We were lucky to catch up with CHRISTY LEE recently and have shared our conversation below.
CHRISTY, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Resilience for me came from my mom who always taught me the importance of confidence and positivity through high but reachable expectations. As an adult, I have learned to keep moving forward and keep trying my best despite complicated obstacles and overcome criticism. I feel that time is too valuable and having to reach my goals in life is too important for failure to get in the way. Growing up with strong women in my family has helped me build resilience that would later on help with my success.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Working as a self taught creator and recipe developer is no easy task. You don’t just wake up one day and know how to skillfully execute filming, production layout, script and edit. These are the job of more than 4 people but as a creator you do all of the above. It’s a long journey and I have put in countless amount of time and talent into building my brand for the past couple of years.
My past has taught me that only I can achieve success that will in turn make me happy and I continue to strive for perfection every day. What brings me the ultimate joy is getting the acknowledgement from big companies and landing a long term contract. It is that feeling of accomplishment when all your hard work and endless hours of effort is finally paying off.
Another huge milestone was having a publishing company reaching out to see if I wanted to publish my own cookbook. I first started this creative journey doing YouTube cooking videos.. After years of sharing my home cooked easy recipes,
my dream of writing a cookbook came true! The publisher found my YouTube channel and felt that I would be a good fit to write a cookbook. It aligned with what they were specifically looking for. One year later, my book was released and became Amazon’s best sellers!
It’s really exciting to work for myself and with some amazing clients! Having to hustle every day as a social media manager is tiresome and stressful but also worthwhile. The reward is knowing that you’ve made it this far without anyone else’s help and you have built something from the ground up. It’s not something that anyone else can take away because you’ve obsessively worked hard to create this brand/style that is hard to replicate. And the beauty behind all this? I have met some amazing people who is constantly motivating me to do better. And for that, I’m thankful.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
This journey as a content creator is long and exhausting because you don’t get to reap the benefits unless the companies see value in your work. You can have 100k followers on your profile but if those are fake and your content doesn’t provide any value, it is hard to get acknowledged by people who want to write you a check. It is easy to get free products in exchange for your content. But that can only go so far because having to monetize is your main goal. My advice is to be authentic and continue to work hard on creating your own style of work. Do not copy other people because you want to stand out and be different. There is no shortcut when it comes to proving yourself to land a paid collaboration. Be real, deliver valuable work and stay focused on being humble.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Currently, I am looking for restaurants and businesses to collaborate on a long-term partnership. I would be happy to share the different packages and rates where we can work together on a fair budget.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/missfoodaddict?igshid=YTQwZjQ0NmI0OA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ChristysChannel?si=pUoZofCTaV_EPDi9
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=_m3SyztWE_ji0wLxsL2Ycg&utm_source=ishare
- Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@missfoodaddict00?_t=8gSM1cZgZkR&_r=1
