Conversations with the Inspiring Christine Sarno

Today we’d like to introduce you to Christine Sarno.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My story really begins in 1974 – when my mother emigrated from Taiwan with her new American husband, my one-year-old sister, and myself, I was three at the time, and so I didn’t really understand the intense challenges she faced trying to push through a language and culture barrier with no family or friends to support her here in the U.S, and simultaneously finding herself in a troubled and abusive marriage with a husband who was an alcoholic.

I learned to become my mother’s advocate, and I became her American voice as I was growing up. As we pushed through financial struggles, and especially when my mother decided to divorce my father when I was fifteen, I found that taking on that protective role for my mother was often difficult but necessary. It created the space for me to become confident and independent, and it ignited and fueled the fire in me for greater, bigger, and better in my life – on my terms – as a woman.

I realized that I had the opportunity to drive my future, and I seized it whenever I could.

When there was no money for college, I earned an academic four-year scholarship at a private university.

When the country was coming out of a recession in 1993, I was one of the lucky few of my fellow graduates to secure a promising corporate entry-level position with a division of a global multi-media company in Manhattan, and immediately moved into the city with money saved from working multiple jobs in college and a business degree – earned debt free.

Navigating through corporate and start-up companies over the course of a twenty-five-year career – and working with amazing but competitive and often cut-throat Fortune 100 and 500 companies – I realized that my talents extended beyond business development. I found myself coaching other women early on in my professional career on how to navigate very male-dominated industries. I became a sounding board and offered support on how these women could make sure that their voices were heard, their talents and hard work recognized, and to have the courage to ask for the compensation that they desired and deserved.

This is what I did for my mother to help guide her growing independence, and I realized that this same desire to support and help other women extended beyond this little enclave of my mom and my younger sister my whole life.

Which leads me to where I am today – I still focus on business strategy, sales, and business development, and my sweet spot is helping to support and build early to mid-stage mission based tech startups. My passion, however, is teaching women how to not only find their worth and meet their goals but empower them to drive their own success in life – on their terms – in business as well as their personal lives.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road on this journey has been the equivalent of riding face down on a pot-hole ridden freeway that decided to incorporate roller-coaster twists when you’re least prepared. But I’ve grown tremendously by learning how to do it the hard way, and I have no regrets because I understand that I have chosen and continue to choose this path.

Several of the major struggles in my life have been dealing with career blocks due to being a female in the corporate world and striving for career success in industries where I’ve worked twice as hard as my male counterparts to make .80 on the comparative dollar, a failed first marriage, and a failed partnership with my children’s father – which resulted in my becoming a single working mother when my children were four and two. This last relationship cost me dearly in legal fees to protect myself and maintain my financial independence.

But the key is, I believed that I had a choice to ask and fight if needed, for what I deserved in both my career and my personal life, and so I did. And because I started investing in my financial freedom as soon as I was able to work, I had the ability to leave both personal and professional relationships that were not healthy for me.

I focus on five things that women need to remember to hold as non-negotiable rights. I am so passionate about these five that I wrote a blog called “The Five Things Most Women Fail to Fight for, but Should.” https://www.christinejoylucksarno.com/single-post/2017/10/15/The-Five-Things-Most-Women-Fail-to-Fight-for-but-Should

The top five:

1. Your Voice. This is uniquely yours. Own it and use it wisely. Don’t shy away from expressing your ideas, desires, dreams, needs, and expectations. Be confident and share with passion and authenticity. This is not an earned right. This is an innate right. Speak up.

2. Your Worth. How you’ll be valued by others is based on what you believe you’re worth. Review how others are treating you personally and professionally; they’re a mirror to how you truly feel about yourself. If you don’t like what you see, NOW is the time to shift the mindset and heart set. Don’t waste another second. Pivot for your success.

3. Your Growth. Invest in yourself. Continue to learn. Read books, attend seminars, or pursue that degree. Surround yourself with people that you know are smarter and more successful. Learn from them and widen the scope of your world. You are in the driver’s seat of your life – drive your evolution.

4. Your Financial Freedom. Non-negotiable. This is about creating a personal financial platform that allows you to live your life with courage, and not in a state of fear. It’s not just about paying your bills. It’s the freedom to make choices for greater, bigger, and better. It’s the freedom to walk away from a toxic partner, job, or any situation that doesn’t serve you because you’re able to support yourself and don’t need them to survive. It gives you the power to say fuck off.

5. Your Personal Time. You have to recharge. You’re not doing anyone a favor by putting everyone else’s needs first ALL of the time. You’re not a hero when you share that you’re running yourself into the ground. Get your sleep and decompress. Put it on the calendar and commit to it. Your loved ones, your business, and ultimately YOU will not succeed if you don’t carve this out for yourself. You can’t drive a car on an empty tank.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I have three full-time jobs.

The most important is being a mother to my two children, who are now 15 and 14. They have watched their mother juggle career and single motherhood from an early age and I have so much gratitude for their love and support. They are both amazing, kind, generous, beautiful human beings – both inside and out, and they are my ultimate inspiration in life. They are truly my Joy and Luck.

I have a passion for supporting and helping to build mission based tech start-ups as a Business Strategist and Business Development expert. Several of the most recent companies include Dabbl, Circle4Parents, and the Baby Box Company. At this point in my career, I want to share my expertise in this area with organizations that are focused on helping others in a meaningful way. It’s about “doing well and doing good” in this world, and it’s important for me to invest more time and resources in these types of endeavors.

And my last full-time job is my heart song, and that is Professional Coaching for women who are struggling in their careers or trying to figure out what that should be. I’ve been called a “Life Strategist”, a “Business Buddha”, and a “Wise Big Sister” by clients, and it’s the ability to help these women find their voices, their worth, and their own successes in life that fulfills my desire to serve in this very connected and purposeful way,

Looking back on your childhood, what experiences do you feel played an important role in shaping the person you grew up to be?
I learned how to become financially independent very early on, primarily driven by my own volatile home life as a child. I opened a bank account and saved most of my earnings from my first job in high school, I devoured books on investing in college, I purchased my first property at the age of thirty with my own savings, and that same year, I called my first investment advisor from a major firm and drilled the poor guy (who happened to be more than twice my age) to prove to me how he was going to help make my money grow.

Because my mother was unable to work in the earlier part of her marriage to my father, and he controlled the finances, he ultimately controlled her life, and that was very terrifying to watch in an abusive marriage. She didn’t have the resources or the financial freedom to leave. I promised myself that I would provide the support necessary to help her find her independence and take the steps to ensure that I would not find myself in that same situation in my own life.

As an advocate for my mother, who barely spoke English when she moved to the U.S., I was asked to speak on her behalf due to the language barrier, and so it created an opportunity for me to engage early on with adults as a child. I studied the effects of how strategic and effective communication on my part could be leveraged to drive the outcome I desired, and so it’s no surprise I found myself in the world of sales as early as high school.

I liked the idea that smart work combined with hard work had a direct impact on one’s compensation, and a job with a fixed salary was never going to be enough for me. Early on, I liked the stability of a salary and the upside of a robust commission opportunity. I started leaning more towards start-ups because of the tremendous financial upside, which often included equity in the company. I was fortunate to have several fantastic and financially rewarding opportunities in the course of my career to both learn and earn as a result of this decision, and I’m excited to share my life strategies and counsel to help other women believe that they have the power to create the lives that they want.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.christinejoylucksarno.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christinejoylucksarno
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristineJoyLuckSarno

Image Credit:
Renee Bowen Photography, Photos by Ernest, Tommy Flanagan

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