Where do I even begin?! There are a few times I’ve ‘happy cried’ in life. On our wedding day, when Koa was born, when I quit my full-time job… and this weekend in Newport Beach, California at Jasmine Star’s branding workshop because I was OVERWHELMED with gratitude. But let me back up and tell you how I got to this point!

Five years ago, I googled ‘How to be a wedding photographer’ and Jasmine’s name popped up with a ton of free tutorials, blogs, videos, and online education. Not to mention, she is FABULOUS! Over time her wedding education transformed into overall business education and it has played such a huge role in my entrepreneurship journey. She pushes me to dream bigger and the way she pours into her community inspires me to use my own unique gifts to help others as well. A few months ago, she announced a contest where she would select only TEN entrepreneurs from her Social Curator membership to attend a private workshop with her in California to dive deeper into building a brand and marketing it on social media. Now ya’ll KNOWWWWWW I love marketing, it is my JAM!! So the opportunity to learn from the marketing & branding queen herself, in-person, would have been a dream come true!! Just meeting her has been on my business bucket list haha! I submit an application and video and added myself to the runnings amongst hundreds of other entrepreneurs in all different industries. A few weeks later, the email came through that I was selected! I was over the MOON excited! She then revealed that she only chose 1 entrepreneur per industry so the fact that I was the only photographer made me sob hahaha!! So thankful!!

So let’s fast forward to the trip! The 9 other boss babes and I had since connected on Instagram, started our own private Facebook group and rented a house together! (Cue the Real World intro haha, “Ten strangers, picked to live in a house…”). Spending the weekend in person with them felt SO NATURAL, like we had been friends for years! We dreamt big together, had deep conversations about life and brainstormed like nobody’s business. We stayed in the perfect little beach house in Newport Beach!

We got to know each other better over dinner and wine on Friday and then Saturday, it was on to the workshop! Workshop images photographed by the incredible Tami Paige!

Jasmine had us start by writing where we’d like to see ourselves 1 year from today. “What would make you wildly happy?” she asked. I honestly had not thought about that in a while. I think very “matter of factly” about goals (project-based, revenue-focused, etc), but she gave us 3 minutes to sit in silence and actually picture what type of life we wanted to have at that point. What exactly do we want to be doing at that point?

Here are some things I scribbled:

• Photographing weddings for the happiest of couples.
• Photographing entrepreneurs that are as business-obsessed as me to uplevel their brand.
• Providing education via an online platform (course? membership? Educating about the strategic benefits of personal branding photography for business owners and maybe even tutorials for photographers looking to get into shooting these sessions!)
• Hosting a podcast!
• Scaling my business and taking on a lighter shooting load to have more time with family
• Having an efficient and structured team! I’d love to bring on 1-2 assistants to take over some day-to-day tasks in my business so that I can make more room creative projects.
• Traveling!

This silent 3 minutes definitely opened up my mind! She then challenged us to take 3 minutes to dream a day and I’ve been loving it in my morning routine!

The workshop was formatted as an in-depth Q&A. Jasmine presented the pillars of her branding system (mindset, customer, content, resources, consistency, conversion, rinse & repeat) and we were able to ask questions about each topic. She was an open book (as always)! We laughed, we cried, we challenged each other, we brainstormed, we uplifted one another. I love how Jasmine has the ability to answer a specific question related to someone’s business and make it apply to any type of entrepreneur.

OH, and it was filmed for her Social Curator members! So stay tuned to see the video in November!

Halfway through the day, we took a break for lunch. This day was extremely laid-back and chill and was such a breath of fresh air compared to the go-go-go of bigger conferences. We were able to really connect with each other.

We continued the day talking about more mindset, our ideal clients, content, lead acquisition, email funnels, transitions in our business and SO much more. My notebook and heart are both SO full!

And see this rap lyric by Tupac below?! Jasmine brought even more fun by inserting rap lyrics into the slides and the first one to guess the artist won a gift card. You knowwwwww there was a Drake lyric in there as well LOL. Needless to say, I came out on top LOL 🙂

She ended with a message of Go and Create and I will do just that. I came into the workshop with questions about one part of my business and after brainstorming with Jasmine, I’m leaving with a totally different goal and action plan! I can’t wait to share more about what I’ll be doing within the next few weeks! For now, here are just a few key takeaways I took from the event:

• I need to improve my morning and bedtime routine! I do get up early but I do a quick devotional and then immediately start working. Jasmine talked about taking up to an hour to herself every morning to clear space for clarity (coffee, reading, praying, etc). This really sat with me and I have already made changes! This week, my morning routine has consisted of stretching, reading the Seamless Bible Study, prayer, journaling and drinking a tall glass of water. And THEN I turn my computer on! I also keep a notebook by my bed if any random thoughts or ideas come to me right before bed or upon waking. It’s so hard to turn my mind off!
• Push out more resources via VIDEO! I already spoil my audience with free education (e-books for my brides, personal branding checklists for entrepreneurs and so much more) and have a few helpful personal branding videos (here and here) but need to up my game on a more consistent level! I love how Jasmine constantly pushes out free video education so it’s put a fire under my butt! Stay tuned 🙂
• A big theme of the day focused on listening to what your audience is asking. I typically do a good job of this but a light bulb turned on after chatting with Jasmine one-on-one. I get a ton of questions from other photographers asking about pursuing personal branding photography! My goal this month is to create more resources for them because this part of my job is SO fun! A mini-course may just be in the work so if you’re a photographer and this interests you, let me know in the comments!
• I’m trying to be more cognizant of the thoughts in my mind and the things I tell myself. Jasmine talked about only telling ourselves FACTS instead of those stories we make up in our head like, “I’m not going to be good at this. This person doesn’t like what I’m doing. This will never work for me, etc.” NOPE, think positive and state the facts ONLY. Mindset shifts are everything in the entrepreneurship journey and I’m so happy I’ve been working on mine!

So these are just a FEW of my takeaways because if I typed up my entire notebook, we’d be here all day haha! We ended the day with champagne and headed upstairs for a cocktail party on the roof 🙂

I love ALL of these ladies! They inspire me to dream big and out loud, show up for my people and live a purposeful life. I could not have asked for a more perfect weekend! The 9 boss babes and I who spent the entire weekend together have decided to start our own monthly mastermind and have a reunion trip in one year! YAY!!!

You can learn more about these boss babes below:

Crystalyn Aucoin | Amber Gill | Karen Blattenbauer | Corie Clark | Janine Mix | Courtney Elmer | Csilla Muscan | Joy Farley | Jasmin Niemiec

On Sunday morning, we woke up super early and walked over to the beach to watch the sunrise. It was a beautiful end to an amazing experience and all I can do is thank God for placing these opportunities into my life!! I never imagined a life like this and now I know that the sky is truly the limit. Friends, never stop dreaming (and of course, taking action)!

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And because you know I can’t leave you without a freebie 🙂 Be sure to download my personal branding photography checklist below so that you can start building your inventory of custom images to upevel your brand! Stay tuned for more education (including videos) on one of my fave topics!