Shawn Patrick Degan

January 9, 2012 at 9:21 am | 1 comment

Seeing Life Differently – Acquiring one’s first pair of glasses is usually a less than remarkable event, but when Shawn Patrick Degan was told he needed glasses, the whole course of his life changed in an instant.

“I pretty much thought for most of my high school career and first few years of college that I was going to fly planes,” recalls Shawn, who was in R.O.T.C. at the University of Arizona. “I wanted to be a pilot in the navy, but needing glasses excluded me from that career path.”

Thinking he was finished with the military, Shawn became partners with the owner of the pizza restaurant where he had worked throughout college. “We were partners for 10 years,” he says. “At one time we had 300 employees, and I was working 10 – 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I wasn’t able to enjoy the fruits of the work I was doing.”

Finding Meaning
Hoping to establish more meaning in his life, Shawn decided to become a sheriff’s deputy. Shortly after, in 2002, he returned to his calling of joining the military by becoming a member of the U.S. Navy Reserve. In October of 2010 he tacked on a third position as an Amway IBO.

“I find it more fulfilling to be doing something for other people than just going after making tons of money,” he explains. “Money gives you plenty of freedom to do things, but as far as satisfaction and personal fulfillment go, it’s about doing things for other people, which Amway allows you to do as well.”

Shawn has been a sheriff’s deputy for the past 10 years. He has been a search and rescue sheriff’s deputy for the past six years in the sixth-largest U.S. county, which takes up more than 10,000 square miles. His squad is made up of only five people. “We help people who are lost, stranded, anyone in a horrible situation,” he adds.

In his 30- to 40-pound backpack Shawn carries his AMWAY™ products along with the rest of his gear on his search and rescue missions. “I either eat or drink the products myself or give them to a teammate or a patient,” he says.

Taking Life As It Comes
In 2004 Shawn was deployed to the Middle East for 11 months. This year he was deployed as a chief petty officer from July to October to a ship homeported in Pearl Harbor. “If I get deployed that’s what my country needs me to do. I don’t think it’s an obstacle to growing my business at all,” remarks Shawn.

“While I was deployed this year I was in touch with my upline, who were very supportive. I’m very appreciative of that.”

Shawn credits his upline, Katie and Eric Stewart, and his Platinum, Mike and Autumn Thomas, for helping him build his Amway business. He plans on growing his business but has no intention of leaving the Navy Reserve or his career as a sheriff’s deputy anytime in the near future.

“To establish another source of income and have that work for me – that’s absolutely my goal,” he says. “I love what I do, and I would have a really difficult time stopping that – even if I did make more money.”