Turning Anxiety into a Thriving Photography Brand with Jonathan Arlia

Jonathan Arlia, a Tucson native whose journey redefines how adversity breeds creativity and entrepreneurial success. In this episode, Jonathan reveals how crippling anxiety once dominated his life—and how through the power of affirmations, the law of attraction, and self-reflection, he flipped his challenges into a source of unstoppable drive and vision.

As the founder of Photography by Jonathan Arlia, Jonathan’s path began with humble yoga class shoots and quickly grew to include dynamic model photography and even live TV appearances. His commitment to integrity, kindness, and reliability is reflected not only in his art, but in his deep respect for every client and collaborator. Through persistent learning and embracing each setback as a lesson, Jonathan expanded his skills to include drone photography and immersive 3D virtual tours—ultimately establishing himself as a creative force with a perfect 5-star Google rating.

Connect with Jonathon Arlia
Website: www.photography-ja.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PhotographyByJonathanArlia

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-arlia/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/photographybyjonathanarlia/

Transcript

0:06

Hey guys. Welcome to Heart to Talk the podcast. I am the host and creator Teresa Caesar. My intention for this podcast is to deliver to you wisdom, inspiration, and consciousness. Through solo episodes and conversations amongst insightful people. It is my greatest honor to bring to you talks that come from the. Welcome back, my amazing listeners today. I'm so excited to introduce you to a truly talented individual whose creativity and dedication shine through every project. Jonathan Alia is the visionary behind Photography by Jonathan Alia, born and raised in Tucson. Jonathan combines a keen creative eye with an analytical mindset, bringing integrity, kindness, and reliability to everything he does with a passion for learning through trial and error. Jonathan's dedication has earned him a hundred percent, five star rating on Google, and I'm just thrilled to have him here today to share his story, his insights, and the secrets behind his success. So friends, let's dive in. Welcome to the show, Jonathan. I'm so excited you're here. Me too. Absolutely. let's give some context to this audience. So a few months ago, we both were invited to this networking event at Kathy Bell's house. And I was invited primarily because my good friend Lucy Howell was celebrating her birthday. She was doing like toast and hula hooping as the sunset went down and. I had brought a deck of affirmation cards for Lucy, the birthday girl, and then also the hostess, Kathy Bell.'cause she's always so graciously opening her house. Mm-hmm. To everyone and bringing business owners and just connecting, which that's how I met you. Right. So I love how we met because I wanna say there was a group of ladies sitting at the table and they were opening up my deck and you're oh, affirmations. I love affirmations and all of that. So I know we're gonna dive into. How affirmations have been pivotal on your journey and whatnot. But Jonathan, go ahead and introduce this audience. Tell us who you are, what you do, Well, hello everyone.. I'm the owner of Photography by Jonathan. Earlier. I established that company in 2019, and I've been working ever since. Prior to that, I began my professional photography and videography professions. 2012 there was a new. Yoga class yoga right down the street from me. And I checked it out and then I kept coming back'cause I really liked it. And I became friends with the instructor, Tim, and at some point he asked me if I could take pictures and then he got a inexpensive, camcorder so I could do video. From there it snowballed to, you know, working with models and learning this and practicing learning that so awesome. So primarily a lot of your work is with drone photography Yes. I, I got my first drone in 2021 with some grant money, and I learned how to use it. I got my license and uh, yeah. That's amazing. Well, your work is incredible. I know that you have some big, like local clients, organizations that you work with here locally. Do you work with people like na, nationwide International? Is it more like Southern Arizona, Tucson? It is mostly here in Tucson. I love that. And so what inspired you to get into this work? Is it something that just found you? Were you always passionate about photography and videography? I have always been passionate about photography. I'm very creative, visual artist. I remember being a kid, not even 10 years old and walking through Kmart, if you guys remember what Kmart is, but, kind of like Target, I guess. But I would walk through the aisles and I would definitely stop when I got to the pro camera section and I just. You know, Google them. I Google'em. Not Google. Google wasn't around them, but Google them. Yeah. And, yeah, it's always been a passion. Oh, I do remember Kmart. I remember the Thrifty's ice cream from there. And