Liz Hansen from Chicago Boudoir Photography featured on the Joyful Purpose podcast with coach Kathy McCabe

I loved chatting with life coach Kathy McCabe for an episode of her podcast Joyful Pupose.

Kathy McCabe is a master certified coach who helps people develop a more powerful mindset, better health & more JOY.

We chatted about how to create confidence, what to do when you are facing a crisis and how to have the right mindset for starting and running a successful business.

Thanks so much for having me on your podcast, Kathy!

Here’s the auto-generated transcript from the interview:

hello Liz Hanson welcome to the podcast hi thanks so much for having me I'm so

excited you're here and can't wait to share what you do with our audience and

let's just dive in so tell us about your business so I'm the owner and photographer at the

Chicago Boudoir photography studio in Winnetka Illinois if you've never heard

of Boudoir it's a Victoria's Secret style photo shoot experience for the

everyday woman and I absolutely love what I do I love it so tell us how you got into

Boudoir photography so Boudoir is a way for women to feel

confident and empowered in their own skin to create some beautiful images that they'll enjoy for years to come

maybe they'll gift them to someone maybe they'll just have them for themselves

um I've been in photography for a long time I studied art in college I started out taking pictures with families and

babies I was a young mom snapping pictures of my own kids and then I moved

to Chicago and got a job at a photo studio and they did some Boudoir there I'd never really heard of it it was

about 10 years ago and I just kind of got dropped into this world and I realized that Boudoir was really

changing women's lives in a really positive way they were loving the experience they were stepping out of the studio feeling confident I did my own

Boudoir photo shoot after I'd been working there for a little bit and had a transformative experience really feeling

more confident in my body really kind of claiming my own power and then I wanted

other women to have this experience as well so I opened up my own Studio about five years ago and now I do Boudoir full

time so interesting and when you say Boudoir it's like sexy pictures right yeah

absolutely I mean it comes from a French word that means a woman's bedroom what it's come to mean in the in the

photography world is that you come to my studio get your hair and makeup done and get some sensual pictures taken you know

my clients bring their own wardrobe some people bring lingerie some people want to do what I call a fine art nude

session implied nude someone wouldn't want to be more covered you know being sexy is not about being naked but the

idea is to take some pictures where you feel sexy sensual confident beautiful in

a way that maybe you've never seen yourself before so interesting so tell us how it was a

transformative experience for yourself I grew up definitely like maybe a lot of

you listening to this with a lot of inhibitions and dissatisfaction with my

own body you know a lot of trying to live up to beauty standards a lot of thinking that I wasn't good enough you

know I was a dorky kid I'll just say that I was dorky I was in band I wasn't very socially confident I

didn't date a lot you know and I had just felt like you know I was never gonna look a certain way I was never

going to be a certain way I was never going to be you know attractive in the way that I wanted to be I mean I'd kind

of grown up through some of that in my 20s worked through that a little bit I got married I had some kids but I was

still holding on to a lot of thoughts and feelings about I was not

the perfect woman I was not the perfect body I was not the right kind of body I was not the right kind of person I did a

bit more photo shoot and it was really nerve-wracking for me so I felt really nervous being in front of someone else

in my underwear I'd never done something like that before it felt very much out of my comfort zone I'd grown up in a

very conservative household where we didn't talk about sex we didn't talk about bodies I felt like doing the speed

bar photo shoot I was kind of being naughty you know I was doing something that I shouldn't be doing something like that but I stepped in front of that

camera the photographer was very you know helped me feel very confident she

was very reassuring and I just felt great and then I got the photos back and

wow it didn't even look like me I mean I felt like I was looking at almost at another person and I gave the book to my

husband and he gave me the best reaction I've ever had he thought this was the greatest gift he'd ever been given he

just showered me with compliments not that he hadn't before but it just for both of us I think we felt like it

opened up something in my heart where I was able to kind of claim my sensuality love my body a little bit more be a

little bit open in my marriage and my relationship and I loved the experience and I wanted to do it again and I wanted

other women to have that same experience as well that is so cool so many women

myself included has suffered from body image right it were not enough in some

way we're not thin enough we're not young enough we're not pretty enough we're not whatever

