at one point or another, every single one of you who's listening who is currently running a photography business, looked in the mirror and said, I
have what it takes. But once you actually get into running a business, at the beginning at the middle way down the line in your business, there will be days, when you look back in that same mirror and ask yourself what you were possibly thinking, like, What business do I have doing this, whether something happens, that's a big blow to your confidence, or if your phone just isn't ringing the way
that it was before. Or if you are just at a place where you don't really remember why you got into this business in the first place. Sometimes what you need is to get out from in front of the mirror and go talk to someone else who can see you and see what you have to offer from a more unbiased perspective. Paige Ray's name came across my desk a few times before I finally reached out and said, I think we need to have a conversation on the podcast. And
I am so glad that I did. Because the conversation that I'm about to share with you, even though it didn't really have any specific, like how to agenda ended up being the perfect injection of confidence and positive thinking that I needed. And I imagine that maybe you might need that. If not today, then sometime soon as well. So I know you're going to love this conversation with Paige Ray. Paige is a branding photographer and a creative catalyst based in
LA. And she works with creatives of all kinds, helping them see the beauty, the strength and the unique value that they bring to the business. Whether she is doing that from the other side of the camera or as a coach and mastermind leader. If you're anything like me, this conversation will have you feeling renewed energy and excitement about your business, which is something I think we could all use. Welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is
Annemie Tonken. And I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it. And I can show you how. Paige Ray, it is wonderful to have you on this can't be that hard. How are you today?
Thank you so much for having me on me. I'm so grateful and excited to be here. I'm doing great. How are you?
I am also doing well, the spring is starting to spring around here in North Carolina. So that's always a lovely time of year and feeling. Although I believe that we are probably I'm saying that. And I think this is going to be shared later. So that's the beauty of these conversations that happen asynchronously. Well, I talked about you a little bit in the introduction, but I would love to have you just kind of jump in and give us a little backstory
on who you are. You know what your photography journey as has been all about and and what you're doing these days?
Oh, great. Okay, so I like to say that I am a creative for creatives that we take some some of the load off of your shoulders. So you can have more brain space to actually make the things that you want to be making. But it was definitely a long and winding road to get here. So I guess if we are backing up, we're backing up to wow, coming up on about eight years ago. Time goes by so fast. I can't even wrap my brain
around that. But I started my business about eight years ago, I was married at the time and I was really excited to like get out, go for it. You know, do the thing I love to do. And after about a year in business, I ended up going through a divorce. And it Oh, man, that was a pretty quick reality check in terms of I need to figure out how to make my business profitable now because it hadn't been profitable up to that point. I think Year One of my business. I made $9,000 Yeah, I
know. We all kind of go through that. Yeah, yeah. But obviously, you know, I'm not going to be able to pay my bills on nine that 9000 a year so I, I really had to kind of figure out okay, how do I make money doing what I love? And would love to say that I figured it out so quickly and things were all you know, flowers and rainbows and things like that, but it was actually quite a few years of struggling and trying to figure out you know, how do I do this? What does it even mean to sell
something? How do you learn sales? How do you get good at that? So it was it was definitely a long and winding
road. By the time I actually figured out how run a business, how to make it profitable and how to do it in a way that didn't like burn me out that was actually enjoyable, I kind of got to the end of that long road and I looked back and I was like, I don't think any creative should have to go through that there are ways that we can like speed up these processes, so that we don't feel like we're
like in the dark anymore. So that's when I just started kind of also bringing into my business, the education part of it so that I could bring other creatives along with me. So maybe they didn't have to learn the lessons that I learned quite so harshly.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that was one of the things that really drew drew me to you was sort of this shared story of like, how it was earlier in your career, I had the benefit of having seven years and like having gotten to the place where I was profitable before I hit the like, divorce reset, you know, like, what is
what is about to happen. But in many ways, I'm really inspired by the fact that even just a year into your business, you didn't take that as like, Well, nevermind, this isn't gonna work, but instead continued to iterate and the fact that it wasn't all smooth sailing for you the fact that it was not just like, and then I magically had a business that worked fine, I think is just so much more of a reality. So a little bit about me, before I was a photographer, I worked as a labor and delivery
nurse. And one of the things that I that used to drive me crazy was that women would come in having been told that, if you were doing it correctly, breastfeeding was a painless experience, that's in a lot of places, or at least it was. This was now like, 12 years ago, more than that, and, and so they would, you know, after a period of time, and this wasn't necessarily just like in the labor and delivery unit, but like, in the few days later that
they were still there. And just in the sort of next couple of weeks, many women would feel like they were failing, if they had discomfort of any kind. And I was like, we are setting the expectations wrong on this. Like, if you tell someone that the any amount of discomfort means that they're doing it wrong, you are setting somebody up to decide that they're going to quit within just a short period of time, because I think most people experience some
discomfort with that. So that's a that's like a different example. But in photography, and any creative business, I'm sure, just about any entrepreneurial journey is, is not only marked, but really defined by those challenges. And those, I hesitate to use the word failures, but like, the things that don't go, well, most things aren't going to just like instantly click and instantly work properly. I always say like you haven't failed until you've
given up. So like you are a perfect walking, talking breathing example of someone who like, it was hard. It was hard. It was hard. You just kept at it. You kept trying. So that's, that's awesome. Tell me a little bit or talk to me a little bit about what like what do you think it was about your experience? Or your background? Or your whatever that gave you that ability to stick to it?
