00;00;00;01 - 00;00;17;21

Nicole

Hey there, Nicole from Hair of the Dog. And today we have Heather back on the podcast and we are talking all about momentum, how to keep the momentum going. After a break or what to do if you're like me and you lose momentum like periodically when you don't have a hard deadline. So we're going to be talking about all the things.

 

00;00;17;21 - 00;00;31;09

Nicole

So unless you are motivated like 100% of the time and never have a problem figuring out what to do next and jumping back in your business, well, if that's you, you don't need us. But if you're human, you're going to want to listen to this episode. Enjoy.

 

00;00;32;16 - 00;00;49;29

Voiceover

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 home. Pet photographer, travel addict, chocolate martini connoisseur Nicole Begley.

 

00;00;50;27 - 00;01;03;07

Nicole

Hey, everybody. Nicole here from Hair of the Dog. And we are back for another week with the one the only drum roll, please. Heather Lahtinen.

 

Hey, Heather, welcome to the podcast.

 

00;01;03;08 - 00;01;09;17

Heather

Thank you so much for having me. I am so happy to be here and I actually want to dove right in. Is that okay?

 

00;01;09;17 - 00;01;19;12

Nicole

 

Oh, my gosh. I mean, yeah, we don't like I mean, anyone that's been through my trainings knows that I don't like to waste time. So yeah, we dove right into it. So let's do it.

 

00;01;20;04 - 00;01;42;18

Heather

I would like to ask your opinion on something. I'm just very interested to hear your thoughts. Last week I taught photography at our local community college and I had an exceptional young student in my class. She was 16 years old, so you have to actually get special permission from your guidance counselor to take my class and she asked me afterwards about starting a photography business.

 

00;01;42;28 - 00;01;59;17

Heather

And she oh gosh, you know, in the 16 year old I said, do I what do you think about me getting a college degree in photography? Is that necessary? No. How do you respond to that?

 

00;02;00;25 - 00;02;25;14

Nicole

I would say I actually it would be the same response that I think my parents gave me when I said I wanted to go to college for like equestrian studies, that it may be a good minor or a good, you know, something else. But I personally, I would look at going to college for something that can give you a little bit more fall back on.

 

00;02;25;14 - 00;02;44;12

Nicole

But I say this as someone that doesn't use my college degree at all anymore. I mean, I went to college for animal vet science, which I did use for my first 13 years of my career as a zoo zoological animal trainer. Like, I needed that. So yeah, man, that's a tough one. But the fact of the matter is, you do not need a photography education to run a very successful photography business.

 

00;02;45;00 - 00;03;04;01

Heather

Correct. That's that's precisely what I told her. I mean, if I'm just answering the question, is it necessary? No, it is not necessary. I told her I did not have a college a college degree. I do have two college degrees. I didn't I do not have a photography degree. And in fact, most of the photographers I work with do not have that.

 

00;03;04;05 - 00;03;11;11

Heather

And some don't have a college degree, and that's totally fine. Do you have to go to college? QUESTION Oh.

 

00;03;11;17 - 00;03;11;28

Nicole

Yeah.

 

00;03;12;01 - 00;03;13;17

Heather

I mean, no, you don't.

 

00;03;13;24 - 00;03;43;20

Nicole

You know, I mean, you look at anyone, I mean, an electrician, any of the trades, you can have a very lucrative career starting your own business doing that, or even just working for someone else, you're paid very well. But like you could actually have a very, very, very profitable career starting and electric plumbing, any of those trades businesses and and then being a fairly decent business person.

 

00;03;43;20 - 00;03;53;07

Nicole

By that I mean answering your phone and calling people back, which is coincidentally or not coincidentally, the same with photographers that refuse to answer their phone. But anyway, I digress.

 

00;03;53;14 - 00;04;15;28

Heather

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I didn't want to influence her one way or the other. Yeah. I want her to make her own decisions and I want her to consult her parents. Obviously. And I said that. But in my mind I'm thinking, Oh, man, no. I'm like, She's 16. I think she's a junior in high school. She's taking some pretty decent photos.

 

00;04;16;10 - 00;04;36;24

Heather

I'm like, Hey, how about you invest in the Flourish Academy and I'll get you to six figures next year before you graduate high school. Like, how about that? And then? And then you can make as much as you want in the years after that. No, I did not say those things. I did tell her to take a look at the Flourish Academy, but I said, you need to discuss this with your parents and figure out what's best for you.

 

00;04;37;02 - 00;04;45;02

Heather

If if you go to college because you want to and you can afford to and you like to learn, that's great. I would get a degree in entrepreneurship.

 

00;04;45;02 - 00;04;47;02

Nicole

Do you have degrees in entrepreneurship.

 

00;04;47;10 - 00;04;48;11

Heather

Absolutely, yes.

