The Brand Identity Crisis

Since I pivoted from Indian Wedding Photography to Brand Photography in 2019, I’ve been trying to figure out where I “fit in” in the branding space. And as each year passed, I lost sight of my identity and voice without even realizing it. And I see it happening in entrepreneurship every day.

As an Indian Wedding photographer, I did little to zero marketing. Most of my business was word of mouth and it was going great. Less focus on marketing trends and tactics, and more focus on my craft. I was an Indian wedding photographer from 2010 until 2019, and it was the most creative era of my career.

I loved capturing these events, especially as a Generator in Human Design. There were endless activities happening around me for my Sacral to respond to. My intuition and instincts soared, leading me exactly to the perfect moments at the exact right time, capturing images you couldn’t plan for if you tried.

But, Indian weddings are exhausting and demanding. 3 days, sometimes 4, of events to capture. Thousands of images to cull through and deliver. I was so proud of the fact I did my own editing and had wedding galleries delivered within 2 weeks of the event. Eventually, the work started to wear on me and I was getting tired of being away on Saturdays and being too tired to do much of anything on Sunday.

One weekend, as I started to get ready for another wedding, my son said to me, “You’re going to miss my game again, aren’t you?” That was in the Spring of 2019, and by Fall of 2019, I launched the branding side of my business.

Except, brand photography is about marketing a business, and I hadn’t done any marketing in a decade. I had no idea what marketing even looked like in 2019. Even still, there was a knowing that this was the path to take.

So, I trusted it and started taking action. I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning or even how I was going to make this work. At the same time, I had never felt more confident that it would work. I trusted my intuition; I believed in myself more than I ever had in my life and within two years, I built a six-figure business. More than I ever made with Indian weddings.

Happily Ever After?

Now, here is where Disney would cut the story and say she lived happily ever after. But that’s not at all what happened.

Even though I continued making six figures, I was slowly burning out, dreading going to photoshoots and continuously feeling like I was going to lose it all at any moment. I panicked. I became terrified of losing what I had built, so I started to look for mentors and courses for answers on how to keep it all going.

The first mastermind I joined is where I started to lose my identity and my voice, without realizing it. I was hesitant to join, looking at the deliverables and thinking “this is for someone just getting started…I’m past this”. The creator was convincing, made me feel like I belonged (childhood wound), so I invested.

When I got inside I realized that my intuition was right. Most everyone in there was struggling to get business or working full-time trying to make enough to go full-time with photography.

This is also the mastermind that I was introduced to Human Design, but that’s another story for another day.

After going through her mastermind, my biggest takeway was the idea that I could do exactly what she was doing. Teaching others how to build a brand photography business. I mean, I had done the same thing so if she could do it, why couldn’t I?

The Beginning of my Brand Identity Death

And that was the beginning of the loss of my brand identity. I became so fixated on the idea of mentoring other photographers that I became obsessed with it.

Meanwhile, I was executing the photography side of my business, taking courses on creating courses, and hiring mentors to help me build out my courses. I worked with social media managers to help with marketing it. I even joined a membership for like $250/month that gave you IG prompts where you fill in the blank to match your industry. All with promises of “do it this way and you’ll succeed.”

None of what they told me to do worked.

And slowly, over the years, my brand identity and voice died.

To top it all off, my creativity plummeted, my instincts grew silent, and my mind talked louder than intuition. Even still, I was afraid to walk away. Afraid of what that would say about me.

I was afraid that would make me a failure, or worse…that I wasn’t valuable and didn’t belong.

I didn’t realize it then, though. I kept telling myself that everything I was building was meant for me. I thought this was my brand identity. To be a mentor…a coach…a leader.

It wasn’t until the fall of 2026 that life became chaotic and everything I was doing became too much. It was wearing on my health, and after a health crisis in 2024, I knew I had to make a massive shift.

Over the course of 3 weeks, I walked away from multiple commitments in my business and personal life.

Suddenly, I could breathe. I rested. My chest felt lighter. I started realizing what was really driving me to create all of the courses and the membership in my business. It was fear.

When I pivoted from weddings to branding in 2019, I had no fear about making the pivot. There was trust, creativity, intuition, and, most importantly, a clear sense of who I wanted to be in business.

It wasn’t until I started fearing I’d lose what I’d built and looking externally for answers that the identity I had built a thriving business on began to crumble.

Through all of this, I’ve learned that there are multiple signs and symptoms that your brand identity is dying a slow death. And I believe that if you are brave enough to admit where you’re handing your brand identity and voice over to someone else, that’s when you can start to take back your brand power.

Signs and symptoms that your brand identity is dying:

• Following someone else’s framework because it worked for them and others
• Following trends even though they don’t feel like you
• Following content calendars you downloaded for free because it says this is what you should post about
• Following templates from a membership or content creator, just like 100’s or 1000’s of other people in your industry are doing
• You’re not sure what to say or how to say it when it comes to content creation or marketing (including sales calls)
• You’re using vague or generalized language in your marketing
• You’re asking yourself, why bother, nobody is engaging much less inquiring
• You don’t feel confident posting what you created until you run it through ChatGPT or Claude to make it sound better
• You’re using AI to create everything because it’s easier and saves you time

This is what I see happening across entrepreneurship on a daily basis, and I stand by the title of this post that it’s a brand identity crisis.

Friend, I know, trust me. I’ve done alllll these and then some. It can be really hard to admit that these strategies that are “supposed” to help you are actually slowly killing your brand. It stings a bit, especially if you’ve invested a lot of time, energy, and money into them.

But if you have, my question for you is: is it working?

And if you’re a personal brand, your identity and voice are the things people are buying, not just your services.

I’m not new to business. I’m not new to pivoting, but this is the beginning of something new. Reclaiming my identity and my voice in business without fear and without doubt.

This post…this story I hope plants a seed of awareness so that when one of the signs or symptoms mentioned above surfaces, you catch it. I believe awareness is the first step towards change…to reclaiming your power in your business, and it’s the first step to breaking free from a homogenized industry.

This blog is my story and the story of others doing this work alongside me through Human Design and photography.

P.S.

I don’t blame a single mentor, coach, program or membership that lead me down this road. Most of the experts genuinely created their programs and memberships from a heart space of servicing others. To help others thrive. They just did it in the only way they knew how…their way. And yes, they helped MANY people. But there’s even more people they couldn’t help…just like me.

This is why I love Human Design. It’s the science of differentiation; it shows you YOUR path, which is why I use it in my work with clients.