Welcome to the Hair of the Dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today I am going deep down the rabbit hole with my good friend, Heather Lahtinen, and from the Flourish Academy. And if you have felt a little unfocused or just a little"meh" at any point so far in 2020, I'm pretty sure that's everybody. Then you don't want to miss this episode. Stay tuned. I think you're gonna find a lot of value.

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, pet photographer, travel addict, chocolate martini connoisseur, Nicole Begley.

Hey everybody, Nicole Begley here from Hair of the Dog. And I'm here with Heather Lahtinen from the Flourish Academy and we have a very special podcast today. We are going to be recording and then sharing this with both of our audiences, because we thought the topic was going to be, you know, it's pretty applicable and pretty important for a lot of people to hear right now. So we really think this is going to help you. So we want to just say hello and introduce ourselves in case you don't know one of us or the other. So Heather, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself? And then I'll let everybody know about me?

Absolutely. My name is Heather Lahtinen, from the Flourish Academy and from Weddings by Heather, I'm a wedding and portrait photographer, and I also teach photographers how to improve their craft and create a life that they love through the art and business of photography. I have a pretty significant focus on mindset and helping people break through their limiting beliefs. And I also teach inside of the Hair of the Dog Academy. I teach both the Lightroom and Photoshop courses. Nicole likes to refer to me as the Chief Editing Ninja. That's a title that I wear with pride. I am also a coach inside of the Hair of the Dog Elevate program. And the Flourish Academy actually has an Elevate program as well. So these programs are designed for photographers who are in business and wish to grow their businesses. I tend to focus on most all genres of photography, while obviously Nicole is focused on pets and we run those programs together so we can help photographers learn, grow, and move forward to reach their goals.

Absolutely. My favorite thing to do so. Yeah, so I'm Nicole Begley and I run Hair of the Dog and Nicole Begley Photography. I am a pet photographer have been photographing pets for about 10 years now. And there is nothing I love more than helping other pet photographers succeed, grow their craft, grow their business. And we do that through the Hair of the Dog Academy and that Hair of the Dog Elevate program. And we also have a big free Facebook group. Uh, it's the Hair of the Dog Facebook group. If you go to hair of the dog academy.com/fb group, you can find us there. And Heather, you have a big free group too. Why don't you talk that

I do. It's the FA community. So the Flourish Academy has a page on Facebook, which is fantastic, but all of the action tends to happen in our big free group. And if you just search for FA community on Facebook, you will find us

awesome. So, yeah, so hopefully nice to meet all of you from Heather's audience. And I'm sure it has everyone agrees for the Hair of the Dog. Although you guys in the hair of the dog audience, Heather has been on one of our most popular podcasts so far. I think it's episode three on gaining confidence. It's episode three or four. It's one of the first five for sure. Go check it out if you want more Heather. Um, and then anybody that's been around the community is well aware of you as well. So welcome back. Thank you. Awesome. So, anyway, so today we're going to dive in because you know, 2020, it's been a crazy year between murder hornets and pandemics and everything else, and like Australian wildfires that we kind of totally forgot about because it was so long ago. And so many things that have been much more traumatic have happened since then. Um, so in the past couple months, I feel, and I've noticed some of my students too, having a harder time focusing because of all these things going on in the world that it's just, you know, they pull our attention and we start to spiral down and put so much attention on those that it just, it becomes kind of this, this spiral that it's hard to get out of. So I thought it would be worth having a conversation with you because we love to chat about these things on ways that we can start to get out of that spiral and, and get back to growing our goals, whether they're business or personal and getting back to creating more good in the world and more of what we're here to do, what we've been put on this earth to do. And I just want to throw out that even when there's big, heavy stuff going on in the world, if we're choosing to try to focus on the good and grow the good through these other things, by not letting it affect us, it doesn't mean that, you know, that we're ignoring these things, or we don't think it's important. But I think as far as just our mental health, it's so important to start to create some coping strategies that we can kind of get out of our own way sometimes.

