Nicole Begley (00:00)
What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't strategy, but your tolerance for risk? Today, Heather and I are unpacking how she discovered this was something that was holding her back in her business, why it matters, and what we can do about it. Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:14)
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 (01:15)
Welcome back to the freedom focus photography podcast. I'm your host Nicole Bagley. And again, once again, our favorite Heather Lottnan is joining us here in our virtual podcast room.

Heather (01:25)
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me

Nicole Begley (01:29)
Of course, of course. my gosh. So many good things. So today you just, we've just recorded last week's episodes. So sometimes we back to the thing and you had just gotten off a call with a new coach that you have that you're like, Nicole, we need to record this podcast. because everyone needs to know about this and we started to talk about it and it is fascinating. So yeah, give us, give us a little details of, ⁓ of your.

new coach experience today.

Heather (02:00)
my gosh, it was so amazing. It's like, I talked to her and had this major, major, I mean, for me, very big breakthrough that I did not even realize was happening in my brain. And you know that I work on this stuff daily. I'm working, I mean, I'm talking to you, I'm working with coaches and to have this level of a breakthrough is sometimes a little more challenging in that it doesn't happen as often because I'm having so many breakthroughs all the time. But,

Nicole Begley (02:15)
Yeah!

Heather (02:29)
A coach that her and I both studied under had told us once that ⁓ we simply had an under feeling problem. And I found this concept so interesting. Like she was using it in reference to weight loss. She said, you don't have an overeating problem. You have an under feeling problem. And when you don't want to feel something, you you turn to cookies or whatever. And I like I understood that. And then she said, the reason I'm so successful in my business, she's a

multi-million dollar entrepreneur is because I'm willing to feel anything. Are you willing to feel any negative feeling, every negative feeling? And she would teach this in most of her entrepreneur courses. And for years, I've been saying, yes, 100%. I am so tough. ⁓ I am willing to feel anything. Look at me. I'm willing to feel failure or disappointment or anything like that or so.

I thought. Because at the same time we were talking about, ⁓ you and I talked about self-concept last week. And so we talk a lot about self-concept and identity, which I use those terms interchangeably. And my coach, okay, I'm actually referencing three coaches in this conversation. So I'm just gonna say my coach, forget about it, doesn't matter.

Nicole Begley (03:51)
Collective notes. ⁓

Heather (03:53)
She had said to me, you need to work on your self concept as a million dollar entrepreneur. And I said, I'm here for it. Let's go. What do we need to do? And she said, well, we need to look at that identity, think what would a million dollar version of you be thinking and then practice thinking those thoughts. And I understand this concept, right? Okay, I get it. But, but like, what do you mean?

Nicole Begley (04:14)
Same. It's hard to practice.

Simple

doesn't mean easy.

Heather (04:22)
I said if I knew what million-dollar Heather was thinking I would be thinking it now or more importantly What is what am I thinking that she's not thinking so either either version of that? What should I be thinking and what do I need to drop and you know, I write down things like I'm willing to feel disappointment. I'm willing to feel failure my million-dollar version believes that my marketing is working that I'm a good coach that my clients are getting results that I can

managed the money, for example, at that level. Right? All of these things make sense. And I was like, yeah, I get it. I don't know. just wasn't.

Nicole Begley (04:59)
Do you have, going off script here, do you have a belief of more, a bigger business revenue means you're gonna have to bigger, a bigger team and then you're gonna have to manage a bigger team? Like, is there any piece of that that's slowing it down? Yeah.

Heather (05:15)
for sure. ⁓

100 % yes. And so in part of that discussion, it's like you're reading my mind, which you always do, is she said, what about the team? And I said, yes, that that's going to be like more to manage. And that's going to be difficult. And I don't want to manage it. And she's like, okay, that's your current version. What is your future version?

Nicole Begley (05:36)
Yeah, what? That's, that's here's me. I'm coaching you now. That is a terrible thought. What if, what if your team makes things easier for you? Like currently right now we have a team of flipping superstars. ⁓ I literally

Heather (05:43)
Yes!

Right. Which is brilliant.

Yeah.

