Embracing Creativity as a Neurodivergent Business Owner with Molly McCauley

Colie: You are listening to the Business First Creatives podcast. I’m your host, Coley James. In each episode, you will hear real life stories behind the scene takes and practical insights for how to streamline and grow a creative business that brings you joy and a paycheck. Let’s get started. Hello. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Business First Creatives podcast.

Today I’m chatting with my new friend Molly McCauley, and I recently met her at a conference in Dallas, which we are gonna touch on a little bit. But Molly, thank you for joining me and welcome to the podcast.

Molly: Thanks for having me.

Colie: It’s funny, so I saw her on stage and we’re gonna get into what she spoke about in a few minutes, but when I went on my deep dive that you all know that I do when I’m looking at my guests.

That is when I discovered that Molly is actually a photographer. So we are going to start there. Molly, what did your journey into being a photographer look like and just being an entrepreneur in general?

Molly: Sure. Yeah, I, it’s funny because I think so many people who are creatives in one way or another. Find themselves falling into needing a business or needing to build a business.

And I do not come from a family that is focused around business. I come from a family of educators. Me too. I both, both of my parents were teachers, but my mom was an art director and art teacher. So from a very young age, I was encouraged to be creative. I. Often used creativity as a means for survival. I have multiple learning disabilities, so for me, going through school was really difficult.

I worked really hard for average grades, so creativity, art, extra credit, all of those things really allowed me to continue to pass through school and college and and survive those mechanisms that aren’t necessarily built for everybody to succeed in. And my mom. Always had us in art programs or always had us doing creative things.

I actually grew up with a dark room in our house. Ooh. I did not know this until I came home. Like to visit them one year from college. I had no clue. That’s where they used to hide our Christmas presents. Mm-hmm. So she obviously never wanted to tell us. But yeah, we, I always just had, my mom’s a goldsmith.

She makes custom jewelry. My sister’s an interior designer. We’re, we’ve all just kind of thrived in that space. So. My interest in photography stemmed from also my interest in fashion. I wanted to be a fashion photographer, so I worked in fashion for a while. I have a degree in design, retail, merchandising and photography.

Worked for a fashion house in London for a while. Moved back to the states, moved to LA to help some family out with two suitcases, with no intention of staying there. And I built my business there while I was working for family. And ultimately I went back and got my master’s in fine art photography because.

Being from a family of educators, I was going to educate. I was going to be a photo professor or whatever that looked like in that capacity because I didn’t know that I was a business person. I’d never thought of myself as a business person. So even though I was shooting weddings or I was shooting lifestyle influencers in Los Angeles.

That was fun money. I’d never thought of that as something that I could build something around. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t really believe in myself in that way. So for me, the traditional route was going to be the easy one by getting a master’s and, and falling into that system, I.

Colie: My path to being a photographer was very different than yours.

I was a professor before I opened my business and okay. Photography was like my escape. Once I had Chloe, my, my one and only child, I had no desire to go back to a classroom. ’cause I knew once I had her that we were like 90% sure we weren’t having any more children for a various amount of reasons. But I was like, I really wanna enjoy this one that I have.

And so. What can I do? Yeah, so I stayed at home for a few years and then when we were putting her in preschool, I was like, okay, time to go back to the real world. How am I going to make money? And the funny thing is, even though I had never considered myself a business owner, I was considering very business things.

Like I was considering getting a real estate license. I contemplated opening up my own daycare and I only really fell into photography the way that a lot of moms do. And it’s, I was taking these pictures of my kid and they’re awesome. And so now I wanna take pictures of other people. So. But you and I do have the teachers in common.

My mom and my stepfather are both math professors. My husband’s parents are both K through 12 educators and administrators. So we are a very education based house. Yeah. But my daughter is very much like you. She is dealing with some learning issues. She loves fashion. She is super creative, and so I am really grateful.

At this point that I am a photographer and that I ran a successful photography business for over a decade because that kind of gave me the insight that no. I am not going to make Chloe go to college if that is not her decision. There are a lot of other different paths that she is going to be able to take.

Molly: And the other bit of that too is you were a great example of what a business owner can look like in an untraditional setting. Like even though how long have photo studios been around, there have been portraits of people forever. Like these people have existed for a long time and have had businesses for a long time.

I think still there is a stigma of creative business and is this real or is this a hobby? Is this your side gig? Is it whatever? And it’s like, I make more money than a lot of people who are doing very standard things, but we are so lucky that, especially folks like myself and your daughter, if that’s the case, that it’s, if you are creative.

You often become creative out of adversity from something, right? Like for me, like I used creative as a, as a tool. As a resource. That might be also why your daughter is interested in something is because she doesn’t identify necessarily with these traditional strengths in math or in whatever it is, right?

