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Video Testimonial from Marie-Lyssa Dormeus

She's had amazing story she like I said she was really the the fastest two I believe that you know what? I feel that world class quality she did it within one year, you know and just quit her job after, you know, after two works too when she went to paris in in the summer time, then she went to sleep spain right after that, I remember in paris after her first workshop ever, she brought a little digital rebel with her and the kitten lens, and I remember the very last day and we had just been dancing somewhere paris club or whatever we're taking a bus back and she grabs my arm and she pulls on and she calls thiss cannot end and she was referring to that extraordinary life that she wanted because she had a regular job and felt trapped and I open her world up to a whole nother life of doing what you love and doing what you felt called to and feeling ah, wholeness in life and so she's going to tell a little bit about her story. All right, so go for it. So just so everyone knows, yep it's ab...

out a seven minute video yes, we'll see when we get back hi scott haven't wanted creative live I'm really happy to be here today and unfortunately I wish I was there in person however I'm covering event right now so this is my attempt at being in two places at once. Scott, you ever asked me to share personal journey with you and it's a journey that started when I first attended my first workshop with scott robert in two thousand eight when I first met with scott at the workshops it was very focused on wedding photography that's what I was learning, you know, composition lining and working towards the wedding photography and portraiture aspect but I remember scott telling me that you know, he felt that I was observing, you know, my style and my work evolve he was, you know, a mentoring me and saying that he saw that I would actually be doing things that were a little bit different than winning photography and I should actually explore and push myself a little forward with the various areas that I was interested in. So one of my areas of interest in cement cinematography and while working and developing my skills in that arena about three years ago I had the opportunity to to work on sets and the director of photography where on music video, different types of commercial and with people within that industry. So when I was working on the on this a director of photography, I I was handling the camera work and lighting obviously what people working you know with me but I pretty much had to be involved in capturing the moments and I was carrying about twenty five pounds worth of equipment I'd say about that much between you older the actual camera, some of the sound equipment slings and then also the way to balance you know the camera was carrying about rid of about twenty five pounds I freaked out actually at some point I said, wow, this is really demanding physically and I don't think I was in the shape and the fitness level that was appropriate for that kind of work I didn't really know where and how to start I started talking to people within the fitness industry to understand what was available at the time and because I didn't want to make a change for the short term this was not about getting in shape to fit in a bikini in the next summer this was about making life changing plans and building a fitness regimen for myself that would enable me to work and build my career so I knew I had to start small and informing myself I said what could I incorporate in my day today with in my life my schedule in orderto continuously keep that up and not stop after a few months or a few weeks on that s o I you know I started on that and you know it went from amazing experience of meeting some great culture is great personal trainers andi fitness professionals who helped me learn about my body about you know, what was available for me to build on my conditioning, my endurance, my strength. So I started to do olympic weightlifting, crossfit your different things to incorporate within my day today and, you know, this is certainly something that I was able to keep up, you know, three years later I'm basically in the best shape of my life. I started from not being able to carry around twenty five pounds to now, you know, dead lifting about three hundred pounds back squatting two hundred sixty five pounds, you know, doing body weight stuff like chin ups, pull ups on the bar, andi that's where thing and I never really thought that this would take me to this state of actually wanting more and challenging myself to be in the best shape and the best fitness level ah, that I've ever been in my life, the impacts of this change on my career and my direction of them getting to my career right now were tremendous. I said before, when I first started this was about getting in a better shape toe work within a specific stream and being able to navigate with the demands of that with what it required physically, I started, you know, broadening my network and met a lot of athletes and fitness professionals and just one thing led to another I started a company some competitions where I was shooting basically for fun I started posting I sort of posting some of the the word online and all of a sudden I'm getting, you know, phone calls and e mails from editors and publishers, you know, asking to either get the rights to publish some of the work that they seen or asking about more on dh two full blown hiring me and commissioning me for covers and editorials and articles on that sort of thing, so it really blew up in that sense in addition, teo read it so actually working with reebok on several campaigns in development of variety of fitness division with them with photography and actual video as well. So that was kind of, you know, something that was totally unexpected for me and this just keeps on expanding some great opportunities that I'm working on in entering into twenty fourteen what I learned as well is building extreme designing the extraordinary life on dh when people talk about that concept, extraordinary life isn't about you know how much money you're making on how much work much, how many opportunities, how many you know luxury items you can buy it's truly about journey? I think feeling limitless to me is the extraordinary life feeling like you have options you have your building, you're preparing yourself constantly challenging the status school building skills, expanding your network, opening doors to new places and spaces to me this is what the extraordinary life and this is where not right now I don't know where all the and where it's supposed to leave but I think the journey is what I'm currently enjoying and it's certainly a pleasure and a privilege to have scott robert as a mentor so again I really would have wished to be here in person but this is this's good as it gets here so hopefully this was helpful to you and I'm really you know, very very happy to have been invited to share the story with everyone thank you very much and have a free lecture thank god scott we want to read off what the internet is saying because, um that was absolutely beautiful. I think the my favorite one is brian in memphis. One of our regular says dead lifting three hundred pounds that's what I call getting out of bed in the morning oliver it's switzerland says I love the way she was driven to something out of wedding photography after a wedding photography workshop a cz she found her path with it it's a brilliant, brilliant journey and maybe says, you know I need to work on my skills to get there because it's a process is working through that process right? I think a lot of times is well, we're talking about these next lights levity should just shut up but I'll