 

00;04;48;12 - 00;04;48;20

Nicole

Yeah.

 

00;04;49;06 - 00;04;54;22

Heather

I don't know that they did when we were in college back in dark ages. But now yeah, now they do my daughter.

 

00;04;54;22 - 00;04;57;14

Nicole

Actually took entrepreneurship classes in middle school.

 

00;04;58;04 - 00;04;58;20

Heather

Wow.

 

00;04;59;02 - 00;05;01;06

Nicole

Which was pretty awesome.

 

00;05;01;11 - 00;05;09;20

Heather

Yeah, that's impressive for sure. So anyway, that was actually not our topic for today, but I was just curious what your thoughts were on that.

 

00;05;10;05 - 00;05;22;02

Nicole

Yeah, I love it. I love it. So, yeah, well, we are going to talk about today a little bit is we're in the midst of what people like to call the holiday season.

 

00;05;22;20 - 00;05;24;21

Heather

They do, yes.

 

00;05;24;21 - 00;05;50;22

Nicole

Which is that time between American Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I mean, quite frankly, we put our trees up. We're recording this. It's November 9th. This is getting released on December six. So we would have already eaten all the turkey and all the pumpkin pie and all of the delicious things and wearing the elastic pants. Right. But that electric pants that would not, you know, the electric bands.

 

00;05;50;28 - 00;06;20;21

Nicole

Yeah. So anyway and I think one of like two things happens that, you know, our fall's busy and even if you're not at a place in your business yet where your business is really busy in the fall man life gets like foot on the gas this part of of the year with you know just all your responsibilities is with extra parties which are fun you know, just shopping Christmas what are we doing?

 

00;06;20;21 - 00;06;47;04

Nicole

What's going on? Like if you have kids, there's 8000 things going on. On top of that, you know, whether you have dogs at home, too, that I mean, right now, actually, Cammy is now crying right here. She's about to start her little hatchling because I'm not talking to her. And she yesterday, my husband's like we should probably put all the Christmas ornaments up on the tree a little bit higher because she's probably going to eat them.

 

00;06;47;04 - 00;07;04;26

Nicole

And like now they're big round ornaments. She wouldn't do that today. She has destroyed one. Destroyed, too. And then I heard her get the third one off the tree after, by the way, the second and third one was after I thought I put them up high enough that she could no longer reach them.

 

00;07;05;07 - 00;07;05;21

Heather

Oh.

 

00;07;06;09 - 00;07;07;20

Nicole

She's trouble.

 

00;07;07;28 - 00;07;08;12

Heather

Yeah. One.

 

00;07;08;13 - 00;07;12;07

Nicole

Here she goes. 1/2.

 

00;07;12;07 - 00;07;19;24

Heather

You're not kidding. Oh, okay.

 

00;07;19;24 - 00;07;38;10

Nicole

Okay. All right. Anyway, she used to do this when she thought nobody was home. Just three. It was certainly she started doing it in other parts of the house and then coming into my office under my desks to finish her howling and staring at me. I'm like, No, no, no, no, no, no. This is we're not going to play this game.

 

00;07;38;10 - 00;08;03;05

Nicole

So anyway, my apologies if any of your eardrums got blown out there. But yeah, she's been challenging my whole point of this whole long story is that it is a super busy time of year and a lot of people lose momentum over the holidays because they take some time off over Christmas and they were so busy maybe focusing on all of the things that needed to get done for the weeks leading up to that.

 

00;08;03;14 - 00;08;26;16

Nicole

And quite frankly, they get tired and they then it's sometimes harder to jump back in to working on your business after the holidays are done and you're just like, Where do I even start? Where do I go from here? And because you're out of the habit of working on your business, it becomes so much harder to jump back into those routines.

 

00;08;27;01 - 00;08;48;19

Heather

So that is exactly the issue we're talking about. Nicole So momentum is so important in a business. When you start to get a client, a couple of clients and you're shooting, you feel really good. You get in a groove. You added, Everything is great momentum. I picture it like a steam train. You know, when it is sitting, it takes a lot of energy to get it moving.

 

00;08;48;26 - 00;09;11;21

Heather

But once it's moving, it's very, very difficult to stop it. So I actually capitalize on momentum. I mean, I use it in my favor throughout the year in my business. But let me describe to you a scenario that happened to me year after year after year, because I am, in fact, super slow to learn. I would take off time around the holiday season.

 

00;09;11;21 - 00;09;31;09

Heather

So that's typically I would take off a week or two around Christmas because it's Christmas and I want to spend time with my family and I want to relax, but I can't. But I'd try. And then I would come back in January and I would feel so defeated. I'd like I don't even know where to start. I was just frustrated.