Both of my best friends were valedictorians of our class and both are doctors and I am. The fun one. You know, we’re just, we’re gonna say, say what it is, but we help and we balance each other out and we all need to coexist.

Colie: Yes. Which I think is the perfect segue into bringing us around to talk about what your talk at Creative Educator conference was.

So Molly was on stage, y’all, and she was giving her talk and while she was giving her talk, I was already looking her up on, in. To send her a message to say, would you like to come on my podcast and talk about this? I love that, Molly. So Molly, can you just give me like a, a synopsis of what your talk was at creative educators, so that can lead us into the rest of the things we’re gonna talk about.

Molly: Sure. I think it’s really easy as educators. To think that when we’re presenting we need to present on something, we need to give five pillars of this or business practices for this mine. I approached it as a TED Talk. I had five minutes on stage and I wanted it to be impactful, but I also wanted it to be a topic that maybe some people were unfamiliar with.

So for me, I really tapped into my recent diagnosis of being neurodivergent. The past three years, I have continued to learn about myself and learn why I. And the way that I am and why I do what I do, but also just those characteristics and how they lend to successful business owners, whether creative or not.

I wanted to showcase examples of neurodivergent folks who have built empires and who have built very successful businesses and or careers for themselves. I wanted to showcase because we were in a room of educators. Mm-hmm. I thought it was important that I. I touched on the idea of how you could be best help neurodivergence, that we don’t learn the same way that that traditional learning styles are typically implemented, but alternative learning methods work really well for us.

And again, everyone’s different. So really just being open to the idea of. Of exploring different ways to learn and teach as an, as a creative educator, whether you’re a coach or, I mean, we had folks that are, were in finances there. Mm-hmm. That is my nightmare. So like for them just to be like exposed to what I was saying, maybe they’ll look at how they’re approaching or maybe they’ll provide different resources for folks maybe who are more visual learners and can’t look at a chart.

So yeah, I think it was just really interesting to come in. With a little gusto and you know, change up, change up the dynamic a little bit. But really just talk about the differences within people in general and how we can be more accepting and open and accommodating to those who might not be neurotypical.

Colie: Yes, and I will say, so sitting in the audience as an audience member, you really did make me think, you made me think about a lot of things as I was sitting at that table for only the five minutes that you spoke when I was a professor. I did think a lot about the different ways that people learned math, because math is something that a lot of people hate.

And so even if you don’t. Have a learning disability. It takes a lot to get people interested enough to kind of, you know, push aside that math is hard and I’m not capable of doing it. And then there’s people who have true learning disabilities and that, you know, showing them an algorithm on a board is not going to get.

The material to stick for them. But I feel like somewhere along the lines, between me being a professor and now teaching people about systems and how to, you know, grow your photography business and all the things that I’ve been doing as an entrepreneur and a photographer, educator, I was like, I think somewhere along the way I lost that thread, that thread of thinking about how other people learn differently.

Now I do present my material, you know, in multiple ways, but. You also got me thinking about myself because I am not diagnosed as a neurodivergent person, but I have begun to wonder in about the last two years whether or not I actually am because the ways that,

Molly: and most women are diagnosed later in life in their forties.

Yes. Because, because we’re used to being multitaskers. Mm-hmm. We’re used to taking on a lot of stuff and, uh. It would be interesting. That’s why when I gave my talk, I did not say, like, I gave certain examples where I’m like, oh, this might resonate with some of you. Mm-hmm. Or this might sound familiar or, or whatever.

But like what? To, to your point of what you’re saying, and I’m sorry I interrupted you. No, that’s okay. But most people, especially women of our age are, are being diagnosed later because it wasn’t. As prevalent, and it wasn’t, um, the, the, the scale wasn’t there. Mm-hmm. The spectrum wasn’t there.

Colie: And I also think in my case, I was very high performing.

And so, you know, when you’re, when you’re above the class, I graduated high school, you’re early, I, I did a lot of things when you’re up there. Yeah. No one really looks at you as being neuro. Atypical. Like that’s just, that’s not a thing. And it isn’t until like these recent years that I was like, okay, but my brain works differently.

But maybe it works differently in, you know, maybe I should explore that a little bit more because going, you know, 24 7, being able to hyperfocus on things that I’m working on, like that really worked for me. In my twenties and my thirties, and now that I’m in my forties, I’m really struggling to do things at the same level that I have before.

Yeah, but the question is, was I really performing high before because of those things or was there something else kind of like, you know, lingering? Did you have really

Molly: good coping mechanisms? I did. That’s the other thing I think I did is like for me. I had a photographic memory. So really, truly one of the ways I got through school was by cramming the night before and right before the test, memorizing the content, but I was never able to retain it oftentimes on tests that required me to read.

