145 | What it REALLY takes to create a successful business (& the sacrifices we make along the way)

Summary:
On the She Calls Her Shots podcast, we're all about building a business that feels sustainable and that create ease, happiness and gratitude in all areas of your life. And in today’s episode we’re diving into something that is SO important – and not talked about enough in our industry.

The duality of being a business owner who’s not only trying to grow a thriving business, but also doing her best to create life-giving, love-filled relationships with those around her. The sometimes impossible balancing act of trying to keep both aspects of our lives thriving at the same time – and how often times, it feels like we’re bouncing back and forth, having to choose between focusing on our business OR our relationships. Feeling like when one aspect is thriving, the other is suffering -- and I'm here to share today, it doesn't have to be this way. 

This episode is sure to hit you on a deeper level because I'm sharing the REAL HONEST TRUTH of what it REALLY takes to be a business owner (that also cares deeply about her relationships and people she's closest to).

So grab your favorite glass of wine, tea or coffee and join me in today's conversation..

Ways we can work together:

• <<Coaching>> Photographers, are you ready to create a sustainable business strategy?
• <<Brand Photos>> Is it time to elevate your business and get updated , gorgeous brand photos?

I'D LOVE TO CONNECT WITH YOU!

• Say hello on Instagram 👋
• Watch/Listen the podcast episodes on Youtube 📺
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts 🎙
• Join the email community ✍🏻

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, hello, friend, and welcome back to this week's episode of the she Calls Her Shots podcast. In every episode, my mission is to empower photographers like you to take inspired action and earn more money. As a full-time photographer and business owner and if you've been around the podcast for a while you know that I am all about building a business that feels sustainable and that creates more ease and happiness and gratitude in all areas of your life. And in today's episode, we're diving into something that is so important and, honestly, not talked about very much, if at all, in our industry, and it's really about this duality of being a business owner who's not only growing a business but also doing her best to create life-giving, love-filled relationships with those around her. And that balance of trying to maintain and sustain both our business and our relationships can sometimes feel like an impossible balancing act right, trying to keep both aspects thriving, and oftentimes it feels like we sometimes are bouncing back and forth, having to choose between am I focusing on growing my business today, am I going all in and doing what it takes to see success, or am I pouring myself all into my relationships and for myself? For a while, and for a lot of photographers, this can sometimes feel like a struggle and we sometimes feel, like our relationships and the time that we spend with those our partners, our kids, our family that it sometimes suffers and we feel like we have to choose which one we're going to focus on. And, to be honest, I know this dance really well because being a business owner and not having a normal nine to five means that I have to be super aware of the boundaries that I'm setting both the external boundaries right, the boundaries I set with clients and with people on how they can reach me and how they can work with me in the capacity at which I'm available for others. But it also means I have to be really dedicated to the boundaries I set internally right, like how often am I going to work? Am I working on the weekends? Am I working at night? Am I working? You know, like what does that look like? And being super conscious and aware of what those boundaries are and that balance also can feel like a really tricky thing to find.

Speaker 1: 2:25

So in today's episode I want to open up this conversation with you about creating boundaries and really releasing the pressure to not just protect our own mental health but also the growth of our business and the fulfillment that we have in our relationships and those closest to us. And if we haven't met yet, I am Krista. I spent the last 15 years as a wedding photographer and in the last year, I've shifted into serving women business owners with personal brand photography. So I know the photography world well and I've helped photographers all around the world build thriving photography businesses, both through the podcast and inside of my coaching programs. And I know firsthand building a full-time, thriving, sustainable photography business is about so much more than just the strategy. It's topics like this the ones that really require us to go deep and that often keep us playing small, both in our life and inside of our business. And at the end of the episode, I'll share more details about how you can get support as you reach for that next level in your business, but for now, I want to start and I want to share some behind the scenes with you about what creating these boundaries and releasing this pressure has looked like firsthand in my life and business. So I want to start by taking you on a journey with me back to the fall of 2018. I remember I was talking with my husband, who at the time, was my boyfriend of three years and two years. Two years, 2018, two years. So I was sharing with him that being a full-time tech recruiter while also growing my photography business was starting to feel unmanageable At that point. Now I'm doing some math In 2018, I had been living in San Francisco, so I had moved from Florida to California in 2014.

