Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we are here for episode 48. How looking back helps us look forward. And I have my special guest, Heather Latin and back with us today. And next week we are going to be planning, looking forward to 2021. So stay tuned, stick with us. Don't skip over this episode thinking, Oh my gosh, I never want to talk about 2020. Again, you guys, that would be a mistake. Good things came out of 2022 and we need to look back and see what happened in 2020 to learn the lessons that we had to see where we grew and to help us take stock of where we are so that we can make 20, 21 our best year yet. So stay tuned and we'll get started in just a minute.

Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host pets, photographer, travel addicts, chocolate martini, calmness sewer. Nicole Begley

Started with our interview with Heather. I just wanted to pop in here real quick and ask you guys a really huge favor. If you have two minutes, would you be, Oh, so kind to leave a review on iTunes for this podcast. Of course, that's assuming that you're loving this podcast, which I really hope you are. So if you could leave a few minutes and leave a review, I would so very much appreciate it. You can even leave questions in the reviews and we'll look over them and we can answer them in a future episode. But I wanted to start my year off with gratitude for each and every one of you, we are coming up on one full year of this podcast every single week, right here in your ears. And I am so very thankful that you have joined me on this journey. And, um, just wanted to say thanks. So without further ado, let's roll that interview. Hey, everybody, Nicole here from hair of the dog and we are back for another podcast episode with one of your favorite guests, Heather Latin in front of the flourish Academy, hair of the dog coach elevate coach, and just awesome person all around. I can think of no one else. I want to kick off the 2021 podcasts with then you Heather, welcome back to the podcast. Hey Nicole, thank you so much for having me. I love this idea of like a fresh start a new year, and I consider myself somewhat of a productivity expert. I mean, I'm always learning and I'm always growing, but I love to just think in plan and create a year that's designed for me, you know, your life by design your year by design, creating something new, fresh, like there's no baggage, okay. There's no difference between December 31st and January 1st. We, we know that, but I don't know. There's just this to the new year. That

Gets me really excited. What about you?

Oh my gosh. Heather, it's like Monday on steroids because you and I both know how excited we are not don't get me wrong. I love my weekends, but, um, there's part of me all weekend and I'm like, man, I can't wait to get back to work on Monday. And I feel so just thankful that I have a job in which like Monday morning comes and I'm like, Oh yeah, bring it on. So the new year is that times 52.

Yeah, exactly. You again, you have just a fresh start, a clean slate and you can create it however you want. So I thought what we can do is help people create their year by design. What do you think?

Oh, I love this so much because yeah, here's the thing. If we don't have intention about where we want to go, we're just going to get pushed around by all these other external forces. And you know, I, it blows my mind. How many times I ask someone, well, what do you want? And they don't really know. And you think that would be an easy question to answer, but it's not always an easy question to answer, you know, because we just, I don't know, we just kind of accept. This is how status quo is. This is what we do and here's another week and I'm like, just check it off the calendar. Uh, it's a new week, but I'm doing more of the same. So this is a great time for us to really take stock of where we are, where we want to go and start to make plans, to get more of what we want in our life.

Yeah. And you know what? I think people just need to ask themselves, do I want to continue to operate in a reactive mode, which is what you were describing. Everyone. Most people tend to just go with the winds of change, whatever is happening around them. They're just kind of going along with it. And you know, Zig Ziglar said, he's quoted as saying, if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. So if you say to me, you know, I don't know what I want, but I'm not happy or I feel some level of discontent and I'm not even sure why. Well, if you can't define what it is that you want or where you want to go, there's no way that anyone could help you to achieve that. So obviously the first step is defining what you want your life to look like. This is also, this also goes along with, uh, one of our mentors, Jim Forton, and his concept of working either from the outside in which is reactive or from the inside out, which is proactive.

Yeah. I love that. I love that. But before we start diving into where we want to go this year, there's some kind of retrospect

Retrospective. Yeah. There go retrospective things that we need to start looking at. That is not really

Human nature for us to really take the time to reflect on things. I know, I know I have to really force myself to say, all right, timeout, let me look back at this for a minute because I mean, it's human nature. We're always looking forward. We're like next thing, next thing, next thing. But there's so many lessons to be learned by just looking back at where we've been. Yeah.

That's very true. So a lot of people, okay, there's a couple of different segments of people. There are people who don't set goals. There are people who set goals. And then there are people who set goals based on what they learned in the previous year. But a lot of people skip this really, really critical step because in the context of goal setting, it's extraordinarily useful to evaluate the previous year, including its successes, failures, lessons, themes, before attempting to create a different outcome in the year ahead. In fact, I would argue, you cannot create a new or different outcome in the upcoming year and less you evaluate and reflect on the past year. Would you agree?

I a hundred percent agree. Yeah. One of our other mentors, James Wedmore likes to say, what got you here? Won't get you there. So doing more of the same if you like where you're at, then keep on trucking. But if you have goals that are bigger, a vision that's bigger than yeah. We need to change how we're showing up.

