Hey, welcome back to the Hair of the Dog podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley, and today I'm chatting with my friend Heather Lahtinen. And we are talking about what you can do when you have those certain tasks in your business that you might be dreading. Come on, you know you have some. Well, today we're gonna be talking about that,

how to get over it, and how one quick conversation can sometimes change everything that we're thinking and completely change our motivation. Stay tuned. Welcome to The Hair of the Dog podcast. If you are 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. Welcome back to The Hair of the Dog podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley, and we've got our OG favorite guest for the ages Heather. Latan is back once again on the podcast. Hey, Heather. Hey, I'm so excited to be here today, especially because we have a really fun topic to discuss.

Yeah, we do. So before we get into it, I wanna ask you guys out there, is there anything in your business that you dread? Dread might be a strong word, but maybe not, because I have a feeling there are some things that we dread. Could it be organizing your taxes? Could it be talking to like a new potential partner market?

Could it be marketing your services? Could it be sharing your work online? Could it be just telling people that you're a pet photographer and say, Hey, do you have a dog? What is it in your business that you dread? I'm gonna give you a moment. I want you to think of one to three things that maybe cause a little bit of oh,

tightness in that chest when you start to think about it and you're like, I just, I just don't wanna do it. Or anxiety, or you procrastinate on it, but you know, you need to do it. So this is so ironic as we get into this and, and by irony, I mean the type that slapped me directly in my own face.

But, well, actually let's start with, let's, yeah, there's a couple of directions I wanna take here, but let's start with the coaching call. Okay. All right. Sounds good. So yeah, so Heather's gonna share with us something that she was dreading and Yeah, like just take it from the top. Okay. So for those of you that aren't familiar with the Flares Academy,

it's structured very similar to the hair of the Dog Academy. We have free tutorials and trainings in the podcast. And that's, so if you picture a pyramid, what I'm describing is the Ascension model. The foundation of the pyramid is the podcast, Lightroom and Photoshop video tutorials on YouTube, the website, and the free Facebook community group. So those are ways that I,

I market the Flourish Academy. Next we have the Flourish Academy membership, which is courses, and it's a low price point. And then we have Elevate, which is a slightly higher price point. And then I have one-to-one offering. So you can picture that sort of as a pyramid, but one of the most important parts of a pyramid is the foundation.

One With sync. One with sync, yes. You have to market your business in a way to get people into your world, into your ecosystem. And then, you know, with the hopes of, obviously some people will join the membership, some will join, elevate, et cetera. And you know, as you go up on that pyramid, the price point gets higher and the numbers get smaller.

But in order to have any numbers, you have to start with a pretty good foundation. So oftentimes, and I don't think I'm alone in this, oh, I wonder what it is for you, what are some of the things that you dread or, okay, again, a strong word, but maybe you don't look forward to in terms of marketing your business,

that foundation. Okay, so this has shifted for me a little bit, and it's still on the procrastination level just because I haven't prioritized the time to build the system. But I did with the flip of the switch change my thought about it, and that is social media, YouTube, like the free content and like social media reels and stuff like that.

Like, I'm not one that's ever been like, Hey, let me photograph this and post it online. Like, I put some pictures of vacations. Mostly I put stuff online that like, I wanna be reminded of on Facebook of like, Hey, this happened eight years ago and it's like my own personal little photo library. Hmm. And you know,

when I share like, you know, exciting big things that are happening, but like I, I'm definitely not, my normal MO is not to be like, oh, I'm doing this today. Okay, now I'm doing this, and now I'm doing that and I'm gonna put every thought that I have on social media. So it does not come naturally for me.

Hmm. And the same thing with like the YouTube channel. You know, we've been putting the podcast up there, but I know that what I need to do in my business is to deep dive into like actually putting more regular content out there about, you know, the basics of craft and things like that. Because there's people out there that wanna learn pet photography and they're Searchie on YouTube,

and I should give them some great content for them Yes. To find, and then they would come to the podcast and then they can join the community, and then they can join the membership and then they can reach their goals, you know, and they can, they can become a better pet photographer. So those are two of the things. Yeah.

