Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Armon Anderson

Self-love has never been more important than it is right now. Debut author Armon Anderson is teaching us the importance of discovering our self-worth by sharing personal anecdotes of heartbreak, hope, and encouragement, as well as tips and tools in his book, Selflovology: Your Journey to Self Love Starts Here.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Armon to learn more about his career, his own journey to self-love, and how he hopes his book makes readers feel less alone.

PC: You’re an author, thought leader, and life coach. Can you tell us about your journey and career?
Armon: Absolutely. I originally grew up as an entrepreneur. My father left my family when I was twelve, and I didn’t know what life was going to look like. I didn’t know what was ahead of me. All I knew was the trajectory of my life had changed in a split second.

Entrepreneurship at age twelve led me to the personal development industry. Something that I, probably at thirty-one, would still not know had that not happened is that there is a section in Barnes and Noble’s called “Personal Growth”. It’s amazing how something like my father leaving at twelve led to learning something as amazing as looking within and realizing that if you’re not personally growing, you’re not truly living. That personal growth led me to really understand that in life we don’t ultimately get what we want or deserve, we attract the person that we’re willing to become.

Throughout the years, I had to learn that the hard way. Ultimately, a relationship in my early twenties ended up being dysfunctional, to say the least, but that relationship and being codependent and trying to fix somebody, save somebody, led me to my purpose of becoming Mr. Self Love.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career, either personally or professionally?
Armon: That’s a great question. Personally, I’d say my mother, for raising me as a single mom. She’s dedicated her entire life to making sure my sister and I were on the right track. We joke and call her mom-dad because she played both roles, and she did it so well. I have so much gratitude for not just my mother, but any single parent or parent that dedicates so much time and energy to their children. I don’t have children yet, but from the looks of what my mother did and what I put her through, she definitely went through a lot. The least I could do is stay on the course.

It was pretty amazing to give her my first book, Selflovology , and to thank her for her belief in all the moments that she honestly could have chosen to tell me to go to school, graduate college, and do all the things that she saw for me, but ultimately, she believed in my vision even when it wasn’t clear.

PC: Throughout your career, you’ve been incredibly vulnerable about the highs and lows that you’ve experienced in your life. Has that ever been a scary prospect to be that open?
Armon: Definitely, especially as a man. Most men have fathers who say, “Don’t cry.” You almost get shunned for being emotional. Ironically, growing up with my sister and my mother, I naturally became more sensitive as a man and in tune with my emotions. It would have been a lot different if I were raised by my father, if he didn’t leave. It’s definitely not easy at first, because as a man you’re not used to being vulnerable and sharing your emotions because all you were told was to do the opposite and that it would make you weak. But ultimately, I realized that vulnerability was the way through. It helped me find the people that I really resonate with and I can call a friend because, throughout my life, I realized there’s a huge difference between what a friend is and what an acquaintance is.

I definitely got the two mixed up horribly a couple of years ago, but I ultimately understood that my vulnerability would lead me to people who have gone through something, but people who were not willing to settle in their circumstances. Now in my life, I’m grateful to have close friends that aren’t afraid to be vulnerable and share what’s going on, knowing that it’ll push them forward in life.

PC: You recently released your debut book. Tell us about the inspiration behind the book and what readers can expect.
Armon: I sat up one day—this was about four years ago—and thought of this quote, I’m not sure who said it, but it says, “So many years of education, yet no one ever taught us how to love ourselves.” I looked back at my life, whether it was elementary, middle school, high school, college, there’s psychology, there’s biology, there’s almost every -ology except selflovology. When I read that quote, I thought to myself, “How come nobody teaches that?” We go through our whole life and there’s no curriculum on getting to know ourselves or teaching people that it’s important to love yourself and strengthen your self-worth.

That might mean healing your path so you can stop suppressing and truly move forward with a happy life. When I started thinking about all those things and that it didn’t exist, that became my motivation to start writing. I’d never written a book before. Before I started writing, I told myself Selflovology is already done. I put that in my mind because I had never written or published a book before.

A lot of things happened in the four years that led to the release of Selflovology on April 14th. While I was writing the book, I was thinking of all the people who were in pain right then, who were maybe too timid or afraid to tell somebody what was going on in their life, the people who didn’t have any relationships and might be in their room in tears or in a horrible place. If I would have quit being Mr. Self Love, and if I would have quit on Selflovology, I would have given up on every person I knew I could impact.

For me, human connection is the way through. My hope is that when people read Selflovology, they never feel they’re alone ever again. That’s probably my biggest goal with the book; I want people to know that they don’t have to go through their pain alone.

PC: You started writing this book three and a half years ago. What’s one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
Armon: That’s a great question. I would probably reiterate to myself that you don’t need to know everything to start. But if I would have said something that I wish I knew, it would probably be that I was going to have to edit the book more times than I could have ever imagined. [laughs]

PC: With this being your debut book, did anything surprise you about the experience? What’s been the biggest takeaway for you putting this together?
Armon: I purposely shared my own experiences so people would feel comfortable breaking through their own stories. I had a lot of people ask me, “Armon, do you really want to share and let everybody know what you went through in your life? Don’t you think it’s going to make you look less than in the eyes of other people for what you accepted, what you chose, what you tolerated, and things that you went through with your father?” My answer was always, “Experience is the greatest teacher.”

If someone were to say, “Armon, I would pay you a million dollars for you to clean your entire past and start your life over,” I would decline in a heartbeat; I would continue to live my life. If I asked you or anybody the same question, you would want to continue living your own life. The answer tells us that although we all go through trials and pain, it’s ultimately how we learn how to love ourselves.

PC: What’s next for you?
Armon: I’m actually in the process of writing my second book. The idea is to write the second one for kids. The quote I mentioned to you earlier says, “So many years of education, yet no one ever taught us how to love ourselves.” The idea is to add two words to the end of that quote, which would be, “So many years of education, yet no one taught us how to love ourselves until now.” I want to write a book for middle school/high school ages so there’s a resource for kids.

To keep up with Armon, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Pick up Selflovology: Your Journey to Self Love Starts Here today.