I think that that's a good point, Nicole. I think you're, you need to just ask yourself, do I want, I mean, I guess if you're listening to this podcast, we could ask you, do you want to work from a place where you create your future and you're happy and excited, or would you rather work in a reactive mode where you're depressed and anxious and unsure? That's the bottom line, right? You choose one of those paths. And if you are choosing the path of, of course, I want to learn and grow and focus. Then what we want to talk about today is sharing some tips and strategies for you when outside circumstances, which are beyond your control, turn into utter chaos. I mean, I know Nicole, did you experience that just in the past couple of months where you felt distracted, or lacking focus?

Yes. So I, it's not a secret. I love what I do. Um, you and I often joke, I actually had an hour in the house by myself last night and I'm like, should I sit on the couch and watch TV? Or should I go into my office, listen to podcasts and do some work. I chose going into my office, listening to podcasts and doing some work and Saturday morning, same thing. Like, I love what I do, but gosh, for the first month or two at least, of the whole, COVID crazy. I found myself being incredibly, at least for me, feeling very unproductive and there'd be days where I was home, but nothing was getting accomplished and I would start to be kind of down about it. And my kids were home all the time and were trying to log into 8,000 education sites and it was really hard. How did that feel? It just felt... Didn't feel good. It felt overwhelming. It felt like, what's the use? It felt like whatever, I've got all the time, I'll do it later. Meh. Like just meh, it felt meh.

Right, right. So you did not feel in control.

No. No. And you start to every once in a while go down into the victim, the victim mode of, you know, why is this happening? I mean, I canceled, Heather so many flights, you and I were supposed to be in Laguna Beach for, uh, um, for our group coaching program. And yeah, I mean, that's pretty like the sad day when you cancel five trips, for sure.

Right. And some of those trips, some of them were pleasure, but some of them were business and there's a lot of logistics involved in that. And I know that one of your favorite things in the world to do is travel. So it can get pretty depressing when really the rug is pulled out from under you through, through

none of your doing. Right. Absolutely. And especially when, like one of those things we had to cancel was our, um, well we had to postpone was our BarkLander, which was the Barka that I teach with Charlotte Reeves and Kaylee Greer in Scotland that was supposed to be in May and come mid-March, we're like, there's no chance this is happening. And then when you cancel something like that, it's not just my schedule. There are so many other people involved becomes so overwhelming and frustrating, but you know, there's literally nothing we could do. So these things have to happen.

Right. Okay. So all of that is very disappointing and it's, and it's difficult to process, which leaves you feeling out of control, overwhelmed, stressed out. You're not sure what's going to happen. So when we are operating in that environment, I like to say that we're operating from the outside in, based on our outside circumstances, which produce a feeling and then not feeling leads to our thoughts, our behaviors, and ultimately our actions or lack thereof, because you just feel like what's the point. I can't do anything. And I know that, you know, one of our mentors, Jim Fortin teaches us to work from the inside out versus the outside in. And this is a really important distinction because if you can grasp this, here's the difference between successful people is they just bounce back faster. It's not that it won't impact you, you know, a future pandemic, for instance, it will absolutely(please no) it will ultimately impact everyone. But the difference is people who are working from the inside out are very focused because they have a very clear and definite vision. They have a purpose. Maybe they have a mission statement, something that they're, they're very connected with their why that they're focused on that again, while the outside circumstances will impact them. It just happens very briefly for these people and they rebound faster and they say, okay, I can't do anything about it, but here's what I can do. And here's where I'm focused. And they just it's like someone lights a fire under them and they just keep propelling forward verse a person. And by person, I mean, most of us tend to work from the outside in which means, you know, something happens, something occurs, and then we respond. That's, that's living your life in a reactive mode, which typically does not get you the results you are looking for. So what I'm suggesting is that we shift to a proactive mode where we create the life. We get really connected with the vision and we stick to that so that it's not that we become immune to these circumstances. We're just less impacted by them. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. I think it's because once you can, you know, shut down that mind, that's letting all this outside circumstance come in and refocus on why you're here and why you do what you do. You can start to see the bigger picture of how you're actually able to impact the world for good doing what you're doing. And if that, you know, you were doing things that impacted the world for the better, but now you're sitting in, you know, watching Tiger King guilty. Um, and then who are you helping other than Netflix ratings? Like, you know, it's, you can kind of shift back to what am I contributing here and, and focus on not yourself, because sometimes it's really hard to get past our own self. And then we start to maybe even feel guilty that, well, if I'm doing this, I'm focusing on it for me. And that's, that's being guilty in this time when other people are suffering. Whereas why don't you focus on if I am offering what I am here to offer, whether that is dog photography, whether that is mentoring other photographers, whether that is going to your nine to five job, whatever it is you are doing, how is that helping other people? And if you focus on that, then I think it helps you just totally shift what you're doing and why you're here. And you're like, Oh, there's a reason that I should do these things. Because look at the outcome, look at how I can help.