And, And, well, I was gonna say real quick with my thoughts. I mean, it always used to be, I'm not good at social media. I'm not cut out for this. This is not like it became a, this is how I am. And like almost victim thought of like, it's just how I am, there's nothing I can do about it.

You accepted it as an identity. Yes, A hundred percent. But when I was at a mastermind, meaning last year, which was last year, and I still haven't actually put it into practice because I'm still, like I said, procrastinating on it. But I have a better thought, and that is when I saw how some of my friends managed it with my favorite a Monday board major spreadsheet.

And also how they were not managing it alone, where they would co-create it with some team members and they would create the content and the messaging around it, but then they would have someone that would assist them and actually putting it in Instagram and posting it, you know, so I could still be involved. Like I loved to go into Instagram and, you know,

chat with people on my messages and interact, but I don't wanna be sitting there like typing out the things, adding the sticker. Like I just, I, I, I don't have time for that in my life, So I need No, no, I need assistance There. So, yeah. Right. So now I at least know like what I want this process to look like.

So now my big holdup is just, I just need to sit down and dedicate like even an hour a week and prioritize it. I just need to prioritize it in my workflow, which ironically, as soon as we're done with this podcast, you and I have a little prioritization brainstorm session around these topics. Yes. So I guess the message here is the struggle will always continue.

Yes. Yes. Oh, That sounds so hopeless. I know, I know. But the good news is we have, we have methods and strategies and tools to help us manage it, but recognizing that you're not going to cure anything, right? That it's just always going to continue to come up. And it's so funny because I'm about to tell you a story,

share what happened when I talked with my business coach. But two days prior to that conversation, I actually told a group inside of Elevate straight to their faces, you are not entitled to love everything in your business. Right. You know, you think you are gonna be an entrepreneur and everything's gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna operate my zone of genius 100% of the time.

That's not how it works. There are always going to be tasks that you don't want to do. So I just wanna back up and say inside of Elevate, as we continue to grow, which has been amazing, we have photographers that are just starting out and we have seasoned veterans. So I created this v I P group for people who are making $100,000 or more per year.

And because we have just different conversations, and it was in that group, we were talking about outsourcing and people were like, well, I just wanna outsource all of the things I don't like. And I said, you are not entitled to love everything in your business. And yes, there are some things that can be outsourced, but there are some things you're just gonna have to do.

Yeah. Can I add in on that too, that I think a lot of people, especially when they start to get that point in their business where they're making some money in their business and they don't wanna deal with something, so they just like grab some money and throw it at some, that's it. They fix it. Like, yep, I don't wanna do my social media,

which is where I was for a long time, where I'm just like, like, I don't even wanna think about it. I don't wanna do it like just here, let me hire someone to do it for me. But that is not the right answer either. Putting our head in the sand is not going to be beneficial. You're not gonna get the results that you want,

so you need to take ownership of it. That doesn't mean you can't create processes and get assistance with whatever it is, but you need to face any of these things that have come up head on. Yeah. Don't be delusional. I think that sometimes we think, or maybe the industry, and I don't think this is just photographers, I think this is small business entrepreneurs in general are like,

you start your own business because you wanna do what you want all of the time. And well, And there's so many fun projects on the horizon. Yes. That it's really easy to like jump from, well this is fun, what do I wanna do today? Oh my gosh, I can't wait to work on this project. Oh, vanillas over here and now over there.

And then all of a sudden you're like, why? I haven't actually gotten anything done. Which has honestly been a giant struggle for me forever because I have so many ideas I'm excited about. So sometimes it's hard for me to finish certain tasks. Yeah. Well, you know, and then you get into strategies like time blocking where you say, here are the days and hours that you can allow yourself the freedom to explore these fun new projects.

And then here's a C e O day, or here's a day where you have to just be a technician and employee and execute some tasks. Or you know, maybe it's not an entire day, but maybe it's like on Monday morning, I'm going to do these tasks that I don't love because I know that they're important and that they need to be done.