Those were ones that I was definitely going to fail, like. And I’m not saying fail, like in a funny, like, oh, she got a B minus no fail F like F like F fail. Um, those are, those are all things that like, you just don’t think, and, and when you say earlier about missing the thread, maybe now I, it’s probably not even missing the thread, but I think that when I’m thinking about somebody teaching math and somebody teaching photography or creative business, I am.

I think I would think about that differently. I think that I would think about math in a more straightforward way and and, and in the creative way. I think there’s a lot of room for fluff and there’s a lot of room for personalization and that, and I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s classified in the same way, but again, that’s why I think so many neurodivergent folks are creatives because we thrive in this.

Space we do really well under deadlines. We do really well with creative problem solving or or alternative thinking in, in ways that most people who are very math or tradition focused, like I have a lot of friends who are so logical that they cannot. Comprehend what comes out of my mouth sometimes. And they’re like, but that’s not the formula.

And I’m like, cool. I’m not working with that formula. I’m working with my own. You know what I mean? Like, there’s not, there’s not one way to, to any destination. So it’s interesting that you said that you thought you were missing the thread. It’s probably, it, it’s just a different thread.

Colie: I mean, and even teaching math, I feel like I did teach math in a different way.

Like instead of just giving what we would consider to be the formula or the algorithm, I always spent a lot of time thinking about why people wouldn’t be able to understand it, and then trying to explain it in a different way than they had probably heard before. Particularly when it came to statistics.

That was like my favorite math to teach because. It’s up for interpretation. There are statistics everywhere out in the world. Mm-hmm. And so people were always more interested in hearing me talk about statistics than like algebra, because even though there are real world applications for Algebra, I.

People don’t really see that in like their lives

Molly: and nobody’s Yeah. And nobody’s really seeing big picture on how they’re using that in a career. Right? Like, and, and I’m gonna be honest, there are many things that I learned or that I, I had to take because it was a gen ed or whatever it was that I have never implemented.

And, and it’s just because I also just like know myself. I had to petition for a logic class to be my math class. Nice. And I won. Which was amazing. So that, that was like such an amazing way for me to explore math because it was in a lot of ways visual because so many of like the formulas or like the drawings or anything like that, like it worked in the same way that I, that I feel like I did well in geometry, but I didn’t do well in algebra.

Mm. Do you know what I mean? I think having figures and being able to see things like. Examples in visual form. I did better in those scenarios than other concepts, but I’m glad it, I’m glad it made you think. I think that was the whole point was to just kind of try to. Strike a nerve a little bit. And it’s not like I’m trying to diagnose anyone.

I, I would never do that. And I, and there’s so many things I’m still learning about. And luckily I had a cousin who was diagnosed and she was like, oh, would you ever be open to getting screened? And I was like, yeah. She goes, oh, good. ’cause you have all these,

Colie: she was very politely

Molly: showing. She was so polite about it.

She’s a principal. Yeah. So she was so politely encouraging to have, have this screening at least done, just to identify like, Hey, are my things more learning disability? Are they neuro, what, what are they? Yeah. Answers. Having clarity on things. Yes. And or having a reason for being the way that I am, really changed how I focus, how I run my business.

It also changed how my family was reacting to maybe certain ways that I. My personality traits, they’re like, oh, that’s why she does that. She interrupts because she needs to stay present and calm, get it off of her mind. Yes, she needs to stay present in a conversation, otherwise she’s gonna lose it. She’s going to drift.

She needs, she’s not one-upping you, she’s relating to what you’re going through. Like those raw things that I think became very important. Um. For my sister and Maya’s relationship because she’s starting to learn how I tick. Not just tick her off, but like tick as a person.

Colie: Yeah. Okay. So you did mention that it changed the way that you ran your business, so I think we’re gonna segue into that because you and I talked about this before we hit record.

Mm-hmm. But what I said to you was, you know, as a client experience systems person, I’m really interested to hear once you got the diagnosis or. Just in general, knowing what it was that you needed to be successful, how have you built a business and the systems on the backend in order to help you be successful with the way that your brain works?

Molly: Yeah. I’m in year 16 of my business and I’ve only been diagnosed for three. Mm-hmm. So. The majority of my business has been falling forward. Okay. Like, just tripping forward, figuring out as I go. I’m a very adaptive person. I’m a very stubborn person, so, um, I, I’m not really a quitter in a lot of ways, which I think the perseverance.

Really works in my favor because I think that it could be very difficult to run a business if you don’t have those personality traits without having a system in place. Or maybe you are, you’re able to put that system in place and it works for you. For me, it was a lot of trial and error, and I will say that in the last.

