Meet Steve Whittington

We were lucky to catch up with Steve Whittington recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Steve, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

This is a story about my grandfather and grandmother. They were a big influence in my life. They own a farm with all the livestock, that you could imagine with acres and acres of land. My grandfather also owned a bait shop. He had ponds all over his land. where he raised minnows. People would come from miles around just to buy minnows from my grandfather. He was a great salesman. I learned a lot about selling from my grandfather. We would go into town during the harvest months and sell vegetables and fruits to all the grocery stores, In the winter time my grandfather was a carpenter. He work on many carpenter projects during the winter months. My grandfather was an amazing hunter. He taught me how to shoot, shotguns, rifles and pistols. His neighbors called him the hog killer. Every year right before Thanksgiving, along with his neighbors he would kill two hogs and share all the meat with the neighbors. My grandfather had a name for every animal on his farm. This particular hog was named Sam. My grandfather would walk out to an open field where Sam would be standing. He would say Sam it’s time to go to hog heaven. Living and working on the farm is hard work with unexpected challenges, each and every day sometimes. My grandfather would wake me up at 5 o’clock in the morning. He already had the coffee made. Grandma would be making up biscuits and cooking eggs and bacon. I could smell the bacon sometimes it would wake me up in the morning. My job in the morning was to gather the eggs from the chicken coop. Everybody had certain jobs they were responsible for on the farm. Of course I had many jobs on the farm. My grandfather was always giving me good advice. That stay with me. He would always say to me you have to love what you do in life and constantly improve yourself. One of the most memorable moments on the farm is when it was raining. We would sit out on the porch in the rocking chairs and watch it rain and talk about the good old days and different projects that were on the list to do on the farm as the rain would be coming down. I spent seven summers on the farm. My Grandfather and Grandmother created a world for me on the farm so that I could create and grow. They made sure that I would continue to learn throughout my life. I have used all of this knowledge to this day. I was very fortunate to have wonderful grandparents. That loved and cared about me.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My sister was very artistic. She worked at a print shop and she wanted me to go into the printing business. She knew I was very artistic. I was thinking about working for my dad at WHITTINGTON lumber Company, I was 17 years old when I started working with my sister. I was an apprentice for two years a journeyman for 18 years and a master printer for eight years. After that I started selling art. I became an art dealer. I was representing different artists doing art shows. I was selling art to a local auction company. They wanted to hire me as an auctioneer so I did that part time,The Los Angeles time saw me doing an auction in a Little Tokyo and they wanted to hired me as their sales and promotions manager. I knew I was going to start another career little did I know I’d be working for the newspapers. I started with the Los Angeles Times we became the number one sells and promotions team. Four years later, I started working for The New York Times. They wanted me to set up operations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. I did that for four years West Coast operations number one in sales and promotions. The Wall Street Journal recruited me we signed a contract with the Staples center and did all the sports teams. It’s the only venue in the world with three professional sports teams. We also did all the festivals all the colleges doing sales and promotions in California. Four years later, San Francisco Chronicle recruited me I had the number one sales and promotions team in the bay area. We were everywhere. I’m retired now writing poetry. My poems have been published since 2018. Every year since I have published 2 to 3 poems in different books. I just finished my poetry book called “Passions Of Life” Poetic story poems. I’ve started working on 3 other books. “Seven Summers”, The Day Elvis Presley Died” The other book is about my family the Whittington’s.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Believe in yourself first! Never stop learning. Surround yourself with people of knowledge that you can learn from develop skills from others that are very knowledgeable in their quality of work. Respect your peers questioning yourself first give the people that you’re trying to connect with a chance to deliver the message. Listen!

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

I feel like I’ve lived a full life and have a lot of great stories to tell people. They say you start a new life every 30 years I’m in my third life. I’m at a place. I’m in my life where I want to give back through what I can create. I would love to meet and work with a screenwriter, Director Producer, actors and actresses.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: whittingtonsteve
• Facebook: Steve Whittington
• Linkedin: Steve Whittington

Image Credits

Bruce Whittington