Right. And I can't remember exactly where I originally learned this. I, I got into personal growth and development about seven years ago. So I'm going to guess this was probably from Michael Hyatt because he has a program called your best year ever that I went through several times and he talks about this completing the past that it's important to do three things, acknowledge what happened, learn from those experiences and then adjust your behavior accordingly. But again, it can be really tempting to skip this step and just go into the excitement of planning for the new year. I mean, it is for me and I would assume it would be that way for others as well, but it's pretty important to sit down and really reflect on what happened. So what I've done is I've put together a series of questions that people can think about reflect upon. And I would recommend doing this, not sitting in front of Netflix while scrolling on your phone, but maybe this is something I do when I want to really focus is like, I'll light a candle and I'll go to one of those Spotify playlists that's intended for studying or focus. And it's usually instrumental. And you just put it on kind of soft in the background and you sit down and you really think about these questions. So are we ready to get stuck?

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I think that is part of the, the key to, of making this feel like a more, just a more enjoyable experience and also getting your frame, your mindset in the right frame of mind, by making a change from like, not trying to answer these while you're trying to cook dinner. And while you're trying to feed the dog and do all these different things, but to actually say, I'm going to take 20 minutes for myself and you know, Heather, I know you'd like to go hide in your closet, so no one will bother you. You have a big window. Um, so yeah, so I, I actually hide in my closet too, but I don't have a window or a window seat in there. It's a sad, we have to go hide in the closet so that, you know, I used to be able to go to a coffee shop, but we know that that's not happening, uh, this year. But, um, anyway, so yeah, so take that time, you know, maybe you go and if you'd like to take a bath, like make a bath and get some candles, put on some music and just take the time, tell your family, Hey, leave me alone for 20 minutes. So you can really focus on this because if you keep getting interrupted, you're not going to be able to get as much out of it as if you were able to focus on it for a few minutes. Uh, also if you want to download these questions, if you go to hair of the dog academy.com/ 48, just the number four and eight, um, you can download them there, we'll have them available for you to, uh, to grab. So if you're driving, keep on driving and come back to that site or the dog academy.com/ 48 and grab the questions so you can answer them later on.

Yeah. And listen, you make a good point about getting yourself in the right mind state to answer these questions, don't do this. If you're grumpy, don't need a shift. You're irritated with your kids or your spouse, because it's just going to have you focus on the negative. You know, you have to put yourself in a positive mindset to do this, and if that's not right now, then, you know, schedule a time when you think you can do it. And I will say that I have taken several of these goal setting type courses over the years. And a lot of what I'm going to be sharing. I have compiled just like on my own, what works for me, from people such as Michael Hyatt and James Wedmore, and many of the people that also work with them, I've just put this together. So some of the questions come from their materials. Some of the questions are my own. It's just a compilation again, of what I feel will work best for us.

Yeah. Perfect. I love it. So, yeah. So let's get started with our, um, reflection of 2020.

Okay. The first question is what happened both personally and professionally in the last 12 months. Okay. Hang on. I know that, that sounds like a really big question. So I recommend creating two columns and what I did to answer this is I went back and looked at, it, looked at my calendar so I could see what my appointments were. And so I looked, you know, in January, February, and then when things sort of shifted in March and I just started to write things down. And then the more I thought about it, the more things I thought of. So this isn't something you can just like hurry up and complete and get done. I really think you need to take the time to reflect, you know, another thing I did was I looked back at my notebooks. So I keep several notebooks where, you know, to do lists, et cetera, tasks. And I went through those and I started to write that. So for instance, let me give you just a few examples from my list that I know are applicable for you as well. Nicole, professionally, we both launched the elevate program. So that was a really big deal for us in our businesses. We have memberships that we run. We both got more help in our businesses this year, so that we could do less of the administrative work and things like this. I mean, you launched your podcast, right? I actually did a couple of really small what I call micro workshops for the flourish Academy, very small. Um, but also, so I'm listing things that I've done, but I also listed things like I had to cancel a retreat and I know that you had to cancel, I don't know, about 85 trips. Am I right?

Yeah. That number is a pretty accurate

Answer.

We've already canceled now three times, right?

Yeah. Times three. So there's things that you did. Here's what I don't want people to do. I don't want you to just like immediately label things as good or bad. Right. I wanted what happened, factually, what happened? Okay. I launched elevate, you know, we did these certain things. I canceled a retreat. Yes. We adapted to the pandemic and what we needed to do. Right. Okay. Like this is just a list of what happened. Don't take the time at this point to make an interpretation of what happened. Just write down what happened. So are there a few things that you can think of Nicole that you did

Well? Yeah. Before I get to mind for a second one that I'm thinking of that people might be tempted to put down is they might put down, I had a failed marketing strategy. Okay. That is assigning. Um, meaning to that, that's saying it failed. Well, no, maybe you had, I did a marketing promotion that resulted in zero new clients. Okay. That's what happened? Um, that labeling of failed is not going to serve you. I think we're going to talk more about, about like rewriting those stories and meanings as we go through this,