Five to six years maybe. I have focused heavily on not doing it all. Mm-hmm. Because I know that when I am in overwhelm, I do nothing. So for me, it is a lot of. Knowing what I am going to avoid and handing that off. Yeah. And making sure that I’m bringing on the people who can support me in those ways, knowing what I’m good at, knowing what I excel at.

There are certain things that would be so much. Easier and less time consuming for my assistant to do. But because I know that that is something that I don’t see as a daunting task I can handle, but the daunting task that probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I’m gonna have her do because I know I don’t like that and I’m not going to do it.

And she’s gonna have to hound me and text me and email me and all those things. Um, which she still has to do. It’s, you know, there’s no changing, that’s part of your process. There’s, there’s no changing the personality truly. Um, but it is. It is about how you manage it, and especially for folks like me. We need people like you because so many times we can’t see past our own fog that like implementing or creating a business, um, system for ourselves doesn’t, that was never even on my radar for a long time.

It was just, I’m doing what I’m doing. It’s working or it’s not. And there was no tr, there was no real analytics. There was no, because I didn’t have anyone doing that for me, especially in the first half of my business. It was more of I am operating my business from my gut and what feels good. Not numbers, not, it took me a long time to become successful.

I will say that because it took a long time for me to know my numbers and to, and or to get people in there that are like, Hey, you’re spending way too much money on this. Like, like, combine these things and, and put that money towards X or whatever it is. Right? Especially now that my business has multiple facets.

I have an education so. Like platform that actually is building out more than my photos. Mm-hmm. Or my photo wedding business. I’m, I’m, I don’t do volume there, so I do very few weddings a year. But it’s, it’s interesting because we would benefit so greatly from somebody coming in and setting something up for us, especially if we don’t have the, the oomph to get it started.

You know, like there’s a lot of self-starting things that can come up. We. We, I say we, but really I’m talking about me, but it’s often a common thread with Neurodivergence, especially those of us who have a DHD like I do. I am a queen of procrastination because I know I work best under a deadline and I will produce some of my best work under that deadline.

I will produce more than what’s expected for me under that deadline. It takes certain parameters for my brain to click into high gear, and I just know that about myself. So when I know that I have a month lead time on something. I’m not editing, I’m not doing, I’m not doing things that like that that would make my life easier.

That’s just, it’s just not how my brain works. But having had something like a system or something like that put into place earlier in my career, I think would’ve been life changing, not just for mental ease. For my bank account.

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Molly: And productivity like, wow, what that probably could have done. And granted I have in the last five years established my own thing that works.

But being given a, a formula or being given a. A path where you can, like, I can just plug these things in and it’s gonna work, or this will keep me organized, or I’ll be able to then onboard somebody and they’ll be able to look at this and understand what it is without me having to explain it. That’s really pivotal, and I think I would have benefited.

Significantly from implementing

Colie: something earlier on. So I’m gonna go with that in just a sec. I do wanna go back, because you started talking about outsourcing and so I love it when people do this because I am the queen of outsourcing. I had to be pushed to outsource like the first few things that I did, but then I was like, oh my gosh, what can I never do again?

Exactly. What did the expansion of your team look like from the early years to now?

Molly: Sure. So obviously as a photographer you’re always bringing on second shooters. I was very lucky for a while that I had a few second shooters that were with me for a number of years rather than just a, a one-off contractor type thing.

I did build out an associate program, so for a while I did have some people, but ultimately after 10 years stopped that because I am a control freak. I’m very type A and I like to have my hand in everything. And I’ll be honest, I, I don’t trust a lot of people with my name. Mm-hmm. If, if I’m gonna put it out there, I don’t, I don’t, it’s, it’s a finicky thing when you have your name on something to trust folks with it.

So I think for me, I was guarded in, in a big way early on. I too had to be pushed a little bit, but I was fine handing off tasks that I didn’t love. So for me, the first time I hired a va, they were doing blog posts. Mm-hmm. They were doing, gosh, Instagram wasn’t even, Instagram was like, just, I’m old. I’m old too.

You, you know this. Oh man. So, yeah, it’s just one of those things where I think as. I mean, look, even, even just from the beginning of my career to now, the amount of things we are expected to do is wild. And, and the fact that anybody is doing all of them themselves blows my mind. So if you are like, wow, but also I don’t know that that’s a badge of honor because like what does your, what does your life that it sustainable?

Yeah. What does your life feel like? I don’t know. So for me, it was early on. Second shooters, associate shooters. And then once, once that got going a bit, I, I brought on, I went through a cycle of different VAs, very simple VAs, to now my assistant is like. Doing way more than what I ever would’ve allowed or, or trusted anyone to do before.

But yeah, so my team is not big. It’s not like expansive in that way, but it’s been different VAs and different roles bringing on bookkeepers. Hello? Numbers? No. Like for those who think that like numbers and business is like a game and fun, I wish I had that. I wish I had that. I don’t, I like telling some or having someone tell me when I’ve done a good job.

