What are you most afraid of? With Michael W. Rogers full unedited version

Michael W. Rogers, a photographer, discusses his fear of receiving payment for his photographs. He explains that this fear stems from childhood experiences and carries into his adult life. He also talks about his journey in photography and the challenges he faces working with different generations and dealing with gatekeepers. He shares personal anecdotes about racism and communication in today's technology-driven society. The fear he experiences when clients pay him for his work is rooted in his past experiences and the uncertainty that comes with the photography industry. Well, this is Kristen Olive or Christina coming at you live on or just a recording and we are here asking Michael W. Rogers, photographer, what he is most afraid of. Welcome back, Mr. Rogers. How are you? This is interesting. Thank you for having me. Oh, no problem. It's amazing. I just got done talking about this this morning. Oh, really? Yeah. I'm working with a voice coach and I've been doing it now for three weeks and it's very interesting that we're discussing how the number one problem with you selling in sales in general but in photography is the sound of your voice. You don't have enough time for me to get into all of this and I'm still learning. This is the first time I actually work with somebody because you know me. You're not going to tell me anything to do. Hard head as I am. But something clicked. So I started working with her and then she started clicking with me and today the topic was what you're asking me now. So are you ready for this? Oh, absolutely. Let's get into it. So what were you learning? Well, can I ask you a question before I answer it? Sure. How did you stumble upon this particular topic? Well, it was a school question and I'm supposed to ask my friend or whoever what they're most afraid of. And actually I think it's a good topic to go with and I decided to just ask you because I know you have some interesting lifestyles. Well, my fear, my scaredness goes all the way back to when I was a kid. I didn't realize it until after my mother passed away. And to make a long story short, when my father left the family, I turned into a scared little boy and I carried it into my adult life. That's a long talk in itself, but by the same token, that's what it was. So here I am in photography and I've been through a lot of things in my life where I was really, truly scared. Driving a truck is scary enough just even looking at the vehicle, more so driving it. And I've also almost lost my life driving a truck twice. It's amazing, too, because I almost lost my life in the same spot I was driving over down a summit going east down on Interstate 80, going down the hill. And it was snowing and that was scary. But as of today, if there's anything that I am truly afraid of is when I take a photograph of someone or something and the public likes it and pays for it, pays me for it, that scares me. Why does that scare you? I've always wondered why, because I see you posting it on Facebook sometimes. Well, first and foremost, it's the truth. Okay, and at 70 years old, you just get to a point, a couple of things happen and you get to this age. I'm not going to say I'm old, but people have told me certain things when you hit certain ages in your life, and this one's true also. It starts in your 60s, but, you know, I'm 70 now. So, like, for instance, at 70 years old, you find yourself this thing that just don't impress you anymore. Yeah, I get that at 42. Well, the thing is that, I mean, there's this thing. Here I am in photography. I started in my 50s, and here I am 70, and I'm going through the normal photography journey that everybody goes through. But some of the things I find interesting just really does not impress me. One of the things it does is impress me, and I have to catch myself, because people will walk up to me and tell me these are potential customers, okay? So I have to walk. I have to be careful, because as sarcastic as I can be, I'm really good at upsetting you or pissing you off. So when someone comes up to me and goes, I'm not photogenic, and I go, oh, yeah, really? And your point's what? Okay. You know, you're talking to the wrong person that you're telling you're not photogenic, and then 10 minutes later I see you with the cell phone plop right in front of your face. Really? Okay. But the photography thing, my journey was pretty special, pretty unique, but a lot of realizations came to me from the time I started photography up to now. And one of them was I get really nervous when I do a good job for somebody and they pay me for it. A lot of it comes from the fact that when you start out in this journey, you're doing it wrong, okay? Okay. You're doing it wrong, but you doing it wrong is a part of your journey where you get to do it right. Remember, we had this conversation earlier. Okay. So, you know, I'm doing portraits and head shots. I'm in Las Vegas. 