Making Business Fun Again

 

Nicole Begley (00:00)
I've got Heather back on the podcast with me this week. And this week, we're talking about eight ways that you can bring more fun into your business. So stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:10)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole Begley (01:10)
Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. I'm back with my favorite guest, Heather Lahtinen Hi Heather, how are you?

Heather (01:17)
Hey

Nicole, I am fantastic. How have you been? ⁓ I like fun. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (01:20)
We're gonna have some fun today. Yeah.

I really love fun and I especially love fun in business. And I feel like sometimes that can be challenging when things have gotten stressful.

Heather (01:33)
I think business in general can be very frustrating. I think that it can start to feel you can feel really defeated. It can feel scary, especially when it's it seems like you are doing all of the things, you know, the marketing, the posting, the follow-up, everything, again and again and again. And it's just not either working or it's not working fast enough. And then it starts to feel, I don't know, overwhelming. No, I don't want to say like a burden.

But you kinda don't want to get to that point, right?

Nicole Begley (02:06)
Right, right, right. And I think so many of us got into business. I mean, we got into this business creating our own business because we love photography and I mean theoretically we thought the business would be fun.

Heather (02:19)
We did. Which is so cute, right? It was like so naive of us. We thought, ⁓ I love photography. Maybe I'll go make some money at it. Maybe I'll make a lot of money. This is gonna be so fun. Or even if you didn't think that, you probably didn't realize how could you? You didn't realize just how challenging it was it was going to be. How would you know that?

Nicole Begley (02:20)
Yeah.

And just

how many ups and downs there are. And even if you do, like we always talk about how you and I are both unemployable. Like I I could not, will not go back to like working for someone else. Like I will figure out something to do on my own. However, that what started as like light and fun, then becomes like, my gosh, okay, we've started to build something. Now you have the stress of I need to keep it.

And then, ⁓ my gosh, what if it gets bigger? What if it gets smaller? What if I just can't hold the spaceline anymore? That there's all these things I need to do. I don't have weekends anymore. Like I'm thinking about my business all the time. And that fun can be a little elusive.

Heather (03:27)
Little Okay, that's very well said. Yes. It can be

Nicole Begley (03:30)
Yes. Well unless you end

up coming on a barca with us and then we have lots of fun. So that's where we that's where we go for fun.

Heather (03:34)
Yeah, yeah, no. That's a great escape. That is funny

that you said it like that. It's elusive. Well, things feel elusive, especially when you're thinking, I'm so behind. This should be working by now. I don't know what I'm doing. Everyone else has it figured out. You know, what if this never works? And, you know, the thing that you used to feel s excited about starts to feel like not just a problem, but something you have to like survive. You know, it's like

Not fun. It's definitely ⁓ definitely elusive. It's not happy. And it puts you I think it puts you in a very dangerous position because if you're not aware of this, you can feel alienated. Is that the right word where you're just like, this isn't what I thought?

Nicole Begley (04:21)
I think yeah, alienated or just like defeated and I think you I think a lot of people might actually end up quitting because they think something's wrong.

Heather (04:32)
Yeah, yeah, that's very true. Which is not what we want, right? I mean, you don't you

Nicole Begley (04:37)
No, no.

I think your rule about quitting is one of the best. It's like you can't quit when things are hard. You can only quit when things are going well. ⁓

Heather (04:43)
I love thank you. Thank you. This is what I say to people in Elevate. You can quit

anytime you want, but it has to be after your biggest sale. So when you get you know, just like let's get that next big sale. And when you just brought in thirty five hundred dollars and then you may quit.

Nicole Begley (04:51)
Ha ha ha

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (05:03)
But

guess what happens, Nicole? It's kind of a trick. Don't really quit. Nobody wants to quit after they're making thousands. You want to quit when it gets hard. Like, no kidding, who doesn't? But the difference between people who succeed and people who don't is they just keep going. We just keep going, even when it sucks. But you and I have been talking about just maybe renewing our minds, having more fun in our businesses as a way to interrupt the pain.