Speaker 1: 4:13

And so in 2018, my business was four years old. I was starting to get really booked out for weddings and engagements and I was also balancing a full time tech recruiter job in the tech industry. And it was also balancing a full-time tech recruiter job in the tech industry and it was really starting to feel like I was starting to kind of break. At that time, I was responsible for hiring new grad software engineers for the company that I worked for, and that meant that during the fall season, which was peak recruiting season, also happened to be peak wedding season. So I just found myself doing this impossible balancing act in the fall of flying all around the country attending career fairs while also managing the busiest season inside of my business. So I remember specifically, one week I was in Harvard. I was at Harvard in Massachusetts for a career fair on a Friday and I was flying out that night to get back to California so that I could photograph a wedding on Saturday, and the amount of stress and pressure that I just felt during that season was just overwhelming.

Speaker 1: 5:23

I knew that this was it. I couldn't continue to do this because both parts of my life felt really overwhelming and like they were suffering because I was spreading myself too thin and I was doing really well in my full-time job. I loved it, I loved the team, I loved the people. I was getting like everything was going the direction that it should be going, but I knew ultimately, this wasn't where I wanted to grow. I wanted to grow my business and that's really where I wanted to be.

Speaker 1: 5:52

But up until that point I didn't have the courage. I didn't have the belief that it was time right, like it was time to go full time. But I could feel myself in that moment this was it right and it was time to go full time. But I could feel myself in that moment this was it right. And they tell you that when you decide to go full time, it never actually feels like it's the right time and I very much can speak to that's how I felt in that moment. But I also knew it couldn't continue the way that it was going.

Speaker 1: 6:19

So in the spring of 2019, about six months later I put in my resignation at my work and I finally went all in on my business as a full-time photographer. And for a while, it was amazing and the world felt like it was truly my oyster. I had so much free time. Now, right, I could do all of the things for my business that I'd been putting off. I could finally dedicate every day to growing this passion and creating this real, thriving business, and it felt really amazing until the pressure hit and I felt the real life version of that quote. You know the one if you build it, they will come. And I realized how that quote was not so applicable when you're building a business, because and I can remember this exact moment of being at home I had just like gotten myself a cup of coffee, a nice latte, and I sat down to do work.

Speaker 1: 7:14

And I realized, just because I had more time, it didn't mean that I was focusing on the things that would actually help me grow, and I started to become very hyper aware of the possibility that some of the things that I was spending time on that felt really important, actually weren't that important. They made me feel productive, but they weren't actually the needle moving things that were going to get me to where I wanted to go, and I was. Also there was no idea for me to know what exactly was going to help me grow. Right. There's, I was diving into uncharted territory. No one gives you a map when you're starting a business and said this is exactly what you should focus on in order to reach your goals.

Speaker 1: 7:56

And so I was doing my best to take my business to that next level, and it required this level of confidence and grit and curiosity and, honestly, this determination that I don't think I had ever really experienced, because it was different from the grit and determination than I needed when I was balancing my full-time job in my business. This level of grit as a full-time business owner, I didn't have any more excuses right. As a full-time business owner, I didn't have any more excuses right, like I couldn't use my full-time job as something that was holding me back anymore. So the grittiness that I had when I was working full-time and building my business looked more like working, you know, on my business at night, even though I was tired and I had a full day of work, or doing shoots on the weekends because that was my only free time, right. Like I had a certain day of work, or doing shoots on the weekends because that was my only free time, right. Like I had a certain type of grit being a full-time worker and a business owner.

Speaker 1: 8:51

But this grit of being a full-time business owner was very different. I felt so exposed, I felt very vulnerable, right. People ask you like what do you do all day? And in your head you're like what do I do all day? Like I don't even know what I'm doing and I knew that if I wanted to see the level of success that I wanted to have, I needed to fully and wholly go all in. But I also had no idea what that meant or how to do it, or what do I even focus on, like what do I actually do to get to where I know it is that I want to go? And this, I feel like, is where all of the pressure really started for me. And, like I said, it was a new kind of pressure. It was different from that pressure that I felt when I was a full-time employee and it was this make or break kind of pressure. This time around, I didn't have that fallback of the job, I didn't have that safety net of a paycheck, and it honestly felt like the best way I can describe it is I felt like I was diving off a cliff and like learning how to build the parachute on the way down. Like that's what it felt like for those first probably I mean I say six months, but like, let's be honest, it expand longer than that. And so I share this with you because, after working with other photographers who've also launched their own businesses these last four years, I've seen similar cycles and patterns also play out for them.

