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December 17, 2024 • 15 mins
James Lott Jr the Super Organizer reflects on 15 years as a Professional Organizer. Alottofhelp.com
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
It is December seventeenth, twenty twenty four. This is the
s RS Show with James Junior. I'm James A Junior,
the super Organizer. We're here to help. It is my
fifteen year anniversary as a professional organizer. That's a major
milestone as we're heading towards ten years of doing this show.

(00:23):
I just hit ten years being a blogger last week
and now almost eleven coming up, and now fifteen years.
I am an old timer now and compared to most people.
I mean, I've been this a long time and I
want to do my things in gratitude. That's just to
every single client that's ever hired me. Whether it's good,
bad or ugly, whether we are talking or not talking,

(00:43):
whether I to fire you or not, does a matter.
You're all part of my journey as a professional organizer
in this business. I started from scratch at forty years old,
sorry from ratch and did not know what I was doing.
Took some small business courses at cal State LA, took

(01:05):
my own experience as running stores and things and working
on other fields. And my experiences are organizing and also networking,
taking classes the whole thing. I just I have had
such a journey this on this doing this organizing stuff.
I mentioned on the show last week that because I
have ventured out now, I mean I have a small
mini empire with this show, of course, my social media pages.

(01:31):
I have two books out and more coming, organizing books
out and more coming.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I have.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
A pail, I have a I mean, I just I
just I just I've grown this. I have a blog.
I've grown this just from an idea and a dream
and a book called Organizing from the Inside Out by
Julian Morgenstern. And I fell into my lap literally and
I read that and I thought, oh, this is a
business and I and I really say this a little

(02:00):
bit last time. By now a chance always say it,
I'm gonna say it more. I'm want to elaborate more
on it.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I'll tell to some friends of mine who are actually
around about around them. They say that in their forties
or late term forty, and they're going through their own
kind of midlife situations. And I feel for them because
I've been there. I think we all we think we're
all there at some point, we all just kind of
get there at some point. And I was really searching
for something i'd be passionate about something that I would

(02:30):
want to talk about even on my off time, something
I want to talk about on the weekends and the weekdays.
And I always and in some of the industries I
was in, I could talk to them about some stuff,
but it wasn't my passion. And I felt envious when
they would talk about it with such emotion and they
loved it, and they would just for hours talk about
insurance or talk about merchandising. I'm just like, this is

(02:52):
not my passion, this is not what I want to
dot my life. I found it last fifteen years. I
found it. I did not know when I started in
two thousand and nine, early Chius nine, that this industry
was still growing. I've met a lot of people who
started around childs and eight nine ten. It's kind of

(03:14):
funny as a bunch of us who are on the
the between we're past ten years, heading towards twenty, there's
a bunch or nothing, but not yet twenty. There's a
bunch of us. And I know some of you guys
out there and you've been on my shows and we
talked about it. There's something when you pass your first decade,
there's something. It's like we're teenagers or fifteen. I'm fifteen
or a teenager. There's something different because now I'm heading

(03:37):
towards twenty five more years. Of twenty and five more years,
I'll be sixty. So I'll be sixty and I'll be
twenty years as business. And now it's like what does
that mean? And so for me, I've been trying to
before the pandemic happened, remember we.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Had a pandemic.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
In the middle of all this, I had a tax
situation that went crazy with an accountant. I almost left
the business, quit it. And then at one point that
I had personal tragedies that I had my bills palsy,
that had my family situation last year where I had
a be a caregiver, I couldn't work. Then you know
I pandemic. A lot of sus happened this year. I

(04:13):
am feast, I have, I have all my clients are
wonderfully keep me busy. I am busier the busyer and
busy be. But before I pandemic, also I was doing
a lot of teaching and I started getting a whole
That is funny when you start to get older and
your business gets older. Because I don't have I don't
have employees. It was like, Okay, now I'm thinking about

(04:34):
the next ten twenty years. Do I want to be
an or do I want to be a physical organizer
at seventy seventy is fifteen years away from me or
a sixty five in ten years? Or do I just
want to be doing to be a teacher instructor? I mean,

