Connecting with Malcolm Johnson, Jr.   

Living a Life Fulfilled through Entrepreneurship 

 By Brian Maddox. 

Malcolm Johnson Jr. aligns to the right side of the field, top of the numbers, inside foot up. He’s running a hitch route: six yards downfield, then back to the quarterback at a 45-degree angle, with an option to convert to a “go” route if pressed. As he settles into his stance, Johnson notes the defensive back’s alignment and demeanor. One yard off the ball. Inside leverage. Shins over toes. Clear indicators of press coverage. The cornerback plans to “jam” Johnson at the line of scrimmage before he can gain momentum, while Johnson, AKA “the Jet” (a fitting nickname, as Johnson ran the fastest 55 m sprint in the country as a high schooler), knows to convert his route and use his speed to beat the defender in a foot race to the endzone. 

The football is snapped. Just as soon, Johnson has initiated a split release, bringing his feet to balance and giving a head-and-shoulder fake in the direction of the cornerback before exploding off the inside of his left foot. The defensive back lunges at air, sold on Johnson’s subtle yet effective weight shift – an unimpeded release. Five tenths of a second into the play, the speedy and experienced receiver understands he’s already won. He strides down the field, works back inside and, eventually, peeks expectantly to the sky, ready to track the football as it spins towards him. The spiral is tight, the timing timely, the location – Pat. The crowd rises to its feet as Johnson secures the catch over his left shoulder and darts down the sideline, the ball in the clutches of his gloved fingers as he pumps his arms with violent grace. 15…10…5…Metal bleachers shudder under foot. Touchdown, Johnson Jr.!  

Johnson comes back to the room. He hadn’t actually scored. He had been describing, to me, on a couch in his apartment in Bowling Green, Ohio, an example of a scene he might visualize. Seeing where he wants to be before he’s there comes naturally for Johnson.  

View Turning Vision into Reality HERE. 

It’s something he was able to do as a young boy living in Bryans Road, Maryland; as a newcomer at a well-endowed, prestigious high school; as an early enrollee student-athlete at a Power 5 college; as a team leader and community role model; as a transfer student at Bowling Green State University (where he currently starts at wide receiver in his final season of college football); and, perhaps most notably, as a driven entrepreneur with a passion for serving others and promoting positivity through his mental health brand “Start a Conversation”. 

The youngest son of Marquita and Malcolm Johnson Sr., Johnson has long been involved in sport. “I didn’t really have time to bullshit around, to be honest,” he recalls. 

“My folks made sure my time was dedicated to something.” Free time was always time spent outside; in the summertime, it was typical for Johnson to leave home at 8 AM, only to return for a quick meal before moving on to his next activity. He played basketball, baseball, track, and his least favorite sport, football – despite his love for the game today, Johnson initially didn’t understand the sport’s appeal. He didn’t enjoy getting hit, and the culture could, at times, be toxic. Early in his promising career he wanted to quit, but his father insisted he continue, at least until he was 16; if, by then, Johnson still didn’t want to play, he could make that decision.  

A unifying theme in Johnson’s journey has been a learned ability to embrace the uncomfortable. He has learned by doing. In sport, it was never enough for him to be a great athlete in local youth leagues. As soon as Johnson’s competition was deemed “limiting,” he would be removed and placed in a new situation. “My pops made sure I never got too big-headed,” he tells me. Despite his talent, Johnson has always paid attention to people who were better than him, never focusing on his own abilities and others’ lack thereof. In football, he remembers scoring four touchdowns a game one season, after which he made the switch to a league with no weight restriction. Eventually finding success there, he left to play for a team an hour away in D.C., an experience filled with adversity, but during which he learned the importance of being able to interact with different types of people. 

