How do you take the right risks? A photographer and brand builder answer | David Suh and Molly Graham

0:06You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Our original series, TED Intersections, is back for a new season. This series features unscripted conversations between speakers and experts taking on subjects at the intersection of their expertise. In this conversation, David Suh, a portrait photographer and TikTok's King of Poses, sits down with startup consultant Molly Graham to answer the question, how do you find the courage to take risks? They touch on a lot of topics, including confidence, authenticity, success, and how to find the real you.

0:54I think I thrive on fear. The bad version of it is like I get bored easily. And the good version is that I love being on learning curves so steep that I'm terrified I'm going to fall off of them. I think I've learned to make it a trigger for like, oh, you got to like try this or you got to do this because you're going to learn something and you're going to learn what you're capable of sort of in spite of the fear.

1:33Can I get you to tell the red dress story? Can we tell the random story? And then you can ask me questions? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so in COVID, I think you started playing around with social media. And you said that you put something online and it blew up. Will you tell that story? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So quarantine, I couldn't take any more clients. So I tried to stay optimistic. A lot of the peers around me were being really sad. And I was like, you know, let me see what I can do. Let me take the abundance of time as a blessing. So TikTok was a big thing then. And I was like, what if I just share the joys of what I do?

2:19And I wanted to tell the transformation that goes on in my small Sacramento studio of my clients coming in really shy, disconnected from their bodies and then transforming into this like beautiful like human being in front of the camera but i only had myself so i played both characters of myself as photographer and then also my clients except to play my client i was like huh maybe i'll just like take the studio like red dress that we have and i'll put on myself a wig and then a little flower crown too. And then I just acted shy, but also glamorous at the same time. And I guess people really love that.

3:02You said it blew up. Yeah, it blew up overnight. And what did that change for you? I was so focused on photography. I thought like I would put all my eggs in one basket of, oh, like David can bring value to the world by being a photographer. But I realized then that, huh, like the more I can be me, it seems like I can bring more value to a wider audience. And I was so focused on just like, let me get better at this, better at this. That this was such a huge awakening to being David and exploring David to his fullest potential. And just thriving as me and realizing, oh, I can be accepted by being myself fully.

3:58Yeah, totally. That was like a huge value awakening for me. Yeah. But I also know you had a little bit of a similar moment of publishing something online. Yeah, like 10 years ago, I'd spent probably six years at Google and Facebook and then a couple of years helping build a little startup. And, um, somebody approached me about like publishing some of the things that I'd learned. And I had this, um, thing I used to say to people when I was like coaching or mentoring them on my team about how you have to get good at giving away your Legos. That was my like phrase for teaching people to like learn to let go of things and to embrace change as like the companies that I worked on were changing and growing so fast that it's like, it's very, a very emotional process for people.

4:49and it often causes you to want to like hold on to the past, right? To hold on to what you know. And so for some reason, my brain works in weird metaphors and I came up with this metaphor of like kinder or nurse learning to share their Legos. And so I published this article with these folks about basically saying one of the best things you can do if you're inside of these companies that are growing and changing is to learn to give away your Legos, which essentially was like learn to grow as your company grows, learn to change as your company evolves. and I don't know I think I did it as a favor to a friend and it felt like something that might be useful to people that were inside of these rapidly scaling companies and it was my first experience with like something taking off and taking on a life of its own to the point where I didn't understand what I had people emailing me from like big old companies folks from Safeway and places that I had not intended it for.

5:44And little tiny companies, like I remember a founder in Nigeria emailed me and just said, this was just like so helpful to me. I can't tell you how powerful it was. And it really helped like normalize the situation I was in. And for me, it was eye opening in terms of like, sometimes the thing you intend or the thing that you put out in the world, you meant it one way, but it has this much broader audience and this much broader meaning to other people. But it also taught me, like, I think I had spent a long time building companies and thought that that was the main way that I was going to help, which is a, which is definitely a word in my, in my career.

6:24And then I discovered that there was a way to connect with people that I would never meet and be able to like help folks that like were on the other side of the world that I was never going to encounter through my like day-to-day work, you You know, did you get a lot of like more questions that followed up? Because it's all those things where, you know, when you help solve something, then there's more questions. Yeah. It takes you on a journey. Right. Absolutely. Just get more. I mean, for me, like I started getting a bunch of questions from people. I was like, I guess I can start answering a bunch of these.

