Allow yourself to dream.

What does your dream life look like? I want you to allow yourself to dream this morning. If money were not an issue, if you had all the money in the world, and you still wanted to work, what would you be doing? And what kind of life would that allow you to have? If you think about this future life of yours, what would it look like? Do you want to have a life of freedom where you can travel wherever and whenever you want? Do you just want to be able to lie on the beach all day with a good book. Would you open a bakery or a coffee shop? Would you be writing music? Would you be making and selling jewelry? Would you open an art gallery?

I think we often forget to allow ourselves to dream. It’s in the dreaming where the magic happens. But don’t forget to think about what your dream life would allow you to do.

For example, I want to be able to go to the beach any time I want, take boat rides whenever I want, sleep in, have lunch dates with friends, etc. Easy things. Simple things. I just want freedom. So when I get specific about those things, who’s to say I can’t do all of that right now?? Why do we feel like we have to wait to enjoy those things and live that life? Yes, some of them cost money but not millions of dollars like I like to tell myself I need.

And when you have a bit of motivation to generate money for those reasons, it seems to come a little bit easier. Yes, I will work hard for 4 days so I can enjoy a 3 day weekend to do whatever I want. Yes, I can work to save up money for a boat. AND if your work involves you doing something you love, that you’re passionate about, it should be easy and fun!

I can’t wait to wake up to jump on calls with you to talk about your business. It makes me so excited because I genuinely love it.

So allow yourself to dream. Get specific. Be honest with yourself about the type of life you want to have and allow yourself to live that way now. And that includes going after your dream job! There’s no reason why you can’t take steps towards it today. If you need help, I’ll be here to cheer you on.

Failure is a Myth.

Failure is a myth. To not fail you would have to be perfect. You would never make mistakes. So there’s no such thing. And making mistakes and changing along the way is a part of the process. Think about Elon Musk. You don’t think he hit some road blocks along the way in his career? And he definitely didn’t start out with the idea for SpaceX and Tesla when he was first starting out. And the bigger the ideas and dreams you have, like engineering the first ever electric car, are going to have even bigger obstacles. If you can come to accept that it’s just a part of the journey, that challenges and road blocks are going to come regardless, then you’ll be much better off. Decide to view them as learning opportunities and choose to grow from them.

They’re all just experiences and it’s what you choose to do and how you handle those experiences that is going to determine how far you go.

Are you afraid that your idea won’t work? That no one will like it? That you won’t be able to make money from it? Well there’s a way to determine all of that before you dive in head first without having those answers. Research your idea. Start small. Test your idea. Get feedback. Rinse and repeat. Starting small will allow you to pivot and change without it having to cost you a lot. When I first had the idea for The Styling Source, I started by doing research. I searched on Etsy to see if there were other stores doing the same thing. What were they selling? Were they selling a lot? What were they selling a lot of? What were their price points? The nice thing is that Etsy shares a lot of that information with you.

I saw that others had proven my idea just by seeing the stats so I started small, and not buying a lot of inventory, and listed a few items to start with. Once those started selling then I would buy more and also in different colors. Then as they were selling more and more, I would raise the price. And then slowly start adding other items. And if certain items weren’t selling well, then I wouldn’t replenish them once they sold out.

At the same time, you should be gathering feedback. It seems scary but you need to ask your customers questions. What did they think about the item or service they purchased from you? Did they think it was fairly priced? How was their experience with you? Was there anything you could have done better? And so on. Information is power. The more you can learn and pivot based on that information, the better off you’ll be. And it’s not to say that you have to follow everything you’re given as feedback. It’s your business and you get to decide what you do with the feedback you’re given.

And just remember, you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for! Think realistically: you’re not going to keep moving forward if you’re not making money, you’ll get a part time job if you need to in the beginning, there’s nothing saying you have to be a starving artist. Just be smart! You know how to do this, it’s about trusting yourself and knowing you won’t allow yourself to fail. Because after all, failure is only a myth.

My Story

Everyone’s journey and road through entrepreneurship is going to look different and that’s the beauty of it! There are no rules and you get to just be along for the ride!

