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Marketing Q&A

Folks, we're gonna have a little bit of time for questions here, so we would love it if you would jump in the chat room going to the cues room and ask any questions on this topic about finding your purpose about really getting yours true, authentic self out there and we can ask sue for you also here in the audience, let us know raise your hands if you want to ask a question, we've got a couple mikes that will pass out, so go ahead and let us know give us a little bit of a warning while you're while you're getting ready for that, so I just want to say personal thank you I lost my mom, as you know, to brain cancer when I was five and one of the final pictures that I have with her is a shot of us sitting on the chair, she had a stroke, she has a wig on that's kind of askew, her left side doesn't really work, but I'm cuddled in there she would have people like pull her in there and it's this picture that I have treasured that shows her love and just the connection that she has and your sto...

ry about your goal to get people to be in pictures as someone who doesn't have that opportunity with his mom um it's key it's so important to growing up and having that memory we all lose our parents at some point and that's all we have of them and I would I would I don't know what I would give to have an image like these that you take of her, I don't have that, but what I do have I treasure, and if I can encourage anyone out there, do it because we stopped time we do, and what that is is a memory that you don't necessarily have and it's a memory that it gives you back something you know, of a woman that loves you, and I feel like that you're a photographer if you forget that you think about that, you know, just give yourself a minute to think about it. We stop time for people. A lot of people obviously have been very much connecting to your message and admitting that they to struggle with self doubt and self worth and so I'd love for you, teo dive a little bit deeper into the turning weaknesses into strength. I have a lap and another person in the chat room that says I am really prone to depression, but I can't tell that to potential clients or how do I tell my story? How do I tell my story when it's depressing and sad, haley bartholomew went through a period of depression and she found that image a day of gratitude changed the world she realized that in her depression was a whole lot of suppressed emotion that she wasn't expressing not not only anger and sadness, but love. She wasn't telling the people around him that she loved him or appreciating them. She started to take a photograph a day, she would put it on her instagram, and it became three hundred sixty five days of grateful it pulled her out of her depression, and now she's got a book. And now she's starting a campaign for three hundred sixty five days of grateful and she's helping people all around the world by talking about it. You can only free other people when you talk about your thing and make it okay. If you don't want to talk about your depression, you have to find a way that your work can overcome that, and if you can talk about it, can you free? Everybody else has been through a period of depression? Can you free everybody who's taking antidepressants and not telling people because they're too embarrassed to you can free yourself by being honest, and I feel like that emotional honesty, emotional honesty is when you really speak emotionally and honestly about what it is that you truly want, there are so many parts of that that's going to come up in the personal mentor ing about. You know, we don't want to say things out loud to the public because our family will be ashamed all these guilt and shame around things, but the truth is it doesn't matter what you are or what you've been through. If you are authentic with your story and then people will identify with it and there'll be more people that identified with it, they will criticize it and that's just what I was going to comment on eye as well, suffer from depression and anxiety, or have I still do? And when you start talking to people about it, just like in the chat rooms and people are agreeing with the self doubt, we're all the same it's, not something that we can just hide because they were trying to push it down and hide it from ourselves. Yes, and there's beauty in that connection that happens when you find that eighty percent of the people that you talk tio no experience. So you know the saying, right? You know, a guy falls in a hole and he looks up and there's a priest and he says, I need to get out of the hole in the priest prays for him and he's still in the hole, and then he sees a dr taney says I'm in this hole in the doctor right to description and throws it down and then he sees the friend and he says help me I'm stuck in this hole in the friend jumps down because you know, I'm stuck in the hole and he goes but I've been in this hole before and you know the way out I look I kind of think of it like this I saw a lot of presentations at w p p I s a lot of presentations in the us, particularly when I first came here and I make a way so you know, we're no one for kitty routes we have our feet on the ground with down to earth down to its fucking way like that about ourselves we say it you know, kew was so down to earth and and I saw these presenters photography presenters running on stage like a jerry springer show kind of like that like we're running out and culturally very different my culture and that's okay, I get it, but I'm like I'm walking on going on that running on stage and I'm not throwing my hands up be there, I don't even like being introduced, you know, to me it's like I'll introduce myself thinks my name's supervised and I'm a photographer I realized in this day and age what people are really crying out for some honesty uh you know no bullshit no hype no arms up nigiri spring and just tell the truth like heavenly struggle what help I've become so successful is a speaker in teacher is I just told the truth this is what I did there's no mystery you can't criticize may I have no education I built a business I make shitloads of money but I didn't for many years you know and I used to be really competitive and really horrible about other photographers and think I'm better than I am and I've been in the now I don't kia and you know and