Nicole Begley (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to today's episode where we are going to be talking about a sneaky little thing that we all want in our business and that is friction free success. What if the friction or the challenges that we face is actually the way forward? Well, Heather and I are breaking that down and trust me, this one's going to shift how you think about your pricing, your strategy and your growth in your business. So stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:25)
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 (01:25)
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley, and we are back with the one, the only, the Heather Lahtinen, my favorite other half instructor of all things around Hair of the Dog, Freedom Focus World. Yes, capital T, the Heather Lahtinen. It's like, at Miami University in Florida. They're like the Miami University. Like you're the Heather Lahtinen.

Heather (01:40)
I love that the Heather lot and then that's so funny. I'll take it. Right.

⁓ okay! I love that! So fun!

Nicole Begley (01:57)
I love it. love it. So before we get in, which we actually have like a top secret, you wouldn't even tell me what we're talking about today. So, ⁓ yeah, I don't know. So we'll get there, but first quick update. ⁓ first of all, I wanted everyone to, you know, be concerned with me at this moment because I don't have any flights scheduled for two months. So Heather, I'm home for two months. You said you would keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

Heather (02:23)
Yeah,

yeah, I will definitely pray for you during this difficult time of being actually at home

Okay.

Nicole Begley (02:32)
Yeah, it's crazy. We've, we've had so much fun just doing so many things. And then we went to Coldplay with my husband and family, um, just this past weekend, but now we are home for a bit. Um, super fun. You also had a fun weekend and had a kind of surprise, almost surprise, but we spilled the surprise, but it was good because then you cleared like your whole weekend and tell me about your special visitors.

Heather (02:57)
my gosh, this is so fun. So you might recall Nicole that we have done three versions of the Progress Lab over the past three years. And that's where we get together for several days at an amazing location. And we talk about business and pricing and marketing, and it's really intense. And everyone walks away with major breakthroughs and shifts. And the first group that we met with, ⁓ they actually formed a group within themselves called the Progress

partners and they've stayed in touch for, well, they knew each other going into it, but now it's, you know, three years later and they stayed in touch. And I guess they decided about six months ago or so that they were going to show up on my doorstep physically and surprise me, which is hilarious in a little bit concerning. So I guess they had ⁓ attempted to reach out to my husband and could not.

Nicole Begley (03:29)
Yeah.

Heather (03:55)
find him. He's really not on social media. He does spend some time on LinkedIn, but and then they reached out to you. And what did they ask you?

Nicole Begley (04:06)
Well, they are just like, getting together in Pittsburgh. We want to surprise Heather Friday afternoon. Like, can you clear her schedule? Can you like record a podcast? Which you and I both are pretty, have pretty strict no calls on Friday rules. ⁓ I usually still end up working Friday, but it's kind of my catch up, try to close loops, like no calls. I try to not have calls Monday or Friday. And those are like just work days where sometimes it's summer. Like we might have fun. ⁓

So I was like, yeah, no, she's, she won't. mean, she will, but she, she's not going to want to do a podcast on Friday. and, and then I basically said, I'm like, I know she does like usually keep her schedule pretty clear Fridays, but sometimes she's meeting some people for lunch. She has stuff going on. like, I think we need to tell her. And they're like, okay, okay, whatever you think you need to do. So anyway, I did, which actually worked out perfectly because then you could, ⁓ spend appropriate, energy and time with them instead of being like, my God.

⁓ and ha accidentally having other plans, but, yeah, it was, it was great. And this was a rare time that I was like, man, I wish I lived in Pittsburgh. ⁓

Heather (05:12)
Yeah, that would have been fun. We did really

miss you. So I would have loved the surprise and that would have been great, but I really appreciate you looking out for me because, yeah, I definitely needed to know. I keep Fridays open like you just mentioned and I like to hang out with friends or do whatever. So I probably wouldn't have even been home, but I would want to be ready so that we could do some fun things together.

You told me, I don't know, a week and a half prior and I was thrilled. And when they actually showed up on my doorstep, it was so fun. It was hilarious. Like, what are you guys doing here at my house? And Michelle's like, we need help. No, she was joking. She said, you know, we did not come to Pittsburgh expecting you to, you know, do a progress lab 2.0 or teach us or coach us or anything like that. We're just having fun. And I said, yeah, of course. And

Nicole Begley (05:49)
Go.