Nicole Begley (05:07)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (05:33)
cycle or the the spiral of like nothing is working, everything is terrible and bring so interrupt that and bring us back to creativity, joy, possibility instead of quitting. Does I mean does that not sound better?

Nicole Begley (05:50)
That sounds great. Will there be an espresso martini too?

Heather (05:52)
This is what, yes, you may. This

is what I call entrepreneurial, if I can say the word, being an entrepreneur, it's like wisdom. It's wisdom and being maturity. Entrepreneurial maturity. That's what it is. Where you can recognize that you're sort of in this downswing and you've entered a spiral and you take a deep breath and you're like, okay, how can I bring this back to joy and possibility? How can I tap into creativity? But here's the thing.

Nicole Begley (06:05)
Mm, mm-hmm.

Heather (06:22)
You cannot do it from from that place of like defeat misery. You can't. So we have to figure out a way to sort of maybe hack hack the system, the system being your brain to get us back there.

Nicole Begley (06:26)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yep. Yep. Let's hack it.

Heather (06:38)
Okay, so what what we had been saying, you and I, when we were talking about this, is like having fun. Having more fun to get more creative in our business. And it's not optional. It's like you have to shift the creativity or the energy. You have to shift the energy to get more creative, to make things happen in your business. And one of the traps you have to avoid when doing this, must, must, must avoid, is

Making your business only about results, meaning clients and money.

Nicole Begley (07:11)
Hmm.

Yes, we have seen so many people, so many of our students fall victim to that thinking, which is easy to do. Like you're human.

Heather (07:22)
I got it.

And that's the

same thing as saying when you're on a health journey that the only way to measure it is the scale. And and everybody knows that that and you and I have talked about non revenue victories. It's like there are people in Elevate that are struggling with this right now. And there are people who have sort of come out on the other side and are celebrating all of these ways that they're winning and achieving success apart from money and clients. Because you listen, you have to be

Nicole Begley (07:31)
Yeah, right.

Heather (07:53)
Very careful if you tie your success to one thing.

Nicole Begley (07:56)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (07:58)
Because when it doesn't work, that one thing doesn't work, then what, your failure? But that's just not true. I don't think that's like the whole picture. Again, getting back to being more mature as an entrepreneur, you have to be able to back up, zoom out, zoom out, look at, look at everything. So the first thing I would say is, you know, let's stop tying all of our success just to clients and revenue.

Nicole Begley (08:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So for instance, just like look celebrate those little things. I actually I did this as an Elevate Daily, ⁓ to let people know I I kind of asked myself three questions tonight before I go to bed. And it was what ⁓ what did I what was the success from the day? What am I proud of myself for the day? And then what am I looking forward to tomorrow?

Yeah, and it just primes your brain to be like, ⁓ okay, we don't need to focus on like all the what ifs right now. We're going to bed.

Heather (08:59)
Right, right. Yeah, and good things happened and good things will happen tomorrow. I think that that's a really smart way to sort of rejuvenate yourself at the end of the day. It's like recharge. It's like you plug in your flow, you sleep to plug in your brain. You know, it's like you like this is how you feel more rejuvenated. And then when you feel that way, you can be more creative. Your actions come from a different place, you're more willing to.

Nicole Begley (09:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Heather (09:25)
Experiment, you're more open, you have new ideas, you're more resilient, you have more fun. All of this matters, but I think that many of us believe we are just victim to the circumstance of what's happening in our business and we're not. I I always say like I manufacture things in my brain and my business, like motivation or creativity. I've learned how to manufacture those things outside of my results because

Nicole Begley (09:41)
Uh-huh.

Heather (09:55)
Again, if I tied it to just one thing, I I would I would be in trouble very often. It would be really bad. So I have to turn that around. So okay. What I did was I came up with eight ways to add fun and creativity back into your business. But what I'm really saying here, Nicole, is like adding creativity into your brain to shift your energy.