it'll be reveal itself everything that I want to say later I just want to one more jenna says that's what it's all about doing what you love and loving what you do that's my goal thank you awesome okay, so I didn't want to do yeah I think we want what we want toe put some pressure on these guys in the studio audience here what they're thinking what do you think? Yeah, so what would have been your of kind of feelings towards everything that we've kind of talked about and maybe some goals or decisions that you've made coming through here if you want to kind of you know that church moment where you stand up and you say, hey, I'm goingto live a change life or whatever, right? What are some things that really because listen, if you don't think about at least one thing that you're gonna go home and do, you won't do it so you have to resolve it right here or else life is going to get in the way and forget it. The kids are going to come crying over this or that I don't know it's just going to get crazy so is there anything that you'd like to share about what you've learned through this experience? Nobody else wants to do it I will um I'll start, I'm sure you all have your your own ideas, but I am talking to scott at break um, and I've put a lot of pressure on myself to be at a certain price point higher than what I am right now because I thought, that's what the industry standard woz and I thought that, you know, I was undercutting the industry by being at the price that I'm at right now, but really, I need to be at the price that I'm at. I'm finding out you're the first person who I've ever heard say, maybe you need to lower your prices if you're not getting the work. So that's made me think a lot. I mean, don't think of pricing reflecting on who you are if you have to lower your work, it's just that you have to get the ball going in the mo mentum and the market hasn't seeing you, so you're just proving yourself to the market, and so if you have to lower your price to prove yourself, it will all be there for you in the end anyways, so congratulations on that. And wells yes, yeah, I just want to follow up with what she said I've been doing this full time now for the last four months. Now this is my sole soul gig and it's rough, I mean, it's been really rough and same thing, I mean, whatever it takes to make the bills, I've been willing to do it, I'm three hundred five hundred six hundred dollars for just a quick, you know, snap and shoot it's, not me it's your wife, she is my wife, it was my wife way she says, don't spill your guts no, no, but she'd actually got she's been a blessing. She just won't let me quit she's just like do it, you know, also whether it's weddings and do some real estate photography, some pork sure it's, you know, whatever it takes, you know, I've been doing it, but it's also kind of scary is like, um, I'm going to be stuck in this rut of this low prices for ever and it's been feeling like a lot of pressure toe bust through that quickly, you know, three months to six months, you don't get this certain level on a little more comfortable that I can work this out of two or three year plan and not you won't be this guy that's ruining the market because I feel the same thing it's like it's, like a double edged swords like, gosh, I can't charge more because of somebody that's gonna undercut me, but, you know, how am I going to get to that next level? So we just need another group for that feeling guilty about your pricing, anyone else? Quickly, yeah, getting emotional, thinking about it and just spending time with you, like we made a big sacrifice to come out here and talking to you face to face and realizing that, you know, you're not shooting weddings as much anymore, and you're like, I cut my income and have to do what I love, and I remember thinking back to when my husband, you student mentoring and we had two babies at home, and it was so second pregnant and all that he gave to do what he loves and to see you doing what you love and reaching out to finding mentors. And I mention to you that my mentor, mar vell smith, passed away a couple months ago and, you know, coming out and just seeing how much you guys give to the community and how we don't give that sometimes you guys and seeing all the time that you commit to this and you're just you know it's not like sort of course, but it's like that's that's why you do this because you love it but I mean, how else can we say thank you and really show mentors that we appreciate all that you guys do and he just front me no he's like okay, how many weddings do you have to vote to get to paris? Don't take it so hard to reschedule that, but that's how we say thank you because in two hours or so and appreciated, but that's the only way to get to ten thousand cause you have to find someone that's there? Yeah, thank you so much, but the best thing that you could do for me is just have a massive success and they lived an extraordinary life that's all I need that's the biggest blessing for me, so thank you. So, uh well, one of the things that attracted me to photography right from the start and I've been doing it since I was fifteen as photographing people and I've done portraiture and I've done fashion photography. I've never found a way to make it a full time career, and I think one of the things that I've taken from this is that I might have had unrealistic expectations about what is what what is the income level? What is the full time career path for a photographer and I've gone off in different directions and I've used other sources for revenue and I think that this has shown me that there are ways to integrate it on a part time basis as something that you're doing while you're learning while you're gaining experience and while you're building that portfolio without setting that unrealistic high expectation that you have to either make it a full time career or you can't do it all right you have options great thank you anyone else e think kind of mira rachel said and also I had my own little thoughts is what I have taken away is apart with feeding the beast which is our group it did kind of have that permission to invest in yourself yeah like that's really the only way that you're going to go and yes is if you're investing yourself in financial you know buying courses like this you know going to paris doing what you need to dio financially but also investing the time in yourself to take the courses to learn toe practice to do the ten thousand hours you know to put in the legwork it's not a get rich quick scheme it's not you know it's hard work and you have to be willing to invest that in yourself in order to get those results yeah that is a great thing to take away that's very invaluable that lesson that you know I'm glad that you took away from this all right, well, I do. I do want to share. Thank you. Because what folks are saying online, they're starting to share their stories. And kim says these students show me that it's all so real and people are connecting danny says it's almost past midnight here. And I had such a long working day danny's in austria now. But I just can't turn my back on that good lis looking mr has got robert lim. No, seriously, I feel like the first thing tomorrow morning is shouting from my balcony who's getting married so that I can shoot their wedding. Thank you for restoring faith in myself and your fabulous tool kit. So great, janna. Roller photography has this to say I feel it in my bones right to my core that this is what I was meant to dio not earn tons of money and have a lavish life. But I need to take that leaf into leap into doing what I love. Thank you so much, scott. To the moon and back for showing me that we really can do anything, that there are no limits. Unless we make them for ourselves so well, I love it.