Heather (06:06)
What are we gonna work on? We're not just gonna like mess around here. We're gonna do something. So what happened was we had lunch Friday afternoon and then we came back to my homestead and we coached all afternoon. And it was amazing there. Of course there were tears, there was laughter and they kept saying like, my gosh, we didn't mean for this free coaching. And I said, you understand that I am happiest when I am serving you, truly. I just wanna help you. How can I help you?

Nicole Begley (06:32)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Heather (06:36)
And I feel like all of them had pretty significant breakthroughs. And maybe it wasn't even the time we were sitting down coaching because, we're going to lunch and dinner together and we're hanging out and we went to the botanical gardens, FIPS. And so like when you're together and you're just walking and you're just talking, you tend to like uncover things and work through things. It was, I'll tell you what, on that last night we had ice cream. It was very, very late at night. I mean, it's probably 8 p.m. and

I thought to myself, this has just been the most fun I've had in a long time, like with friends like this, friends that are like business friends, that we understand each other. And Nicole, my heart was so full. I just thought, this is why we need to consider doing more in-person workshops.

Nicole Begley (07:28)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, two things about that. Number one, you mentioned like the downtime being some of the most ⁓ fulfilling and like productive. I find that as well. So I'm ⁓ in a mastermind James Wendmore world and there's 30 businesses, all online businesses. And yeah, we have some great sessions, but by far like the biggest takeaways from every time I get together with these incredible humans is just like my conversations that happen.

Heather (07:29)
It was so fun.

Nicole Begley (07:57)
outside of the room, like where we're going to dinner, or we're going up a mountain coaster, whatever fun things we're doing together. That's kind of where the magic happens because we're all kind of working in these little mini silos, right? That it's like, don't have an office, we're not hanging out with others. Okay, yeah, that's why we come to our online community. You and I box are on the regular, but being able to be with people that are focusing on the same goal for an extended period of time.

which is yeah, for I mean, all these different workshops, it's unbelievable. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Progress Lab ones that we have taught together have been 100 % the most impactful pound for pound workshop that I have been a part of. Not to say the others aren't great, but in terms of like transformation of upleveling your business, nothing compares.

Heather (08:46)
Yes.

Yeah, because we're like, we've locked arms, like metaphorically, we're together and I'm thinking about the times you're leaving a restaurant and you're walking to the parking lot and you're just talking through something or I found myself alone in the car with our good friend, Michelle Crandall. We had multiple cars at different locations and her and I just happened to be in the same car on this one particular route and I know that that conversation, I mean, we could ask her, I'm fairly certain.

fundamentally changed her life, shifted her life. And it was, you know, it was a car ride from the city out to my homestead. And it was so impactful. to be around people, like I said, you know, I have fantastic real life friends, Nicole. OK, I have real life friends. But these to have these people that like really get me, you you feel like they just understand you is so amazing. And I said, guys are welcome back anytime. But.

Nicole Begley (09:44)
Yeah.

Heather (09:52)
Then we were joking. One of them said, like, you better not tell anybody about this or people are going to be showing up on your doorstep like for coaching.

Nicole Begley (10:00)
Okay, so to be clear, this is not an invitation to show up in Heather's store. She needs to know. ⁓

Heather (10:06)
Yeah, I live in Pittsburgh generally, but I'm not giving you my address.

Nicole Begley (10:10)
⁓

That is hysterical. ⁓ Yeah. So I think we should spill some beans here, Heather. ⁓ I am actively ⁓ scoping locations to have an in-person elevate retreat for two days, quarter one here in Charlotte, North Carolina. So ⁓ I've asked in the elevate group who was interested and vast majority were.

Heather (10:31)
Wow.

Nicole Begley (10:40)
and, ⁓ yeah, it's going to be for our elevators and getting together two days, doing the work, hanging out with the other people that get it, that like have the same goals as you. ⁓ so yeah, I'm, actively been starting to search for venues and places for that. So that's number one. ⁓ and it will be open to all of our elevate, all of our elevators.

And it's not going to be, it's basically going to be included with elevate in, there's going to be a small fee to attend, like this isn't a, ⁓ it's not going to be like thousands of dollars to come to this. It's going to be like maybe a couple of hundred just to help cover the cost of the event. and so that's number one. Number two, you and I have talked about because we find it so

freaking amazing to teach progress labs, but here's been the problem. And I don't know if we don't are not messaging it correctly. ⁓ but you guys, it is literally the most transformational thing I have ever been a part of. And we would still love to do something like that next year at some point. So, so I have had a few people reach out to me.

