Fearlessly Facing Fifty And Beyond
The Fearlessly Facing Fifty and beyond podcast encourages women to be fearless and fabulous at any age. Let's be honest, midlife and beyond comes with change. And let's face it, we are a masterclass in reinvention. So let's fearlessly face all the “F” words” together, like fashion, fitness, finances, family, friendships, faith, failures, our futures just to name a few. Let's get fired up about aging and CANNONBALL with confidence into our "next one thing".
Hosted by Amy Schmidt, a sought-after national media expert and thought leader on a variety of topics, an award-winning podcast host, stream show host, TEDx speaker, and author (Cannonball! Fearlessly Facing Midlife and Beyond) who has appeared in hundreds of publications, podcasts, live news, tv lifestyle segments, and radio, she is ready to arm you with all the tools to move the needle on your journey.
As a former journalist, turned what she calls, a ‘trailing spouse’ staying home to raise her children, she believes her voice and action-oriented advice allows people to move the needle on their journey and make positive changes in their relationships. Through countless reinventions, at the age of 49, she knew there was more to do, and she launched her brand and podcast, Fearlessly Facing Fifty.
Get ready to CANNONBALL with confidence and begin pushing play on your next adventure. Let's GOOOOOOO!
Fearlessly Facing Fifty And Beyond
EP212:Through the Lens of Beauty a conversation with Kristen Jensen
Fearlessly Facing Fifty and beyond - What does it mean to see yourself through a lens of beauty rather than criticism? This question forms the heart of my conversation with former Ford model turned photographer Kristen Jensen, who has mastered the art of capturing authentic beauty in everyone she photographs.
Kristen's journey began in front of the camera, traveling to 34 countries during her 20-year modeling career. But it was the moment she picked up a Hi8 camera and started filming behind the scenes that she discovered her true calling. "I was used to being photographed, but I wanted to be on the other side," she explains. This transition from being seen to seeing others became her superpower – the ability to look at people through what she calls "a soft lens" that reveals their inherent beauty.
As we navigate our 50s and beyond, many women experience a dip in self-confidence and struggle with visibility. Kristen's perspective offers a refreshing antidote: "It's not about perfection, that's not what sells. It's about energy." This wisdom extends beyond photography into how we present ourselves in every aspect of life. Whether starting a business, moving to a new community, or simply facing another day, authenticity trumps perfection every time.
Our conversation explores the challenges of reinvention – from building new friendships to redefining purpose. We discuss the importance of having cheerleaders in your corner when taking risks, the reality of aging bodies that require different care, and the poignant experience of losing parents. Through it all, we return to the central question that defines this stage of life: "Who am I now?"
Ready to see yourself through a kinder lens? Listen now to discover how embracing your authentic self – wrinkles, imperfections, and all – might be the most fearless act of all. Then join our community of women who are choosing courage over comfort every day as they fearlessly face their futures.
Connect with Kristen here
Ready to FEARLESSLY FACE all the F WORDS – be inspired and encouraged?
Get a copy of Amy’s Best selling book: CANNONBALL! FEARLESSLY Facing Midlife and Beyond here
Fearlessly Facing Fifty and Beyond has over 200 episodes with inspiration and stories to age fearlessly and connect confidently to others thriving at midlife and beyond.
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Hey, fearless friends, it's Amy and I am so excited to be back today with another show. You know what? And we're talking fearlessly, facing all the F-words. We're talking them all. We're talking faith, friends, finances, fitness, FOMO, our futures, our faces, everything that starts with F. You know what we want to age fearlessly, connect confidently, and that's why I'm so excited to have this show today with an incredible guest who was on actually season one with me. We should have a drum roll or something.
Speaker 2:Karim, we need to like get a drum roll or something with these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, kristen Jensen welcome, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me back.
Speaker 1:We haven't done this in a long time. So, trains, planes, automobiles, yeah, basically Connecticut to now we both are in Florida.
Speaker 2:Well, let's not tell anyone. Yeah, exactly no, we're not in Sarasota Florida.