Yeah. You're focused on serving. I think that's an excellent point. And the bottom line is this. If you are miserable, it is because you are focused on yourself. That is end of story. And a lot of people don't like to hear that, well, no, it's because this is happening or that is yeah, because you're worried about how it's going to impact you. When you are focused on yourself, you will always be miserable when you focus on serving others. And you're not paying attention to yourself. The entire world of possibility opens up to you because you don't worry. There is no anxiety when you are serving others, it comes from worrying about yourself and what's going to happen to me. And what will the results be for my family? What will the impact be on my business? And it just becomes this mememe, if I'm miserable, I, Nicole, I will literally look at myself in a mirror and say, why are you so focused on yourself? How can you shift this? I shift my thinking to, how can I serve others? How can I grow my business to impact more people beyond me? What can I do to help other photographers grow? And when I do that, the truth is I forget about myself. I don't, I don't, I don't worry about me. And I focus on gratitude, what I'm grateful for, what I can control and okay, this is

yes. And then what happens,

right? And, but this is where it gets tricky because you can choose your focus, right? So if you feel miserable and you recognize, Oh, I'm focused and worried about myself, well, I need to shift that. I know that that's easier said than done. Please understand it is absolutely a choice. And listen, there are times when I choose to be miserable, the differences I will say to myself, okay, Heather, you have 2.3 seconds to get over it and shift it to focusing on others. And when I do that, usually I'm usually fairly resilient. I can shake it off. I'm not saying this didn't impact me. It absolutely did. There were days when I said to you, I just have no focus. And that's because I'm, you know, reading the news or watching the stories on social media when I really should have been unplugging and focusing on, okay, what I can do is help other photographers, or I can create this content, or I can work on my podcast. I mean, there's a million things you can be doing. It's just a matter of shifting from, okay, this is not about me, the world and the global pandemic is not out to get me. Right, right. But how can I help to focus and grow others? And when you do that, you know, honestly, you just feel like a good human, you feel like, you know, I'm improving someone's life. And that puts you in a, a better head space, which guess what, gives you focus makes you more productive. Helps you take action. You feel good. You feel happy, some joy, and you're not left, stuck, miserable, and not sure what to do next. Yep. Yup.

Yeah. And I want to add too. One of the reasons I think that when we start to kind of go down that spiral hole of, you know, feeling icky and bad and worrying and stress is that we're worried about the future or, you know, just rehashing the past. But also because of the beliefs that we have assigned to whatever is happening to this outside world, to these circumstances, because since this is happening, that means this, since this is going on over here, that means this since, you know, there's a global pandemic and I can't work for the next month, then there's no way I will ever be able to bring my business back ever, ever again. And I might as well stop and close it down and go sit on the couch. You know? Like there's just so many beliefs. And it's again, like you said, it's simple. It's not easy, but I always encourage you to ask, like, when you're looking at a situation and you're, you're, you know, kind of worried about it or feeling bad about it, to ask yourself, what am I assigning meaning? Like, what meaning am I assigning to this? What am I saying? This will cause what am I saying this, you know, is in relation to, or this, this belief, what, what am I assigning to this really?

