Lessons

Lesson Info

Tools for Break Through

There are like tangible tools that are there for us that we can use to chip away, and I thought I'd be fun to start with this photo from egypt it's the high it's, the citadel in egypt in cairo and it's this amazing like a muslim mosque and you walk in and the sea ceiling is just incredible, but I loved this, you know, single window and how it lit up all this dark nous and to me, I kind of feel like that's all we need sometimes it's just a little bit of a break through that barrier and then, like light can just flood into that space. And so these tools there's twelve of them that I'm going to go over in this last session and there there for us to get our hands on, to start chipping away at the barriers that are standing in our way. So the first one is developed routine, and I love the monkeys in thailand, they inspire me with developing routine because every single morning it we called it monkey highway the im monkeys would literally, like follow each other from branch to branch to bran...

ch. I mean, they litter it's like, literally the most amazing game of fall, the leader I have ever seen in my life because they don't jump on any other branch except for the one that the accused of gunning brenda and they do this routine they go with go by our deck every morning and every afternoon at about like cost like three thirty in the afternoon they'd all come like right back and I love that they just even like their habits had these anchors and like things that they do and how I'm as artists it's so important for us to have anchors that we'd come back to every day that are almost become like a meditative practice in some way and not just for you but but for your family to like for us for the family you know I told these air might get arthur hilarious I love looking ways that's totally plays and basket lean and all of her sas I'm for us you know we have a really interesting family alive because we go abroad mom and dad are speaking a lot of time we'll have to figure out a way to bring brian into the three day one because brian so much money but I'm we add this organic you know, structure that we've created as a family we home school, the kids and so honestly like a lot of time aa lot of me resisted routine in our life in our family life because I felt like I just want to be free in one part of my life you know I don't want to have to like, you know be limited tio what we're doing together every day as a family but we've we've started a couple years ago I have to tell you we started doing family meeting night and it's every monday night and we have this book in our house and in this book the kids can write down at any point during the week something they want to talk tio mom and dad about and then on monday night at our family meaning we go through the list of things that they've written down and it has just been I mean we're going to keep this book forever because the things that they right now are so precious but we all have nick names we have a song that we sing when the meeting is over to start the week and and I feel like, you know how when you're working on stuff and the kids are asking you questions you're like or you're making dinner whatever you're doing and you're like not now honey, maybe later let's talk about later but then getting actually back to that like one is later actually gonna happen. So our family meeting on monday nights is like when that later happens and for me like that routine, that little development and routine for us it is a family gives me freedom then to like create that much more you know because that that routine combat guilt when guilt comes up because guilt can say you don't you don't listen to your kids enough, and then the family routine comes and it's like, well, no, we have monday night, you know, because you kind of just, like, get overwhelmed that am I a bad mom? Are not, you know? Am I a bad dad? I don't know, I feel like it now. Well, I ten minutes from now I'm so developing routine, then that the next one is I'm find ways to get uncomfortable, find ways to get uncomfortable. Uh, just owning your own business is uncomfortable. It just simply is there's like, gosh, we've owned her own business now for a number of years, and I still, like feel like there's moments where I just have been a like gum out of my skin. I feel so uncomfortable whether it's we're in a season of feast or season of famine or were in feasting and I'm afraid of one family's coming or you know what I mean? And so how can you find ways to get uncomfortable to practice that energy of being uncomfortable so that when you experience it in your business it's, not his novel you're like, oh! I recognize this like I recognize how my body even physically fills I can all get through this, and so for me, like one of the ways I did that was by bringing a toddler on to the trade show floor, and I don't know that anybody has ever done that, but I kind of hit a creative rut and what I was doing on the trade show floors and I just need upped the ante for myself, and so I was like, let's, just bring a toddler in, like, why not? Like, we'll just figure it out together, and some of the dollars ran off the stage and other state and plate, but it was really important for me to volunteer, lee, just get uncomfortable and be in that at space and and not because I was, like, forced into that, but because I chose to be in that, you know, I'm saying I think with our business, all of a sudden we find our selves and these really uncomfortable spots, and we feel a little bit victimized by it and so it's, really good and empowering for me to find ways that I can choose to be uncomfortable because I don't feel is victimized then when the business starts to go through a growing phase and growing pains start to set in