Nicole Begley (00:00)
We are talking banned words today on the podcast. These are words that Heather is banned inside of Elevate. And some of them are F words. Well, just one, but not that F word. Anyway, stay tuned. You're going to love this episode.

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 to $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 (01:13)
Welcome back to the freedom focused photography podcast. I'm your host Nicole Bigley and back again, my favorite guest, Heather London. Welcome back, Heather.

Heather (01:20)
Thank you so much for having me. I love our conversations. They are so fun and I hope that everyone is finding value in them. I just assume that they are.

Nicole Begley (01:29)
I think so. hear a lot from many people that the conversations with me and you are among their favorites. So, I think they're going to like this one too, because we're going to say some bad words.

Heather (01:31)
Yeah, okay!

great! Okay, that's fantastic to hear.

because words matter and because

I think they're gonna like this one because I'm probably going to lose my mind. I am very, very passionate about what we are talking about today because, well, I don't know, I'm just extreme, but I've seen this play out in a way that is harmful to photographers and I just feel the need to stop it. We need to stop doing this.

Nicole Begley (01:49)
I love it. I love it.

I love it.

I love it. And I'm excited because you guys might not know because I keep it pretty clean here on the podcast in case there's young puppies in the car. ⁓ But I do have a little bit of a sailor mouth on occasion, especially when I get fired up. And today we're talking about the F word first.

Heather (02:26)
the F word.

Nicole Begley (02:27)
This one's five letters though, so it's not the one you were thinking of, guys. Get your mind out of the gutter. But yeah, we hear a lot of photographers say this. Often it is right after they got a great new client. They had their biggest sale. They had some amazing success in their business, and then what comes out of their mouth?

Heather (02:32)
Yeah.

They say, Heather, that was just a fluke. A fluke, really? Okay, yeah, they'll explain to me, they'll be so excited. Nicole, they will be so excited. They'll say, I just had my first thousand dollar sale or $5,000 sale, or in one case, a $10,000 month, which is $120,000 a year. Amazing. And they'll kind of, you know, they'll almost slump with their posture and kind of shrug their shoulders and they're like,

Nicole Begley (02:51)
Hehehehehe

Heather (03:17)
Yeah, I guess it's great. I'm like, what do you mean? What do mean you guess it's great? Well, I know, but it was just a fluke. To which I say, okay, how so? What do you mean? I'm actually looking up the definition of fluke is, and I quote, an unlikely chance occurrence, especially a surprising piece of luck.

Nicole Begley (03:40)
So a fluke would be, Heather, you're not gonna believe this. I was sitting in my office and some person came up to my door. I thought they were trying to sell me new pest control, but they actually wanted to buy my 40 by 60 canvas and they saw through the window that's hanging on my wall. So I sold it.

Heather (03:58)
Unreal

Nicole Begley (03:59)
That that would be a fluke

Heather (04:02)
Well, maybe.

Correct.

You took that photo, you edited it, you had it printed, you put it on your wall. So it's kind of maybe a, maybe a chance occurrence that somebody would walk by and see that. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't label that as a fluke.

Nicole Begley (04:18)
Let's watch.

Yeah,

yeah, that's true, because I still had to do things to make it happen. Yeah.

Heather (04:24)
Correct. So

they'll say things to me like they'll start to, okay, so they label it as a fluke and then they will see my reaction to that, which is like, you know, not good. And then they'll start to explain or justify to me why it is a fluke. Well, okay, it's because this person found me through this person and actually they had this sale and then they like the, and they're just.

Nicole Begley (04:41)
Mm-hmm.

Wait,

that sounds a lot like just relationship and referral marketing. Organic marketing.

Heather (04:54)
Yeah, right, right. they're,

which is what you do, right? They did, they did that. But what they're, it's funny when they start to explain the reason it's a fluke, it starts to sound like I just did, which is a jumbled mess. Because they can't, they can't clearly identify it.

Nicole Begley (05:08)
Mm-hmm.

Well, and I think part of the reason, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's two reasons. There's probably number reason number one, which is they are preemptively saving their monkey mind, their conscious mind from future disappointment if it doesn't happen again right away. That they are just labeling it as a fluke. Like I had no control over it. So therefore, if it doesn't happen again, it's not my fault. Yeah. So I think that's number one. I think the other piece

Heather (05:29)
Right. Right.