And again, you're right, people start to make money and they're like, I'll just pay somebody to do that. I'll pay somebody to do that. And then they totally lose touch with their business and then it doesn't work. Right. So they're, but you have to understand clearly, actually in our six figure group, we did this exercise where we split the c e from the photographer and we talked about now,

okay, most of us are doing all of it, we're both, but we started to look at what, what would you expect from your boss if you were the photographer and you had a boss who was the ceo E what would you expect? And if you were the c E O, what would you expect from the photographer? And we looked at those in two columns so we could see them very clearly.

And then started to ask ourselves, what makes sense to outsource? Like for instance, if you're a ceo, you had better know how much money is coming into and out of your business. Like profit loss, understanding expenses, very, very important. You cannot outsource that to some. Now you can outsource your bookkeeping, you should have an accountant, but you should still have access to your profit loss on a regular basis so you can understand your numbers.

Burying your head in the sand about where your business is in regards to income is like not a good idea because drives behavior, This is the same thing of personal finance too. If someone is in debt or they're, you know, just not sure, you know, or just like they got behind on something or they just don't wanna look at it like you have to look,

you have to get a plan, you have to know where you stand. And that's the only way to move forward. That's it. You have to know. You have to know, and you have to be aware and discerning enough. I think discernment is, I love that word. It implies wisdom and what I need to know and what I can outsource and how much I need to be involved with it.

And obviously this changes based on the level your business is at. When you're at 50,000, this is different than a hundred thousand. And I have to assume that it's different for our millionaire friends. I don't know yet, but Me neither. Me neither. But I'm, I'm assuming that it, it shifts. It's always shifting, but there are certain tasks.

Okay, but can we get into this conversation? Yeah, Yeah. So what were you dreading? Oh, so I record Lightroom and Photoshop video tutorials for your academy, my academy and my YouTube channel. And I feel very competent in that area. I'm good at it, it's easy for me. I like to do it. I love workflow, but for some reason I've just been neglecting it,

dreading it. And if I ask myself why, it's like, well, I would rather be doing this. I would rather be talking to you recording a podcast, working on strategy coaching and elevate talking to a one-on-one client. Like those things just really fuel me because they're in my zone of genius. Now I'm good at Lightroom and Photoshop, but they don't necessarily love the idea of just sitting down and recording videos.

So my YouTube channel has slowed down. And the reason I know this is because the revenue has slowed. So I have, I haven't, I haven't looked recently, but it, it's probably close to a thousand videos on YouTube and close to 2 million views on those videos downloads or watch time. And it was doing really well for me. So why, why,

why? Why did I stop doing it? Because I didn't wanna do it because I was dreading it for whatever reason. I could not make myself do this task. And it, it just Got what, down the list? Yes. Down lower and lower and lower on the to-do list. Yep, exactly. Was always there was always had the intention,

but it just never seemed to get done. Boy, that sounds familiar. Like my reels. So I was like, okay, I had this thought, maybe I need to stop doing those things. Maybe, maybe that doesn't matter as much to the business as I think doesn't matter what will happen if I do it versus don't do it. And I was spinning in my brain.

I remember when my son, Evan was a toddler, he loved to play with trains and tracks and he would say, mommy, the tracks in my brain are wiggly. I love that. Cuz that's how I felt. I felt like I was just spinning. So I actually had made a decision, I thought, I was like, yeah, I'm just not gonna do that anymore.

I mean, they're out there and there's a lot of good ones, but I just don't see the need to continue to update those. I'm gonna operate. And One of the reasons you came to that decision too was because you're moving your business. I mean, you still have the basics that you're teaching in the academy, but you're moving so much of your business into things like Elevate that are conversations at a deeper level besides like,

here's how you remove clone tracks and Photoshop. Oh my gosh, yes, yes. My focus is primarily on business and making money and helping photographers grow. But I still enjoy, you know, I teach at our community college. I just taught a couple of weeks ago, I taught camera basics, how to use your camera in the exposure triangle. And I had so much fun.