Nicole Begley (05:59)
told each and every one of them in our team meeting yesterday that I love them to the moon and back and I cannot be more excited and happy with all the things that they are doing because they are rocking it. yeah, it's it because I had the same, know, when you when you start off in this, you're like, my gosh, I'm going to have to manage somebody like and then there's the thoughts they're not going to want to be managed because I then put myself with my entrepreneur brain.

into the place of a employee brain where it's like, I mean, Heather, I had a thing, which I told Amy this the other day. She's like, Nicole, like we want to help you. Where it was like, I used to be like, hesitate asking my team to do things because I didn't want to bother them. Like I didn't want to put too much on their plate. No. ⁓ So like there's so many things.

Heather (06:48)
Right.

Nicole Begley (06:56)
And I realize we're talking to a lot of solopreneurs right now, but there's a lot of you guys. Once you start to scale your business a little bit, you're getting more clients, you're getting some more income in. The time becomes the limiting factor in your life. And even if you don't want to, you know, earn more and like have a bigger revenue in your business, maybe you want some time back just to walk your dog or take a hobby or take a vacation, whatever you want to do. ⁓

So having somebody to come into this to help support you is a bold C-heel move and it comes with a lot of head baggage is all I wanted to say.

Heather (07:33)
No, that's absolutely

true. And it plays into what we said last week about having the mindset of an investor and an entrepreneur who can manage a team. So instead of me thinking it's going to be harder, there's going to be more challenges. It's like, no, it's going to be easier and I can handle it. That's a self concept. It's going to be easier and I can handle it. So she definitely, just like you did, helped me uncover that today. It was like, okay, that's one of them. I kind of knew that one was there, but hadn't fully explored it.

Nicole Begley (07:50)
Yep.

Heather (08:03)
So I feel much more aware at this point of that. But then she said to me, well, what she was doing, and I think this is what a good coach does, is they ask you questions from different perspectives. Because maybe you ask it one way and it just doesn't land or you don't know. And that's my job as well. And Elevate, happened yesterday. I asked someone something, she was hesitating. I asked it a different way and she was like, ⁓ okay, yeah, that's the problem.

So what my coach said to me today was, what feelings are you unwilling to feel? What feelings are you feeling that you're not capable to handle? It's like, let me give you an example. So if you reach out to clients and several clients, or you have mini sessions, or you attend an event and you don't get anything from that, like you don't make any money, you don't get any clients, what happens at that point? How do you feel?

Nicole Begley (08:40)
⁓ dear.

disappointed, frustrated, yeah.

Heather (09:02)
Right.

Maybe defeated, like nothing is working, right?

Nicole Begley (09:06)
Yeah, I might start to question, am I even cut out for this? Like, should I go get a job? Three-letter word.

Heather (09:09)
correct.

And then it leads

to a whole spiral of negative thinking. But really the bottom line here is, Nicole, you had a feeling of disappointment. And if that, if you're not able to handle it, you go down the spiral and you make all of these assumptions and then you're working at Walmart. But if the thought is, can handle, I feel disappointed, yes, and I can sit with this feeling. Of course it's disappointing. I put in effort. It didn't bear fruit. Okay, I feel disappointed.

It's not a problem and what's next.

Nicole Begley (09:44)
And I

have the identity of everything's figure outable. So now I just have more information.

Heather (09:47)
Correct. I can solve it. But

if you are afraid at the sub level to feel that disappointment after putting in all of that effort, you will hesitate and you will avoid. So what she's asking me is like there's there's there are places where you're hesitating, you're avoiding like building a team because there is something you are not willing to feel. Do you do you know what it is? Like, could you identify the feelings?

that you currently maybe don't like.

Nicole Begley (10:18)
And it's

likely deeper than ⁓ disappointment. It's going to be five layers deeper than that. What would that disappointment mean?

Heather (10:22)
Yes!

I'm getting there. You're right. You're right. It is because disappointment failure, those are like the surface level, right? You're like, okay, guess I can manage feeling that. But she says, I want you to identify specifically the feelings you are maybe a little concerned about, and then identify how you're going to be able to handle them and start walking into the identity of someone who can handle these feelings.

Nicole Begley (10:28)
Okay, sorry.