And I think what we're going to do and how we're going to do go about this is we're going to get a bare minimum number of people that are committed to wanting to do this and kind of pick a date that works with this, this small group of people. And then we choose that date. And if there's an extra seat or two, then we market it. ⁓ so it is going to be a back end only like on the down low, super secret, ⁓ workshop planning process. and, and yeah. And so.

You can even help if you want to come, we would even take a input where you want to have it. We're open. Yeah. So we'll all plan it together. So if you are interested in learning more about progress lab or you want to do something with progress lab, like you want us to do another one and you want to be part of it. ⁓ that one is a couple thousand dollars. That one is more expensive than this. Elevator mat, ⁓ it's elevated. It will be part of the elevate program. ⁓ but anyway, reach out to myself or Heather.

Heather (12:33)
⁓ right. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (12:54)
Let us know, we'll start the conversation and we'll see if we can get something planned for next year. ⁓ And then for all of our elevators, of course, Progress Lab also accelerates everything. ⁓ But yeah, more details are coming on that. And also by the way, yeah. ⁓

Heather (13:10)
Well, speaking, can I say something speaking about

Elevate so that you had wanted to? I'm to say number three is we have a free challenge coming up. Like if you're curious about Elevate and maybe you're not sure if it's right for you, you're ready to jump in. I have a free challenge coming up where you can join me. It's book four clients in four weeks and it starts in August. All of that information will be in the show notes. It's free. It's free. It's free. You can just hang out with us. And I mean, the goal is book four clients in four weeks.

and you'll get a taste of coaching and learning from me and what it looks like inside of Elevate and it's a perfect opportunity for us to work together. So definitely check that out.

Nicole Begley (13:47)
It is free.

Heather (13:50)
Free, did I say that? Complimentary.

Nicole Begley (13:52)
on

Registration is open now. actually got started on Monday. So August 18th, which this is airing August 12th. ⁓ Whatever that Monday is. ⁓ this is, we're starting in just a few days. so, ⁓ if you go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com slash the number four, the letter C, the number four, the letter W four C four W.

⁓ that is short for four clients and four weeks by the way. then you can register for free. So here at the dog academy.com slash the number four letter C number four letter W register, join us. It's going to be awesome.

Heather (14:35)
Yeah, don't miss out. It's going to be fun. been working pretty diligently on it for a while and I'm really excited about it. I just want to empower people to go get their own clients so that they're not at the mercy of their inbox or inquiries. Not like, I don't get any inquiries Heather. Things are so slow. No inquiries. And I'm like, no, I get that. How about you go out and get them? How about that? Let's do it.

Nicole Begley (14:56)
I love it. love it. All right. Let's, let's jump into this super secret talk. It's good. You want to tell me about what we're talking about.

Heather (15:03)
my gosh, I'm so excited about this. So as you know, I coach a lot of photographers, both in group coaching and one-on-one. I mean, many, many hours per week. And when something comes up multiple times, I pay attention, you know, I tend to work it into my trainings. Like this is a common challenge. But last week, the same thing came up more than just multiple times. Like, first of all, the same thing came up exactly the same twice and then multiple iterations of that. And I thought,

This is so interesting. think that there's something here and I just made some new connections that I had not made before that I know will be really helpful because I ran this by our Progress Lab partners while they were here. I said, what do you guys think of this? I've just discovered this this week and they were like, my gosh, that's so good. That's really helpful. Okay, so let me pose the challenge. I had two photographers ask me, excuse me. They said, Heather.

I'm in this program and the educator suggests that you have like a $200 session fee and it's structured like this certain way, but I've been doing it this other way and I'm just not sure. Here's the question. Should I go with the proven system or with my gut? Now, isn't that interesting? What are your thoughts on that question?

Nicole Begley (16:28)
So many fun!

any thoughts. You're going to have to like rein me in because my squirrel brain is like a lit up in a lot of different areas. So number one, number one, my first thing that I ask anyone when we're talking pricing are Nicole's two questions for good pricing. Are you selling what you want to be selling? Are you making what you want to be making? If the answer is yes to those two questions, your pricing is great. If the answer is no, let's change something. Let's look at it. You know, there's so many things we can change.