Like I still enjoy that, right? But that's not the primary focus of my business. So also at the same time, I was rebuilding my website like from scratch and I was like, oh, what should I do with these light Roman Photoshop tutorials? Oh, I don't know. I'm okay. I'm just gonna drop it. I'm just gonna make a c e O decision and I'm just gonna drop them and I'm gonna focus on,

you know, business and mindset and working in Elevate. I thought I had decided that, but then I just kept coming back to, oh, I dunno if that's a good idea because it's part of my foundation. And how would somebody get into Elevate if they didn't maybe watch a Photoshop video of me at one time and maybe they connected with the way I teach and something I said resonated with them.

So then they come into the ecosystem at the Florist Academy and then they work their way through things and ultimately end up in elevate. In other words, am I cutting off my nose despite my face? Right. And I didn't, I didn't have a good, you know, I talked to you about it several times. I was like, Ugh, do I just make myself do these videos?

Well, finally, ugh, I don't know what, what is with me? Like why, why did it take me so long to talk to my business coach? I have a business coach. Like, why didn't we talk about this sooner? I don't know. But last week I was on my business coaching session and I explained all of what I,

I just shared. And she said, so you are, you're dreading recording these videos. And I said, yes. Like I just can't even make myself sit down and do it. And she said, okay, can you dread something and do it anyway? And that was, yeah, seriously, I was like, I, I leaned into my microphone and I looked at her and I said,

Roger that. And I was ready to like get off the call and go record videos. Like I was like, absolutely. Can I dread something and do it anyway? Of course I can. And she said, okay, so we talked about that for a minute. And I was like, that was such a helpful question to me. But then what she said next,

she asked me a two part question that simultaneously revealed the problem and the solution. It was simple and brilliant. And what she said to me was, how can you make this easier or maybe more fun? Nicole, I've gotta tell you, it was like a lightning bolt hit my brain. I instantly knew what I had to do. It was like,

you know how when we're coaching, every time you're with your coach, you always have some sort of ins, you gain insight, right? You're like, you learn something and occasionally you have a moment like this. And I know you know this cuz you just had one recently where it's like major, major breakthrough because of one question one, one question in,

in 30 seconds. That shifted everything for me because it was just so perfectly timed and, and presented to me. I instantly knew what I needed to do. I needed to get a new computer number one because one of the reasons I was dreading it is my 27 inch iMac with 32 gig Ram completely updated. All system updates are present. It's just running late room and Photoshop slower than I can manage.

Like yeah. When did you get that machine? 2015 you said? 2015. Yeah. I mean it's eight years old, which is like really old. Really old time. Really. It's a dinosaur. So, and I keep it super clean and running well, but okay, it's just slow. They still work. I can still teach, but when I find when I'm recording a screencast,

I have to wait a lot, which means in the edit there's a lot of cutting. Now I don't do the editing. Someone else does, thank goodness. But it's still Taking too much time. It's like when you're in Lightroom and you're didn't do one-to-one previews and you're waiting for every stinking image to load and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm wasting five seconds on every image times 300 images.

It's a lot Seconds. It's painful. It's like, I'm gonna be dead before this is ready. So, Well, I mean, I don't know about that. That's, well that's a little dramatic. I'm so dramatic. Like I, and let me be clear, it's not that I dread Lightroom and Photoshop cause I actually love it. I love doing that.

But okay, I'm dramatic. So she says, how can it, how can it be easier or even fun? And I was like, I need a new computer. I need to get a new computer. And then I wouldn't have to sit here waiting. And then the edits and everything takes longer and it's frustrating. And then my second sticking point was always finding photos or coming up with topics I wanted to cover.

So I would sit down and I would make a list of like things I wanna show in Lightroom. Now when Lightroom info, when Adobe releases updates, it's really easy cuz you're like, whatever they've updated, I'm gonna do videos on that. So I find some images, right? I create videos. But just on a, you know, day-to-day basis sitting down and thinking of,

okay, I want to, you know, try this new method for eye sharpening or for sharpening or removing something or you know, whatever. There's a million things you can teach sitting down, number one, coming up with a, a topic. And then number two, sourcing the images either from my own library or oftentimes yours, especially from working on pets.

I'll say Nicole, hey, can you send me a recent session? I'm looking for this particular issue. And then it takes up your time, it's taking up my time and five years later I figure out what I wanna do. And then, and when the actual recording of the video is always less than seven minutes usually, right? Cause I try to keep 'em around five.

