FOUNDER TO THE PROFILE
CEO, Urban Yogis
““Before any action, there’s a prompt. And before any prompt, there’s always context.” — NaRon Tillman, Awakening I Am”
NaRon Tillman is the CEO of Urban Yogis, the New York City mindfulness company bringing awareness practice into schools, shelters, senior programs, and executive teams. He is also a minister, author, and media producer — and the creator and host of “Walk In Victory”, the media platform where he explores identity, inner clarity, faith, leadership, and intentional living through long-form conversation.
Tillman's entrepreneurial journey began at 19, when he became part owner of a New York City construction company. He became a minister at 24, and later wove mindfulness into his work after years of mentoring people through inner-city programs. He owns Principal Matters Production, Inc. a podcast production company.
His television appearances include NY1 and PIX11; his work has been covered by “The New York Times” and “Digital Journal”, and his book and podcast have been highlighted in Times Square. He holds an associate degree in business administration and professional certificates in digital marketing.
Tillman is the author of “Awakening I Am”, which draws a parallel between the prompts given to artificial intelligence and the words people repeat to themselves — and how those internal prompts shape the subconscious mind. His upcoming children's book, “Shaping I Am”, extends that focus on identity and self-understanding to young readers. He is also the creator of the I AM Assessment, a personalized digital tool with journaling and meditation features, and the Embrace Your I AM motivational apparel line. His work helps people recognize the patterns shaping their lives and move from reaction to regulation.
IN HIS OWN WORDS
I attribute much of my success to the people who believed in me before I could see what they saw. They made room for me in places I hadn't yet imagined myself — and their belief changed the way I spoke to myself.
In “Awakening I Am”, I write: "Before any action, there's a prompt. And before any prompt, there's always context." The people who speak possibility into our lives become part of that context. Their influence helps us challenge old labels, transform our internal prompts, and start seeing ourselves differently.
The best career advice I ever received came when I had lost everything and was trying to rebuild. During a business-loss evaluation, I was focused on everything — and everyone — I blamed. Then I was asked one question: what could I have done to make things different?
That question changed my direction. It didn't erase the hardship or excuse anyone else — it showed me the part I could own. I learned that accountability is not self-blame. It's how you stop looking backward for someone to blame and start finding a way forward.
Then I lost everything again.
The lesson was real — but knowing it wasn't the same as living it. The second time, the problem wasn't blame. I was unaligned: performing success outwardly while dying inwardly. Accountability showed me what went wrong. Alignment is what keeps it from happening again.
My career has worn a lot of uniforms — musician, construction co-owner at 19, minister at 24, mindfulness educator, media host. So the advice I'd give young men starts here: don't let what you do define you. Stay learning, because you never want to go stale. Don't be so humble that you forget to promote yourself and your brand — people made room for me before I believed I belonged in it, but I still had to walk into the room. Find out who you are first, then bring that to the brand. The brand can only carry what the person actually believes — that's the inner work, and it's why I wrote “Awakening I Am”.
Writing “Awakening I Am” is what made it clear to me. We give artificial intelligence a prompt, and it returns exactly what we asked for — nothing more, nothing less. Then it hit me: we do the same thing to ourselves. The words we repeat become the lives we live.
That's why the biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge right now are one and the same. AI creates room for thought leaders, systems builders, and speed. But it can also build a world where we have more things and do less thinking. Humans are thinking beings — creation is where wealth comes from. So the real challenge is not getting so productive with the tools that we stop tapping the internal supercomputer: the subconscious mind. The people who learn to prompt themselves as carefully as they prompt the machine will own what's next.
I know what it's like to wear a label someone else gave you. I grew up hearing what kids from my neighborhood were supposed to become — and I spent years proving that narration wrong. But here's what nobody tells you: the voices that shaped you don't leave just because you start winning. I've stood in rooms where I looked successful outwardly while I was dying inwardly. I lost everything twice — not for lack of talent or effort, but because I was unaligned. It was performative.
That's what I value most: self-awareness, the way our inner dialogue shapes who we become — and the honesty to admit when the inner voice doesn't match the position. My book explores this deeply: how the labels and fears we carry from childhood shape the way we speak to ourselves, and why rewiring the subconscious matters. Everything I build serves that same idea. The "Embrace Your I AM" clothing line turns declarations into something you wear daily — you literally put on the identity you're choosing. And the digital assessment tool creates personalized "I AM" statements from 24 questions, with journaling and meditation features to make them stick. The work is the same everywhere: change the inner dialogue, and the life follows.
PERSPECTIVES
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