The Art Of Shooting Your Shot

Welcome to Everything You Need is Within, a Spotify Greenroom live audio show and podcast produced by and for Gen-Z, with me, your host, Gigi Robinson.

Hello, everybody. And welcome back to Everything You Need is Within. This episode is Episode Three, the art of shooting your shot. And I felt the need to do this because I truly am so satisfied when I hear stories about how people have shoot shooting their shot, and or shot their shot. I don't know you guys know what I'm saying? I think I hope but how people just throw themselves into something fearlessly, and ultimately receive exactly what it is or they received something that they needed, which in my opinion can sometimes be better. I would say the first time I embraced the shoot my shot attitude was definitely in high school. In my previous episodes, I briefly mentioned how a lot of people actually do not know that I am a photographer first and an influencer, a social media marketer, a creative producer. Second, I've been shooting photography for over 10 years. And I would say over 10 years professionally. But I initially just started by picking up my camera and going for it. That wasn't really about shooting my shot just yet.

got to high school and a lot of people noticed that like my photos and my composition and my understanding of cameras was definitely a little more advanced than other people. I used to actually play this game with myself, where I would guess the exposure or guess the camera settings. And I would force myself like, okay, GG, whatever you decide is how you have to shoot your whole like batch of photos for whatever shoot it is. And if they came out horribly, then I was like, Oh, you lost it was just like this internal game that I had with myself. But what really got me going I would say it was when I was about 15 years old. And I started entering photography competitions here in New York City. I entered a bunch of different competitions. The first one I believe may have been PSR and the Scholastic arts and writing competitions, which are both neat local, regional, and national competitions that you can enter. For scholastic, it's more art, writing music, poetry, etc. And for the PSR it's exclusively visual arts and sculptures. So I submitted my work to that. And I don't know if it was to my surprise or not, but surprise, people liked my work. And when I did with the photo, the photography work that I actually submitted at the time was all landscape work, which definitely evolved because now I exclusively shoot products and portraits. So it definitely feels like a lifetime ago that I was winning competitions for this but I figured you know what, it's free to enter some of these competitions others you had to pay like a small admission fee. I was like, You know what, what's the worst thing that happens? I you know, spend money on an entry free that goes towards a great foundation, or I lose $5 or however much the admissions fee was or in the case that it was free. So what new people saw my work, and they might remember my work and my name later if they didn't choose me at the time. So that was The beginning of GG and shooting her shot. I kept going throughout all of high school, I filled up an entire double sided portfolio book of awards, I won arts connection awards, which was a nonprofit that connected youth art artists up to hedge fund offices and Law Offices so that they didn't have boring Rnm. And each time that your artwork got into one of these competitions, or you know, one and you you want to spot in their gallery, you would get a small gift card, which is what I use to save up for my photography, business and to buy my first DSLR camera completely on my own.

another one that I won was called the Daedalus Foundation, New York City Department of Education artists grants, and only seven kids in high school and the entire city in 2016. won that award. And I was one of them. And I swear I wouldn't have done it. If I hadn't gone up to my teacher and said, Look, this is something I want, how do I do it. And part of shooting your shot is also talking to the right people. So a lot of it was self researched. And knowing what my plan was, and having a goal in mind and end goal. A friend of mine actually recently told me because we're both working on our books right now. By the way, surprise, I'm writing a book, everyone stay on the lookout for that. But I was like, Girl, I have no idea where to start with this book. And she was like GG, well, what's the end goal?