But so the prep work and then the slow computer. So my first thought was I'm gonna buy a new computer. And my second thought was, I'm gonna create a form for elevators to upload their images with a specific request for Lightroom or Photoshop that they need fixed. I will put that in a Monday board and I will have a running queue. So whenever I schedule time to record videos,

I will simply go to that board and I will see what's in the queue and I will record a video. There's a photo, there's the challenger, the question, the issue they have, I'll record it, I'll send it off for editing and scheduling and boom, done, Done. All of this happened in an instant. All of this came to me in an instant because of,

well, you know, it was, it was two part question is can you dread something and do it anyway? And then it was, how can you make it easier? So I, you know this about me, I do not hesitate. Not even for a second, I immediately bought a new computer. So I did, you know, a couple minutes of research to find out what the latest is.

I ended up settling on the M two Mini Pro and Mac of course people of Course Mac. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I kill my gosh. Don't come at us. It's all you p people either We know. We know that you can get so much more for your money with the pc. I hear that my son gave me that song and dance.

He's like, I can't believe you're spending that money on Mac. And I'm like, my, My brother still does whatever every time with my phone and my computer. He's like, I'm like, what? You just shut your mouth, Shut it. Right? I actually did go outside of the Apple ecosystem for my monitor since I know we had a conversation about things of like,

I'm like, oh my God, like I had shortness of breath thinking about it. But then when you told me the price difference between the cinematic display for Apple versus like a really great giant Samsung like can launch a spaceship? Yes. Like, oh okay, ten four, yeah, I will do that too. I ended up getting, it's actually here,

I'm looking at it. The monitor arrived a couple days ago. The computer will be here in two weeks or less. But the monitor's Adele 34 inch wide curved. So there's some debate about curved monitors in the photography editing space. Again, I did a little bit of research and I thought to myself, what's it hurt to try? I don't believe in right or wrong decisions.

I just believe in trying something cuz I could always send it back. And so I'm excited to get this new machine, get everything installed and see how that goes. And it's reinvigorated my commitment to my original decision to build the foundation of the Flourish Academy partially on YouTube. That's part of my strategy. So I'm actually really, really excited about this. I just,

you know, it's like you make a decision in your business and every day, every month, every year you have to re decide if that's the right thing for your business. And that's where I was, I was at this decision point of, okay, do I continue with this? Does it make sense? How does it make sense? Am I gonna need to spend a lot of money?

Good thing I'm, oh wow, it's a good thing I'm making progress on these money issues. Well I know that's what I was saying to you. I'm like, wow, old Heather would've freaked out dropping this much money. Hurry out because you just bought yourself a new laptop too. Well I'm about to. Oh okay. So yeah, Because I'm like,

well I just bought a new computer and monitor, why not get a new MacBook Pro? Cuz that's what I currently have. It's also a little bit older, but I don't know who I am even. But I've gotta tell you this, oh my gosh, you guys, if you can get a coach of some type in your life, it is.

And that afternoon, so this was a Wednesday, so this was in the morning, talked to my coach, talked with you and I'm like, boom, I'm going for it. Done pulled the trigger immediately that afternoon I actually had another coaching call with my personal coach. So I have a business coach and I have a personal coach and I can, I can talk to either one of them about anything,

but I kind of segment it that way. And in that call, I can't even remember specifically what the issue was, but I remember just gaining some really good insight. Like it wasn't a major breakthrough, but as I went to bed that night, I thought to myself, I am going to bed on Wednesday evening a different person than when I woke up that morning.

A much better version with more clarity, more refined like that. I was so grateful and excited that I have this opportunity to work with coaches that can help. And I talk with my coach every week. So again, every week there's some insight that I gain so I'm like a better version of myself. And then every once in a while you'll have this like major,

major breakthrough that just changes everything and I could not wait to share this with you. Yeah, and if you guys wanna hear again what those coaching calls can sound like. I shared on a recent podcast my fully unedited coaching call with Heather cuz I have a weekly meeting with Heather, she's my personal coach. And I had a, I mean life changing breakthrough is not an exaggeration because we are working now on,

at the time of this recording, two months since that call. And not once have I spiraled back into that place of frustration that I used to be at. Unbelievable. On the regular, like almost daily basis. It changed everything for you. And yeah, so that was like one of the major ones. But then each of the other, so each week when if most of them we like end up rewriting a thought,

I have a little tablet that I keep track of each of my new thoughts, which almost become then little mantras until they're like fully incorporated. Yes. So it is like you're rebuilding just not your life, but yes, your life, I mean just by these, these little thoughts that have such a ripple effect in the business you're creating, which supports the life that you wanna create.

