Photographers trade in aesthetics, but Sue Bryce knows: The life and the business of a photographer are not always as beautiful as the images they capture. Feelings of inadequacy and fear — about everything from experience level to pricing structure — can not only cripple creativity, but stagnate business development and growth. So, how do you overcome this ever-present fear?
“I hear a lot of people tell me about fear,” Sue said during her CreativeLive course, 28 Days with Sue, “Nobody tells you how to get over it.”
How you get over it, Sue says, isn’t to ignore it, but rather to find strength in mistakes, failures — and even tragedy.
A New Zealander, Sue saw many of her friends’ and family members’ lives changed forever by the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. But rather than dwelling on their loss, she says, they moved forward.
“If you make your weakness your greatest strength, it stands to reason that you can go and take something as devastating as losing your entire business and rebuilding it, and make that your greatest strength,” Sue explained.
“And then you can empower yourself and others by how you rebuilt it and what you learned from it. That will make you more powerful than anyone else, because you will be working from your heart and your soul.”
Failure is a part of life, says Sue, but it’s how we face fear and failure that defines our success.
“What is failure? We fail and then we climb back up about. That’s the polarity of life. The more you love, the more you lose. I guarantee that when you feel a high, there will be a low that matches it. That’s the rule.”
Learn more from Sue Bryce during her many inspiring CreativeLive courses, including Inside the Glamour Studio, Bumps to Babies: Photographing Motherhood, and our class airing June 17th – 18th Portrait Startup.