and I just think that's a really interesting way to start owning your own

power with your body and really loving and appreciating it yeah you know I just feel like as women

we often put ourselves last and put ourselves down constantly right like we often put everyone else's needs before

our own we say you know our husband's needs our partner's needs our children's needs our businesses needs come before

our own needs and we we sometimes Find value or virtue in saying that we're

like bad or not good enough right like somehow it's a it's a virtue to say like

oh well I'm just not good enough or I'm we're socialized I think sometimes as

women to believe these things about ourselves and you know you're not going to overcome all of this just in an

afternoon and I and I get that but a Boudoir shoot can be a way to step out

of that for a minute and say I'm good enough I deserve it I deserve to celebrate myself my needs are important

I'm important I'm worthy I deserve to feel good in my own skin and I deserve

to be documented you know how many women and moms have a camera full of pictures

of their dogs of their babies of the beautiful places they've visited and

they're not in any pictures women hide from the camera a lot of times they take pictures of their babies and they're not

there with their babies they're not realizing that they deserve to be documented celebrated and loved as well

so that's one of the things I love to bring to women in a Boudoir photo shoot experience yes we're going to create

beautiful pictures but I also want to create an experience and a space in my studio

where people can feel confident loved and celebrated I love it there's so many messages to

women that you know we're not enough in some way and I just think this is just a

really interesting and Powerful way to show you know women are beautiful all shapes and sizes how do women like I

could see myself right I haven't had a shoot but maybe I will someday we'd love to have you in the studio

how do women feel if they're not at their ideal weight or they're you know they're not where they want to be

physically how do you handle that when it comes to shooting women

so listen I have people every single day of the week call me and say you know I've thought about doing this but maybe

I'll wait until I lose 10 pounds it's always 10 pounds I don't know what people think is Magic about 10 pounds

and you know what my answer to that is this number one you are beautiful just as you are you deserve to be celebrated

today you maybe you're on a fitness journey maybe you're gonna lose some weight maybe you're not it doesn't

matter today is valuable you are valuable today where you are right now

is worth celebrating who you are right now is lovable and worth documenting

and most of the time we look back on pictures and love our past selves more

than we love our current selves in many ways right pictures become in my opinion photographs and pictures become more

valuable as time goes on right so when you take a picture of your baby today you love it but when you look back at it

five years from now you're like oh that little baby right you have you take a picture of yourself today and then you

look back on a picture of yourself five years ago and you look look I was five years younger right so I am in the

mindset that today is the day you are valuable and loved today you are

beautiful today and I would love to have you in the studio and show you just how beautiful you are right now just as you

are sexy is not a number sexy is not a size confidence is not a size confidence is

not a shape it's an attitude you don't have to know how to be sexy or look great in front of the camera that's my

job so just show up just as you are and I'll make you look fabulous guaranteed in

fact not that this is a sales pitch but I offer 100 money back guarantee in my studio if you see your pictures and

you're not just absolutely Blown Away by them not only do you not have to purchase an album but I'll give you your

session feedback that's how confident I am that I can get you some photos that you will love and treasure for years to

come no I love it that's so powerful so Liz what you're saying is women's bodies

should be celebrated all shapes and sizes and your Boudoir photography helps

women do that because certainly our media gives messages that there's only one type of woman who is really truly

beautiful one really kind of shape and you're really saying something different

absolutely you know I do think things are changing but for a lot of years I think we've been been fed what I call

the one story right there's only one way to be a woman there's only one way to be

beautiful there's only one size that you know walks down the runway I do think we

are making some strides in this right there's a lot more size inclusive Brands

and clothing coming out I'm seeing a lot more ads on my Facebook and Instagram feeds of body shapes and types I I do

think we are making a little bit of you know strides in that but those of us like me I'm in my 40s right like I have

lived through a lot of those years of of the one story the one way right it was

never true it was never true that there was only one way to be a woman that was never true that there was only one way to be

beautiful but a lot of us grew up just eating that diet right that media diet that told us that we had to be a certain

way and if we weren't that way we were wrong or not beautiful that's absolutely not true

um I don't believe that and I don't want you to believe that I believe that every woman of every size of every shape of