film, choose when to be creative she's one to be creative my like but keeping my bookkeeper that I meet with on the phone and talk tio is not really a time that I choose to be created I let her tell me like what's going on and I let our account and talk to me about what's going on but like my books is not like the time to be creative and I think that sometimes I'm it's been really like important for me to go I'm not going to be creative here I'm actually gonna let somebody else handled that and like help me with it because I want to save all my creative energy for when it really counts right? Because you can't be creative with your accounting but like do you really need to be you know what I'm saying? Like there's so many like software is out there there's so many good people that do such a great job at that but me connecting with my family's, connecting with kids and like that's just me me and so I don't want to like during all my creative energy on something that really at the end of the day someone else could have done for me. So choosing choosing when to be creative the next one is a big one rasping and just just unplugging I've arrest is like rest is really I'm prestes re the hard right rest it's really hard because you feel like well, if I if I stop what I'm doing to rest and it's, you know, is it all going to fall apart? Or am I going to lose momentum or are we going to suffer finding actually because I was but yet without rest we can't keep going or we keep going, but we're kind of kidding ourselves, and I'm egypt blew my mind camels, the camels like blew my mind because here I'll show you this picture this is this is a camel in egypt see how he's like like he's just so like crabby I never knew how cantankerous camels are. They are just like there's, so grouchy and cranky all the time unless they're sitting down or walking, but the moment they're asked to stand up or sit down that's what they look like and they put up a fight and everyone's like I try to get them to stand up and they're like, I don't want to see enough, I don't want to move it! This is crazy to me and so I'm looking at these camels as we're riding them in egypt, and I'm like, why do identify with this animal? I know ideo, but why is it that I am identifying with his animal and what is so amazing to me is that the camel will totally be fine as long as it's walking as long as it's moving the moment and stops and he has to sit down is when it puts up a fight in the moment it has to stand up is one it puts up a fight, how many of you have ever felt like if I stop and put this burden down? It's just going to be so much work to pick this burden back up that I would just assume just keep moving, you know? And I'm there's this this amazing verse in the bible that I've thought about for years, it's that verse that says cast your cares upon him and he shall care for you. Well, when I was in egypt, I'm my girlfriend from dallas email me than what I told you about earlier he's a pastor, and she said, I don't know why, but I'm just I'm thinking of you right now, and I'm feeling like I'm feeling and sensing there's a burden you have a, they're your heart is burdened, and I'm thinking of this versed cast your cares of on him, for he shall care for you and she said, she says in her email that the entomology of that verse where that verse cons from it, the camel weighing down and rolling over toe, let its burdens off its back. And I because I've always heard that, you know, verse, I have always thought, like, oh, cast your cares just like, you know, throw him into the ocean and be done with your cares. But when jesus said it, he was talking about the camel because he knew how container is the camel wass and how to camel will put up of fight to city on and lay down, and I think it's interesting and just this I'm the sense of that we would rather plod through a desert, knowing we're at least moving. We have no idea maybe where we're even going, but we would rather just know that we're moving versus risking resting, you know, and so rest is it's such a big deal, and I have learned for myself that if I don't find ways to rest, I will not be sustainable. I will burn out in three to four years from now, and everything that we do will be kind of all for nothing, because I won't be able to keep that so one of the things that I dio on and this is a business coach, that advice none it's a few years ago, she said you really with what you do with all the teaching and the speaking and the pouring out, you really need tio like every three months or even more go somewhere by yourself and completely unplug and nobody but brian knows where you are and you're just gone for two nights by yourself and I'm like it's the first thing I thought when she said that is but I'm already gone so much as it is, how can highlight do that and be gone even more for my kids? You know, I could just feel like that. That can't be the right idea. There's got to be a different idea and she said to me, if you do not do this mira, you will burn out in three years from now you will not because you have to feel yourself back up and I was like, well, what am I going to do for two? What should I do? Do you have an inspiring book for me to read and she's like no, I want you to do nothing like I want you to dio whatever comes to you to dio. If you want to sleep until living, you sleep into eleven if you want to go for a walk, you go for a walk. But you unplug and you just do whatever your time unfolds you to d'oh and I will never forget their first time I did this brian was helping me back the car and I was crying I was like, I really not that tired though I don't need tio it's not really that necessary if he's like for crying out loud, just get in the car and go. And so, you know, just even this last week and a half we did our