 

00;09;31;17 - 00;09;57;24

Heather

I would sit at my desk and I would do busywork or maybe edit something. Well, all the editing was done. The clients were taking care of Where do I even start? And it just felt awful. So again, this happened year after year until I finally decided one year to create a momentum plan. So a momentum a planning session is something that we are going to be doing together.

 

00;09;57;24 - 00;10;04;05

Heather

Oh, do you want to talk about that? So we're going to talk about this concept by coming up. We're going to hold a special class around this.

 

00;10;04;13 - 00;10;38;01

Nicole

We sure are. So December's podcast party is going to be a momentum training theme. We are actually going to be holding this free training for you guys at noon on Jan, not January. That will be too late. September 15th, which is a Thursday, December 15th at noon Eastern. And that is our Hair of the Dog Podcast Party. But the podcast party theme is this free momentum training.

 

00;10;38;10 - 00;10;43;00

Nicole

You guys aren't going to want to miss it. You've delivered this training before, right?

 

00;10;43;03 - 00;11;10;28

Heather

I have. So I have a worksheet for you and everything. Of course I do. But you know, as with many trainings that I create, it is 100% out of necessity to save me from myself. That's how it started. So I created the training several years ago, but last year I formalized it and I delivered it to elevate. And I want to make a note here that one of the things that makes Elevate, unlike any other photography business growth program, is that we spend time on things like this.

 

00;11;11;02 - 00;11;36;10

Heather

I mean, of course we have training videos and checklists for pricing and marketing and establishing your business, but none of that matters if you get any crap done. I mean, right. So I actually created a module inside of Elevate called Breakthrough Training, things like leveling up your business, cultivating resilience to push through rejection, finding creativity in your business, exploring your money challenges, etc. You get the idea.

 

00;11;36;17 - 00;11;55;28

Heather

Momentum planning was one of them. And in fact, one of our new elevators said to me last week, maybe the week before that she was blown away by how much awesomeness was in Elevate because she had no idea it was that robust. Like I said, I'm thinking now we need to do a better job of marketing the breakthrough training because it's pretty impactful.

 

00;11;55;28 - 00;12;23;01

Heather

So that's that's why I created this momentum planning. Also, I just want to add, just to brag on these elevators for a second that five people within three weeks of joining Elevate had their largest sales ever ranging final listen to this, ranging from $1,500 up to $8,500. And let me tell you something, it was not because they finalized their price list or created a new website.

 

00;12;23;08 - 00;12;29;05

Heather

It was because of the breakthrough training. Very, very important. Okay. So what I decided.

 

00;12;29;05 - 00;12;30;06

Nicole

Translations, guys.

 

00;12;30;14 - 00;12;41;08

Heather

Yeah. Isn't that amazing? I mean, we're getting in the elevator group. We're getting a win multiple times a week on, Hey, you guys won't believe this. I just had my biggest sell ever. I feel like I want to throw up, you know.

 

00;12;42;14 - 00;12;44;21

Nicole

In a good way, right?

 

00;12;44;21 - 00;13;06;29

Heather

Like exploring issues. Last week we were talking about guilt over raising your price. Actually, would you make a note? Let's do an episode on that on money and pricing and guilt and all. Okay, so but this momentum planning, this training came up because I saw so many people with so much momentum. Actually, it's one of two things you alluded to it.

 

00;13;07;07 - 00;13;29;18

Heather

One is either they're there, they're burnt out because they had a crazy fall and they they may be hit a wall and they have a meltdown or they just they just need some time off or they have a lot of momentum in their business and they don't want time off, but they have to take time off. I personally feel like I was always forced like the holidays made me cause, you know, you have to spend time.

 

00;13;29;18 - 00;13;49;25

Heather

Oh, okay, whatever. And then we would come back and I would it would seriously. Okay, now that I think about this, it wasn't just like it took me a day to get back on track. I mean, it took at least a week, if not weeks, for me to get back into the swing of things. Because, again, this is a steam train.

 

00;13;49;25 - 00;14;03;09

Heather

Right. And it was it had stopped. I wonder, have you had this or how do you manage not just holidays? Because this was not I called it momentum planning for holidays and vacations. You travel how do you manage this?

 

00;14;03;19 - 00;14;22;25

Nicole

So I don't have this particular problem. I'll tell you where I run into my low momentum. I take time off, I go away and I always come back like ready to dove in with like 8000 things. I get the clarity on the projects and I'm like chomping at the bit and I'm like, all hands on deck. I'm in.

 

00;14;22;25 - 00;14;42;08

Nicole

So this is not been a challenge for me. What is a challenge for me is when I don't have deadlines and then I find myself sitting at my desk all day, like doing this, doing that, and then I get mad at myself, be like, Dude, if you weren't going to do any work, just take the damn day off.

 

00;14;42;08 - 00;14;43;12

Heather

Like, like like.

