Why is she important?

Well, because she took the unpopular route in getting herself out there. Here's the problem with many of us... Where idealist, but we aren't really executionist. Sara... She's an executionist. Here's what I learned from her over the last month.

Invest In Yourself

A year ago Sara posted a travel gear video. Her kit included the following.

Since then Sara has upgraded her kit, ditching the 70D and switching to the Canon 6D as well as the 5D Mark III, she's kept all her lenses and added a Zeiss 85 f/1.4 to complete the kit. Early on you can see she invested heavily in her glass, and it's clearly paid off dividends as she's still shooting with it a year later.

As most of you I know I'm an advocate of shoot more, buy less, but I'm also doing street photography, which doesn't take much gear... I'm almost certain that I can capture the same moments with a Kodak Easyshare... Actually, I know I can, I've seen it happen. But for everyone else, buy what you need... I want to get into podcasting, so I'm going to go all in on what I need to have a solid production.

Show Your Work

Early on in my career, I felt as though I had no following, so know one would care about my work. Someone I follow immensely is Gary Vaynerchuk, in his recent book #ASKGARYVEE he tells us that when he started Wine Library TV he had not one follower on YouTube. Yet because he remained patient and passionate (The two P's) he organically grew his following and fed them content as often as possible. After 1000 videos, I believe he had amassed over 30K followers, which at the time was impressive considering YouTube was so new and his content and demographic were so niche.

Sara was in the same boat as Gary, she not only lacked a following but her videos were all over the place. There was no structure, she just uploaded whatever she worked on.What I like most about her is that she didn't go back and delete anything, she kept it organic, 5 years from now we'll be able to visit her YouTube page and actually see her growth because she's showed us everything.

Don't Be A Perfectionist

If YouTube is good for one thing it's people with too much time on their hands. If you spend a majority of the video reading the comments like I do you'll see that several people pointed out Sara's flaws in filmmaking. In her New York Vlog PT. 1 you'll see several people point out the shakiness in her video... Now Sara clarified why it was shaky, she used 60FPS instead of the standard 24FPS, as a filmmaker, I'm sure she picked this up during her editing process, but she still uploaded the video. I know time and time again if I sucked at something, or I couldn;t get the edit right or the frame was filmed poorly I'd scratch the whole project and tell myself I'd redo it... This normally results in my doing nothing... You have to accept flaws and learn from them. You'll get it right next time, it doesn't have to be perfect to be good.

Related: Find The Small Victories In Your Failures

Execute

Sara's response video to her #HowToCasey video was posted just 2 days after the original video. She didn't overthink it, she didn't crush under pressure, she took advantage of her new platform and she executed. Since February Sara has put out over 10 videos and she isn't slowing down, her Creative Spaces TV is growing a solid following and she's even tampered with vlogging. She's trying new things while sticking to channels aesthetic. #Everydaze is one of my favorite videos from her, it's Sara letting us know that she is about to CRUSH IT, and she's come through... Every day, every single day, on her Facebook.

Expect Nothing

Hard work pays off, but it doesn't also work out in your favor in a timely manner. You have to be patient. Sara has been posting videos to YouTube for over a year, and she's just now gaining traction. It shows that she works hard simply because she enjoys what she does, attention is just an added bonus. Most of us would have honestly quit at that time. My first year blogging I think I gained 30 thousand views... My second year 100K. And this year I plan to quintuple that. I've also dabbled in YouTube and because my expectations have been so high I find myself quitting and deeming it worthless... Expecting nothing when you produce free work, that way you'll appreciate every like, comment and fan you have.

Put Your Heart Into Everything You Do

I saved the best trait for last. Put your heart into everything you do. I live in Detroit where the music scene is popular and by popular I mean a lot of people are aspiring musicians. Unfortunately not many of them put their heart into everything. Occasionally we'll get a viral song from someone, but the other songs aren't up to par, or they may not even have another song.

What Sara did was special to me. Her Casey video went viral but she had a shit ton of content already posted on her page, and obviously she had a shit ton to post afterward. She wasn't stunted by her 15 minutes of fame, she isn't a one-hit wonder, she put her heart into everything she does... All she needed was the platform.

Why Me & Sara Are Different

When I told my parents I was going to be a photographer I expected them to refinance the house to help me (joking). I wanted them to believe in me, to tell me that I'd be great and that this was the best idea for me. At the time I didn't even know how to switch my camera from JPEG to RAW, yet I was upset that they weren't enthusiastic about the idea.

3 months had past and I tried to show my friends and family my photographs. Again they weren't impressed and I was livid, I was doing this for 90 days, how could they not believe in me. At that time I wanted everyone to take me seriously, and I begged for their approval. It wasn't long before I realized that I wasn't taking myself seriously, I wasn't even posting my work, it sat in hard drive. Nothing about me screamed photgrapher, I didn't walk around with my camera, I didn't upload pictures to Instagram, I had no gigs... Hell I couldn't get a friend to shoot with me.

What I learned was that I'm an idealist and for so long I expected other people to invest in my ideas before I did. I never showed my work, because I didn't have any. I never knew what it took to be a photographer because I wasn't one... I was a guy with a camera.

I've grown out of that stage now, I'm perfectly fine with showing my work, my friends and family know me as a photographer, but I still posses similar flaws in other creative processes. YouTube is something I speak about often, I still have these YouTube dreams yet I never act on them... Their ideas, and ideas are nothing without exectuion.

One Idea Can Change Your Life