Speaker 1: 10:18

We start off with so much passion and belief. Right, we burn the boats. Whatever that quote is Like, you burn the boats, there's no plan B. Of course we're going to make this work. We have all of this belief and passion in the beginning and this fire, and then the realness hits that there's actually no plan or path that's telling us how to get where we want to go. There's no map. So, inevitably, because we don't have that map, because we don't have that structure, we create the structure, but it usually comes in the form of pressure.

Speaker 1: 10:52

Right, we're either in full-on hustle mode, just like doing all the things to make it work, or we're in a cycle of pulling all the way back and taking a break because we've burned ourselves out and nothing feels like it's working. And this cycle and this pattern of hustle mode go all in, pull all the way back. What am I doing wrong? Why am I not growing? Is something that I was so incredibly familiar with, is something that I was so incredibly familiar with. And this pressure I know firsthand can feel all consuming because for a lot of us we repeat these patterns so often that the pressure becomes the only thing that we know right, like when we think of how to grow our business. The pressure is just inevitable. It's kind of there as this undercurrent motivating force and it really becomes the one driving motivator of how we get things done. Is this pressure that we put on ourselves to succeed.

Speaker 1: 11:49

But what that looked like for me is that when things would start to feel like kind of hitting rock bottom in our business, right when the inquiries aren't coming in, when we are trying a new price point and everyone's telling us that we're too expensive, like when things start to feel like it's kind of hitting that rock bottom area, that pressure that we put on ourselves either makes us or it breaks us.

Speaker 1: 12:12

We either completely just give up and throw in the towel and say, well, this isn't working, there's something wrong with me, or we use the pressure as fuel, albeit unsustainable fuel, but we use it as fuel to try something else. Right To well, let me try one more thing. Okay, this didn't work, let me just try this other thing. But if you're anything like me, after thriving and surviving off that pressure for so long, we realize that we have to find a different source of motivation. And I'll be really real with you my relationship with my husband at the time we weren't married, but our relationship was also feeling the effects of this pressure that I was putting on myself.

Speaker 1: 12:54

Because I think for many of us it's really easy for us to forget how our approach to our business right, the mindset we have about it, like our strategies around it, how we're thinking about it, directly affects those around us. Because when we feel like it's this high pressure hustle mode make it or break it I need this to work. That energy that we have inside of us is reflected in how we communicate with others. The actions that we take in our relationships, like everything around us can feel the effects of this. And if you listen to my most recent episode, I actually shared about how we talked about how we're currently measuring success in our business, and one of the things I shared is my current way of knowing if I am being successful is whether or not I'm showing up as this real, most authentic version of myself every day, and I shared, in kind of a joking way, my, my way of gauging that is how much am I sweating each day?

Speaker 1: 13:58

Right, like how much am I confidently ditching my worries and fear of what others might think, sharing the true, authentic, real, bold version of me? Right, like pulling back the veil, not hiding, not being the vanilla person who doesn't want to say things, you know, that don't reflect the realness of who I am. And I'll be honest with you, even writing this episode and here, like thinking about what do I want to say, I was sweating, I was thinking, oh my gosh, this is me getting really real and really vulnerable. And the older version of me would have pulled back from that. Right, I would have let fear take the lead, I would have been too afraid.

Speaker 1: 14:38

But what I know to be true, because I've seen this in other photographers. We're all going through this. We all feel these feelings. We all feel this immense amount of pressure and we feel the effects inside of our relationship. Like this is a real, real part of being a business owner. Like this is a real, real part of being a business owner. And so, in that light, I just I wanted you to know like this is the real, honest truth, because there was a period of our relationship where my husband could really feel that pressure that I was putting on myself. He could see me at times struggling and he felt like he had no way to help and we've talked about this, but you know he's said in the past, you know it it really felt like a burden on him because he could see me feeling so stressed and knew that there was no amount of comforting that he could do. That seemed to help.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Right, because this was a me thing. This was me needing to figure out a new way of looking at and approaching my, my business. I needed to figure out a way of releasing the pressure. But I was so driven to succeed, the stakes felt so high. I felt like I had something to prove, and not to him, not to anyone in particular. It wasn't like I had this, like I'll show them mentality, but I think because for so long oh, here we go, getting emotional Guys, you're getting the real, the real, real here, like growing up, feeling like there's this path that you need to take and there's this life that you need to live, that looks a certain type of way when you finally go all in on yourself, you decide to bet on yourself. That is so scary and the stakes feel so high and all you can think about is I have to make this work. And for so long that energy was all consuming and it was directly affecting how I showed up in my relationships a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm a woman, I'm.