It's okay.

Nicole Begley (05:41)
might also be a little bit of a deflection of maybe not being fully secure and owning that they did this, like being a little bit humble, like the, you know, say you have a beautiful skirt outfit, whatever someone's like, my gosh, I love that. So great. I got it at TJ Maxx on sale. Like you can't just say thank you. So it's, I think it's kind of one of those two pieces where it's, like a self-deprecating or your

Heather (05:48)
Yes

Yeah, unseal!

Nicole Begley (06:08)
you're afraid to own it that you did it because that means it needs to happen again.

Heather (06:14)
I agree

with that 100%. And what I would do is get really curious about what is the feeling that I am trying to avoid. I'm trying to avoid future disappointment if it doesn't happen again, so I'm not going to claim it. And I'm trying to avoid this, I don't know, what would you say? Almost like this proud feeling of I did this. That's uncomfortable for me.

Nicole Begley (06:36)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Heather (06:40)
to feel proud. It's uncomfortable for me to have success. And because it's uncomfortable, I don't want to feel the discomfort. So I'm just going to, you know, shoo this away as a fluke. It's very convenient that you would do that to protect your brain. I hate it. I think it's, I think it's really dishonoring to yourself and what you've accomplished and the work that you've put in.

Nicole Begley (06:57)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

Heather (07:09)
to get that sale, to not just say, yes, I did that. Who did that? Who got that sale? ⁓ you did. That means you had to get the client. So wait, let me back up. You had to start a business. You had to market that business. You had to learn a bunch of things. You had to get that client. You had to photograph that client, edit, deliver, do your sales session. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Who did all of those things?

Nicole Begley (07:31)
Right. Right. And even if the end, the end result of that sale session was more than expected or a client came in from an unusual place that you didn't expect, it's an unexpected client, not a fluke. The it's unexpected because you didn't expect it to come in in that way, but you built the field. You built that playing field in which they are coming in.

Heather (07:45)
That's it.

That's my favorite analogy because when I got my first $10,000 sale, I didn't think it was a fluke, but I did say, ⁓ wow, that came out of left field. Like giving my power away to some other force, I said that came out of left field. And then it was like, Heather, who built the freaking field? I built the field. Okay, if I built the field, then I'm going to receive

Nicole Begley (08:05)
huh.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Heather (08:19)
Anything that comes out of right field, left field, I don't know, who cares?

Nicole Begley (08:22)
All the field.

Any field.

Heather (08:25)
field. I built it so it can come from any direction. But I do like your alternative there is like, okay, this was unexpected. I'm here for it. I created it, which means I can do it again. If maybe it feels a little uncomfortable, because it's your first like big success. Okay. Guess what? I am willing to feel uncomfortable to receive $10,000. Okay.

Nicole Begley (08:34)
And I'm here for it.

Hmm.

Heather (08:51)
So what? I'm not going to try to get away from that discomfort by making excuses for why that happened. Just own it. You would not believe the number of times I hear this inside of Elevate or with my private clients. It's weekly, Nicole. I hear someone say, this is a fluke. And so I'm like, okay, if you don't want to own it, then I will. Okay, I did that. It doesn't make any sense. I didn't do that. You did it. And by the way,

Nicole Begley (09:09)
Wow, yeah.

Heather (09:20)
Sometimes they do try to give me credit. They'll say, well, you taught me this or you helped me with my mindset, to which I say, thank you, I received that, but you're the one that went out and did it. I didn't do that. You did it. Yeah. Yes.

Nicole Begley (09:30)
Exactly. You did the work. Yeah, they did the work. Yeah. Yeah. We just helped them help them

in the path. they still had to show up. So I am hearing from this, like, if you ever catch yourself saying, that's a fluke wanting to say it's a fluke, like, can we get really curious as to why are you saying that? What's the thought behind that? Are you worried that, that you can't do it again?

Are you worried that you didn't know how that happened? And that's okay. Maybe you don't know how that client came to you. And you're like, wow, I don't know how the client came to me, but maybe the thought is if it happened once, it can happen again. and then the other side of it is if you're saying it's a fluke because it's making you uncomfortable. Why? Why is it making you uncomfortable? What thoughts are you having that, that cause you to feel insecure about that success?