Heather (16:36)
Okay.

Nicole Begley (17:02)
⁓ so there, there's that and everybody, I believe this so wholeheartedly. mean, you and I have so many Voxer conversations about this where I'm just like pulling out my hair because I talked to so many people too. They're like, but I was in this program and it told me I had to do it this way, but this and then I'm like, but it's your business. Certainly there are best practices and maybe your goal is to have a $10,000.

sale every time is going to be different than somebody that's really happy with a $2,500 sale every time. There's no right or wrong. There's pros and cons to both levels and there's different techniques to be the most successful at those different levels. So anyway, the question when somebody says, what was the question again?

Heather (17:46)
The question

was, should I go with this proven system or go with my gut?

Nicole Begley (17:49)
⁓

my gosh. Okay. So I think this is where you have access to someone like myself or yourself that you can ask this question to. And we can ask a couple of questions to see what your gut is telling you because there is a difference between my gut is scared of this and I know it's the right thing, but I'm scared of it. Like,

Heather (18:10)
Right.

Nicole Begley (18:15)
to get inquiries in this way or to reach out to this person and that seems scary, but your gut knows that it's the right next step. So your ego could cloud that. But I think I just answered my question. Your gut knows what the next right step is.

Heather (18:29)
Yeah, I would usually say that, but you know,

the funny thing is when I was working with this one client, I said to her, you know, I'm not going to answer that question, right?

Nicole Begley (18:38)
Yeah, right.

Heather (18:39)
⁓ I said, I want to get to the question behind the question. What are you actually asking here? So there's this quote proven system, but you have some doubt about whether that proven system will work for you. And then you have your gut, but you have some doubt there about whether that will work because that's not proven. So it's like, which way do I want to go? And I said, here's the key. Here it is, Nicole. What you are really asking me

Nicole Begley (18:44)
huh.

Heather (19:08)
Well, first you're asking me which is the right way, which we've already established there's no right way. But secondly, I think the question behind the question is which one doesn't have friction.

Nicole Begley (19:20)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (19:22)
I'm looking for the one that will just work with, I don't want any trouble. I just want it to work. If it's a proven system, then in theory it should just work. But you know, we know that proven systems don't always work because people are different. People are different. Thoughts are different. Values, approaches, all of it different. And so then you have your gut and you're like, well, I don't, I'll probably have to do a couple iterations of that to figure out what works.

Nicole Begley (19:28)
Okay.

Well, in your

gut, you're like, my gut knew, it would be fixed already. Because, yeah, because you're like, I obviously need something else because I don't know.

Heather (19:55)
Right.

So here's what you're saying to me is you have doubt and you don't want to have that doubt. What you want is a guarantee. You want a frictionless guarantee. That's what you're looking for.

Nicole Begley (20:13)
that doesn't really exist in life at all, in any aspect of life.

Heather (20:15)
And guess what?

That doesn't really exist in life at all. No, that doesn't exist. You're looking for something without friction. But what if it was here? My thoughts about any offer, any pricing is there's the pricing that, you know, works for you. And maybe you could call it the right pricing, the professional pricing that works for you. And then there's the pricing that you can make right. Essentially, I said to her, you can make either one of these work. I truly believe.

You could make anything work if you are willing to experiment and, know, and pivot and try your own thing. But here's here it is, Nicole, is many photographers are not willing to try their own thing or add their own ideas into the mix. They want to purchase the frictionless program. And it doesn't exist, because as we know, what works for you may not work for me.

Nicole Begley (21:07)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (21:14)
Our businesses are so, so vastly different in so many ways that I have decided based on this conversation that I am going to start marketing Elevate differently. So this is an announcement to you, my friend, is that I have a guarantee. There's a guarantee if you like hate the program within the first 30 days, I'll give you your money back and that's fine. I want people to feel safe. But what I'm also going to say is like,

I know how I purchased programs in the past. was, am willing to spend money to not have to think. I am willing to spend money with the expectation that your program is going to work verbatim for me because I don't want any friction. And that's what we are paying for. It's kind of happening at the subconscious level. Like you don't realize you're doing that, right? Of course not. I never did.

Nicole Begley (22:05)
huh.

