Trust is the best currency.
At each stage of my 20 year career, I can trace back each time I leveled up to a connection or relationship opening a door for me.
✨ Getting my photography business off the ground-- I got my 1st paying job from a relationship I'd made via networking.
✨ Getting hired as a photographer at Disney -- A photographer friend of mine got me an interview.
✨ Taking my photography business full-time and successfully making over $100k in the 1st year-- I was booked solid mostly through referrals and my network in roller derby.
✨ Being able to immigrate to Iceland with my business -- I had made many amazing local connections who referred me and helped me get established here.
✨ Hyphenating my career and becoming a c0@ch-- I was trained and brought into the world through a relationship.
✨ Getting experience in the film industry-- I was hired as a producer through connections. I was brought on as a production coordinator through a recommendation. I've been grip/electric by being brought on through connections. And new work I'm doing currently is through a close relationship referral.
Relationships, connections, and community are who open doors. Collaborating with other creatives to push your own creative skills is what makes you masterful.
Having ✨real✨ conversations with people, face to face, is what builds trusting, real relationships.
If someone is going to refer you they have to KNOW you and TRUST you because their name is on the line if you fucking suck. Which is why the big opportunities come from your network and not from content you post. (Thank you to everyone who has ever referred me and put your own name on the line for me.)
Trust, conversations, and relationships are my favorite type of career growth because it sure beats posting shit into the void.
(Here's a super old photo of me on a set as a grip/electric because my first love wasn't photography, it was the lighting department.)