retreat with all of our beautiful confidence teachers from all over the country. They all flew in and we did a three night retreat together, but I know that in the next six weeks I have ten keynote is to give, and I was feeling empty because I poured it all out into that three days. And so brian was like, before creative live, I think you need to go away for tune. I have the best husband he's like, I think you need to go away for fifty nights by herself now, like, really? And so I said to brian and like, well, I could just stay though I can't white knuckle is through when I could just stay and he's so funny he looked at me and he's like, so let me paint the picture and what it looks like when you stay because basically it looks like you starting to crime or more and honey there's nothing wrong with you cry, but eventually it turns tio brian, I need this from you I need you to do this I need to use an aegis and because like I struggle with co dependency I'm working till four a m in the morning to try to like that do everything you need to be to do and you're so like tightly around and he's like would you just please go away for two nights you know by yourself and so just like, you know, doing something like that for yourself I was so scared too that the financial part of that like cash spending for two nights and odell by mice self it feels so like luxury or selfish or whatever where am I going to eat? I'm allergic to everything I hate like eighty now can I just tell you that I've found a little hotel three hours from our home in the middle of nowhere and they're so excited about me coming and spending time by myself that they give me the second night for free and they have a gluten free restaurant across the street and I just feel like this happens all the time when we take a risk and chance it's amazing like what rises that and it's just waiting to be there for it and so some of you are probably going where is that hotel but it's my secret? I'm not going to tell you so I'm still rest though there's just end this this little piece with this this quote from the alchemist because it really, like, stirred me when I read it. The main character, santiago, is you know, the premise of the book is that he has a dream of a treasure that's very near the pyramids. And so he makes his way from spain to ooh, the egypt to find this treasure. And at one point in his pilgrimage he's told to buy ah horse versus a camel. And the guy says to him, because the camel will never tell you or give you any sign or warning of when it's tired or it needs to stop, it'll just one day drop dead in the middle of the desert, but a horse will always let you know it needs to graze. It needs to feed it means water. And I just think about that and I meditate on that. Do I listen to myself? Or do I just, like, plow through and now movement I start to plow through and strain? I'm actually building a barrier that is called exhaustion, you know? So I'm being an artist versus a photographer I love for me. I'm I love the idea of seeing myself as an artist because and ours could be inspired through so many different, like ways. So many different rivers can run to me when I was seen myself as just a photographer, I kind of got stuck in this like with these blinders on where I only inspired myself with things that had to do with photography do you know what I'm saying versus like opening my creative spirit up to whatever is out there and so my husband brian he I love this picture of him because he he's such an inspiration to me in this and that he came from this great pain high tech job he his own story of getting sees all through school and art and that was just because he did extra credit teo, you know, get enough to pass the class so but but yet he is an artist and and it's been like knocking at him and and wanting to break out of him and him like trying to like, let go of his own limits and to see himself so he became an award winning photographer is photography is phenomenal, but the evolution didn't stop there. And now, like he's I filming and he's part of you know he's been on the disney film crew he filmed those directed those videos for target and sony in I love that like he's just going with whatever the path is unfolding but foreign and it's scary and it's frightening at times but it's like and when you're you're an artist everything can come to you with inspiration verses like just looking at photography websites just looking at photography workshops you know I mean like where we get limited and what we convey be inspired by so progress not perfection is a just a quote from julia cameron who wrote the artist way if you have never like look at that book that book when when it is the right time in your life that book will rock your world I've read that book like five or six times it's like my creative bible it's called the artist way and she says in it progress not perfection is what we should be asking of ourselves ls and I love that that tool of progress when I feel at the end of the day like my day's been a waste I can use that tool of like what progress did I make today? Maybe it wasn't so much with the business but it was a great conversation passed clean and I had today and there was progress with the two of us and our connection you know what? Like just riding down like what is so what is so I know my feelings go like up and down and up india but like what it's? So for me and I'm rock climbing is kind of a fun analogy for progress because there can't be perfection in rock climbing rock climbing terrified me and that's something that I purposely chose to learn in thailand and have gone back to it over and over again to help myself get uncomfortable and it's, I don't like heights, I don't do escalators, I take elf ears like I just but rog lines just it seemed like