Heather (22:08)
But you have this expectation that if you pay for program, it is going to work exactly like it says for you.

Nicole Begley (22:15)
Like a plug and play, like you don't have to do anything. Yes. Okay. huh. huh.

Heather (22:18)
Correct.

But what happens is so many photographers and us included have taken so many programs that we say things like, well, yeah, but I tried these other ones and they didn't work for me. And you're disappointed because you had an expectation that if you were paying for something, it was going to work perfectly for you without friction. So in my marketing, I'm going to say you are going to come into this program and we have

proven formulas and we have ways to execute and do things. have all the checklists, all the strategies, every action you could possibly take. We have that. And I know that it's going to cause you a lot of friction in about 15 different ways from 37 different angles. And what makes us different is I am prepared to walk you through that friction. And then what happens if you're willing to do that is not only do you figure out the business that works best for you,

Nicole Begley (23:09)
Reflection is truth.

Heather (23:16)
but you are like supercharged, like a superhero empowered to figure anything out in the rest of your life forever because you're like, ⁓ I'm not here to avoid friction. I'm here to learn and figure this out. And then I'm going to execute and have the business of my dream. I am going to address this. ⁓ It's not, this sounds negative. I don't mean it to. It's almost like we have this entitlement.

⁓ If I pay for something, it should work. We have this entitlement and this expectation and then it doesn't, we're disappointed and I've wasted money. I personally, all of my investments in education, I've learned something. Maybe it's what I don't want to do. Maybe it's what I do want to do. then you combine that with your values and you end up developing something that is very unique to you. So I'm going to tell people when I'm talking to them about Elevate,

Nicole Begley (23:50)
huh.

Okay.

Heather (24:09)
I'm going to say, listen, I have those things and you're going to experience friction because I know your brain is going to take over and start all of its craziness. And I am prepared to help you through that. So we are going to not try to avoid the friction. We're going be like, yeah, of course there's, are going to be challenges. What do you think of that? Yeah.

Nicole Begley (24:26)
Jump in. The friction of growth.

Here's the thing. Here's another little like mind swap there for thoughts is that if you purchase something, whatever, and you're like plug and play and you're like copy paste, it's like that study they did with AI where like people used AI to make something and like 30 seconds later, they had no idea what they wrote because they didn't write it.

Heather (24:54)
Right.

Nicole Begley (24:54)
So it's just like goes through their brain. So if you're doing that with the program, you're like, take this, copy this, take this, post this, do this, do that. And you're not invested in figuring out how it works best for you. I don't think you've learned anything because you can't replicate it. When all of a sudden you're like, where are my inquiries now in quarter one, I need to make some money. You can't think of like, all right, what's worked for me in the past? What can I do? ⁓

You aren't able to problem solve from a place of actually getting results because you haven't done the experimentation to figure out what works best for you in your business. I mean, there's so many pieces, which is why so many people, once they get an elevate, they stay for a long time because it's like an onion. You start to be like, all right, well, why am I not taking that action? What am I thinking that's causing me? OK, that I'm being pushy. OK.

Why am I thinking that? How do I get around that? Okay, I've accepted that. Then the next piece comes up of like, ⁓ now it's working. Now I'm worried that I'm gonna lose it. Okay, let's unpack those thoughts. Like we all continue to think, so we all continue to have new thoughts, some of them serving us, some of them not, yeah, it's just, it's a continued process. So what Elevate is actually teaching people to do?

is how to do that process.

Heather (26:22)
Yeah, how to think, like how to anticipate the friction and not feel like you want to avoid it. Yeah. Right. So I said to this client, I said, so you're asking for which one of these has the least amount of friction. And I'm saying if we knew there was going to be friction no matter what, which one would you choose and why? And she immediately said she would choose her gut.

Nicole Begley (26:28)
and take the action. Yeah, not actually take the action. Yeah.

Mm. Mm.

Heather (26:48)
I said, great, then go with your gut and we'll deal with the friction.

Nicole Begley (26:52)
Yeah. Yep.

Heather (26:54)
It's not a problem. I'm not trying to avoid it. So I mean, I've said this myself. I mean, kind of in jest, but I'm sort of serious. It's like I tell my coach, please, I beg of you. If you would just tell me what to do, I promise you I would do it. I would execute. I would be the best student ever. You know, which is what I'm saying there is give me the step by step so I don't have to experience any pain, any struggle or any friction. But if that, if you just. That's it.