every color deserves to be celebrated and is beautiful and my goal in the

studio is to make every woman look and feel confident and create images that they will look at and think that's me

and I love it and I love who that woman is you know I grew up with a very structured view of what I could be and

and how I should look and how I should act so I understand that wherever you are in your journey you may have some

stories that you've been telling yourself for a long time about the right way to be the right way to show up the

right way to look I think it's time as women for us to claim who we really want to be to stand on our own two feet and

say this is who I am and I love it I'm going to claim it this is the life I want to live and Boudoir can be a way to

celebrate that I love it I know it took me until I was 50 before I would wear a

sleeveless shirt which is so sad it is so sad and today I love sleeveless shirts but

it was like screw it I'm just I've got good arms but I had this like body image

at times in my life where I wasn't enough or I didn't look like the models

or whatever and I just think it's a message that you know we all need to embrace more that

our bodies are beautiful and amazing at every shape and size and something that I really have learned

over the last few years so there's you know there's body negativity where you hate your body and there's body positivity where you say like I love my

body but what I find even more powerful is something that I've learned called body neutrality and what I mean by that

is your body is not the thing that we worship it's not the thing that we are

striving for you your body is an instrument that allows you to act and

create and love and feel and the body itself is not what we are

in some ways celebrating and trying to love does that make sense so instead of saying I love

my arms which is great you can love your arms what if you could turn it around and say I love my arms because they let

me go and do things my legs take me to interesting places my stomach lets me

eat delicious food that I get great joy from you know my eyes let me see the

wonders of the world right so our bodies allow us to live and experience they're not just there to look at that was a

thousand percent I mean I couldn't agree with you more because so often people do have negative body images and it's hard

for them to be like oh I love my body suddenly right that's a hard stretch for

some people so going to something neutral or like just appreciating what

your eyes can do is a really positive and realistic step for people struggling

with body image yeah absolutely I just think we've placed so much on what our

bodies look like ignoring what our bodies are doing for us we are fantastic

unlimited beings in a body having experiences in my view right so you are

a goddess on this Earth experiencing the wonders of being a

human and your body is just the vessel that allows you to have those experiences and when you can kind of

expand your thinking to thinking about what your body allows you to do and less

about what your body looks at it allows you to appreciate and love that vessel for what it is love it how would you

talk about your work go to our photography and feminism because I could see a lot of feminist women be like well

you're kind of exploiting yourselves and you know this isn't really women empowerment it's more

sex driven which women have been obviously used for hundreds of years so

what would you say about that yeah absolutely and you know it's so interesting I have people ask me this

question all the time and the interesting thing is women always ask me this man never asked me this so I look

at this from a couple of different points of view so first off I don't view Boudoir as about sex necessarily

um I have women in the studio all the time who are coming to feel confident has nothing to do with a partner has

nothing to do with sexuality the body is so much more than sexuality but the body is also about sexuality I'm

very sex positive also and want to embrace our ability to feel pleasure

through sex through our sexuality and through sensuality so when a woman chooses to embrace her sensuality and

her sexuality I think that is a high form of feminism right so if you are claiming your own power in many ways

including in the sexual realm you are acting as a powerful woman which I believe is what feminism is about is

about claiming our power it's not about putting men down it's not about being like a man feminism is claiming your own

powers woman and I think you can do that in many ways you can do that through your work you can do that through your

thoughts you can do that through your sexuality you can do that with your body so sure women's bodies have been

exploited for sex for lots of reasons and there are ways to exploit women

through ART and through pornography in my opinion but Boudoir in the way I

approach it and the way I achieve it and my studio in my opinion is a powerful way for women to claim their own power

rather than to be put down or exploited by others you can argue with me all day

if you want you can send me mean messages on on Instagram people do it all the time and tell me that's what I'm doing but it's just not how I see it

it's not how my clients see it and if you are a feminist and you haven't had a Boudoir photo shoot experience I would

encourage you to look into it and see what you can find about claiming your own power and see how that might change

your mindset around it I love it it beautifully said and right I think we

don't focus enough on women's pleasure and owning that and more women

in my opinion need to find their own pleasure every day and you know in every

Avenue that is right for them I mean in my opinion feminism is about

allowing women choice and power right yeah so feminism is not saying you have

to climb the corporate ladder you can't be a stay-at-home mom feminism is not saying