see you're onto something she's like, if you have the end goal, just work backwards. So that is actually what I'd been doing. I would say, you know, for quite some time, my end goal of winning all these awards in high school was not to become, you know, a famous artist. I mean, that would have been nice. But it was really to place myself in a university where I would be valued for my art. And at first I wanted to actually go to Miami, and I didn't get in. So I went to fit that year, and I was really, really upset. So what did I do? I found a way to shoot my shot at one of the top headshot photographers. In New York City's photography studio, I sent a cold email, which I am a huge fan of with research in mind, and was like, Hi, I am a photo student here. I fit. No, it's right, right down the block from you. I would love to have an informational interview and just learn a little bit more about you your work and you know, just see, see what was up I was really just networking at the time, which is a really good way to shoot your shot people if if you don't know that. So anyway, I sent this message and they're like, Yeah, for sure. like come on over one time during one of your lunch breaks. And so I did that. And to my surprise, I ended up just building this really incredible report. And when the photographer I think actually, before I tell the story about this, this interview that I had, I would just say researching somebody before you reach out to them or a company or whoever you talk to when you get an interview is always so important because you don't want to waste somebody's time. That is why I personally curated a Spotify playlist with all of the podcasts that I have been featured on so people can go and listen if they want before. And see if I answered any of their questions before they book a one on one time to meet time to meet with me because time is so precious and very valuable. And don't waste I hate when people waste my time. So I researched the heck out of this guy gotten to this interview was honestly mentioning some things by the way. His name is Peter Hurley. He is a incredible headshot photographer here in New York City. And we're just talking and by the end of the interview, he's like, you know, I love the energy that you bring. I love how well researched you really were in this conversation. I'm looking for an intern. Would you like to be my intern? I was like, f Yeah, sure.

Let's do this. So I was entered for this semester that I was there. While I was doing that. I was like, how am I going to get myself out of fit. I was in such a bad mental health headspace and I was dealing with my binge eating habits and I needed to just just get myself out there. I need to displace myself from my my own mental health. I was going to therapy at the time but I realized I was so focused On the future that I wasn't living in the present, even though the end goal was to get myself somewhere in the future, if that makes sense to you guys, I hope you're following along. So I ultimately set my eyes on USC. And I applied to seven or eight schools to transfer to and USC was like my top choice. And again, I had to figure out how is going to get there. So I went ahead, and I really pestered the admissions counselor of the art school I called and I just wanted to learn as much as I could about the program, see if it was a fit, see what I needed to do to get there, see how I could really put myself in a position to get accepted and to be that ideal candidate. And again, she said, you know, we expect to see internships, we expect to see high grades and this and that. And you also have to have a killer portfolio. That's the thing about applying to art school, that I think high school really taught me. So I went to LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, here in New York City, better known as the same school if anyone knows that movie, fame, I want to live forever.

anyway, you know, going there, I had to apply with a portfolio of work at the age of 12. So I was used to I was used to getting critiqued, and that's ultimately, what I do now is I teach people how I critique what goes on on the internet. And I find ways to produce content based on critiques of others or critiques that I noticed myself and for anyone listening that may not know what the term critique means. It basically means to thoroughly look and understand and give feedback about a piece of work, whether that's writing, music, art, anything, really even a speech, even this podcast episode, I'm sure people are gonna have critiques of this in the future. And right now, I put all my energy to critiquing environments online, whether that is on apps like this, whether that's on tik tok or Instagram, those are my two primary platforms that I gravitate towards and like to critique within. So anyhow, that I don't know how I got down this rabbit hole, I have terrible brain fog. And sometimes I will say I do, I do drift off a bit and I did tangent here. But I'll get a reel it back and talk about how I boosted my self confidence by allowing myself to shoot my shot more often. I feel like I used to be this shell of who I was meant to be. And I'm sure other people feel that way compared to something that you know, your your past self or your younger self used to be versus who you are today. And had I not worked myself up even though I was very quiet at the time in high school and entering all those competitions and reaching out and sending those cold emails, I was a very shy person. I was not like an extrovert in any way, shape, or form. I would say I'm a very what's the word I think in an extroverted introvert of a person, rather than an introvert extrovert anyway. So I entered all of these things, to do something for my future self without knowing 100% what it was. And this also goes into I think manifestation and making your dreams a reality is really setting a goal and setting an intention and doing everything that you can to align yourself up to actually make that happen. So in turn, that boosted my confidence. I told myself, okay, if you want to get to USC, what are the steps you're going to do? Right? Okay. Send these cold emails, see if you can get an interview. Another thing I will say about cold emails, which I will talk about later in this episode, we're going to talk about kind of how as an influencer and as a content creator, and as I think an author as a public figure, that you can really shoot your shot in an intentional way, but not there yet. So is self reflection and confidence related? Absolutely.