Heather (10:53)
I said to her, because this is a journey, Nicole, this here is a process, starts with a disappointment and the failure, but I said, well, I really don't like to feel stupid or embarrassed or incompetent. Or as I put in my notes, incompetence, I put a plural on it. I don't like to feel those things, so I tend to avoid them. But she said, okay, you're incompetent in something.

Nicole Begley (10:57)
Always.

Heather (11:21)
mean it's a problem. It just means you haven't learned it yet. It's like you're incompetent in speaking German, but it's just because you haven't learned German yet. So I avoid incompetence or looking incompetent because I think I should know it all. I mean, I don't know. Like what's behind that? It's like, I don't want to look stupid. I don't want to feel embarrassed. So I should know everything. expect myself. Listen to me. Everybody has this.

You expect yourself to be knowledgeable about things you have not learned yet.

Nicole Begley (11:52)
Hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Heather (11:54)
And if you can recognize that you can eliminate a lot of suffering and pain because then you're not beating yourself up over not knowing it.

Nicole Begley (12:02)
That's

even people that, know, the first time you picked up the camera, how many times were you like, my images don't look like this person that's been shooting for 20 years yet. Well, yeah, you shot two sessions. We'll have to learn.

Heather (12:07)
Correct.

Correct. So,

I mean, I would just want you to think about that. You expect yourself to be knowledgeable about things you haven't learned yet, but then you can just say, well, I don't know it because I haven't learned it yet. And that's okay. That's okay. So that's something I'm working on in my identity. And then we went a layered. now we're like one or two layers in, know, and we keep going deeper. And I was telling her that I really like to run a lean business with high profit margins.

which enter the team dynamic, right? So I avoid the team growing, I have a team, but growing it because I'm concerned about managing it. So, okay, I've got to work on that. And then I'm worried about the expense because I like to run lean. And so we dug into that for a few minutes and she said, okay, what would it look like to be willing to feel more risk? And I, my,

Nicole Begley (12:44)
Yeah.

Heather (13:10)
head almost exploded off of my body. And I said, that's it was like ding, ding, ding. That's it. I love safety. I want to feel safe. I want to feel in control. And at my current business level, I do. I feel like, man, I have nailed it. I've got this down. I know how to run it at this level. No problem. But as I start to like edge my way up, that alarm bell goes off in my head. You're not safe. This is risky.

And then I pull back and I guess what, when you feel that way, you hesitate. There's hesitation in the action line and then you don't get the results you want. This was mind blowing for me.

Nicole Begley (13:52)
Yeah. And that's going to change

the energy around every offer, around how you're showing up around all of it. ⁓ I think I just came up with a little hack to get to the areas that are probably holding you subconsciously back. And that is, if you know your values, what's the opposite of those. Because I'm even thinking for me, two of my top values are freedom and authenticity and connection. Like two, three of my top.

Heather (13:56)
Yes!

Yeah, there it is.

Nicole Begley (14:22)
And so like, yeah, I get scared to lose my freedom of this. like, my gosh, what if I had to get a job? What if I had to do this? What if I had to like, not be in charge of my schedule? ⁓ authenticity. We've had numerous conversations in the past of this belief that in order to be, well, not a belief, it was, ⁓ just an observation for certain accounts that in order for them to grow on social media,

you had to show up as like an inauthentic, like a character. And we were like, that does not know, does not compute. I'm not willing to do that. And it was like this tug and pull of, ⁓ you know, if that's what's needed for success, I'm not going to be successful because I have to do that because it's a major value conflict. So I know one of your values is safety. So yeah, risk is the exact opposite of that.

Heather (14:56)
Yes.

Nicole, this is my work. This is it. And I feel so good about that just knowing that this is the work. And there's probably other things as well. Okay. This is one, it's never just one thing. This is one component, but I was so excited to talk to you about this because I'm like, this makes complete sense. Now I know where to focus some of my efforts. And I mean, I could tell you where it comes from. I didn't feel safe. were, went,

Nicole Begley (15:27)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (15:45)
Okay, we were like middle class, lower class. It was fine, but there wasn't a lot of money. So I don't feel safe if I'm worried about money. I'm an engineer. I worked with bridges. Zero risk tolerance.

Nicole Begley (15:59)
No, no, you can't mess that one up.

