Podcast Ep 365 - Are you behind? Do you think you should be further along?

Feeling like you're behind in your business journey? You’re not alone. In this honest and empowering conversation, Heather Lahtinen is joined by her friend Nicole Begley to unpack the all-too-common mindset of “I should be further along by now.”

They discuss how moving goalposts can distort your sense of progress, why marketing may never feel “easy,” and how to shift your perspective to build confidence in your unique timeline.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just getting started, this episode will help you reset your expectations, celebrate non-revenue victories, and stay grounded in belief, not panic.

Show Notes:

• The illusion of “falling behind” and why it's so common for entrepreneurs
• Why goalposts keep moving and how that affects your mindset
• What it really means to make progress (spoiler: it’s not just revenue)
• The importance of identifying non-revenue victories (NRVs)
• How to evaluate your business from a place of belief, not scarcity
• The difference between inspired action and desperate action
  
  

Join our next free coaching workshop: www.getcoachedbyheather.com

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Connect:

Heather Lahtinen: Website, Facebook, Instagram

Nicole Begley: https://hairofthedogacademy.com/

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TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the Flourish Academy podcast and today I'm sharing a conversation

with my friend Nicole Begley around what it means to feel like you are "behind in

business" and how to navigate the ever -moving goalposts that we all face as

entrepreneurs. My name is Heather Lahtinen and I'm a photographer, educator and

entrepreneur and I founded the Flourish Academy as a resource for photographers of

all levels. We want to help you pursue your passion on your own terms because we

believe there is room for everyone. In this podcast, we focus on creating

breakthroughs with your mindset to discover the things that are really holding you

back in business and life. Today, we are diving into a real and hopefully relatable

conversation about measuring progress and then managing your thoughts around that

progress or lack thereof and building belief in your own timeline with perspective

shifts and practical insight from both Nicole and myself.

I hope that you enjoy our conversation. Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography

Podcast. I am your host Nicole Bigley and today I'm gonna blast from the past back

here with me. It's been a long time since she's been on the podcast. It's been a

long time since we've really caught up and talked about these things because, well,

I was away quite a bit and her husband had a, what did you call it? A cardiac

indiscretion. - I called it a coronary indiscretion. I like to say that a couple of

weeks ago, my husband tried to die, but it didn't work. And thankfully he's still

here and everything's okay. In fact, I think maybe we should do a separate podcast

on dealing with crises in your business and how you manage clients and your thoughts

and momentum and getting back into it because life is going to happen. So we should

maybe make a note of that for a future episode. - Tune back in next time,

guys. That was this. All right, great. But anyway, if you'd recognize that voice,

the one and only Heather Lawton is back on the podcast. Yeah. And thankfully, I

mean, thankfully it wasn't an emergency emergency surgery. It was emergent in that we

need to get him in like next week. But it wasn't like, oh my God, rush to the

hospital, like scared, like that would have been like extra, extra terrifying. So

thankfully Craig is on the mend. Yeah. I was thinking about that. So we saw the

surgeon on Friday and his surgery was Tuesday and I actually wanted them to wheel

him back immediately because I was so concerned. But the timeline did happen really

quickly. And for that, I'm actually grateful because to me having things happen

condensed is easier than something drawn out. You know, like, let's go, let's just

get it done and get moving. Yep. I love it. I love it. Yeah. And then before

that, I hadn't talked to you really much because I was off teaching the on delusion

adventure, our equine and dog photography shop with Shelly Paulson, which was amazing

in southern Spain, not going to lie, I could have stayed there really forever. And

then I came home for a week and then family and I went out to California for

spring break to get somebody and Sequoia and visiting my stepbrother. So it's been

crazy. And now it's almost the end of May, which where the heck is the year gone?

Well, that's because you're gallivanting all over the world, Nicole, of course time

is going, I mean, hey, I do have a question for you. I'm not going to stop

galamanting, by the way, must galamant. Okay. It's necessary, right,

or you would die. Okay, just out of curiosity, if you could pick anywhere in the

world to live, where would it be?