I think that self reflection is a way where we can look neutrally at our thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions and through self reflection, we're able to look at ourself with a lens of curiosity, we can ultimately find the things that spark our motivation that spark our You know, art, and the things that drive us in the work that we do every single day. And without understanding and self reflecting what your true passions are and what your true meaning is, I think that shooting your shot, and the competence that you need to shoot your shot can be difficult. So another thing I would love for anyone listening to do, which I actually did, today, I got this deck of cards from a company called we're not really strangers, they sent them over to me, and it's this journal packet. This is in no way endorsed by them, they just sent this over to me. So it was really just this suite of quotes, I think and cards that allow you and prompt you to ultimately get dig deeper and do some self reflection. So it's really been a big topic for me since I got it. And I did this one today, but said, What's something that you from a year ago would be shocked at right now. And in the past year, I mean, the pandemic aside, I graduated college remotely during the pandemic, I would 100% be shocked at that if he told me Well, I mean, the pandemic was already in full swing, but let's go back to January last year, if you told me January 2020, I would be graduating remotely, I would have laughed, definitely would have laughed. If you told me that I would have quit my nine to five job and left corporate America, I also would have laughed. I definitely found myself in college, being confident knowing that I built this insane network, especially within the Trojan family and the Trojan network, that there was no way or reason why I wouldn't be working like at a studio I had had internships and entertainment throughout college. I also was always working, always networking, always attending new events, where I feel like I put myself out there a dog with research in mind whenever I went to an event. And for anyone listening to this, whether you're in high school, college or older, I always research who is either going to the event, what the purpose of the event is, what the messaging of the event is, and not just show up, if you just show up in an event and expect to, you know, just be be present, I guess it's fine. Like if that's what you want to do great. But I personally like to know more about events, and the people that I could potentially meet there as ways to build my network and connections. I think, ultimately, collaboration is the key to success. I say this over and over again. That's ultimately why I built this, this show, everything you need is within to help elevate and talk about just interesting parts of my life that I think can really resonate and help future generations, specifically Gen Z ers out there who may be having trouble with competence. But I, I just I think that this idea of self reflection is so important. So with the events, I always research and just network. Now I'm losing myself again, you guys, I hope you're not laughing me behind the screen because I'm about to like crack up at myself for going in all these directions. Um, but back to the one year ago, what would I be shocked at? I would also be shocked that I had gotten myself on a billboard in Times Square. And if you go back and listen to Episode One, you'll you'll hear the whole story about that. But that came from a completely How should I say it like spur of the moment decision where I knew I could make a difference. I actually just posted a campaign about it today, where I it was called not one face by this company called Life Stance Health Foundation,

and they're donating $5 per every single photo posted where you share about your mental health journey to the Mental Health Coalition. So I really felt like that was another moment similar to my billboard appearance where I just did something with an open heart and an open mind. I also care a lot about giving back and will definitely encourage anybody at any time if you can to give back and it doesn't necessarily have to do with donating something financially. I feel like a lot of people often think that when you use the term give back or you use the term philanthropy or charity that you are donating a sum of money. But you can do that now, which I think is really beautiful through social media platforms. You can do that just by reposting something to your story or swiping up on an influencers, you know, swipe up link or posting a feed post or a tick tock video, the challenges are really out there. And I have seen a significant increase in charities doing this. There was one I did. Again, the billboard one was hashtag here for our m. h. c, which was here for the Ronald McDonald House Charities through McDonald's, there was a St. Jude one called we won't stop. And now there is this one that I just posted today, called not one face. And I think that people just need to be more compassionate, and doing that. But I'm straying away from the idea of shooting your shot and, and

