There is no formula for stardom; it comes as a reward when you become successful. These two are directly proportional. Success is achieved through hard work, and so is stardom. The equation remains the same in every field you pursue, and the music industry is no exception. The rising popularity of social media has made the space overly saturated with fresh talent, making it highly competitive for a newbie to penetrate the industry. Jia Ruan, a rising music sensation on social media, has proved this with sheer talent. He has shown how to distinguish yourself from the crowd by being unapologetically unique. 

Jia was born and brought up in New York City. Being born to a renowned New York realtor father, Jia was completely unaware of any kind of struggle until his early twenties. He was educated at one of the most reputed schools in NYC and planned to take over his father’s business after graduation. After high school, he moved to Southern California to enroll in the USC Marshall School of Business. Even though he knew he would get a red carpet entry to the real estate business because of his family legacy, he always felt this was not his cup of tea. 

Jia was a curious kid in school. He enjoyed performing on stage and felt a sense of pride when he saw people applauding him. He aspired to be an actor just for the joy of being watched by people. His father suddenly passed away from a heart attack during his college days, turning his planned-out life completely upside down. With the huge investments his father had already made on different properties, Jia and his mother soon found themselves losing their fortune. With no one to take care of the family, Jia quit college and had to figure out a way to support his family. 

His mother worked two jobs as a music teacher, and his two younger sisters started working at a café after school. Jia worked at a grocery store as a bagger but wasn’t earning enough to make ends meet. It was then that he found a second job at the music school where his mother was a teacher. Jia started working as a salesman for musical instruments in the evening. This is where he discovered his growing interest in music. The different instruments, their sounds, the higher and lower notes seemed magical to him. 

During his days off in the week, Jia would take lessons from his mother to play different instruments. With time, his interest converted into a passion for music, and he began pursuing it as a career. Within a few months, Jia was creating unique compositions that were a blend of different sounds. He mastered the art of blending unconventional sounds like the bass guitar with a piano or a violin with fast drum beats. Being a Gen Z music artist, he utilized his access to social media to find his audience. Jia launched his debut instrumental track, “Vibrations,” in January 2021. 

Jia Ruan’s unique sound composition blew up on social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Unlike other artists, Jia kept his focus more on the sound and less on the lyrics. He expresses different emotions like grief, happiness, confidence, and enthusiasm through music that does not require words. This unique approach has so far kept his fans enthralled, and they are now craving his next release. 

If success is more fulfilling when celebrated with family, then it will feel more so when achieved with them. This is precisely the case with Jefferson “Jeff” Johnson and his wife and three children. They are a family of multi-talented influencers providing inspiration and happiness to their fans all around the globe.

Jeff is a singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, California, whose life revolves around worshipping God and doing his best for his family. He’s always had a passion for music and built a career in the music industry by uploading his songs to YouTube and Spotify, where he now has thousands of subscribers and followers. To date, he has released three tracks, with two more anticipated to come out soon.

Released in 2018, Jeff’s song “Count on Me” now has more than 200,000 views on YouTube and over 50,000 listens on Spotify. He then followed it with his single “Forever,” which is his most well-known work yet. It has surpassed 5.1 million plays on YouTube and about 350,000 streams on Spotify. His latest release is “On Our Side,” and it has also gained the attention of hundreds of thousands on the two platforms.

Jeff is also winning in the influencer game, with his large number of Instagram and Twitter followers. However, he is the proudest of what they have achieved as a family more than anything else. Since The Johnson Fam YouTube channel was created in September of 2015, it has garnered over two million subscribers and more than 780 million total views over the past six years.

The love of Jeff’s life is Natalia, his high school sweetheart with whom he ended up marrying and building a family. She’s making a name for herself as an influencer by sharing her favorite things in life. This includes traveling and, of course, her family of three. Natalia currently has over 170,000 followers on Instagram, and she focuses her efforts on creating videos about the family and managing her children’s social pages.