Okay, that's hard though, because like I love the Baltic countries. I love Iceland.

I love Finland. But I couldn't handle the weather. I need like Southern Spain,

Mediterranean, Italy, Southern France, something like that. So I don't know. I don't

know. I mean, actually, I could probably, I could probably live in Australia. The

only bummer with that is it takes approximately 37 days to get anywhere else on the

Right, right. That is a problem. Yeah. Or New Zealand. Oh my gosh, I love New

Zealand so much. So yeah, so visas and the legality to live there and finances are

no consideration 100 % New Zealand. Okay, there you go. Perfect. I was just curious.

Yeah, yeah, love it. Yeah, Queenstown, South Island. Amazing. Or I thought I'd live

in the jungles of Costa Rica too. Would you? I just read a book that was based

out of Peru and I was like, man, that jungle stuff is rough. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I love Costa Rica. Okay. Okay. Anyway, I could go on for this conversation for

a long time, but today we are talking actually the timeline piece works into this

well because I feel like a lot of people, basically all of us are for human tend

to struggle with the same thing, which is what we call the moving goalpost.

I don't know if you've ever seen a football field where the goalposts are moving

back and forth. It's like a miniature golf course, actually. Let's let's do it that

way. Like you know, the miniature golf course, the high end ones that have moving

things, not the little local like side of the road one, but, um, you know, they're

moving. And so a lot of us, we tend to just completely overlook how far we've

come. And we're always just eyes on the next thing. And I know I'm guilty of that

too, because I forever have a new goal, a new goal, a new goal. So yeah, a lot

of people are get down on themselves and think that they should be further along by

now, because there is some handbook that says exactly how quickly you should progress

in your business. Yeah, right. I'd love to read that manual, by the way, but

everyone says some version of I should be further alone or I'm behind or why,

why haven't I hit this imaginary point yet? And they will provide me with extensive

evidence to support that by saying things like, well, Heather, I've been doing this

for three years. Don't you think I should be at this point or five years or eight

years or in my case, 22 years. So I definitely should be further along than it.

But like, what is that? Wait, what? Further along? Where specifically do you think

you should be? Because this is important. Words matter. We always say this. That

when you say I should be further along, that's a very, that's very vague language.

Like, where do you mean specifically? Is it a certain number of clients? Is it

revenue? I bet a lot of it often is a revenue goal because that's the easiest way

to judge, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. But also, like, is it,

I think there's, there's this other vague component of like, things should be easier

by now. So there's, there's definitely number of clients in revenue. Those are easy

to measure. But then there's this general sense of the business, getting clients

marketing, for example, should be easier than it is. And I'm disappointed because

that means that I'm behind. And when I work with clients directly on this or inside

of Elevate, I just get really curious and I ask a series of questions because I

wanna hear more specifics. Where exactly should you be in revenue? Where exactly with

number of clients. And what does it mean that marketing or getting clients is

easier? And are you sure that's the goal? - Yeah, I mean, I don't know about you,

but I know that I've been doing, I've been a photographer since 2010. So I've been

running my own business for 15 years now. And like marketing is never a quote

easier. Like Like the game is always changing the things that worked in the past

have to change and change what the economy changed with people's buying habits change

with the sophistication of the market. Like just all of those things are always

changing. This actually reminds me I didn't want to plug an old episode that we

recorded episode 197 the gap of the gap in the game that was back on January 20

2023. Wow. - If you guys haven't listened to that one, go listen to it. It's

really, really good. It's at a fantastic book by Benjamin Hardy, right? - Yes. - And

it's a short, easy read, but it's really about how our brains are wired to always

be looking at the gap of like, where am I falling short versus how far have I

come? And if you look back from where you started this business, I guarantee you,

you're ahead of where you were. And everybody's path is different. Like some people

maybe are doing this full time and they have the time to devote more time to it

so they can move quicker. But maybe you're, you know, have older dogs and you have

a full time job or you're caring for a parent or like you have other life

responsibilities. So you're doing this super part time, which I think is one of the

beauty things of and it's just they can still be profitable part time. So like

it's, it's just a great, it's a great job no matter kind of, you know, you get to

get paid for doing something you love. I mean, it's just unbelievable how lucky we

are. And if you focus on that, oh my gosh, I can't believe that this is real

life. So not all, but many of our listeners photograph puppies, you get to

photograph puppies and make money. Are you kidding me? Is this even real life?

