The Bright Growth Podcast (for Wedding Creatives)

#001 Overcoming Fear and Following Your Passion

• Keith Pitts and Melissa Madden

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Embracing the Road Less Traveled: Overcoming Fear and Following Your Passion In this episode, Keith and Melissa, discuss the significance of taking the road less traveled, inspired by Robert Frost's iconic poem.

They share their personal stories of making unconventional life and career choices—Keith's switch from pre-med to photography, and Melissa's shift from a high-pressure job in New York City to a more fulfilling lifestyle.

The duo emphasizes the impact of societal expectations, the role of fear in decision-making, and the importance of following one's passion. Listen as they recount their move to Paris and how making brave choices has led to a more rewarding life. Join Keith and Melissa for an honest conversation about defining your path and finding true happiness.

00:00 Introduction to Keith and Melissa 00:07 Choosing the Road Less Traveled 01:18 Keith's Journey from Medicine to Photography 04:12 Melissa's Career Shift 06:55 The Fear Factor in Decision Making 08:17 Facing Judgments and Embracing Choices 10:11 Overcoming Personal Fears 14:20 The Howling Dog Metaphor 18:53 Redefining Success and Happiness 22:31 Planning and Executing a Life Change 24:19 Conclusion and Future Plans

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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Speaker 1:

Hi, we're Keith and Melissa Wandering, Mr and Missy.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome to today's podcast. So the other day, when you and I were talking about what is going to be the main focus of this podcast I know we were talking about travel, photography and also the road less traveled and then we came across Robert Frost. I should know that, I don't know. It's one of the first poems I think we read in school as a kid the Road Less Traveled and that got us thinking about people that we know in our lives that have taken well, just been a fork in the road and they've chosen the harder direction.

Speaker 1:

Again, you assume the harder direction because it's not the direction everybody takes. But sometimes, again, until you take that road, you don't know if it's harder or easier, because it's less traveled.

Speaker 2:

True, I mean you're right. It doesn't mean it's more difficult or it's the easier path, but it's probably the path that you were least likely to take based on your current situation.

Speaker 1:

Right, because most people are going to tell you, if you ask for advice or frequently don't ask for advice, that people are willing to give it to you anyway that they say well, why would you do that when, if you take this path, let's go. Then.

Speaker 2:

Life will be easier, or we know or we know it will happen Again.

Speaker 1:

Just quick little. I say I always say quick, but I always say quick. But when I decided to be a photographer, that was not my original goal, I was actually in school. I was in college, I was taking pre-med as a major and it was one class. I had taken the MCATs and the entire family was super happy and proud. Woo-hoo, keith's going to be a doctor.

Speaker 2:

And I decided to Burst their bubble burst.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I decided I was happier at that moment, having taken some classes in photography, that I couldn't think about anything else, like why would I continue on and uh, do something that I don't want to do anymore as much as something else I did want to do. I was good at medicine, having done at the navy and whatnot, and like, okay, doctor, seems like a great thing. Everybody's going to love the fact I'm a doctor.

Speaker 2:

Safe choice Blah blah, blah.

Speaker 1:

Safe choice, I know where the money's coming from. Blah, blah, blah, and so I dropped out of college, the one class left to take the MCAT. Everybody thought you must be on drugs, you've got to be crazy. That's just the dumbest idea I've ever heard, except for one person, and that was my mother.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank goodness.

Speaker 1:

My mother's like okay, does this make you happy? Yeah, that's why I want to do it, because it makes me happy. She's like, well, then do it. I fully support you.

Speaker 2:

That's such great advice, advice I don't think I don't want to say most parents don't give but a, I think, want their child to take a more sure path at an earlier point in their lives, just to, I don't know, get them set up for life. But it's nice when it's great, when a parent supports a decision like that, whether it's the right decision or not. But that's a great example, in my opinion, of coming to almost like a fork in the road. You could have gone left and gone to you know gone. The doctor, doctor path had potentially a successful career. Or you choose the photographer path, which probably fulfilled you.

Speaker 2:

Well, we don't know, we don't know if it's don't you don't know, we won't digress too much on this, but you chose a path that made sense for you at the time and fast forward all these years successful photography business for 30 years We've done very, very well. So it was a path you chose that. I always looked at you saying, oh my God, you never work a day in your life. So you opened my eyes up to also choosing different paths. So I don't know what direction we want to go with this, but I think I do want to interject one thing that I want to mention, and we do want to talk about fear, because a lot of times I think fear prevents us from taking a certain path, that, even if our heart is in it or emotionally, we really want to make that choice, or something within us that holds us back from making the choice that probably would make us happier.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think you've diverged from the well-worn path a number of times, but how about the time about when? Uh, when you were pregnant and decided it came to a fork in the road what you wanted to do?

