Welcome back to The Hair of the Dog podcast. In today's episode, Heather is back sharing what scares her to her core. All right? She's not actually sharing that willingly. I just told her we were definitely going to share it cuz we're recapping the progress lab. We're talking about the gap in the gain and we are talking about Heather's biggest fear. So you're gonna wanna stay tuned for this one.And now your host, pet photographer, travel addict, chocolate martini connoisseur, Nicole Begley.

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 addicts, chocolate martini connoisseur, Nicole Begley. Hey everybody, welcome back to The Hair of the Dog podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley.

And today the one and only fabulous. I used to say Fearless Heather Laan, but she's no longer fearless. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. But anyway, she's here with me. Hi Heather. Okay, that's not exactly fair because Sure it is. You had thoughts, you had thoughts that you could not get out of your way for those thoughts.

And it was the first time I had seen that. That is true. That is true. Okay, well set up the stage for what we were doing when we were Together. Okay, we'll get there. We'll get there. We're gonna wait, we're gonna wait to, cuz that came later on than the week. Yes. But anyway, Heather and I just are fresh off the hills recording this from our inaugural progress lab workshop,

which I don't know about you, but I do. Cause we talked about it. It exceeded all of my expectations, like by a Lot. It really? Yeah. And my expectations were actually pretty high. I mean, I just assume it's going to go well and I was really excited. We were very well prepared. But on that last day when you and I were recapping,

I, I said to you that that far exceeded my expectations. It went way better than I could have ever imagined. People had more breakthroughs, like bigger, more impactful breakthroughs than I would've even thought possible. But I guess I should have because there is something magical that occurs when you're in person. It's just A hundred percent. Although this was different even from that.

So I've taught a lot of workshops and yeah, I mean I'm really proud of the breakthroughs of my students have had at all of them. However, the magnitude of the breakthroughs at this one, I was like, holy cow, this blows any other workshop I have ever hosted out of its water in terms of long-term impact on your business, on Your business,

period. Right. And your life really. Right? Because when things shift in your mind, everything shifts in your life and your business. And those students did not leave the same as they came. You know, there was a, there was a market difference in their attitude about their business and themselves. And it was, I don't know, Nicole magical to watch.

Really? Yeah. Oh my gosh. It was so good. I mean we had five students with us and it was, I mean every single one we started off with our intentions for what they wanted, which we had done a call, we do a call prior to the workshop to kind of get everybody together, talk about what our intentions are, expectations,

how the things gonna go, find out what their big goals are. We reiterated those big goals on day one. And then the last day we kind of went through them, check, check, check, check, Check and, and then like check. And then like plus, plus like in addition it was, and you know, one of my,

there, there were so many good moments, but one of my favorite ones was we did a money visualization that was so powerful that when we were recapping it and in fact we've received notes since the workshop that was like, that was absolutely mind blowing the shifts I made with money. Now imagine this, imagine that was your only shift. You just shifted how you think and feel about money that changes the trajectory of the rest of your life compounding over time.

Like to me that one shift is worth it. Right? And that was just one 20 minute exercise out of two and a half days. Right? So good. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So you guys, if you're like, huh, interesting. I feel like I need to be part of this. Yeah, you do. We are going to be doing another progress lab in October,

again in Charlotte, North Carolina. We are likely going to run a house on the lake this time. There will still be the perfect amount of like deep work and then a little bit of kind of relaxation work time. Cuz it's still, it's still work because we're still having these great conversations. It's just not the deep work. So we're, we kind of infuse this workshop with some deep work time and then some like,

oh downtime for it's some integration time. I guess it should be really where there's still great conversation, there's still breakthroughs happening, but you're able to relax your brain and like let things start to percolate. And it was amazing. That was also one of the most consistent feedback pieces that we got that people really enjoyed was that combination of deep work time versus kind of integration relaxation time.

I've gotta hand it to you. That was your brilliant idea of how to structure the schedule. He, you just, you're smart. Okay, that's the bottom line. You just knew that people would need this time to absorb. Like you can't sit for six or eight hours and just learn and teach and talk and work. You just can't, your brain at some point just shuts down,

especially with some of this really deep work. So you structured it in such a way that the breaks were perfectly ti I mean perfectly timed. It was like, oh my gosh, my head was about to explode, but now we're having lunch. Okay so I can, I can refuel, I can think. And then we do, you know, a physical activity.

So we're like up and moving and yeah. And that's integration time. That gives your brain time to process everything that you are learning. Yeah, no, absolutely. Oh my gosh, it was so, so good. And the other thing, well I remember now what I was wanted to say, the other thing too that I thought was really, really impactful for this was the amount of thought time.

Meaning we're looking at the mindset, we're looking at the thoughts we're busting beliefs, we're seeing what's holding your back and your brain versus I would put on my action cape and swoop in and we would brainstorm actions that then people could actually follow through with because they got all their thought junk out of their way first. Again, That was really fun. Brilliant.

Yeah, it was very brilliant. In fact, we said we were going to get you a t-shirt that said ag for action girl. And then we decided it should be a cape. Yeah, a hundred Percent cape. But you're right. Like when you, you had the perfect imbalance, the amount of time on strategies where we're talking about marketing and pricing and business structure,

all of those things. But first we have to get through our money beliefs before we can talk about pricing. Because if you have money stories that don't serve you and you're trying to work on your pricing, there's always going to be this disconnect the this block and you're gonna struggle and you don't even know why. So we balanced both of those things I think really well.

