I started my first business with only one plan. It was the simplest business plan I think anyone has ever written publicly. It was so simple it seemed stupid that I should write it down. I wrote it down anyway because that is what you are supposed to do with great ideas. You should write them down.

“I will move forward.”

That was it. My business plan was about getting out of dodge and I wanted to. I wanted to leave on a jet plane never to come back again except for them. What about my family?

We were not going to make it this way. I knew because it was the awake that would not let me sleep. It was the numb submission to a husband who was always going to do what he wanted regardless of my hurt and I was raw ache when this all began. I hurt like a woman who had fallen down five flights of stairs only to find herself giving birth to the piano she had been trying to carry down by herself. I was pinned below in the tangle of my own guts, confused as to why it was that I was still expected to move.

“You will move forward Amber. You need to move forward.”

When my first business began I did not even have a product. I had no money. I had dependents. I had people depending on me, me the woman in pain and with no money. My friends were looking at me the exact same way, all expecting me to be someone great because that is how they see me. “You are amazing Amber.”

Amazing is the grace of God because I beg him for restored faith after he sends new torture. I have been tortured by this life and the world still loves me to smile. They beg for it because if I can’t get through it all then how can they? There is so much suffering in this world, but what could I possibly know about that?

I know that if suffering becomes your cause of liberation, you will be chained to a lifetime of suffering. I know that if illness plagues you chronically, you will never be well. You will become the identity of your mindset. I’ve only ever allowed my pain to be temporary, like a shot gun blast to the face. The explosion took off my head entirely so I let it go as a complete loss and created a new one. I wear many hats and I have many heads. The tricky part, and this is true of life and business, is that I am only ever able to wear one at a time. I can only wear one hat, and I only have one head.

If you are a professional photographer I want you to read this and then I want you to tell every person that you know who is in the same profession to follow my story and then buy my book. You should send me a friend request as well. Facebook allows 5,000. There is a cap on free. I’m going to tell you everything I know from my ten years of business and then I am going to expand on it by building a company capable of generating millions in revenue.

I started my second business after my first business failed. I made it through a decade of trial, error, and many, many, triumphs. I did wake up one day to the realization that I was trapped in my own pyramid of mistakes and that I needed to rebuild the entity, the structure, of A SMILE LIKE YOURS PHOTOGRAPHY.

I have been writing that business plan for three years. This page that you are reading and the video you see below (if you are on the blog) are the steps I am taking, the progress that I am making, and the value I represent, which is knowledge.

If you want to know how to build a million dollar company, I will tell you. How much would you pay for a product like that? If you think my idea is stupid, please know that I am perfectly fine with it. Unfortunately for you, there will be no money. No money for you.