Speaker 2:

so let's talk about that one well, I mean, I had a job for a very long time, a career in new york city. That's when we met. So 15 or 17 or 18 years, I worked for them and decided, as I was going on a maternity leave again, having witnessed you enjoying your career as a photographer and you saying you never worked a day in your life and I was working 12 hour days, six days a week, stressful, being called all the time and a lot of responsibility, which obviously owning a photography business is a ton of. I'm not wasn't trying to get away from responsibility, but at that time in my life I was ready for a different track, like something that fulfilled me more and made me happier. So that was definitely one of those and I don't know, I definitely wasn't afraid. I felt like I was making the right choice.

Speaker 2:

But I think you need something For me. I needed that push like okay, it's a clear cut, I'm going out on maternity leave, it's easier for me to separate from this company at that point. So I gave up a career that was lucrative and chose a less certain path, but I was okay with that Like at that point in my life. I don't know if that would have worked earlier in my life, but at that point in my life that was a path I was happy. I wasn't afraid at that point, but again, well, there's a couple other things I want to address. There's checkboxes in life, I think. As children, we're told go to school, which is a good one. You should go to school.

Speaker 2:

To go to college, though, is something that at least it's not for everybody, but it seems like looking at the student loan, debt and stuff like that in the US, obviously a lot of people are going to school that maybe shouldn't. Maybe there's another path. I mean, you know, my grandfather was a manual laborer. He had built a very nice life for his family and now there seems to be a shortage of people who are doing that Like. Your uncle was one of your uncles. Your uncle chose one more professional path and one also a trade that did very, very well and in this climate, this generation and our kids' generation, it seems like more kids are being forced to go down that path, and I do want to talk about how one day how we raised our kids to make their choices, but that's a subject for another day, but I think we have checklists You're supposed to get married, you're supposed to have kids, you're supposed to graduate from college, you're supposed to have that responsible job like a doctor, a lawyer, something.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people discourage their kids from the creative fields because they're not going to make enough money. And another subject for another day is how do you define happiness? And I think some people. You chose a path that was going to make you a happier person at that time in your life. Now you stayed on that path, but within that path, I'm sure there are other paths you could have taken as a photographer yeah, there's definitely, yeah, definitely, yeah again, that's a whole, that's a whole, yeah, we had again.

Speaker 2:

this is just. We're going to quickly touch on a bunch of things related to fear and making choices, because I do think sometimes when you're making a decision for yourself, especially a big decision like that, I mean, there's a lot of fear that can be wrapped in that Some people make big decisions without well, actually, what's interesting is that we're sitting here, we're living in Paris now, we've made a lot of decisions to get to this spot, which, for me, I wasn't afraid to make the decision to move to a foreign country. Yet sitting here right now making this video fills me with more fear than moving my family, my dogs, everything across the world, this right here, speaking about fear rather than just speaking to a camera.

Speaker 2:

I'm sweating.

Speaker 1:

I can speak to a bunch of people out there who's got a like one-on-one answer questions with no workshops, we talk to groups with no problem, for some strange reason talking to a camera with nobody nobody behind, and even I guess there was somebody behind it, but knowing that what's going?

Speaker 1:

there's a nine, potentially an unseen audience out there to who's going to judge, yeah who's going to judge, it doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter, but for some strange reason it's terrifying and uh, and it's just a chore to get to this point where we're doing this.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, it doesn't that go back to, I think, the reason why, when you do have those divergent paths that up in your life, a lot of people, including us, in a lot of times in my life I've chosen the path that had the least amount of judgment for me. Like, oh my God, you know what are people going to say. Melissa's doing that Even when I left. You know my hometown. Who does she think she is? You know you get those judgments that she thinks she's better than us or whatever it is. But you make that up in your head. You know that no one was saying that, no one's. Maybe you guys are going to watch this and think who are they? Their accents or this or they're speaking quick or whatever it is like. Maybe we will be judged, but so what?