Like here are the thoughts that are holding you back. Okay, now let's look at your pricing. And it was super helpful. Yeah. Oh my gosh, it was so, so, so good. So anyway, we have tentatively, tentatively it's definitely gonna be October, but we are tentatively look 10 te tentatively te, how the heck do you say that word?

Tentatively? Tentatively, Tentatively, Tentatively. Yeah, forget it. It's looking like the dates are gonna be October 10th through 12th here in Lake Norman. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in Charlotte. Get on the wait list at hair of the dog academy.com/progress and we will let you know as soon as we have more details and we'll likely open up registration for that.

Definitely sometime this summer, probably sometime in July. And I am quite certain it's going to fill with a wait list because every person I talk to in my one-on-one calls in an Elevate, they were interested, a lot of people were interested in it and I said, listen, when it comes up again, do not hesitate, just don't. It was,

Well we actually have a wait list still from the first one that they wanted to come but they had scheduling issues that they couldn't. So yeah, it again will be very small group. So yeah, if you're interested, definitely get on that wait list because I'm not saying this guys to be like, I'm gonna make this made up scarcity piece. It's gonna feel on the wait list.

Honestly, I really truly think this one might fill on the wait list. I, I don't know that we'll ever have a public release of it. So go jump on that www.hairofthedogacademy.com/progress and put your name on there and yeah, let's do it again in October. Let's do it. I wanna see everyone have these major breakthroughs and just make their dreams come true in their businesses.

Whether that's number of clients or revenue goal or whatever it is. I say let's go, let's make it happen. Oh my gosh, For sure. Actually one last little piece because these workshops are for people that are in business. So this is an important distinction. You need to be in business and actively taking money for photography, like serving clients in your business.

It doesn't matter if your business is, you know when you're at $20,000 a year or $200,000 a year, but it does matter that you have your business up and running. But one of our biggest breakthroughs for one of our students when we were there was actually a little bit more on the craft side, which was one of the big pieces that was holding her back,

which was this kind of comparison piece which we all are guilty of. If you guys say you've never compared yourself to somebody else out there, I think you're lying hundred percent. But when we are living in that space and we're, we're not putting ourselves out there in our business because we have this like subconscious comparison thinking like why would I put myself out there cuz why would someone hire me when there's all these like people that I'm looking up to in the industry that quote are better than me.

Like was what your subconscious is saying. But the people that are hiring you are hiring you for what you're showing. They love what you do so they're hiring you. But that was one of our biggest pieces and one of the things we did there was help reframe on that gap versus game, which is what we kind of wanted to talk about a little bit today,

which I'm currently in the midst of. I haven't finished it quite yet, which I know it's an easy read Heather. It is. I'm read it in a few days. I'm getting there, I'm getting there. I can't read at night. I like fall asleep as soon as I sit down, like after eight o'clock with the book and in the morning I'm like,

oh I gotta get to work. It's like work time and I'm so excited. So anyway, I'm gonna vacation next week. I'll finish it on the plane regardless, we wanted to talk a little bit about this gap in gain piece and our power hour coming up at the end of the month in June on June. Drum roll please cuz I need to look 28th,

I Think we go, yeah, the 28th. Yes. June 28th at 11:00 AM is our power hour. You can, if you're on our email list here at Hair of the Dog Land, you will get an invite to it. It's free for our whole big community, but we'll be talking about more about the gap and gain and going into some exercises that you can do.

Yeah, that's my favorite part is putting together these exercises. The gap in the Gain is a book by Dan Sullivan in Dr. Benjamin Hardy. And the subtitle is The High Achievers Guide Do Happiness, confidence, and Success. And I'm not exaggerating when I say this is probably at the very top, maybe maybe number one or two of my favorite books of all time.

And that's, Oh yeah, I would say so far, even though I haven't finished it, it's a top three life changer for me. Yes. Life changing. The other one I'm thinking of is Atomic Habits by James Clear. It was just a, Yeah, my other is a big leap. The big leap. The Big Leap. I mean there's so many good ones,

but this one really does sit at the top of my list. It again, it's a pretty easy quick read and I highly recommend it. I'm actually making it required reading for my one-on-one coaching clients, like they have to it. Oh, and the reason is because we actually start to speak in this language. You know, they might be sharing a story or something that happened and I,

I'll say, well are you in the gap or the gain? And then it becomes pretty obvious when you understand the concept. So back to your example of comparison, what we do as photographers at is we are inspired, hopefully and sometimes compare ourselves to the leaders in the industry and we might think, oh you know, maybe someday I'll get there. That's so inspiring that they can do that.

And you're hopeful and sometimes you think, I'll never get there. They're so much better than me, I don't know how I'm ever going to do that. Which leaves you feeling really frustrated and defeated and obviously that doesn't serve you. So one of our students was commenting about your work and she was saying, Nicole, your work is so amazing. Like I just can't even imagine being able to shoot like you do.

And she talked about some other industry leaders. So what she was doing was she was comparing herself to the ideal, the ideal version of herself or a view. It's just like you, here you are. So you know, here you are at this level and then like up here, you know, off the charts is are these leaders and this is called the Gap.

