Success Lies Outside of Your Comfort Zone
Tamara Knight
Tamara Knight is a certified professional photographer (and very proud of this fact!) based in Orlando, Florida. Originally from Russia, she is a mother of two teen kids (please keep her in your prayers) and a wife to amazing guy. She has been a photographer for 9 years and loved every second of it.

In my work as a coach, I often come across inspiring professionals who have pushed themselves through significant change to achieve remarkable success. Certified professional photographer Tamara Knight is one such business owner, and a fellow immigrant as well, whom I interviewed on my podcast. Tamara serves women who believe they are not photogenic and haven’t recently had a photo they love.
Tamara takes genuine joy in showing people their beauty and who they are through her art. So many of us, men and women, do not want to be seen. The truth is we are afraid to see who we are and how beautiful we can be. I know I don’t like to be photographed, and when we met, Tamara made me comfortable. This ability and her quality of work  have contributed to her success.
Here are a few shots of wisdom and insight from our conversation.
Plan, but Be Flexible
About 20 years ago, Tamara moved to the US from Russia to pursue the American dream. For the first couple of months, however, her limited English and thick accent made life unbearably frustrating—I can relate! In Texas, they have their own accent, too, and she struggled to understand what people wanted of her. She was ready to go back to Russia, to her comfort zone.
Tamara’s Plan A was to get married, have children, build a career and stay. Plan B was to return to Russia as a rich woman, which she decided was having $500 in her pocket. But life, of course, had a third plan. For 10 years she worked as a graphic designer with good pay, and assumed she would do that for the rest of her life, but it wasn’t challenging and she didn’t feel fulfilled. Then she discovered photography—accidentally—and went back to school to study it.
Moving was the biggest change in her life, and it came with the greatest reward. She found her husband here, and her calling—she doesn’t believe she was meant to be a teacher, as she was in Russia, nor a graphic designer, but a true artist, a photographer.
Best Advice: Practice What Is Uncomfortable
Tamara started her business the wrong way, of course, charging way too little money while pouring her heart into her work. Even if you have the greatest talent, Tamara says, you won’t be successful if you don’t understand the business side of things. She took many workshops and classes and set big goals for herself.
Tamara’s greatest challenge in her new business was phone conversations. It was so bad that if anyone called her, she wouldn’t pick up, but wait to listen to the voicemail and then maybe call them back. (or not). She was that scared.
Tamara is a self-proclaimed introvert and decided to push herself to rehearse her words, slowing down her speech and trying to erase her Russian accent. This practice gave her confidence and changed her business. She surprised herself when she eventually started calling her clients and offering new things, unafraid any more.
If you are afraid of something in your business, Tamara says, rehearse until it becomes second nature.
Lesson Learned: Success Is Outside the Comfort Zone
Many small-business owners tend to undersell themselves, but Tamara’s favorite quote helped her overcome this fear. Imagine a blank sheet of paper with a circle in one corner called “success,” and a circle in another corner called “comfort.” You can see that success and comfort never touch. If you choose to sit in your wonderful comfortable happy place, you will not succeed.
Moving from comfort to success takes practice, practice, practice. Practice explaining what you do until it becomes second ...