Nicole Begley (27:17)
Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Or disappointment. Like you're

looking for it because you want to avoid the disappointment. Whether you're like, because I look at myself and I'm like, I don't tend to get down on myself if something's not working. Like I tend not to go there, but there is still, I'm sure, a piece of me in my subconscious that doesn't want to waste the time doing something that's not going to work.

that doesn't want to spend the energy doing something that's not gonna work. And then there probably is a piece of subconscious that that little voice is still like, see, I told you that still wasn't gonna work. And you're like, you know, even though like I try not to give that voice any airtime, it's still there, it's still trying.

Heather (27:57)
I doing?

Yes.

Yes. So it's so interesting you say the thing about disappointment, which is also akin to failure. You you don't want to feel in the wasting of time is I am working on a series for Elevate. It will be out, I believe, in September. Please don't quote me. And I'm calling it capacity work. This is something I learned from my coach and sort of developed my own spin. But what I tell myself every day, I'm not kidding, every day is I am increasing my capacity to feel disappointment.

Nicole Begley (28:31)
Mm-hmm. You lean into it. ⁓

Heather (28:32)
and it's not a problem because then I don't have to, then I'm not avoiding it because it's like,

yeah, there's going to be disappointment. And so what? And also part of that, that waste time thing is I was, I was telling, I was on a group call maybe a couple months ago and elevate someone had said, well, the reason I want the right answer is I don't want to waste time. And I said, I understand that if that's a concept that matters to you, I do not.

have those words or that concept in my vocabulary. I never think that I'm wasting time. And listen, I'm for real in every area of my life. don't. It's I'm so extreme. I know very passionate, but I just don't have that concept. So because here's the thing, if you think you're wasting time and it's a problem because you're not going to get paid, you're not going to be able to pay your bills and you make it this huge spiral catastrophe, then of course,

Nicole Begley (29:07)
This we're learning.

Heather (29:29)
you are going to feel pressure to pick the right answer because you don't have time for the friction. You're like, no, I just need to figure this out. Well, I don't think that way. And because I don't think that way, I'm just constantly available for experiments and taking action and learning more in building a foundation and expecting, anticipating, and even welcoming the friction and the disappointment.

Nicole Begley (29:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (29:57)
Imagine what that can do for you. Nicole, imagine it! A lot!

Nicole Begley (30:00)
A lot? Yeah.

It's huge.

Heather (30:04)
Yeah, this

is it. This is so I was talking with the progress friends and ⁓ I was like, I'm telling you, I've landed on something here. This just this concept of what what we think we want when we purchase a program or we go into something like elevate is like what we're asking for is, hey, could you eliminate the friction for me? And I'm saying, no, I can't. I won't. And in fact, I want to use it to refine you. And that's where the ⁓

I call it the cognitive optimization comes in, not mindset. I'm calling it cognitive optimization. That's where it comes in because if you are constantly worried about not wasting time and picking the right thing and you're hesitating, you're actually wasting time doing that. That is wasting time. Verse, if you feel like you're always making progress and you take a ton of action and you're not, this is going to sound strange.

Nicole Begley (30:50)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (31:00)
You're not actually as concerned as to whether it works or not. It's like, okay, you are, but to some degree you're like, well, I'm taking action to figure out what works. So I'm just in, and there's going to be a challenge and an obstacle in so what? It's just not a problem. It's not a problem. And then I'm going to go on to the next thing. then, you know, after a couple of weeks or months, I have all of these experiments under my belt. I have so much information and ultimately that's what will speed things up for you.

Nicole Begley (31:30)
Mm-hmm. Yes. 100%. And I think the key to that is making our success and failure hinge on our action in action, not the outcome. Like I try to do that too, or people are like, all right, my goal is to have eight new clients spend $2,000. Great. Okay. Great goal. Let's, let's keep that goal. However, let's make the actual goal, the action that you commit to take.

Heather (31:42)
Mm.

Nicole Begley (31:59)
to get those eight clients. So is that I am going to do, you know, donate to four silent auctions and do a charitable marketing thing. And I'm to do this event and I'm going to like figure out what you're going to do and celebrate the win of doing that. And then the actual goal of your success, like still still plan out what you hope the outcome will be. I'm not saying like not to plan that, but I'm saying

Heather (32:01)
That's really good.