such a tangible way for mito work through some of my own disbelief in my ability, he's and and with rock climbing, this is brian and pass clean misses them in thailand path, you know, kids, just like our insane, they're like little monkeys. They can fit their hands and feet into any little crevice and just scale whatever wall, but I'm just knowing that, like, every every place I play, every place I put my hand, every grip everyplace I put my foot has to be so intentional, and I have to be so present that it's really all about the next step versus will the next, like, mild be perfect or not, you know? And so what? They're like just whatever things that you can do to help you exercise that we we learned to scuba dive one year and that just completely, like freaked me out, I remember, you know, the boat, and I didn't want to jump in. And my teacher was a german who didn't speak english, but he spoke spanish and it was I don't speak spanish, and so it was very stressful and he's in the water and he's like, jump jump job, but I'm like, I can't job, I finally get pushed in and he sticks the thing in my mouth and he goes, now we go down and we like it, and I just was, like, terrify going them, but like, it was so good for me to, like, work through that and see that I survived it because really, like, I realize that when you get underwater, it doesn't matter what language you speak, you know, you're not like communicating that way, but that was one of the scariest moments of my life, but it was just so good for me to build faith in myself, not unjust, my photography or my business schools. I need to build faith in myself, in things outside of my business and things outside of what I'm creating, because that that, like deep desire to know I can do this so important and it's too much pressure of its onley riding on my business, and when I create no your financials, ok, so this is this isn't there like this has been such a journey for me when I first started are my like little side portrait business where I was just doing portrait's for friends and step I think is so embarrassing but I opened up a separate bank account and all that money went in there and brian wasn't allowed to touch it hey wasn't allowed even know what was inside of it and I'm embarrassed to see that but it was like that was my little like fund or whatever and I remember we got to like a certain point how he was shooting teo and and I remember him coming to me at one point in saying a do you think we could share that you know and I was like, oh man, but then like I am always was like brian, you do the bills I don't want to know about it you just take care of it and I was telling myself that if I know how much we need to make especially when he left his day job if I know the bottom line of how much we need to make every month then it's going to kill my creativity have you ever heard that artists say that all the time they're like I don't want to know like what I'm actually making or not making I want to just stay in a creative zone okay let me just say something when you know how much you need to make by me and in this month you'd be amazed at how creative you get right? So you get really creative because you know, like I need to figure this out and but for the longest time, I was like, I'm not good at math I should add you as my math teacher because I know like it would have been different story for me, but I just would say I'm not good at math and I don't want to deal with the dollars stuff I just you just do it, you know? And you know, it came a point where I don't know it was like this voice inside of me said your business is on ly gonna grow as far as you're willing to know what it needs from you and until you get to that place of acceptance, you're going to hit a glass ceiling every single time. And so I call that my banker and I called up our bookkeeper and I said, ladies, because I have, like, a really good, strong team around us and they're all women that are all about empowering women because I need that energy, so I don't I don't have any cranky like, you know, blassie's that are lying let me do your financials where, you know, I have women that are excited about money and they're like, excited about empowering me with everybody and so I called those two women up and I said, I need you to meet with me like every other week and then once a month and then once a quarter because I don't know what a profit and lost like gene is. I don't know what about statement is and it's not like I like I don't know what a balance sheet is and for the end of the year for our business and it's not ok anymore, that I don't know, so they spent two years working with me and kind of just tell you and brian wanted time and be helpful, and I was like, no, you need to stay because I need them to just explain it to me. How one woman, one girlfriend would explain it to another and now it's so awesome! Like every thursday my bookkeeper, she moved italy, but we do everything virtual. Every thursday, I get an email from her and it's, a weekly summary of where every single account is, what we have been looking at, what we need to still come up with before the end of the month, what the sales were for broad. I mean, every it's like this quick glance, and I always know now what's going on, and I would I would honestly say that my creativity has exploded from that knowledge and I thought for so many years that it was going to kill my great tv and actually the opposite happened so just something to think about with that I seek counsel even pay for council value your growth this this tool has just been detrimental to me. I can't I have this photo jeb's watching right now he's going to be like good lord mira, I can't believe you put that photo up about that jeff, I want another photo of us this is ridiculous