Nicole Begley (10:19)
I wanna say something first because I I used to be someone that would identify as not a creative person. ⁓ like you're like Nicole, you're photographer. Right, I know. I got into it because I like the business side of things and like I could take a decent picture, but like I never identified as like I am the most creative person. But here's what you need to know about creativity. We're all creative, all of us, every single one.

We tend to forget we're creative. And the more that you try to expand on that creativity and play and lean into that creativity, the more creativity you will find.

Heather (10:58)
So what you're saying is creativity begets creativity. ⁓ preach it. I just said something like that in Elevate in the Daily. I said clients beget clients, energy begets energy. Like that that's everything begets everything else, you know? So you're right. If you experiment and you feel more creative, you will feel more creative. I mean, well said, right?

Nicole Begley (11:02)
Amen, sister.

Mm.

Mic drop, we're done here. All right, so let's do it. Let's get down this list.

Heather (11:26)
my gosh. Okay, okay. All right.

Eight ways to sort of shift your energy. Number one is to do something creative with no business purpose. No business purpose. So that could be I mean the easiest one is to just take photos for no reason. Not not for your poor

Nicole Begley (11:45)
Could this

also be something like redecorating a room? Like it doesn't have to be anything to have to do with any sort of photography at all. Watercolor thing.

Heather (11:49)
Yes.

Correct. Correct. In fact, I would recommend

that it's something even maybe physically you do with your hands. Yes. No, that's a real thing because you have to form it and and think about it and surprise yes, 100%. Anything with your hands. I remember one year I decided I wanted this is so bizarre. I was gonna get really good at hand lettering, like making really beautiful.

Nicole Begley (12:01)
Sourdough. Everyone should get into sourdough.

Heather, you

have had so many side quests. Didn't you take a class to learn how to like make the the like really fancy Christmas sugar cookies? And then you took a hair braiding class. I'm gonna call you out on all of your classes.

Heather (12:30)
my gosh, yes, duh. Yeah.

Huh, hey, hold on. I'm a

certified braid babe. I got a certification. Okay. Certified braid babe is what they call it. It's so hilarious. I yeah, the sugar cookies. ⁓ I've done toilet paper origami. So whenever I go into someone's house, I always fold the toilet paper really cute. You know, like all of these different things, the hand lettering. So when I send you a card, you'll see I write Nicole really big and swirly, you know. ⁓

Nicole Begley (12:58)
it is really pretty. Yeah, it's really pretty.

Heather (13:03)
I've done all of these things. It's kind of not just for the sake of doing them. I mean, this was intentional. It was like I knew that if I wanted to explore new things in my mind and my business, the easiest way to do that is to do it with my hands. I think they call that like Yeah that's it. That's it. It's like ambulatory. I don't know if that's the right word, but like this this movement that yes, opens your mind up to new different things.

Nicole Begley (13:19)
Mm. Well, I think it unlocks neuropathways. I mean just yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Heather (13:31)
So yeah, you will see me pick up all kinds of new random things. I have a lot of skills.

Nicole Begley (13:36)
think it's also

one of the reasons we have so many good ideas when you're out on like a walk. 'Cause you're just doing something, you're letting your mind just be yeah.

Heather (13:40)
Yes, totally.

Yes. So

these are all creative things that have no business purpose. I like it back to taking photos though. We have chickens and new kittens and I love to take photos of the animals. Not a pet photographer. I listen, I've thought about it, but here's what I've learned about you all. I know. I know. I would do I might do cats though, so we might complement one another.

Nicole Begley (13:59)
Look at you and you're a photographer now.

You got Jessica Waskick at your market though, you're in trouble.

Heather (14:14)
But here's what I learned about you guys. Man, you are on the ground a lot. And

Nicole Begley (14:18)
That's true. Less so

now with the new cameras and the little flip out screens, but still. Yeah. We're squatting a lot.

Heather (14:23)
Yes. Still, you're like bending and

Yeah, and your back and your legs hurt. It's good exercise. Anyway, so you know, that's just because it I mean, I love photography just like you do. It's like the beauty of it. You know, what you're creating. Anything, anything that you photograph that you're creating with your camera is just that's fun for me, especially if I'm not getting paid for it. You can just kind of mess around, you know, or play around in Lightroom with whatever's going on. No pressure.