Yes.

Nicole Begley (32:29)
Don't hinge your success or failure on that because that technically is always out of our control. We can't control whether somebody decides yes or no, I'm gonna buy. We can control letting people know that there's an opportunity to purchase what we have to offer.

Heather (32:45)
love that. I love all of this. I feel like this capacity work that we'll be doing about increasing your capacity to feel the disappointment or the quote failure or to feel the friction and not make any of it a problem. I was actually working with another client yesterday. We did that episode on like, think I should be further ahead, right? And we're just like impatient. She was talking about cultivating more patience for her journey.

Nicole Begley (32:46)
I'm fine.

Heather (33:14)
what it takes to get there and she's incredible strides. I said to her yesterday, know, sometimes we also might be helpful to look at it slightly different. So you could say, I'm cultivating patience, or you could say, I'm increasing my capacity to feel impatient and not make it a problem. Isn't that interesting? It's like a different angle on it. my gosh, Nicole.

Nicole Begley (33:34)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (33:38)
I cannot wait for this capacity work. This all started several years ago when I told you first, I said, I am increasing my capacity for complexity. And I said that because it seemed to me at the time you were always able to juggle so many things and these, you know, complex. Right. Well, we didn't know it, but yeah, that's what it was like. That's how that played out.

Nicole Begley (33:50)
huh. huh.

⁓ Hashtag ADHD brain. ⁓ that turns out tracks. Okay.

Heather (34:08)
Like the puzzles you were able to put together. And I was like, my gosh, I'm such a simpleton. I need to figure out how to do more things. And so I said, I'm going to increase my capacity for complexity. And that thought changed my life. It changed my business. And so I've been practicing that for years. And so I just decided to expand that to different types of capacity and... ⁓

Nicole Begley (34:10)
Yeah.

I love it.

Heather (34:31)
After the four week challenge, I'm really diving in more into that material for the next thing inside of Elevate. You really don't want to miss it. You don't.

Nicole Begley (34:37)
I love it. That's

fantastic. And I think one of the easiest thoughts that we can do is to shift from friction being bad to just like, friction's the growth, friction's the good. Like when I have more friction, I will have more outcome.

Heather (34:57)
Yeah, that's good. Therefore, I'm looking for friction.

Nicole Begley (34:59)
Yeah. Yeah,

exactly. Like how can I add more friction in this? Like how can I grow from this? how like it's instead of us looking for easy, just like let's, let's not that we're going to make it hard. Don't miss me. Not saying like, ⁓ okay. Well, I could do it this way, but this way is way harder with more friction. Let's do that. Like, okay. Still work efficiently. ⁓ but don't avoid.

Heather (35:14)
Now, right.

Nicole Begley (35:27)
Like so many people try to avoid that friction. I feel like we should come up with some other words for it too, but like just because it feels hard to describe what that is. yeah. Yeah.

Heather (35:38)
Well, listen, I just came, as you were describing

this, it's popped into my brain like a metaphor for that is like, you know how heat speeds things up? Like if you have a fever and you can tolerate it, you should let the fever ride out. It speeds up the chemical reactions in your body, speeds up healing. Well, friction, you know, when you like rub your hands together or something, friction produces heat and heat speeds things up. So like, I'm looking for the heat, bring on the heat. I'm looking for the challenges and the obstacles because I'm

Nicole Begley (35:46)
Bye!

Mm-hmm.

Heather (36:07)
I know that that's going to better suit me to learn to grow, manage this business. And everything gets, I think, everything in business, it shifts, it gets kind of, I don't want to say easier, but you just learn so much as you're going that you're like, ⁓ okay, that's not a problem. That's not a problem.

Nicole Begley (36:25)
Well, the things that

used to be hard become easy. And then there's always new, new areas of growth presented to us, new areas of friction. ⁓ but yeah, another good metaphor too, it'd just be like, you know, going to the gym and lifting some weights. Like you have to stretch that muscle. It's not comfortable. You're not like, this is great. And there is no resistance here at all. Like then you're not doing anything. So if, if you're just running through your business and there's literally nothing that you're stretching.

Heather (36:28)
Yes.

Hmm.

Right.