Speaker 1:It actually is another part of Florida, but isn't it fabulous.
Speaker 2:I love it. Yeah, we moved here about 16 months ago and don't regret leaving Connecticut. I loved it. I mean, it was good, we raised our kids there, and then we're like we're out.
Speaker 1:You know different seasons of life as we age. Yes, things evolve constantly, constantly. Yes, they do. So Kristen is a former Ford model. Okay, yeah, hello, I mean you know amazing. Just the stories behind that are incredible and really just your life experiences, your travel. And then what I love about Kristen and when I first met Kristen actually was because I was getting some branding photos done but your ability to tell stories visually, I think, is your gift, thank you.
Speaker 2:That's the highest compliment.
Speaker 1:You're the best of the best you truly are. You look at someone and you see their beauty, whereas so often we don't. We don't see our inner beauty. We don't see our outward beauty. We're our worst critic.
Speaker 2:We're invisible, many of us, yeah, especially when you age. Yeah, I think, I think that becomes like an invisible wall, right, exactly, that kind of comes down. But yeah, I, it is my gift and thank you for recognizing me as that. That's the highest, highest compliment.
Speaker 1:Well, I think storytelling is huge and sometimes we have these walls up that we don't want to tell our story, we don't want to share our story. And then, when you have the ability to create this, and then for someone like myself who, honestly, as much as I do on-camera things, I still get nervous about watching myself or my biggest critic Are you going to get me from the left side? Am I going to have a double chin? Am I going to be 15 pounds heavier? You know all those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, we're just so self-conscious. And more for women. Yeah, I think so Most of my clients.
Speaker 1:I don't know are women Right.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of male clients and men and professionals, CEOs and guys, but guys are really much more confident or they fake it better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe they fake it better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe, maybe that's it. Yeah, maybe they fake it better. They fake it.
Speaker 1:That's enough. That's enough.
Speaker 2:Fake it till you, make it yeah. Fake it till you, make it yeah.
Speaker 1:I want you to take me back to that moment, kristen, when you I talk a lot about passion and purpose and and and how they just intersect, and all of a sudden, just this epiphany happens. It's like all right, I am really good at this, this is my passion and now this is my purpose. Take me to that moment when it happened for you.
Speaker 2:It happened to me towards the tail end of the height of my modeling career. So I spent a lot of time in Europe, actually 20 years on and off. I traveled to 34. With German and French clients, Wow, and towards like the back end. I was bored. Everybody else was having fun To me. I wanted to be on the other side. Yeah, you know, because it was interesting. So I started. I bought a Hi8 camera, which nobody probably even knows what that is now All right explain that.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like well, everyone he knows no, no, a little camera. A Well, everyone he knows, no, no, A little camera. A little camera, but it shot 1080. So it was a good quality?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we edited on Avid. But I shot, I brought my camera on every single shoot and, like how we're sitting here, yeah, I would just flip my camera up and just look out there. Interesting, and I gathered 60 hours of footage. Did you Signed releases? Interesting, and I gathered. I gathered 60 hours of footage. Signed releases Wow. Then I hired um, a small production company in New York city. This is like mid late nineties, wow. And um, I did some standups to the camera. I was used to it. I was in SAG and after I did commercials and acting and then I just wrapped it into a video and it was called the art of modeling and it was 55 minutes. It was educational, slash, documentary and what, what I I love putting it together. I was that passionate that on those trips, those modeling gigs, I would go back to the hotel room and look at my footage Wow, and make like time.
Speaker 1:And those were long days. So you're going back. No, you're up at 4.30.
Speaker 2:I mean, people think it's glamorous. It's like you're putting on ugly clothes and you're trying to make them look good yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go. I can't even imagine.