Heather (10:14)
Mm-hmm.

And that's okay. I can learn to feel discomfort and get really curious as to why. Like, I'm not saying avoid it. Right.

Nicole Begley (10:26)
Mm-hmm. That's growth. mean, that's growth is noticing like,

this is uncomfortable for me. Why?

Heather (10:32)
Right, right. And I don't have to know where every client came. I mean, you can ask them, you know, how did you find me? And that's great. But you still at some point did the marketing to put your business out there for that person to find you. however I did that, I mean, honestly doesn't matter because I did it. Me, me, me, me, me. I did it. I created that field. I got the $10,000 client. Wow, I'm so proud of my effort, my hard work and my willing.

willingness to do things even when they when it felt like they weren't working and this is the result of that hard work could you please just own it and I want you to also think to yourself whenever you catch yourself like fluke you just have a good chuckle I want you to say ⁓ my gosh Heather would kill me right now Heather heard me using this f-word she would lose her mind

Nicole Begley (11:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I love it. love it. All right. What's the other one?

Heather (11:29)
my gosh this word so if I hear fluke once a week I hear this phrase five times a week I mean that often people will say they ghosted me to which I reply my gosh wait what do you mean are we playing in the spiritual realm listen

Nicole Begley (11:35)
So daily just about.

Heather (11:48)
I don't even know if I believe in ghosts, but I ain't messing around with it. What do mean a ghost? What happened? It's so dramatic that language. They ghosted you? Wait, are you saying that they didn't reply to your email? Is that what you're saying?

Nicole Begley (12:02)
Yeah,

are you saying that you are giving away all the power that you have for the outcome of your business to someone else's action or inaction?

Heather (12:09)
in the spiritual realm?

What? Nicole, I'm not kidding you. This is and I know, I mean, I'm dramatic yet. It's a very common phrase. mean, people even outside of our industry use it. I texted someone, I sent this, they ghosted me. It's just so dramatic and sounds like you're taking it so personally that, OK, tell me exactly what happened. And usually it is I sent an email.

Nicole Begley (12:17)
I hear it too, yeah.

Heather (12:37)
and they didn't reply. Okay, how do you know that, for example, their husband just didn't have emergency open heart surgery?

Nicole Begley (12:48)
How do you know, for example, that maybe they don't have 21 phone messages to go through and 35 texts, which the 35 is actually pretty low. I cleaned it out last night.

Heather (12:59)
or even the thousand emails, right? Yeah, so the chances are, I mean, the chance.

Nicole Begley (13:02)
Yeah, yeah, I didn't even open those.

Even if they

have inbox zero, they might have some filters. So by the way, spoiler alert, if anyone ever emails me and I don't respond, I didn't see it or I saw it responded to my head and then forgot. but like our filters grab a lot of different things, especially like invoices. I have to like, try to really remind myself when I'm expecting invoice to go and search because they, often get grabbed by my filters.

Heather (13:15)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, it's in spam. So how do you know

your message isn't in spam or that they have a thousand and they're very disorganized and they miss it or or they fell ill or some ⁓

Nicole Begley (13:38)
Or are

they read it and they're really excited and then they wanted to reply but then like, you know, the dog threw up on the carpet and they forgot? No.

Heather (13:44)
There could be a ⁓ million and

million reasons that have nothing to do with extraterrestrials or that's okay. I'm jumping. I'm jumping medical. Right, right. Not aliens. Right. I mean, okay. But it's it's just I just want to. Yeah, it's laughable because it's so dramatic and and we want to make it about us. So what it usually is, is Heather, they ghosted me because my prices are too high.

Nicole Begley (13:52)
Yeah, ⁓

⁓

did they? Okay, wait, I'm confused. How do they know it's because their price is too high if they ghosted them and didn't get back to them?

Heather (14:16)
Yeah!

Interesting, so you just made that up.

Nicole Begley (14:23)
Okay, that's checking. It's checking.

Heather (14:25)
Yeah, okay. So you have a bunch of made up stories because you're trying to make sense of why somebody didn't reply to you. And my thoughts are, they're probably busy and I'm a service provider. So as a professional, it is my responsibility to follow up.

Nicole Begley (14:44)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Yep.

Heather (14:46)
Not on them, not on them, on me.