Nicole Begley (14:48)
Yeah. Because then there's no pressure. If you're not getting paid for it, there's

no pressure. So therefore you can be more creative and you can have more fun.

Heather (14:52)
Right. Right.

So in this regard, you could reconnect with why you picked up a camera in the first place. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't to be stressed out.

Nicole Begley (15:00)
Mm-hmm. Or baked bread.

Or

take pictures of the bread that you baked.

Heather (15:08)
No, listen, you could be a sourdough influencer. They that is a thing. And you could do it. Okay. Okay.

Nicole Begley (15:15)
No, my bread's not pretty enough. It tastes good, but I I haven't it's like my latte art. It's not really my lattes are good. The art not great.

Heather (15:18)
I don't know. Nicole,

I thought your bread was beautiful when I was there. It was beautiful. Okay. The second one is to literally make a fun list. So write down things that genuinely rejuvenate you. Things that you actually love. Like for me, I love to bake and do the sugar cookies aforementioned.

Nicole Begley (15:24)
Thank you, thank you.

No.

Heather (15:45)
I love to read. I love to walk in the woods. I love to listen to music whilst walking in the woods. Or, you know, watch a funny movie. Or I like day trip type adventures like, let's go explore this new park or there's this new trail or whatever. Things like that. ⁓ I also made a list of some other things I aren't for me necessarily. So for example, going antiquing is like not my thing, but some people love that, you know.

Nicole Begley (16:13)
⁓ yeah, uh-huh.

There's a lot of antiquing around Charlotte in North Carolina. A lot. A lot.

Heather (16:15)
You know, maybe

I bet it's something else. Yeah, yeah.

⁓ having lunch with a friend or going to a coffee shop or I mean, whatever. Whatever is fun, taking a nap. I don't know. Whatever's fun, whatever is fun for you. Actually, my therapist had me do this years ago. She wanted me to write down 10 rejuvenating things that I just like to do for no reason. I have it somewhere, but.

Nicole Begley (16:31)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (16:44)
I remember at the very top of that list was baking and reading and walking in the woods. I love to hike or walk in the woods. Those three things, if I'm feeling really crappy, I will go walk in the woods. I will force myself. I will say, like Heather, just get up. Just get up. And you know, one foot in front of the other. And then I'll come in and bake some cookies or bake something yummy. Even if it's not something I'm going to eat. Yeah, could bake cookies.

Nicole Begley (16:51)
Mm.

But then go for another walk in the woods 'cause you just make cookies.

Heather (17:12)
Right. And then I share those baked goods. Everybody that's funny. Now that I think about it, sometimes I'll get on these kicks of just baking things and my friends are very grateful. I just give things away like I don't wanna eat all that, but

Nicole Begley (17:25)
So we have

a house rule. Our neighbor ⁓ is an excellent baker and she loves to bake. And our house rule is if Krista offers you a baked good, you say yes. I don't care what it is, how full you are, if you want to eat it then or not, yes. The answer is always yes.

Heather (17:38)
Horse.

Always yes. Yes. I love that. Okay,

so make a fun list. Make a fun list because you do need to interject some fun in your life, in your business. Okay, number three is to run one playful business experiment. Okay. This is interesting because I I know you're not ready to talk about it yet, so please do not.

But you you are about to conduct a really, I think, really fun, playful business experiment that I am excited to be a part of. So you're actually doing this right now, but something you can do is ask yourself like what would be fun to try? Not what is the perfectly aligned business strategy to get me the most clients and revenue, you know, not like that. Not what is guaranteed to work. It's just like what would be fun to try if I

Nicole Begley (18:15)
Turn in.