 

00;14;43;19 - 00;15;06;01

Nicole

Why do you insist on sitting there messing around with little things when you're not actually doing any important work? And it's because I have too much time to get things done. But yet I like to work. But yet I also like to like not work. Sometimes I actually do like sure day off, right? So that that becomes my my challenge.

 

00;15;06;01 - 00;15;08;00

Nicole

Can this momentum train to me help me there?

 

00;15;09;03 - 00;15;30;27

Heather

Well, I suppose it can. I mean, you know what your issue is. So what you need is some type of external accountability. So there are some people that are driven by internal accountability, actually pretty rare. I'm one of them. I know this because I've studied it and some people need more external accountability. Now, that does not mean a person.

 

00;15;30;27 - 00;15;52;02

Heather

That does not mean me. You need me saying, Nicole, you need to be getting these things done. It means you need to set up and you love systems, you love process, you need to set up some type of system that forces you into accountability. It's things like great examples, a deadline. Obviously, if you have a deadline. Yeah, you're yeah.

 

00;15;52;03 - 00;15;52;26

Heather

You know what?

 

00;15;53;09 - 00;16;18;12

Nicole

Let's actually forced me recently because I've been you know, I've been talking about like the revamp for the Academy for a long time of like I have these ideas. I can teach this so much more streamline. I can rearrange this in such a more streamlined way. I want to build out all the, like, craft pillars, you know, because when I've created the Academy a couple of years ago, it was like taking things that already existed and putting them together.

 

00;16;18;20 - 00;16;39;29

Nicole

But now I'm like, I see this vision to really create a11 success path all the way through from craft to business. And I've been talking about this for a long time. You have and and it's because it's such a huge project, right? It is that there's always I'm always like, oh, I have to get over this next project up and then this next project hump.

 

00;16;40;06 - 00;16;50;18

Nicole

So it was never like forced to take center stage in my calendar until now. You guys, I haven't announced the date publicly yet until right now.

 

00;16;51;05 - 00;16;51;27

Heather

Right. Going to do is.

 

00;16;51;27 - 00;17;15;20

Nicole

Going to do it. I have set the date set set the date internally for my own and with my team. So it's not just my internal accountability. It's I told my team, hey, this is the date, February 15th that we are releasing the upgraded new academy. And it's going to be freaking incredible, but just that of putting the date to it.

 

00;17;16;01 - 00;17;26;01

Nicole

And then I like worked backwards and like, what's November? That's three months. But it's, it's going to go really fast. Yeah. Especially because one of those months is December.

 

00;17;26;04 - 00;17;50;12

Heather

Right, right. It's not actually three months in terms of weeks because of the holidays. Well this is fantastic. And that was that was something you recognized you needed to do in order in order to hold yourself accountable is set a date. So in your case. Yeah it's you work better with a little bit of stress and some deadlines so you need to figure out ways to put pressure on yourself.

 

00;17;50;12 - 00;17;52;05

Heather

So they're problem solved.

 

00;17;52;12 - 00;18;15;22

Nicole

Yep. Yeah. I also need to I think that's one of the reasons I love to travel so much too, because that's the easiest way that I can, like, unplug and actually be present and not think about work. I'm still thinking about work, but I'm not actually, because when I'm at my house, like my office is right here, it's like the siren song of like, Oh, for sure, come somewhere.

 

00;18;16;08 - 00;18;17;01

Heather

Ask yes.

 

00;18;17;01 - 00;18;17;20

Nicole

Work.

 

00;18;18;10 - 00;18;21;28

Heather

But I, it's funny, I have that same siren here, right.

 

00;18;22;22 - 00;18;28;03

Nicole

Same. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I like just come sit down and plan some things.

 

00;18;29;01 - 00;18;59;21

Heather

It'll be okay. You know, there's also another side to this, and that is some people like you and I love to work, like, straight up love it. Yeah, but there are some people that work a lot because they don't trust themselves. And I actually have a little bit of this where like you're asking yourself or you're saying, Well, I should be working on more, I should be doing this, I should be doing that because should the shoulds will kill you because there's implied shame there, because when you say I should do it but you're not, then what does that say about you?

 

00;18;59;21 - 00;19;19;03

Heather

So be very careful with that word. But when you're jumping around thinking that what you're saying is, I don't trust that I'm working on the right things. So if you trusted yourself that you are working on the right things at the right time, you would have little to no stress or anxiety about your business. This is the truth.

 

00;19;19;15 - 00;19;49;13

Heather

If you are feeling anxious about your business, it's because you don't know. If you you don't know if you're doing it right. Even though there's no right or wrong, you feel like there's something missing or something you should have done that you didn't do. And I had a lot of that early in my career. And so as a result, I really hated taking time off, not just because I loved it, but because I felt like I was going to miss something or miss out on something.