I should follow up. So my husband, I was joking about the open heart surgery because my husband had it a couple of weeks ago and I had reached out to a voice coach. I want to learn how to use my voice better because when I'm teaching all day, I end up with a sore throat. hurts. I know I'm not using it right. Okay. Because Taylor Swift can sing for like 15 hours straight and I can't talk for six hours. Like I need to

Nicole Begley (15:10)
Yeah.

And is Rep

TV coming soon? I think it is. There's AMAs. Monday. That's all. Sorry. I definitely digress.

Heather (15:19)
Okay. So anyway,

I reached out to this local voice coach or a friend of mine uses, and I said, do you work with speakers? Because I want to work on this. I explained to her why my goal and she, she got back to me. I mean, I wouldn't say super timely. Oh, this actually, this story is twofold. are two lessons here. It was very evident to me.

that she did not believe in her pricing, was very hesitant to share her pricing because when she finally did, it was like, it's $30 for 30 minutes or 60 for 60 minutes. Like, is that okay was the vibe I was getting, which made me laugh because that's so cheap to me. That feels very affordable, but I think she has some thoughts about, anyway, we went back and forth a few times and then guess what, Nicole, guess what? I ghosted her.

Nicole Begley (15:56)
I feel it. I feel it.

Uh-huh.

Heather (16:10)
I dropped off the face of the earth because I thought my husband was a... ⁓

Nicole Begley (16:12)
Why? What did you have going

on that was more important than responding to her? And obviously you thought her pricing was too high and you hate her and you'd never want to talk to her again.

Heather (16:16)
Well, you know what? It was repricing. That's it.

It was because of the pricing. Yeah. So I ghosted her because I didn't like her pricing. I mean, I don't know what she was thinking, but if this is what I hear people thinking. So I think two, almost three weeks went by and I finally replied to her and explained what had happened. And I'm so sorry. You know, I still haven't heard back from her.

Nicole Begley (16:41)
⁓ Really?

Heather (16:43)
Yeah, and my guess is, okay, I don't know, all right, so this is just a guess, that there's some story in her mind either about her pricing or working with me, or maybe she has too much business. Maybe she didn't get it. So if I really want to pursue this, guess what I could do? What do you think I could do here? Whoa, you don't say. Could it be that simple? As a reminder, like, hey, I'm just.

Nicole Begley (16:53)
Maybe she didn't get it.

You could email her again. ⁓

Yes?

Heather (17:10)
I just wanted to check in, I'm not sure if you saw this, what are your thoughts? Like, it could be so clean that there are no ghosts involved.

Nicole Begley (17:19)
Yeah, I think people are worried about, so again, what are you thinking? What are you thinking that, usually it's some version of they're gonna judge me, they're gonna think I'm pushy, they're, know, something like that. But okay, first of all, maybe they are. Are you ever gonna see this person again anyway? And also we know, like if you're worried about coming across pushy, you are certainly not following up enough.

Heather (17:38)
haha

That's right.

Nicole Begley (17:45)
It's

the same kind of thing of like you're worried about being a fraud. Like if you're a fraud, you're not worried about it. So the fact that you're concerned about it tells me that you are not like spamming them, being obnoxious, super pushy in their inbox, like just being obnoxious. So you're not doing that. You are literally just going to reach out and say, hey, just wanted to follow up. Let me know if you're interested in moving forward or if you're not, that's okay. Just let me know. Touch base. That's all.

Heather (17:50)
Yes.

It's so simple!

So the question, the real question is what would you need to think or believe to feel confident in following up multiple times? And what are you thinking that's causing you to believe that you're pushy? That's a really interesting exercise. If I think that I am a professional and it's my responsibility to follow up and to serve people, if I am in service energy, I'm gonna follow up all day long, multiple times, know, exactly.

Nicole Begley (18:20)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, cause you have something that can help them. And again, the

other, the other piece of that, that I think works well with this is, which I always, ⁓ tell my students is like, it is not our job to convince someone to book with us. It is our job to let them know what we offer and why it's valuable. And they decide if it's valuable to them. Like yes, no, whatever. I don't care. Just, just let me know.

Like I am here just to tell you this is what I bring to the table. Let me know if you're interested. Like our job is to make sure they know what the options are. Their job is to decide if they want to say yes or no.

Heather (19:14)
Yes.