Heather (18:39)
If I could just like not tie it to anything, could it be a giveaway or a photo walk? I led a camera club for ye decades. I had a camera club for decades. We would hang out and take photos, you know. I mean, I don't know. What is something that you put together client appreciation gifts? Write, write handwritten notes to clients, ⁓ learn some fancy lettering on the internet, you know? I I don't know. Just

Nicole Begley (18:51)
Mm-hmm.

I mean

I had a playful business experiment and that was our first ⁓ international retreat.

Heather (19:11)
⁓ Say more Yeah

Nicole Begley (19:13)
The Barca, the first Barca,

Barca Lona, twenty sixteen, ⁓ started as well, maybe let's do a workshop. What if that workshop rented a giant house in Spain overseas?

Heather (19:28)
What if.

Nicole Begley (19:29)
What if? ⁓ turns out that was a really good idea.

Heather (19:34)
I know. And you know, I don't want to brag about you too much, but you were the originator of these ideas. Okay. I just wanna Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think what you're what you uncovered there, and you probably kind of knew this, is like you asked yourself what would be fun to try, and then you were open to to the possibilities it could create. It was like

Nicole Begley (19:40)
I sure was. We were the we were the first international luxury retreat. Yeah.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Heather (19:59)
Okay, this will be fun to try. Maybe there maybe there's something possible here. Maybe there's not. It's okay either way. So like no attachment. And I think that's the key of making it a fun business experiment is there's no attachment.

Nicole Begley (20:11)
No attachment. Yeah. And I think part of the the thing that everyone I've telling, you know, my kids this too is they're in high school, my daughter's graduating, and they try to figure out what they want to do with their lives ⁓ at the tender age of 18. And ⁓ you know, I just keep telling them, I'm like, just follow what you're passionate about. Like you'll figure out how to make money at it. So this is the same thing. If you have this idea for this, like, huh, I wonder if I could do a business thing like

This. I mean, actually, Jessica Wasick that's in Pittsburgh. ⁓ we have a free training coming up on June 2nd. ⁓ Nicole Bagley Edu.com slash training. Go sign up. but she is going to share what was a fun business experiment for her that built her business. And to date, between her and the other photographers that have run this contest, we have collectively, they have raised well over a million dollars for different charities.

Like six hundred thousand dollars in one year from a fun business experiment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (21:09)
Unbelievable. Yep. What would be fun? What if, what if, what if I tried this and then it creates possibility? Okay,

perfect. Number four is to reconnect with what you love about your clients. So the thing is, when business feels hard, you can get into this really get type energy. Like I need to get clients, I need to get leads, and it just feels kind of yucky.

Nicole Begley (21:25)
Mm.

Mm. Uh-huh.

Heather (21:38)
versus service energy. We've talked about that, you know? So you have to like take a deep breath and remember that photography is is like we're humans connecting, you know, humans connecting with each other, with their pets and et cetera. So it's like you could ask yourself, who do I love serving? What do I love helping them see? What do I love creating

Nicole Begley (21:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (22:08)
For them. What kind of transformation do I love being a part of? And then what moments still move me? And get back, this brings you back your heart into the heart of the business, like your connection with your people and your business. When I think about these questions, my gosh, it it would be so easy for me to rattle off answers to these because

Last week we're we were on an elevate call and I I got emotional and that's rare. That is very rare for me to like just like seeing people have such a transformation watching something click when I've been coaching someone for say 20 minutes and all of a sudden they look at me, you can see it, you can see the shift, and they're like, that got me. I never thought of it that way. And it changes everything for them. And I have the privilege of being a witness to that.

Like that really gets me when I think about it versus, ⁓ my gosh, revenue's down. I need to get more leads. I need to put some you know, it just feels awful. So it's like getting reconnected.

Nicole Begley (23:14)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Heather (23:21)
Good.

Okay. Number five. Change your environment. Okay, maybe you don't need a new business plan, new marketing strategy. Maybe you just need

Nicole Begley (23:32)
I support this one.

Heather (23:36)
Course you do. Maybe you just need to get out of your office.

Nicole Begley (23:40)
Maybe you just need to get on a plane and go to Europe.

Heather (23:44)
Maybe you just need to get off of the continent. That's you. That for example.