that's such a dream and I promise that you are much further ahead than your brain

is allowing you to see because of what you just said if you if you're looking for

where you're lacking there's gonna I mean you will find the evidence of that but if

you look at how far you've come and what you've learned you are light years ahead

of where you were and I mean even if you started last year I mean last week you

have already learned so much. And furthermore, where do you create your future from?

If you want to create a better future, a different future, does it make sense to

create it from the past? Right. Right. No,

it doesn't. You create your future from a vision for a better future. So, being

fixated on the past or where you're lacking is just not helpful unless there's only

one reason to look backwards, unless you are congratulating yourself on how far

you've come.

Yeah. And then look in the past. Yeah. Which we've also done. Oh my gosh. Let me

look it up real quick because it was also a good, a great episode. There you go.

Episode 217, November 14th, 2023, 2023 was apparently included in the project. Yeah.

And it was NRV, Rock Your Financial Goals, which NRV remember was the non -revenue

victories. - I forgot. - Uh -huh. That was with one of our elevate clients that she

was kicking herself for any sort of lack of growth on her revenue side of things.

And especially if there was ever a dip, like being so hard on herself, which

obviously when you do that, nothing good's going to come out of it. Because kicking

yourself while you're down is not how you pull yourself out of the hole.

So we had her to start to write down her non -revenue victories every day, which I

mean, so many things that could be just doing it in like, this is one of my other

favorite things that you know, my coach James, one more has said numerous times is

when you're setting goals, don't have the success of the goal be tied to an outcome

you can't control. So the success of my goal should not be a revenue number in my

business. The success of my goal should be, did I do the marketing things that I

said I was going to do with the goal of hitting that revenue number because that

you can control. And that gives you something to focus on and a binary. I did it

or I didn't do it. Oh, I love that. And then you can congratulate yourself for the

effort and the action and not necessarily, well, did I get clients or did I make

this amount of money? Oh, that's weird. You know, I totally forgot about the NRVs.

I'm going to bring that up and elevate again, probably tomorrow. We have a strategy

call talking about looking at what you've achieved achieved and how far you've come

and just being so grateful and honoring yourself and your past efforts instead of,

like you said, beating yourself up because you can't hate yourself to a successful

business. You're never going to get there by looking backwards and beating yourself

up and feeling kind of panicky. You had said at one point that,

you know, what speeds up results is not panic, right? But belief when you believe

that you're going to get there and oh, I know what it was. We had, oh, you did

this for me. Oh my gosh. I got a backup a couple of years ago. I was talking

about my million dollar goal for my business and you had said to me, do you

believe that that is like in your future. And I said, yes. And you said,

okay, so it's on your timeline. And I said, yes. And then you're like, okay,

well, then, then it's done. What's the problem? Well, and also we created time, like

time is an illusion that humans created. So like, if you want to get all woo and

like start to dip into like quantum physics, like science quantum physics, not just

like woo, but like time is on like, these all exist in some,

some space and point time continuum. Like there is a point out there that you are

running your million dollar business. And if you believe that, yeah, I can see that

happening, take the timepiece away from it. Like if I said to you, are you going

to have a million dollar business in the next two weeks? No, no. But if I say,

you know, at some point, some point in the next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.