Yes. And more importantly, if you don't clean this up, you are going to hesitate and hold yourself back in business. And because I have such clean thoughts about this, I just follow up all day long and I don't I don't make it an issue. But if I'm worried what people are going to think or they should be fault, they should reply or they should get back to me faster or all of these thoughts that just don't feel good and don't serve you, you are going to hesitate.

Nicole Begley (19:25)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (19:46)
and that's going to prevent you from growing your business. But my thoughts are just very straightforward. I just want to help people and let them decide if they want to want to hire me. But I can't do that if I'm not, you know, reminding them and following up. And that's just to me, that's good service. Now, wait a minute. This happened to me recently where someone, man, I don't remember the exact situation, but I was trying to hire someone.

and they followed up and I said to them, thank you so much for reminding me, actually forgot. I appreciated the follow-up.

Nicole Begley (20:20)
Yeah, right. 100%. Yes.

Yes. Yes. I've had numerous clients tell me, my gosh, thank you. I've been meaning to call you. I've been meaning to get back to you. And how many times does that happen for you? Or someone's followed up to you and you're like, my gosh, thank you.

Heather (20:26)
Yes.

Also, do you think I'm wondering if part of the hesitation is like, what if they say no? So there's maybe a fear of rejection there.

Nicole Begley (20:39)
Hmm.

Yes, a hundred percent. I think, well, I think a couple of things. Number one, we're just assuming that they said no, that they're ghosting us because it's too expensive. Like we need to address that. Like we have no idea. And even if somebody said it's too, it's out of my budget, that's an easier way for them than saying like, I don't know. We're just not really meshing. don't really, I like somebody else's work more than yours. Like, and it's fine.

Heather (20:50)
Yes.

Nicole Begley (21:08)
And you're going to track the people that want to work with you and people that don't aren't. It's like, it's no big deal. We're not for everybody. So a, we're always trying to blame pricing on this. And then, so I think that the other reason you don't fall up is we're scared to hear no. And then I think that brings up.

Heather (21:19)
yeah.

Yes.

Nicole Begley (21:28)
a cascade of spiraling thoughts of, I'm not cut out for this, this business is never gonna work, see nothing's working, all of those things. So could the thought just be, every business hears no's, or I have to get through the no's to get to the yes? Like every no, here's a thought, every no brings me closer to a yes. Yeah.

Heather (21:35)
Yes! Yeah, so we avoid it. Because what does that mean about us?

Yeah, of course. Of course.

So imagine you look at this from a different perspective, from a service angle. I want to be professional. I want to serve people and it's okay if they don't hire me. Imagine what you would do if those were your driving thoughts, the thoughts that drove your action. I just wonder, I'm just curious what might happen in your business if you went with that instead of

Nicole Begley (22:10)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (22:17)
I can't follow up they goes to me it's the pricing they hate me they hate my soul everything is wrong nothing is working and then the spiral that you just described

Nicole Begley (22:25)
Yeah, 100%.

Heather (22:28)
Okay, hey, guess what? I have a bonus word I just thought of. So when we started this episode, I was thinking of the fluke and being ghosted, but similar to ghosted a little bit different as people will say, they did, they posted something and they heard crickets. Okay, wait a minute. Crickets are actually very noisy.

Nicole Begley (22:32)
Ooh!

Yep. ⁓

No.

was just gonna say, I don't know about you, but crickets are really loud. No one else is really loud, frogs.

Heather (22:52)
So frogs are loud

and I love it. We have several in our pond. I sit out there and listen to them. I love it. Okay. So when you say you heard crickets, I think you're trying to say you didn't hear anything, but that doesn't make sense because they're loud. So that's the first thing. And what exactly happened here? Nobody liked your post or commented on it. Nobody reached out to you to

Nicole Begley (23:15)
Well, and

it could also be, hear that a lot too for the people that are still maybe doing sales via an online gallery that like you send it out. And this even happened to me. had a commercial client that I sent the images to. Like I sent the gallery, they selected them. I sent the final images. They said, got them thanks. But like nowhere did anyone ever say, these are great. I love them. I'm like, you know, so then my head's like, were they good enough to fill it? Right. Like the, the client, the,

Heather (23:21)
Mmm.

Yeah.

