Why I Finally Got Brand Photos at Age 40

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In this episode, Kaely shares how hitting the big 4-0 sparked a fresh season of confidence, spontaneity, and deep self-care. She dives into why we need to push past our fears and truly invest in ourselves, showing how even the smallest shifts can lead to massive transformations in your life and your business.

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Doula Tips and Tits is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services

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Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Doula Tips and Tits, the podcast where we cut through the noise and get real about what it takes to build a sustainable doula business. I'm Kaylee Harad. I've been a doula informally for 14 years and full time for seven. Around here, we don't sugarcoat stuff. We talk autonomy, owning your worth, creating a business that works for you. No fluff, no burnout, just the honest truth on how to be your own best boss. Let's get into today's episode. Hello and welcome back to Kaylee. No, not Kaylee Daly. Doula tips and tits. I this podcast I called Kaylee Daly like three years ago. And apparently today that decided to come back. Um so I have a really exciting thing that I'm going to share with you on Friday. And you're actually only going to get it shared with you if you are on my newsletter. So if you are not on my newsletter, today is the day, my friend, because those are the folks who are going to get it shared with them. If you're listening to this beautiful podcast, Doula Tips and Tits, not Kaylee Daly, and you have not joined the newsletter, you will only hear about it next week on Wednesday when the next episode comes out. And so you're kind of gonna be, you know, a couple days behind the eight ball. I'm just saying, if you don't like FOMO, if you have FOMO, if you don't like being left out, then uh join the newsletter right this minute. So anyway, I want to talk to you about something else. So have you ever had an experience in your life where you have put something off because it either seems incredibly intimidating, or it seems impossible to do, or it seems like scary, or too expensive, or you're not sure how it will go, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right? I have also done that, surprise, surprise. Um, and recently I have kind of taken life by the balls a little bit. So um I don't I don't really have the space or desire to get into all the details of what has happened in my personal life in this beautiful year of 2026, but it has had a lot of ups and downs. And one positive outcome of that has been me being like, listen, what have I been doing? And I also turned 40, right? Which I think I was chatting with a colleague at the breastfeeding center where I work as the class coordinator. Um, I was chatting with this federal work study student who's I think a junior in college. So like she's young, you know, I think she's 21, but she's young. And she and I were chatting. I I she complimented me on a piece of jewelry I had. And I was like, oh yeah, I bought myself that ring for my 40th birthday. And she was like, Yes, like, no, you know what she actually said was, period. And I was like, oh my God, I love that that's how you talk. But I was like, yeah, I I turned 40 and I was like, fuck this. Like, why have I not been buying buying myself gifts? Like, what am I doing? And of course I want gifts from other people too. Like, it's not that I want to only buy myself gifts, I want friends and family to give me gifts as well. But I was like, I decided, like, why have I not been fucking buying myself stuff? Like, I'm 40, I make money, I like myself, like it's my birthday, so I don't need any other reason really to not to just like go buy myself shit, right? So she was like, period, you know, I love that energy, etc. And I told her, I said, you know, I sometimes see these like 70-year-old, 80-year-old women who are just clearly like in demeanor, attitude, maybe like outfit, hair color, whatever. They're clearly just like, I have no fucks to give. And I was like, I can feel that loading. Like it's like 40 is maybe the halfway mark where you're like, oh, yeah, yeah. I do see how people do that, right? Like at some point in life as an adult, I feel like you get to the point that you're like, Yeah, of course I have a favorite mug and a favorite spoon, because who doesn't? Like, I'm an adult, right? Like, do I care about like all of my genes being brand name? No, not even a little bit. Like, what I care about is how they feel in my body, if they fit me well, and I can like do all the shit I want to do in them and not be restricted, right? Do I also have a favorite spoon and a favorite mug? And I'm kind of like completely thrown off for the whole day if I don't get to use my favorite spoon and my favorite mug. Yes, yes, and that that is 40, right? Like, that's