We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stacey Chow. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stacey below.
Stacey, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.
I feel like my generosity has always been a part of who I am. I want to see people happy and succeed. I will always do my best to deliver the best photos I can to my clients. I have always thought if you are generous to someone, it could be the thing that makes their day better or remembers me. My parents are also a big factor when it comes to my generosity. They always do extra things for me and sacrifice a lot for me to accomplish my goals. Their generosity towards me and other family members has helped me become a generous person myself. Something I have struggled with is being too generous with some people that it hurt me in the long run. Throughout high school and now currently, I have learned to still be generous but know how much to give out. I feel like it has always been easy for me to be generous towards people. I view everyone as the same. We all just want to be happy in life. I have learned from my closest friends though that it is okay to not be generous to everyone because not everyone deserves it all the time. BUt being generous and being respectful are different. I still respect others as people even when I am not going above and beyond to be generous to them.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a professional photographer based in the SF Bay Area in California. I am currently in college and building my business on the side. My foccus ever since my junior year in high school my passion has been my love for photography. I have not been the one to stick to an interest but photography has been different for me. It got me out of a really bad anxious state in high school. I discovered my deeper interest in being a photographer. I have always had an interest but did not fully realize it until I picked up a digital camera. From there I never looked back. I started taking photos of everything, from shooting landscapes with my dad to taking photos for people. I realized early on that my area that I wanted to focus on was going to be people. I am an outgoing and social person so that could be what has drawn me to photographing people. I love the interactions and providing an experience as well as the photos to keep. I started my business in my senior year. I started out taking any job I can get, whether it is a family, event, or a couple. I had a particular love for photographing couples and weddings. I think I have always been drawn to the connection of a couple and their love for one another. An now currently I have my certified business and trying to pursue my passion by growing my business.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
If I had to pick three skills or qualities I feel best represent me, it would have to be my social, emotional intelligence, and communication skills. Being able to talk to anyone and know who to represent myself when meeting them has brought me a long way. It has opened the door to new experiences and new opportunities. It has helped me grow as a person because talking to different people is a way to gain knowledge as well as life advice. I also think of me being emotionally intelligent as a helpful skill. I am able to listen to someone when they need to rant or sympathize with them. This has helped me create connections not only through my business but personally to. It is important to also be emotionally aware of how I am feeling. If I cant unlock how I feel when a problem arises, it will be easier for me to solve it. This has helped me overcome roadblocks with running my business. Some things don’t go as planned or I didn’t meet my bookings goal, It is nice for me to understand how I feel and tell myself that it is okay to fail and not quite reach your goal. With communication, this is key to running a successful business. I know that when I talk with my clients, I need to have an open mind but also know when to stand my ground. Being able to communicate well has helped me with this and has also helped me when talking to my business partners. Some advice I can give is if you have a passion do something right then. Start working on your idea or whatever it is you want to do. You will fail at times but it is important to remember your goal. Always believing in yourself is a big thing to. Every successful person has failed before so if you keep working hard, you will make progress.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I feel that we need to keep our skills balanced. If you have a skill that is not your strongest, if you don’t work on it, it will never improve. By focussing only on your strengths, it make be hard in the long run to have a successful business if you can’t learn new skills or build on them . Everything is a learning process. One skill I am not the best at is confrontation or giving bad news. I have always not been the best at this. I am trying to work on that because I know that I can get taken advantage of if I don’t speak up. If I am the one running my business I need to know how to stick up for myself in the right situations. This will help me become a more confident person.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.s1aceyvisuals.com
- Instagram: @s1aceyvisuals