You're in the gap because you're like, I'm not there and I'm never gonna be that good and I wanna get better. Yes. And so she's explaining to the this to us and she was very defeated and would you say also kind of sad? Yeah. And I said to her, can I ask you a question? Are you better than now than you started,

than when you started? And she said she laughed and she said, oh my goodness, of course I've seen so much progress. And I just kept asking her questions about where she started and where she is and she perked up. Her body language was a little bit different her, her just energy was higher and she's talking about how much she's improved. She can see an improvement,

she's liking this stuff. And I said, okay, you're in the gain because you're comparing yourself to the previous version of you. And when you do that, you see how far you've come and you're like, I'm awesome. This is amazing. Look how far I've come. I didn't even know how to turn on that camera when I first got it,

let alone focus it. I mean, my goodness. And now I'm taking these amazing photographs. If you focus on the gain where you were to where you are, you will feel amazing. You will feel like a super genius you can take over the world if you focus on where you are and the ideal, you're gonna feel like garbage. The good news here is that it's your choice.

You can decide where you place your attention. Your brain will always and forever, automatically take you to the gap. Every time. If you recognize that, you catch it and then you say, oh I'm in the gap. Because I'm comparing myself to either my own ideal, like future me or even someone else. That's why I feel like garbage. Okay,

stop. Where did I start? Where am I now? Wow, I've made so much progress. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of examples of this, which we wanna dive into a couple of them, but some of them aren't even business related. I'm thinking for instance, right after I wrote read this book, I was in the kitchen and I went to go recycle something and the garbage can was like the,

the liner was put in there but not like fully opened up, you know? So the bottom was still stuck together and I found myself getting frustrated. So I was like, what kind of animal? Oh my gosh, let's this in here without doing this. Because I was judging it against my ideal. Who I openly admit is I have very high standards for how things,

how things you know are should be done. It's no one's fault but my own. But anyway, and it's my feelings, it's not like I'm, no one else is responsible for this. But I then I was like, ah, grumbling for a minute. Then I was like, hold up, you're in the gap. And then I was like,

the gain is someone took out the garbage, can we just focus on that? You know, like I didn't have to take out the garbage. Oh. And just immediately it totally shifted my thoughts, totally shifted, my energy totally shifted. Any thoughts about any family members? Like it just it it, because truly know all these times that you're frustrated,

whether you're frustrated with the slower growth of your craft, whether you're frustrated with the number of clients or inquiries that you have, whether you're frustrated with your relationships or you're frustrated with anything else going on in your personal life, you have to look and say like, what am I thinking about this? What am I focusing on? And you can completely change your focus and your outcome and your feelings with just your thoughts.

Like it has nothing to do with anyone else or what they've done or what they say or what any other piece of it. Which is just like the most magical hack that you can get in life. Oh It is magical because the circumstance doesn't matter. The circumstance being the outside event, whether the garbage bag or the person who did it, whatever, or something happens just like in the world,

it depends on what you focus on. And he actually said that in the book. He said, when you learn this concept, if you're really paying attention, you will catch yourself in the gap multiple times a day. Oh Yeah. An hour. I would say yes. With little things. With big things. And if you can do that, I'll share a personal example.

When I was reading the book, my daughter was finishing up her sophomore year in college and she's starting to look for internships at the end of the month. And I am thinking you should have been doing this three months ago. That's when people were hiring interns for the summer. Not like a week prior. Right, right. So I was, in my mind,

I was like, oh my gosh, really? You should have been doing this three months ago. What is going on? Why were you not paying attention? And the, this is what I was thinking now had I not had this concept and this had continued to move forward, I promise you I would've said something to her that was maybe not complimentary or helpful and then,

you know, it could damage our relationship or just whatever. I mean there were so many consequences to to being in the gap. So I caught myself and I was like, wait a minute, she's searching for jobs, she's actively putting her resume out there. She created a LinkedIn profile, she is taking massive action. It's just not in the timeframe I thought it should be.

But also, isn't this her journey? She's an adult. So there's that piece, but also the piece of like where she came from to where she is, she is killing it. She's a 3.98 grade point average professor's, lover involved in all of these things. Like so many amazing things. And I was trying to focus on the gap, caught it,

my brain was like, shut up, not serving you. And I thought of the gain. And then my attitude actually towards her was much different. Yes. Much healthier magic, more loving, more supportive. And she doesn't need to know, I don't think she'll, she listens to your podcast. She doesn't need to know about this brief moment where I spent in the gap.

So good. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I want to actually ask you about another, like more business related time that you maybe found yourself in the gap, which can happen quite regularly to all of us when we have maybe a revenue goal and then you fall a little bit short and so many people are gonna focus on that, that gap, that like,

I didn't hit it, I'm a failure. See it's not working. Even when they're so stinking close to their goal that really it should be, oh, I mean if you had an asterisk on your goal within 10%, like you're a winner, you know? And even that it would be like if you're 11% or you're not a winner now I it's,

it's us just choosing to fixate on on that gap instead of looking at the gain. So do you have an example in your business revenue? I did it. I have a great example of this. So for many years I had my photography business, I had built it up to six figures, it was doing really well. I started to shift to more education and I knew that I was gonna take a little bit of a pay cut as I made this transition and built up the Flourish Academy.