me at 40, also autistic, turns out. Fun fact about early 2026, I got some diagnoses. Um, but it's like, yeah, of course, of course, I have a favorite foo spoon and a favorite mug because I'm 40. And so I feel that like 80-year-old, like, yeah, I wore all the fucking colors at once because it might be my last day on earth. Like, just give me, give me the day. I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want. Right. Like, that's that's the energy that I can feel loading as a 40-year-old. So I'm getting kind of off topic. But some of the things that I have been putting off in my personal life are things like getting tattoos, getting piercings that I've always wanted, cutting my hair in a way that feels fun and not just like practical, right? Um, and professionally, my biggest thing I've been putting off is ever, ever in my life having brand photos. Now, I have been doing perinatal support, postpartum support, lactation support for 16 years now. My kiddo, my oldest kiddo, just turned 16. So 16 years since that dude came out of my body, I have been doing that kind of support. I've been officially a doula and have a doula business for 10. So a decade, a full decade, I have put off for a variety of reasons, having any kind of brand photos. And my husband does photojournalism, so like I've had a few headshots here and there from him, but he's not a brand photographer. And he loves me and thinks I look great, which I love about him. But that also means sometimes I get really crappy pictures, I feel like, of myself when he takes them because he's like, You look great like this, and I'm like, This picture looks terrible. And he's like, You look great all the time. And I'm like, Okay, like I love you, and I love that you think that, but also like, could you take me from a better angle? Could you maybe like stand up and not take me like straight on like an absolute rectangle, right? And so, anyway, that's not his forte. He is not a brand photographer, he doesn't have a lot of experience with um business shoots at all. And then he thinks I'm adorable from all of my angles, which I love. I mean, we all need a partner who thinks we're adorable, right? Um, but then maybe don't let them take your professional photos because they're not gonna take great professional photos of you because they think all your angles are great, even when maybe they're not, or you don't like them as much, or whatever. So fast forward a little while. Um, I was chatting with my coach, my business coach, who I I also have a business coach and have for many years now. Um, and I said to her, like, okay, you know, this year has been crazy. She's known that, she's been kind of coaching me through it. And then I was like, what do I do? Like, how do I like revamp? I'm I'm working on like launching this thing at the end of May or mid-May. Like, what do I do? And she was like, Well, can you just like do a refresh of your brand photos? And I was like, I've never had brand photos, and she was like, I'm sorry, what? And I was like, I have never had brand photos, and she was like, Kaylee. And I was like, I know. I'm like, okay, but I feel and I like start making excuses, right? Like they're expensive, and I've been scared to get them, and maybe they look terrible. And my body has changed a ton in the last 10 years, and so I just feel like not myself, and also like all these babies come whenever the heck they want, and it's hard to schedule things. And she was like, Kaylee, you need to get brand photos done. And I was like, Okay, and I'm like, so what should I do after our call? She was like, brand photos, like that's literally your only homework assignment. Like, just find a photographer that you like, schedule a shoot. We need to do brand photos. Like, this is ridiculous. And so another fun fact of what was happening from the last day of March until the second, no, the second day of April? When was it? No, the first day of the second day of April. I'm just kidding. The last day of March to the second day of May, I had not my usual two to three, not even a usual three to four with a couple early babies. No, I had nine babies born between the final day of March and the second day of May. And it was an absolute madhouse. Like I attended all of those births. Now it was nine babies, but eight births because there was one set of twins. Um, but it was my first twin vaginal delivery, which I'm super pumped about. So um, yeah, so like life was a little busy, right? But again, remember 2026 has given me this like grab life by the balls energy of just like, you know what, we're gonna fucking do it. So I have three tattoos now, I have four new piercings, I have another tattoo scheduled for later in the month. And I was like, listen, I found a photographer and I'm like, are you free on Sunday? And she was like, I've never done a shoot this fast. And I was like, great, but I have clients that are due, and these babies are crazy this month, and so I think