Growing up I didn’t know what I wanted to do for work. But I knew I loved photography. I was very creative but also a very left-brained at the same time, being the oldest child. The only job I knew of at the time that involved photography was being a photojournalist. But as I got older, it seemed the safest and easiest route to take was going to business school so that’s what I did. I loved the beach so I chose a business school at the beach :) But I still wanted to learn more about photography I studied one summer at Parson’s School of Design in New York and I was hooked from then on. The following year I interned with a wedding videographer who allowed me to take pictures at her weddings and gain some experience. It was the first time I had seen a creative job like that be modeled to me as a possibility. When the internship ended I decided to start to photograph weddings on my own, learning little by little. But once I graduated college, I felt pressure to get a “real” job, which was needed since I was newly married and looking to buy a house. But I just knew deep inside that the corporate life wasn’t for me. It gave me motivation and the time to build up my wedding photography business on the side until I could finally quit my corporate job to do photography full time.

There was such a sense of relief on my last day in my corporate job. It was excitement I hadn’t felt in such a long time! But don’t get me wrong, it was definitely scary. I had spent my whole adult life with other people telling me when to be somewhere and what to do and now it was all up to me! But I had spent at least three years growing my wedding photography business, so I knew it was going to work.

Then after shooting weddings for a year or two more, I realized it was not working for me. Yes, it paid the bills, but I wasn’t happy. And that’s ok! I had to be honest with myself that I didn’t like working every weekend, and that’s ok! I’m an introvert so being an extravert every Saturday for 10 hours a day was not working for me, and that’s ok! I decided a good and easy pivot would be to only shoot Boudoir photography, which I had been doing along with my wedding photography already. I knew if I could focus on that solely that I could generate even more business from it. I never had to shoot on weekends, I could do it all from my home and it was a nice one-on-one experience with a client vs. a crazy chaotic wedding day. And I felt like I was more in service to others. They were usually doing a shoot as a wedding gift, BUT also for themselves. To feel beautiful and build up their confidence and I loved that. It was definitely a step in the right direction. What also was a big game changer in my boudoir business was getting a mentor. I worked with another very successful boudoir photographer who helped me take my business to the next level and I wouldn’t have been able to do that without her expertise.

But life changes and eventually we had a baby and life looked different than we had ever known. And again my goals in life changed. I wanted to spend more time with my daughter while still bringing in money for our family. I scaled back on photography a bit and then COVID happened. It was actually a blessing. Photography and weddings stopped altogether, so it really gave me a chance to step back and think about what I wanted. My love for thrifting and antiquing had grown over the years and I thought about starting an Etsy shop of vintage items since it was something I could safely do from home. But then I combined that with my love of photography and decided to sell antique items as props for photographers since I was familiar with that market. I started slow but just listing a few things on Etsy so see if any of it would sell. And they did! So I slowly added more and more.

Once COVID restrictions lifted, I began taking boudoir sessions again but was way more interested in my Etsy shop and where I could take it. So again, I decided to build up my Etsy shop so I was able to phase out of photography. And I did! I shot my last session in September of 2021 and never looked back! My Etsy shop is flourishing and I also created my own Shopify site so people could find me that way too. And that was once I had proven my concept and had the money to do it!

Then I noticed I couldn’t wait to help other people start their own Etsy shop, or their own business in general, and something clicked! All I ever wanted to talk about was running a business and helping other people start their own business. I had done it enough times now to know that it’s not as hard as people think it is and I LOVE serving and encouraging others in this way. Because I know how fearful I was when I started my first business- you don’t know what you don’t know! I also know how AMAZING it was to have a mentor for my boudoir business and how much that helped me. It was like a light bulb went off in my head! I want to help others with whatever they need to start and run their business. From overcoming mental blocks and fear to narrowing down what it is you want to actually do to marketing and social media. It doesn’t have to be hard. It can be exciting and fun and oh so freeing! And I want to help everyone feel that way!

So I changed my social media accounts, built a website, started a podcast and want to share everything I’ve learned with you! And don’t get me wrong, even though I am more certain about this business move than I’ve been about any others, it’s still scary! It’s still unknown, unchartered waters for me. But when you really believe in what you’re doing, your passion will trump all of that fear.

It’s all right there waiting for you! It just takes one tiny step of courage in the right direction to get you where you want to go. And if you need someone to cheer you along and hold you hand through the process, then I want to be that for you. Because it’s all worth it!!!