Yeah. And that's so key because if you can answer that question, okay, what, what does this mean? Oh, this means I can't work on my business. This means I'm not going to make money. So the next step in that. Okay, so fine. What am I assigning? And then how does that make you feel? So if I say, well, this means that I can't grow my business and I'm never gonna make any money. Okay. How's that feel? It feels terrible. I feel stuck. I feel frustrated. I feel scared. Okay. So guess what? That's not the truth because the truth, I mean, it sounds so cliche. The truth will set you free. The truth is you will make money again. And this too shall pass. And everybody's saying that I don't mean to be repetitive, but you will make money again. We tend to say these very blanket statements like this is going to ruin and stop my business. Okay. Chill out. Stop with the victim words. That's not true. And you're assigning a meaning, a meaning that doesn't feel good. And I always say to people, listen, if you're going to lie to yourself, which is what you're doing right now, why not make it a good lie? Like this is going to be amazing. And I'm going to get so many more clients. I mean, if you're going to lie, make it alive, makes you feel good about it because you are at this point intentionally making yourself feel bad. And I need to be frank here, Nicole, that's just stupid. Why would you make yourself feel bad? I'm going to look for a way to make myself feel good, because I know that's where my truth is. I know that it feels good to learn and grow and keep moving forward. And I know that it feels bad to focus on myself, but the key here is being mindful of those emotions. So what am I, what meaning am I assigning to this? And then how does that make me feel? Oh, it doesn't feel good. Okay. That's not true. That means I can and should shift it.

Yes. And one question that I find to be one of the most powerful shifters is how can I? Instead of I can't do this, you know, I can't do anything on my business right now. How can I prepare my business? How can I best use this time? How can I move forward? You know, what can I work on? What, what would it look like if this were easy? Like those types of questions or empowering questions, because guess what, when you say that we've got two brains, we have our conscious brain really is quite frankly, pretty flighty and not really all that with it, with what's happening. It very much, you know, it's based on circumstance, but we have our subconscious mind, which is always working. It is always listening. It is very literal and it doesn't understand the negatives. And if you are sitting here and saying negative things to yourself and saying, it's like, okay, okay, got it. Okay. Got it. This is bad. All right. All right. This is bad. I'll produce bad. This is going to be bad. You're a coms, right? Where if you can decide and say, okay, this is my situation. X, Y, and Z is happening. This is my goal. How can I, how can this be easy? What would this look like? And then guess what? You go to sleep that little subconscious brains working on there. If you're paying attention, you're going to start getting some answers. So it might not happen right then. And there, it might take a day, a week. It might even take a couple weeks, but I promise you, if you focus on those questions, the answers will come and you will have this clear path. And again, it's not going to necessarily be the whole path. I think a lot of people wait till I have every step planned out, perfectly, probably never going to happen. And that will prevent you from starting where all you really need to know are the next couple of steps. And then you take those couple of steps and the next steps appear. And pretty soon you do have a whole path, but you never would have seen that path if you didn't take those first few steps.

Oh, I think that was from Abraham Lincoln. I think he said, yeah, you just need to sing the next step. But it said there that I really loved was I love this question. And you've actually said this to me in the past, you have said, what would it look like if it were easy? And it just shifts your thinking. So Tony Robbins always says that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. If you ask yourself a pretty low level, bad question, like, why is this happening to me? You are going to get a pretty bad result. But like you said, Nicole, if you ask your subconscious, how can I make this easy? How can I make this possible? What does that look like? You literally just gave your brain a command to figure it out. People people think that they need to have all of the answers. I don't know the answers, but I trust that the answers are out there and that most of them are actually from within me. And I just have to ask the right questions. Sometimes I will ask my brain. This is such woo, woo. I'll say to my brain, as I'm falling asleep. Show me what I need to see. Like, what am I, what am I, what am I not seeing that I need to recognize? And maybe for some people, that's the good, you know, where is the good, why am I, I mean, we're hardwired to look for the negative. That's protectionism, that's your ego. So it's really not your fault. That's the way you're wired. You actually have to work against it. So instead of looking for the negative and the bad and the threat, and for reasons to be afraid, you have to consciously make an effort to look for what is good. What is true? What is noble? What I can focus on. And the good news is with the right skills and strategies and tools like what we're sharing with you today, you can absolutely make this shift and make it happen.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to share when you were talking just now, I just, um, something happened to me last week that I feel is worth sharing here. And that is the power of the decisions we make. And, you know, to preface this, I've been riding horses, horses since I was eight. So I'm now over 40. So you can do the math. It's been a long time. And for those times you graze your horses pretty regularly. The horses love clover. So I'm usually grazing than a patch of clover. I have looked for a four leaf clover for over 30 years. Not for like hours and hours, but every time I'm there, I'm like, Oh, is there a one? No, I don't see any. And I used to say to myself, man, there's not really many four-leaf clovers. I'll never find one. And somebody else would find one or two or three. And I'm like, how, what, whatever. I just, I just don't see them. That was the story I told myself. And then literally last week, I'm at the barn. I'm listening to a James Wedmore podcast, mind your business podcast on visualization, great podcast, episode 370, I think. And I+was listening to it and I realized I'm in the patch of clover. And I thought to myself, I just need to decide that I can find a four leaf Clover. And I said that to myself and like, I didn't even say, I decide I'm going to find a four leaf clover. I just thought to myself, I just need to decide that I'm going to do this. And I looked down and as soon as my eyes settled, it settled on a four flippin' leaf clover insane well-played universe received. All you had to do was just believe, Nicole. And you know, it's so silly because it's such a simple, simple thing. And I feel like it's so much harder for us to believe, okay, I can have a$200,000 a year photography business. That's maybe harder where you're at right now to actually believe that. Can you test this theory on something easy, something that you really, truly can believe with every cell in your body, you know, something smaller. And then you're like, Oh, well that worked. And then you try something a little bit bigger. Oh, well that worked. And then pretty soon you can start dialing it up to these bigger things that before there's no way you would've believed, but now you understand how this game works. And what you focus on is what you're going to end up, you know, and what you tell yourself is what's going to end up coming out at the end of the day.