6:58Yeah. Same thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I now do these things called Legos talks. Companies will when they are going through hyper growth. But honestly, just when they're going through a lot of change, they'll reach out and ask if I can come in and talk to their team. And I always call them group therapy sessions because really what I'm doing is going in and just saying like, hey, everybody, it's going to be OK. You know, everything you're going through is both like emotional and normal. It does not mean anything is wrong. But yeah, it led me to like connecting with all these different companies. And I think, you know, after many years, it's led me to what I do now, which is basically like coach and mentor startup founders and startup leaders.

7:39So but yeah, tell me about the kinds of questions you got after the red dress. I mean, as you talked about getting response and questions from different parts of the world, I would get a bit of that too. People would enjoy the content differently. Some people would say, wow, the way you move your body reminds me of an airline stewardess. That was a big chunk of people. like that's what they were mesmerized by i'm like what about the whole transformation where i go from shine like what about the acting yeah they're like no it was who's that i was like oh they didn't care about the posing yeah but other folks are like wow you seem to know posing really well so like david what about me because i don't look like you and i'm i'm tall or i have a different body I'm curvier, I'm skinnier, and all this kind of stuff.

8:43And I just started to answer as much as I could. Yeah. But I also learned so much from answering those. Yeah. Because I also realized I didn't know the answer to many of those. Yeah. So I had to do a lot of... A lot of the traditional photography education and everything I learned didn't answer a lot of those questions for me. Because it was so... The questions were so human. It was so like, David, what about me? I want to find representation. But that's not how I learned posing. Posing was just, this is how you look pretty. You create triangles and you make it dynamic. And you want to look skinnier, so do this and suck in your stomach.

9:30But that's not what resonated with everyone. And that doesn't work on everyone. And it taught me a really big lesson of recognizing that I can help everyone. But to do that, I have to shed this past knowledge that I thought was the Bible. Yeah. And I have to learn through just helping people for who they are. Mm hmm. Well, you I'm curious because I bet. Well, I bet publishing online in general, but I'm guessing in that first couple of years where you got more and more followers was scary. Like I'm betting it was scary to put yourself out there and to decide what to engage with and what to ignore.

10:17So will you talk about that fear and like that process of learning how to do that in spite of fear? oh man i mean i i thought a lot about risk and also the fear and um i mean something that i had to really come to get better at is receiving the comments yeah and um because overwhelmingly in the beginning it'd be a lot of positive comments yeah and i'd start to i start to create my foundation of confidence from those positive comments yeah but i realized i would quickly crumble when i would start getting the negative comments then i realized there's no foundation because i'm relying on like so many whether it's positive or negative um so that that was that was a whole dizzy how'd you find the foundation oh i had to do a lot i had to do a lot of what does David want?

11:21What does David like? What makes David happy? And that's a whole different journey because I realized I do that for my clients. I never found that same patience and kindness for myself. But that's a whole different journey. Did you have any fears of putting yourself out there? Because there's so many experts in that field of like operations, startup, it's such a huge thing now. Totally. Were there any fears around like judgment from that crowd who are also like experts in your field? Yeah. But also this new demographic of people who were looking up to you and who want to find like a breath of fresh air.

12:07Yeah. I would say, number one, I think I thrive on fear. Oh. Um, like I feel like my whole career, the bad version of it is like I get bored easily. And the good version is that I love being on learning curves so steep that I'm terrified I'm going to fall off of them. And when the learning curve starts to like slow down is when I get bored. And so I do think that like being scared for me is, I think I've learned to make it a trigger for like, oh, you got to like try this or you got to do this because you're going to learn something and you're going to learn what you're capable of sort of in spite of the fear.

12:55and I'm like a, I'm a people pleaser, you know? So judgment is hard for me. Like your world of online comments, like I do a little bit of publishing on like LinkedIn and Substack and, you know, I get a negative comment and it'll throw me for a loop. But part of it is because you can't be in a conversation with someone. You know what I mean? Like online's not great for that. And when it's, when it's a real conversation with someone, like I can, I can talk to anyone, Right. I can have like a thoughtful, robust conversation with somebody I violently violently disagree with. But online, it's just people throwing throwing grenades, you know, and running in the other direction, which is not anyone's best, you know, place.