Speaker 1: 16:47

I want to give you permission to start to release the pressure, to find a softer and more life-giving source for your motivation, and I know all too well how it feels to operate from that place of scarcity and fear to have that fear and doubt and worry start to run the show and take the lead. I know how it feels to be constantly checking your phone to see if you have any new inquiries. I know how it feels to question your worth when you don't hear back from a recent session. And I know how it feels to doubt your worth when someone tells you that you're too expensive. I know the weight that that carries and I know firsthand how crippling it can feel in that moment and how much it feeds that pressure. And if you're currently in this place, I need you to know that I see you and I know that sometimes we can think that the pressure is healthy. Sometimes that pressure can feel like it's motivating for us to grow.

Speaker 1: 17:54

But the reality is when we get so focused on the pressure and that need to constantly be doing more and trying harder, we forget that it's possible to have more ease both in our relationships but also in our business, and that both are allowed to thrive at the same time. But it first takes us getting really aware of the pressure that we're putting on ourselves to perform. And I need you to hear that word choice there of ease. Ease is possible. It doesn't mean that it's easy. Good grief, I can tell you it's not easy. It's not easy to relearn how to operate from a place without the pressure. It's not easy to have the conversations that you need to have with your partner to set some boundaries. It's not easy to set the internal boundaries so that you don't always feel yourself getting pulled into work hustle mode and ignoring your other values and priorities in your life.

Speaker 1: 18:58

This is not easy, but when we have intentionality behind it, when we have support, you can start to feel more ease in your life. It's the big exhale. It's the release of the weight and the pressure that we carry around with us day in and day out. And I know I say this all the time. But this is the real work. This is the real work and I help my clients all the time with the strategies and the plans and the specifics of what it is that they need to be focusing on to grow. But, honestly, the more challenging part of being a business owner is this type of work, your business, when you start a business from a place of. I have this passion. I want to serve people. I want to share this gift with others.

Speaker 1: 19:58

No one tells you that you are actually just signing up for, like your biggest lesson in personal growth and personal development. No one tells you that you're going to be forced to really sit with and get to know and be comfortable and love and accept these deepest parts of you that you're actually actively trying to avoid, right, like it really forces us to be comfortable sitting in the stillness and sitting in the quiet and finding joy, even in the moments when clients aren't consistently coming in or standing in our power, even when things feel like they aren't working and they're falling apart. Like this is the work. And if no one has told you this lately, I need you to know and I need you to hear. I am so proud of you because the fact that you are here and you are listening in means that you are putting in the work. I see you and I know how hard this is and I know that sometimes it feels like it's this never ending balancing act. We feel like we're holding these scales and no one told you that they were going to be tossing in boulders instead of stones. Right, we're constantly trying to juggle these things that feel impossible to juggle, but you're here and you're doing the work and you're doing the best that you can. I really, really really need you to receive that. You are doing the best that you can and I hope that you can let that in itself be enough for you.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Today and in the vein of this conversation, right In this honestly, just honest, open place of really releasing the pressure, creating the boundaries, finding this grace for ourselves, we have to really start to crack ourselves open, right. We really have to crack open our hearts to believe that it gets to be more ease-filled. We have to truly start to believe that it's safe to remove the pressure and that there's safety in our dream. We have to decide and believe that that's possible for us and I hope that, listening in, I hope that you feel more empowered. I hope that, even if this feels maybe a little bit out of reach, I hope that this can just be the first time that someone tells you that this is possible for you and that it's one little breadcrumb right Of like the inner work and all of the possibilities that you get to live that more ease-filled life.

Speaker 1: 22:43

And, like I said, this is the work and I want to invite you, if you're ready, to get more support. I want to give you a direct invitation to join us inside of Amplify. It's my group coaching program for photographers, but honestly, it's so much more than a coaching program. Every single month, I host coaching calls to support members as they navigate through these waters of growth inside our business, but also inside of our life. We talk through the challenges, the mindset and the strategies that'll help you create that sustainable, joy-filled business that you initially set out to build.

Speaker 1: 23:21

And if that's the type of support that you're ready for, you can find the link to join us inside Amplify in the show notes below, and I would absolutely love to support you as you're navigating through this next journey. As always, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for holding space to even allow me to be open and vulnerable today. Thank you for receiving this, and I hope that this starts to move some of the weights around inside of you, some of the pressure. I hope that some of the pressure can be released and relieved and that you can leave today knowing that more ease is possible. Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you in the next episode.