95% of my life was spent in Alaska. And people, okay, Vegas and Alaska are almost one and the same, but then again, there's two different cultures, okay? I'm 70, and the clientele that I'm dealing with, you know, I'm dealing with Generation Z. Let's get right to it. Whatever they call them, okay? Uh-huh. And I'm a baby boomer, and they hate us, okay? We did everything wrong. And I'm just going like, okay, well, I'm sorry, but I drank a lot of liquor and we listened to some great music. Yeah. Okay. That's the part that doesn't impress me, okay? You hear all these generations all upset because we're the baby boomers. Okay, fine. All right. And your point is what? If it wasn't for us, you wouldn't be here. You know, then you got the millennials. You know, I got ten kids, and everybody's split through all these, and I'm going like, fine, have fun. But in photography, I was doing it wrong for so long, and I was bound and determined I was going to get it right, and you weren't going to tell me how to get it right. I was going to figure it out. And I didn't know at the time that in photography you have to suck at it to be good. Correct. Okay. The worst thing you can do in photography, especially starting out, is go on YouTube. Okay. That's the worst thing. The other one is being on social media. But this is the world we live in. So, like, for instance, if I didn't have these mechanisms in place, how would I get my name out? So I have to kind of accept it. But there have been people who I've done good work, I've gotten paid good money, and I was waiting for the next week for the shoe to drop. Because that's another thing that happens in photography. Whether you do it bad or do it good or whatever, you don't find out anything until about a week later, ten days later. My first year in Las Vegas, I would always find out a week later from a third party. Nobody would come up to me and look me in the face and say, hey, you screwed this up. And see, I'm so straightforward, you know, this is going to be controversial, but I'm going to say it anyway because I'm 70 years old. Thank God for the KKK. At least they were straight up and honest to call me a nigger and we just went on about our business. There was no game slayed, no nothing. We don't like you because you're black. Okay. Want to go get a beer? Sure. That's an interesting take on that. You're darn right it is. You're darn right it is. So here I am now dealing with, and photography is bad. You don't know if you did it right, wrong, or indifferent. And then you've got to deal with gatekeepers. And for those who don't know what a gatekeeper is, a gatekeeper is a person that will see your work and talk bad about your work, but the verbiage that he uses is not like, he won't look you straight in the face and go, that's a piece of crap. They won't do that. You have to figure it out the other way. When I was in high school, I wanted to be in radio. So I went to this senior high school and they had this job fair. And I'll never forget it. In fact, it's what made me get into radio. Okay. But I walked up to the guy and said, I want to get into radio here or you won't make it. I go, why? He said, because you sound black. I go, what does black sound like? Now, I grew up the exact opposite. I didn't have an urban flair to my voice. My parents, my family, were so big into the English language. They were so big into they didn't care if I didn't go to college, but they always said to me that if you learn how to speak and enunciate your words properly, you're going to get somewhere in the world. So to all my friends, who the majority of them were black, I sounded like I was white. And then I got the term being called Uncle Tom. But, see, as I'm telling you this, they told me this to my face. I can deal with it. There was no hiding. There was no talking behind your back. And photography is the exact opposite from clients and other photographers. So I'm not making this up to boast my duh. I'm just telling you the truth. So at this point, when clients give me money and they say I did a good job, it scares the living daylights out of me. Does that make any sense to you? Absolutely. What did you get out of it? Don't be offended by the very thing. Christina, this is the way life was as I was growing up, and I didn't go through a third of it from the generations behind me. Do you understand what I'm saying? Oh, absolutely. Okay. I got spanked. Oh, I got my butt kicked because my uncle and I were talking about races. And back then when I was growing up, you had Negro and you had colored. And I said, well, I'm colored. And my uncle got so mad he took me out of that car and whooped my butt. He says, don't you ever let me hear you ever say that again. You're a Negro. That's it. So, you know, those things back then up to now, and it's sad because we got all this technology. We got all this stuff, social media, YouTube. You got cell phones that cost you $1,600. Do you ever think anybody would actually just pick up the phone and call and say, hey, how you doing? No, they want to text. That's true. And then they want to wait. You know, you're trying to have a conversation over texting. You don't hear back from them for two or three days, and the first words out of their mouth are, sorry to interrupt you, my phone died. For two or three days, really? Yeah, now you can find out. You know, you can see the actual, did they check it? My phone shows. If it's colored up, that means they read it and whatnot. And then if it's not colored, then it does. And then it will tell me, oh, well, their phone's off. They might not be around or something. Yeah. You know, I went through all of that. And I hope this answers your question for your class, because at this point in my life, personally, professionally, especially at the age, I just can't hold back anymore. I never played games in the first place. Okay, I never played