Getting Real with Jaime

Real Talk….friends and business can make for a good combo!

Friends – they, not cotton, are the fabric of our lives. It’s no coincidence that one of the best sitcoms ever (at least to our generation) bares the same name. Friends. You remember – they laugh together, the laugh at each other, they cry together, live together, work together, eat together, share life together. Friends.

Think about it we choose our friends, we rejoice with friends, we cry with friends, we laugh and giggle, we let our guard down, we open our hearts and pour out our dreams to our friends. And that becomes the basis for this post! I am who I am today because of the friends that I have in my life. Some allow me to be runner Jaime, some allow me to be mommy Jaime, some allow me to be I’m-not-so-fashionable-and-need-some-help Jaime! And I love each and every one of my friends for who they are and the role they play in my life. Some have multiple roles! Some of have a season of intense friendship, some have a season of being an acquaintance.  The best and most real friendships are the ones that we can be honest with who we are and what we believe in. I remember reading in Jen Hatmaker’s book 7 Experiment that her real friends come into her home and eat with her family, they see dirty shoes at the door, dirty dishes in the sink because this is real life and we are real people. That sentence always stuck with me. So if you enter my house and it is a “hot mess” then consider yourself a real friend!  No, but in all honesty, it is true. When we can put down the pretend perfect and be real we then invite people into our hearts and to share in our lives. Some of it is fun and quirky, some of it is messy and yucky, the best parts of it are real and genuine.

So, I often have people ask me about our business. It goes something like this:

How long have I been doing it?    This is our second full calendar year.

Did I get a degree in photography?   No, self taught and we attended some workshops with some of the top photographer’s in the industry.

Do I have a studio?  Yes.

Do I work with anyone?   Oh yes, I work with some of my best friends.

LONG PAUSE.

Oh, really? How is that working out for you?   Great, couldn’t be better!

I get it. Business and friendships aren’t meant to last together. Well, newsflash we plan on breaking that trend! We have a very good understanding of when to talk business, when to shelve business and deal with life and our NUMBER 1 rule of thumb with our friendship and the business….DO NOT GET OFFENDED. This is a hard one because so many people (myself included) can be easily offended. Life happens, things get said and done and most of the time it is harmless and unintentional. We put our friendship before ourselves, we put our friendship before the business and we have come to an agreement that we brainstorm all of our ideas. We throw them out on the table and discuss them…sometimes for months, sometimes for days and some just a few hours or minutes! This works for us and I can honestly say that I am beyond encouraged daily and blessed daily to be working with Jenny and Kate.

So this little business that started as a dream between 2 friends is growing. We invited a 3^rd friend to work for us and she accepted. We pray together, cry together, share together, laugh together, work together, and best of all we dream together about more than just our business.