in my opinion feminism is saying woman you now have a choice to use your life

and your powers and your gifts as you choose right it's about claiming power not telling women what they have to do

so if you say if you're a feminist and you say you can't be a stay-home mom in my opinion that's actually anti-feminist

because that's telling a woman that she can only be one way again we're we're not the one story again right so if you

are claiming feminism and you're saying a woman can't take beautiful nude pictures of herself again you're putting

a woman in a box and telling her what she can and can't do with her body and her power right so this might sound backwards to some

people to think that if you're taking sexy pictures it's not feminist but in my opinion it actually is extremely

feminist to being giving women the power and choice to celebrate themselves as they see fit

well exactly and you're doing it in a way at their choice and how they

want to use them and it's not being exploited by somebody else exactly yeah do you ever do male Boudoir shoots

so personally that's not what I specialize in but there are people who do if you're a man and you're listening

to this and you want to have an empowering photo shoot experience I believe you absolutely deserve that and

I would be happy to send you along to a photographer who specializes in that my studio is set up for you know hair and

makeup and a very feminist empowering experience for women I have 100 female

staff so I don't actually specialize in male Boudoir but I think men deserve to

have this as well so if you're listening if you're interested in this I'd be happy to send you over some referrals for people who do that as well men and

women Both Deserve to feel confident in their bodies to you know not be fed that narrative you

know men have been fed a narrative about their bodies as well that there's one way for a man to look as well it's not

exclusive to women so I believe women and men people of all genders people of all identities deserve to have you know

an empowering experience as well I love it your business has really grown you've

really created a huge social media following for those of us who are

listening what has led to your success and what tips

can you share the hardest thing I've ever done is have a baby Rich child right I have two young girls right the next hardest thing I've ever done is

start a business it has taken so much personal growth personal risk that

really I didn't expect I guess a few years ago if you told me I would have started a business I would not have

expected that this is the road I was going to go down I was working at another photo studio unexpectedly the

owner of that studio relocated and I was out of a job and I thought my next move was just to go find another job do

something kind of part-time and small I had kind of envisioned my life

to be a little bit smaller to I guess not to take a lot of risks you

know I have kind of a low-risk personality just by my nature and my

husband I came home I remember I came home and I said listen I'm out of a job you know it was very unexpected I had a

job one day and I did the next and he's like well why don't you start your own photo studio and I just remember being like there is no way I could do that I

have no experience I mean I've been working for other people my whole life I I don't know how to start a business and

he's like well let's just figure it out and I was like wow that is not where I thought this was gonna go but together

you know with his support we took out a loan I opened up a commercial studio and

started a business and really I started from Ground Zero I didn't know how to

start or run a business but here's the thing turns out there are people on the internet who know how to do this there

are resources there are mentors so if there is something that you're thinking about doing my Mantra has

become everything is figure outable okay everything is figure outable so I

started Marie for for Leo says that yes exactly and by the way I'm a big fan of

life coaching and what they have to teach and I have utilized life coaching Services as I've started my

entrepreneurship journey and learned things like this everything is figure outable right so I open my business and

I'm like wow I need to collect sales tax I don't know how to do that well guess what everything is figure outable okay I

need to learn how to accept credit cards I don't know how to do that guess what everything is figureoutable right so

just step by step I found things on the internet talked to people hired people purchased educational courses worked

with coaches to figure out each step of written and running a business and it

has been the Journey of a lifetime honestly I have met so many fabulous people I have really enjoyed working

with every client that's come into my my studio I have now photographed over a thousand women at the Chicago Boudoir

photography studio and just loved every minute of it I love it yeah that's such a powerful mindset to have when you're

starting out anything right you can figure it out you know it can be frustrating but you can figure it out

it's not it shouldn't stop us and I love what your husband said which I think so often

is you know I'm stereotyping but it's sometimes men are more likely to in my

experience in working with many women say you know let's just try it let's just do it and women are kind of like

often again not everybody I can't I need X I need y before I do it

and no it's just like dive in and that's kind of what you did yeah and absolutely my husband and I we