And so I was a few years in and I was trying to get back to six figures and because in my head Nicole, the truth is I'm a six figure entrepreneur. Like that's not optional. Like that's where, right I'm going to. Right. You know, it's, it's happening. It's just a matter of when. So I was a few years in and it was finally the year where I felt like I had everything sort of set and aligned and I was gonna make it happen.

So super excited. And at the end of the year I ran my profit loss and I was at $95,000 Failure. Failure loser. You didn't make it. You were so close, why couldn't you do something to push it over? Like yeah, I had that moment where I thought, you know, this is ridiculous. This is so close, this is never gonna happen.

Did I make a mistake? What am I doing? I had that. It's just, I caught it really quickly. It was very brief and I was like, Heather, you brought in $95,000. Stop for a minute and just appreciate what you created from a so this, now I'm at the point now where I've built two businesses to six figures and I'm really,

really proud of that. So in, I could focus on that, like how proud I am or I could focus on, I'm a loser. I was $5,000 short again, it took me a minute because I'm human and I always say like to our friends in progress lab, I say the only difference between you and eyes, I just catch it faster.

That's the only difference. I caught it faster and I was like, okay, I made 95, that's amazing. And next year it will be no problem. And that was accurate. That's actually a great point cuz quite a few of our students were under the false assumption that when you work on your mindset quote or you're growing in this area, all of a sudden that you don't have the negative thoughts anymore.

Right? Like you shouldn't have them, it's bad to have them and obviously you're, you're not growing if you have negative thoughts. Yeah. And I have, I, I told them, I'm like, I do, I mean I have negative thoughts constantly all day, every day. Just like any human would with a brain. If you have a brain,

it's gonna offer you the negative thoughts. I just catch it faster. And that's because I've been training myself with these different tools and like awareness techniques to just notice it. And here's what I notice. I actually don't notice the thought. I'm not that advanced yet. I notice, I notice the feeling. So I'll say to you for instance, man,

I'm just feeling like crap today. You know, I'm just, I don't know, I'm just feeling really down or frustrated or whatever. And then you would say like, well what's, what's the thought behind that? What are you thinking? And then explain the thought and then we look at the thought and then boom, done. Move on. Okay,

next. I mean that's how quickly you and I are moving through these thoughts. Yeah. And I love the feelings as a barometer. Like when you're feeling great and whether you're feeling great or you're feeling maybe not so great, it's still a great time to be like, what am I thinking? So even when you're feeling great, like stop and ask yourself,

what am I thinking right now? Oh, maybe this is a good thought that I should hold onto because it's causing you to feel great. You Need to think about your thoughts, you need to be constantly thinking about your thoughts. And you also shouldn't believe everything your brain tells you because it actually lies to you quite often. Yeah, Well your brain was lying to you.

Yes. In the progress lab on day three on the side of the road. Okay, this is, you know what, this is gonna come out whether I want it to or not. So Oh is We were Hold on, hold on. Let's, let's, let's preface for my point of view first and then you can jump in. Oh good.

Your point of view. Yeah. Yeah. So we're driving to a secret activity and Heather calls and I just hit answer on my Bluetooth in my phone or in my car and she is screaming something about it. We locked eyes, it's going to kill me. Something about a snake in the car just screaming at the top of her lungs. And then she hangs up on me after it's gonna kill me.

She hangs up on me and I'm like, I turn to the other students in my car. I'm like, do do you think we need to go back? They're like, yeah. I'm like okay. And so then I call back, I'm like, where are you? You're like, oh you're still kind of hyperventilating. I'm like, is it in the car?

On the car? I'm like, is it brown or black? Because very different, a brown snake. Which then the next question is the diamonds on his back because like don't, don't get bit by a copperhead. That is a legit fear, but you're like, ah, get so big. It was not big. Okay. It was just a cute little garter snake,

possibly baby rat snake. Oh, okay. Cute. He was cute. I have a picture and he actually looks pretty big. Okay, cute. He looks pretty cute. Okay. I cannot, for the life of me understand how you could assign the word cute to a snake that is beyond my comprehension. But did I even mention, cuz I was hysterical,

did I mention hysterical the word snake in that first call? Because in my, I think so. You did. You did. Yeah. I was yelling, it's trying to kill me. It's trying to kill me. And then I just hung up and yeah, I, I didn't, I was so out of my mind and hysterical like they're telling me to call you.

Oh we should say we were driving two separate cars because we had, you know, several people and our friend was, she probably wouldn't mind if we said who she was driving the car. She wouldn't mind. It's Jessica Lasik and she hates snakes too. What happened? She's driving and she starts freaking out and I'm like, what's wrong? And she's like,

snake. And I'm like, snake, where's her snake? We're in a car. Like you're like confused for a second. And I was looking at her. So I'm in the passenger seat and I turned towards a windshield and Nicole, it was out of an absolute horror film. There was a snake on the windshield staring at me. That's when I say we locked eyes.