Speaker 2:But the experience and who I met along the way and the photographers and directors that I were my mentors, right, you know, right Were great. But when I the first time I went to the editing room, I called it the editing room we used to back then I pulled an all-nighter with the guys no drinking, no, nothing, yeah, just pure passion, really, because I loved cutting the footage. I love putting that story together. I go, oh, remember that, let's find that, let's put that here. So that was when I knew, okay, I shouldn't be. You know, well, I mean, on camera is fine, but I really I do. I prefer behind the scenes, you prefer behind the scenes, you prefer behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:Take me to a time when you were behind the scenes and you saw something a woman, let's say a woman who was you could just tell, because you have this ability to pull things out of people. So if you're sitting there and you're surrounded by these beautiful I mean, let's be honest, beautiful people models, but you saw something in someone when you were behind the scenes. Yeah, like you saw somebody that just was probably struggling probably struggling.
Speaker 2:It's like I look at people not like a microscope, but a lens yeah, a lens, and the lens is a soft lens. Explain that. My point of view is I see the beauty in people. I know it sounds cheesy and it can work against me. Believe me, but I do see the best in people and I really think photography is about the Indian, not the arrow. So it's the point of view, it's my point of view. You could go to be, you could train to be a photographer and learn all your photography, technical stuff forever and ever and ever, cause it's evolving very fast. But if you don't see it Right and I think the same thing with our goals are seeing anybody good or how women see themselves If you can't see it, it's hard to make stuff happen and even get off your butt to do something, because you have to just have a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of hope, so interesting.
Speaker 1:So I have to share this because this is nothing we have rehearsed or anything. But I was homesick a couple weeks ago with the flu so I was watching everything on Netflix. I mean, I was just going through and I was streaming all these things. I happened on the Aaron Rodgers Enigma. Well, I'm a Wisconsin girl, so Green Bay Packer fan. I've always been a little intrigued by Aaron Rodgers. My daughter actually met him when she was interning at a TV station in Green Bay. He left Green Bay, went to New York, but he has this documentary out right now. It's called Enigma and, honest to goodness, kristen, I almost called you during this because I'm not really a football guru, I don't know all of that. I wasn't that interested in that part of his story. What I was interested in was watching him react and his this whole video. I want you to watch it actually.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm totally going to watch it.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about it afterwards and if Aaron Rodgers ever watches this, I would love to interview him because what I my takeaway from that I kind of put on my Kristen Jensen lens and I watched how he told his story and see, I even get goosebumps when I say it because I felt my takeaway from this whole thing. Football aside, he's fantastic, he's all of this, but he's almost like he doesn't love himself. I could see that as somebody laying bed and sick with the flu and 102 temperature maybe a little off in his eyes. I was like you just are not, you don't love yourself. You're so great and you're so fabulous and you're so skilled and everything. But I could see that Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm sure you see, and I don't even know if that's true I mean that's a total, that's an Amy Schmidt theory from watching Enigma, but you see this all the time. I mean you're looking through the lens at somebody and I know their eyes speak a lot right, yeah, yes, totally. You can tell.
Speaker 2:Totally. It's kind of sad. Most women, especially 50 and beyond, their self-esteem starts to dip. Yeah, right beyond, their self-esteem starts to dip.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:And you definitely see that. So you want to build them up and make them feel good, although I've met some women recently that their self-esteem is so high, really, that they turn ugly to me Interesting. You know what I mean? People that are just too full of themselves, like just got to knock it down. Yeah, it doesn't happen very often. Out of all the, the girls I modeled with over the years, and the actresses, the girls, I mean, we were tired yeah right.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean? We're not sitting there looking in the mirror going, oh, we're so great. No, yeah interesting yeah, but that's, I will definitely watch. I want you to watch it because I did.
Speaker 1:I just I was like, wow, there is something so deep in this and I think about that with the story and it was his story but how you tell stories of people. I also think there's something interesting as we age in that you know life past 50, 60, beyond. There's a real spotlight on us right now. I think there's the Forbes best 50 over 50. There's all of these women doing amazing, incredible things entrepreneurs, going back to the workforce. Whatever they're doing, they're creating, they're living out their dreams. With that spotlight, some women may feel as though smaller because they're not writing a book, they're not going back to work, which is all fine and good, but remember walking the halls in middle school and high school and feeling insecure. I hope that shining so much of a spotlight on women over 50, launching businesses don't inhibit some of these women that are just putting pen to paper and trying to create something for themselves.