complement each other well I'm the one that's always like wanting to do the safe thing the always the one who's wanting to kind of do the familiar thing

and he is the one who is you know signing up to go bungee jumping and take risks right so we do complement each

other well on that but what I have learned like you say is like there's not a lot of Joy there's not a lot of fun in

just always doing the same thing you've always done right a lot of the joy and and freedom and uh experiences in life

come outside your comfort zone right and we know this we've heard that but stepping out of that comfort zone can be really really scary so I mean I'm so

glad I took the risk to start my business of course in hindsight it's worked out and I've loved it but like when I first started I had no idea if I

was just gonna lose a ton of money but I do remember my husband saying you know if we lose all the money that we just

borrowed to start your business we are in our 40s we have enough time to pay it back before we need to retire like it's

going to be okay this is a risk that's manageable but to me emotionally it felt like I mean I felt like I was driving

the truck off the cliff like this was just like a really really hard thing for me emotionally to do you know starting a

business you have to put yourself out there you have to put your face on social media you gotta like tell people

about your business so that they can come buy things from you and that was hard for me too yeah I hear you I I have

I struggle with that myself I didn't even have a picture up in social media until you know

within the last 10 years that's all because you know it's it's overwhelming and I didn't grow up with it

so it's amazing how you've done that what has helped your confidence with

putting yourself out there like that well one thing that I realized early on

is that I couldn't ask women to come to my photo studio and step out of their comfort zone and take pictures if I

wasn't willing to do that myself in other ways right so I really couldn't create a safe empowering Boudoir photo

shoot experience for my clients if I wasn't walking the walk if I wasn't talking the talk right so every time I

would have a client come in and tell me how scared or nervous they were to do a photo shoot I kind of realized like I

need to be the one who's willing to do this as well right so I have Boudoir photographer friends now so I've done I

don't know 15 or 20 of my own Boudoir photo shoots I love it you know I'm not scared to do it anymore it's just part

of what I do something that you do over and over again you start to get used to it right so I took small risks and now

risk isn't quite as scary for me I'm not perfect at it that's why I don't like to say practice is perfect but you take a

little risk then you can take the next little risk right well you build confidence by doing and you take small

steps which help you and when you do one it's like oh I can do it that builds so

action actually helps confidence absolutely and inaction is an action in

and of itself right so sometimes indecision you're making a decision by not deciding right so you either are

taking an action by not moving or you're taking an action by moving and I've learned that a lot just by sitting

you're actually not sitting is also a decision right sitting on something a

thousand percent and I love that is so so true inaction is action you know and

if you don't take the action today where are you going to be a year from now a month from now but inaction is a

decision and I hope more people see it that way because I couldn't agree with you more

yeah and I mean listen I get it I remember many sleepless nights when I started my business worried about what

people thought or worried about losing money and you know I've had some bad experiences I had an experience one time

where someone went on their social media and asked all of their 20 000 followers to write a bad review on my site wow I

got a flood of negative reviews on all of my platforms from people who didn't know me and had never been my clients

right and that really shook my confidence but you know that happened I got through it we worked through it and

now I have the confidence I can get through things like that again oh my gosh why did this person do this and how

did you handle all that that's really hard that would send many people even myself into like a rabbit hole of

despair yeah so you know overnight I suddenly had a ton of negative reviews on Google

Yelp Facebook a bunch of you know vitriolic messages coming in all my from a former client or from the competitor

oh and um there had been a misunderstanding and I had tried to explain it's not someone

I've ever met before but once all the followers saw her side of the story she just you know they just came out in full

force and they felt uh she had been wronged and so they left a ton of bad reviews on all my sites and I remember

lying on the floor correct my business was very new and you know it was still in a stage where I was bringing in a

little bit of Revenue but I wasn't paying myself right so I was getting up every day and working full-time on a

business and not taking a paycheck right because the business was so new that I I had to every dollar that came in had to

be spent on the business to keep the business pay rent and pay you know for all the things that it takes to keep a

business going so I remember just in despair thinking this is over over you know I with all these bad reviews on the

internet no one will ever hire me again no one will ever want to come to my photo studio ever again just crying on the floor and my husband My Fabulous