Oh, it's good question. I mean, if I'm anything I'm definitely stubborn. I really I kind of made a deal with myself. I was at that point right after the divorce and looking at finances and going oh, oh, no. Oh dear. And I had I knew I had a decision to make, I could either go back to a nine to five that I was no longer enjoying was no longer passionate about. I used to be a journalist and a magazine editor, which there are many reasons I loved that work.
But I There are many reasons why it was no longer just like aligned with what I wanted to do in life. So it could either try and go back into that industry and back to a nine to five or I could go full force into figuring out how to make a business work. And I gave myself a lot of leeway because like you're talking about it, failure isn't really failure until you exactly until you give up. So what I was really willing to do
was trial and error. I was really willing, willing to do things wrong and learn from them. Again and again. And again. And I think especially with photography, because that that can happen at so many points with photography. Yes, that happens in running a business like I have marketed things wrong. I have used bad copy in in ads, I have made poor decisions when it comes to like
advertising, right. But also as a photographer, like you should be taking those trial and error risks in your own work in the art that you're creating. Right when you're on set. You are making the photos that you're that your shot list, you know tells you to make but there's magic that can happen there and the in between and so sometimes it's taking a risk angles,
lighting, things like that. And so I'm really big on the trial and the error and letting yourself mess things up so that you can figure out how to unmask them up essentially. So yeah, so yeah, stubbornness, definitely. But I made a decision and a promise to myself that you know what I'm going to do this, I'm going to figure this out. And first it was week to week figuring out and week to week going, how I'm going to pay my bills this week. And then it grew, okay, month to month, I'm
doing better. But I'm still month to month worrying about, okay, rent and groceries, things like that. And it took time, it took so much time. I was in that struggle cycle for, let's see, at least three years, before I started to come out of it. And it's, it's, um, I think a lot of when we look at a lot of different creatives doing these amazing things, it's easy to think that maybe they didn't go through that trial and error phase or that struggle cycle,
but I everybody does. And so it's important to kind of talk about it a bit. Yeah,
absolutely. I do, too. And I think that when we see people in positions of, you know, what we deem to be success, or like that person, has it all figured out? I think, yeah, one of the most helpful, truly helpful things is to pull back the curtain a little bit and say, Yeah, I am at this place. And the reason that I'm there is because I made this
series of mistakes. And the truth of the matter is that those hearing about someone else's mistakes, if you're willing to really listen, you know, some of some of the mistakes that people make, or the failures that people have aren't going to be translatable to our business specifically, but hearing how they approached them from kind of a mindset position. And you know, well,
what did I take from this? What did I learn from this, that can inspire our own journey and kind of give us that, like, knowledge that, okay, I can keep doing this, I can keep at it. I know that you mentor a lot of people, and you have a mastermind, and I imagine that some of what we're talking about here is kind of foundational, tell me a little bit about how you know what you see when it comes to and I know, I believe you work with creatives of all kinds, not just photographers, is that right?
That's right. So first of all, let's talk a little bit about how you think about creativity and creatives and like the creative industry. And then I would love to just hear a little bit about some of the most common, you know, mindset blocks that you see people having or, or the walls that you see people coming up against.