Speaker 2:Right, especially if they've been moms, full-time moms, which is the hardest job in the world and then to kind of reinvent and I think a lot of people and clients come to me when we first met. It's like we're packaging and reinventing ourselves and our energy level isn't the same. Right, that changes significantly. Yes, I would agree with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree with that. Check, check on that. Yeah, it is true, and you really do have to. I talk about the fact that we go through life with blind spots and we have the ability to sometimes not ask for help. We don't go to our resources. We want to get there further, faster. We think we can do it alone better, but then as we age, we find people like I look to you as a mentor for me, as somebody that I can reach out to and say hey, kristen, what do you think about this idea?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know but a lot of women don't do that. Their fear of you know they feel weak. Or they say well, I don't want to ask for help, because then I look weak.
Speaker 2:That's true. It's just it all goes back, I guess, to feeling insecure and you have to fill your cup up, you know. You have to add back, you know, put things back in that build you up, right, because there's enough out there going on, yeah, of things trying to knock you down, right. So it's really you know courage.
Speaker 1:Right it is. It's choosing courage over comfort. Yeah, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's not easy. That's not even easy for me all the time. Believe me Exactly no, exactly no.
Speaker 1:Well, moving to a new community. Launching a business, relaunching a business here in another part of the country. I'm the same. I go to a large church here, I know you do too. And the other night I had to walk into a room 250 women and I really didn't know anybody. And those feelings of okay, roll those shoulders back, stand up straight. You know you can do this.
Speaker 2:That even happens to me, yeah, since that, I think, moving, you know kids are out of college or in college and you move from pretty much where you raised them, you know, sold the house. All my clients, most of my clients, have been up there. I'm just developing. You know, getting a clientele here, terrifying yeah.
Speaker 1:Terrifying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely terrifying. And I drove down. I followed my husband. He had a little U-Haul. We got a truck later to bring down most of our stuff but we drove the cars down and I was just. It was like an out-of-body experience because I was so out of my comfort zone. Nobody knows me here, right? You know what I mean. Like, who am I Right? Who am I? Who am I? That's what we're.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's the big one, yeah, yeah. How many times do we ask ourselves that? Yeah, like what am I now? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because we get into our own little groove right, we get back to the comfort. Yeah, courage over comfort.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that, because a lot of viewers and listeners might be saying, okay, like I'm ready to start something, I'm ready to step into something I've always wanted to do, but I don't know how to start what thing I've always wanted to do, but I don't know how to start.
Speaker 2:What would you tell them?
Speaker 1:You're going to need cheerleaders, yeah.
Speaker 2:You got to get, yeah. You got to get your tribe, yeah, and you have to handpick it and get people that love and support you. Right, you do. You have to have that yeah, and that tribe changes right, because without it, some drop out and new one pops in.
Speaker 1:Fearlessly facing friends. Some drop out and new one pops in Fearlessly facing friends. It's an effort, it's true, right? Yeah, yeah, it changes, and I think we get stuck in this. So many of us just think I don't think I can do it. I'm going to wait until I'm 10 pounds slimmer to do it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a big one. That is a huge one.
Speaker 1:I'd still be waiting.
Speaker 2:Well, I'd still be waiting. Well, I'd still be waiting. I think you know 99% of the world would wait.
Speaker 1:Or you know, I'm going to save more money, so I'm going to put it off, or I'm going to wait until the timing is totally perfect, when everything's aligned. When does that ever happen?
Speaker 2:It doesn't. There's never a perfect time to move. There's never a perfect time to dive or jump. Time to move. There's never a perfect time to dive or jump. There's never like was it a perfect time to have a baby, right, you know? I mean, I don't know, you just gotta, you gotta grab it, you gotta grab it. You have to take the step.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we talked a little bit before we started recording about how time is just continuing to go.
Speaker 2:You know it is and it seems to go faster it does.