This is critical. So what you're touching on is the law of believability, which states that when something is believed at the subconscious level, it can be achieved. But people resist that which is unbelievable to them and will often work to sabotage a creative effort to prove themselves right. Think about this for a second. If you don't believe it's true, even if you want it, I don't care how desperately, you will find a way to sabotage it because you want to prove your ego wants to prove to itself that you're right. You can't have that! The law of believability is so important because if you, and I think Nicole, you made a really good point, start small. You can't say, Oh, I'm a photographer that earns$12,000 a year. And I want to, I want to have a$250,000 a year business, right? Your brain won't believe that that's possible, which means you actually sabotage those efforts. If you truly believe that's possible. And by the way, I've met a few people that have mastered this, they can make that happen. And time is, is not even a factor that you can make it happen tomorrow. It's just, you have to believe it. But if you don't believe it, it will never happen. This sort of ties into also what you feel you're worth. You know? No, I mean, that's a topic for a different day because that can go pretty deep. But if you don't feel that you're worth$250,000 or a successful business, that will never happen either. So the love of believability combined with the fact that you believe you you're worth everything in anything that the universe could give you will, will unleash unlimited possibility. But we tend to keep ourselves small in order to play it safe. Again, that's the ego protecting us because change is scary. And what if we get too big and there's all of these things, but I've actually been studying the law of believability lately just to help raise my own ceilings, you know, because we all have that upper limit.

So yeah. And it always changes as soon as you move through one, there's a new one. James always says new level, new devil

moving up. So you hit a certain goal. And for a lot of photographers, that's the six figure, Mark. They have six figure sales and they're like, Whoa, they did it. You know, and they're so excited, but then, then what's next. Then it's like,

well, and then the next thing is I did it. Can I do it again? Oh my God, there's no way, whatever I can. I hit the top for. I might as well pack up. Cause there's no way I can continue this. So yeah, that's a whole nother that you think, Oh, this was just a fluke.

I'll never be able to sustain it. So I'm probably going to lose it. And you guys, if you think that it's going to happen, everything, everything, all of the things in life become a self fulfilling prophecy. And you can use that in your favor. But if you are not consciously doing that, I promise you it is working against you. And it could be as simple as the four leaf clover. Nicole couldn't find one because she didn't believe it would happen for her. Maybe that it didn't even exist or whatever that looked like. But the moment she visualized and said, yep. There's a four leaf clover. Like in my future