Heather (16:02)
you can't mess up a bridge or people die. The bridge collapses, which has happened a few times. the mechanical engineer, was like no time.

Nicole Begley (16:11)
Not on your bridges,

just to clarify, Heather has not designed any bridges that failed. ⁓

Heather (16:16)
No, and I actually

never like literally designed the bridge. I supported the team. So I didn't do that. I'm just, I love bridges. I'm very, very familiar with bridges. I just like them. Yeah. And you remember that one that collapsed like, yeah. Yeah. And as soon as that happened, guess what I thought? Some engineers in trouble. Somebody engineered that. So yeah, yeah, probably more likely. So I.

Nicole Begley (16:22)
Thank

Good thing you live in Pittsburgh.

I know, thankfully no one referred, which is amazing.

Or some maintenance team. Yeah.

Heather (16:44)
I think to myself, okay, that makes sense. That's where that comes from is I have like the most risk aversion of anyone I know. appreciate safety. And so if something feels even a little bit unsafe or risky to me, my brain is like, I'm out.

Nicole Begley (17:02)
So what, how do you start to do this? I'm thinking like we needed to go on little risk adventures, Heather, like some bungee jumping, something crazy like that.

Heather (17:11)
Okay, just

calm yourself, okay? Let's relax about that. I don't like heights.

Nicole Begley (17:15)
Next progress lab,

we're going skydiving. Kidding, kidding. I'm not ready for that either. Don't worry guys.

Heather (17:21)
would die. I could not do that. I don't think I could do that.

I think that's a good question though is like now that you've uncovered something this major, like what's the next step? I'm like, okay, this is my work. need to two things, expand my capacity to feel risk, to just feel it. Because the truth is no one's going to die, you know, with whatever I do. So expanding my capacity to feel risk and reminding my brain

Nicole Begley (17:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (17:50)
often, like, daily basis, hey, you're safe, I'm safe. So there's this like, calming, I'm safe, this is okay, I'm safe to expand the team, I'm safe to give this person more hours, I'm safe, because I could always change directions and decisions and pivot at any time. So my brain wants to make it a sealed deal that's like laminated and it's a problem. So I have to run myself, everything is fluid and dynamic and safe.

Nicole Begley (18:19)
Everything

will work out. Everything will work out. And I think too, ⁓ that I'm putting on my coat chat for a minute, that when you are thinking about, what are we going to do here? We're going to do this challenge. We're going to do this or that, or we're going to run some Facebook ads. And you find yourself like, that's good. $10 a day. That's it. Like ask yourself, who's making that decision? Is that decision coming from Ms.

Heather (18:21)
and it will work out?

Nicole Begley (18:48)
take too much risk. I have my hand on my shoulder guys. ⁓ The little, the little risk averse Heather on your shoulder like that's a little much pull back, pull back. ⁓ so anyway, so I think if you, that, cause usually just shining the light on it's like the hardest step and one of the most effective that we look at it and we say, that's what this is. And then you can start to notice like, okay,

Heather (18:56)
Yes.

Nicole Begley (19:17)
I'm feeling some resistance here. Is it this or maybe it's not? Maybe it's something else, but at least asking yourself that question.

Heather (19:23)
my gosh. So as you're explaining that, you know, when I'm, when I'm like, lower the Facebook ad spend, is that coming from, you know, scared Heather? Do know that as you were explaining that my watch started to buzz and it was telling me to calm down because my heart rate went up. This is for real. It tells me you're in risky area, like back up. You're not safe.

Nicole Begley (19:46)
Nicole's talking

about spending more money on Facebook ads.

Heather (19:50)
Oh my gosh, that is so true. yeah, the acknowledgement and awareness of what's happening and then asking yourself, here's how you step into the next identity is you ask yourself, what would million dollar Heather do? Would she spend $10 a day on Facebook ads? Okay, she would spend more obviously, and she would be open to the risk. She would be more open to the risk. And like, it's okay if it doesn't work out the way you think, like nobody's going to die. I have to tell myself.