Husband by the way I have a great husband who's really supportive he's like you know what we're going to figure this out we're gonna get we're going to

get through this we're gonna figure it out and we got to work the next day you can report reviews as fraudulent and say

hey this person never came to my studio and it took maybe four to six months for all those to drop off but you know we

worked through it and we we wrote responses back and said hey you weren't a client in our studio and this doesn't

accurately reflect the service that we offer and eventually Google and Facebook and Yelp took the bad reviews down or

they fell to the bottom so people weren't seeing them anymore I mean it took a long time it took several months but you know

what can you do anyone at any time can write a bad review for you on the internet there's nothing you can do to

prevent something like that from happening really so that's that's amazing how you just like

figured it out and disputed it and you didn't

you know give up I mean I think that is really an amazing story and I hope

that's inspiring to others starting a business or having a business and struggling if that happens

there was nothing else to do besides power forward right like at that point I really couldn't quit my business We Were

In Too Deep with the loans and stuff that like quitting would have been financially disastrous at that point so

we were bringing in money and I could see that maybe eventually we would turn a profit and be able to to uh take a

paycheck home but we were at that point where we had spent enough money but weren't taking any money home that if we'd quit right then like

that would have been the worst time to quit right and that's when all those bad reviews came in and so there was nothing

to do but just get on the internet try to figure it out try to get those reviews taken down try to fight it try

to put more content out there that was positive about what I wanted to do to try to bury the negativity I mean I

didn't really feel like I had a choice but to power through beautiful very inspiring and there's always haters who

are going to hate so you have to keep that in mind that there are just people out there who enjoy you know tearing

people down well no matter what you're doing those competitors out there right like and I'm glad there are other

photographers out there I can't take pictures I've ever been in Chicago right like I need other people out there so if

those other competitors want to write bad reviews on the internet like that is always out there like you can't ever

Shield yourself from that entirely you can do your best to be your own light

and serve your clients as best you can but there's always going to be competitors and the the internet's a big

open place right so yes just have to be aware that that's always something that could happen yes Liz tell us some of

your stories during your business launch and maintaining it and how any

interesting stories you know I feel like anything and everything that has happened to me in

some ways is that at one point I made a bingo card of like crazy things that happened and I posted I was like how

many of these have happened to you when you've tried to start a business so um eight weeks after I signed my commercial lease the building flooded

and everything that was in there had to be thrown away they had to rip up the floors replace all the floors I'd throw away a bunch of stuff and then I

couldn't use the studio for like three months while they fixed that at one point the next year the ceiling caved in

because the person above me took a bath I guess some kind of crazy bath where the bath like overflowed over the bath

time and all the water came down into my studio the exterior sign of my studio got stolen one day someone just stole it

I had to buy a new one like I don't know just a lot of things have happened I've had you know clients from all walks of

life have been in my studio and bring a lot of really interesting and fun props I've had people take photo shoots with

lightsabers I had a woman who wanted a framed photo of her favorite cat I've had women bring in horse rider come in

in her horse riding gear and her horse whip I've had a client who wanted to do a photo shoot where she was like

swimming in a bath of candy and so we like filled up a tub with like Skittles I mean I just you know Boudoir there's

never a boring day at the Boudoir Studio it's always interesting I here at people's life stories of you know all

kinds of things death divorce remarriage open relationships all kinds of things

it's never boring there's always a good story at the Boudoir Studio it's so interesting have you built such a huge

social media following okay so um we've been talking a lot about Boudoir and obviously Boudoir is

my business and I you know love to take beautiful pictures of people but my broader mission in life honestly is to

help Empower women to feel confident in all aspects of their lives so I started a Facebook group called empowered women

of Chicago it's on Facebook there's about 10 000 local women in that group and what I do in that group is try to

provide opportunities and conversations and platforms for women to explore how

they can be more confident empowered in their own lives whether that means opening a business growing a business being a stay-at-home mom leaving abusive

relationships starting a new relationship whatever it is that you need in your life to feel more confident empowered I've created what I think is a

really empowering Safe Community of women to come together and explore and

discuss those issues so I think what attracts women to the group is that it's

local you know we talk about Chicago issues or places to go or resources in the area it's just women and I moderate