You

Nicole Begley (23:42)
like kind of models that was photographing a barn for a stall company that does this custom barns. And the people at their home, which by the way, I want to move into, it's an equestrian community over near Southern Pines, bridle paths like go through all the property. They had this beautiful barn with their horses in their backyard. I'm like, oh my God, I love this. Anyway, I sent them the gallery just so they can see and they're like, these are amazing. And of course.

You know that I said, hey, when you want me to come back and do a portrait session for your horses and your dogs, you just let me know. I'll be right here. They haven't done that yet, but I can follow up. I'll follow up in the spring next year because they just moved in. So they have a lot of expenses and a brand new house. anyway, then I sent everything to the client that actually paid me the company and they didn't tell me they loved them. So then I started to think, oh my gosh, I heard crickets.

Heather (24:13)
Yes!

Aww.

Nicole Begley (24:36)
What does that mean? Was it not good? Do I not know what I'm doing? Am I not good at my job? But A, it was a man who's probably not is in two words of affirmation, may or may not. Just, know, men are different than women in terms of like expressing those kinds of things. And B, they could very well be very happy with it. And it's just like, awesome, thank you.

Heather (24:37)
What?

Yeah!

They don't feel the need to say it because they don't need words of affirmation. So crickets aren't the problem. First of all, it's a misnomer, okay? That's not the problem. It's what we make it mean. What do we make it mean when nobody comments on a post or gets back to us? That's where the spiral begins. If you can get really clear on that sort of leading thought, the high level thought, you can stop the spiral. I'm making it.

Nicole Begley (25:00)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, so in my

case, my leading thought was, this wasn't good enough. Like my work was not good enough for this client. They're disappointed. My thought was they're disappointed.

Heather (25:29)
Yes. Yes.

Okay, let's play with this for a second, shall we? Okay, and if you were coaching with me before you got into that spiral, I would say, what's leading you to believe that?

Nicole Begley (25:46)
because I didn't hear from them. didn't say anything. They didn't mention the images at any point after I delivered them.

Heather (25:52)
What else is possible here?

Nicole Begley (25:57)
because if they like them, they would have said they like them. No, but it feels that way.

Heather (26:00)
Are you sure?

And that's okay. That's okay.

But like, how can you be sure that your interpretation of the non-response is the only thing that's happening? You can't. Right? Everybody's brain does. That's okay. But if you can just question it, like catch yourself at that high level thought, you really can prevent a lot of suffering and pain ⁓ by not continuing down the spiral.

Nicole Begley (26:15)
Yeah, no, I can't. can't. That's what my brain wants to tell me.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And just realizing like, I actually don't know what they thought. And they actually did choose some of my favorites too. That always makes me happy when the client chooses the ones where you're like, those are my favorites,

Heather (26:42)
means they get it, you know?

But the funny thing is when you don't hear anything and you make up this story, you know, you understand that that's a lie that you are making up.

Nicole Begley (26:51)
Right. Yeah. It's just the same thing as they said no, or they ghosted me because of my pricing. I have no idea.

Heather (26:55)
Right. So

if you were going to make up a lie, why not make it a good one? You could just as easy. OK, it's not as easy because the brain has a negativity bias. But once you catch it, you can just as easily make up a lie that's the opposite that works in your favor and feels good. Give me one. in the case of the commercial client.

Nicole Begley (27:02)
Yeah.

I mean, you can do a belief ladder. Cause if it's like, my gosh, they loved it. And I'm like, I don't believe that my mind's trying to tell me that they hated it. the, like you could start with. They chose, they chose all their images. Like they, they were happy. They were happy enough with the job delivery that they, that they got what they needed because they didn't come back and say they needed something else. Like they got exactly what they needed.

Heather (27:43)
right. So that's Okay, that's a good one. That's

a good one. But listen, if

Nicole Begley (27:50)
And then you can

start to tamper it up a little bit, you know? Yeah.

Heather (27:52)
Right, but

I'm going to challenge you here and I'm going to go beyond the belief ladder and say that if you were able to make up an extreme negative story, I want you to make up not one that I don't want one that you can believe. I want an extreme positive story. You were able to make up a negative one, which means you're very creative. You have a great imagination. I want you to make up just this wildest positive story.

Nicole Begley (28:03)
Hmm.

man.

these are great. I wish she was in PA so she could photograph all our barns.