We're going to talk about a lesson. Okay,

Perfect. Perfect. So we'll come back to that one a little bit for that. And you know, and this is just again how our mind works in human behavior is that we don't remember the successes. We tend to downplay our successes and focus on the things that didn't go as well. So you guys see this everywhere. It's Oh, thank God. 2020 is over. Oh, thank God. It's a new year. You know, they're, everyone's just like, Oh, that was terrible. No, I promise you, there were some good things that happened. Uh, but it's harder for our mind to remember that without us consciously trying to pull that up and say, okay, I choose to remember some of these successes that I had in this past year, so that, um, you know, and one of the ways you can start to, to train yourself to do that is I started using a new planner. I mean, we could have a whole, a whole podcast on planners, Heather. I won't go too far into, into a tangent here, but I started using the 90 X planner. And in there it has a place for each week that I can write down my weekly wins and what a great way to get used to acknowledging the wins that you have as you go through the year. And then at the end of the year, I can look back through this planner and be like, Oh yeah. Oh right. Oh my gosh. I forgot about that. So it comes a lot easier to, you know, to kind of pull this together when I'm starting to plan for 20, 22,

I think everybody should have, if not a planner, then some type of journal with weekly wins. Don't you where they write down every week, what were you winning at? Because it would force you to focus on gratitude. What's working, what's going well. And it would be a great reference point for when you do this exercise next year.

Yes. Yes. And it doesn't have to be any particular planner. I mean, grab a notes on your computer, grab a text file, put it in Trello, put it in to do it, whatever, whatever you're using, email yourself once a week and put it into a little folder in your email. Just find a place to write that down. Because when we change our mind to focus on the gratitude and the good, amazing things really truly start to happen, you're literally rewrite, rewiring your brain

And you'll find more good. You'll look for it. But if you continue to focus on what failed, you know, quote failed, or what's going badly, then you're going to find more of that as well. Because what you seek, you find it, what you focus on grows. Everybody knows that. So when you're creating this list in this, if this is the first time you're doing this, this might take some time and be challenging in that you have to kind of go back and remember and look. But if you listen to Nicole's advice, then you're, you're actually, again, planning for this exercise next year, by keeping track of your wins this year. I think that's a brilliant strategy.

Yes. Thank you personally,

Uh, have anything or professionally, I guess that you'd like to share that you accomplished?

Well, let's see, in addition to the ones that you mentioned, one of my personal accomplishments, uh, per personal slash professional is I've been wanting to learn more about Photoshop painting for years, and it's always been on the back burner. So I finally joined my friend, Michelle Parsley's beyond the brushes membership and it is amazing. And I had been working on my Photoshop painting and I just find it so relaxing. And it's just so fun. And I don't know if I'm ever doing anything with it professionally, but it's just something I wanted to learn. So I'm learning that, and that has been fantastic. I also, this is also big for me too, Heather. I learned to use my Instapot during quarantine this year. I thought it at Costco, it was on sale like ages ago and I'm like, great. And then I got at home and then I was scared to use it. Cause I'm like, I don't want to blow up my kitchen. So yeah. So I sought some advice from a veteran Instapot user and then started using it. And I'm now obsessed and can make mashed potatoes in 15 minutes. And it's awesome. Um, so yeah, that's her a couple, other of my wins. That's great,

Sally. I got my best shape ever of my life. I'm in the best shape I've ever been, but that's a result of, okay, this is a, this is a good example of where you choose to focus because the reason I got in the best shape ever this year or this past year is because I put on some quarantine, wait, okay. I know this is very common. We got some takeout, we made some cookies, there were some comfort food turned in there. So, and actually when I filled out my own worksheet for this exercise, I wrote at the top that I got chubby and then I got fit. But when I look at it overall, you know, the story I am telling myself is the empowering one, which is I got in the best shape ever. And I didn't, I didn't start that off with, well, I had gained, you know, weight. I said, no, I'm looking at the overall what I did. I got in the best shape ever. So I'm choosing to focus on the positive. I even have a few, if you look in the right light, I have a few muscles, okay. There has to be the right shading.

The point is that sidelight, you know, coming into the texture, you know, it's a technique of photography, the highlights to the shadow. And if you look in the right light, you might think, wow,

You might even have some muscles. And that had never been the case for me. So I actually put that on my list. I put that I'm in the best shape ever. And I even have muscles, which you know, I'm just trying to be funny on a more serious note. I actually, this is kind of funny, not funny. Ha ha ironic. I don't know. I actually sought out a therapist to this year. I started seeing a therapist in the fall and I'd like to think I'm, uh, I'm pretty, um, you know, high functioning emotionally, but in my mind I thought I want to get better. I just want to be smarter, faster, better at everything. So I sought out a therapist. I did some research and I actually told her this when she finally got in touch with me, I'm like, you guys are like photographers. You don't get back to anyone.

The bar is low.

I said, I emailed like five therapists. And you're the only one that replied. So guess what you're hired? Photographers are the same way. If you just, if you answer your phone or you reply to emails, you will by default get more clients because there are so many people in the service industry and picking on photographers, but in the service industry in general that are just not getting back to people.