if we can make it happen on Sunday and no babies happen to come, that's kind of our only chance because I have someone getting induced on Monday, and this other baby just came, right? And so she was like, All right, let's let's go, like, let's do it. So I'm like buying some stuff, honestly, like checking in with Chat GPT, like, hey, these are the clothes I own. Could I make a decent photo shoot out of it? And I mean, I was able to. I bought a couple pieces, and already, like, you know, I already have the energy of like I've bought myself some new jewelry for my birthday and stuff. So there's already all of that. I already had a studio or like um a community space that I wanted to use. Um, and we did it. And I was terrified. Like, I was so terrified. And each time, like I had a list of things where I was like, I'd really like to have my nails done. I'd really like to get a pedicure, I'd really like to get my bangs cut, right? I wanted to dye my hair, but didn't happen. Um, and then I was like, there's a couple pieces, like I want to buy a purse that looks a little different than what I have. I want to buy a blazer because I've never in my life owned a blazer, I don't think. Maybe in college, maybe for like student government, I had a blazer, but otherwise I do not work in places that require blazers of me ever. And so um literally, it would be like a baby came on Tuesday, and then Wednesday morning I would wake up and be like, no one's in labor. So after work today, I'm gonna go get a manicure. And then my photo shoot was on Sunday, and so Friday, it was Thursday, I guess, Wednesday or Thursday, one of those days, another baby came, and then I like looked up my hair stylist and was like, Does she have space for a bang trim? And I was like, Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. Which I was just like, what? You're still there at the studio at 7.30 p.m. So Friday evening, 7.30 p.m., she has space for a bang trim, and I'm like, Bet, like we're booking it, right? And I'm the whole time just like hoping that no other babies decide to come. Like, literally, almost the entire month of May worth of babies came in April and March. That last March baby was was a May baby. Like that's that's who that was. Excuse me. So um, so I still hadn't had a pedicure. My nail salon that I like to go to is right next to my hair salon. So I was like, okay, I got a bang cut on Friday evening, and I'm gonna get um my toes done if I can, right? Friday evening as well. So I booked a Friday evening, like, I don't know, 6.15 or something pedicure, and then 7.30 bang cut, and then went out to dinner with my husband on a date at like nine, and Sunday had my photos done. And I'm pretty sure on Saturday I taught a class. I mean, it was really, it was like ridiculous. Like, of course I taught a class on Saturday, you know, it was just like boom, boom, boom. And I went, I killed it, I got a photo, I got the photo shoot done. She got the pictures back to me so stinking fast. Like she, I got the proofs really quickly. I picked out the photos I wanted, she edited them and got them back to me like within hours. Like it was amazing. Um, and I literally was looking at them with one of my best friends, and I was just like, what have I been doing? Like, why did I not do this before now? And I'm like, finances is part of it, right? Like, I am not shy about the fact that I have come from a place of financial scarcity. Like for sure, my my actual lived experience is living in poverty for many years. And so definitely I still have the feeling of like, is this a need or is it just like a nice to have, a want, you know, a like that'd be lovely, wouldn't it? And so that plays a role for sure. But also, I like hadn't found a photographer that I felt like really understood photographing plus size bodies or could do kind of the style I wanted that wasn't like I'm sitting in front of a white sheet, which isn't bad. I'm not saying that's bad, but that's not what I wanted, right? But like doing more of like a lifestyle shoot is often more expensive. And so I was nervous, like, what if this person doesn't have experience with lifestyle shoots, or maybe they do branding, but they only have like size four people who do it, and so then the poses are different, the the type of pictures is different, etc. And often in a bigger body, you do look a little bit like oh, that pose was for a skinnier person, but they tried to put you there anyway, which is just like that's not how that works, you know, like it doesn't feel or look natural. Um, and this photographer was awesome. Like her name's Krista, she was amazing. She not only like made me feel incredibly comfortable, she also just normalized, like, like us bigger girl, bigger thigh girlies, like this pose is hard. So we don't want to do any cross-legged. Like, we're not gonna do like a deep cross lean forward situation because how how is that gonna look for you? That's not gonna look great for you. It's