Meet Sean McElwee

 

We recently connected with Sean McElwee and have shared our conversation below.

Sean , 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?

I have a lot of dreams and believe they will come true. But there’s a lot of people who tell me my dreams won’t happen. So I don’t listen to them and I keep going. I wanted to be on TV and my high school drama teacher said it wouldn’t happen. He didn’t let me stay in drama classes in high school so I took them at community college. I worked hard and then when the auditions for Born this Way happened I was ready. I never give up on my dreams.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

When I was on Born this Way I said a lot of funny things. Then I was asked to do keynote speeches. When I wrote my speech I got the idea to deign T-Shirts with my funny saying on them. I have 160 designs now! And I keep thinking them up. My newest designs are ‘You Had Me At Burrito,’ and ‘Spicy.’ And one really new one is, ‘You Had Me at Merlot.’
$1 from every shirt I sell goes to my donation program. I donate Baby Onesies that say ‘Awesome is on the 21st Chromosome,’ to Down Syndrome Organizations for their new parent baby gifts. I’ve donated almost 2,000 baby onesies to over 55 Down Syndrome Organizations in the USA. I include a letter to the parents encouraging them that their baby is going to be awesome….like me.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I never ever give up on my dreams.
I am funny and have a lot of ideas and imagination.
And I get help from people who know more about things than I do.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I would LOVE it if some celebrities could wear my shirts on social media. I really need a lot of exposure and that would be so amazing. I’m in love with Shakira and J-Lo and Meghan Trainor, They can email me at [email protected]
Or anyone because I’m a big fan of a lot of people.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Sandra McElwee

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