Heather (28:24)
They love me, this is amazing. They want me worldwide. They might even hire me to drive or fly all over the country to do this. I mean, make it extreme. If you're going to lie to yourself, make it a good one. And we don't have to do belief ladder here, because this is not about shifting beliefs. This is just having fun with the narrative. Have fun with the story. You know how you were talking, I don't know if it was this episode or previous one about

Nicole Begley (28:27)
Mm-hmm.

Ha ha.

Hmm, mm-hmm.

Heather (28:52)
the belief ladder with body dysmorphia and you're saying, you know, could you just believe I have a body and we lied ourselves. That's what body dysmorphia is. It's a lie. You can't see it clearly. Okay. So I think to myself, if I'm going to lie about my body, then I'm going to say to myself every day, I'm a six foot tall Victoria's secret supermodel. Okay. It's not true. That's a lie. But so is the other thing I'm telling myself about my body. So

Nicole Begley (28:55)
yeah, that's good one.

Heather (29:21)
Why not have fun with it? And then it turns it into sort of a mental game. And that really does like dial back the pain that that can cause. I mean, I'm speaking about the ghosting, know, or the cricket. Like you always, your brain will always multiply your suffering when given free rein. Okay, it's gonna do that automatically. You catch it and then you say, okay, what is some just outrageous

Nicole Begley (29:31)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (29:49)
lie that I can make up that makes me feel like a million bucks even if it's not true. And then you just go there in your mind and then you have a good chuckle at yourself. That's it. Okay.

Nicole Begley (29:59)
I love it. I love it. my gosh.

So good. so if you guys want to help working through any thoughts of your ghosting or fluke, I promise Heather won't yell at you if you're coming to her and saying, Heather, I'm feeling like it's a fluke, but I know I don't want, I'm not supposed to say that. So if you could recognize that you won't get yelled at. ⁓ but yes, get coached by Heather.com Heather does periodic.

Heather (30:11)
I world.

I won't yell I am just impassioned. Yes.

Nicole Begley (30:26)
free coaching sessions for you guys. Cause you guys, it is so powerful and it's really hard to explain what exactly coaching is. So like the best way to do that is actually to experience it. and whether you want to get coached or just show up live to, to hear what others have to say, which then you can, here's the beauty. The beauty of it is when someone else is getting coached, oftentimes we can see that, that same issue in our own lives and our own business. And we can apply what Heather's saying to ourselves.

So what you call that? Secondhand coaching?

Heather (30:56)
Second and coaching. So I'm

in a mastermind where I'm in a few actually where I'm not always able to attend the calls live and I will binge watch coaching calls. I get so much benefit. I'll ask myself, how does this apply to me? But even if it doesn't just to see it from something from a different perspective is so, so, so valuable. So that's why I want to expose as many people as possible to coaching. Even, even if you're

Nicole Begley (31:07)
Okay?

Heather (31:25)
not feeling comfortable raising your hand or getting coached, that's totally fine. You can join us live. They're always free. The replays are available inside of Elevate and we have a lot of people when they join Elevate, they watch some of these coaching calls and they're like, my gosh, that was so helpful.

Nicole Begley (31:42)
Yeah. So good. So good. So go check it out. Come join us. If you just want to jump into Elevate, use the code podcast to save $200 off the enrollment fee. It's at freedomfocusformula.com slash Elevate. But anyway, I hope you guys found this helpful and got a little chuckle around it because it is funny, but it is just really...

Heather (31:50)
Yes!

Nicole Begley (32:05)
could be very detrimental to the growth of your business if you allow yourself to believe these different things. So,

Heather (32:11)
That's it, Nicole. What I want to drive home today is these aren't

just simple funny words, but they are incredibly impactful. And I'm just asking you might not want to use them in my presence. That's all.

Nicole Begley (32:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I mean, and they're so disempowering because they disempower you. They remove all your personal power from the outcome of the experience. Like it is fully on somebody else, somebody else's actions, and you have no control and no power in the situation, which is what makes them so dangerous, where we always have power. There's always a solution. And when you can shift those thoughts around them, it puts you back in the driver's seat to

Again, not be pushy, but just to continue to move the ball forward and serve your clients or potential clients in the best way possible. Yeah, I love it. All right, guys, we will see you next week. Have a good one.