(04:54):
and and I'm doing more of that stuff, and I want.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
To be more.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
I kind of want I do want to go into
that more. I love speaking engagements like that, so and
I'm doing them. I'm doing speaking engagements and people are
hiring me and stuff. It's great, but I'm just like
it's but then somebody's physically organizing. I kind of like
it with certain clients because I get my hands in
there and it's a physical thing. You excuse me moving
because my brain moving.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Can me moving? It's like that too. But I can
tell I'm getting older and certain parts are just not
the way he used to us. So it was kind
of is. But it's funny. I'm thinking, if I started
this business.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
In my twenties or thirties, is be ahold of a
story because I started later and it out entering life later.
You really I think at this time just anyway. So
I'm thinking, Okay, well I'm gonna see less years than
more if if life God willing. But like, what what
does this business look like? And then do I leave
it to somebody if something happens to me? There's that
two possible I could drop there tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Who gets it? Like? Who wants it? Was? I mean,
it's this fall a heart and that's it.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
So I mean, I mean there's been things that this
last year I've been thinking about as a long timer.
I was at a job site and another organizer who
was also there recognized me for my work. There's that
I'm getting lots of write ups and I'm doing a
lot of advice work, you know on better homes and

(06:12):
gardens and Women's Day and apartment therapy and the source
and forms. I mean, they're asking for my opinion. So
I mean, I'm an organizing product. So I'm doing that too. Thanks,
thank you, Stacy Barker, my girl. It's just like there's
just there's so much I have. I have something and
I love doing the show. I want to continue doing
this show. I want to continue having people on the show.

(06:34):
I'm going to continue with this this is well, this
is one of the longest running if it is organizing
shows out there, and I never and again going back
to that two thousand and nine when I learned how
this business kind of started in the eighties, so it's
only been like barely what about twenty years old? Why

(06:59):
you trying to result time I started, and some people
didn't know who we were, they didn't know it wasn't
I've watched the business industry explode since then, in the
last fifteen years. That's one of the things that I
am very happy about to think I'm part of that
because I I know for me, I'm bringing organizing in
a way to people that have no idea and would

(07:20):
not even see it normally because I'm wanted because I
do television. Because once I added my other live television
situation to this, it broadened my reach. So for a
lot of people out there, I am the organizer they know,
but sid maybe besides Peter Walsh if if they know him,

(07:41):
or Matt Paxton or Hoarders like I'm up there, I'm like,
I'm a Dorothy organizer on them.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
We're on TV.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
My girl, Jeralen Thomas, We're on TV. We're on special
things that people kind of know about. So it's kind
of interesting because I know all of them, I've met
all of them, I love all of them. They're they're
all amazing people. We all love each other. But it's
like it's kind of weird. I never thought I would
assend I started a build. I thought I'm doing my business.

(08:10):
I car got a niche for myself. I'm gonna work
over here, and just because I have the TV, and
it kind of exploded that people knew who I am,
that I am considered, and I'm humbled by that I'm
considered an expert in our industry. I don't have impostera syndrome.
I don't I never had in my life. So maybe

(08:33):
I can tell you I was a kid. I was
very confident. I feel like I deserve it. I feel
like I worked. I worked very very hard to get here.
But I also do know part of it is I
think there was one. I think there's one other black
male organizer out there and I we briefly met online,

(08:53):
but I've not seen or touch to each other. They
dont tell you their name, so sad I, which I
didn't know the name, but I have not met any
others men are. There are more men coming into it,
but men are the minority in this industry is mostly women.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
And so and I've always respected that space. I have
no problem with that.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
I'm like, that's fine. I sp be a nurse and
when I ended nursing thirty years ago as mostly women,
so I totally get that. I've learned a lot from
my women in this business. Smart, funny, compassionate women.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
So I have no problem with that either at all.
I'm like, okay, good, let's just do this.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
But I know that that's part of this big I'm
this big old black man, six foot three hundred pound
black man, has a big mouth and talks with celebrities,
but also promotes organizing. So I know that part of
that has elevated me up too over the last fifteen years.
Didn't expect that either. I had no idea what this

(09:53):
business was going to go. I had no idea.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
No I thought.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
I thought entrepreneurship from the other people for those people
over like other people, I have to get a job,
work it, then you're not need just then you have
any more vacation, but then you go on. I was
almost sat hiatus. That's my others, My other life. You
go on retirement and then you live your life. Right, No,

(10:20):
it's it's very different. And this is this is I
could do this rest of my life if I have
my health. That the organizing world has opened up so vast.
You can find your way in here and do something
that's very different anybody else. And there's other things I
can do. I don't have to just organize anymore either.
There's virtual organizing teaching, and I can do this stuff.