It's really bizarre, which is funny. Cause they're the same photographers. So they'll be complaining that they don't have enough clients while I'm answering your phone. They're calling. Right. So I gotta get this there.

And I get on my first call with her and I'm like, listen, her name's Holly. And I said, listen, I'm not here for any of that. Like family crap, or like let's look at your and your childhood. No, no, no, no, no. I just want to perform better in my business. I love my work. She, she, she was very gracious of course, but I'm imagining that she was probably rolling her eyes internally, like, okay, Heather, let's see what your issues are. But I love just, I chat with her, um, every other week usually. And just like getting the clutter out of your brain and talking it through with someone who is completely neutral, but will also call you on your crap has been just life changing for me. So, um, I'm now on this technical where I I'm like everybody needs a therapist. Everybody, you can go to psychology today, click on, find a therapist. And I did not even know this. So maybe this is news to you as well. But my insurance pays a hundred percent of it.

That's fantastic. I didn't think that they covered. Um, yeah, I, yeah.

And you have to call the number on the back of your insurance card and they'll tell you if they said, yes, it's a hundred percent covered. And I thought, Oh my gosh, sign everybody in the family operate. Let's everybody get talking to someone. So anyway, here's the thing. If I reflect on that and I'm sort of jumping ahead, in fact, let me get to this next question and it can tie this together because the second part of this is based on what happened either professionally or personally, what lessons did you experience? Because if something happens and you don't draw the lesson from it, then it was worthless, meaningless. I mean, it always has meaning, but you need to really draw from it. So, you know, I went to find a therapist because I thought it would help me in business, but I had the time to do that because we weren't traveling as much. So it was thanks to COVID right. That was like, I wouldn't, I don't know that I would have done that otherwise. So, um, a lesson I learned there is that the, even things that appear to be challenging or difficult on the surface always have a gift. You, you just have to, you just have to look for that gift. So in this case, the gift for me was the time to do it, or I don't know, the, just maybe the push, maybe I just saw what was going on. You know, the world was kind of a little bit messy last year. So that was an important lesson for me. I also learned in the past year, as I'm sure everyone would agree is that we are more resilient than we thought and that we can, we can do hard things. We can get through things we're actually way more flexible than we think, and we can make things work and we take action. So these are all good things that came out of a challenge. Can you think of any lessons that stand out for you?

Yeah, I think my biggest one, I mean, it's no secret that traveling is one of my most favorite things to do. And this year was supposed to be like the big year I was going to Europe three times I was going to the Galapagos. I mean, it was ridiculous. The amount of stuff that I had, all that was supposed to be this spring, but the amount of that I had last year and I was home all winter before COVID harp happened, like Heather, I didn't leave my house. I went to Florida at Christmas time to see my mom as usual, but January, February, March home, the entire time. And literally as my first trip is going is when the world started shutting down and then we were supposed to go to California. We were supposed to teach, I was supposed to teach bark Lander in Scotland. I was going to Italy for two weeks over the summer. I was going to teach Barcelona in the fall, like my entire calendar. And there were some personal trips in there thrown in there too that got canceled, like totally wiped clean, and two big lessons. Well, one really good benefit is I got a COVID pony. So I purchased maraca. And when I realized I'm like, well, I'm not going anywhere for a while. Time to get that horse that I was going to get after all this travel this year. And then I also discovered that I actually can be quite content at home. The horse helps. Um, if I didn't have the horse, I don't think I would be quite as content at home because you know, it just, it gives me something else to focus on and another project, but it, it was really eye-opening how, how content I am and even so much that I've now looked at my calendar. And, um, you know, even looking ahead until next November, we're going to be, we moved that Galapagos trip till Thanksgiving. And then I was looking at teaching something else and I'm like, well, I don't want to do that in November too, because that'll be a way a lot for November. Maybe I can do that at different months. I'm like, Whoa, well, what are these thoughts? I've never, I've never had these thoughts before. Who am I? Right? That is fascinating.

And you know, on a personal level, through some personal struggles that I had, I actually learned about myself that I am willing to do anything to avoid conflict. Uh, this is, this is not fantastic,

Is something I need to work through.

Oh, hence the therapist, right? How timely that all kind of worked out. You go through situations and then this just kind of came to light for me, like, wow, I'm doing everything to, to keep the peace and avoid conflict, but it's not productive. And I know it's not helping me. How can I get past this? Well, I can not get past it by just playing it through in my own head. When things stay in your own mind, they just get very, very muddled. They also appear larger than they

Actually are. They get bigger, you get bigger.

