We recently connected with JR McHenry and have shared our conversation below.
Hi JR, 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?
I get my resilience from being a product of my environment. Always having to overcome obstacles and challenges to move forward. Nothing has come easy for me from childhood to adulthood to the present day. Without the resilience that’s been driven into me as sixth sense almost, I would not have made it as far as I have. Being a Black independent media company owner, you can’t last over a decade without resilience, especially when it’s only you doing all of the doing. From booking the show, producing the show, editing the show, posting on social media and web portals not to mention selling the show to get sponsors and advertisers with it being just you, to succeed you have to have resilience. The areas of this role where you have to exercise the most resilience is the booking the show part and an area I didn’t mention which is requesting credentials from collegiate and professional entities with the proper access to be able to do your job like the corporately backed media companies. It takes resilience to deal with constantly being told “No” when you request a certain guest or have your access “Limited” because you’re not a corporately backed media company or credential request to cover a team is denied because you’re an independent media company. I have dealt with this from the moment I entered the sports media space and still deal with it to this day. While I don’t agree with the dynamics of the sports media space for independently owned media such as myself, it helped me create a niche for the show and the interviews that I do and it’s been a success for me and my guests and garnered me notoriety nationally. I took a negative and turned it into a positive. Unlike some of my colleagues and friends in the independent media space, I refuse to talk about entities and teams that refuse to work with me on booking guests on the show, credentialing me to cover events or giving me the proper access to cover the event to the fullest. Exuding resilience daily is just like breathing, you got to have it to exist in this sports media space as an independent entity, I’ll keep it, I’ll keep my head up, can’t nobody hold me down, I got to keep on moving, I overcome and overachieve despite the mess.
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?
My main role is owning an independent media organization. In this role, I curate and produce content on a weekly basis of the interviews I do with a variety of guests in addition to the content I get from the events and games I cover as well. Being a one man band, I have to block out time to edit and post the content curated and produced throughout the week for the audience across all my platforms to consume. All while doing the previously mentioned tasks, I have to worry about the monetization of the show and reach out to a variety of small business owners to see if they are interested in advertising their business on the show or sponsoring the show in some capacity.
The most exciting part of what I do is interviewing the guests I have on the show and building relationships with them outside of the show as well in addition to going out and covering games and events. For me, being able to build relationships with guests outside of the show is what sets me apart from the vast majority of hosts in the sports media space. I show a human side, a real side that they can see and touch. I also allow my guests to come into an unbiased environment with no narrative to push and share their stories without prejudice to the audience.
As the show has grown and developed over the years, the guest list has branched out to entertainment, entrepreneurs, finance, health, wellness, politics, fashion and beauty. The variety of guests week to week has brought together a totally different than I had in the beginning of the show when it just sports for the most part. Being able to appeal to men and women of different ages and backgrounds is unique. I look at myself as a one-stop shop for different fountains of information that help the audience in various ways.
The plan for the future is to be a trusted voice in many fields as I am in the sports field. The ability I have to be knowledgeable on many different topics allows me to enter some spaces that most in the sports world can’t. For all the struggles and challenges of being independent, the best part is being able to speak on and cover whatever I feel without being boxed in, if I was at a corporately backed media company. All I have to do is ask myself whether I want to do something or not and that’s glorious. Continue to be on the lookout for me in many arenas outside of the sports arena as the days and weeks pass.
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 most important qualities that were most impactful in my journey were: 1. Trusting the plan 2. Staying true to myself 3. Understanding the ins and out of the sports media space
The most important quality in this journey was me trusting the plan and sticking to the plan through the ups and downs trying to breakthrough and get my foot in the door. If it’s something you want to do and be successful, you have to thoroughly plan it out. The plan must allow for the good, the bad, the ugly and the indifferent. In everything I do or go with, I think about the potential outcomes from the best outcome to the worst outcome, this has to be a part of the calculus in anything you do. Patience must be exercised. Things don’t happen overnight. Allow for mistakes, allow for growth, allow for development and definitely plan for a redirection at some point. Don’t be afraid to change course or make an adjustment or two along with the way. Even now, with the challenges I’ve referenced earlier, I still have to trust the plan and stick to the grind and not allow the circumstance to take me down. It’s a battle every week in the sports media space. If you choose a path, you have to take all that comes with that path, you can’t deviate or run when things get tough, see it through, trust the plan and live with the result.
The second most important quality in this journey was me staying true to myself. This entails a lot of things especially culturally, business wise and personality wise. Many individuals get into certain spaces and try to conform to the space, this practice is commonly known as code-switching. I don’t code-switch or conform for no one what you see if what you get. I’m proud of where I come from and how I carry myself in addition to how I talk and speak, I’m not changing that for nobody. I’m going to rock my fitted hats, shades and blazers when I’m out and about the trail covering events and games, that’s me, that’s who I am. On the air, I’m about having a free-flowing conversation. I’m totally against robot, question by question radio, so I never conformed to that. Generally speaking, when people zig, I tend to zag, because I value my individuality and not being duplicitous or copying someone else. I don’t focus on what others are doing in the sports media space, I just focus on what I do. I know how I want to curate and present content to the audience, that’s the focus always. When others bring me stuff of what other folks are doing, I respectfully tell them I don’t care, they can do them, but I’m gonna do me. I tell anyone early in their journey to believe in themselves, believe in their plan and put in the work and things will work themselves out, just like it has for me.
The third most important quality in this journey was me understanding the ins and outs of the sports media space before hopping into it. Before I decided to make this my career path, I did extensive research on the sports media landscape to understand fully what I was getting into. I would tell anyone who is looking to do anything to research it thoroughly to fully grasp what’s potentially ahead for you, if you choose that route. The study I did before I got into the sports media world helped me hit the ground running from the jump. I knew what I had to do and say to establish myself and get that proverbial foot in the door. This led to rapid growth because all of the prework I did prior to fully getting going. As the saying goes, proper planning prevents poor performance, so to those out there contemplating a move into something different, just remember that and it will set you up to be successful as you embark on your journey as it did as I embarked on and continue go along on my journey.
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
The most impactful thing my parents did for me was to instill discipline and work ethic in me.
The discipline to stick with a plan through the ups and down, highs and lows, good and bad. Having the discipline to be able overcome consistent setbacks and challenges that come from being an independent media entity.
The work ethic to be a sole proprietor wearing multiple hats to meet deadlines and be certain places when it’s only one of you, having that instilled in me at a young age makes this easy to pull off even though it’s hard work.
The discipline and work ethic go hand in hand with planning, mapping and developing the show’s forecast and outlook for the present day and the future.
I’m thankful for what my parents instilled in me to make me the man I am today and set me up for the success I have had doing my own thing for over a decade.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bossmanshow.com/
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/thebossmanshow
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/therealjrthebossman
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jr-mchenry-594a353a
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/JRTheBossman
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BossmanShow
- Other: https://bleav.com/shows/bossman-show/