Speaker 1:It just seems to no God speeds it up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it truly does when you're on the back nine. Yeah, yeah, it changes a little when you're on the back nine. No, it does. Your whole again the lens. Wow, the perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the back nine. My sister says her last trimester and it drives me crazy because I'm like stop saying your last trimester, yeah it sounds icky.
Speaker 2:I like the back nine much better. The back nine is sexier. Yeah, it is. At least you're having fun, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's talk about women in photography, because I think every woman should have photos taken every year, whether you're in business or not. I feel that that's important and a lot of people say, well, why it's expensive? Why would I want to do that?
Speaker 2:I don't want to look at myself. What am I going to do with them? I'm being egotistical.
Speaker 1:Why should I?
Speaker 2:do that, but I think and it depends obviously on the photographer what's going on. But what I'd like to provide is an experience Right Great hair and makeup, nice music that feels so good, maybe a mimosa.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's even better.
Speaker 2:I mean, let's loosen up. Yeah, yeah, let's loosen up and get to know each other. I said, and that's how it's going to be, we're going to be sitting or talking, or I'm standing up or sitting with a camera and we're just having a conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wasn't loos up the first time you took my photo. I think I was stiff as a board. I still don't really enjoy getting my picture taken and I wish I did a little bit more. I think that's a good thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you think so. Oh, oh, yeah, I mean you're, I think you're. That's about right. Nobody likes it. It's like going to the dentist. I mean do we? Oh, I can't wait? You know it's very, very, very few. Yeah, I mean, do we? Oh, I can't wait? Yeah, you know it's very, very, very few. Yeah, um, and I think modeling is, is a you learn, you learn how to model, this pose that put that.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, it's so. I never even learned how to stand.
Speaker 2:It's so robotic, you know the, and there's like not we, excuse me, I it's like 99 poses you go through in your head like of all the different things you can do. So when I'm photographing like you didn't I I stand like if I'm photographing you right now, I, we swap seats and I sit where you are because I, I, I learned to be a photographer and producer and light by the way it felt on my face. So I light by what it feels like, also what obviously has to look good, and then I also when I'm in my client's seat, I also will go through a range of poses and I know it looks easy to them, but they don't understand. I did it for 20 years every day.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know, I mean I can't imagine doing that, but you did every single day. I was exhausted after the three hours or six hours, whatever we spent together.
Speaker 2:That's why they pay them so much. There's a reason.
Speaker 1:There's a reason yeah, yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 2:No-transcript dark out and you're still sitting. You haven't even walked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how are you taking care of yourself? How have you learned to treat yourself as a guest of honor?
Speaker 2:That is a very good question. Yeah, because I want to learn.
Speaker 1:God, you really put me. No, I want to learn too.
Speaker 2:That is a very good question. Yeah, because I want to learn. You really put me. No, I want to learn too. No, I am absolutely a work in progress. Yeah, me too, I am just. You know, I was talking about it with my husband I want to be doing yoga again. I had a surgery last fall, a knee deal, so that kind of knocked me out and I just got to get back on the horse.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and I need a schedule, and if I don't do it in the morning, if I don't exercise in the morning, it most likely won't happen, because the minute I get to my office, it's gangbusters, you're all in.
Speaker 1:It's a blessing and a curse for me. I'm a very hard worker and I learned that I work so hard that then I, you know, I just either I get sick or I do something. So I really have learned to, in my fifties and almost beyond now, to really to really listen to my body, because it does, it nudges you until it finally knocks you over and then you're like, okay, come on, like work in progress, you got to practice what you preach here. Yeah, yeah, it has to be on the calendar.
Speaker 2:You have to practice what you preach here. Yeah, yeah, it has to be on the calendar. You have to have a buzzer go off. If you could create that and I have, you know, I have been in that flow. Currently I'm not, but I will be. I'm going to go to yoga tomorrow.