Right? So as I learned these things, I thought, well, if I would do anything to avoid conflict, I must have some type of issue with rejection or maybe low self-esteem now having known me and your audience knows me pretty well on the surface. You wouldn't think that at all, nor do I even feel that way. Like this is all happening at the subconscious level, but I think it's ultimately impacting business, which is why I'm doing all of that. So all of this, all of this are things that I learned last year and there's a ton more, I just wanted to share a couple of examples, but again, if I didn't take the time, if we didn't take the time to sit and look at these lessons,

How, how would I know what I needed to work on exactly. Or what direction to take? Well, now that I recognize I'm avoiding conflict, I can do something about it. Yep. Yep. I love that. And not to change the subject here, but that blacking self-esteem or feeling like you're not quite worthy. I'm with you too. I'm like, I don't have those issues, but all of us do to a certain extent, you know, there, there is still always that little voice in the back of our heads. Some of us just have it louder than others, but you know, I find myself doing certain things. My word of the year for 2021 is visibility because I find it safer and easier to just dive into my computer and do work. But instead of picking up the phone, doing another Facebook live or getting in front of all of you, amazing listeners out there. So, you know, for those of you that are like, Oh, I'm scared to put my business out there. Yeah, look, I'm, I'm running this business and I still have this like, Oh, it's easier to sit on my computer and not do anything scary or, you know, that could get rejection today. So, you know, that is there for that's, that's a common theme in all of us. And also, you know, the number one most downloaded episode from last year, Heather. Oh, that's for the podcast, gaining confidence. Was this woman named Heather London. Fantastic. Good. I'm so glad. Listen to me. And you would think I'm the most confident person on the planet. And the thing is, I am, this is, this is where you have to really pay attention because this can get really tricky. You see, I believe that I'm very confident and that I have high self-esteem and high self worth, and I am making things happen. And I feel great about the person I'm becoming, but so I'm in denial, the coal because of emit or, or at least uncover. So it was, it wasn't that I was trying to purposefully lie to myself that wasn't it at all. I literally didn't see it. So how could I fix it? So it came to light this year through some situations, in some reflection and then getting a therapist. And now I see, okay, wow. Here's something that I never in a million years would have explored or would have said, I need help with, which means I would have never sought it out, but now I can improve it. And that's so empowering. Yeah. And we only find these things if we ask our questions. The other thing that I want to circle back to for this particular question is our fictitious. You know what happened in this past year, my failed marketing thing. So maybe, you know, you did a marketing, something, you did something in your business that did not come out as expected. That of course becomes much easier here. So what lessons did you learn? You know, was it maybe I didn't have messaging that, that shared the value for what I did as well. Maybe it was, I chose to partner with, you know, a charity that wasn't as involved as they could have been. Maybe it was, I didn't promote it enough to my, to my followers. I need to be more visible. So you can start to pull those lessons because truly you guys, everything is happening in our favor. Even when we see something and we're like, that was a failure. It's only a failure. If you refuse to learn the lessons. So this is where we start to ask ourselves those questions and take away those lessons. Because guess what, if you don't learn the lesson, now you're going to have to repeat it. So you learn the lesson later. So you want to learn it now, or do you want to experience that again?

Let's just get it out of the way, you know, and this comes back to labeling or assigning a narrative or a story to what something means. And the truth is the things that happen are neither good, nor bad. They just happen. And then they teach us a lesson and you can choose to look at it as good or bad. But again, that's your choice. So you are either making your life phenomenal and looking for all the lessons and growing and learning. Even, even when it feels difficult and challenging, it's a struggle. I'm not diminishing that. Or you can just stay in your own misery and think, you know, everything is happening to me. And, you know, Nicole and I both look at life as everything is happening for us. Even when, like for instance, this past year, we really struggled with our 18 year old daughter and she's a great kid. Don't mishear me. She's just kinda got, you know, an, uh, teenage attitude and she's a little bit disrespectful and she's figuring out her own life. And so it was kind of challenging for us to navigate this, but we have grown, Oh my goodness, tremendously. And I believe as a result of that, we're all becoming closer as a family. But I mean, it can get ugly there for a little bit. You just have to recognize that whatever is happening, good or bad, however you label it is temporary. Everything is, and it's going to change. So I guess enjoy it while you label it as good, but don't, don't hate the bad, or don't try to avoid it. Just lean into it. Acknowledge, Oh, this kind of sucks. But I know that there's most likely a huge lesson on the other side. Yeah. A hundred percent. Okay. That's good. Let's move on to the next one. So these next two questions kind of go together. So the first one is what was missing from last year. Now I find this question to be a little bit tricky based on last year being 2020, because it can be really easy to blame everything on the pandemic. And I think that there are some absolute valid things that w that you will met, like travel, like getting together with friends. I mean, absolutely for sure. Those were missing from last year, but can you go deeper? Can you go into something that's beyond the surface, because guess what? You may or may not be able to travel this year. I mean, who knows? Right. So what are the other things, I mean, list of things that were missing from the pandemic. Absolutely. But I don't just list those. I want to, to think beyond them, because the second part of that question is what do you wish you had more of? So you can say like, for you, Nicole, you can say what was missing, missing travel. Okay. What do you wish you might travel? Okay.