Leway, my, my, my, my grandmother who passed away in 87, she introduced me to my favorite ice cream, which was exactly that thrifties at, at Kmart. And it's still. Chocolate chip. Oh, I love So, what is your mission, with your business or personal mission? Well, my mission is always to help my clients realize or photographic visions to bring it to life, to to provide their photos or pictures or edited videos or whatever it may be. And obviously all the time, bare minimum, it's gotta do the job they, it has to fill their need to what they're expecting. But I always aim to. Under promise and over deliver. Well, I can see that you do just with some of the work that I got to see when we'd first met. But in addition to like your business and how you serve this community artistically, creativity with your gifts and talents, I really would love to dive in. To the backstory, before you've been become this, business owner, whatnot. You shared with me about how affirmations were such a powerful modality for you because you had struggled with some anxie social anxieties. Can you go down that path with us? I would say pretty much from about 2000 to 2018. I struggled with crippling anxiety. When you people hear the word anxiety, they don't always get how profound it can be. How horrible. Like, it's like, oh, just walk it off, shake it off. And it's really not always that easy. It was hard for a really long time. I had to deal with it. It was just a horrible thing. But the great thing, part of my story is I did overcome it. I overcame all of that. Um, one thing that really helped honestly is probably like in 20 14, 20 15, I was just listening to the radio and I heard, about the Midwest Center attacking Anxiety program. Right away I ordered it and I went through the whole thing like three or four times. One of the things it did talk about was negative thinking. When I listened to it initially, I was thinking to myself, oh, I, I'm a pretty positive person. I don't, I don't have that many negative thoughts, but I dug deep and I really started to see a lot of it and started to understand that we as humans, um. We are literally built genetically to look for problems and threats because we're trying to protect ourselves. We're trying to keep ourselves safe and healthy. But you know, that's a fight or flight response we hear about all the time. But you know, typically we're not getting chased by saber-tooth tiger. We're, we're just going to a networking event and might feel a little bit anxious. So affirmations, and of course you know this Teresa better than I do, but affirmations are just telling yourself, talking to yourself, not doesn't have to be out loud, but telling yourself. Kind of taking all the negative thoughts and flipping around instead of, I'm scared of this, I can handle this, or I'm safe, or, basically anything you want in your life, you just tell yourself, I can have this. There's nothing really in my way. I don't have to know the, the how I know it will come to be. This is what I know, this is what I believe, and it's life transforming. I agree. It's amazing. And so how cool that you found that program like if you had not started to use affirmations in this program that you found, do you think you would've ever come to this place that you are now as this business owner? And because I see you out there, you're social, you travel, you have all these connections and having a good time doing it. Was part of, it was part of the solution, affirmations, along with strong faith, the law of attraction, what you think about comes to be. And I think over a period of a few years maybe what actually happened was I kind of transformed the, the, the physical structure of my mind to adapt to the anxiety. I I love that you said that, to adapt to it because feelings are meant to be felt and that's good. We're human. If we're scared or we have anxiety, that's okay. But like you said, I love the word be like it's adapting to it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's another thing we can do as humans we're really good at adapting. So how often are you practicing the law of attraction and all of this? Is it just something that's now just part of how you think and you know, how you move? Or do you do little, daily rituals? Normally I begin my day, going through a list of 20 affirmations that. Go to specific different areas in my life, my mind, people social, social life, Being mindful, being aware. I, I've heard it, I've read it many times. Most of this begins with awareness. Awareness of. Where we are in the present moment, what's going on in our minds, how we're feeling. Um, I don't know how many times I've caught myself like almost bracing for something. And it's not even anything that's actually even coming. It's just bracing for something and maybe not breathing fully enough. That's so beautiful. I wanna pivot now back to your business. I'm gonna share in the show notes, like the links, everything you've provided, but how can you know this audience get in touch and follow your work or maybe even get in touch with your services? Mm-hmm. There