He stuck out his little snake tongue slithering. And he like was up on it like now they like launch up and he was like, oh my gosh. He was, I'm coming for you, I'm going to kill you. He was mad. She, that's what he said, you're a snake whisperer now. That's what he was saying. Yeah, he was for sure saying that he,

oh my gosh, he was so angry. You can see it in his little BDIs. And then he went over to Jess's side and this snake moved quick and then my side and then he disappeared. Okay, not cool because at least I can see it. Well I was up in my seat, I was trying to climb in the back seat. I was screaming,

I was hysterical. One of our other friends was saying, Heather, look at me. Heather, look at me. It's on the outside, it's not going to get you. It's on the outside. And I'm screaming, I don't care. It's coming for me. We, I dunno where he's at. I'm picturing him coming through the vent and leaping out and you know,

attacking my face or something. So my feet are up on the seat, I'm trying to climb in the back. I look over, Jessica's feet are up on the seat, she's screaming, she's driving the car. Nicole like we, and she's saying, I need to pull over, I need to pull over. Okay. So we pull over, we get out,

Nicole comes, they, they get the snake out of the engine. The snake was leaked in the engine area dropped down and okay slithered off. But everybody was saying like, I thought Heather was so fearless. And I said, listen to me, hear me clearly I have one thing that could have been a giant spider or any other creepy crawly thing that you don't like.

But to me it's snakes. I just cannot, with the snakes, Jessica and I run over into the field. The rest of you are like, oh he's so cute. And I'm like, oh it's disgusting. He's trying to kill us car. Jessica's like I'm abandoning the car. Tell it I'm not getting back in. I mean okay, even if you love snakes,

you have to admit that seeing one on your windshield is a bit Shocking. Yeah, no. When you see snakes, spiders, anything like that in an area you're not expecting, it's not fun to be surprised by those animals. However, it was hysterical. Well I mean I have never laughed and cried and screamed. We were out of our minds and it was so much fun.

Like I would not trade that experience. That was a bonding experience for us. It was so fun. And another one of our students, she had such a good metaphor for this, she's like, this is like things that happen in our business. It's like the snakes of our business we're like so afraid of things that actually cannot hurt us. Like if somebody doesn't hire you or doesn't like your pricing or has something to say or something goes sideways,

like you will not be harmed. It will all be, you're just going to experience a feeling. In my case it terrified is not even the right word. Whatever is stronger than that was what I was feeling. And then I calm down and they're telling me, Heather, what are your thoughts around the snake? Are you having thoughts that are causing you to be,

you know, and I'm like, shut up, don't use my material on me. This is not appropriate. I did not ask for coaching right now. Do not coach me against my will. Oh my gosh it was so, so great. But no, it really was a good lesson of like something might truly frighten you in your business. And I said to them,

I'm glad this happened because it actually puts me in your shoes when I'm coaching you. And there's something that you say to me, you know, you, you say Heather raising my prices is terrifying and I am coaching you through it as if it's not terrifying but it is for you. It is terrifying. Just like the snake was for me. So it was actually a very humbling experience.

I was like, oh I guess I needed that. Ouch. Oh yes, no snakes were harmed. He got out, he got outed away all good. And he was very adorable I thought. But yes, no, I would've also been freaking out if I was driving and he was on my car cuz I'm a windfield. Yeah, yeah. Well and actually for all of you out there,

should you ever have this experience, one of our students husbands works in the car industry or knows very well like the inner workings of these cars and we're like, could it have gotten in? And technically yes, but like highly, highly unlikely. So I'd have to go through like filters and all sorts of stuff to get into the actual cabin of the car.

So should you find yourself in this experience in the future, this is your public service announcement for the day that you will be okay. But I would recommend make sure Heather's not coming to save you cuz then you're on your own. Heather Is not coming to save you. Make sure you pull over. Because the problem was we were in a construction zone and there was nowhere to pull over.

So we felt very trapped by this had cornered us in a construction zone. And so Jessica's trying to get through the zone to like pull over. I mean we needed to pull over because we were both hysterical. It was just not safe, you know, luckily we were going pretty slow. But what a fun, interesting experience. So I wonder if there's something in your business that terrifies you,

if you actually experienced it, you, you might think it's fun. Like is that a possibility? Here's a question for you. If this were to happen to you again, would you be as freaked out as you were the first time? Yes. Because I've actually, thank you for asking. I've tried snake therapy with myself. So I live in the woods and there was a very,

very large, I sent you the picture, the snake that was on the tree. Yeah, he was Huge. Yeah, he was a huge snake and he was on a tree behind my house and I started to walk towards it and I was saying out loud, Heather, you're fine. This is exposure therapy. I was thinking because that's what they do.

That's what a therapist would do. Well yeah, Yeah. Well I'm, I'm not thinking different situations. I'm thinking the exact same situation. You're in a car, the snake is on the outside, you now know, you now have more information that you know that it is pretty much impossible for the snake to get inside the car. Alright. From that engine block.

Okay. Do you React differently? I Would say Yes. Intensely. Yes. That's it. Yes. I would say that the dial would be turned slightly down. It would not be as, because this is the first time in all of my years of life I've ever seen a snake on a windshield. And so if I saw it again, yeah I would be less surprised I guess because now this is a thing the snakes Do and if this happened maybe three times a week on the regular,

how long do you think until you're like, oh it's snake time Snake, you're hilarious. This is a really good example. You're right. No, you're absolutely right. If it happened three times a week, it might get to the point where I'd be like, oh look, Clyde's joining me on my trip to Walmart. Like we're friends now, you know this is name.