What else done and done, right? Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think one way for you to start to get deeper on these questions is to not look at what physically was missing from your life. So that physically was traveled for me, but what, what was missing from your day to day emotional being? So for me, what was missing, well, this, uh, I'm going to save that one because that goes to these last two questions that we have. Um, but just finding out like, well, I'll go there. For instance, the beginning of the year, I was really overwhelmed because before COVID, it was, I was doing a new website. I had some team changes. I was like, basically felt like I took my entire business onto the floor off the table, like with an arm crashing down to the ground. And so it was super overwhelming. So for me, what was missing at that point of the year was some ease, more like stability. Um, and, and just free time. Well, I got a lot of free time later. Thanks universe, If you, yeah, exactly. I was really missing margin and I, that is one area that I struggle with regularly because there are so many things I want to do in my business that I tend to still say yes to too many things. So, you know, if you look at it though, in that terms of like emotionally, what was missing or with your day to day being what was missing and what do you had miss? You had more of there. I think that's going to get you deeper in those answers than just a 3d something like travel.

Right, right. Don't take the easy way out on this one. I mean, for sure, write those things down, but I definitely want you to go deeper. Okay. And here's the thing. Maybe you can't think of it right now. Maybe you're sitting there thinking, but I don't know. I'm not sure that's okay. Put your brain on it, come back to it tomorrow or in a couple of days and just, you know, give your time, give yourself some time for this reflection. I don't believe reflection happens in five minutes. I think it takes several hours, days, maybe even weeks, something will pop into your mind. So that's why I recommend printing this out and physically writing these things down, keeping it handy so that you can come back to it. And then

No, what I do, Heather, when I have a question like this and I'm like, I know there's something to it, but I'm not sure I did two things. Number one is I write down like what was missing from last year. I'll write it on a post-it note and kind of put it in my computer. So I'm like seeing it throughout the day so that every time I see it, even if I don't like consciously read it, my brain is still seeing it and taking it into my subconscious mind, still like, okay, I got to get that answer for you. Don't worry. Hey, we've got checked, Nicole, we're working on it. And then I also like to ask myself, reflect on these kind of before I go to bed, I've gotten doing that. I've become much more intentional doing that. And Heather, I can't even tell you the number of times now I wake up in the morning and it's like, I wake up at four or five. I used the bathroom and then I like go back to sleep for a couple of hours in that last little sleeping segment. Before I wake up, I wake up and I like have to grab a pen and paper. Sometimes I'm like, Oh my God, I just solved all the world's problems while I was sleeping. Just these things come to me in that date. And, uh, it sounds crazy, but it's, it's unbelievable. Like if you ask yourself something before you go to bed and you just tell yourself, I want to remember whatever answers come to me while I'm sleeping. You'll remember. And, um, it might not happen that night, but you'll get your answer.

Absolutely works. I mean, I know you have told me several times, we'll be talking about, um, maybe something we're trying to figure out in business and you'll say, don't worry. I'm going to put my brain on it today.

Now my subconscious, my subconscious on at night,

We both truly believe and have faith in the fact that our subconscious is working beneath the surface constantly in our face.

Yes. Yeah. There's um, Oh gosh, I don't want to totally mess it up. But there was a study James, one more shared this with us at one of our events that we were at with him, for our coaching program that we're in. And it was essentially, there were two people at a table in a crowded restaurant, you know, back when you could do those things. And, um, and they're talking, they're having a conversation. And then I don't know if it was the next day or later that night, but some period of time went by and they were asked to answer questions based on what their conversation was like, what they remember from that night. And they I'm gonna make this up, like remember 10% or something of it. And then they were put under hypnosis even later, like, which hypnosis sounds all crazy, but it's really just a deep state meditation. And so they are put under this deep state meditation to like kind of shut off that conscious brain and access their subconscious brain. And they remembered not just every single thing they talked about, but what all the other tables were talking about, even though they didn't even know they were listening to those other tables. So that is how much information is being processed by your subconscious mind all the time. And our conscious brain is just like, Holy cow, I can't handle all that. I'm filtering, I'm filtering big time. And it's only picking like little, teeny, tiny pieces.

I actually remember where I was sitting when he told that story. That's how much it impacted me. That story blew my mind. When he said that they remembered 100% of everything that went on in the entire

Restaurant that night, it was crazy

Easy to meet what our subconscious brain is taking in. I mean, I think you and I both looked at each other, like we, what the, what, how, you know,

What that, and

We happened to be sitting in a room that day with a bunch of really amazing high-performing entrepreneurs. And the first thing I thought was, Oh man, this is awesome. Yes, I'm going to pick up, I'm going to learn all of this stuff from these people around me. And I, I really had such an like an excitement and a, uh, this is going to sound contradictory. It was strange. It was like, I was super excited, but I was really peaceful at the same time, because I was thinking, I've got this, I chose you. And I both made a decision to surround ourselves with really amazing people and the things that they're working on and they're changing the world and we're absorbing it just by physically being in their presence, whatever those conversations were. I thought that that was phenomenal to me. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. So, well, three who had a real quick cause, um, but what was missing for last year or what do you wish you had more of for you last year? Oh gosh, let me see. I have two.

