What ‘I Feel Pretty’ Accidentally Taught Me About Confidence And Your Personal Brand
Amanda Olsen
What if the only thing standing between you and showing up boldly in your brand... was a story you decided to stop telling yourself?
I've been thinking about a 2018 Amy Schumer comedy more than I care to admit. Not because it's a cinematic masterpiece, but because buried in the laughs is a truth that goes straight to the heart of everything I do as a personal branding photographer in San Diego.
And honestly? It might be the most honest thing I've ever seen about confidence.
What does a rom-com have to do with personal branding photography?
In I Feel Pretty, Renée Bennett is a woman drowning in insecurity. She works in the basement office of a glamorous cosmetics company, managing their website while the beautiful people work upstairs. When a receptionist position opens at the swanky headquarters (her dream job!) she doesn't even apply. The description says they want someone beautiful, the "face" of the brand. She has already decided that isn't her.
One day she falls off her SoulCycle bike, hits her head, and wakes up convinced she's been transformed into a bombshell. Except she hasn't. Not one thing about her appearance changed. But she doesn't know that.
So she walks into that receptionist interview and owns it. She goes to a bar and dances like nobody's watching. She gets the job. She gets the guy. She becomes magnetic, hilarious, and completely unstoppable. The whole time, the audience can see what she can't: she was always that woman. The only thing that changed was the story she was telling herself.
"Nothing about her changed. Everything about how she showed up did. That's not just a movie plot - that's neuroscience."
What your brain is actually doing when you shrink
Here's where it gets fascinating, and directly relevant to every entrepreneur who's ever hesitated before hitting "post," avoided updating their website photos, or talked themselves out of investing in a personal branding photoshoot.
Negative self-talk doesn't just feel bad. It activates the brain's threat systems, releases cortisol, and physically narrows your focus and performance. It makes you smaller…not metaphorically, but neurologically. Your brain is literally running a threat response every time you tell yourself you're not ready, not polished enough, not quite there yet.
Confident self-talk does the opposite. It activates the brain's reward centers, releases dopamine, and improves how you show up, perform, and connect. And here's the part that changes everything: confidence works as a loop. Every time you act confident, even before you feel it, your brain logs it as a win, reinforces the pattern, and starts building a new identity from the inside out.
Renée didn't grow her confidence. She accidentally stepped into it, and her brain did the rest! What looks like a magical transformation in the movie is actually just reinforcement learning. It’s Science.
What this means for your personal brand
As a personal branding photographer in San Diego, I work with female entrepreneurs every single day who are brilliant, driven, and capable… and hiding. Not because they don't have something powerful to offer, but because somewhere along the way they decided the world wasn't quite ready for them yet. That they needed to be further along, more polished, a little more "ready."
Sound familiar?
Here's the thing about being seen: your audience can't connect with a version of you that you're keeping backstage. The half-updated website, the three-year-old headshot, the social media silence - none of it is protecting you. It's just keeping you invisible.
Your photos are not the transformation. They're the evidence of it.
When a woman steps in front of my camera for a personal branding photoshoot, I'm not here to make her look pretty. I'm here to create the conditions for her to experience herself the way she actually is: not the version filtered through years of comparison, perfectionism, and self-doubt. The real one. The one her clients need to see.
The photos we create together aren't what makes her confident. They're proof that she already is. Authentic brand photos for entrepreneurs aren't about aesthetics. They're about permission. Permission to take up space. To be seen. To show up as the leader she already is.
And here's what I know after doing this work: the women who invest in a brand photoshoot in San Diego don't walk away with better images. They walk away with a different relationship to their own visibility. They stop hiding. They start showing up. Their business responds accordingly.
Great news: You don't need a bump on the head
Renée needed an external event (a dramatic, accidental one) to give herself permission to show up differently. Most of us are waiting for our own version of that moment. The right time. The right weight. The right chapter of the business. The right feeling.
But what if you didn't need any of that? What if the permission was always yours to give?
That's exactly what a well-crafted personal branding photoshoot is designed to do. Not to change you, but to interrupt the old story long enough for you to remember who you actually are. To give your body a new experience of being seen. To create evidence that you are already the woman you've been waiting to become.
Whether you're a female entrepreneur in San Diego ready to refresh your brand photos, or you're feeling that deeper pull to do the identity work that changes how you show up everywhere, the path starts with one decision. To stop hiding, and start being seen.
Oh, by the way, I also travel nationally and internationally for photoshoots!
Ready to be seen?
Personal Branding Photoshoot
A strategy-led brand experience in San Diego — designed to capture who you actually are, not who you think you should be.
Coming soon: ‘Becoming Her with Carina Fleckner’ Program
A 6-week identity & visibility activation ending in a photoshoot that's not content creation. It's proof of who you chose to become.
Thanks for reading! Leave a comment below with your thoughts on that!