We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cortland Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cortland below.
Cortland, so many exciting things to discuss, we can’t wait. Thanks for joining us and we appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our readers. So, maybe we can start by discussing optimism and where your optimism comes from?
When I think about the subject of optimism I am reminded of an IG LIVE conversation I was having with a dear friend on Instagram who regarded being hopeful as being optimistic. I remember the explanation she gave resonating with me that has remained me since that talk that took place back in April or May of 2023. It is now September 2023 at the time I am writing this article.
Within that same time frame I actually began reflecting on the subject of hope and discovered my personal sense of hope and optimism began as early as age five when I began drawing the comic book characters from the comic books I enjoyed reading. It was my introduction to making connection with who I am and something I liked to do that I believed I could do and wanted to do. I was inspired from watching my oldest brother draw and thought to myself I wanted to do what he was doing. I believed I could and so I did. My introduction to being optimistic was fostered and facilitated by an interest in wanting to learn how to draw and taking action to do it.
After listening to my friend share her understanding of optimism and taking the time to reflect on where my optimism origin began it allowed me to see the many ways optimism and hope played a role and had impact on my life from that day forward. The simple belief I was able to do something matched with the motivation to want to engage in executing what I desired to do in order to experience the desired result or outcome was how I learned to be optimistic.
As I grew, during the time I reflected on my journey of being hopeful and optimistic, I discovered that interest in wanting to draw and create would shape my decision making that contributed to my career path and choice during high school and entering college. There was an innate belief and desire to want to draw, create cartoon art, and ultimately write and illustrate children’s books. Being a victim of childhood trauma, having a vision, a future where I envisioned and saw myself doing something that I enjoyed and believed I could contribute positively to the world around me helped to foster, facilitate, and fuel within me the optimism and hope that I had.
Though my life as a child and adult brought with it disappointments, difficulties, and dilemmas I would face, the time spent reflecting on what it meant to be optimistic and hopeful aided me in seeing how that origin of optimism I had as a child continued to help me remain resilient and recover from life’s hardships. As a young adult, that childhood optimism was fortified through placing faith in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when I was 24. My faith in Jesus Christ and ongoing journey of learning to trust God fortifies the early childhood optimism I discovered at age 5.
That passion to draw at age five gave me something to focus on and believe in myself to be and do. As a young adult, that focus was shifted and sharpened to direct it towards God instead of myself, because unlike drawing not all things in life can be mastered by myself or in my own strength or ability. Faith in Christ teaches me how to have optimism and hope in God, as I learned to have it in myself when drawing, that He can and will help me resulting in positive outcomes. I have learned to say to myself as a source of encouragement there is no matter too great or too small for my God to handle, because his word says, ‘Is there anything too hard for God?’
Believing I am made in His image, and God is revealed as a God of hope in the Bible, I am a child of hope simply by being a recipient of my heavenly Father’s DNA. I learned to put optimism into practice at age five by drawing and continued use of that essential life skill has aided me greatly over the years. I strongly believe without hope, or optimism, we lose the vitality and vigor to live. Hope, or optimism, is the fuel that moves and motivates us to live, engage, act, love.
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?
During my 30-year career as an educator I taught art, graphic design, and creative writing and now I teach creative writing and cartoon art classes during the summer at the Howard County Arts Council in Ellicott City, Maryland.
I am a 7 time published author with two children’s books. All of the books are available on Amazon: 1) Out of the Darkness: A Journey into the Marvelous Light, 2) Apples of Grace: A 21 -day Devotional for the Educator, 3) RED, YELLOW, GREEN: Insights on Dating for Teens (Parent Edition), 4) Light&Salt: The Fulfillment of Walking by Faith, 5) Fullness of Life: Experiencing the Fullness & Abundance of Christ, 6) Adventures of Captain Yolk in Outer Space, 7) HERO: A Boy Whose Dreams Inspire Hope
I offer empowerment coaching services for youth and adults who are aspiring authors and aspiring entrepreneurs. I provide mentoring through my coaching services for educators, co-parenting, personal, and spiritual growth and development. Seven of my former clients have published books and three have launched businesses since my business launched in 2014.
I also offer grant writing services acquiring, to date, $55, 000.00 in grant funding since 2014.
I am also the CEO of a nonprofit organization The Better Place, Inc. (est. 2016) and we are currently collaborating to produce a documentary film on the subject of literacy and its impact on African Americans past and present.
Along with my books and services I have Faith Affirmation apparel you can find on my website www.cortlandjones.com
What excites me most about all of this is the opportunity, in various ways and means I am able to make use of the childhood optimism and hope associated with faith to be used by God to contribute positively to the world around me. My life has come full circle as I am now teaching youth to write and draw, using cartoon art, to instill and reinforce that optimism within them that was established in me at age five by my Creator.
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 factors that aided me in continuing to move forward with optimism and hope in life include: 1) focus, 2) initiative, and 3) hard work ethic.
I mention these three because it takes focus to do anything or achieve a goal. Learning to draw required focus. Getting good at it required focus. No matter how difficult a task or goal is focus is part of what aids us in being able to learn, achieve, and succeed.
Initiative is what invites us to act and follow through. Being focused and taking the initiative to try, to learn, to engage, to participate is how the process of moving from where we are currently to where we desire to be occurs. Without initiative, optimism becomes wishful thinking.
Hard work ethic is what helps foster resilience and endurance. We quit without having the mentality of a hard work ethic. Nothing in life will come easy. ‘Where there is no struggle there is no progress.’ – Frederick Douglass I tell my clients often, once a goal is identified it ceases to be the goal. The ‘goal’ becomes what needs to be done to achieve the goal. This is where, we say, the rubber meets the road. Will we be willing to do what is required in order to achieve, accomplish, acquire what we desire?
Creating a ‘vision board’ of not just what you want to achieve, but what are the character traits required in order to accomplish what you want to do is essential, because who you must become to reach your destiny is as important as the identified destination.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
The number one obstacle and challenge faced as an entrepreneur and self-published author is learning to maintain my optimism and hope in God during the ‘dry seasons’ when the income is not being generated in the way you were accustom to working full time 9-5.
During the Pandemic of 2020, I had to put things on hold and focus on my mother’s health, along with maintaining focus on my role as an educator. Having less clients and patrons, it definitely decreased the amount of income during that time period. Things turned in my favor during the next tax season as I saw increase again my earnings and profits.
This calendar year, 2022, I am seeing the previous challenges experienced during the pandemic, so the roller coaster nature of running and owning your own business has to be met with a tremendous amount of patience, hope, faith, trust, innovation, and resolve.
My current challenge requires me to meet it with the same optimism and hope I have learned to live by as a child and in previous circumstances that I am faced with today.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cortlandjones.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cortlandjones/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cortland-jones-50531132/
Image Credits
Ann Blake, Photographer (image of me) David Nichols, Photographer, (image of girl with faith affirmation apparel)