13:36um but yeah i think for me like i where i've found my like writing and publishing i've just had to work really hard to just do it like for me and basically to like publish when i'm like this is something that needs to be shared and i just like need to put it out there because i've repeated myself five times or you know i've said the same thing to three founders this week that's when i I put it online because I think, oh, that's going to help someone that I've never met. And so there's definitely fear. I mean, I think we both benefited from being risk takers. Were there were there moments that like that risk actually like went south?

14:26For sure. Then you have to answer that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think went south is like such an interesting thing, because like, what is failure? And what is regret? You know, I, I always say I don't really believe in regret, because I wouldn't be where I am without everything I've been through. um and yeah i think sometimes um when i look back and i think about things that i regret or what i would say is like things i would do differently knowing what i know now it was often because i was listening to the wrong voice you know inside my head um and um so much of i think the work of figuring out who you are and where you're sort of like north star should be in in life is about sorting through which voice in your head is talking when it says this seems like a great idea or you should definitely do that.

15:25And some of the mistakes I've made have been because I listened to a voice that was all about like ego and sort of like I'd be so excited for people to think I was cool, you know, whereas like if I can listen to the more authentic voice that's about, like I said, about sort of like this is something I care about and I really want to make sure that you know i do this or i learn this or i help people in this way versus like i want people to think i'm cool like that you know those are two very different like north stars i like the way you like think through that yeah i guess i guess one way to think about risk is the more risks you take you start to hone absolutely in on the authentic voice yeah you start to hone in on that north star yeah and um and you make older more confident decisions i guess the more risks you take yeah i'm gonna say something to that and then i'm gonna make you answer the fear question but like absolutely one of so my ted talk is about taking risks and i use the metaphor of jumping off cliffs and um i was doing the ted talk before i um like a couple of weeks ago for this community of startup leaders that I run.

16:40And we were talking a lot about where confidence comes from because I'm excited. Well, you know, one of the things I realized is that I reached a point after a couple of jumps, what I would call jumps, where I took a big risk and I kind of came out the other side of the falling part of the jump. I reached a point where like there was something that no one could take away from me, you know, and I think early in your career or work life, you're scared you're like you don't know who you who you are and to some extent you're trying to define yourself by other people's versions of success or other people's versions of like who you are and then for me risk-taking was such an important um tool for figuring out who i was and to some extent getting a confidence that like sort of like i can i know i'm good at stuff yeah and even if i fail like it's never going to take away that sort of like intrinsic knowledge that I'm good at things because I've now been through so many different like weird scenarios you know this like belief this like almost delusional belief of like who who we are and like it's that supporting of that person and our belief yeah but I do I mean I also just think risk is part of how you um deeply get to know yourself you know you're not walking up somebody else's stairs you're you're kind of like trying to discover what you are and very much also what you're not you know and in the process of that you're um you sort of develop that intrinsic sense of like this is who i am this is who i'm not and and to your point about like narrowing like that then becomes much more clear about like okay this is where i what matters to me and like where i want to go but tell me about tell me this is for your question sorry the question that you asked me was about failure and it was about sort of like trying things and it not working out i'm curious like what role that has played for you in terms of like have there been big failures have there been time things that you like look back on and you're like i wish i hadn't done that let me think about this i didn't know you're gonna pull a uno reverse card i mean i don't know if there's like like the most recent one that i can think of i don't know if i like really learned something from it but i posted something like politics tangent and um that was a nightmare that was a nightmare um so yeah that gave me a big uh anxiety attack what did you do it was um it was just like a um kamala harris uh posing like let's break down her poses yeah wait but what did you do when it like oh what did i do i just did you delete it i just took it down you did yeah i just took it down what do you feel like it's interesting because you're saying like this was authentically joyful for me right and i shared it and then the world did what the world does these days and what do you feel like you take away from that?

19:53Sorry. What do I take away from that? Oh man. I don't know. It was so like my girlfriend who's also a content creator, she was like David you should just like this is you. This is authentically you. You should just like keep backing it up. but that like for this one i just like kind of lost the will to fight that one you know so i was like am i bad am i bad david should i have like fought more for myself should i have stood up for myself but i don't know i don't know yeah well there's some battles you don't have to fight you know yeah but it is interesting like maybe it's to the point about online and like there are moments when it's hard to be your whole self in an environment where it isn't easy to have a two-way conversation you know yeah I wonder if it's like as you talk about spaces because if I shared that it depends on the community that I share because I know you're huge on community too so I guess it's like can you can you be an authentic self in a setting that's open yeah yeah totally that's open yeah yeah so i was like maybe maybe the thing to take away from this is uh maybe the the the people weren't ready you know and and as i keep putting an effort to be as authentic as i can And it's also to realize, oh, not everyone is going to be a support for my authentic path.