Yes. Like, I’ve, like, it’s motivating. Hey, you, your profits were this, and I’m like, sweet. How do I do this again? You know? So, yeah. I, I think bringing on the, the roles. That helps support me do what I do best without having to worry about, Hey, I just have to review this book, bookkeeping Recap. I don’t have to be the one to go through and do it, or filing taxes.

I gave that away real soon, like real early on. Again, just certain things that I think over time and over my life. I know where I can really put my focus and what will hold my focus. And learning taxes was not one of them. It’s not one of them. Yeah. And so for me, anything that I found mundane or boring or, or that I struggled with, any contracts, like I, I brought on lawyers real early for that kind of stuff where I know a lot of people just kind of.

Get their way through it, slap it together until they, until they realize they need something legal. Yeah. So for me it’s, it’s always been a collection of specialists, not necessarily a, yeah, yeah. Not, not necessarily. I haven’t had like employees, although what I would give to make my, as current current assistant a full-timer, that’s, that’s a big goal of mine.

So, yeah. I. I don’t know if I’m answering your question Well, I in the sense that it’s, for me, outsourcing similarly to you, once I was talked into it, I saw the value and I have no problem handing everything and anything away now.

Colie: I mean, but sometimes it just takes time. It takes time for you to get in the mindset.

Mindset am finding the right people. That is true.

Molly: I will say I went through a number of VAs before I found someone who actually I thought supported my business. Because there are a lot of times that people will say, oh, I’m a VA for photographers, and really it’s a photographer who doesn’t have a lot of work yet and is assisting or whatever, and it’s like, okay, you’re, you’re really just passing time.

You’re not looking to build my business. Or you are not responsive like you’re taking on an assistant role, but like you really even aren’t that organized yourself. I found that I, I fumbled through VAs for a while until I found a few that worked really well for me the last couple years.

Colie: I got super lucky, and if anybody has not heard this episode, I believe it was episode 25, I hired my virtual assistant and my podcast manager in the same week of September of 2022, and both of them still work with me, and Sarah was so much more than I could have expected in a virtual assistant because not only does she do like some of those, what we would consider to be mundane tasks, mm-hmm.

She is capable of doing client generating work for me. So when I do Dato setup. In particular, she is capable of going in there and getting all of the pre-work set up so that love it. It saves me hours on the front end and I am just going in there to implement the strategy. I mean, that is. I would pay any amount of money to keep her forever.

Yeah. In order to do that. But like, I just, I got lucky, and I say that all the time because a lot of people do go through multiple VAs trial error.

Molly: It’s, it’s trial and error, but when you find the good one, you’re like, please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. Or if you do, please give me plenty of warnings so that you can train whoever’s coming in, like I, I am like.

Just don’t, just don’t leave.

Colie: Just don’t. Just please don’t leave. Yeah. I mean, so I wanna go back because you said something interesting, but I wanted to like follow the outsourcing threat first. One of the things that you said was that it would’ve been great if you’d had someone to come in and like give you the systems earlier in your business.

So I’m curious, Molly, why didn’t you do that? Is it number one? That you felt like it wasn’t necessary, or number two, that you didn’t quite know that someone like that existed or that, or how beneficial it would be in your business? Or is it that type A personality coming out and you just didn’t want to relinquish?

I mean, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I feel like that’s what I hear a lot. But what was your rational? Oh, it was broke. It was broke.

Molly: She was broke. Yeah. No, for me it was more of like, and let’s be honest, we have been in this, uh, this past 16 years of the evolution of the, the people coming in and developing systems for you, right?

Like when I started, I don’t know that there was necessarily a lot of people implementing systems, but touching on what I talked about earlier. I did not take, it pains me to say this, but I did not take myself seriously as a business person for the first five to six years that I was photographing weddings.

I always had another job. I always had something else going on. I didn’t think of it as a side gig. I thought of all my other things as side gigs to the main thing, but I didn’t put the practices in place. I did not trust myself as a business person. I thought you needed to have a business degree, or you needed to have, I don’t know.

You needed something you needed, you needed something to call yourself a business person. I did not feel bad about myself yet, so for the first third of my career, I, I just didn’t. I wasn’t looking for it because I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think of myself in that way when I was starting to look for it.

Finances came into play. Who can I afford?

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Molly: Uh, if I can’t afford, okay, I’m doing a DIY. Like everybody who grows the business, you do it until you can do better. Right? And um, so for me it was a lot of, a lot of trial and error. And I will say I spent a lot of money on a lot of things that didn’t work.