just gonna be like legs and belly, you know. And it was lovely, like it was so the whole experience was so lovely. Like the whole time she was just like, You look amazing, these photos are amazing. I don't know what you were worried about. Your hair is killing it, like your mermaid hair. I mean, really, it was like one of the most loveliest experiences of my life. And then I immediately uploaded them to my website, my my like front, my homepage, and I was like, my whole business looks different. Like, my whole business looks more legitimate, my whole business looks like new and fresh and beautiful. And and I just keep going back to like what was keeping me from doing that, and it's a lot of things, right? Like fear that now's not the right time, fear that I'm not like legitimate enough, fear that it's gonna make me feel like fat and ugly, fear that it's gonna be money that I spend that I don't then get back, right? Like investment that feels really dicey. And it's not like I spent about a thousand bucks on the pictures, right? And that's a that's cheap for this area. Like for the DC area, that is a steal. Um, and and I of course haven't had like a thousand dollars worth of income that I can directly correlate to someone being like, Well, I saw your amazing photos, but that's not the point, right? That's actually not the point, and that's not how we track return on investment in something like brand photos, right? So part of what I I think about when I think about this for me, is that there are so many things in my business that I feel like I could do eventually, right? And I know that's probably true for you too. Like as doulas, we're often like, oh yeah, when I'm a real business, like when my business is bigger, when my business is is legitimate, when my business grows, when I've done X, when I've gone to this many births, when I've been doing it for this many years, then I will blah, blah, blah. But the reality is that is us sabotaging ourselves. I've already talked about how my business made more money than it's ever made in the first quarter of 2026 when I barely had any time or energy to put into it. And my business coach at the time was like, Kaylee, this is why you have this the foundation that you have. This is exactly what you've set it up for. So that when real life is an actual shit stone storm, oh my god, shit show. I just combined all of those together. When your actual life is being what life is, like incredibly unpredictable and not warning you that a shit's about to hit the fan, then your business still works. Your business still runs, people still hire you, you still attend births, like that is how you set your business up to go. And actually you can trust that it's going to do it. And it did, right? But it also means if if I had waited a decade, like I did for my brand photos, to put my stuff online, to make sure that all of my things were automated, to make sure that I have systems in place for scheduling things. Like if I had waited a decade for that, imagine. Like, I don't know what that would have looked like in my business for the spring, for the winter time and the springtime when I wasn't able to put as much attention into it. Like, what would have happened? I don't know. Because truthfully, I don't think it would have kept going by itself. Like, it's not just like it happened to keep going. Like, no, I fucking set it up to do that, right? And that's because of my intentionality in it. Like, it's not for no reason that that's how it worked. So on Friday, I have a super fun announcement. I'm so, so, so excited about it. I want to tell you about it now, but it's not Friday, so I can't tell you about it now. So I want you to do two things. One, get excited. And if you're not already excited, just you know, do whatever you need to do to do that. And two, sign up for the freaking newsletter. If you're not already on the newsletter, you're not gonna hear about it on Friday. You're gonna hear about it next week on Wednesday, which is incredibly late. And so sign up. There is a link in the show notes that just says like subscribe to the newsletter. That's all. So sign up, subscribe, and then you will hear about this awesome fun announcement that I'm super pumped about, and you can actually take action on Friday morning. So then you just keep your eyes open, right? You just look at your pot at your email, make sure that you're watching for something, and Friday morning, I'm gonna pop into your inbox. Okay. All right, I will see you then. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Doula Tips and Tits podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at hurrahdoula so we can celebrate alongside you. If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app. That helps other doulas find us as we do this work together. This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment. It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business. We'll see you again soon.