last year, I decided I needed to amp up the way that I was using my social media and work with more nonprofits. And part of that was researching nonprofits that I already loved, including ones like St. Jude and the Ronald McDonald House, but also finding new ones, like the Mental Health Coalition like Jed Foundation, The Trevor Project, and finding ways to work with them on a larger scale, which led me to work with some other amazing companies and nonprofits, including diverse ability, which I am the founder is on here right now listening Guy tivity. And I would say that, ultimately, just researching all of these causes is something that people lack, they just jump on this bandwagon of social posting over and over and over again. like kind of like a wildfire of performance and performative activism without thinking and researching, and it's very saddening to see that and I'm not sure how we can change that without educating people around the damages of performance online. And I'm not talking about you know, just doing an ad for for fun, or something I'm talking about, you know, what happened last spring posting the black square on our feed without taking responsibility or action offline, I'm talking about brands, not really amplifying marginalized voices across the board, and just putting out you know, commitments all the time online, if you are really caring if you're somebody who really cares about the way that your presence affects other people online, I'm telling you right now, the key to it is research. And also that self reflection piece that I was talking about before. Once you get those two things together, then you will have competence when you're speaking intelligently. After that, I would say you have to put it into action. And again, you need to do it responsibly, you need to do it kindly. And you just need to make sure that you're really on top of your game here. Because in a world where unfortunately, canceled culture is very normalized, I think it's important to have your facts straight all the time. It's okay, if you mess up, everyone makes mistakes. Everyone you know, has those days. For anyone getting that reference, I do love you, Hannah Montana will forever be my heart. And I truly think, you know, if we own our mistakes, and commit to, I think the equity that we all, I think want to have in equality and in this idea of equality. We just need to own our mistakes and we need to move forward by researching and by knowing the facts, but I wanted to take a break and drink some water. This is something I do mid show because I I tend to tangent as I'm sure all of you listening really know.

how can I change? things that I think I would be shocked about you know, from what I'm doing now into more of like these affirmations or how can I change something I'm doubting right now into an affirmation or a goal that I can reach so lately I've really been thinking about this because there's really days where I am not happy at all my chronic condition definitely weighs me down and I find it extremely difficult to do anything. Today was one of those days on top of having a migraine, which was not fun, I do not like migraines Not one bit. And if anybody's ever experienced a migraine, they are very debilitating. It is one of those unseen things that really just can mess up an entire day for you. So I took today, and I kind of reframed it from, wow, I had this really big day planned for me today where I could just sit and I could write, and I was gonna get all hyped up for my show, and I got this migraine and I ended up lying down in bed and not being able to do anything today, besides lie in bed and just close my eyes and drink some water. I changed that from being frustrated to being grateful that I had the opportunity to sit back and relax. And while I was doing that, I was focused on obviously getting rid of this migraine, but I was also focused on like, Okay, how can I take these days that I'm honoring my health, mentally and physically, to improve all of my future actions and to improve? You know, my schedule? And the next day? How can I avoid overdoing it for myself to make sure that I can thrive ultimately. So one of those things that I think also because also, migraines come from stress sometimes, and I have been a little bit stressed out financially in my business, and I will probably do a whole other episode on setting up a business I 22. And what that was like, for me, because it was very challenging. But I would say that I have this goal written down on paper, and you know, just figuring out how to set my rate how to set my financial goal to be something that's actually feasible, is really hard. And it's again, humbling, it's, it's self aware, like, Am I am I worthy of it? Am I worthy of being paid a certain salary as a freelance creator? Absolutely. I know that, but how can I prove that to others, that's the biggest thing you have to do as a freelancer. And that's really difficult. So, again, I just changed all of my doubts into things that I'm proud of how can I use all of the momentum, and all of those things that again, last year that I would be so shocked, that I achieved and all the things that are coming, that I'll share down the line? It's just like, how can I use that as my momentum? And I would tell anyone in high school to really think about that, how can you honor and think about the things that you've achieved so far, and that you're doing right now that are setting you up to be, you know, the best version of yourself? So, on that note, I'm sure a lot of people are curious. How I became what is now known as an influencer, because, you know, it's, it's somewhat of an uncharted field. I give talks on this, the influencer industry is worth a across social media platforms, if you take the value of like the platform's and people across all of them, it's worth over $60 billion. The influencer marketing industry, though, however, is specifically worth about 15 billion this year alone, which is really mind boggling to me, but compared to others, it is still so new. So how did I get here being this, you know, star of a photographer in high school and being this, you know, person that was in a bad mental health space. So ultimately, it started when I got to USC, I wanted to take my photography experience and bring it into a space where I can make it profitable.

I also was somebody again, I should really was out there shooting my shot at USC doing whatever I could. So I went to all of the transfer student events, I went to all of the club fairs and orientation sessions, and, you know, just everything that I could.