Speaker 1:

yeah, in the end I can, as you're saying that of course I'm thinking back, but choosing judgment over whatever and I think think I did the exact opposite For some strange reason. I seem to have gotten judged a lot early on by everybody, but my mom and I just started to embrace it. I'm like, okay, if that's the path everybody's going to go down, I think I might choose the other one, just because it's not the one that my family might want me to go down or everybody wants me to go down. I just seem to naturally be drawn to this other path for my own weird reasons. I don't know what they are, I can't really describe them. They don't make any sense when you say them out loud, but they've worked for me.

Speaker 1:

Again, everybody's got their own path and there's no. I'm never going to be one to say it was going to be. You should have done this or that. Whatever you choose at the moment, that didn't get you hurt, killed or hurt other people or kill other people, I think, is completely a personal choice. Someone's going to have. You've got to.

Speaker 2:

We all have to come to our own reflections on that in the end, true true, and I think within our own lives or within our own careers, we make choices as well like that you might question or or wish you had done something different, but I just hearing you talk reminded me which you told that story the other day about, when you were, and was it miami? This makes me laugh I'm sorry again.

Speaker 1:

it's probably the scariest moment and most embarrassing moment all wrapped into one in my lifetime that I haven't somehow blacked out. Yeah, it was a long time ago. I was a model and I worked for an agency called Wilhelmina back in New York and they sent me down to Florida to build, like down to Miami to build up my book, like they did to a lot of people the things that I didn't like. I had no problem with modeling because just being on the other side of the camera, a thousandth of a second, 300, whatever I felt I could look good for any fraction of any given second.

Speaker 1:

But I hated runway work because that meant I had to walk down and walk back uninterrupted and there's any moment where, if I had, most of those moments are that it's all good, but if I had tripped, if my boots squeaked or if something happened, everybody would see it. I'd be embarrassed or humiliated. So I figured, the longer you it was like video two the longer you watched me, the more likely I was going to do something that I would regret, whereas you know any 250th, a thousandth of a second I could easily look still in a magazine.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it's yeah I went on a casting and also I I have an irrational fear of dancing and that one's one of those things like everybody's going into places like, oh well, why would you look? Why would you be afraid of dancing? Everybody else does, no one cares. And I always point to somebody in the room and say, look at that guy right there. He doesn't. Who's not dancing? Well, he doesn't care. I'm like you know, I never want to be the guy people are pointing to in the room, to be the example of how bad you can be and not care. So I'm like that never helped me. So I get on this casting and I go in this white room and what do they want? They want me to dance. I'm like, excuse me, I'm like what? Yeah, so literally I'm in this white empty. They turn the video camera 20s.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, somewhere in my early mid-20s they turn the record button on. They walked out. Thank God for that, because I might, I might, I might have walked out if they didn't walk out and so, but then I I did. I just sat there and I just started with no music, just started to dance in front of the stupid camera that was staring at me in a blank room, and the entire time I thought my head was going to explode. I'm pretty sure it was. I turned on every shade of red and I don't even know, and I pray that nobody ever watched that thing. But somewhere out there I'm hoping that somebody had mercy and just erased the thing or burned it, because this is back before I guess the internet did exist, but it was really fairly new.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely weren't uploading videos.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there was no. No. Youtube, there was no, uh, instagram. If that were the thing, I would probably have resigned and and just sat a corner for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2:

But what would have happened if they had liked what you had done? Would you have gotten a job that required you to dance?

Speaker 1:

yeah, somehow, I think, if I, it's a long time ago, because the details of it, outside of this mortifying moment, and the fact that it's out there, somebody potentially has this videotape.

Speaker 2:

I hope anyone does and I hope, if you're out there and you've seen, this, then that was me. And please, yeah, whatever.

Speaker 1:

Maybe it would be good for me if that got out there and I could just be humiliated, so I could get past the fact that there's nothing wrong. Really, really nothing bad can happen to me, other than I'm a little bit embarrassed, but that's not the worst thing in the world. But again, but if you think about things overcoming and that was one that I didn't really overcome, but I did fight through it Like I can't, I dance. I don't know if you know the Elaine dance.

Speaker 2:

Let's go back to Seinfeld, although I think everyone watches Seinfeld.

Speaker 1:

But I think I made Elaine look like a good dancer. So anyway, that's confronting a fear.

Speaker 2:

Well, it reminds me of this story I've heard many times over the last decade or so, of the howling dog story or the dog on attack story, where, in a neighborhood, I've heard it told multiple ways, but more or less it's the story of somebody hears a dog basically howling or whining, because, well, they go over to the owner and say is your dog okay? Blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, he's just sitting on a tack. Well, why doesn't he get off the tack? Well, basically because he's familiar with that pain and he doesn't know what will happen if he gets off the tack.

