The Embossed Way: Kastle Nguyen

A conversation about taking photos – and the road less traveled

Welcome to The Embossed Way, a new monthly series here on CEOverthinker featuring conversations with women who are making their mark, paving their own way, and embodying what it means to be the boss of your own life.

If you missed the first two editions, you can check them out here and here.

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Today’s guest is someone very close to my heart, someone who has been in my life since the early days: my friend Kastle Nguyen. Kastle and I have known each other since we were five years old. We attended the same K-8 school growing up and spent many weekends at birthday parties and sleepovers at each others’ houses together. She has been always someone I can talk to and confide in, and is one of the brightest lights I’ve been lucky to know. Not only is she one of the kindest and most optimistic human beings, she’s also an extremely talented photographer and savvy business owner. Everything she has built and accomplished has come from her tenacity and hard work — all of which she does with a genuine smile on her face, even when times are unimaginably difficult (she doesn’t reference it in this interview, but if you check out this post on her Instagram, you’ll see what I mean).

Kastle is living proof of what looking on the bright side can bring you. Knowing her is an absolute delight, and I am delighted to introduce her to you.

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Lauren Scott: What did you want to be when you grew up and why?

Kastle Nguyen: I wanted to be a singer and have a farm with a lot of horses! I was obsessed with horses and thought I would be doing something with animals.

LS: How does that compare to where you are now?

KN: It is so vastly different from anything else I could’ve imagined myself doing. It is so wild to look back on the journey it’s been, with having my own sole business and the ups and downs that come with that.

LS: Tell us how you got there. What was the journey like? What bumps did you hit along the way?

KN: The journey was so bumpy! I had no idea what I was doing when I did a friend’s wedding for free with my old-school camera — and then I realized, “Holy crap, I really like doing this!” I had to figure out so many things on my own, like finding my first clients (through Groupon), learning how to build a website from scratch with Wordpress, building a Google business page, and managing my money and taxes. It was slow growth with a number of bumps, given I also worked full time on top of it all. It was a lot of evenings and weekends, building little by little. The biggest bump for me was learning the photography aspect and how to edit properly. I am so thankful that I had a wonderful photography mentor to help with those initial struggles.

LS: Tell us something you still dream about (something you still want to do/experience/accomplish).

KN: I still dream about having a $100K a year business that pays for itself with templates, business mentorships, and selling some aspects of my editing and style. I also dream of being good enough that people from all over the world seek me out.

LS: Knowing what you know now, what is something you would tell your younger self?

KN: I would tell myself to get a mentor much earlier — and to pay for more content retreats and business workshops to build my photography business a lot faster!

I dream of being good enough that people from all over the world seek me out.

LS: What does “being the boss of your own life” mean to you?

KN: It means getting to do what I want when I want and not having a boss — because I am the boss!

LS: The cover image for this article features a photo of something that inspires you. Tell us more about it. What does it mean to you?

KN: I took this photo at a styled content shoot in Oregon last year. This inspires me so much because it represents the direction I want to take my business in, with more elopements, different destinations, and beautiful places. I also learned so much at this retreat that I’ve implemented in my business and it reminds me of how far I’ve come.

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Thank you for reading this edition of The Embossed Way! You will find new editions in your inbox once a month. My hope and goal for the series is to lift up female voices, showcase how they’re doing things differently (i.e. not taking the traditional path society tells them they have to, whether in work or in life in general), and inspire others to do the same.

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If this post inspired you – or if the series and/or entire CEOverthinker publication inspires you – consider sharing it with someone so they can be inspired too. 🤍