are a few ways. Basically give me a call, text me, email me. Um, my website has a contact page which outlines any. Legitimate way of reaching out to me. I like to actually have a real conversation with people. We can meet on the phone or zoom. I do in in person coffee meetings all the time. Do you have any tips for photography, videography,'cause your services, are they mainly for like corporate large organizations? What about private individuals? It has become, these days more and more about B2B business to business, although I do work with individuals. Tips. I don't believe a lot of people understand how in depth and massive the whole photography videography. Subject is, we have our little phones. Everyone has phones. Even little kids have phones these days, and honestly these days they, they really, they take amazing pictures, amazing videos. But there, there are legitimate reasons why photographers will enter an event carrying 50 pounds of stuff. We're, we're not doing it to, to work out and get exercise. Um, there are reasons for all that stuff that we're bringing. But even still for those, just getting into it or trying to learn more, go ahead and use your phone. Use your phone. Learn composition and lighting. Practice, practice, practice. It, it, using your phone is a great opportunity to practice an environment which is low stress. And not costly. If you, if you go to a job the first time and you're not exactly sure how to do it, you'll probably make a couple mistakes but, one of the reasons I'm at the level I am is I've made mistakes in the past and I had to learn from it. I love those tips. You're right, when you do go to a professional for those headshots or to showcase your business, you do get what you pay for because you guys are the experts, right. In the lighting and like all your equipment serves it. So I, I think it's incredible. And is there anything else before I pivot to those ending questions, is there anything you feel called to share with this audience, either about you or your business? It could be anything. Well definitely check out my website. I created it over years to answer a lot of questions, give good examples. And I, and I love talking to people. I love meeting people. I am a very social, very personal person. Don't be shy. Reach out, call me. That's just where the magic is, whether there's a transaction that occurs or not, the, just the transaction of building connection. Is just enough. I feel like whether like I use you for a business or maybe you didn't come on the podcast, but just never know,, you know, that just like support or influence that these these connections can make. And I think that's one thing I have done more of.'cause I've been in a season where I've been just kind of was isolated. I had like my virtual community. But since I've been intentional about building my. My tribe and expanding it and getting out there and just making those in-person connections. I mean, I don't know if you can share on this, how that has been significant, on your journey. Not only as business owner, as an individual, like just making these friendships and connections with people, putting yourself out there. Absolutely. We're, we're nothing as a, as a business if. If there's no one else involved, it's just us then. Mm-hmm. There are many, many networking opportunities here in Tucson every week. I typically go to maybe one or two a week. And honestly, for any, anyone out there, entrepreneur or whatever, and, and you're trying to grow your business or maybe just meet people, there are definitely resources. That's such a good tip. I love that you put yourself out there. Well, I'm gonna pivot into the traditional closing questions of this podcast. So Jonathan, I'm gonna ask you the first question. What is your favorite book? This is one that not many people are gonna know. Uh, and it's an oldie. It is the Last Battle by CS Lewis. That is the last book of the Chronicles Narnia. A lot of people, they kind of start with the lion rich in wardrobe, and they might go in a couple more books and they don't really, they just kind of forget about it. But they're, they're all wonderful books for my childhood. I that's a good recommendation. Thank you. And then the second question, what is your favorite affirmation that keeps you motivated, inspired? Right now that's gonna be, I am learning to focus on love, peace, prosperity, and serenity, so that I will manifest them into my life. Oh my gosh, I love that. And the third question, what do you wanna be known for, your legacy simply? For being a kind man of integrity. And the last question, Jonathan, what are you most proud of? That I have a good heart.

Theresa Cesare: 16:16

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Please download, rate, subscribe, and share this podcast. Also, be sure to visit my theresacesare.com to check out my inspirational merch, connect to my social accounts, and much more may you continue to be filled with wisdom, inspiration, and consciousness. Otherwise, friends, I will be back in two weeks for another episode of Heart to.