Speaker 2:

It could be worse, it could be better, but it's a great metaphor for all sorts of things in life, from you taking that chance with your modeling career, to people being in a relationship where they stay longer than they should because they're not sure. Again, to the, the divergent path like which one is it easier to stay with someone than it is to to leave? Or a career that you're unhappy with, a school that's not working out for you? There's a million scenarios where, even in day-to-day life, where it's easier to, just you know, maybe you're in debt, maybe you shop too much, whatever it is, and you just can't change what you're doing, because it's easier to just stay the course than it is to face that fear and figure out why you can't do something about it or why you don't want to do the right. That's not the right thing, the thing that would make you happier, yeah, or help your life.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm. So sometimes people are unwilling to suffer what they see as a setback and for a minor discomfort which would lead to a longer term gain, versus just staying the course, recognizing it's a slow but inevitable slope downward versus taking a quick dip and then coming back up the other side stronger.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, like an avoidance tactic yeah, there's a story in the times I'm not going to get into what I just saw today, which is absolutely tragic and uh but it's not some influencers that were living a life that they couldn't afford and led to absolute tragedy. What it really would have required is to look at the numbers and go, okay, this isn't sustainable, we need to do something different. But no, we'd rather continue on with that, which can't possibly end well.

Speaker 2:

But it's the fear of having to really face something at the moment versus, like you said, putting it off and eventually it catches up with you anyway, and that's whether it's a relationship, career relationship with your child, a significant other, your boss, whatever that is, and I think. Well, like I said, I think I'll bring up debt and financial issues, since you just did this again, that I bring it up again but to pretend something's not happening because the fear of getting off the tack, of actually doing something about it, and so again, we're touching on a myriad of issues right here relating to the divergent path, but really fear is what prevents people from making different choices yeah and again yeah and and fear.

Speaker 1:

We all have fears. It's kind of like God knows.

Speaker 1:

You do, yeah, but facing them can actually be. It's a challenge, it can be fun, it can be terrifying, but when you learn, if you just make it a game and find out that almost always again, except maybe the fear, even the fear of fire People become firemen Like nobody wants to run into a fire, but some people do it because, even though it's completely against human nature, people run into a fire to save other people. So, again, facing fears can have, even if it shows you whether you were right. Again, most of the time you're not. Most fears are irrational.

Speaker 2:

Well, I mean some are based in. If I had an abusive husband and I was afraid to leave the relationship, then that's based in honest fear. And if I didn't have a job and no money and couldn't support myself? I mean, there's reasons why people are prevented from making an obvious choice, but it also comes from within and like taking that chance on yourself.

Speaker 1:

Right, nothing will change you. The one thing you can guarantee is, if you don't change something, things aren't going to change. And if their situation is bad and you don't change it, at best it'll stay bad, but it will likely get worse.

Speaker 2:

But then you can have situations that are great, bringing us back into the story where, throughout our lives, we're 55 and 56, so we've had a lot of paths to choose to get to this point and most recently, two and a half years ago, moving here, we had everything going for us like we had a very busy photography business too busy probably, which might be why we forced ourselves to to choose a path where we were more present with our kids and kind of thinking in my head like they're going to be 18 and gone off to college or off to live their lives and like this is the only time.

Speaker 2:

This is what we have, like let's make the most of the time we have left with them and with our. You know our relationship and we were just working nonstop. And so you can say that we had everything going right. We had all the boxes checked, we had the house and the dogs and the kids and the career and everything's going well. But then we put the brakes on it ourselves and said, hey, let's, let's take this path over here, because it might change our lifestyle, like we will have be more present, have more time for family and well, we're never going to give up on photography and travel. That's part of our lives here. It's just we just decided to take that diversion path and move here and recreate our lives yeah, let's not, let's not forget the fact.

Speaker 1:

Also, all of our friends are back in the us, so it's not yet. So, not only so, again, so, not only do we, I can toss out that, but uh, yeah, we have to. We, we again the family's farther away and have to make a whole new set.

Speaker 2:

Well, again, because the friends we had understood and they're like oh good for you guys.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's not, we don't talk to them that they're not our friends anymore. Yeah, but it's just the idea that they're an ocean away and and the continent and then people say, well, why, why would you do that?

