On Luck
1 Quote
“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
- Samuel Goldwyn
1 Way It Applies to Life & Business
September 20, 2018
I was only three years into my photography journey—and my second marriage—when I saw on Instagram that Marc and Angel Chernoff were traveling in the Northeast for vacation…so close to me! Their blog, Marc and Angel Hack Life, is a big part of my story, and I give it a lot of credit for helping to pull me out of victim mentality despair after my first marriage.
I decided to reach out to make a connection. It was a long shot. I was well aware that I may come across as a bit of a fan girl (because I am), which may be a turnoff for them, but…
Angel emailed me later that week and said she and her Marc needed a photographer for their annual in-person conference, Think Better, Live Better, in San Diego, California. She asked if I was interested in the job rather than traveling to Florida for the family session I was offering. They said that my “go do the thing” mentality struck them as unique and that they wanted to take a chance on me.
I was over the moon excited both to meet them in person and cross photographing them off my bucket list and to travel across the country legitimately for work to attend their conference.
It wasn’t an easy yes, though. I had four kids at home who needed me. At the time, they were six months, two, twelve, and fourteen. I was still nursing, for heaven’s sake! How was I supposed to travel across the country for four days, leaving my husband with all that responsibility?!?! The mom’s guilt was real!
A photographer friend of mine recently told me that as a novice in the wedding industry, she plans to walk through every door that opens for her, and that was my mentality in 2018 as well. And I was not going to pass up this particular opportunity just because it was going to be hard. With my family’s support, I booked my flight, packed my pump along with my gear (Stepladder Stanley and all!), and headed for the West Coast.
Realizing the opportunity to photograph so many interesting people at the conference, I also offered to shoot natural light headshots for any speakers during the breaks. I was surprised that many of them took me up on it! At the time, many of us were building and growing our businesses and brands, but the ability to say I’ve photographed names such as Pat Flynn (it’s my photo here on his about page!), Alua Arthur (if you Google her, one of my photos of her will come up!), Annie Grace (I took the photo of her on the homepage, and my photos of her have graced Today.com USA, Newsweek, and many other very excellent sources who have interviewed her for her global brand This Naked Mind), Dr. Samantha, Mike Foster, John Duke Logan (my photo is his website headshot!), Doc Trish, Christine Platt, Amanda LaCount, and Humble the Poet is mind-blowing now.
I’ve now photographed Marc and Angel’s event in San Diego twice (before COVID threw a wrench in the works), a family session for them; my photo of them is now their author photo on their New York Times Bestselling books, a content shoot for Annie Grace who flew me out to her home in Colorado for a half day shoot with an added family shoot at the end (the blog I wrote about her shoot still gets at least 50 views every month — even years later!); and even a wedding in Ramona, California for Jarnard of THE NARDCAST who I also met at the event!
Click on the photo to check out this amazing book on Amazon!
I don’t tell you all of this to brag. I still think it’s wild that photography has brought me into all these people’s lives and these fantastic places!
I tell you this because many people who don’t know me very well have called the opportunities I’ve been offered over the years lucky breaks, believing I’ve been handed my success. I tell you this because these types of opportunities don’t just fall into your lap, and if you wait around for them to happen, chances are, they won’t.
These types of opportunities are the direct result of hard work. I had to be on social media marketing my business when I would have rather been playing with my kids to see that Marc and Angel were in the Northeast. I had to suck up the anxiety I felt actually to send that original message to Angel. I had to continue to follow up with her, say yes, plan the trip, go on the trip, offer the headshots, schedule them during the few moments I could have had a break at the conference, leave my babies, and pump in the hotel. I had to do the hard work to make it all happen.
I wouldn’t mind changing the above quote to, “The harder I work, the more that doors will open for me.”
You must still walk through them with your own two feet, though.
1 Question to Ponder
What lucky break do you wish would happen for you in your life?
Going Deeper: How can you put yourself in the right situations to make those doors open for you?