(10:43):
So I'm finding that the pandemic taught of stats. So
I'm like, okay, I can, I can.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
I can do this. I'm like, okay, I can, I can?
I can?

Speaker 1 (10:56):
This is something can happen for a long time. So
it's just very interesting that I was like, this is yeah,
very interesting. I just I just I had no clue.
I had no vision of where I be in ten
years or fifteen years, even five years. People are like.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
James, like, well, what are you being fine? I had.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Even right now, I have no idea. I asked some
ideas those some things I want to do. I'm an
idea is man. I got ten thousand ideas. I write
them down all the time. I have no pads everywhere
I write it with everything, but I'm saying actually seeing
where I'm going to be.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
It's kind of exciting though.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
I'm okay with this because I'm okay with not knowing,
because I'm open to everything. So last fifteen years, I've
had so many opportunities come, Like my partnership with Michael's.
I wish I could have that again. I wish they'd've
not doing it anymore, but I wish I could because
I loved it there there and other partnerships I had
Westwood One I had, I had to should the Christmas show,

(12:05):
organizing the Christmas show at FUSTV, which that's gone to
a lot of things are gone, so that's why I
can't do anymore. But I miss I've had so many
opportunities that others haven't had. I was remembered Freemantle North
America for my own show at one point it almost happened.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
So it's just I just I.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
It's I've turned down things I was. I can tell
you about when one day when the book comes out.
I've written books, I have organizing songs that I put
out like I was. I've been able to be really
creative in what an organizer can look like. Literally figuratively,

(12:41):
but also just in terms of what we put out.
I'm watching a lot of my organ fellow organizers, the
ones who are really they're doing videos. They're doing and
the videos are like fun, innovative videos. During types of videos,
I'm seeing them speak to their audiences. I'm seeing them
do lives. I'm seeing it and I love it. I

(13:02):
my wish as I as I end this episode, as
We're going as is part of the year ten episodes
of the show, which next year we ten years, I
wish for all organized things outside the box. You have
an idea about something, try it.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Why not.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
There's no one way to grow your business. There's no one.
People will tell you there is, but there isn't. There's
no way to do anything. You're in charge. You do
whatever you want. We know within the reason obviously right,
but I feel like people need to look at everything

(13:51):
as an opportunity we business to go no matter where
you are. You can be in a small town or
a big city. Don't let that stop you either from
being native. Try to meet yourself where you are and
challenge yourself. At the same time, I know that some
people are like I'm very shy. I get that well,

(14:11):
there's other things you can do to think outside of
that thing outside the box. Maybe it's not you, Maybe
it's a friend of yours who's very outgoing represent your business.
Maybe it's in a video. Maybe it's just you filming
stuff and you're not in the video. May you do
some voice on it? Like and there's there's, there's there's.

(14:32):
I teach also how to do that, so you can
come to me and we need help. I teach me
how to do that. I have classes, but like that's
but to me, it's like just you can cater things
to you, right thing to you. So I wish not
for anybody. I want anybody have success. We all win
when we all win, my friends says, and I think
that's so true.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
And they need us.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
There are so many people out there in the world,
but also in the America where I live. They need
our assistance.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
They need our help. They do, they really do.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
So let's let's help them. Let's let's get the house
gets let's do it. I'm James, a GENI super organizer.
Happy fifteen years to me, and I'm smiling because I
can't believe it's been fifteen years and I don't know
what that fully means, but I'm going to accept it

(15:26):
and thank you for everyone who has had a hand
in my success and growth and or growth in this business.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
I love you all. I'll touch to you next time.
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