I spent a lot of money on a lot of people who were bad investments. And when you’re starting and growing. Those investments hit harder because you don’t have as big of a pool to pull from. So the recovery time of when you can bounce back and try something else is a little longer. So that middle period, I think of business where I was like in the six to six to nine years maybe we’re tough.

For me. I was, I was, I was trying. But that’s also when I started on year, like eight or nine is when I started working with a business coach. Mm-hmm. When I started seeking. Council, not necessarily in a specific role. It is, you are here generally to help me to troubleshoot, to do this. You might know more about this or what has worked for you in the past, like, give me advice, any of that kind of stuff.

That is when my mindset started to shift in terms of bringing other people on, seeking out experts in their field, um, specialists in that, in that role for me that could help support my business. Um, so the type A part, never even really. Influenced the system part because I think I just know better that I am not a system builder, like that’s not, I’ll make the system look pretty.

I’m not gonna build it. I mean,

Colie: I’m

Molly: thinking of the

Colie: name of your workshop.

Molly: I know. I mean I know so I know. But it’s e even even that, right? Like there is, I understand my role in this business and especially as the creative educator through make pretty, like I know that like. My brand, my visual brand is one of the most important things of my business because people expect a certain thing.

So that is something that my hand is in. I let my assistant try things and I’m like, oh. I’m like, you were so close. You were so close. And I’ll tell her, yeah, I’m, I’m like, I’ll tell her. I’m like, Hey, this is why I wouldn’t choose this photo. Now I’m like trying to edu. Before I would just take it and do it myself.

Now I’m like, Hey, I’ll do it. But I also want you to try, because if you can take this over and you can figure this out mm-hmm. Then that’s one other thing that I have support on, but I need you to understand like my brain and why I am choosing what I’m choosing and why it’s important that like it’s centered and, or like there’s just like certain things that are, that I’m not, that I can’t get past.

And it’s not because it’s perfection, because I will say that. The one thing I have become very good at as a neurodivergent is, is getting things done either on a deadline being being overproducing, but I’ve never had to be perfect. Okay? I just had to get things done. I. And I had to do them to the best of my ability and do ’em with the Molly flair.

And if you know me, you know I’m a little extra. So it’s like it doesn’t have to be spelled correctly. It doesn’t have to be like those things that people would think of in, in associate with perfection. I do not embody. I like to do things well, and I like to surprise and delight people. I like to produce a great product, but perfection isn’t, isn’t it?

And I think that with the systems, especially in years of late, I am happy to hand those off. So the evolution of that was a, not taking myself seriously first, then when I got into a place. Fumbling to try to find the right person to build the system. Mm-hmm. And or what I needed, what worked for me. Again, that required somebody who could listen to me and how I worked and not have me try to fit into their mold.

Yes. So that’s very important. But then now just like understanding, hey. If they’re telling me this works, I can trust them that they’ve implemented this enough times that it works, and we need to figure out how it works for me. Yeah, so that’s the mentality that I’ve had the last handful of years because I know that I’m not the best at everything.

I’m gonna be the best at being the face and the personality and being a really good, uh, really good at my craft and a good educator. But I don’t, the, the formula doesn’t have to be mine. Like, it doesn’t, like I’m fine adapting and I’m fine taking on somebody else’s formula if, if it’s going to. Show results.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m a very result driven. If, if you show me something that’s gonna work well to help me, it’s like, oh, duh. Of course I’m gonna implement that.

Colie: I feel like you and I are probably very similar. My favorite phrase in business is done is better than perfect. Like, oh, for sure. Publish that shit and you can always fix it later.

Totally. Like, totally. It does not have to be perfect in order to put it out into the world.

Molly: Like I’m not the person that’s gonna go back to an Instagram story and correct a typo. I’m not, I’m correct it

Colie: in a blog though. I will say

Molly: that in a blog. So, okay. In a blog. In a blog, sure. But like those, like I see folks who will post something and then will screenshot it and repost it with the correct type or the correct spelling and it’s like, man, that must have really been bothering them.

Like that must have real, uh, to have that level of perfectionism. I don’t have it. I, um, I wanna do a good job, but I don’t have that. Maybe there are elements of my life that I probably wish I should have that type of attention to detail, but I don’t, um, I’m very, I’m very detailed in my own way, but a typo is not it.

Colie: Yeah. I do wanna push us over to make pretty, as we wrap this podcast up, because I’m curious, your workshops are workshops, but then you also do like one-to-one mentoring and coaching. It’s evolved, so I, as everything does I know. So I’m curious. If any of your like awareness of being neurodivergent has like spilled over into that part of your business and what it looks like when someone works with you so that they can kind of think about their own neurodivergence and how you’re helping them become a better business owner.