Yeah, I know. I have to look at my own notes. Um, what's funny is this is strange because it was missing, but then I, obviously there was a lesson from it and, um, I was missing my independence. I am fiercely independent and I, my, my kids are a little bit older, so they're, you know, they don't need constant care and they're usually in school or at work and not around. And my husband's at work and my parents do live with us, but they have their own lives and they're doing things. So, um, I tend, I mean, it's like, I have my own life Monday through Friday, Workday and I was just sick to my stomach that we knew when everything shut down. And I was like, Oh, I'm going to die. I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to get through this. Like having everybody around now, of course, like everyone else we adapted and it took some time and it was painful, but you know, we're in a rhythm at this point where, um, you and I both have figured it out, what the kids being home in school and such. But, um, so while that was missing, I also learned what I'm capable of. And then again, I'm more resilient and flexible than I thought that I can make things work. Even though I cleaned my independence. Like it is the very breath of life. The truth is I can operate in different cities.

Yeah. I remember those conversations in March or like they might school close the school for two weeks. Little did I know, I wasn't prepared for the actual answer that my children were going to go back to school building until August, 2021, because we often will remote. I mean, they're still not back, um, where I am anyway, even if we tried to go to school. Um, but, uh, yeah, like had you told me then, Hey, by the way, your kids are going to be home from school for the next year and a half or whatever, I couldn't have handled it. So yeah, we are resilient.

Yeah. I guess it's, I guess it's a good thing that we, we took it in sections. Like, like it's only going to be a couple of weeks.

Everything is happening for us. Yeah. We were, we were so Nicole and I would have these calls.

It's quite funny to listen to us talk because we would say, listen, I know this is happening for me. I know it is, but I'm struggling right now because my kids

Will leave me alone and I'm talking, how

Am I supposed to get my work done? Yeah. It was pretty funny. But, um, I actually didn't have, I've been working for the past several years, as I mentioned earlier, to design my life. So I don't have a lot of big things missing from my life because the truth is the minute I see something missing, I fix it. Right. But I'm cognizant, this is about, um, being aware. Awareness is key. I learned this from meditation awareness and learning. Oh, like, I'm not feeling good about this. So this is missing. So I need to do this. So this that's like an ongoing process for me. Absolutely.

I love it. All right. Let's move on. So we're good. We're getting there. You guys hanging out a couple more questions. You guys, I know this has been going on for quite some time, but we've only asked four questions that you need to, it's really three. Cause that one's kind of a, two-parter

Only like two more comments, so don't worry. Don't worry. Okay. So this next question again, it's kind of a two-parter is the first one is who were you in January of last year? And then the second part of that is who are you now? Let me give you an example. In January of last year, I was incredibly excited, hopeful. I had a lot of big plans for my business. Um, I was probably a little bit overly confident and a whole lot of naive for sure. Right? Because I didn't see any barriers between what I wanted to accomplish in my life and my business and achieving it. I literally did not see barriers. I just saw possibility, endless, excited, hopeful, possibility. Uh, you know, and I did not know in three short months that the world was going to shut down. So, and who did? I mean, of course you can never predict something like that, but that's who I was in January of last year. But in January of this year, I'm so much stronger aware and confident that I can figure things out. So right. Again, what all of this did was show us that we are more resilient and we're more flexible than we think. So I, you know, I almost look back at like January last year, Heather, and like, feel sorry for like, Oh, you poor thing. You have no idea. Like what's coming. That's so cute that you're so optimistic about everything, but it's about to get shifted in this past year. What this boils down to, is it really empowering? I feel incredibly empowered and I wouldn't, I would not have used that word last January because the, let me, okay. Sorry. Let me back up and explain this. I'm a wedding photographer. And for the first several years that I photographed weddings, I don't, I don't know what happened. I just got really lucky and I never had rain at a wedding. I always had like pretty decent weather, like really Pittsburgh, which is strange. I know it's true. This is a true story. And so what started to happen was I got more confident with my photography business was going well. And then all of a sudden it occurred to me that I had never shot in the rain. And I started to develop a pretty severe fear or anxiety about rain on Saturdays, like, like unnaturally. So because, and the reason is I didn't feel competent, right? It wasn't anything to do with confidence. I, I had never done it. So I didn't feel competent in that. Well, so of course I wanted to avoid it. I wanted to hide from it. I wanted to control the weather. I w I installed like three different weather apps on my phone. So if I looked at one of them and it called for rain on Saturday, I'd be like, Oh, screw you I'd look at another weather app as if it's going to change the weather, you know? And I avoided it and worried and worried and worried until of course, one Saturday at rain on a wedding. And guess what I did just fine. I photograph the wedding, the photos were beautiful. And then a couple of months later, I had another wedding. It rained on it. And I th and then I was empowered because I was competent, which led to confidence. So I wouldn't have known that prior to that. So my point is, when you go through a difficult challenge, which we would all list 2020 is being challenging. You are so much stronger and better prepared for whatever's coming next.