Nowhere would this understanding serve him better than at St. Stephens and St. Agnes (SSSAS), a private JK-12-day school in Alexandria, Virginia. Many of the school’s students came from wealthy families. For them, SSSAS was a bubble. It was where their lifelong friends were, a place they knew well and that knew them. For Johnson, high school was yet another uncomfortable situation. Also, nothing new. When he transferred from National Christian Academy in the 9th grade, Johnson recalls thinking “everything was different…We had fingerprint scanners, and we were eating Mediterranean food. And I’m like, ‘this is weird. That’s not really me.’ And then the people, the conversations were different. People talking about stocks and things like that.” Teachers were eager and willing to help outside of class, and socially, he laughed remembering over-communicative peers who would say hi to him as they passed in the hallway…sometimes for the third time in a span of minutes.  

Johnson refers to his high school years as some of his most formative. Despite a long first year during which he recalls being in a state of denial about the situation and culture he’d been thrust into, he eventually adjusted. He began to enjoy football and was excited by the opportunities the game presented. At 16, not only was he sure he wanted to continue playing, but during the holiday season, instead of asking for video games or clothes or money, he asked for a weight room set. Athletically, to say he dominated would be an understatement – not many high schoolers get pulled from class to meet with Nick Saban.  

Off the field, he was exposed to novel ideas, recognized the privilege in his new community, and soon realized the things he wanted to accomplish were well within his grasp; “I began to see life for bigger than what it was, what I’m used to,” he said. Seeing what people around him sought to accomplish, he knew he could tackle whatever endeavors he chose to pursue.  

Johnson would commit to Auburn University the summer before his senior year of high school. Because of a senior football season lost due to the pandemic, he enrolled in college a year early (freshman year of college was “weird,” too, as Johnson was taking college classes whilst finishing high school coursework). A carousel of coaches and a slew of injuries would make Johnson’s experience on the gridiron rocky. “It was hard for me to develop like I wanted to,” he said. “A coach would leave, and they don’t know me, so I would have to work my way back up, a coach would leave, and I gotta work myself back up, and it was just like…man.”  

Through it all, Johnson put his head down, built lasting relationships, and continued to see the bigger picture. Sidelined by a broken collarbone during the 2022 season and no longer able to train, he sought connection. “Making friends has never been an issue for me,” Johnson says. He began reaching out to Auburn alumni on LinkedIn, eventually discovering and befriending Ward Swift, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Auburn’s New Venture Accelerator.  

Johnson had “reached out really with just a request of: ‘I think I want to become an entrepreneur…I want to talk to anyone I can to help me figure that out,’” Swift tells me. Johnson’s request was a serious one: in their first meeting, when Swift asked Johnson about his goals, he promptly produced and unfolded a sheet of looseleaf with a list of milestones he planned to accomplish. Things he had visualized. When I ask Johnson where he sees himself in the next five years, his response is just as concrete. He wants to be a role model, a father, a leader in his community. He wants to “build an empire.” 

Early in their partnership, Johnson made clear to Swift that (1) he wanted to effect positive change and (2) he didn’t want to work for somebody else (not in an arrogant way, Swift assures me – he just had a keen sense of the type of environment that would best suit his skillset and personality). But what Johnson possessed in ambition, he lacked in direction. Instead of focusing on an idea and trying to build a company immediately, Swift advised Johnson to first build his brand. When an idea did come, an established identity and social media following would open doors. So, Johnson got involved in his community and started “Behind the Helmet,” a podcast with friend and Auburn teammate Donovan Kaufman, through which he revealed an unbuttoned, uncensored, authentic version of himself.  

No topic was off limits; the pair bantered about upbringing and college life and relationships and mental health and nothing in particular. During one episode, a few of Johnson’s friends poked fun at him for his tendency to compliment most everyone he came into contact with. When they pressed him as to why, Johnson gave a response Swift refers to as the catalyst for Start a Conversation. “Because you never know what somebody’s life is like,” Swift recalls Johnson saying.  “They may be having a bad day, and me saying, ‘hey, those shoes are nice,’ or ‘hey, I like that hat,’ maybe that made their day…so I just do it.” 