 

00;19;49;22 - 00;20;14;19

Heather

So I wanted to again set up a system to save me from myself so that I could enjoy the holidays or enjoy a vacation without this nagging, low level feeling of frustration or I should be doing something. So that's how the the planning came to be. And again, we're going to dove into this like hands on in our podcast party.

 

00;20;14;19 - 00;20;24;22

Heather

But essentially, if I were to give you a high level, it's like this actually, maybe right now. Yeah, by the time you're listening to this, it is time to do this. You should. Yeah, yeah.

 

00;20;25;15 - 00;20;25;20

Nicole

Yeah.

 

00;20;26;15 - 00;20;50;21

Heather

You should schedule a couple of hours or an afternoon. And really I think if you can get away from your office or your computer, even better, if you could turn your phone off or on silent, well, bonus points and you get out a piece of paper and you start just, you know, it starts with a brain dump. So I call these thought downloads where you're like everything you're thinking about regarding your business.

 

00;20;50;21 - 00;21;16;02

Heather

And then you start to look at things that are tasks versus projects, and you start to ask yourself, Okay, what would have the most impact or what should be the highest priority? When I return to my desk on January 4th or fifth or whatever day it is that you plan to go back to work, and then you make a list of things to actually physically do.

 

00;21;16;02 - 00;21;33;11

Heather

So you break down the projects, the thoughts, the ideas you just like thought, download, put on some music, no distraction, no distractions. This has to be like you have to dig deep. What worked well this year? What? What didn't work? Well, what do I want more of? What do I want less of? Did I love fall? Did I hate fall?

 

00;21;34;00 - 00;21;52;12

Heather

Do what? What are my income goals? What are my client goals? What does that look like? How many hours I went to work? Is there anything else I want to explore? These are just great questions to ask yourself to capture everything you're thinking so that ultimately the ultimate goal of this process is to take this list and turn it into a task list for January 4th.

 

00;21;52;29 - 00;22;07;13

Heather

And here's why. If you don't do this and some of you, okay, whatever, you're not going to listen. That's fine. Listen, I was slow. I didn't do it for years. When you sit down at your desk on January 4th and you don't have a list, you're going to be lost. I guarantee you this.

 

00;22;07;13 - 00;22;09;12

Nicole

Could be any day. You're like.

 

00;22;09;12 - 00;22;09;28

Heather

It early.

 

00;22;10;15 - 00;22;23;15

Nicole

Literally any day. I like if I don't have a I mean, if I don't have a list like every Sunday evening, at least some point before Monday, sometimes I actually do it like Friday, the week before to like get.

 

00;22;24;05 - 00;22;24;26

Heather

Ready to leave.

 

00;22;24;26 - 00;22;40;21

Nicole

Before the weekend. I will map out my whole week and I will ask myself like, what are my priorities next week? What needs to get done? Because I have found that if I show up at my desk on a Thursday morning without a plan.

 

00;22;40;27 - 00;22;41;26

Heather

Or nothing.

 

00;22;41;29 - 00;22;53;14

Nicole

Like that, don't bother. Don't bother working today, take the day off, go do something enjoyable. Self-care, because you're not actually going to get anything done without figuring out what those priorities were.

 

00;22;53;20 - 00;23;18;29

Heather

Right, short term, right. So yeah, actually when I was teaching this for the first time, we were talking about the holidays and vacation, and then I said, this could even be for the weekend. And like you're saying, like this could be any day is the if you sit down at your desk on any given day and you expect just to be motivated or to feel great about your business and what you need to work on, that's a fool's errand.

 

00;23;18;29 - 00;23;38;28

Heather

It just won't work. So if if I sat down and worked on what I felt on working on, I'd, I'd be planning good job. I would be messing around with all these things that I enjoy doing or I'd jump over to Lightroom. One of my methods of procrastination and distraction is editing. Yeah, because I enjoy it and it's easy.

 

00;23;39;15 - 00;23;45;10

Heather

So. And, and when I finish it, I feel accomplished. So be careful. You're not using editing.

 

00;23;45;17 - 00;24;02;10

Nicole

That's like me doing laundry, not folding it, not folding it, but actually washing and moving it to the dryer. It's like one of my favorite tasks. Thankfully, you get to do it like every other day. And by the way, we've also the kids are old enough now that I was just like a couple weeks ago. It's like, forget it.

 

00;24;02;10 - 00;24;11;00

Nicole

So I don't mind doing the laundry, but it comes out of the dryer and it just gets piled on their bed and they have to fold it. I'm like, I'm done folding anyone's laundry other than mine.

 

00;24;11;16 - 00;24;15;20

Heather

Yeah, you're too old for that. I mean, want to make sure? Yeah, I'm just not doing it.

 

00;24;16;08 - 00;24;25;24

Nicole

But. Yeah, no, I 100% get that in making brain dump lists like this super help might be my favorite thing on the planet.