it to make sure that it's an uplifting and kind place for people to be authentic about struggles they might be

having and so they invite their friends we have a really good time if you'd love to join I'd love to have you join um we

post uh discussion questions and things every day they get people thinking about how they can live life more

authentically I love it and confidence I feel like is something that

pretty much everyone struggles with in in my opinion unless you're a narcissist it's true and especially women and

especially if you're trying something new so that's a really powerful thing to offer is to really help women with their

confidence and it comes from a really authentic place for myself because I have not always been confident or

willing to take risks right so I can speak really I think about my own journey and you know everyone's at their

own place everyone's got their own life everyone's going through everyone's going through hard things everybody if

you think they're not you just don't know about it right I love people I love meeting people maybe you can tell you know but I I love having a place where I

can interact with people and my favorite thing is when people have been in my Facebook group for a while and they've

kind of gotten to know what I do and then they come into the studio and I get to meet them face to face it's just so fun sometimes I run into people from the

group in the wild is what I call it a couple weeks ago I ran into a woman who'd been in the group for a few years at a taco shop and she recognized me and

we took a photo together it was just so fun I love knowing that I can you know there's people in the community that I

can interact with on the internet so I think if you're looking to grow your social media following the most

important thing in my opinion is to really just be yourself and you're gonna attract some people and repel other

people I'm sure there's some people who don't like me I know there's people who don't like me they don't like my style they don't like what I have to say and

that's fine because the people who do like what I have to offer will be attracted the people who don't I can

repel them that's fine there's other photographer there's other opportunities for them so just try very hard to be who

you really are and you'll find your tribe you'll find your people I love it just a couple things come to mind right

they say marketing is about attracting whoever your ideal client is

and repelling others it's the other face of that and also you know what you said

about other people I I just I so believe in the Mantra right everyone has a struggle you don't know about and we all face

hard things and it's facing those hard things yet kind of my purpose is finding Joy anyway

yes and you know life coaching has been really transformative for me I'm sure

you can speak more I'm not a life coach obviously but I have hired life coaches and just found so much more freedom and

ability to face problems through life coaching and I love the model of you

know transforming our thoughts and in the end you only have control over yourself anyway any any control you

thought you had over other people was was an illusion that is an understatement right because

sometimes you think you are you sometimes you think you are controlling other people right and uh that feels good maybe in the moment but it's an

illusion so taking sort of control and Mastery of my own ship you know captain of my own ship has

been transformative for me through life coaching so thank you for the work that you're doing with life coaching I know it's meaningful to so many people oh yes

well I think everybody should have a life coach and it certainly transformed my life and so much of it too is about

how you're thinking about things and yeah it's it's so so powerful it takes you out of victim mode in any

situation absolutely yeah all right Liz anything else you want to

share with our listeners that you haven't well I just want to share that in the last

um six to eight months I decided to launch an educational platform for photographers who want to get into

boudoir so I love Boudoir and I love what I've been doing and I know there's a lot of photographers who would like to get into

it maybe they've been doing headshots or maybe they've been doing weddings and they are kind of intrigued by the idea

of you know bringing this empowering confidence building experience to women so I have created an educational

platform to help photographers learn the art of Boudoir and The Business of

Boudoir and this has been an interesting new business venture for me and we've had lots of photographers sign up and be

interested in this so that's my next thing that I'm working on and hoping to

help photographers be profitable through Boudoir and help women and their clients

to feel the confidence that I know they can find through this art form I love it so Liz where can people find you

so if you want to join the Facebook group just search in Facebook the VIP group for empowered women of Chicago

you'll find me there my photo studio website is Chicago hyphen boudoir.com

and Boudoir is b-o-u-d-o-i-r.com and then if you're a

photographer and you're interested in starting or growing a Boudoir photography business I'm at million

dollar Studio which is Million Dollar dot Studio awesome uh one more question

I usually ask every guest what would you tell your younger self today wow

um I would tell my younger self go for it it's gonna work out

don't be afraid you're stronger than you think you're smart girl you're gonna figure it

out love it all right Liz well this has been such a

great conversation thank you so so much for your time and I can't wait for the

listeners to hear this thank you so much for having me and I love what you do keep up the great work thank you