time, didn't matter. It was literally right there. Yeah. I mean the matrix just created it right there in front of me. For real. It's crazy. No, I mean, it's so important. You know, that, that we really just keep an eye on what thoughts are going through our heads, because our thoughts are so powerful. And as you practice, you start to, to notice more what thoughts you're thinking. And here's the key, here's the key that will kind of show you what you're thinking is how you're feeling. Yeah. If feeling like meh and yucky, I'm just going to make just random noises in the mic. Now, if you're feeling like that, then look at what you're thinking. Take stock of what you're thinking and ask yourself what you're saying to yourself, what stories you're saying, what beliefs you're running through your head. And meanwhile, on the flip side, when you're feeling great, when you're having a great day, what are you thinking about then? What's possible on those days. And pretty soon you start to notice the difference in those thoughts. And when you start to have that negative thought, maybe it goes down until you already feel the negative emotions. Like you don't catch it right away. And you start to feel those emotions. And maybe it takes a whole day before you realize, Oh my gosh, I'm in this emotional funk because of these thoughts. But then again, this is simple, not easy takes practice. You can start to flip those thoughts. And I find the easiest way to flip those thoughts is to sit down and list out 15 things I'm grateful for. And if you're still filling bad lists town 15 more. And if you're still feeling bad, give me another 15 pushups until you feel better. And they can be as simple as my health, air water, a roof over my head, you know, a car, even if it's 12 years old and broken, whatever, like, you can go on that gratitude list for days and you need to, until you start to get out of that funk,

I actually think some people resist this because they don't want to feel better, but they don't know how to get out of not wanting to feel better like desire. I've actually been in that space where I've been irritated with my kids and I just want to stay mad and I struggled to get out of it. But that's, that is not the point I did want to say, you know, you're talking about how am I feeling and what am I focused on? And I want to go one step further. What are your inputs? What is making you, or could potentially be causing you to feel the, so are you spending too much time on social media or reading the news? And the answer to that question is a hundred percent. Yes, you are. You are spending too much time on those platforms and you are reacting to what you're seeing. It's causing you, maybe, um, anger, frustration, helplessness, uh, any emotion that's not good. And you feel that, and then you get a negative spiral and you don't even realize scrolling through Instagram for even 30 seconds is what caused that. You have to become aware of your behaviors and your inputs. So one thing I've done now, listen, I can hear all the excuses, but Heather, I need social media. I need Instagram. I need Facebook to run my business for work. I need it for work, right. I've used that excuse a couple of times actually. Yeah, for sure. And we all do, but here's what I've done is, and I think actually I got this from you. Was I installed the newsfeed eradicator.

Oh yeah,

yeah. Facebook, it's an extension for Chrome. So when I go to Facebook, I go support your Elevate members, my Elevate members and our memberships. That's it. And I don't see newsfeed. It's literally not present on my iMac or my Mac book pro not there. I can't see it even if I wanted to. So I go to our groups, I answer questions. I serve, I help. And then guess what I do, Nicole? I close Facebook.

Oh, fantastic. But I have another quick little hack for anyone else that wants to do that. Maybe you don't want that extension. Another way to do that, that I'm using now more so is I have on my Chrome browser, you know, you can have the bookmarks up there. I just have a dropdown folder of my business pages, Facebook groups. So I'm just like, Oh, I need to go here. Boom. And it takes me right into that group. So I never even hit the front page of Facebook anymore- it's fantastic.

What you're doing essentially is protecting you from yourself. Yes. I mean, that's listen, none of us have as much discipline or as willpower as we need. Right. So I put things into place like this to protect me from myself. I worked you from your circumstance. Exactly. Because I don't, I don't want that to influence the good I'm trying to create in the world. And I'm not, again, I'm not focused on me or how I feel per se. I'm focused on the vision and the mission I've created for my life and my business, my life's purpose, which is to serve others. So if I let that get into my head, what's happening in the newsfeed, then I am not well positioned to help the people that follow me. And I take having a platform as an enormous privilege. I take it very seriously. So I want to guard my mind. I want to guard my energy against inputs that I know are going to cause negative feelings. I don't do this perfectly. I absolutely slip up and find a way to look at newsfeed on my phone, but I remove apps from my phone on the weekend. So they're not there. I actually only put Facebook on my phone to do live videos in our groups. It's not there for any other reason. And I limit my Instagram use. You know, what I did on my, on my iPhone is on the fourth homepage over. So I have to swipe several times. There's a folder. And in that folder is my email, Instagram and Facebook during the week only. And the title of the folder says Really? with a question mark, like

email in there too.