 

00;24;26;14 - 00;24;42;02

Heather

Yeah, because. Because here's the thing. If you try to come up with the tasks you need to complete again, you're going to struggle. Yeah, because you have to look at the bigger picture. What are you trying to accomplish? What are the priorities? What are my goals? What are the you know, there are big projects that you want to work.

 

00;24;42;02 - 00;25;10;11

Heather

Like, for instance, someone might be thinking, Oh, I want to redo my website the first quarter of 23. Okay, that's a great goal. But if you don't break that down into a few tasks, when you sit down on January 4th, you are going to be lost. You need to take a project like that and say, you know, if you don't have it already, get the domain or sign up for an account, whatever, you know, whatever platform you're using or if you already have your website you might write down for January 4th.

 

00;25;10;29 - 00;25;44;07

Heather

Update my about me page, test my contact form. So what I am suggesting is creating a list of tasks to do on the day that you get back that that work towards your goals and your priorities. And, and this just like general feeling of a accomplishment, getting things done. If you have a couple of lists for, say, those first couple of days of the new year, you will be able to jump back into your business and gain your momentum back so much faster than if you didn't write.

 

00;25;44;19 - 00;25;46;24

Heather

I mean, bottom line, right? Yeah. And a plan.

 

00;25;47;07 - 00;26;07;28

Nicole

Along those lines. I want to talk about motivation for a minute, too, because I think a lot of people wait until they feel motivated. But here's the kicker. Once you start taking action, it's when the motivation actually kicks in. It's like a self-reinforcing kind of thing and you start to get momentum and then the motivation takes off. You start to see the path.

 

00;26;08;06 - 00;26;12;14

Nicole

And even if you don't know the whole path, at least if you know the first 3 to 5 steps, like just start.

 

00;26;13;20 - 00;26;33;08

Heather

Yeah, you're absolutely right. It reminds me of weight loss, you know, like, of course you don't feel motivated, but you do it and then you start to see some results and you get a little bit excited and you're like, Oh, okay, this is making a difference so that you continue on. So definitely don't wait for motivation. However, because I am an engineer, I have figured out how to manufacture it.

 

00;26;33;18 - 00;26;34;11

Nicole

Oh.

 

00;26;34;21 - 00;27;03;27

Heather

I always have this concept of manufacturing motivation and that is by doing things like this, like by creating a system or a process like momentum planning. So that when I sit down I have the motivation is not necessarily internal in there, but I manufacture it because I have a good place to start. Also, I have this new concept in Elevate and I'd love to share it because sometimes people will say, But Heather, I don't know how.

 

00;27;04;15 - 00;27;05;00

Nicole

Right?

 

00;27;05;06 - 00;27;21;17

Heather

I don't know how to do the website. I don't know how to update this. I don't know how to do my priceless I don't know how. So I have to rules and elevate. Okay. I have a lot of rules and element. Okay. These one rule is you can't say I don't know when I ask you like how much money do you want to make or what are your goals?

 

00;27;21;17 - 00;27;38;12

Heather

Don't tell me you don't know. That's just like the biggest line of B.S. ever. You know how much money you want to make. You just don't want to admit it or you're afraid you can't do it. Fair enough. But just give me a number so I don't know is not allowed. And there are also no longer allowed to ask how questions.

 

00;27;38;12 - 00;27;59;05

Heather

And here's why. If I taught you this will be familiar to you. I know you've heard this. If I taught you in a book all about swimming and I explained buoyancy and strokes and how you flow and how you hold your breath, where you turn your head with it. Would it sink in with you or would you just have to jump your ass into the water?

 

00;27;59;26 - 00;28;19;22

Nicole

Oh, yeah. Actually, this works out really well because my kids are getting scuba certified and Brett and I have been for many, many years, but we haven't gone diving in probably 15 plus years, so we're going through a refresher with them. So we all had to go through the online like course portal and it was pretty easy for me and Rex.

 

00;28;19;23 - 00;28;41;01

Nicole

We've been diving for a long, long time, so it was all kind of review. But we're both reading this and we're like, Dude, the kids have never done any of this. And they're talking about second stage regulator and you're B.S. and this and that. How to put it on, how to get your regulator back, which is are all drills that we've done a gazillion times in the pool.

 

00;28;41;13 - 00;28;46;10

Nicole

Kids have never seen it or done it. And I was like, this has got to be.

 

00;28;47;04 - 00;28;49;24

Heather

But how scary for me.

 

00;28;50;04 - 00;28;59;18

Nicole

For they start to learn something was really hard. So that's it. Exactly. Same thing. I'm like they they can answer the questions but they don't know how to do any of it. Right.