Speaker 1:You go, girl. I know I'm addicted to Pilates. Oh, so you haven't tried that yet? Oh, you'll love it. And there's something about it that you really don't look at yourself because Good, You're laying down. I love it. And there's not this sense of competitiveness. I used to love that. I would go to those step classes whatever they were, the step thing and people won't even know what we're talking about if they're under 40. But anyway-.
Speaker 1:Jane Fonda yes, you go and you kind of look at the person next to you and be like oh, I can do it. I can do it better than you. I can do it faster than you and in Pilates it's like, oh, this is awesome because you are in your own zone, Probably like yoga.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I'm trying to talk my husband. I know. No, I know, because guys need to stretch too.
Speaker 1:We all do, and he's like well, I don't want to.
Speaker 2:I said believe me, nobody is looking at you. I mean, I know you're really hot, but yeah, no one's looking.
Speaker 1:No one's looking. If you don't mind, we talk about this a little bit because, as we age fearlessly aging parents and losing our parents is a part of that we both have lost you, recently lost your mom and. I'm so sorry about that because I know how intimate that relationship and how special that relationship was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like when I moved from Connecticut. It was like a domino. I was flying back and forth more often. I'm not in the mood to go up there right now in January, but I mean I was looking after my mom and the plan was to bring her down and she didn't want to come. Yeah, so, and my mother modeled. My mother actually got me into modeling from beauty pageants and I didn't want to do it. I was petrified. And then, about 10 years into it, I brought my mother to my modeling agency. My mother was just turning like 50, maybe 40, late forties and she dyed her hair like dirty blonde. And and the the booker who that's what they're called who work at the modeling agency said hey, leslie, what's under that brown hair? And she goes oh, it's just silver, it's white. So he said well, if you let it grow out and go white, I'll work you. And he did. And she had a 10-year I never knew that. Yeah, she had a 10-year run. We did jobs with Harper's Bazaar. Good housekeeping Isn't that amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like crazy, it was kind of-. Yeah, I mean, the Harper's Bazaar gig was like a flat table like this, right, and we're looking at each other in the mirror, posed like this all day. Really, yeah, I talk about my mother myself, wow, or me myself and I. Me myself and I. I was just going to say that, wow, yeah, so it was good and it was also, but she was, she was very beautiful and she, she, she kind of came on that scene when silver started?
Speaker 2:yeah, going for a run. Do you talk to her? I talk to my mom. Every day. I, I see a lot of birds, you see a lot of birds. Last summer and I saw my agent that represented me in Germany for so long, and my husband and I and she gave me bird pillowcases. Really, it's I don't know. I think it's a good sign. I think it's a good sign too, but she was ready to go. She had Lewy body, dementia and Alzheimer's and it's just brutal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's, that is nothing fun.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. That is nothing fun. No, it's not. Those are things that scare me a little bit when you talk about those types of things. As we get older and I start to see it in people and all of a sudden in our peer group, we start to have some issues that come to be much more evident in your 50s and your 60s than they ever were Right, and those moments are challenging Right, I mean, are challenging.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, that's just it. It's the back. Nine is also. I love that, you know. Like you are on the back, you know what I mean. Like that part is done, that part is finished, and now it's like what am I now?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And how do I see it? Who am I? Who am I? That's right.
Speaker 1:It always goes back. Who am I?
Speaker 2:It does. Yeah, and what am I going to do to make a difference?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's so important. And so often we overlook things that we've accomplished or undervalue things that we've done, and so often oh, I do, I do yeah. Yeah, and you know you do have to look back in almost decades of life, especially at the ages we are. You know you look back three, four decades back and you see what you've done and those dots do. They are a narrative, they are your story. They all happened for a reason. I know Coincidences. They all happened.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know, Definitely, yeah, like this dot leads you to this and this happened. But you know, it's like I tell my son, noah, god doesn't give you the whole plan, right, it's all about faith and trust. And it's like driving down a road in fog, yeah, and you have the headlights on and you want to see it. Right, you want to see till you get to your destination and you want to see it.