I do wanna talk about one thing too as far as like when you're starting to, you know, cuz we have, we can, you know, we can automate things, we can delegate things, we can delete things. When you're starting to look at like, oh my gosh, I have so much going on. What do I need? Or what am I dreading?

Like those are our choices. Can we automate it? Do we just do it? Do we delete it? Do we just wait till later? Archive it kind of thing. And I think if you're not careful, you can allow your ego, your conscious mind to kind of convince you like, we don't really need to do this like yours kind of did with your YouTube channel.

Yes. But if you ask yourself this question of, okay, what's the vision of my business? What does that business need? It's not about you, it's what your business needs. Your business needs you to do a YouTube channel. My business needs me to show up on Instagram reels and do a YouTube channel as well to, to put more consistent content on it.

And it's not about me anymore. Now I then have the choice. Do I do this as the face of my business? Yes, I do need to be involved. But then you can ask yourself that question of, all right, how can I make this fun? How can I make this more streamlined? How can I make this easy? And when you're asking yourself better questions like this,

like there's always an answer. You can make almost anything more fun. Actually, I read a book, our friend Michael Puck recommended it a book by Peter Sage, ah, and I forget what it's called now, but basically he was arrested and put in prison for something that he did not do. And so you can then take that mindset into a really deep and dark place.

But then his questions of like, wow, okay, how can I use my time here? Which basically was like coaching the other people in there. It, it was just fascinating to read something like that and see the, the effect that how you ask yourself certain questions and just asking yourself a question as simple as how can I make this fun? How can I make this easy?

What does my business need? Give you all the answers you need. Those are great Questions. Nicole. I agree. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. We always say that. We originally heard it from Tony Robbins. Hey, was that book called The Inside Track? Yes. Yeah, thank you. I see it.

Yeah, I'll grab that because it is very fascinating. And also as you were explaining that, it reminded me, another thing my coach said to me was she was essentially getting really curious as to my reasons for, for wanting to do Lightroom and Photoshop videos. So she was asking me, you know, what did that look like in my business? And I explained that it's marketing and it goes on the YouTube channel and it gets people into the Flourish Academy.

I can also get people on an email list with a free download of a preset or an action and things like this. And she said, do you like your reasons for wanting to continue to do those videos more than your reasons for not doing those videos? Like what are, and it doesn't mean that you have to love the process or the task, it's not what she was asking,

right? She was asking like, what are your reasons that you want to do this task? Yeah. Does the outcome, is the desired outcome more beneficial or that's it of greater impact than the pain of of going through? That's exactly it. Yeah. Well said. And so, and I was like, yes it is. Because it's important to have these videos out there helps,

it helps promote the flourish. And it also helps people like, yeah, great, I get comments on YouTube videos from seven and eight years ago, which by the way makes me cringe. But they're like, this was so helpful, you know? And I think, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that I was able to do that. So this idea of can I dread something and do it Anyway,

that's, that's one of my new thoughts. It's been incredibly helpful. And as of this recording, this has only been a week since this happened and it's changed everything for me. And then how can I make this easier and how can I make this fun? Not every task is going to be fun, but certainly there are ways to make it easier.

Like is there a tool, is there a strategy like you were saying about your Monday board and tracking how you're gonna do social media that you love, that you love organization and process? I Sure do. So for you, creating social media that has a a system is fun and exciting even if the actual execution of the task isn't. Well, and here's the thing,

the execution was never like, once I sit down and do it, once I know what to do, execution's easy. It it's, it's like, it's like cooking, flipping dinner. Hmm. Like if I know what I'm cooking and the stuff's here, like whatever, I, I got that. It's the, alright, what do we need this?