I found this club called USC reach, which was a community of content creators, influencers, digital marketers, entrepreneurs. And really, that was, that was the pivotal moment for me. Because had I not joined that club, I would not have gotten the tools and the knowledge to learn how to grow my social media platforms. I wouldn't have, you know, created viral videos that have over 700k views just about being a college student. There were so many different things that this club really allowed me to do, but Besides meeting incredible people, the main thing that I think it taught me was again to be fearless with it to craft a pitch to, to have the pitch fail to craft a media kit, have it be too much or have it not be good enough to go to events and to network and to meet the right people to say the right things. And again, you do all these things and you fail here and there. I wouldn't be where I am without sending an email that was you know, addressed for the wrong company or the wrong brand. It sometimes happens. And it sucks but it's a learning moment. You can laugh about it later. I laugh about it all the time. So the biggest thing was shooting your shot in the influencer industry again is researching the brands, the brands contacts, but also I always get asked how do I land sponsorships? How do I get PR packages? How can I pay you my way as an independent creator in such a saturated industry? And I say this across the board but you need to figure out what your true purpose is out of this is it I want to become an influencer? Because I think that you know a travel influencers life looks really good. Or is it I want to become a travel influencer because of the money in it? Or do I want to become a travel influencer? Because you know, I like the idea of it? What's your true passion there is it you know, you want to travel the world and take photos and share it with other people is it that you want to make money on the go. So like, coming down with that is really important. And I've said this, they say this in all of my social media literacy lectures, which if anybody does have an organization that they want me to come speak at about social media literacy, please hit my team up. But ultimately, you need to sit down and ask yourself, you know, why? Why do I want to do whatever it is that you want to do. And once you have that written down, once asked yourself again, and again, and again, and again, and again, about seven to 10 times that by then you have a collection of different things that you can build your business around and build your pillars of your business and your brand around. One of the biggest thing that I learned at design school was that you can really combine a bunch of different elements of a of your life actually, to create a really powerful brand. I think, if you think about some of the big brands, they'll combine to extremely random things. One of my favorite examples here is the glasses company called mascot I think, and they to me in my eyes, really captured the essence of this timelessness in. Its really iconic graphic. And it reminds me of a you know, a Jewish deli, or, like kind of also like this neon vibe, but also the 50s and like old school newspaper, and it's just really classy, right? But it's a glasses brands, like how random is that? So sometimes with your brand, you got to spice it up. And you got to do that. So even though let's say you're somebody that wants to let I'll just use myself, for example, right? I am a bubbly creative person, but I'm also a student. I have a photography business. But I also, you know, I also do public speaking, I live in New York City, but I also like to work remotely. So how can you combine all of these different elements of your personality to make a profitable brand? Again, this goes into researching and everything like that. And back to what I said before? How can I use all of my accolades and all of my achievements, to prove to people why I should be their ideal client, it's really about these pitches. And when you are pitching. I'm gonna say it a million times in this episode, my buzzword today is research clearly. And you have to go online on the internet and know what you're doing. When you search something you could look up, you know, PR lists or PR emails for top beauty companies, and I'm sure a bunch will come out. But why why do you want to be on this beauty lists? Do you want to just for the free products, because if you do, there's a bunch of different things that you can do with affiliate marketing that usually you have to buy products and market them for free and you get paid. That's essentially what being on a PR list is you're actually doing free marketing and free work for these companies you're going on. You're saying hey, send me this product. I love it and I want to post about it. So you get the product you post about it. And what do you get out? Have it right exposure. This is a big, very frustrating thing in the industry. And again, this is something that ultimately I hope brands, step it up this this year and how to ultimately provide that equity in the advocacy and in the campaigns that they're doing. We don't want to see just advocacy around pride during Pride Month, we don't want to just see rainbows in June, we want to see them all year round, you want to see it in panels, you want to see events about it. It's it's really just the same thing across the board, whether that is supporting disabled people, whether that's supporting people of color. It's all in the equity when you're doing these sponsorships in these these packages. And I think that being an influencer today, really, actually, I think setting, let me take that as setting yourself apart, in today's world of influence, is being aware of your presence. It's not just posting a beautiful vacation

this weekend. It's also like seeing what happened in the news and seeing how you can be vocal about it on your platform. And this is not me asking in any way for every single person listening to become an activist online, I certainly don't want people to do that. I just think everybody needs to be more aware of the implications.