Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dilshad Yogi-Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dilshad, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

In my opinion, there are two important pieces to being successful. The first piece is to define what success looks like for you as an individual. I think that this is where most entrepreneurs and people in the workforce fail almost immediately, because it is so easy to look to others in our industry and try to model our own journey after theirs. Our culture is one that breeds comparison and is constantly encouraging us to ‘measure up’, which in turn can completely blind us from what we are truly created to do.

When I was in college and immediately after graduating, I learned this firsthand. I studied Business Management and Human Resources in college, and I was exposed to many successful people in the business world who in my opinion were ‘thriving’, and thought that I had to be exactly like them to be successful. I created a career path for myself that in summary was to climb the corporate ladder. A month after I started what I thought was the ‘perfect’ corporate job, I had a very strong gut feeling that this type of work was not for me; but I was 21 years old, fresh out of college, and had no idea what my other options would be. Entrepreneurship always fascinated me, but the thought of starting a business seemed too scary and uncertain, and I did not want to be seen as a failure.

Thankfully, I followed my gut feeling and started to pray for direction. I tried to experience as many new things as I could to truly learn what I was passionate about and where my strengths were. I started to push myself towards the things that I was excited about, even amidst the fear of uncertainty, failure, and other people’s opinions. Which brings me to what I think is the second piece of being successful: choosing to move forward despite fear. I definitely would not describe myself as ‘fearless’; I have worried about the future, what people think, and definitely feel fear at times. But I move forward despite the fear, during the fear, and with the fear, and that is something that I am truly grateful for.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a Wedding and Brand Photographer based out of Ohio, who also loves to help other entrepreneurs, specifically female entrepreneurs who feel stuck at a corporate job, as I was once there myself.

When I was in my early 20’s, my husband got me a camera for our anniversary so we could document our life together. I had been feeling stuck at my corporate job for years, but didn’t know what direction to take. He wanted me to have a creative outlet and thought I would love creating images. I had never owned a ‘nice’ camera before and knew absolutely nothing about photography. But he was so excited for me to have this camera, and started teaching me the basics of how to use it.

Fast forward a few months, and I had been capturing images of our dog, plants around the neighborhood, and slowly, our friends and family. Once I started capturing people, their lives, moments, and emotions, something really *clicked* for me (no pun intended).

A few months later, we moved to Ohio, and I decided to start my photography business while I worked at a corporate HR job. Although I did not feel like HR was the right fit for me at the time, I do think that my initial interest to study HR in college and pursue a career in that field and my desire to start a business had one key thing in common: to serve people. The heartbeat behind what we do in this business is to serve people intentionally. I fell in love with photography when I realized it was an avenue to do just that!

I would describe the brand as elegant and joy-filled, with a classic, coastal flair. I grew up on a small Caribbean island, and moved to the US for boarding school in South Carolina when I was fourteen, so I love infusing pieces of coastal, southern charm into our style. The warmth of both cultures is part of who I am now, and something I want every client to feel.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Yes :) I think that resilience is something that is nurtured and built over time, and does not happen overnight. For me, it started when I was a teenager. I chose to attend a boarding school here in the US when I was 14, which meant leaving my family in another country thousands of miles away. It was incredibly challenging navigating a new culture and being on my own for the first time. I failed a lot and made a lot of mistakes as I learned to manage my time, finances, and schoolwork without parents there to help me. I dyed laundry pink, burned lots of food, and got many bad grades in that first year of high school. But over time, I learned to be more organized and self motivated, something that has helped me significantly as a small business owner now. Choosing to attend that school was *physically* thousands of miles outside of my comfort zone, but it was one of the best, most pivotal decisions I ever made, and one I can point to now and say, “that changed my life.”

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Yes! In my early-mid twenties, I decided to start my photography business alongside my corporate HR job, the year before the pandemic hit. A year and a half later as the business grew, I knew that it was no longer sustainable for me to have that job as well as serve all of my new clients well, but I was not in the position to go completely full time with the business yet. So, I got a part-time, 32 hour a week job, that allowed me to have a little more time to grow the business. Two years into the business, the revenue had surpassed the income from my corporate job, but I waited another year and a half to go completely full time in the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: yogi-smith.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dilshadyogismith/
• Youtube: @DilshadYogiSmith

Image Credits
Dilshad Yogi Smith Photography