 

00;28;59;28 - 00;29;16;11

Heather

And you will and they won't know how until they do it. So the how comes through the action of doing it. I don't know how to market. I don't know how to get clients. I don't know what to post. Well, okay, you have to do it. So you can figure out how to do it, right? You get it.

 

00;29;16;29 - 00;29;25;11

Nicole

Besides the fact that between the Flirt Academy, Elevate Hunter, the dog Elevate Flirt Academy, hair of the dog academy like we've got plenty of the house.

 

00;29;25;21 - 00;29;42;24

Heather

Give me a break. How many are there for you? So I'm not going to tolerate it. You know, when people say they don't know how to do something, it gives them an easy excuse to not do it. Because, listen, if you don't know how to do something, you throw up your arms, you're like, Hey, I don't know how to do it, so I can't do it.

 

00;29;42;24 - 00;30;02;23

Heather

So it's almost like you're placing yourself as a victim to your website, which is ridiculous. That doesn't even make sense. So you can't as long as you say you don't know how, you won't know how, and then you won't do it. And then you will literally reinforce the thought. So how do you do it? You just go do it, you do it and you figure it out.

 

00;30;02;23 - 00;30;12;11

Heather

You just jump in the water. You figure out, okay, I don't know anything about scuba diving, but I assume you have to figure out all the regulators and all the knobs and what everything sounds.

 

00;30;12;12 - 00;30;37;09

Nicole

The teacher. So, I mean, you have something in hell lady sings to you and then you just have to do it and then you understand, you know, you have a new understanding of it. So I mean, that's the same thing with building the photography business, right? You know, like. Yes, yeah. You have a teacher in in the in the content, in the communities, in the coaching calls and then you do it and then you get the result you wanted or the lesson that you needed.

 

00;30;38;03 - 00;31;05;20

Nicole

And then you can regroup and start again with more information. Like there's things sometimes people get just really scared of making. Well, I know this happened to me where even with this relaunch of the Academy of how am I going to position it? Are there going to be multiple levels like people for craft, people for business, and then like there's all these unanswered questions, right, of what's the best way to do this?

 

00;31;05;20 - 00;31;16;16

Nicole

And then you get paralyzed by the fear of the what if I set it up wrong like, what if I choose the wrong way to create this again?

 

00;31;16;26 - 00;31;18;04

Heather

But hold on, hold on.

 

00;31;18;22 - 00;31;23;00

Nicole

But what if I what if I create this in a way that is not the best way?

 

00;31;23;23 - 00;31;25;17

Heather

Well, you know the answer to that, right?

 

00;31;26;01 - 00;31;26;11

Nicole

Right.

 

00;31;26;14 - 00;31;27;14

Heather

Exactly right.

 

00;31;27;26 - 00;31;45;17

Nicole

And I know that. But I still get stuck with that like we all. It's just human nature to get in this place where you have all these possibilities and opportunity in front of you and being concerned that you're going to take the wrong step. And there are very few permanent decisions that one can make in their life.

 

00;31;45;23 - 00;31;49;23

Heather

So yeah, we've talked about this pretty extensively in several other people.

 

00;31;50;13 - 00;31;52;04

Nicole

I talked with three related, right?

 

00;31;52;06 - 00;32;13;10

Heather

Right. And in photography related decisions aren't earth shattering, but I want to suggest that at some point you didn't know how to use that camera you didn't even get to grasp on, you know. So how did you learn how to use it? Oh, you did it. The how is learned through the doing. So you have to just do you know, I think of it like this if you showed up at my house today and you were like, Heather, I bought you this brand new unicycle.

 

00;32;14;02 - 00;32;16;08

Heather

And I was like, Oh, thanks. I don't.

 

00;32;16;24 - 00;32;18;05

Nicole

Know. Sticking shaped like a chicken.

 

00;32;18;15 - 00;32;35;06

Heather

Oh, that's cute. That's a good idea. I don't know how to ride a unicycle. I might get her. What if I get her? What if I fall off? What if I skinned my knee? What if I break my. Okay, literally, you are probably going to do all of those things. If you want to learn to ride the unicycle, guess what you're going have to do?

 

00;32;35;06 - 00;32;45;25

Heather

Get on the unicycle and figure out the balance and how you do it. And the truth is, if you really wanted to join the circus, you would figure out how to do it. Yeah. So, yeah, I actually.

 

00;32;46;02 - 00;32;46;18

Nicole

Yeah, go ahead.

 

00;32;46;23 - 00;32;59;15

Heather

Yeah. So I just don't want anyone saying like I don't know how to do there's something I want to do that I don't know how. That's just not good enough for me. So I just don't want to hear, I don't know how from people, I'm just not going to put up with it, that's all.