Oh, what do I need to go to the store for? Okay, what do I need to do for all of these things? So I wanna start to wrap this up. Yes. And I want you guys out there to think about something. You're dreading your business. I can take a gander that about 97.8% of you, one of those things that your business needs that you are dreading is making more connections in your local market.

Meeting people Like talking to actual humans face-to-face, like in live real time, not virtually. So can you connect yourself with your future vision of your business? What are your goals for your business? Can you connect with that? And then ask yourself, all right, what does that business need? Does that business need me to have more local connections? Oh my gosh,

brilliant, brilliant. Hang on, repeat it. Yeah, you're asking your future self in your future business what it needs. Yeah. Yeah. So you're connecting with that vision where you wanna go like here's my goal. And if you don't have that goal, all right, let's back up, let's figure out where the heck we're going. So what do you want this business to look like?

Is it a part-time profitable business? Is it a full-time profitable business? Both work? Are you making you know, $30,000 profit as a part-time business to pay for extra vacations for your family? Are you making $150,000 profit because you wanna leave your corporate job both work? What is your vision? Figure out what that is, connect with that vision. Put yourself there.

Close your eyes, take a couple deep breaths, pretend that you have already reached that vision and ask yourself, what does my business need to get here? What did I do to get here? And that answer is clear. You will get it. You might not get it. Like immediately download. Like you might not ask that question with like, you know,

taking a few minutes of like a kind of meditate just, I know people get weird with the meditate thing, but listen, just sit down in a quiet room, close your eyes for a minute and visualize what you want your business to look like. And then you just ask yourself this question, what do I need to get there? What does that version of this business need?

And you will get an answer. You might not get that download immediate answer, but you might wake up in the morning and be like, oh, you might see little pieces or like just pop thoughts pop in your head as you go on through your day or over the next week. And if you connect with that vision and ask yourself that question, more than once more likely will continue to get more and more answers of what direction you need to move in.

And when you get that answer, then you ask yourself, okay, am I excited about doing this? If you're not, how can I make this fun? How can I make this easier? What assistance do I need to make this happen without that assistance being I'm gonna throw some money and have somebody else do it and put my head in the sand.

That's not an option. You need to be involved. So good. And also asking yourself how, how could I make the future me proud? Or what would make the future me proud? So I think about my business in the future, would I be proud of the fact that I persevered and grew the YouTube channel or would I be proud of the fact that I stopped it?

And neither one of those is right or wrong. It's just based on the vision of the business, what makes more sense and where would I be more proud of myself and I would be proud of myself for doing things that I don't always love doing anyway for the betterment of the people I serve and for my business. Yeah, I love that. And again,

you can look at that future goal and ask yourself, am I willing to do this thing if it means I'm going to reach this goal? Hmm. It's a lot easier to have that motivation when you know why you're doing something. And I think the challenge can be that future goal can seem so far away. It's like weight loss, right? Why it's so hard for people to stick to a workout routine or a weight loss routine.

It's cuz you don't see immediate results. It takes a long time for these compound efforts to show up and a lot of people give up by then. So same thing with our business. A lot of things are not gonna be an immediate result, but you're gonna be building them momentum and in a year, in six months, let alone heaven forbid, five years,

once you start making those leaps, my gosh, you're not even gonna recognize the business you're in. And how can I hook the future version of me up? Like how can I hook future Heather up to make it easier for her? So I'm thinking, okay, for future Heather, would it be easier for her if I had a massive YouTube following or if I let it die off?

Okay. Right, right. O obviously it would make it easier for the future version of the Flourish Academy to have a bigger platform on YouTube. So while, you know, I jumped into YouTube pretty early on, so I've had that channel for many, many years. So I have an advantage there and I feel like I'm sitting on a gold mine.

I haven't, I have not fully mined, you know, so, okay, future Heather would be really happy if current Heather puts a lot of, I'm actually, it's funny, this is for another episode, but I do always think of future Heather and like how can I make something easier for her? And even if it's like something two minutes from now,

like by setting something in a certain place to make it easier or by, you know, five years from now by exercising and, and having a regimen around my weight so that you know, I'm healthier in five years or whatever. Right? I mean always thinking of the future. So important to get connected with that vision of what I want this business to look like and how can I support that now?