Speaker 1:You want to see until you get to your destination, but you got to trust. You got to trust, yeah. So I really hope women listening today and watching are inspired to try something, to continue to learn, to be fearless to face those challenges. And for somebody today that I want to encourage every woman, I put it out there in a social media post a while ago around the holidays and I said you know what? Get in the photo? Stop taking the photos.
Speaker 2:Get in the photo yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they don't.
Speaker 2:Never.
Speaker 1:I mean, when I even look through photos and I've got thousands, I need to do something about that. So if there's anybody watching that's an organizer around that I need that help. But my husband's in almost all of them, oh yeah, and I love that he's in almost all of them. Yeah, but what about you? Yeah, exactly, I'm doing a couple of segments tomorrow in Tampa and they were like Amy, send us some pictures of you and the kids, or you. I mean, I had to scroll for years just to find a couple and that sounds silly. I mean, it's not that my husband's in every picture, but it's hard to find one when I'm in it.
Speaker 2:Oh, totally, totally, the value of a family portrait, like finding a good family, like that's really valuable. Yeah, I think so too. Those photos, yeah.
Speaker 1:So three tips before we go that you can give women when they are either having their picture taken, what can they do to just feel more confident?
Speaker 2:I think that they should come prepared to have fun, and it's not scary An F word Fun, fun we could do effing fun. Yes, okay, yes, and that you know. Oh, this is another thing I say it's not about perfection, that is not what sells. I mean, even from a marketing standpoint, right, it's about energy, energy, okay. So it's like if you're, if you, uh, if you're going through facebook or instagram or linkedin, yeah, you look at someone's picture. Yeah, either it pops or it doesn't.
Speaker 1:It's energy well, that takes me back to aaron rogers. I'm telling you he didn't't pop.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, yeah, Like his eyes didn't pop. Like there's something in there. Oh, I can't wait to watch that. We're going to have a whole session with Aaron here.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, good, but yeah interesting, so energy Very much energy.
Speaker 2:You know, like I discuss, I do a lot of websites and people's photos for the landing page, the hero shots and all that. I'm like it's just about your energy.
Speaker 1:It's not the perfect smile, you know I have women that kind of be they don't want to smile because they have wrinkles. True, I've heard that. So what I?
Speaker 2:can dot, dot. You know Photoshop's a beautiful thing. I wish I could just do that every morning, yeah, and put a wand on there and have it all go away. No, but it's like if you don't have that sparkle and energy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that comes with authenticity too. Right it does.
Speaker 2:And there's some people I photograph that haven't been that attractive Right. Let's just say, yeah, they're not the beauty queen. Yeah, right, right. But something happens and all of a sudden they become beautiful to me.
Speaker 1:Beautiful to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and all of a sudden they become beautiful to me, beautiful to you, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I love that. Yeah, it is energy. And I actually photographed a woman just last Friday and I said the same thing to her. I said don't worry about being perfect, don't just smile, just bring your energy.
Speaker 1:Let your eyes be, you know. Smile with your eyes. You told me that. Smile with your eyes. You told me that Smile with your eyes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I try, you do. You're so photogenic, I try Get out of here.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I did have. We had a friend on, we both know him and we were talking last week about beauty and kind of about faces and eyes, and he always has to put more attention to one eye on me because it's more hooded than the other one, and that has all evolved over time.
Speaker 2:Everyone's body, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, everything goes down. Yes, gravity wins.
Speaker 2:But there's nobody that has a perfectly symmetrical face. Everyone has a little off this. That's what I mean. It's not about being perfect. It is about being authentic and real.
Speaker 1:All right. Last question yeah, if you were sitting on the couch and you look over and there's 30-year-old Kristen, what advice would you?
Speaker 2:give her. Don't give up, don't ever settle. Go for the highest thought. Don't settle, yeah, just don't dumb it down. Love it, you know. Don't settle, yeah, just don't like dumb it down, love it, you know Love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, my friend.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you're amazing.
Speaker 1:I think we'll be doing a lot more together. I do too, all right.
Speaker 2:I love you. I do too.
Speaker 1:Thanks See, ya, thanks everybody.