Beryl Young is the founder of an online community for deeply feeling, giving moms called Recapture Self. Ready to reclaim their identity beyond storyteller, snack maker, and boo-boo kisser. (I love that!) She offers photography classes, both in-person and online, and has a fabulous community that helps moms capture everyday moments and make creativity part of their lives. Listen Now 1:07 - Beryl’s Sad-But-Important Start to Photography Like many moms, Beryl didn’t set out to start a business. Her story has a sad beginning, but we hope you will be able to listen because it’s a very important part. (Beryl's story includes infant loss.) In 2009 joined a 365 Project challenge with her friend. 365 Project is a visual photo diary, which challenges participants to take a photo every day for an entire year. Beryl quickly began learning from the community of other 365ers on Flickr. Around the same time, Beryl and her husband were talking about planning a family and one thing she knew she wanted was amazing pictures of her family. A quick look at newborn photographers was enough to give Beryl instant sticker shock! Though she totally values professional photography now, Beryl was determined to learn how to take amazing photos herself! 3 months into the photo project, she got pregnant...and wasn’t feeling super great, so her photography project was put on hold. Sadly, at 20 weeks gestation Beryl found out that her daughter was very sick and she passed away. Losing her daughter, Bella, was hands down the hardest trial Beryl has ever had to walk through. But, yet, through that loss, she was inspired to start photographing again. Eventually, Beryl launched a small blog and began to share her photography with short captions. People starting reading, responding, and eventually asked her to photograph their families. And a business was born out of this sad chapter in her life. 5:25 - Sometimes The First Business Isn’t the Right Business Beryl started to receive requests from friends and family for photo sessions. Though she booked sessions for a solid year, she knew it wasn’t quite the right thing for her. The more she worked as a photographer, the more she realized that it meant the most to her to photograph her own sweet girl! (Yes, Beryl welcomed a second daughter!) Beryl knew something was lacking in the industry: photography workshops for parents. 6:34 - Teaching Photography In Person During her entire photography journey, Beryl worked full-time as an elementary school teacher. She taught technology, which was a unique role in that she got to work with both the students and teachers, training each group in relevant tech tools. She had an ah-ha moment! Business for moms is a place where skill sets and passions collide. During maternity leave, she developed the idea for a class to teach moms how to take beautiful photos of their own kids. She developed the bulk of her class and then got to the hard work of promoting her newly developed course. Initially, Beryl partnered with a local moms group and asked them to advertise the class for her. (Keep in mind, she was promoting her course before Facebook offered ads!) In the first hour, she had 12 registrations. That’s truly amazing for an in person class! She taught this in-person class quarterly. And eventually built a suite of online classes. 9:36 - Teaching Photography Online The transition to teaching online was harder for Beryl. Her very first online class was free, geared toward any mom who has experienced pregnancy loss. She learned a lot in that course creation process. MOMTOGRAPHY™ ONLINE felt a lot different to create. Her baby loss class was a lot more heart centered. And MOMTOGRAPHY™ ONLINE required far more technical details. It took two years to really develop her content. Actually creating her content was fairly easy for Beryl. Which her background as a teacher, she had lots of experience breaking down a  complicated concept into its easiest parts. Finding time to put together the