Molly: Yeah, for sure. I would say I launched Make Pretty, um, started as a workshop series. I launched it in fall of 2021. Um, I was at. If you’re familiar with Hybrid co. Mm-hmm. The photography conference I was attending and the keynote speaker asked the crowd if anyone had anything big to declare, like anything they wanted to announce.

I raised my hand and I stood up and I said, I’m hosting my first workshop in New York next month, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s called Make Pretty. I didn’t even have an Instagram. I sat down. Immediately pooped my pants and built, built a Instagram while I was sitting there, put a photo up, slapped a, slapped an icon on it and said, coming soon.

And that is that. That just gives you insight as to how this started. We’re so similar, Molly, we’re so similar. Yeah. How this started. I am a leap in the net will appear kind of girl. We’ll figure it out on the way down. Um, but yeah, for me it was announcing that. That actually came from a place of feeling like I wasn’t represented visually in the creative space of weddings.

Anytime you thought of a fine art wedding editorial, I, I can almost guarantee that you would be picturing. A faded blue, a sage green, a pale pink, a very fairy tale esque type of setup, florals. Up and over everything in Arch, um, the biggest princess ballgown you’ve ever seen. I didn’t identify with any of that and I didn’t want my clients to look like that because I didn’t that, that type of pretty wasn’t I.

What I thought was pretty like, is it pretty? Yes, but it wasn’t exciting to me and from a fashion background, I wanted something more interesting. For those who speak wedding, I’m going to identify more with a Danielle Frankel gown than I would maybe. A Haley page gown, um, something like that, you know what I mean?

That does hit

Colie: for me.

Molly: Yeah. So, you know, and anyone who doesn’t know those, just look up those two designers, you’ll understand the very visual. Um, and they’re both great, but very visually different. So for me, I created make pretty out of a lack of what I saw, I created an editorial workshop that I wanted to attend.

So for me, it was very pointed. Aesthetics, very fashion forward, but focused on fashion. That was interesting. Not something that maybe they had already done or shot or seen or, or would look like you were at a workshop with 30 other people. That, the other part of that is I work really well in small groups and I thrive in a small group setting, so it was important for that to be small.

I limit my workshops to eight people, okay. Where a lot of times these. Have 20, 30 photographers that you’re cycling through stations at I, I wanted it to be a very hands-on learning experience where they felt safe and open and had enough time interacting with me that they felt comfortable enough asking questions as they went.

If they need help with posing, do you guys wanna see me go through a five minute posing sequence? Like if I have only five minutes with them, I’m gonna have them do these things. But they’re a little more. Edgy than what you might think of holding each other around the waists and putting our foreheads together.

You know what I mean? Like, let’s like look beyond. So it started as that, and I think from that I noticed the pull from attendees that wanted more learning. So I, I developed a couple different, I had like a hot seat call, which I still offer, which I think is honestly one of the most crucial. Like, and, and just.

Impactful ways that you can get through stuff. If you can’t hire a coach or an educator, find somebody who can just do a brainstorm with you. Yep. Or a VIP day or something where it’s a, it’s a single investment, but like, man, can you get some work done? Yes. Especially with someone like a brain with me like ours, you know, like it’s, it’s just, it’s.

It’s wild what you can come up with. So I offered those and then I offered a three month mentorship because I believe I can get a lot more done under a tighter timeline. Mm-hmm. Again, I wasn’t about to build something out that was gonna be a year long ’cause it didn’t support me or how I felt. I learned best.

So I wanted to offer things that would’ve supported me so that folks like me. Maybe felt supported. So these little sprint mentorships, I would have people and then they could renew or they could not, and it worked really well. But from there, I realized I was giving so much time away and spending so much time with singular people mm-hmm.

That I wanted to reach a bigger audience. So a year ago. In May, I launched my membership and that’s where my founding members were. Like, I had 47 founding members. It was wild. So it’s like, it’s been a very collaborative community. They’re very engaged. It’s small, but I, I do, I. Appreciate having that group learning and the ability to reach more people.

So the one-on-one mentorship is definitely more of a, of a, a luxury item I would say that I offer. And the workshops and the memberships and the creative, like the visual intensives that I offer, which I don’t know if you saw that, but I do do a lot of vis visual intensives for folks. That help them create a cohesive online experience for their, their clients.

Those are where my focus is because I, I have seen the biggest impact there.

Colie: Yeah. I mean, I, I love that you said all of that because I feel like when people are getting started in education. It’s easy for you to try to develop something that you think someone else wants. Right? But I think it’s way more impactful if you start with what you would’ve wanted when you were earlier in your business.

Because if you would’ve wanted it, then chances are there are still people that are currently following you in your audience. All of that good jazz fill the gaps that would benefit from that. The Yes, the,

Molly: yeah. Fill the gaps that you see or that you wish you would’ve had. Right? Like, so for me, it started with workshops and.

