survive the room.
And then there was the grind. Working delivery through exhaustion, even after the accident, doing what I had to do just to keep going. Those nights were humbling. They stripped everything down to the essentials and showed me a version of myself I hadn’t met yet — one who kept standing, no matter what.
But here’s the part I never expected:
all of that pain — the grief, the disappointment, the survival hustle — pushed me into the most creative period of my entire life.
It didn’t make me harder.
It made me honest.
It made me bold.
It made me build.
I stopped hiding my pain not by pretending it didn’t exist, but by letting it become the doorway into the truest version of myself. The version who creates from clarity, not from fear. The version who doesn’t shrink anymore. The version who finally lets the spark be what it always was.
If someone reading this is grieving a pet, carrying the weight of a family that didn’t show up, or hustling through days that feel impossible — I see you. I lived that. And I promise you this: the strength you’re building in the dark becomes the light you create from later.
That’s what it did for me.
It didn’t just make me resilient — it made me whole.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
For most of my life, the public version of me was a version I created to survive the room — someone who made people feel comfortable, someone who used humor to ease tension, someone who dimmed his own spark when it felt like too much for others. It wasn’t fake, but it wasn’t the whole truth of me either. It was the version shaped by family dynamics, early wounds, and the unspoken rules of what it meant to “fit in.”
That’s not who I am anymore.
The version of me people see now — the one showing up online, building Simero’s, Shine the Brightest, the Rising Star Academy, writing stories, creating journals, and speaking from clarity — that’s actually me.
Not the edited version.
Not the masked version.
Not the version waiting for permission.
It’s the version that came after grief broke me open.
After losing Rocky.
After the accident.
After the delivery hustle.
After realizing I didn’t need to earn belonging by shrinking.
What you see now is the real me:
the one who leads with heart, creativity, honesty, and presence.
The one who wakes up aligned with his purpose instead of chasing validation.
The one whose energy doesn’t bend to the room — it shapes it.
The public version of me is finally the same person I am in my own company:
grounded, awake, creative, and unafraid to shine.
And that’s the biggest shift of my life —
I no longer perform myself.
I am myself.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What light inside you have you been dimming?
For most of my life, I dimmed the very thing that was supposed to guide me — my light.
Not because I didn’t feel it, but because I learned early on that it wasn’t always welcomed.
Some people admired it, some were threatened by it, and some tried to shape it into something smaller so they could understand it.
So I adapted.
I shrank.
I tried to “fit,” even though nothing in me was ever built for small spaces.
But the truth is: my light was never the problem.
The rooms were just too dim.
What I’ve been reclaiming — especially in the last few years — is the part of me that doesn’t apologize for shining. The part of me that creates without permission, dreams without limits, and shows up with the energy that’s always been mine.
The more I stop dimming myself, the more everything in my life aligns — my creative projects, my mission with Shine the Brightest, the Rising Star Academy vision, Simero’s, the journals, the books, the stories, the entire shape of who I’m becoming.
My legacy won’t be the things I build.
It’ll be the permission my light gives others to stop dimming theirs.
Because once you turn your own light back on —
you stop asking the world to see you,
and you start seeing yourself clearly.
That’s the light I refuse to dim anymore.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shinethebrightest.org
- Instagram: @johnnyland2022
- Twitter: https://www.tiktok.com/@johnnyland12
Image Credits
Credits : Shine the Brightest Inc.
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