Yeah, this is what we do. We ride down the road with a snake on the windshield. I, I mean yeah, that's true. Exposure repeatedly and then coming out safe, like you don't get home, right? Leads confidence, Trains your brain creates a new neural pathway that's like, oh it's okay to talk to people in the street or you know,

get cold clients or raise your prices or whatever that looks like for you. That feels terrifying. The more often you do it, the less terrifying it will become. I love that this happened Nicole. See, See to be an example of like, yeah, we could use this. Well, and one of the things we were talking about a lot at the progress lab with our students was,

you know, the first first day we talked about the example of the vacuum salesman that needs to go to a hundred houses to sell one or two vacuums. So it kept on coming up throughout the week of just like vacuum. Vacuum because it would come up, it's like, oh I tried that but I only got one client or I got, I'm like,

well did you ask a hundred? No, I mean, you know, so it was starting to like we were all just kind of saying vacuum, you know, whenever we would start to think about these different strategies and how quickly in our business we would get maybe frustrated might not be, might be too strong of a turn, but deterred from continuing on with the hopefulness and intensity that we started with.

Yeah, no I love that because these guys knew back in the day, if you're young you might not know this, but these guys sold vacuums door to door and they knew they had to knock on a hundred doors potentially to get one sale. They just knew the numbers. It was totally neutral to them. So they would drive into neighborhoods, excuse me,

and they would just go as quickly as they could from door to door to door and they wouldn't make it mean anything. When someone slammed the door in their face or said, no, I don't want your stupid vacuum, they just kept going because they knew they'd ultimately, they would sell a vacuum and they did. And again, they weren't like, oh they rejected me.

Oh they must not like my soul. They hate me as a human. This is awful. I don't think the good ones. Anyway, I don't think they told themselves that story. I think they just shrugged their shoulders and kept moving on. That's That art one down. Yep. 99 to go, I'm closer to my, to my number or you know,

to whoever's buying it's, Yeah, that's it. I love that They were in the gain instead of the gap. Instead of focusing on all the people that said no, that vacuum cleaner that kept on going was like, all right, three down, 96 more to go. Yeah, I'm getting closer with everyone. They just knew their numbers. It's just a conversion rate.

And it's the same in photography. How many people need to see your website, your social media? How many people do you need to talk to to get x number of inquiries? You know, let's say, let's make up some numbers Nicole, let's say you had to talk to a hundred people to get 10 inquiries. So that's 10%. And let's say out of those 10 inquiries you get one booking.

So that means I would need to talk just like the vacuum guy. I would need to talk to a hundred people in order to get one in. If you knew that and it just like that's what it was or is and you didn't make it mean anything, you'd just be like, yeah, I just need to talk to more people. I said at the progress lab at the very beginning,

this was really important. I said, if you are not getting the results you want in your business in terms of number of clients or revenue, it is either a math problem or a thought problem. And all problems are thought problems. So we, because we did the math, we did, we pulled up pricing, we did the math, we know okay,

we need to talk to this number of people, these are the prices, this is how many we need. Like that's all cleared up really quickly. Well there were, there were one or two math problems. I'm thinking yes, when we did our price interview pieces, you know, somebody wanted an average sale of $2,000 and like if I buy everything on your price list,

I can't get there. Like right. Oh that's a math problem. Which then when we raise it leads to a thought problem because then what are you thinking about you're priceless now that we just like totally changed it and raised it. So then you have to dig in that or otherwise you're just never gonna sell it because you don't believe in it. Right,

right. So math problem or thought problem, we can clear up the math pretty quickly. Let's look at it and then let's examine how we're thinking about it and what we need to shift. So, so helpful to just to just look at it. Actually the truth is, you and I have talked about this, you have an incredible like capacity for complexity.

Like you, Well so much that I've had coaching from you on how to simplify things in my life. Yeah. Cuz you, you make everything complex because you like it. I am very much the opposite. I always always say like, Heather equals simple. How can I make this as simple as possible for my simple brain? And when I'm thinking about business I'm like,

okay there's, there's only a couple of areas they're leads in sales. You know, you're looking for leads to get sales to hit a revenue goal. Okay so there's math and then there's thoughts around that and I just try to keep it like really high level simple because it makes me feel like, oh I could tackle that. Like it's not as complex as my brain wants to make it.

Like what if it's actually very simple? Yeah, no I love it. I do ask myself that more often than I used to. How can I make this simple? How can I make this light and easy? How can I'm thinking about this snake, how can this be fun? It actually was quite fun because we, I had tears streaming down my face from laughter.

We were laughing so hard. It's like if you had to face the most terrifying, this is literally the most terrifying thing for me. A snake on a windshield because I can't even, I couldn't have even dreamt that up and I can laugh through it and have fun. I thought to myself like seriously, what else? What are you avoiding? Because you think it will be scary and maybe it will be like maybe it's legitimately scary but you could actually have fun doing it because I've,

I promise you if I could turn this snake situation into a fun lesson, you can do anything. For sure. If you could laugh during the snake incident. Oh my god, you could do anything. I was climbing into the backseat like get me out of here. And Jess is like, don't leave me. Oh well the best part is when I got over to where you guys had pulled over,

like it was a divided entry into this little neighborhood. So like one lane in one lane out with some landscaping in the middle. You guys didn't even like get past the point to where it's like the normal size road to pull over You like pulled over in there. I'm just like, oh my gosh. Like jumped Outta the car. I gotten 20 more feet.