Yes, yes. A hundred percent. And I, I love that. Um, so I made a note here about the confidence too, that, you know, I think so many of our listeners, based on what we said before, and based on, you know, what people are downloading and listening to, like a lot of people want to feel more confident and, you know, they may be, look at who they were earlier in the year, and they weren't sure of themselves. They weren't sure of their craft. They weren't sure of their value as an artist. And that confidence can only be created by doing it by practicing, by getting the mistakes out of the way, by getting those crappy pictures, that we're all, we all take the beginning. And we all still take now out of the way and not letting that, Oh, that session was really hard. And these aren't my best images define you. It was just like, Oh yeah, no, that session was challenging. And these aren't my best images. Okay. Let's do it again. So, you know, just always thinking about when you're feeling that way, just like you gotta just put your head down and say, okay, what lesson do I have? Okay. I need to check my ISO because auto ISO, it got way too high. And now these images are great. All right. Lesson learned. Um, so that's, that's really just the key.

Yeah. You need, the struggle is what you're saying.

So a year ago, Heather, a year ago, I was in denial about it.

How about my confidence and my self-esteem as I alluded to earlier. So now this year, at this point, I'm more real with myself and I'm tackling deeper, harder issues with my therapist. I've grown so much. I'm brave. I'm, I'm a better communicator. I'm more courageous. And I wasn't those things in last January. Can you think of any examples for you last January, Nicole versus,

Oh, it's easy. Last January, Nicole was completely overwhelmed and thinking, Oh my gosh, well, how can I do this? Am I kidding that I'm going to start a podcast too? No way I there's, I don't have time for this. Um, I need to, to just, it was just complete and total overwhelm because you look back at last January and I basically had a team of one. And now, you know, to the end of January, I have a team of four, plus my elevate and Academy coaches. I'm still busy and I still probably could use some more margin, but I'm much more, I'm so much better now at looking at my business from this, um, higher level of planning and being able to, uh, allow my team to take the reins to, to, to do some of these other tasks. Like for instance, this podcast, I record these and I don't touch anything from here on out because I just don't have the time. It's just me, you guys. Like if I had to do all of this, I was actually doing this the other day. I was doing payroll and I added up and like, I would work. There's literally not enough hours in the week if I were to do all those jobs, because it's just, it's crazy. So that has been my biggest growth this year is just kind of stepping more into this role of being the visionary for my business and leading my team. And, you know, I used to manage people back in the zoo world and you know, so I have some management experience, but this is a whole new set of skills and things to learn. And it's been really fun and rewarding and challenging all at the same time. And, you know, I wouldn't change a thing.

Right, right. Me either. I would not change a thing. All, all of the good quote, bad struggle, all of it, all of it as welcome. Okay. The final question. And by far my favorite question, in fact, if you did nothing else, but answer this question or reflect on it, I think this could be life changing. Ask yourself what gift did 2020 give you. Ooh, good one. Right. I love that. You have to really, and I have a million there. I mean, I'm not going to go through them all again. We've already heard so many good things came out of it for me, but this is especially important for people who really struggled to find the positive. And again, I'm not downplaying that your, your feelings are valid last year was crazy, but can you find the gift I implore you to serve?

Yeah. There's certainly one, if not several. And yeah, if you guys do nothing else, like if you're driving, you're like, ah, I'll get to all that later. Or, you know, you download it and you're like, Oh, I'm not gonna, you know, kind of like, not really look at things too much. Please, please, please at least answer this one. But if you take the time to answer all five, just five, five questions here, guys, you know, you are, you're going to be the one that gets a benefit from it, uh, by you this question, you know, Heather and I, it doesn't matter. It does not affect our day to day. It doesn't affect our life. Does it affect our future? Whether you answer this or not, but if you take the time to go through these five questions, it can significantly change your path in this next year and beyond. So I implore you to take the time to do so. Yeah. I agree very well said. Thank you so much. No, of course, of course. If you guys want to download these questions, just go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/four eight a and you'll be able to find that download on the show notes page and definitely join us next week, because we are going to be going to part two of our goal setting. And we're going to be talking about what we're going to plan for this upcoming year, how to plan for 2021. And when that airs, you guys were already going to be halfway through more than halfway through January. Time is flying. And if you don't take the time to plan, you are not going to get where you want to go, because you don't even know where you want to go. So carving out this intention, carving out this plan, carving out this path forward is absolutely critical for you to get to where you want to go. Just do it, make it happen. All right. Perfect. Thanks Heather, for being with us today and we'll see all of you guys next week, have a good one. If you were like most photographers, you may be thinking that taking gorgeous images is all you need to fill your calendar. Well, I've got some bad news. That's not the case. There are plenty of incredible artists out there that struggle to make consistent money in their business. And on the flip side, there are lots of photographers that produce average work that are killing it with full calendars and high sales. You see successful photography. Businesses are just that businesses. I'm Nicole Begley creator, a pair of the dog. And I believe every artist can make money doing what they truly love. So I help pet photographers maximize their potential by improving both their craft and their business. If you're ready to follow a proven path to success, join us inside hair of the dog Academy.