Meet Johnny Jay Lee

We were lucky to catch up with Johnny Jay Lee recently and have shared our conversation below.

Johnny Jay, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

This is a tricky question. Some days I feel more resilient than others. The short answer? I failed. What I mean by that is, I had a very lofty goal I worked towards for years. Like… seven years. In some ways my whole life. With this hyper specific goal in mind—I got up every day I worked towards it and did everything I could to become the expert in the room on the subject. Through this journey there were highs and lows. Many days it felt inevitable and often there were days it felt impossible. But I persisted. I had help so much help too. From people who genuinely believed in this goal! People that believed I could achieve it. So when the moment came, I was ready, I was able… but the opportunity skipped me over. I wasn’t even considered. The ship sailed by and I watched from the shore with my suitcase in hand. I was devastated.

I had some big questions to answer. Who am I without this thing I worked so hard for? Do I give up? Do I find a new dream? Am I a diluted fool with impossible and overambitious dreams? Maybe. Probably. Yes. I won’t lie, I had months of depression, anger, and anxiety from these questions and the aftermath. It still sneaks up on me some days.

But in the time since, I’ve come to appreciate what happened. I still don’t understand how or why this didn’t work out for me. But I came to a place… where maybe I am at peace not needing to know the reason. There are a million good things that have happened through this journey that NEVER would have happened if I wasn’t chasing an ultimately unattainable thing. I am so grateful for those things. Those people. They gave me confidence, skills I never dreamed I would have and a passion for people and stories that I didn’t know my soul was desperate to have. Resilience came in failing, and knowing it is still worth going on. Knowing that even if everything falls apart there is still good in the world. There are still wonderful things to stumble upon. “Every person is a golden link in the chain of my good” — Florence Scovel Shinn

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

As an Actor and writer, I love working in powerful ensembles. The Office, M*A*S*H, and the Bear all look intimately into the lives of imperfect people. This is what I like to bring to every character I play and what I actively look for when accepting roles and projects. In my writing, my projects are often comedies that focus on heartfelt characters in absurd situations. 

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?

Be early, be open, and bring a sense of humor. When you work in my industry, people often reduce success to simple luck. There is a lot of truth to that, but unless you control luck (if you can, let me know) you can only control what you can control. So be early, show up early to call times. To meetings. Be the person that is reliable and people can depend on. Be open, you may have fantastic ideas, but the the best ideas come from collaboration. Bring a sense of humor, be fun to work with. Be someone people want to work with AGAIN. That doesn’t mean you need to make jokes all the time, but don’t take yourself so seriously. Seriously. Practice these with every opportunity and when the luck finds you, you’ll be ready to take the ride.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallway. Trust me, it’s not REALLY about tennis. Well… kind of. It’s about two opposing mindsets. The inner self and the outer self. Self one and self two. How the two battle for supremacy inside all of us and how to get out of our own way and do better at the thing we love. How to find “the zone” and improve performance. It’s been heavily on my mind the last six months and I would highly encourage anyone in any field to read it. Life changing, perhaps.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.imdb.me/johnnyjaylee
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjohnnyjay

Image Credits

Bao Song