Oh, totally. So in terms of creativity, I really, really believe that we are all creatives we were all put here to make something and that's different for everybody. For some people, it's business. For some people, it's paintings, for some people, it's babies, for some people, it's all of those are none of those are something different, and they're all very, very important. So I do think we were all put here to create
something in the world. And it was that I really believe therefore, like the we're all creatives, we kind of talked about like, Oh, I'm a creative, I'm a full time creative. And a lot of people get the feeling of, you know, oh, well, I don't paint so I'm not creative, or I don't, you know, build art installation. So I'm not creative. But I think that's the wrong way to think about it. I think that when you can tap into, you know, who am I in my soul? What do I want to make in
my soul? What do I want to create in the world? What do I want to see in the world that's not there yet, to really tap into that and really give yourself permission that like, I can be creative, I am worthy of being a creative. It's a whole new world, it's a whole new way of thinking about what you're doing from day to day, and then, you know, from year to year, so I really believe that we are all creatives, we're all making something special and important
and unique. And that that is that's one of our purposes.
Yeah, and I think that just as entrepreneurs, like I don't really care what you're doing in business, if you decided, you know, what, there's, there's a space out there for me to you know, hang my shingle and do my thing, you are on a regular basis asking yourself like how can I solve this problem better than the other people in my industry or you know, how can how can I offer something that is unique, and that in and of
itself is a creative act? So I am right there with you when it comes to you know, we are all creatives in some way, shape or form and anyone who starts a business is for sure. Like it or not like that you are now a creative.
Exactly, exactly. And I see that is actually a mindset block too, especially with newer photographer's because I see newer photographers hesitant to say like, oh, I'm an artist, or even to say I'm a photographer, it took me like two years or three years before I felt okay, saying, I'm a professional photographer, even though I've been taking money for photography for a little while.
Right. But I felt like being an artist, being a creative felt very like high minded, like, it felt like, Oh, I'm not a blue chip artist in a New York City Gallery. So I can't really call myself that. And I think that does a disservice to us. Because it's a way of like, self invalidating what we're doing and that is, that is not the place to start from the place to start from is what I make is important in this world, I am an artist, I am a creative, and I
have a purpose in it. And people want this people want to see my purpose. So that's one of the mindset blocks that I see is people just telling themselves are not a creative when they
are. The other thing that I see most often is, for lack of a better word, I think it's important, important a little bit to divorce ourselves from our business a little bit like emotionally, because a lot of the things if you put an offer out there, if you, you know, put something new in the world and you feel like people aren't wanting it, or you're not getting the sales that you want, you're not getting the
conversion that you want. A lot of people like tend to blame themselves like, Oh, my work isn't good enough. I'm not good enough. What am I doing here? It's very impostor syndrome moment. So if we can, like step back, separate ourselves from our business just a little bit, what we start to realize is like, it's not us, that's wrong with our business. It's not our work that's wrong with our business. There's a hole in our process, there's a broken system somewhere that needs to be
mended. That's more often what it is. I think that's one of the biggest mindset blocks is getting out of the feeling of like, Oh, I'm just not worthy to run a business. I must be messing it up. Oh, no, it's just a simple marketing system that we need to get fixed. And it doesn't have to be any, any thing more than that.
I love that. I think that's so true. I talk about that a fair amount when like, I'm, I can't stand that phrase charge you're worth I'm like, What are you talking about? I don't, you may have terrible photography, but you are worth so much. Like maybe you can't charge what you're worth, because how could you but but it's really comes down to the you know, you're bringing up the other piece of it, which is like your the problems in your business or the the failures, they're not those aren't you
either. And I think that for whatever reason, the people who fall into the more traditional definition of creatives, artists, photographers, writers, you know, people who are commoditizing, their art really have a harder time separating those two things out because they feel they are emotionally tied to the work that they do, which is what makes it great.
But, but then when you put a dollar value on it, and you have people complaining about, you know, a problem, or you're not getting enough inquiries, or whatever, that also feels personal, and that's dangerous territory, for sure.
Oh, for sure. And I also think that the other thing that plays a part in it is, if you if you feel like that inherent worthiness in yourself is lacking, like to the point where you if something doesn't work, you're blaming yourself.