21:39Yeah. Yeah. Will you talk about what success means to you and what you've discovered about that on this journey? I was thinking about that, too. Because as we talk about risks, it's like if we have different meanings of success and life goals and purpose, then risk isn't that important to some people. depending on the goal. So I guess for me, if I strip away just like scientific values or like spiritual values and all that kind of stuff and like other beliefs, and I just come down to, okay, what is David? Where is he at right now? He's on a big planet and there's never going to be another David.

22:28How can I keep pushing to find a way to, how do I say this? It's like, I just want to find me, I guess. Like, I just want to find me. And I also, like, growing up in Korea, very, like, homogenous country, right? Like, what's beautiful there is that everyone kind of takes care of one another. and we respect one another a lot. But what's a loss in that respect is that individual voice. And success there is so clearly defined for the whole community together. Education, college, get a nice job at Samsung. That's a very clear path of success there. And I guess having been fed that most of my life, the moment I started tasting a bit more of like standing out for myself and asking myself oh what does David enjoy and supporting that with finances with the right people the right community the right affirmations validations I'm like oh like it feels great to be more of me whatever that means and I think so that's my I guess definition of success the more I can be me which I'm finding out the more I help others the more I can just be a light I guess be something positive to other people I just really enjoy that and the more I do that I keep learning and it's like this beautiful cycle yeah I love that but what about what about for you enough about my definition of success which took me a long time to get to but no yeah well i think it i mean success is a journey you know um at least in my experiences like i think you often start out with your parents definition of success or someone maybe it's a cultural definition of success but i think for a lot of people it's some external uh force that's older than you telling you what good is you know and And it takes time to figure out whether that is true for you, you know, or if you have a different definition of success.

24:58I also think success changes as you get older, like what it means to you and what you value. Like what I thought mattered when I was in my 20s and 30s, like is not what I value in my 40s. And for me, it's been this massive transformation. I think for I like when I turned 40, I really like leaned into it. and was like, I'm thinking of this as halfway through my life, if I'm lucky. And so I started to realize that time was just finite in a way that I think it just never feels like when you're in your 20s. You're like, I have infinite time. I'm going to travel to every country and become president.

25:35You know what I mean? You're just like, it's all possible. And I think as you get older and as you watch friends die or different things happen in life, you realize that time is like the most valuable thing you have and that being able to choose how you spend your time um it for me that's been just like a punch in the face of like okay like 40 years left 40 years left 40 years left let's say hopefully um and what do i want what do i want to do with that time and it's led me to also realize that like you know i think um for a long time success was probably defined by some kind of programming or someone else's definition around title or, you know, fame or people thinking I was cool in some form or another.

26:28And there was a really abrupt moment where I just realized that is not what I care about. And that now I define success through joy. And I just look for like joy in my day. And literally, like, do I look forward to the people I'm going to work with, the work that I'm going to do, the time that I get to spend with my family, you know, with people that I love. I want to be joyful most days. Nobody's joyful every day. But, you know, to be able to say that like 80 or 85 % of days I'm like skipping into work and life, that to me is like the ultimate definition of success. and i love joy because i i was thinking about joy versus happiness

27:21so great it was like a wonderful conversation david and i are just gonna continue this i know we didn't i want to talk about comfort a little bit too risk and comfort yeah man i know well we're just joy versus happiness i know it's all right we're gonna continue the conversation. This was so fun. It's so fun to get to know you. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I'm learning so much. Same. Again, as a, as a me, tiny 30 year old founder. Yeah. So much to learn. So let's please continue this off cameras. Yeah. Same. You're going to help me. You're going to help me become physically powerful. Thank you. Thank you.

27:58you.

28:05That was a conversation between David Suh and Molly Graham for our original series, TED Intersections. Visit TED.com to watch this conversation and others from the series. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmanivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faze-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezzo.

28:43I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.