You're like, well, heck yeah. And if you can believe that, if you can believe that

whatever your goal is, is possible at some point on an extended timeline without

time constraints, then just drop into that and know that like, all right, it already

exists out there. And then you can get really kind of crazy and go like sit quiet,

meditate journal. And like that version of you this somewhere. And you can kind of

ask yourself, or what did I do to get there? Another requires a little meditative

practice and getting your brain kind of clear. And sometimes it doesn't come right

away. But one thing that does always happen when you ask your subconscious brain is

it has to answer. So you might get the answer when you sleep, when you dream,

when you wake up, when you're walking the dog three days from now. But if you keep

asking that question, the answer will come. - Oh, that's so interesting. So you're

suggesting that just focusing on the outcome or the result or the goal is more

important than the timeframe, like setting that time. - Focusing on the belief that

it's possible. - Yes. - And the belief that it's there and the belief that there is

a version of you that did it. - Yes. - Yeah. - Then I think what could be tripping

many people up think I know is setting these things or making these imaginary

timelines like I should be further along or I'm slow or I haven't hit this, this

should have happened by now, which is like all made up number one,

but then that is you dishonoring your efforts and your journey. So it's like, how

could you honor your own timeline by saying, I know this is going to happen.

And I respect that it's going to take as long as it takes. - Uh -huh. - Yeah. - But

then you've relaxed. - Yeah, and that's also part of the process too. That like,

let's say that next week, all of a sudden you dropped into this million dollar

business. Let's say that the person that's starting their photography business, that

they've had five clients that like $500 each. Like, man, I really want that

of a new business and boom, they were there. You have not built up the systems to

support said business so that business would crash and burn. There is a reason that

we have to kind of build our businesses we go is because we need to learn those

lessons so that we can, we can accept that bigger business. And here's,

sorry, spoiler alert. As your business grows, the level of challenges, I don't want

to say problems, but the level of challenges in your business also will grow. So

our mentor James, that's one of his other quotes that he always says, which is so

true that the level of your business will grow to the level of problems you, oh

gosh, I'm messing on that. - No, you're right, are willing to solve. - Yeah, are

willing to solve, about 100%. Because these are the things where, even just now in

my business, all of you guys out there, you have gotten to know and love Liz as

we all have. She was the person behind the support, email, hair of the dog. She

managed everybody's onboarding, offboarding, like any questions about access and

membership and billing. Like she did so many things, sent out the reminders of the

calls. Like she, she was like the main glue holding, making sure that things kept

functioning here because I cannot do repetitive things because I need to keep

creating and coaching and having fun with you guys. Anyway, she is moving on. She's

been with us for almost six years. Like she has been through the entire evolution

of of hair of the dog really. And yeah, it's it's one of the things of course,

we're going to miss her terribly. But like, I could choose to be, Oh my God,

what am I going to do? Panic, panic, panic. Because Heather, I don't even know all

the things she does. Like, I don't, I don't know what the process is when someone

cancels their membership. Like, we talked about it a long time ago, but she just

runs with it. But anyway, I trust that like, this is fine. This is, you know,

going to work out wonderful. And, you know, well, it's an opportunity to reevaluate

systems. We're bringing on Ginger Wick. You guys might know her in the community

because she's been in the community for a long time. She is amazing and detail

oriented and she's going to step right in and do a great job. But I had a choice

when Liz said she was moving on. And that was I could sit here and like focus on

the gap, focus on the challenges, or I can say we're going to miss you.

Let's like, you know, let's, let's, this has just a new opportunity for it's

everything's going to be fine. Yeah. And that was a choice. That was a choice you

made. And listen, the option to feel panic would have been valid. Yeah.

Right. Cause the truth is it is going to be challenge, challenging to make this

shift for you and for ginger and for Liz, you know, So panic would have been like,

yeah, I can see why you would panic over that. You had to like take a breath and

say, we can figure this out and it's going to be okay. And in fact, this is

exactly what my business needs to go to the next level. Instead of fighting it,

respecting the journey. If you are not respecting the journey, you are slowing it

or get that on a T -shirt. - I don't think that's what people want. But they say,

I mean, I was talking to someone, maybe it was a couple of weeks ago, three years.