games. Okay. And photography, I'm just now to the point. It was said to me today, Michael, it's okay for you to charge $42,000 for a head shot. When you say that, shut up, and then the next words out of your mouth should be, these are MasterCard. That's it. Yeah, photographers have a problem with pricing. And the pricing thing goes, there's something, it's an internal thing. They just feel, they just don't feel confident in their pricing. But, like, with everything else in photography, a therapist or a guru or a YouTube video is not going to, you're not going to figure it. You have to decide. When you're ready to decide to charge $42,000 for a head shot, then you'll do it. Yeah, that's true. Now, see, if somebody paid me $42,000 for a head shot, I'd be scared out of my mind. Is this making sense? Yep. Okay. So, I hope that helped you. I just don't want to be a fake to you. No, it definitely wasn't a fake. That came from your heart. And, yeah, that makes sense, honestly. You know, sooner or later I'm going to be gone. And you're going to be running this whole shebang on your own. And, you know, I always, people always say, in fact, you said it during your podcast, how do you want to be remembered? And I remember I told you it was the guy that didn't quit. And you know my story from start to finish on how I got to this part. Nobody's rich here, people, okay? Nobody's rich here. But I'm a pretty good photographer. I'm really good at what I do. But I paid a price to get to this point. And if I'm going to help somebody else along this way, which I'm assisting this person, Christina, then I'm not going to pull any punches with her. This is what it is. So would you say that, honestly, like you said in the broadcast, what are you most afraid of? Are you afraid of quitting? Would that be like your major? No, I won't quit. But, I mean, would that be something that you would be afraid of is quitting? No, no, no. I, when I came into photography, it was at a bad time in my life, okay? And I came into it to get my mind off of the past. And it took my, well, the thing was, it took my mind off of the past. But when I came to Las Vegas in 2014, I was living in my car for two years, and when I made the decision that I was going to be this thing called a photographer, the one thing that was embedded in my mind, that still embedded in my mind was that under no circumstances I would quit. But there were things that I was afraid of. There were things about me I didn't know until I picked up a camera. There were things I didn't know. You know, I would probably still be married now that I know about women from picking up a camera. I had no idea. So I was like, okay, so I don't get scared of quitting. You have to kill me to quit. That makes sense. But the other stuff that comes along with it, okay, the journey of not doing it right, not doing it right, not doing it right, not doing it right. And believe me when I tell you that not doing right was 85% self-inflicted. I was the problem. So you finally do it right. Somebody pays you for it. They love you. They think you're the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and you're sitting here waiting for the shoe to drop. Do you understand now? Mm-hmm. Is it something that you can get over with? Yeah. As of today, with this voice coach, one of the things that I found out was, you know, I keep turning this phone off, and it keeps making noise. Why do they do that? This is messing up your broadcast. So I'm going to turn it off. Okay. When I discovered something about my past that led me up to photography, and one of the first things that was said to me is, instead of you trying to forget your past, it's never going to go away. But there are tactics that you can use to get through it. So let me break this down to you with this thing about my past and everything else. I'm learning something from a voice coach that affects sales. So, in other words, one of the big reasons why photographers or salespeople have problems selling is the sound of their voice. Okay. You have what is called a mask that comes over you. For instance, the hardest thing for photographers is to transition to the price, ask for the price, or give them the price, and pick up. The sound of your voice changes. Remember I used to tell you that everything is fine with a consultation until you get to the price, and then everything changes, people's voice changes, and everything else like that? That's what I'm going through. Well, it was discovered that a lot of that came from my past as going back as much as five years old. My voice changes for certain things that happen. The person who said to me today about my photograph, she goes, oh, my God, oh, my God, the pictures that you take are from your past, from that bad period that you were in. And she said, where did that come from? I said, well, when I went through it, I needed something to take off my mind, and I thought if I took a good picture, people would like me. And now we get up to me talking to you about what scares me about a profession that I love, and instead of shucking and jiving you, I'm telling you the truth. And the tone of my voice, I'm not turning you off. You're listening to me. I can feel it, and I know that your audience can feel it. Okay? If I take a good picture and you like it and pay me, it scares the living daylights out of me. Can I get over that? Sure. Will it ever go away? Nope. I'm done. Sounds good.