What Is Your Why?
Do you know why you are a photographer?
And I'm not talking about what events brought you to photography, or what caused you to become a photographer. I'm talking about why you want to be a photographer.
A couple of years ago now, I read a book called "Start With Why" by Simon Sinek (you can watch a video of him here) and it fundamentally shifted the way that I viewed the work that I do.
You see most of us focus on WHAT and HOW we do what we do (in our case, fashion photography) but forget to communicate WHY we do it. What is the purpose or cause behind us wanting to be photographers?
Our goal is always to get hired, right? So we think that by sharing what we do and how we do it with our potential customers, that will be the hook that gets them to go: "Ah! Yes! I must hire Olivia to shoot my next campaign, for she is a photographer and takes pictures with a camera!" But it really doesn't work like that. If I went around sharing nothing but the fact that I'm a photographer and that my tool is a camera, that doesn't differentiate me very much from the next person, does it?
If you watch the video I linked above, Simon Sinek explains the biology of all this really well (better than I ever could) so I encourage you to go and watch it in full. However, my understanding is that the part of our brain which makes decisions doesn't understand language - its all about feeling. So if we're approached by someone who's telling us nothing but what or how we do it, throwing all the facts and figures at us, all the amazing perceived benefits their product or service will provide us, if they can't make us FEEL why they are the best, or why they are the person we should be working with, something in us (aka our gut feeling) will scream at us not to go ahead.
This really makes sense to me. Does it make sense to you, too?
When I began to ask myself WHY I was a photographer, it was really quite clear to me: I have a deep rooted need to create. I HAVE to make stuff. Photography just so happens to be my medium of choice.
I remember when I was working all this out that I felt guilt that my WHY wasn't more selfless. I almost felt like my why should be about wanting to serve other people, or needing to help others, but the truth is that the reason why I am a photographer is completely selfish. It's not about anyone else but me. Why am I a photographer? Because I need to make beautiful art.
But here's the catch: when my passion for my work is so deeply rooted, it becomes infectious. When I speak to potential clients, and explain to them why I do what I do, they feel it. They trust it. It connects with them on a much deeper level than if I spent all of my time telling them what I do, or how I can do it. You can't be passionate about what you do and how you do it in the same way that you can be passionate about why you do something.
I know that this is very much about mindset, but truly it is so important that you spend time thinking about why you do this, because when you connect with your why, I promise you that your whole business will shift.
If you'd like to learn more about this, definitely watch the video of Simon explaining it himself, or if you want to go even further, read his book, which I can highly recommend! (Note that the link to the book is an affiliate link and I get a tiny commission from Amazon if you choose to purchase it!).
