Today we’d like to introduce you to Sonya Cox.
Hi Sonya, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
With a long time career in HR Management, I’ve always sought the path of lower stress environments, with an enriched way of living, but at a much slower pace. Across the years, I have blogged my way through life, family, pets, career, through My Southern Home, The Mellow Pages, Southern Lattitudes, and currently Less Hustle More Coffee Blog. In the last five years I began vlogging as well. The YouTube channel Less Hustle More Coffee became a “live” vlog version of the Less Hustle More Coffee blog. Mainly the vlog entails living a slower pace life, but yet a very full and productive life. The To Do List still rages on, and sometimes we have to reign in it, but the followers of the vlog enjoy a true to life, self-help, “here’s how I’m doing retirement” vlog tuning in to whatever my husband George and I are handling at the moment. Currently the viewers are watching us as we begin the process to move Mom into Assisted Living. I’m sharing most every detail of the process so the saga continues from week to week as we share our lives on the channel weekly, every Saturday at 7:00 a.m. CST.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Less Hustle More Coffee has been my baby for a while now and I intended for the vlog to be more of a travel journey, but we have yet to find ourselves jetting into the wild blue yonder. I didn’t want to wait to vlog so I tore off into just vlogging whatever I did daily/weekly. It is very much a hobby and creative outlet, turned into a business since it went viral with my “I Gave my Notice” video, and the channel became monetized. I am still a small channel, but yet a channel with a voice for the 50-70 something age range community. The community of subscribers are encouraged to reach out and help with ideas that support the group as a whole on the subject matter presented.
The YouTube algorithm has been the hardest part of this venture, as a vlogger, because my weekly subject matter is on a variety of subjects and vloggers sometimes have a hard time being noticed or pitched to the viewer’s feeds. So every week it is a challenge to initiate a subject that might raise attention while still vlogging a “week with me” type vlog. I’ve adopted the strategy of trying to help others while I try to help myself. 😉
Since I’m retired, I’m patient with the process on YouTube. I find it to be a puzzle and a game of strategy from week to week. But in the end, it’s ok because all in all it’s a creative outlet, and it does actually provide help to the community who are going through similar things we are. Somedays I ask myself if it’s worth the effort put in, but for my existing community that returns faithfully, even though it’s a small community, I say “yes” every time I ask myself the question.
As for the future of Less Hustle More Coffee – I’ve not written a book yet, and that might be on the agenda.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m retired now but my life’s work has been in HR Management and in more recent years, Payroll. I am most proud of being able to pursue and use my MBA in HR Management. I was so happy that the MBA brought a knowledge of business to the realm as I was able to see the entire picture while working with managers above me and the plant level employees below me. I learned to meet the needs and respond to both ends of the business. Most of all it seemed that my life’s quest was to “get it all done”. I handled a lot of things and I was very detailed and organized with most of it.
On my blogs and vlogs I would tackle how I managed to keep up with the day to day activity. And if I felt dismayed at trying to keep up, I was honest about it and would vent any frustrations and park it on the blog so that the next day I could get up and try it again – maybe in the same way or a new way that I’d found.
Every day was a hamster wheel and ultimately led to the blog name, Less Hustle More Coffee. (Let’s slow down life and just talk about it instead.) 😉
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
They don’t know why I am the way that I am. And sometimes I don’t either, but I’m very detailed, very honest, sometimes bluntly so. I think mostly people think I might be overbearing and have unrealistic expectations of everyone, including myself. But since I have always had high expectations for myself, naturally I expect that of everyone else. I’m retired now with only myself to answer to with Less Hustle More Coffee, and we are definitely having fun turning a hobby into a business – but small enough to still enjoy coffee and hustle less than we used to!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lesshustlemorecoffee.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lesshustlemorecoffee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesshustlemorecoffee/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lesshustlemorecoffee
