We were lucky to catch up with Shon Christy recently and have shared our conversation below.
Shon, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
My dad was a grinder, I watched him work incredibly hard from a very young age to ensure we had everything we needed. He was the first one to model the way for me. I also learned work ethic from the sport of wrestling. I loved wrestling because the work ethic played out in the results. If I lost, it was almost certainly a result of not preparing and working hard enough. I loved to win, but I really hated to lose and that drove me to work as hard as I could to ensure that I had done everything in my power to prepare to win.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I opened the first niche social media marketing agency in the state of Ohio called Christy Creative. I had no idea how big social media would be and fell into it somewhat accidentally. I happened to be doing my Masters at The University of Akron and some undergraduate students in the department I was doing my graduate assistantship in introduced me to Facebook. Shortly after graduation in 2010 when my son Beckett was born, he was born with Down syndrome and some health complications. He was going to be in the hospital longer than expected and I remember putting a post out there for our first Buddy Walk and raised thousands of dollars from 1 post. I marveled at how I hadnt seen or talked to a single person and I was in a hospital room and all of that happened with 30 seconds of work. I saw the power of the post and immediately recognized the business opportunity so I quit my job, took my savings and 401k and launched the company. Since 2010 I have founded several companies in the social media arena and currently run Shon Christy Social Media which specializes in social media strategy, management, training and consulting. In addition to the agency I recently launched Fractional Social Media Pro, a staffing company that provides embedded social media support by leasing trained team members to companies who don’t need a full time person but want someone that works directly for them.
We are also about to launch new social media mastermind groups as a group training model. Groups are forming in Q4!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Vision, Passion, and Discipline. I believe that you have to have a crystal clear vision that inspires you and you drive toward that vision with passion. You can have all vision and passion in the world but without the discipline to do the hard work each and every day you wont get there. I saw a quote that motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing. I believe that 100%! My advice would be to set your goals and have a crystal clear picture of what success looks like. Once you have them set reverse engineer the steps needed to get to those goals, all the way to step one. Then be disciplined and take action that moves you to your goals. It is ok for that action to be imperfect, take action in the right direction and you will get there.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
The Go Giver by John David Mann and Bob Burg
They have 5 laws of stratosphere success that I believe in and follow.
The law of value states that your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
The law of compensation states that your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you do them.
The law of influence states that your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.
The law of authenticity states that the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.
The law of receptivity states that the key to effective giving is staying open to receiving.
I have found them all to be true and implement these in my daily life!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shonchristy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shonchristy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShonChristySocial
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shonchristy/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/shonchristy