after seven years but jeff yoakum has been a mentor of mine for I'm closed seven years now and I have called him at times in the middle of night when I'm crying and afraid to get up the next morning. I have hired business coaches over the years and have worked with them specifically on what feminine wisdom is how and we're going to actually talk about this more in the three day workshop but how to operate my business the way a woman ceo would versus the way a man what is there a difference if there is? I want to know counsel is so whether it's a mentor and someone you don't pay or it's someone that you do pay it is an investment that is detrimental to breaking through barriers there have been barriers in my life that had been so thick and the wall has been so huge that no matter what what tool I have in my two about it is not enough I need jeff eo comes like a jackhammer tool set into that wall with me. You know, I need someone that has beyond my years of experience to let me know everything's going to be okay. This is just part of the process since and that that alone I just can't say enough about in fact, let me pause there can are there any questions? Do you have any questions? Start with you guys. Yes. How do you go out seeking counsel? Like where you find that? Yes. And I, my friend, when I was starting out talking to other photographers and stuff a lot of people more eager to give counsel that it's very competitive, that kind of thing which to be perfectly honest wife fell in love with their blood years ago. So somebody's my sister. Right? Right. How do you go about finding that kind of counsel? Not just specific to photography, but to your business and how to grow as a individual business person there. Yeah, you know that that is an awesome question, because if you try to google business coaches oh, my lord, like the scariest stuff can come up, you know, I mean, like that, so, like, how where do you find those people? And I'm one of the ways that I have found those people is by putting the word out that I'm into all different kinds of populations of people in my life that I'm looking for someone who's, a business coach, someone that I'm has experienced with that because really, like until you start saying it out loud, it's, tough to find that you know, and on and so that's that's one of the main things that I am dead, I've also really I'm looked for individuals that are, like just older and wiser than me, you know, just like they're not just a couple years ahead of me five years ahead of me, but they've been at it for a while, you know? And they they just have the wisdom of just years behind them. I'm there's this one guy, and, you know, the other thing I've done is I've been just two nations and getting people to respond. And so, like, there is this one guy, he and I both did a keynote together at a women's conference last year, this guy charges ten thousand dollars an hour to do business coaching and his talk so rocked my world. And so, like a lot of the new york times, best selling, like business authors that are in airports instead, those books he's, their business coach and his talk blew my mind that afterwards, I walked up to him, I said, you're going to like business, coach me and I don't have ten thousand dollars to give you so and he was like, okay, ha ha ha, you know, ok, whatever. Well, I got a hold of his cell phone number, and I called him over and over, and I e mailed him over and over and finally, like one day, a couple months later, he picks up the phone and he goes, you remind me of my wife, and I'm like, I'm not going anywhere because I have questions specifically for you, and so so just being tenacious when, you know, this person is, like, has something and, you know, they may not be able to respond right away like it took a couple months for him and I to really finally connect, but I'm but just not like giving up, just continuing to put out there, I need someone and and there are there are photographers out there who want to help, you know, maybe your local area like they may feel like a little bit threatened by it or something, but maybe there's someone online that you really is respect and admire and you would love to just so here's the thing, okay, but this is the deal what usually happens with these kinds of requests is that the person that's being asked to mentor you are being asked to, like, give you time feels afraid that, well, there's, how is there a beginning and an end to this? So, um, I just like, and so how do we set up a relationship where I don't feel like taken advantage of because your time is valuable too, right? And so I think just going into that and being able to say, you know, if I could buy you coffee sometime or if I could buy you dinner sometime, I'm and just and just really like I respect your time and want to pick your brain or just or if I could pay you to talk to you over the phone, you know, because that could sometimes when we like, get things for free, we don't value it the same, and the person that's showing up on the other end of the phone isn't honestly valuing it as much themselves two because they're like I really wanted to just I don't have any time and you know, I mean so I just I think knowing that piece too just like how can I how can I set some parameters up? So we both feel really good about this situation I know jeff yoga does he has, like, mentors coaching coaches that he mentors and they do coaching for people I'm one of the reasons we started our teachers around the country so you would have someone you could get together with and not just do one day workshop with but have is a mentor for you and so I there are those things out there, but I'm typically good business can't coaching cost money but it's really worth it and you, you know, business coaching is just