Speaker 2:

like everything, everything was going great. I mean, your life was perfect. But for me and I don't know how you feel about this I've never asked you directly like this. It's almost like I was sitting on attack. I wasn't nothing, nothing sorry if I made a sound nothing bad was happening, but I felt like what was bad that was happening is we're working too much, like we're chasing this. You know, dream this american dream, that that, like that, that merry-go-round, that you just you can't get off of it until you just get off of it. So I think I was sitting on that tack personally where I'm like, wow, like we have to slow this down, like we have to like live, you know, and not not, as we say in france, here it's the live to work, work to live. The US and France, they approach life a little bit differently.

Speaker 1:

Pretty much opposite.

Speaker 2:

So the fact that we recognize that you know A we're not getting any younger. Our kids are going to be leaving soon. Let's just take this path now, because it makes sense for our family.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So again, sometimes you just People think we're crazy and but sometimes it was resting on your laurels and what you're doing, the choosing success as it's uh, as it's defined by others. Don't let other people define your success.

Speaker 2:

It's only yours, so and I'll just throw it in because they, they, they.

Speaker 1:

What's good? They don't live your happiness, and they also don't. They also don't live your misery. So it's what, since they don't actually live in your shoes at all, define your life by your own criteria?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's by no means a complaint. We have wonderful people that we left behind. We had a wonderful career owning several photography businesses and, honestly, photography and us working hard allowed us all of these opportunities. So it was strategic and it wasn't just throw our hands up in the air and like we're out of here. It was.

Speaker 2:

We did have a dream board. We did have Paris on it for like 10 years or so I'm not, I don't remember. I do have the dream board, though One day I'll break it out and look. I think I put a date on it, but we did start visualizing things and creating a plan, not knowing when, like not knowing when, but we planted the seed in our. So whatever fear we had to face became so much easier because when you decide on that outcome that you want, I think it became easier because we just started making in our, at first, I think, just mentally, but then physically, by writing it down, like what are the steps to do this? So it became a lot less fearful when, a you've made the decision, b you put a date on it, and C you start working towards that, and that included working a lot harder with our business to make sure that you know we were in a position that we were able to do this without any problem financially, so with no help from anyone else.

Speaker 2:

This was done, you know, through our businesses. So anyway, I just wanted to bring that up because, while there certainly could be a lot of fear attached to that that path, once we kind of decided that we were going to do it, I think we buried a lot of the fears because we addressed every concern that we had, turned them into action steps. Basically, any objection became a step for us to create this reality for ourselves yeah, it worked and we're here and now and now we have a whole nother chapter to write, but this is uh again.

Speaker 1:

I always like to say life is just a bunch of stories. So it is so you want the stories to be interesting, and what we want. We want this to be kind of like. Uh like in the star wars, the dune trilogy or whatever your favorite, your favorite series of uh movies or books are, I suppose. Why just have the one? Sequels don't always work, but you never know until you make it, so let's just keep writing until we choose to stop.

Speaker 2:

That sounds good to me and I again touched on a few things and we plan on touching on a few more. This is very a surface scratch well, we appreciate you stopping by and we definitely plan on.

Speaker 1:

I want to have oh good dialogue and guests and I say I, I think we we when we have, uh, actually an interview that we did with the person who we both felt had a uh a very good story about taking the road, less traveled, had a different original outlook in life, diverged and is a very successful travel photographer at Mount Deutile. So stay tuned for what I think was a really good interview.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic, and I think that's this community that we actually want to build. We want to talk to not like-minded people to us, because it doesn't have to be about travel or photography or moving to Paris. I mean. This is about making choices that work for you as a person, as an individual, as a family, and finding putting the fear aside or working through the fear and finding the you know the finding. And finding the you know, using the challenges to realize it.

Speaker 1:

For yourself, and the overall arc of this will be the road less traveled. So, david Frost, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and I will post that. I think it would be a good idea to probably post it. Actually, the poem was longer than I remembered.

Speaker 1:

People only remember the end of it. I took the road less traveled, exactly versus what that even meant to him.

Speaker 2:

We're not sure, but we'll post the full poem so that you can see the inspiration for us doing this, because this, this is something like we said. This is what we're afraid of, right, this is our fear sitting here right now we'll put our money where our mouth is, literally our or our mouth anyway. Well, anyway, see you next week or see you next time. See you next time thanks a lot, bye, bye, bye.