Young Social Impact Heroes: Why and How Yusef Reown of Spiritual Word Is Helping To Change Our World
Slow down, stay organized, listen, take time for yourself and keep pushing. I think all those things right there sum it up. I think when I first started off, I just had such a huge vision for that I just ran with it and I kept failing over and over again with what the concepts that I wanted to do to grow the business.
As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Yusef Reown.
Yusef Reown was born a natural leader. A product of Texas (birthed in Dallas and raised in Waxahachie), the prideful 27 year-old possesses something deep within that is uniquely special. He has built himself into an authentic multidisciplinary talent with a range of titles that include marketing guru, standup comedian, entrepreneur and actor. Rising up the entertainment ranks on charisma, formidable hard work, grit and determination, Yusef is a bonafide businessman and brand.
The marketing guru received a Bachelor and Master of Science degree in Psychology from Grand Canyon University, which further emphasized his intrinsic ability to relate to and connect with individuals from all walks of life. In 2018, Yusef aligned his skillset with SpiritualWord, a globally-recognized digital platform that bridges the gap between culture and Christianity. As the Director of Marketing, the creative risk-taker helped to accelerate the company’s growth to over 2.4 million online followers using his innate strengths of amplifying businesses and their bottom lines. Yusef has proven to be successful in generating revenue through gen-z research and increasing traffic by implementing initiatives that resonate with their audience, improving company policy and spearheading collaborative partnerships with legacy organizations. He’s a solutions-driven expert who contributes wherever an impact can be made.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
I wouldn’t say there was a specific interesting story. I think there’s just so much that has happened in the past several years that it’s kind of all a blur, but I appreciate every moment that I’ve spent doing this.
I think the most interesting thing is just being able to help other artists and help businesses grow. I’ve done a lot for a lot of people and I definitely earned that respect. It’s just amazing to see people take off within the industry, whether it’s music or acting, modeling or whatever, and we market for them and watch them grow and just see them take off.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I think when I first started out, when it came to the marketing, I was kind of like playing it by ear, saying what worked, saying what didn’t work. I was trying to do the marketing aspect as well as connect with different artists and different labels. So I would do interviews and meet up with different people. One time I had prepared an interview for a celebrity and then when I got to the location, I had read the email wrong and it was a totally different celebrity that was there. So I was totally unprepared for the interview and so I kind of just had to wing it. But it actually turned out pretty great. So I think the lesson that I learned in that was just to always be prepared for whatever, stay on top of things and stay organized so that you’re always ready.
Can you describe how you or your organization is making a significant social impact?
I think it’s making a huge impact on culture and social media. To begin with, we’re one of the biggest media outlets on the platform, so we have such a large reach of people and we’re able to connect with a vast majority of them in a quick amount of time. It’s just amazing to see how we can mold culture or push culture onto our audience.
I think the way that we’re able to do this thing now is that it’s truly an influence and we can help narrate different types of music and genres towards that culture. So I think it’s a beautiful thing. It’s definitely making a stamp on social media. I think that the more that we expand throughout different apps, etc. that it’s just going to continue to grow into a huge media outlet rather than just being a mostly on Instagram.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
I think the biggest person so far now to date right now that I’ve helped market for is Glorilla. I think when I got on that campaign and I started pushing it, when I first heard the song “FNF” I knew it was a hit and I knew it was going to blow up. So I connected with her and her team. I had some plans how I wanted to push some things. Once we put it out, it went viral. It went crazy online and she blew up. She was signed with CMG now and she’s doing her thing and I’m proud of her and her whole team. I think they went with a lot of great direction with everyone that was involved and so everyone played a great part in it and I’m just happy to see her get some number one songs, get some plaques and get her bag.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
I think we need to open up a discussion to listen to each other within the community and within the culture. There’s a lot of things that happen within the culture that are negative and I think right now with social media that there’s a lot of blogs and platforms that are really pushing the negative on our culture and on our people. I think that we try to stay away from that and we strive for pushing positivity and excellence amongst our individuals and amongst our audience so that they’re seeing the positive aspects of things and they’re seeing the changes being made. The more that we’re able to show off the change and be the change, the more that we can change and build unity within our culture.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
I think the first thing that comes with leadership is being able to be a follower. I think you have to be able to listen. I think in a leadership position you have to be able to understand the people around you and guide them and uplift them and help push them into the positions and the tasks that they’re supposed to do.
