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Passion Stories with Free To Flourish
Welcome to the Passion Stories Podcast, a conversational series that features people who have made career transitions into work they feel fulfilled with, or started their own passion business.
We talk about when they decided to make the change, why they do the work they do, what helped them overcome obstacles with the transition, and any tips that they would give to others sitting on the idea of making these big changes.
People from the environmental, social change, health and wellness, and creative industries come on to share their story in hopes to inspire others to go after their own professional dreams.
Rachel Fry is a Psychology Trainer, Teacher, and Coach. Her work is focused on helping people with mental performance, leadership development, and career growth. She has her own company, Free To Flourish, and partners with different organizations, companies, universities, and athletes to support their leadership and teams. Rachel has a behavioral science master's in Applied Positive Psychology and experience in multiple sports as a high performing athlete. She is also a VP and leads the Professional Development team of a DC environmental nonprofit organization.
For more on her work and to connect with Rachel: www.free-to-flourish.com
Passion Stories with Free To Flourish
Marine Conservation Photojournalist: Shane Gross
I talked with Shane Gross in this episode about his career path as a marine conservation photojournalist and how he has been able to turn his passion for the ocean into his own business. Shane and I knew each other from both living on Eleuthera for years and being in the diving and ocean conservation field. Shane's love for the ocean started as a child, watching documentaries and seeing images that his parent's took on their dive trips around the world. As an adult Shane started taking photos underwater in The Bahamas and quickly realized his images could be used to help raise awareness and protect the ocean.
His images and projects have been used for conservation and policy efforts. Shane's goal is to tell a story of the marine life he is shooting and to invoke emotion with people viewing his images in hopes that the emotion will lead to action in protecting the marine world.
With his work, Shane talks about how having a long term vision has helped him navigate many of the hurdles and setbacks that he has experienced doing underwater photography. Photography in general can be a tough industry to establish yourself and monetize your work, but seeing the bigger picture of how his work is contributing to conservation work and staying attuned to his long term goals has kept him motivated and committed to his craft. He also talks about his love for continually learning about ocean species and his almost obsession with wanting to be in the water observing them energizes him with his work.
Go check out some of his amazing images if you haven't seem them already! Many of which required lots of planning, technical skill, and risk taking! Shane released his first photo book with so many great photos of The Bahamas after living on Eleuthera for ten years. You can purchase his book and other prints on his website: www.shanegross.com. Shane also has a Patreon membership for those who want to continue to support his conservation work!
Consider checking out the Passion and Purpose program if you are looking to make a career transition into more purposeful work or have been sitting on a business idea that you want to launch: https://www.free-to-flourish.com/passionandpurpose
To book a call to learn more about the program:
https://calendly.com/rachel-freetoflourish/q-a?month=2022-08
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