​​The Johnson Fam originally started with Jeff, Natalia, and their two lovely daughters, Olivia and Peyton.  Aside from actively making videos for The Johnson Fam YouTube channel, the sisters are also on Instagram, bringing happiness and inspiration to their over 160,000 followers. They were just recently even featured in a back-to-school fashion campaign by Walmart.

The newest member and only son of the Johnson family is Theodore, who was born in 2020. Like his parents and older sisters, he also makes an appearance on YouTube and Instagram, with tens of thousands of followers. Although not an overly active influencer yet, his fans hope to see more of Theo in the future.

Going forth, Jeff aims to continue building his reputation as a musician and influencer. He still actively leads worship for thousands and is working on his upcoming songs, “A New Life” and “Because You Love Me.” In addition, as a father of a famous family, he aims to continue making entertaining and inspiring content on social media for The Johnson Fam’s growing fanbase.

After over a decade of being in full-time Christian ministry, Jonathan Seller took a leap of faith and switched careers. He went from being a pastor and worship leader to making YouTube videos for mattress companies.  Many thought he was just being silly but turns out he has had the last laugh.  Soon, he gained popularity as the “The Mattress Guy” on YouTube and started raking in 6 figures in affiliate commissions. His journey to becoming a fully-fledged tycoon had just begun.

Soon after, Jonathan started his digital marketing company SecondTri Media. The company grew fast and eventually became his primary source of income. As a result, he managed to resign from a staff role at the ministry to a volunteer one, leaving him time to focus on other investments and personal curiosities he otherwise wouldn’t be able to pursue. 

Jonathan invested most of his money in the stock market. From years spent learning how the stock market works, he made wise choices, and before long, they paid off. His money started making him money, which led to him becoming a multi-millionaire before 35. It also gave him ideas on how to carry out his mission of helping increase the happiness of the most amount of people.

More than anything, Jonathan wants to help people discover what God wants them to become. He also wants to give back to the community both here and afar. When he managed to create several passive income streams, he took it upon himself to teach others how to do the same. His company, Walmart Auto Pilots, was born from that desire. 

At Walmart Auto Pilots, Jonathan and his team helped clients create, grow, and manage e-commerce stores. He walked with them from the beginning until they gain a steady source of revenue themselves. Recently Walmart has made changes making it more difficult for third-party sellers so instead of abandoning his clients he has helped them transition to Facebook Marketplace.  Currently, Seller and his team are preparing to launch Facebook Auto Pilots in October 2021. 

Speaking about it, he says, “Facebook Marketplace is a new platform, and we couldn’t be more excited about the internal team we are training right now. We are excited to offer multiple tiers for our investors. From our beta testing, we think Facebook Marketplace is going to be an incredible opportunity to generate weekly cash flow with far less risk than selling on Amazon or Walmart.” 

Even though he is no longer a pastor, Jonathan still values integrity and honesty. He has made a name for himself as an upstanding entrepreneur who his clients highly esteem. He tries his best to focus on his current clients, not the ones he might gain in the future. He says being totally present and helpful to them will open more doors and bring in others.

Along the journey, Jonathan has learned several lessons. First, he points out that comparison steals joy. To really grow, he reminds himself that the world has unlimited opportunities. The only competition is yourself.  If he consistently does his best, he knows opportunities will never run out for him. That makes it easy for him to focus on his own growth without feeling threatened by his competitors.

Another lesson he has learned is that personal happiness is the most important thing. In his own life, he has realized that making more money doesn’t necessarily mean more happiness. In fact, more money comes with more stress. Things like managing clients and employees can be very stressful. To counter that, he encourages authenticity. Finding his unique strengths and not doing things the way others do has been very helpful to him.

At present, he is focused on helping as many people as he can. He has a goal to help 1,000 clients become financially free through his companies’ services all while employing underprivileged people in the Philippines. If people can fix the money problems, he believes they will have more freedom to explore what God created them for.