through the whole thing I mean my life has been very much on social media I'm very honest in my social media you've all seen me put on weight lose way whatever and you know they've been annette personal jenny with me but it's not a show it's just really so I feel like the authenticity of this big cry at the moment the cry of the ages is for you to be true so you need to know what you want and you need to know what you give in order to be really honest about it and when you're really honest about that you're just kind of attracted it's crazy trust me because you won't realize how much your dwelling in the negative space and to stop does anybody have a weakness that they want me to turn into a strength anybody I know witnesses it pretty had to throw out there right here let's get that mike I want to hear a weakness I don't know if everyone will consider this weakness but ideo I feel guilty if I enjoy myself too much yeah I should be working all the time making a way to make you know the world's my guilty person can feel guilty when she gives to charity she does that's a bit extreme she should get more can't you do feel guilty you don't deserve happiness you simply don't deserve nice things you know I get there you know sometimes we grow up with hardship or we grew up with parents that don't necessarily have things but maybe they didn't want them my parents hip nothing but they didn't want anything my parents with the sort of people that they cry when the sun comes up like that is wealth to them I wanted thinks I wanted a car that was like a convertible and I wanted like a hundred piece of shoes and so and I didn't met my parents so when I was growing up I felt really bad about getting anything because it came from them not having it and my brothers and sisters don't want anything my brother and three houses but him and his wife have like two pieces shoes and it's like they look poor people like that got nothing I go there and like three houses that everybody has different priorities for what they want and your family is a really big reflection of that guilt and that guilt off being able to receive you know you're worth having a good time you're with smiling, you're worth being loved you are worth having is many material up and things as you want you are with that you must learn how to receive them in the only way you can do that without being guilty is to feel grateful. I just feel so blessed and grateful like I said to you, I'm crying because I can't believe I'm so deserving of success or money or situations or opportunities when they come to me and I just have to remind myself you receive say thank you and give something straight away give something back like it's such a giving, receiving giving the lift hand for leaving right hand for receiving its such a fifty fifty and when you learn to just keep giving, you won't feel so bad about receiving and you must repeat over and over again that you are with it and thank you thank you to whoever gave to you and get them back something way have an amazing question from mg photos who says thank you? Do you have a suggestion for a long time photographer who has lost their joy in the work? Yeah, go on to something else maybe just maybe you're on the wrong path okay? A year ago I had a conversation with my girlfriend jamie stevenson she came to australia to travel with me she was stabbing a photography business but not starting one she's kind of shared the photography of the carnage of the website but there was no work there was no studio, which is half misha always off struggle and I looked at her and I said, I don't think you want to be a photographer and she's like radio because you don't look like somebody who would dio I'm busted my lifetime doing this just me I'm on the right path took me a while I'm a slow study but you know what I knew even when I was you know, because we're all such such tragic others that I'm suffering and I still I have a photographer I wasn't even gonna stop so you know I'd rather just be tragic and, you know, I just like not shower for five days and work on photo shop and smoke cigarettes and I look out in the euro shape I'm in at it and there's something so noble about struggling but the truth is at the end of the day I never saw that commitment from here like she was, you know, she wasn't doing anything tio like tell me that she was, you know, at this straggling and you know I'm going to make a go of it and then by the end of our trip you have to tell me what you're most passionate about we got to the end of the trip and achievement drew thing right cause that's close to photography she said I'm really passionate about juicing well then you should start reducing business so every day for a year that girl she goes to cuba she goes south america she learned about juicing today today at nine a m jamie stevens and open las vegas is this cold pressed juice bar kind of some weird kismet, isn't it? And I said to her you studied it and you did it and she said I couldn't stop you know you were invited out to parties and people are like, well, your girlfriend jamie is really pretty she talked about juice a lot sorry jamie I know you know what's good here at the shop but you know, the truth is that she does she's so passionate and so maybe just maybe it's time for something you maybe you're close so she knew that photography would be a component of what she wants to do but not the the thing so today finding your purpose and mentoring is about maybe you're close but you're not quite close enough I know another girl that standard photography business struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle now, in one hundred fifty k a year, working for another friend of mine and his photography business, running his marketing and business because it's all she really liked doing not the taking, not the selling, not the photography, but she was so taken with the business side of it. So now she's found a passionate purpose, and she's doing that through his business and making him lots of money. Maybe, just maybe, you have lost your way, or have you lost your way? Maybe you're doing something you don't want to do, and when you're doing something you don't want to do, you have to go and do something else, you know, in its okay, it is okay. Soup, rice, thank you so much for this amazing segment again. There are so many people in the chat rooms that are connecting and resonating.