You are stronger than me, but the home page of my phone is completely empty. There's nothing on it. So I actually have to scroll to get to anything. And I kept the things that distract me the most on the last page inside of a folder. So that I, and here's why the reason I did that is because how many times do we mindlessly pick up our phone and activate it to turn on? And like, something's right there,

approximately 37,257 times a day without thinking. And it's even one of those things where you're like, Oh, waiting for something to upload. I'll look at my, I mean, can you not just wait for five seconds? None of us can that it's I can't

no. And the reason is we're, we're avoiding something we're avoiding being with ourselves. We're avoiding something uncomfortable again and topic for another day, but there's some sort of protectionism method, something built in that we're like, we have to distract ourselves because we can't possibly sit here for five seconds with our thoughts. Right, right, right. Because we're not controlling our thoughts if we can. Well, right, exactly. So, you know, one thing that's really helped me in this area is meditation. I use the app 10% Happier. Do you have an app that you use?

Well, I actually have, I do. I belong to a membership called Emily errands, and it's Mastery in Ascension. And she has a whole bunch of guided meditation. So I love hers. I have some self-hypnosis from Jim Fortin. I have a variety of meditations that I've collected from different places.

That's fantastic because I really do believe it makes a difference. It's just about being mindful of what you're doing. So the reason I put those items at the end of my phone is because I have to think to do that. I can't do it mindlessly, which means by the way, this applies to like eating too, nutrition. If you can make it difficult to get to that means you have to stop and think. And if you stop and think you will usually make a better decision, the bad decisions come when you are not thinking, but you're just reacting. So meditation has helped. Um, obviously you and I both read a lot of personal growth and development books. Did I read my favorite one that I read recently that I really, really love is atomic habits by James clear. I don't know. There's just something about that book that, you know, he says essentially make it easy to do the things you want to do. So for instance, you put out your workout clothes the night before by your bed, and make it difficult to do the things you don't want to do. Like in my case, I hide social media on my phone and those are so simple. They're such small strategies that people tend to overlook them. Like they dismiss them or that's not going to work for me, but I implore you to just try it.

I have found for me the thing that I have to do, if I want to do my daily, like little three things that have to happen before I start anything else in the day, or it is not going to happen. And that is to meditate, to do a little bit of exercise, even if it's just like holding a low forearm plank for a minute, like something like I can, I have a minute. Um, and then practicing some Italian, which I have to, um, yeah, I haven't done that in like two weeks, but I have done the other two, but just know I'm like, Oh, I can get started with this. I'll just do this work thing really quick. And I'll come back to that.

Yeah. Well, no for you and I, both the danger lies in our offices. If we cross that threshold into our office where there's no going back because we love our work and we want to get busy. But the key here, Nicole is you, you figured out how to hack yourself. You figured out what makes you tick. And I'm the same way. Very similar in that if something important happens, needs to happen. Meditation, exercise, reading, it needs to happen before I come into my office and I know full well that if it doesn't, it's not going to happen. But because I know that I've been pretty disciplined about making things happen that are important to me because I'm really connected with why I do them. I actually exercise. Yeah. It's great. Healthy, fit, whatever, whatever. But that's not my motivation. My motivation is that if I tell my brain, I can do something hard and it believes me. And then I'm disciplined and focused and all those good things you get from exercise. That means I can grow my business because I can do things that are hard and challenging. So yeah, I actually hacked my brain by directly tying exercise to my business because I love my business, but I don't necessarily love to exercise.

Yup. But I figured out a way to make, I figured out a way to make everything about my business because that's what I love. I love it. I love it. I do have a story. I have a story that I'm not committed. Oh yeah. Because like, I'll do a course and I'll do like 75% of it and I'll start exercise and then I'll like fall off. And you know, obviously you look at what I've created my business. You're like, well, of course she's committed. Well, yeah, I'm committed to some things, but I have this, I'm not committed kind of underlying story still that I'm working on changing.