There's also you know, whatever we project into the world, there's also this element of confidence that if we can put that confidence behind our work and know that like, okay, it's not me, that's wrong, it's just a system, I need to patch up, bringing that worthiness element back, bringing that confidence in yourself back when we when we approach these things with that kind of confidence and
worthiness. That's what gets reflected to us, from our clients and from the people around us who are interested in working with us. If we show up confidently if we show up knowing that we're worthy of showing up to begin with, then that's how other people will show up for us too.
Yeah, absolutely. So what are your thoughts on how someone who is not feeling worthy? Or, you know, confident? How do you show up that way without just kind of straight up faking it? Right? Because I know that there is that like, fake it till you make it. But, but most photographers that I know are not interested in doing something that isn't true to you know, like their authentic self.
And I think that's such a good point, because I'm not even sure when it comes to like confidence and things like that. I'm not even sure we can fake it till we may get I think people like no, I think they get feelings about it. So working on confidence, honestly, the number one thing is I have a huge I've been working on confidence for a long time. I've been working on self esteem for a long time I go to therapy. Sounds like a
business strategy. But a lot of times these are things that like therapists can help us walk through and that's I've seen a big difference there. But also just having conversations open, honest conversation. shins with friends and peers about like, wow, I'm really not feeling confident behind this. And it's finding out that other people have that exact same experience actually bring some of that confidence back to know that you're just not not alone in any of that.
Yeah, no, I definitely feel like the community feature. And having a supportive community of like minded creatives can be a total game changer. Because knowing that there is no perfection when
it comes to art, right? And there is also no, there's no like, well, to bring it back to my nursing career, I used to tell myself when I was a new photographer, and I would get really nervous before a session, I'd be like, okay, but nobody is gonna die, if you like, screw up your camera settings on this to shoot like, it's gonna be okay. And, and obviously, I took it seriously still, but I did take
that pressure off of myself. And I feel like having those conversations with other people and reminding yourself like other people, they mess up, and they don't completely flame out and fail. And the, you know, the margin for error is okay, it's okay to explore. And to bring it back to what you were saying before, like, you cannot grow creatively, either in your art or your business without taking
some risks. So being willing to take those risks is part of the it's part of the success story in the end.
It's so true. And one thing I've been saying recently is that perfection is not connection. Nobody actually wants you to be perfect. There is no actual perfection that can be achieved anywhere in the world. Like we're humans, we're inherently imperfect. And that's
the way it's supposed to be. So if we're looking at somebody who's showing up at perch, showing everything perfectly being perfect, having that kind of like veneer of like Polish and perfection all the time, we don't connect with them very well, because we can't identify with somebody who's perfect, because inherently As humans, we
just aren't perfect. So nobody really wants us to show up perfectly anyway, just because that's not an achievable, like, that's not something that we're even capable of, it's not a standard we can really meet. So I really think it's important to remember, like, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to like, How can I show up the way I think I should show up today, versus if you can just show up
the way that you are. A friend recently said that our job as artists and creatives is honesty, that's part of our work. So if you can show up in that honesty, if you can show up, you know, with a vulnerability that's to a certain point, comfortable, you know, you don't have to share everything if you don't want to.
But I think that's a really great way to start to kind of like tear down those walls that keep us from the connecting with other people in ways we need to just to like survive and running
a business. Beyond that, it's always interesting to me, when I see behind the scenes of a business, whether I'm working with a business or just getting to know somebody as a friend, what I what we think in terms of like, what we see on the internet, what we see on social media, the big names that we follow the people that we want to be like, who they are in the internet and who they are behind the scenes. It's not that they're doing shocking things, but they're so shockingly human.
And it's so much more achievable. To be at their level than we think it is like we built them up in our minds. But really, like everybody has that very human element in their business. And so wherever you're at, like whatever confidence is shaken or is being built, if you feel like you've done things wrong recently, you are not alone, there is not a single successful person out there that hasn't completely flopped. That hasn't messed something up like we have all done it.