Nicole Begley (23:47)
Maybe you just need to go to Uruguay.

my

gosh, I found this woman on Instagram, came through my feed, and I laugh every time I see one of her things. She's like, ⁓ I'm out of water. Should we move to Madrid? ⁓ this garbage can is disgusting. I think we should go to Portugal. Should we move to Lisbon? Like, it's really funny. I'm like, yes, yes we should.

Heather (24:03)
No.

That is great. Yes.

Yes. Okay, so for us like regular folk out there that that don't necessarily travel the world always, how about just maybe go to a coffee shop?

Nicole Begley (24:27)
Yeah.

Or I'd say even my back porch when like the weather is good and ⁓ you know, like just taking my laptop on the back porch or even working from upstairs. You've seen me, especially when poor little Emma was getting older and like go sit upstairs on the our recliner couch with my laptop and the cat would come and cuddle and I'm like, I can work here this afternoon. Yeah.

Heather (24:30)
Yes.

Yeah,

that was my next one. It's just like taking your notebook or your computer outside to somewhere different. Or you could go on a walk. Walking is my answer to everything. Go on a walk before writing an email. Or you could just get in your car and drive.

Nicole Begley (24:54)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Walking and showering like immediately create all the ideas.

Heather (25:08)
Yes. Yes.

Yes. It's just shifts something in your brain.

Nicole Begley (25:11)
So go for a walk, it get

all sweaty, take a shower, and between one of the two, you're bound to figure it out.

Heather (25:16)
You are bound to figure it out. And maybe

put on some music and light a candle and then you'll feel even better. You could, this works for me, actually like just clean up your desk.

Nicole Begley (25:20)
No, yeah. ⁓ uhhuh.

Heather (25:28)
You could. You could organize your desk. You could make your workspace feel good.

Nicole Begley (25:29)
She'll call it out. Could, I could.

Heather (25:37)
It's just like the point is a physical change can help create a mental shift. That's the point. Yeah. So, okay, do that. All right, number six. This is this is arguably one of my favorites. Like, stop making everything so serious. Like, chill out, man. Like, you guys are acting like every decision in your photography business is gonna go before the Supreme Court. You know, like.

Nicole Begley (25:41)
Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. For sure.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (26:03)
I've got to take this to the the justices of like what I'm gonna post or what I should charge or or this offer I should make or what if somebody thinks this is weird what if this doesn't like I mean for real like yes it is a business but you're also allowed to enjoy it like you could try things and let them feel awkward you could make imperfect offers you can post something that's just very mediocre

Nicole Begley (26:31)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (26:31)
You know, you're not trying to like

win the internet. But when you you start to take things so seriously, you constrict and everything becomes very ⁓ tight and difficult and like shallow breathing versus opening up and just expanding to ease and fun and taking a deep breath. And it's like, so what? Stop overthinking it. Just post it. Just write the email. Just create the thing that you want to create and don't make it this.

Nicole Begley (26:38)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (27:01)
Big deal forever. ⁓ you know what this reminds me of? Did you happen to catch you you probably heard this somewhere else, but I did it on Elevate Daily where I talked about James Clear and the three types of decisions. Actually, I did a reel about this too. He's like, is it a haircut? Sorry, let me start again. Is it a hat? Is it a haircut or is it a tattoo? So if it's a hat, which is most decisions, you could just go change the hat or take it off. If it's a haircut, okay.

You know, it's six weeks before it grows out. If it's a tattoo, it's pretty permanent. So the tattoo decisions, yeah, you better take them seriously, but guess what? They are very few and very far between. Most of our decisions are like putting on a hat. So like, okay, even your pricing.

Nicole Begley (27:35)
huh.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. And

if it's a haircut, it might be like, you know, trimming two inches off, not like going for like a pixie cut.

Heather (27:54)
Correct. It it

maybe it needs it. Like maybe that's a good thing. So I think, you know, sometimes I want to shake people through the screen on our Zoom calls and be like, girl, take a breath and just relax. It's it's okay. We're not taking this before. We're right. We're not neuro neurosurgeons. Okay. Number seven, renew your mind with better questions. So instead of thinking, why is this so hard?