“Malcolm, there’s a business,” Swift told Johnson. “This is your authentic self, and you are promoting this thing called ‘conversation.’” Johnson’s response had not only revealed an evolved, compassionate worldview, it also shed light on a glaring social problem, a need that needed addressing. Social media has made it such that, even when people are spending time together, that time is often interrupted by cell phones. “If you go to a restaurant, everyone is looking at their phones…people don’t talk to each other anymore” Swift said. On college campuses, the problem is especially pervasive, as students often walk around with eyes on their screens, oblivious to the spaces they’re sharing with fellow humans (something Johnson admits he has been guilty of, too, but has made an effort to change).  

Thus far, Start a Conversation has launched a website, posts weekly about mental health practices and routines, and shares the mental health journeys of students (with a focus on student athletes). One such story is that of Olivia “Liv” Nay, marketing intern for Start a Conversation at NVA and a former collegiate softball player. 

She told her story on the “Stories by Student Athletes” podcast, and while that story deserves its own profile piece, in short, it taught her the importance of self-belief; a hoodie with the words “believe in yourself” emblazoned on the back can be purchased on startaconvo.com. Other apparel items include a snapback and crewneck with the greeting “hello” printed on the front. This past year, Johnson also contacted Hillinski’s Hope, an organization leading the fight for student-athlete mental health.  

The foundation is run by the parents of Tyler Hilinski, a Washington State University quarterback who took his life in 2018. Inspired by those conversations, the brand launched a “one percent” line for student athlete mental health week (October 5 – 12). The hoodie reminds its student-athlete consumers to be proud of who and where they are; as athletes playing at the college level, they are part of an elite group. 

But why, you may be asking, is Johnson so determined to address the mental health crisis? As I prepared to interview him, I wondered the same – wondered about his personal connection to the problem his company was trying to solve and encouraging others to speak about.  

This is natural, as I think people gravitate towards significant moments when engaging with a story; the moment a character’s life changes, the moment the protagonist gets knocked down, the moment of triumph after a difficult struggle. Johnson’s story, however, has never been about singular events. Whether there is or isn’t a “bigger” story is not for me to say, nor would that story be for me to tell.  

To understand what makes Johnson’s company special is to understand that his mindset, more so than any made-for-the-movies backstory, gives him the credibility (dare I say expertise) to serve as its CEO and chief visionary. Swift describes Johnson as “wise” and “remarkably mature” for his age.  

Indeed, in our hour-long conversation and in numerous podcast appearances, Johnson articulates ideas about mindfulness (and mental health more generally) one might expect of a psychotherapist. He prioritizes self-reflection and notes the importance of accepting emotions as they come. He values alone time, occasionally taking himself on “dates” to recharge and self-reflect yet credits his success in life and in football to a support system of family and friends he can vent to and talk through things with – people who will keep him in check when he’s acting out of character. A non-reactivity to fluctuating thoughts and feelings aligns with an accepting view of his peers: “Other people are different…I can tell you a method that works for me, but it may not work for you,” he explains on the “Make Mental”  podcast.  

He understands that life is not black and white, it’s gray. He hopes his brand will serve as a “bridge,” bringing people of all ages, cultures, and complexions together in conversation and connection. He hopes to show that what separates us is not nearly so great as what we have in common.  

There have been moments in Johnson’s own life when he has lacked connection, shut the world out in pursuit of his goals. He questions the extent to which this was always necessary, but also understands that being part of the one percent takes sacrifice. And Johnson’s not after perfection. As he mentioned in an interview, “failure doesn’t exist.” What matters is the process and learning. What matters is growth. Life isn’t a movie for Johnson. Or, if it is, the training montage is a lot longer than a few minutes and his superpower is consistency.  

Empires weren’t built overnight. But Johnson has visualized his future, and what he visualizes he acts on. So, for now, he’ll continue to prioritize growth, make connections, self-reflect, have faith in God, give himself grace, lean on his support system, and stand on business. 

To learn more about the Start a Conversation Movement, click HERE. 

To Follow Start a Conversation on Instagram, click HERE. 

To learn more about the New Venture Accelerator, contact Lou Bifano, Director, at loubifano@auburn.edu or visit their website HERE.