This is why I tell them in Elevate, all my friends in Elevate, you're not going to die. You won't get mauled by a bear because I have to tell myself. It's true. Like I just, I just, I also have to stop telling myself that I'm risk averse, that I don't like it. I have to drop the story, drop the narrative. And that, I mean, it sounds pretty straightforward. So I have a lot of compassion for anyone that's going through an identity shift, like getting to the next level of their self-concept. I am

Nicole Begley (20:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (20:48)
with you in this. It it's, it seems straightforward, but it's really not because risk honestly scares me. I will, know, Craig and I, when we were dating and early married, we would go skiing all over the country. We're at Park City, Utah, we're Stovermont, like wherever we could go, we would, we would ski. We had kids and then it was busy and then we taught them how to ski. But do you know I haven't skied and I don't know.

10 years because I'm like, I'm not gonna break a leg. I don't have time for broken ankle.

Nicole Begley (21:19)
harder

to ski on 50 year old legs.

Heather (21:22)
That is the truth. So not that I want to ski. So it's not like I need to change my thought for on that. Right. Correct. It has to be something you want. Like I want to grow a business. So this is my work is this next level of my self-concept. And I'm actually really excited about it. It's like, what do I need to think or believe to be willing to take more risk? Well, I already have the self-concept that I can figure anything out.

Nicole Begley (21:26)
Yeah, true, true. Yeah, you're not saying no to something you want based on this.

Heather (21:51)
So think I just really, this is a matter of like me reminding myself that I'm safe. It seems, I know. I know, and could I stretch? I did want to say, I knew I had something else. ⁓ Lastly is that one of the things I'm working on for Elevate this fall is called capacity work. And so I had said, I'm increasing my capacity to feel risk and keep taking action.

Nicole Begley (21:57)
love it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Our brains can be tricky.

Heather (22:17)
This is one example of capacity work. will be in our live retreat. I'm really excited about it. We're in our four week challenge right now. You join that, you jump into Elevate and we grow and I guess stretch together.

Nicole Begley (22:31)
I love it. It's amazing. Yeah. If you guys still want to jump in to the, um, our free challenge, the four clients and four weeks training challenge coaching program. I mean, it's all of those things in one. Our first call is last week, but that replays still up. Second call is today at 2pm. And then there's still two more. So there's time, still time to jump in there. Here at the dog academy.com for C four W it's the numbers for the letter C letter W four C four W. Um, come join us.

And yeah, and I think it is helpful to ask ourselves, like kind of when we find ourselves holding back, like, what am I trying to avoid? But truly that is some really deep, hard questions that often help to have somebody else asking you. ⁓ or, or you can keep asking yourself, but don't let yourself off the hook. Keep going deeper. It's kind of like that. Why like trying to figure out you're like, why do I do this? Like,

Heather (23:30)
Why?

Nicole Begley (23:31)
I want more money in

my business. Well, why? So I can have more excess money at the end of the month after I pay my bills. Why? Maybe so you go through a couple of layers, then it comes to I feel secure. So I feel safe. It could. Yeah. Or that I have options that whatever it is, there's going to be a reason that you're like, ⁓ that's why. But it might be five or six layers down.

Heather (23:49)
Safe.

And you really honestly, I just really don't think you can do that on your own. I suppose some people could. I'm really good at coaching myself and it took years to get to this point. And now I've just decided I'm going to like stretch my ability to feel risk. But let me say this, the true only risk. It's like nobody's going to die, right? Nothing's really going to happen. So the only true and real risk is how I would feel.

Nicole Begley (24:27)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (24:29)
Well, okay, I think I can manage that because I have resources to help me with it. So, ⁓ telling my brain I'm safe, the only true risk is how I feel. Okay, I can handle feeling incompetent or embarrassed or whatever it is. And then I just think that practicing this for me, this identity, is going to free up the space to take more aligned action rather than hesitating.

Nicole Begley (24:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, let's do it. All right, this has been awesome. Thank you for sharing this with us. Everybody hope you guys enjoyed this issue, issue, episode, whatever this is. This is not a magazine. This is a podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Come join us here at thedogacademy.com for C4W. Like, that's our little special like hand signals. If you guys are watching on YouTube, you get to see. Otherwise, you just have to imagine me.

Heather (25:00)
Let's go. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (25:26)
miming like 4c 4w with my hands. Okay, that's all. I'm getting loopy here. We'll see you guys next week. Bye everybody.