Right. And we are all anyone who is moving forward in their, in their business or in their career is still failing regularly, they may just be failing at a
different level from you. At at various times, I have attempted rock climbing with friends of mine, and I'm not very good at it, but some of them are, but they keep telling me like No, no, one of the best things about this sport is that we can all go and we can be together and like cheer each other on and I can be working on a thing that's like at this much higher level and you're working at this thing on a thing that's at a much easier
level. But we're both struggling because we're both like pushing the limits of where we are. And I feel like we all want to start out at the at the top because that seems like well, I just want to get there but it really is. I mean it's the way that we grow. Everybody has been there and giving yourself that grace is just it's it is key to all of it. And I like to do this exercise where I picture myself where I wish I were like sometime in the future and some
like future version of me. And I think like what would future autonomy say about What I'm going through right now what's she going to turn around and say, She's definitely not going to be like, whatever, dummy, you're doing a terrible job. There would be empathy, and there would be like, you know, cheering me on. So then I'm like, well, I'll just go ahead and do that to myself instead.
I love hearing that because something I do on a bad day is I think about I go backward. I think what would 16 year old me think about what I'm doing today and consistently 16 year old me's mind would be blown at you because you know, I grew up in Oklahoma, I didn't know if I'd ever leave 16 year old news and be would be pretty blown away by
like, wow, you live in LA, like you can stop right there. That's super fun. I love that like those two sides of the same coin. That's very cool. Well, I feel like you have so much to offer and so much to give in terms of that kind of support. I feel like certain people are just like, that's their magic secret sauce. And you're you know, you your title in your work is creative catalyst. Talk to me a little bit about that, like how I've
never heard that before. Like, tell me what that what that means to you and why you chose that as your as your job title.
Okay, thank you for asking, because one of my favorite things in my business is the job job title that I completely made up. And I'm obsessed with it because it's exactly what I love doing. And also nobody else has that. Like it. But so back to the idea of we're all creatives. One thing that I noticed consistently doing brand photography, and I'm working with 100 plus maybe approaching 200 creatives, either as their photographer, their educator is, we always talk about okay, what's, what's
your big picture goal? I have them. Think about, you're 90 years old, you're sitting on your front porch, and you're watching the sunset with your loved one. And you're really just content in this moment. Because looking back, you realize that everything actually went to plan in life, everything you wanted to do everything you wanted to accomplish. Good job you because you did it. Right. So in that moment, what is the arc of your life look like in
terms of business? What are the things that you the milestones you hit the successes that you had? What are those big deal big picture things? Because if you're looking back and it all worked, you can you can do anything you want to start, you know, an empire? Do you want to, you know, whatever that looks like for you. No Limits there. So we start there. And what I consistently see is creatives who are like freaking amazing, saying like, Oh, you know, I think I'd like to write a book
one day. And there's more there there. I'm like, you can write a book in a year, what else are we doing? Right, I see people and creatives consistently, holding themselves back from dreaming bigger, and whatever they think they can dream, I can see, oh my gosh, like, I know, you want to do this. But this is just the beginning. This is not the top of the mountain. This is this is one part of it. This is one
rock. So as a creative catalyst, a final part of my work is to light the fire for people to be the catalyst that really opens up for them the possibilities with their own creativity and what they can do with that in the world. So I like to think of it as like, together, we fuel your fire and I am really like lighting that match.
Nice. I love that. I feel like sometimes we just need permission to to like go for it. And and it's a weird, you know, you say like, well, I guess I don't really need permission in intellectually we say that. But our actions speak way louder. So that's amazing. And yeah, from the friends of mine who have worked with you, you are clearly very gifted at what you do. Well tell me this page, if whoever is listening, wants to learn more about working with you and needs a
little more creative. Catalyst. Dick behavior. I don't know how to say that cat. Yeah. I just got tongue tied on that. Where
They can find me on Instagram at @paigeraycreative can they find you? or on my website at paigeray.com. So not like the book page, but the PA page. I encourage people to drop into my DMs say hello, ask questions. If I can answer your question in under two minutes. We can talk all the way through it and the DMS. I love doing that.
That's amazing. Well, wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on and bringing your creative brilliance onto the show for the day. It was lovely chatting with you.
Oh, honestly, thank you so much for having me on. This was like such a huge honor and such an exciting moment. I've just oh, I can't eat. They don't even have words for how excited I've been for this.
That's so sweet. Well, good. We'll have to bring you back soon. Oh, thank you. Well, that's it for this week's episode of This can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads at this can't be that hard.com/learn If you liked the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review on iTunes. And as always,
thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.