No, couldn't make it. Nicole couldn't make it. Jumped out of that car so quickly. But the reason I had to jump was because again the snake had disappeared. We did not know where the snake was. I was not okay with that shifty character being somewhere in that car. Aw. He was sweet. He was just trying to take a nap and he woke up and he is like,

where the heck am I and why am I going fast down the road? Yeah. He was probably terrified as well at this human face screaming at him. These snakes even have ears. I think so. I mean they smell with their tongue and I think they have some sort of, oh I might be getting my reptiles mixed up Uhoh but I, they do have ears I'm pretty sure.

But they can also I think like feel or something with like vibration and stuff too. They've got all sorts of senses that we don't have. Oh gosh. Okay. Well he was definitely trying to smell me with his fork tongue. It was Oh okay. Anyway, in the book, in the Gap in the game book, there's this one technique he uses that I think is really helpful where before he goes to bed at night,

he writes down three things, three wins that he had for the day. Did you get to that point yet where he is talking about three wins, he writes them down at the end of the day and he will also write down projected possible wins for the next day. And I love that Training that mind What what? Yeah, it's brilliant cuz you,

you put your mindset just in this like winning phase vibe I guess. But so I started doing this and I'm reading the book, I'm writing down three wins and what you realize is if you do this for like say a week or two, I would challenge you to do it for a month if possible. You start doing this on the regular, you realize that you are actually winning all of the time.

You are always in the gain and winning all of the time when that's what you focus on. And it's fascinating to me to think how, how much power and control we have that we don't realize or harness Well. And along those lines it also causes us to maybe rethink things that we would initially put in the gap such as this broken collarbone right here.

The, then you can start to reevaluate and ask how can this be a game which takes getting out of like you're just sitting sobbing in the corner. Which definitely the first two days that I got home after breaking my collarbone, I didn't get anything done. I was, I was wallowing, I was wallowing a bit with all the things that were going on with my,

my mom and that and everything else. But then I realized and like, well I can sit here and continue to wallow or I can like ask myself what could be the benefit here? And I think That's what you did. I think you asked yourself what does this make possible? And by the way, when you break your collarbone or or any bone for that matter,

I think it's okay to have a day or two where you just feel like crap because it does suck. I mean that sucks, right? So like sit in that for a moment. I'm not suggesting this is an important point, thank you for bringing this up. I'm not suggesting that you always feel happy and perfect and have these great thoughts. Like that is a true difficult situation.

It's a real bummer. So, but then you got tired of sitting in it so you were like, right, exactly right. Yeah, I don't wanna stay here. So what does this make possible? So what, what did it make possible for you, do you think? Well, Yeah, it forced me to continue to lean on my team who was awesome and you know,

it has never been me not trusting them. It has always been, this is funny, more of me like not wanting to ask them to do too much. You know what I mean? Which I'm very cognizant, I tell my team all the time like, Hey, if you have too much let me know. We can like reevaluate or get some additional help or whatever.

But I think part of that also comes from the reason I'm an entrepreneur is because I'm completely unemployable and I can't have someone telling me what to do. So therefore I project that onto everybody else. Yep. That's exactly what's happening. Yeah. Whereas When I was an employee I actually wanted to know what I should do. Yeah. So you tell me.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. No, you're definitely projecting your own issues when you say like, I don't wanna give the people that I'm paying to work for me. I don't wanna give them work Too much work. Okay. See, but it actually doesn't make any sense if you really think about it. Like that's their job. They right,

they wanna do things for you. Yeah. You're learning to depend and rely on them more from your own standpoint of relinquishing control. Like you, this is it that collarbone forced you to give up a lot of that where you just couldn't do it, you just couldn't. So you had to turn things over or ask for more help and you didn't die.

Right. And it actually gives me more time to then focus on like, oh wait, now I can actually start to get to these 8,000 projects that I wanna do for all of our members and everything else. Yeah. So I think you actually got to a point, cuz we were talking about this at the progress lab where you were, well I don't wanna put words in your mouth,

but you were like, okay, thank goodness this happened. Like, okay, maybe that's too far, but I needed this to happen. Yeah, no, a hundred percent because I wouldn't have made this change otherwise. Yeah, you were forced to. So Interesting. And likely if I look back like, oh there were little, little pebble, little rock,

like little things, little opportunities for me to start to do this previously and I just, you know, bulled in China shop like, nah, nah. Wow, good. You wouldn't listen. I know you wouldn't listen, I did this to myself And then a boulder came like barreling down the hill, knocked you off a horse and you broke your collar horse In the form of a Yeah,

yeah. And the form of a tripping horse. Yes. And then it forced you to do it. So anything that happens in life, I'm, I'm specifically talking about the things that are challenging. Like usually after you've been through it, most people actually will look for some sort of gain like, and they'll say like, good, that happened and then this became possible.

True. Yeah. It's usually sometimes like, cuz I've actually heard this from a lot of people that have had a battle with cancer. Like after it is done, they're like, it was the best thing that ever happened. But at the time certainly doesn't look that way. I Read actually an article that said 100% of cancer patients say that. Wow.

Yeah. That they, they everyone that they interviewed said, yeah, it good came from it and I, okay, let me ask you this. I almost forgot I wanted to ask you this question. Let's talk about sales for a second. With a client. If you had a $5,000 sale Yeah. How would you feel? Oh good. That's a happy place sale.

