How do you feel about your photography business?

Welcome to today’s podcast, and I will apologize profusely for a few things.

One, my horrible voice. I’ve had a cold ever since I stepped on the plane coming from France to Dallas last week, and I am sitting in a very busy hotel lobby at the Dallas Sheraton and there are a lot of people either watching sports or just having a good time around me.

So I apologize. But welcome to the podcast. And I am doing it in spite of my surroundings because I have promised myself to deliver a podcast every Tuesday, and I think I have done that twelve or 13 weeks in a row. And nothing is going to stop me from making my Tuesday drop with my podcast.

It also including using my AirPods as my recording device. So definitely the sound quality is suffering for all sorts of reasons today. So thank you for staying with me.

And I just attended a mastermind which highly inspired me and has given me more enthusiasm working with photographers just like you that want to grow their business and attract their ideal clients.

Initially, I wanted for today’s podcast to be about showing up for your business and in your business. And, again, I was highly inspired by this master class and just wanting to reach out and help as many photographers as I could.

Success isn’t easy. I know that. We all know that. I know that. We all know that very well.

We don’t know how to organically just snap our fingers and create a successful photography business, one that not only makes us money, but also puts a smile on our face.

There’s one thing for sure that I can tell you, it’s that the more you show up in your business, when you show up every single day, the faster results start to happen.

When you work, when you don’t feel like working, that’s when the big stuff starts to happen.

But when you work, when you don’t feel like working, when you show up when you absolutely don’t want to, that’s when the really big results start to happen.

That’s also where the really big feelings start showing up. Stuff like nervous, scared, reluctant, worry, fear of judgment.

Like, I don’t know what to work on. Where do I start? I don’t know how to find clients. Or maybe you found them, but you don’t know what to do once you book them.

When you continue to work, when you don’t feel inspired or continue to work when you have these feelings come up for you. You’re willing to be open to these stronger emotions and continue to work through confidence or lack of confidence, doubt, at the beginning.

You will learn how to overcome these negative emotions and start creating result for you and your business.

Every single action I’ll repeat that every single action you take comes from a feeling and feelings are caused by your thoughts.

Some examples.

‘I’m thinking that every other photographer hasn’t figured out that’s my thought. And that makes me feel like I’m inadequate. Or maybe I’m thinking I don’t know how to price my work. And that possibly makes feel unsure about yourself. Or maybe it’s a thought like I can’t find the right clients and that makes you feel confused, suffering from impostor syndrome.

Let’s do this exercise together.

A fun little side note, at least in my experience, I feel like the bigger my goals or the bigger goals you set for your business, potentially the bigger emotions that come along with them.

As you’re trying to achieve these goals, at least in my experience, the bigger my goals, the bigger my emotions, the bigger my feelings.

Of course, the counter to that is the smaller the risk or the smaller the goal, the smaller your emotional range is regarding that goal.

So as you continue to build your business and go after your goals, the more emotions and feelings may start coming up for you. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay. You’re doing something right. This is where getting out of your comfort zone, and that’s where these emotions come from.

For my feeling, I’m going to pick fear.

Throughout growing our photography business, I would have to say one of the predominant emotions that continued to show up for me every time I stretched out of my comfort zone or tried something new was fear.

As I opened myself up to the challenges of growing our photography business, I was afraid. I was afraid of so many things, especially what other photographers and family members would think. I was afraid of what everyone thought about what I was doing. Who did I think I was to put myself out there like this? I was afraid of judgment. I was afraid of taking the chance. I was afraid of failure. You name it. I was afraid of all sorts of things.

It was exactly this self awareness that helped me to create a new thought and generate a new feeling and helped me create the results I wanted.

I used fear to recognize that my success was in my power. That showing up every single day, in spite of my fears and these strong emotions, was exactly what needed to be done.

And overcoming these negative emotions is the fastest way to create the results that I needed for my photography business.

It was that epiphany that changed it all for me and for our business.

So my homework for you is to grab your journal.

I always encourage grabbing a journal or grabbing a piece of paper using an actual pen and handwriting your answers for this homework. Because I feel like there’s a bigger connection between brain pen and paper than there is when you type something.

Just my personal opinion. But I get more out of journal exercises and anything when it’s handwritten, and I can actually slow myself down and think more as I’m writing.

Our Homework this Week is:

Let’s write down the main thought you have about your business.

For example, I’m going to go back to the fear example that I was using,

My main thought is I can’t attract the right clients.

So then after you write down that main thought, we’re going to write down what emotion or feeling pops up for you.

In my example, it was fear.

I was afraid of all sorts of things. Ridiculous things, serious things, things that were real. I was afraid of everything, from impostor syndrome to judgment. From people to wonder if I fail, to what am I going to do next? How do I track the right clients? I had doubts about everything. I was afraid of so many things. Unfounded? Maybe, but, yes, I was afraid.

So I would write that down. Fear.

And then I would sit with this for a few minutes and write down everything that comes up for you. Just as I was saying, what were my fears? Unfounded or founded?

What were they? Write them all down.

So it’s pretty much a brain dump of you sitting with this emotion and just writing down everything that comes up for you. Small, big. Just put it all on a piece of paper sit with it for a bit.

I’m just going to recap. What the homework is it’s grab your journal or a piece of paper, grab a pen. Write this down. Write the main thought you have when you think about your business and then write down what emotion or feeling immediately pops up for you. And then sit with this for a few minutes and write down on everything that comes up for you.

Brain dump. Just write down everything that you think of, everything that comes through your mind passes through fast or slow. Write it all down.

And it’s getting really loud in here. I have a lot more to say on this and I think this is just really the beginning of a lot more talks on how our feelings and thoughts really do affect our business.

Anyway, thank you for listening to this not very well produced podcast episode, but I’m feeling very strongly about how important emotions and our thoughts are and how they affect the way that we work on our business. So I appreciate you listening and I am so looking forward to next week’s episode, which will probably be secondary part to this.

And thank you again. I will see you next Tuesday. Bye.

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