Nicole Begley (36:54)
then you're certainly not going to grow. And maybe some people would like the goal is, all right, I've built my business and I have systems that work and I know exactly what to expect. And yeah, there can be some times that we build systems and it does get a little bit easier. But if you're ready to up level that next level of growth, there's going to be some friction. Also reminds me another good one is there's that... ⁓

⁓ Well, just regular planes. But then my mind went to that one bomber. ⁓ I forget what it is. It's at the Air and Space Museum in Dallas, in DC. And it was, there's a book called Skunk Works written about it. was like this, it's made out of titanium because anything less, any other metal would melt because it would fly so fast and so high. And like,

Heather (37:40)
Mm.

Nicole Begley (37:42)
You would fill it up with gas on the ground and it would just fall out because it would expand when it got up into the air and then hold the gas. But if you didn't like the plane would crack it, like wouldn't it just would go so fast because it would expand that metal. Anyway, there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Heather (37:58)
somewhere. It's for sure there. But

I just also, I want everyone to think that like when you join a program, you have an expectation that it's going to work. And you should, by the way, if you're paying money, right? There should be value there. But also, that expectation has to be connected to your responsibility to change things and put in effort. It's like, you know, I'm not going to just pay for this program.

do it exactly as it says and then complain when it doesn't work. I'm going to accept responsibility for my role, which is you have to put your own spin on it. You have to. I always say if there's a template and I can try the template for, this reminds me of a recipe. If there's a recipe, I try the recipe first as is and okay, if it works, great. But if it doesn't, I'm prepared to make changes so that I can make it my own. And this is the same for your business.

But here's the thing, unbeknownst to us, sub-level, we want to choose something that we can pay for that doesn't have friction, that will just work so we don't have to think. You don't want to have to think or try because then it kind of puts you on the line. What does it mean about you? And some of us haven't been willing to do that. And that's okay. It's like, okay.

I wasn't ready to accept responsibility for that. And now I am that there's, my role in this and I'm going to jump into any program, Elevate, for example, and I'm going to take what I learn. I'm going to put my own spin on it and then I'm going to get help. And that's, that's it. It's like having the resource to get help, because here's the thing, if you follow something exactly, not even a photography course, I don't know, I can't think of something and it doesn't work. The person who, who like,

developed it might say, well, it didn't work because you didn't do it exactly like I said. You know, you have to do it exactly like I said. And I'm saying don't do it exactly like I say. And, and I'm going to be your resource. are inside of Elevate, myself and the coaches in the community to support you when you take a component here and a component there and you put your own spin on it. We will support you in that new unique version that you've created so that you can make it work.

Nicole Begley (40:21)
Yeah, a hundred percent. That's, that's the key is that you have the support to help you help you talk through these things. Yeah. Hundred percent. my gosh. This is so good. So good. I'm so excited. I am so excited for the four week challenge. Get four clients in four weeks. You guys it's free. It's four weeks of coaching to help you get four clients. So, ⁓ the return on investment in that is like a million percent because it's ⁓

Heather (40:29)
Your resource. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Nicole Begley (40:49)
Get in there, hair of the dog academy.com slash for the number four, the letter C is in cat or clients, the letter four. No, that's a number. Oh my gosh. Let me start again. Let me start again. Here are the dog academy.com slash four C four W the fours are the number. The letters are letters. That's all for clients in four weeks is what it stands for. Cause

Heather (41:13)
Perfect. Yeah.

Yes.

Nicole Begley (41:16)
And then I made that up as we were voxering back and forth. And I'm just like, it's the 4C4W training because saying four clients in four weeks, when we talk about it as much as we do, it becomes challenging. ⁓ It's too much friction. That's too much friction. That's what the more.

Heather (41:21)
I love that.

It's kind of long. Yeah.

Yeah, and guess what?

I'm going to teach you how to do this and I fully anticipate that you will put your own spin on it. And I would never, I would never expect anyone to do it exactly like if they do it exactly like I said, that's fine. I don't have a problem with it, but I wouldn't expect that. I would think, yeah, here's what I'm gonna show you and you should try your own way. And if it works, if it doesn't work, come back and let's talk and we'll figure it out together. Please let me help you.

Nicole Begley (41:54)
Yep.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right guys, go register for that. And, ⁓ in the meantime, let us know if you want to do progress lab sometime 2026 and we'll, we'll look at getting a, a minimum contingent together and, ⁓ yeah, we'll talk to you soon. Have a good one. Everybody.