 

00;32;59;15 - 00;33;26;15

Nicole

Heather's putting her foot down. Yeah. No, this reminds me. I did a a little. Oh, gosh, what did I call them? Biz tip Thursday on this with my new blow up paddleboard that it took me four trips to the lake to figure out how to frickin use this sucker, how to blow correctly, get there in my car and realize the, like, nine volt, 12 volt, whatever volt is broken.

 

00;33;26;21 - 00;33;34;29

Nicole

And it was a comedy of errors, but I really wanted to go out on my paddleboard. So I kept going.

 

00;33;35;07 - 00;33;36;17

Heather

And I figured it out.

 

00;33;36;23 - 00;34;01;29

Nicole

At trying cause it's easy. So yeah, I think I've done a podcast on this too. It was one of the very first ones way back almost three years ago. Can you believe it about procrastination and usually it is because a you don't know how to do it. So yeah, it's easier to not do it. You're out now or you're scared of what the result could mean or happen.

 

00;34;02;05 - 00;34;26;28

Heather

Yeah. Or lead to. Right. Right. It's the same thing when I ask people how much money they want to make there. They don't want to admit it or they're afraid of what it means if they admit it and they don't and they don't achieve it. So. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. The bottom line is this. You have to plan for a time off from your business in a way that is effective and productive by sitting down prior to in this case, the holidays.

 

00;34;26;28 - 00;35;02;02

Heather

But this could also be a vacation and making a plan for what you're going to do when you come back to your desk, to your office that day. I mean, like literally day and time in starting actually start when we go through the the training on this, the hands on I go through this process of the first few things I do are like really easy tasks like an is I changed the copyright on my website I create my new catalogs in Lightroom like really easy tasks that I can get something done and then I'm like getting, I'm starting to get this steam train up and rolling again.

 

00;35;03;15 - 00;35;08;25

Nicole

You're easing into it. Yes, that's funny. I jump straight into like the big thing.

 

00;35;08;25 - 00;35;22;01

Heather

Of course you do. I know my brain. My brain just can't go there. It just like it's too big or too much or something. And I need to I need to ease into it a little. A little bit.

 

00;35;22;07 - 00;35;38;19

Nicole

More. So I can't. Yeah, well, I usually jump in because I feel like it's I'm back and it's like I don't have my attention being pulled in all the different directions yet. So I can actually focus on that big piece, which I've been trying to make that as my like, you know, just eat the frog kind of thing.

 

00;35;38;19 - 00;35;51;06

Nicole

Yeah. My first morning, the first like hour of the day, it's focusing on this big project no matter what. Yeah. And that has been very helpful on some days. Yeah, I can do more and some days I can't, so.

 

00;35;51;06 - 00;36;00;24

Heather

Yeah, right. That's it. So yeah, at least you're doing something right. So I hope everyone will join us next week for yeah. The hands on.

 

00;36;00;24 - 00;36;25;13

Nicole

Absolutely. And if you guys go it's going to be in our community and just go to hair of the dog academy dot com slash community you can join us there under upcoming events. There'll be a link you can join us if you're on the hair of the dog email list will also be sending out invites there so you can join us if you're not on that list, sign up at Hair of the Dog Academy dot com and get on it.

 

00;36;25;13 - 00;36;54;16

Nicole

We will put the links to all of those in the show notes which we find down below and yeah, super excited for it. Thanks Heather for being here and thanks again for sharing awesome training with all of our incredible community members again, December 15th, which is a Thursday at noon Eastern and there'll be a replay, but it'll only be for a short time.

 

00;36;54;16 - 00;36;59;28

Nicole

So. And yeah, you want to join us live?

 

00;36;59;28 - 00;37;08;06

Heather

Yeah, sure, sure. Because I can tell you where. Actually, we'll have the worksheet and we can work through it together and we're going to come up with some ideas together as well.

 

00;37;08;13 - 00;37;29;16

Nicole

Yeah, yeah. I'm doing the replay mostly for all of you guys over in Australia, New Zealand that are going to be sleeping. So it's going to be like way the middle of night. Yes, but yeah for all of you guys that aren't sleeping or like, I don't know, doing a really important job, that you can't be like sneaking off onto the Internet for, right.

 

00;37;30;07 - 00;37;36;22

Nicole

You guys catch a replay, but definitely, definitely do that. And we will see you guys then by everybody. Thanks, Heather.

 

00;37;37;05 - 00;37;39;13

Heather

Thank you.

 

00;37;39;13 - 00;37;55;04

Nicole

Thanks for listening to the Hair of the Dog podcast. This was episode number 169. If you want to check out the show notes for access to any of the resources that we mentioned, simply go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/169

00;37;55;04 - 00;38;17;05

Voiceover

Thanks for listening to this episode of Hair of the Dog podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review and while you're there, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss our upcoming episode. One last thing if you are ready to dove into more resources, head over to our website at www.hairofthedogacademy.com.

 

Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.