Like my current goal is 3000 to 4,000. So that's above it. So win. Yeah. You'd feel pretty good. Okay. What if you went into that sale and you were thinking it was probably gonna be around like seven or 8,000, but it was only five? Eh, Bummer. It would've been nice, but eh, still good sale. Yeah.

You'd be about, okay, what if you were working with this client and they were building this multimillion dollar home and you were helping them design artwork with their pet, and you had planned out this potential for a $50,000 sale and the session went beautifully and everything was good and you had the invoice. And then at the last minute they said, oh no,

we're gonna cut all this artwork and just get your album for 5,000. Ooh, that would not feel good. Why? That would be major, major gap. Especially, I think it depends how long you were sitting in the possibility of that big sale. So if it was something where it was like from the start to finish of a sales session, ah,

okay, bummer. That would be like the 8,000 to $5,000 sale. But if it was something where it was like, oh, all right, we're good, we're leaving, this has to happen or you know, whatever, whatever the delay is, like the longer that goes, the longer you sit in thinking that you have what you want closer to that ideal above that ideal and then it gets taken away.

I think that is harder to deal with the longer you're focused on that. Yeah. So imagine you're working with this client ahead of time and you're like planning this all out and so you are expecting this sale, the sales session happens and, and you get it and it's like the invoice is 50,000 and then, you know, they come back a week later before paying and they say,

oh, we're gonna make a change. That's a big one. That's, that's a big one. That would be, you know, okay, so what do we do with that? The reason I'm exaggerating this point is to show you that it does, it could take a minute, a week to get your mind right around a very large disappointment. Like you were expecting something really big.

So I, if that happened to you, if you came to me with that scenario and you called me the day it happened, I would commiserate with you. And I'd be like, that sucks. This is awful. And we just need to like honor that. That makes sense. That you would feel disappointed and let's just stay here for a minute and not even try to change it.

Like, I'm bringing up this point cuz I don't want people to think that you just go automatically to, I gotta find the gain here, gain $5,000. Well, yes, the gain is the $5,000, but your brain might not be ready to make that shift because when emotions are high, intelligence is low, You have very high emotions around this, you are not thinking clearly.

So don't try, just let yourself be angry, upset, disappointed, whatever comes up for you until the point at which your brain comes back online, meaning your emotions are dialed down a little bit, your intelligence is coming back up and you can think more clearly. And that might take a day or it might take a week or, I don't know,

I guess it takes as long as it takes, but at some point you have to decide like, okay, am I, am I back online? Can I think more clearly the day that happens? Don't try to get your head out of it, just like call me, like sit in it and just be miserable and say, guess what, this is life.

Life, right? Yeah. The goal is disappointment. The goal of life is not to never feel disappointment, right? Or never feel frustration or never feel sadness or you know, like you're gonna feel all the emotions. We're human. But the goal is to recognize when you're there in question. I think if you're there by default or if like you really just like,

I just need a minute. I just need a minute to fill this, fill this emotion and then, and then I'll pick myself up. But I think a lot of us live in those emotions that we don't like by default without even realizing that we're living in those emotions. For instance, the garbage can, it's like, like, and I wasn't mad,

I wasn't angry, but I wasn't having great thoughts about it, you know, and then you just shift that thought and then it was like all of a sudden it was like, oh, like I feel 8,000 times better. And when you can stay more in that space, in those, those emotions, then it's easier to have the thoughts. Everything's working out for me.

And, and all of these, all of these pieces are gonna move around and deliver the goals that you are working towards. Such a good point about checking, like what's my default setting? If you uncover that your default setting is being in the gap, that's okay. It's just information that shows you. Okay. I wanna focus more on being on the,

in the gain. You, you are Actually spoiler alert, we're all default to the gap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're, you were really good with this collarbone situation where like you knew you were in the gap, but you also trusted yourself. Like, no, I don't live in the gap. I know I'm gonna, I will snap out of this in a couple of days and it will be fine.

I'm irritated for now and it's okay because you know how to manage your mind and that my friend is like the most important superpower. Magical, you alluded to earlier, that like changes everything. It means that you can have crap happen, challenges, terrifying things, whatever, and trust that you're gonna get back online and, and back on track and you'll figure it out and everything will be okay and you move through the ups and downs in life and business just a little more gracefully.

Well said. So good. I love it. If you guys want to work on that, mastering that mine, no better Place in the Progress Lab, jump on over to Hair of the Dog academy.com/progress. Jump on the wait list and we'll have more information about a potential October event here coming up soon. And then also, don't forget to join us for more actual workshopy lessons exercises on Wednesday,

June 28th at 11:00 AM for our Power Hour. Again, that's a free event. Just jump on the hair of the dog mailing list at hair of the dog academy.com if you wanna get invited to that, if you're not on our mailing list already. Heather, this has been great. Thank you for having me. And of course, I'm willing to share my snake story.

I wish you a weekend without any snakes on the homestead. I live in just Chickens and turkeys. Yeah, The ironic part about this is there are snakes all around me, but Okay, I'll be fine. Hey, thanks. They're good to have. Oh, man. All right. Anyway, thanks for joining us guys. We'll see you again next week.

Thanks for listening to The Hair of the Dog podcast. This was episode number 1 97. If you wanna check out the show notes for access to any of the resources that we mentioned, simply go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/ 1 9 7. 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. One last thing. If you are ready to dive into more resources, head over to our [email protected] of the dog academy.com. Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.