Wow. Yeah. You just have to shift that thinking. So one thing I do in situations like that is I start to tell my brain the story that I am committed. So have you made one of your affirmations? Like I am committed. I am a commited person. Yeah. I follow through. So one of my affirmations is I am the type of person that takes care of themselves. And with that, that leads to exercise and eating better. And I say that every day when you guys, the truth is I would rather not exercise and eat cookies. Okay. That is the truth. But cookies, I baked so much during the quarantine. It's a little buttercream and it's to die for, and then you eat it. That's the problem with this affirmation. I tell myself, I'm the type of person that takes care of themselves. That covers all of that. And I just say it every day so that my brain believes it at both the conscious and subconscious level. And my behaviors flow from that. Listen, this is not rocket science. You don't have to be, you know, some advanced meditator or no, all of these things in order to implement a strategy like that. I actually, I think I heard a podcast where somebody was saying he wanted to stop biting his nails. He had bitten nails his whole life. And he knows that it's not good. And you know, and it looks bad in an interview or people think a certain thing about you. So he started without affirmation. I'm the type of person that takes care of themselves. And

no, go ahead. Yeah. Well, let's say the big thing. There is the affirmation's not about a behavior, the affirmations about an identity. Like he's not saying I, I, I grow my nails or I don't want you don't bite your nails because your subconscious doesn't know the don't. So it just hears I bite my nails. It's like check. Alright. Gotcha. Um, but when you tie it to your identity, then that's where that change actually happens.

Oh, that is a very important distinction. Yeah. That is a Jim Forton thing, for sure. Because like he said, you can't say I'm not a smoker. Right? We can use your brain to turn smoke or I'm not in debt because your brain just heard that. So I am financially responsible. I am the type of person that takes care of myself themselves. I am committed. I am moving forward. I take action. I have clarity. I am a leader. I have a whole list of affirmations. I say every day. And they're not just ones that I pulled out of the sky. They're ones that I need to work on. Things where I was struggling and I needed to say them so that I could form better habits.

Yup. Wow. We've gone right down that rabbit hole in this whole entire podcast, didn't we? That was good

for sure. I mean, listen, the bottom line is bad. Things are going to happen in the world and how much you let that impact you is within your control. And this is not a matter of ignoring anything that's happening.

Yep. And it's not a matter of you, like do not let your conscious brain try to tell you, well, you should feel guilty because you're not wallowing in this upset thing. Or you know that you're focusing on this other thing that makes you a bad person. Like no, no, you are allowed to move forward and do the things that you were put here to do. And that does not make you a bad person. There are still ways that you can help.

Oh, that's an excellent point because feeling bad or guilty, guess what serves

no one, no one, not you, not anyone else.

Right. And not your audience. So you can, you know, you can have feelings of empathy for anything that's happening, but you also, and you need to do your part, but you need to also work on your focus and your emotions and control what you can do and move forward. And you know, it's okay to feel badly. I always say for 2.3 seconds, you know, and then what can I do? What action can I take to move forward and whatever that looks like to you, but feeling bad,

yeah, what action can I take to help the situation? You know, if it's a situation that has you down, like what action can I take to help this? You know, asking yourself these powerful questions again, what would this look like if I could change the situation? You know, things like that. And focusing on our thoughts, because our thoughts are the key to all of this. Cause our thoughts lead to our feelings, which leads to our frequency, which leads to the results in our external world. And it all starts in our head

100%, which means you're in control. So we're, you can't use the victim mindset, which is while there's all of these external things happening, because the truth is you have 100% control and agency in what happens in your life. Even when bad things happen externally. A hundred percent. This has been a great conversation. Nicole, thank you so much for having me. I hope that everyone found this useful. If you could leave someone with one strategy or tip, maybe they're feeling overwhelmed and they think this sounds great, but they don't know how to get started. What would you suggest?

Gosh, I would say to ask that question, what would this look like? If whatever it is you want to change? If the situation were easy, if I felt better, if whatever, and listing the gratitude, I think that the gratitude and asking that, how would this look? Question are two of the most powerful things we can do.

I think that's fantastic. I will add a third strategy, which is to limit your inputs. So change your questions, focus on gratitude, limit your inputs in those three things will make a huge difference in your life.

Absolutely. Thanks again for being here with us, Heather. Yeah. And if you guys out there want more, Heather, Heather is a regular here at Hair of the Dog. Of course you could find her at the Flourish Academy. She is also a coach in the hair of the dog elevate program. If you're a pet photographer, it is an incredible program to help you just go further in your business, faster with support and, and help you get out of your own way because we all get in our own way. And if you are a photographer in other genres, then Heather also has her Flourish Academy Elevate program, which they are both open for enrollment shortly. And a new session starts July 1st. So we'd love to see you in those programs and we would love to see you around the interwebs. So thanks again for listening.

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