I think that in the position that I’m in, I’ve learned a lot from people and it comes a lot from listening to people and understanding them and just opening up Communication Avenue so that you’re able to understand people more fluently. Because when there’s broken communication, then it gets hard and the static between each other and then somebody’s not ending up happy within those two parties. But I think leadership definitely comes from just being a person of power and being a person of understanding. The thing is that power and leadership may correlate, but there’s a thin line in between. You have to be sure that you’re being a leader and not just being authoritarian leader but that you’re being really comprehensive and really understanding to the people all around you.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
Slow down, stay organized, listen, take time for yourself and keep pushing. I think all those things right there sum it up. I think when I first started off, I just had such a huge vision for that I just ran with it and I kept failing over and over again with what the concepts that I wanted to do to grow the business.
But I just kept going and I kept going and I kept going, even though I fell I kept going, I kept going. I took a huge risk with it and I put a lot of things for myself to the side because of it. I think mental health is important. I think your body is important. Just health in general is important.
Sometimes when you work too fast, you can overlook things or they come back. Things that you might have messed up on because you’re moving so fast come back later to haunt you in the end. So I think that all those things together, just sometimes staying organized, staying consistent is key to really just building successful business.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love to influence people to see themselves. I think that we have a perception right now because of social media and how everything is, that we want to change the way we look. We want to change the way we are, we want to act like something we’re not. If we just continue to love ourselves and see ourselves for who we are, then we could love other people and we could love other people for who they are without them trying to be someone else. So I think the movement of love could be absolutely phenomenal.
I think people kind of throw the word “love” around very loosely now in this generation, and it’s kind of sad to see. But true love and true self love right now is so low. It just needs to be picked back up so that people can really just understand themselves and love on each other and not judge each other and really come together. Because we’re all human and we’re all in this together, we’re all on this planet together. So the more that we love on each other, the more that we can fix things and continue to evolve.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I think one of those life lesson quotes. I say so much that my father used to tell me all the time is “I can show you better than I can tell you.”
With that life lesson, it was just a constant reminder to me especially in today’s age. Now it’s like everybody talks, and living in Los Angeles you hear everybody name dropping about who they work with, what they’re doing and this and that and so on and so on. Sometimes you just kind of have to shut up and just do it. You just got to work and get it done.
A lot of people in this business don’t get the recognition sometimes that you deserve, but I get the respect that I deserve. That’s good enough for me. I love that. I don’t think it needs to be broadcasted.
I can talk my stuff about how I do things because of how I do things, but I can show you what I can tell you. I think that my work for itself always proves to people what I have to offer and what my value is.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Honestly right now with the current events going on, I would like to sit down and have lunch or brunch with Kanye West. I think he needs someone to talk to and maybe just a hug or something. I feel like there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, and there’s just so much that we don’t know about, so much that he doesn’t know about. I think there’s so many people in his corner that just don’t care for him or I think that he’s doing kind of like a cry for help and no one’s listening. He’s a genius in himself and I was able to speak with him for a couple of minutes once in the past, but I would love to actually just sit down and have some time and just talk to him. I think that sometimes we get caught up and we could talk to people, but no one’s really listening. So I think he just needs to be heard.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
If you want to follow Spiritual Word, you could follow @spiritualword on Instagram, or you can follow my personal page @yusefireown
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Young Social Impact Heroes: Why and How Yusef Reown of Spiritual Word Is Helping To Change Our… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.