Well, okay, I'm gonna have to do some things like buy new computer. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to prove it. Swipe that credit card, which I did. Yeah. And one of the ways you can really help your future self and your business is, you know, maybe you have a client inquiry. And one of the things I know that I see a lot of people stuck on too is like putting together their inquiry workflow.

Because it can be overwhelming and you feel like it needs to be perfect but does not need to be perfect. You just need to start somewhere. So can you, when that next inquiry comes in, if you haven't already, like grab a Google doc, start keeping track of what you're sending to different people when you're starting to make templates and then you're starting to make processes and then the next time this comes around,

oh look, I know exactly. Even if you wanna customize it, you have a starting point. You're not starting from scratch. So anytime, anytime you guys are doing anything in your business that you're going to do, again, do your future self a favor, write it down, create a Google doc and like start to make a a list of processes.

And then when you're in the a hundred K club in the Elevate Group or when you're in the 50 K club in the academy and you're starting to have these different conversations and you're like, oh man, I really need to outsource some things. Oh, guess what? It becomes really easy to hire someone to take some things off your plate because you have all the processes written down.

So I love that. Yeah, it saves your brain time so you can focus on other things and then it also will save you actual time if you ever get to the point when, when you get to the point of hiring, helping your business, that Is really very solid advice. I do that with my taxes every year. I keep a just a handwritten document in a folder with notes of like a,

a certain something maybe that happened that was different. And I'm always trying to make it easier next year for myself at tax time. And I've been doing this for several years. So at this point my tax time besides, I don't like writing the checks. Okay. But everything goes pretty smoothly because I have constantly built on that. That's the same premise.

I love it. I shockingly have a Todoist list that I think I'm gonna put in a Monday board cuz then I can just put my files right there on my board. So then comes tax time export. Yes. Here's all My things. Yes. How can I make it easier for the next time? And the, and the way that you do that,

I actually started doing this years ago with our big pumpkin party that we have every year is I write notes to myself to remember how I can make it easier. So if I have a challenge and I work my way through that challenge, I write it down somewhere. I keep track of these things. Yeah, it's different. Like personal for business goes in,

I use Google Keep for business and personally it, it just depends on what I'm working on. But I, I will write myself notes of like, Heather, don't forget you really struggled with this. You could make it easier by doing this the next time. And then like you said, these things compound on one another and it gets easier and lighter and more fun and you open up more space in your brain to tackle bigger challenges.

It's Cool. Yeah. The process is actually equal freedom. A lot of people think, I don't wanna be tied down, but when you create the processes, it actually gives you more freedom. More freedom, which seems counterintuitive, but I think that's a whole nother show. I do too. I'm talking about processes. I do too. And our future selves.

And I just wrote that down. So, okay, we'll be coming back at you guys with that for now, thank you so much for being here with us. Gosh, I, we can't stress enough how important it is to have some sort of coaching in your life, some sort of mastermind group, peer based or like actual like coach led kind of thing.

Whatever resonates with you. You don't have to join the academy, you don't have to join Elevate. It doesn't have to be through us, but we really, I mean we love it, but we encourage you to please find some sort of support. Support because support, you can't do this alone. You shouldn't. It's not. And listen, having that conversation with I was so I could not call you fast enough after I got off of that,

I was so excited. Like just ask me some questions and position that in a way that I could hear it. Oh man, it just made all the difference for me. I love it. All right, love it. Love it. All right, if you guys wanna get some coaching in your life, check out hair of the dog academy.com/elevate or hair of the dog academy.com/academy

for the academy. And yeah, we would love to have you in there and to continue to support you and help you get these major breakthroughs that are literally life changing in like 10, 15 minutes. Unbelievable. One conversation, one question can change everything. I love it. Love it. All right guys, we will see you next week. Thanks for listening to The Hair of the Dog podcast.

This was episode number 180 5. If you wanna check out the show notes for access to any of the resources that we mentioned, simply go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/ 180 5. 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 episodes.

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