Honestly, the workshop stemmed from me doing three editorials that I designed for myself because I wanted to revolutionize my business and change my pricing and change the type of client I was attracting. At that point, I was almost a decade into shooting weddings in Southern California and it had a very, Southern California has a very.

Specific type of aesthetic. Mm-hmm. I no longer associated with it, so I needed to, to create something drastic and, and by doing those three editorials just for myself and doing my own overhaul and doing my own own stuff, I was like, man, like I wish someone would’ve done this for me, or I wish this would’ve been available, but like.

I created it for myself. So if I can be that, that bridge for folks who don’t maybe have the money to invest $10,000 in a custom website, maybe we’re okay with a template. Like, I’m great with a template, but let’s make it look really good. Let’s make all of your platforms look really good. I know a lot of people give workshops and, and style shoots a bad, they get a bad rap because a lot of people do thing do them and they don’t do them well.

Mm-hmm. So. Again, another reason to fill the gap there in terms of providing a really great experience, not just great imagery, but a great experience and that that imagery that is where you go and you play and you explore and you decide like maybe that changes the direction of your craft and your business because you loved.

X so much you loved shooting this so much or, or like, my upcoming workshop is a same sex workshop. I don’t see anybody offering that. And, and for me it’s important that you not be only be able to shoot heterosexual, couple white, white, straight couples. I have, I focus on diversity, I focus on on really.

Filling the gaps in your, in your portfolio. So I think it’s, I think it’s important that people maybe not give style shoots so, so much of a bad name, but I think it’s important to recognize the purpose that they serve and that they do provide value, uh, in, in, even if it’s just learning how to use your camera a certain way.

Not experimenting on someone’s paid wedding day. Yes. But this gives you the outlet to do it. Right. You took the word

Colie: outta my mouth, Molly. I was about to say, this is a great time for experimentation. Yes. Well, that’s the

Molly: thing is learn what you like. I, I often talk to people, one of my signature talks often is developing an aesthetic point of view and Right.

That’s a fancy way of saying your signature style. Right. Like figuring out. What works for you? What do you like not just replicating what you see industry leaders doing and what you think you’re supposed to be doing should, do you think you’re supposed to be doing blurry photos or Dutch angles? No, because if it doesn’t resonate with you, why would you?

So just, just being able to experiment and play that not only, not only tells you what you like, but it also renews your creativity that you then get to take back to your clients. Uh, and I think a lot of people overlook that and. I find immense value in that. And let’s be honest, like, like you said earlier about creative educators even just implementing systems or trying something because they, they think they should or it’s the next step and they’ve seen somebody else build it.

Not everyone’s meant to be an educator. Just because you are good at your craft doesn’t mean you’re a good teacher of that craft.

Colie: And

Molly: I feel fortunate that being raised by teachers and being a loud mouth and a leader in general, I fall into being a good teacher and I can finally say that about myself.

I feel confident in saying that I am a good teacher and I, I feel good about the guidance that I have given my students, my volt members, any, any of my clients. But not everybody’s meant to do it. And, and to your point, like finding the thing. That will fill the gap, especially if you are using education as a supplemental income stream, not just because you love educating, but if you’re looking to make money, you need to provide something that is going to sell and that is going to be something that is not a carbon copy of everything else.

Yes. You know, I, you know, I could go off just forever. I

Colie: know, I’m, I get on a soapbox and I’ll go, I’m like thinking to myself, there is a whole nother tangent that we could take after you said that. But we are going, we are going to wrap up this episode, and I think I’m just gonna invite Molly back a part two.

We’ll do a part two on education. But what I do wanna say is that I love. Attending creative educators every single year. I have been for all three years that Lely has said, I’m going next year. I’m so excited and I already bought my ticket for next year. Yes. So if this conversation has sparked any intrigue for the listening audience and you’re thinking to yourself, wow, that sounds like a room I want to be in.

I will have a link. To find out more about creative educators in the show notes and also stay tuned to the rest of this series because I have a few more people that I met at the conference that are going to be on the podcast talking about education and their business and so much more. I. Molly, it was great to have you on the podcast.

Thank you so much for coming. Thank you.

Molly: Thank you so much for having me. It was so fun, and thank you for opening up the opportunity. Also just to share some insight on what makes Neurodivergence amazing creatives, because we really are. Yes,

Colie: guys, if you are interested in learning more about Molly and her workshops and just looking at her beautiful websites, they are going to be linked in the show notes for you.

But that’s it for this episode. See you next time. Thanks for listening to the Business First Creatives podcast. For more information on this podcast including show notes and links to the video podcast, please visit coley james.com/podcast. Are you loving the podcast? Sharing is caring. Until next time.