Nicole Begley (28:08)
I love it. We're not doing brain surgery here.

Heather (28:23)
You think, how can I make this lighter? Instead of

Nicole Begley (28:26)
This

I think this is the most important one. This should be number one and number eight.

Heather (28:32)
Okay, okay, well, it's fine. We can change the order. Instead of asking, what am I doing wrong? Which is a terrible question, because your brain will find evidence to support that, you could say, What am I learning? Because your brain will find evidence to support that as well. Instead of why isn't this working? You could think, what is one small experiment I could run? Instead of thinking, how do I fix everything? You know, because everything's a mess and broken, you could ask,

What would feel energizing today? And then my last one is instead of what if I fail? What if this is just part of the process? And what if I succeed? What if I, what if I win? So it's not like pretending everything is easy, just renewing your mind with better questions. We have, we keep talking about Elevate Daily. It's a daily podcast, three to five minutes long that we do, private podcast feed and elevate.

We talk about these things. Michelle did an episode about just asking yourself better questions. And this is this is that, you know? It just helps. Okay. I want to move on to number eight. The last one. Choose one thing for your business and one thing for your soul. So one thing for your business, like this is an assignment you could give yourself this week, any week. One thing for your business could be like sending an email, following up.

Nicole Begley (29:50)
No?

Heather (29:59)
Posting something, reaching out, updating your page or your price, whatever, right? One thing, one small thing for your business. And also choose one thing for your soul, which is take the walk, read the book, make the cookies, take photos for fun, go outside, rest without guilt. Because the point in all of this is not to escape your business. It's actually to rejuvenate it, your mind and your business. It's the point is to become the kind of

person that stays in business through through the ups and downs, you had said this earlier, without abandoning who you are. Like there's some sort of balance and harmony there between the good and the bad, the business and yourself. And if you can incorporate some of these things, you will just find that you can be more resilient. You know, like you can last, kind of last longer ⁓ through the difficult challenges. It

Nicole Begley (30:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Heather (30:58)
I don't know. I've been in it for twenty three years and it's worked for me.

Nicole Begley (31:03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And again, I think, I'm gonna butcher this quote. There's one of my favorite quotes that I obviously can't remember right now. But it's basically something about like the magic occurs when like the like when you're just kind of moving in the direction of your passion and where where your kind of soul's purpose is. It's like you just you cannot explain how things

show like just happen for you that way. So when you do something like this where you're like, all right, like one thing for the business and like something just for for me, for my soul, like how can you bring more of that into your your business? Like how can we and we're already leading, I mean, I think a pretty easy business to be a little bit more like soul aligned for because it's a service-based business like capturing memories of people or animals that like that people love.

So it's not like we're not like we're a tax auditor.

Heather (32:07)
For example, right.

Nicole Begley (32:09)
But you know, like like we're already doing work that's just so bucket filling. So yeah, I love it. You have to just sometimes remember that.

Heather (32:16)
Yeah, yeah, it's really beautiful.

Correct, I correct. It's like have you missed the plot? You know, if you're miserable, you might be missing the plot. I just wanna just like deep breath, bring you back to it.

Nicole Begley (32:23)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hmm. And remember why we do this. Yeah. And then I mean, all of those are so good. Remember why you do this. Don't take ourselves so seriously. Get in that service energy. Like, who do you love to serve? And like, why are you doing this? And try to like look for those non revenue victories. Cause when you then take that pressure off that revenue piece, then it usually all falls into place. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Awesome. This was a great little fun conversation.

Heather (32:33)
Yeah, exactly.

It certainly helps, yes.

Nicole Begley (32:59)
⁓ I enjoyed. Thanks, Heather, for being here. Hope you guys enjoyed it too. Let us know what your favorite tip is and what you're gonna be doing to inject some more fun into your business. And we'll see you next week. Bye everybody.