like canceling if you don't connect with the counsellor like you know, right off the bat, then just find a different one. I went through seven counselor's before I found the one that has been with brian I first set sixteen years, you know? And so I'm in I just felt like there probably great what they do, but I don't feel comfortable and so I try another person, so just keeping yourself that space is that help okay, okay, cool, yeah mira, I have a question for you from row nineteen sep on three did you have different mentors that you would get if your inspiration from or do you have one photographer who you admire that helped you get inspired or where are where you're at today? Yeah, I, uh I had like I had two different women in san francisco that I worked with that was specifically about how to I'm operate and set up a structure for my business that felt true to the woman that I was that was a theory specific focus of feminine wisdom in a business this anna and then jeff, as I'm worked with me for a number of years in just just just what business is, you know, and that type, like just different, I'm like whether it's getting your specialization really hammered out cautious take it took four okay, so for those of you who want to specialize, I just say it took literally, like four and a half years for me to really in working with chef for me to really get to a place of where I knew what I was going to specialize in and and that's because it's like deep heart work, I think I think I think you feel like, is it enough to want to give moms confidence with their camera like that? Can you really, like, build a life out of that? You feel worried about that? And so I'm so so they so they have been very specific, I would say and then as faras like a photography mentor I'm in the beginning I went to workshops when I first started because those were so valuable I'm my first workshop was with the n b can trail I was pregnant with blaze and she we went out to do this photo shoot san francisco and I threw up I got so car sick I know how to use my camera at that workshop I didn't know what I was doing, but she was one of the only woman I could find at the time that was teaching and so she was my verse workshop and then I went tio a year later, dennis reggie's workshop and we'll talk about that more in the three day because he just like he was a game changer for me and for those of you who don't know who he is, he has shot several of the kennedy weddings is kind of like the godfather to me of wedding voter journalism, so for photography, I would say I'm workshops played a big part in it I did my colognes workshop and mike was so good at marketing and I just want a gleam from mike like what he was doing tio target the high end bride and so I think finding photographers that air doing what you want to dio their workshops are are a good investment I would make sure you know that they've like that you've talked to other people that have done their work shops you can you know make sure that people felt like they got good stepped out of it but really then you get to a certain point and you're like ok, I know kind of what I want to do with my camera but I still kind of need help with the business on this site so it's it's been kind of a ever evolving thing as I've gone from that guy recently you know e do I don't have ten thousand dollars an hour okay? But picks up the phone after I called the nafta so that's great story by the way yeah any great perseverance just I wasn't going to ask you this but just because you talked about the fact that it took you four years four plus years to find your niche yeah which I think is it challenge for many many of us I know it is for me melissa v r had asked early from massachusetts had earlier asked do you believe that it's possible to have a successful photography business without having a specialty niche or do you think that that's yeah necessary well that's that's a beautiful question because really like what she's asking to me and by here is is it possible to find joy and doing what I'm doing right now verse kids really like success is how does everybody is going to define success different and the measure of success is based on really like what your goals are and so if your goal is to do family portrait and not really have a specialty but just to do and once a month because it gives you this wonderful creative out but it gives you money tio have for christmas for presents and for a family vacation. Well then I would say she's been incredibly successful, you know? And so I think it really depends on what each of us is thinking of when we think of the word success not because I don't know like how else to think about that question I think it's so beautiful is it? Is it enough? Is that how she started her question? Is it possible? Is it possible? I'm I think I think it absolutely is depending on if that's like if that's what success is for her yeah, so thank you, yeah, I so I'm just think, is it okay? Can I'm just thinking about that? Because that's actually a question I think, though, that when she comes to a place so where she hits a glass ceiling that she'll know that something needs to shift and that she hasn't lost any time and shifting before but that something just needs to ship and for me, like one of the biggest, like ah haas of breaking through created barriers is that when you break through a glass ceiling, things shatter. Things shatter and on, and there's fallout and it's like it's. Amazing because you just, like, broke through a new sound barrier for yourself. But the same time. There's, like always, full out of what now success means for me, or what does join me in for me. And what does like my schedule look like? What would bring me joy, I guess, and redefining that all over again. So right, yeah, thank you.