She had been in business three years and she was just very, she was feeling very

defeated because she was thinking she should be further along. But to your point,

the reason I don't have a million dollar business right now is because I couldn't

handle a million dollar business. I wouldn't blow it up. I wouldn't know what to

do. So if you're thinking, well, I've been in business three years, I should have

six figure revenue. No, you actually should not because you haven't built, you said

the systems and I would add to that the mind management, you need the systems and

the mind management to get to that next level and you, you haven't built that and

that's okay. It's not a problem. It's just part of the journey. So what if you

could drop into the belief that not only is it happening, but that at every point

it's happening for you and you're getting there at the exact right time because

here's why it feels much better, much more relaxed to think that than to think,

Oh my gosh, I'm an idiot. I'm behind. And by the way, like you had said,

you're always moving the goalpost anyway, because you're going to get to that six

figure revenue and then you're going to be like, okay, that's great. What's next?

You know, it's always going to be the next challenge. That's what we're made for.

We're made for progress. So it's fine. Yep. Yep. Yep. I do want to talk about

though, like when you're in that comparison in that gap, and then you're trying to

shift out of it, I see so many people trying to take action from that desperation

place. And there is a huge difference between taking what I call inspired action

versus reactive action or reactive desperation. So yeah,

I would just love to talk about that a little bit and like what those differences

are and how people can tell which place they're working from. You can just ask

yourself, how am I feeling about this? And if you come back with, I'm feeling

scarcity, I'm feeling kind of desperate, I'm feeling anxious. And I feel this need

but Heather, but Heather, I'm taking action. So it's okay. You know, they're they're

taking what you said was uninspired reactive action or uninspired action was like,

it's like, it's like, you know, it's just like,

go, go, go, go, go, do all of these things. And it leads to a lot of spinning

your wheels. And you feel like you're kind of stuck in the mud, but you're taking

action. So you sort of feel like you're being productive, but it's all under this

guise of, well, you think it's productive, but it's actually not. It's just because

it's scarcity action. And you'll know by how you feel about it. You feel more

relaxed and motivated when you are taking inspired action that feels controlled.

That's the difference. There's action that feels very out of control and there's

action it feels focused and inspired and controlled and just good.

You know, it just feels like you're making progress in the right direction. You

first awareness, that's always, that's always where we start. How am I feeling about

this? And if you notice that you're feeling any of the negative emotions, that's

your opportunity to just take a breath and get really curious about what you're

thinking that's driving that behavior. I promise you those thoughts are not good and

they are not serving you. And that's okay. No judgment. No judgment. Yeah, we all

end up there sometimes and we have to pull ourselves out. So what's the best way

to start to pull ourselves out of that when we realize we're like, oh, man, I am

like clamoring desperate action. Like I am spiraling. Yeah,

sometimes I mean, I'm going to lie. Sometimes it's impossible. So what I would

recommend is you go to www .getcoachedbyheather .com. I have free complimentary.

I call them fast track coaching workshops where you can bring that to me and I can

help you. I mean, sometimes you just need an outside resource. This is true. I want

to teach you. I want to enable you empower you to coach yourself, of course, but

sometimes like This is why I have a business coach. This is why I have a life

coach because that spiral can be like, it starts with something like, no, no, no,

no, you don't understand Heather. You don't understand. I actually need the money. I

can't pay my bills unless I get this money. And so we try to justify our thoughts

and our feelings with these circumstances. And that's where you just need help, you

know, seeing it from a different perspective. If you are attempting to coach

yourself, which I do and is a great skill. It's just, first of all, the awareness

we talked about that. And it's like, how do I want to feel about this? What kind

of, I want to take inspired action? No kidding. What would I need to think or

believe to take inspired action? If you wrote that down,

what would I need to think or believe or even feel, think, believe, feel To take

inspired action, you're going to say when you're in this space, you're going to be

like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't understand the question. I don't know

what you're talking about. Just take a minute. Take a breath. Give yourself some

space. Maybe that means time. Maybe you just need a nap or something to eat. Go

get a snack, drink some water, give yourself space, come back to it. What would a

person, maybe it's not you, what would someone else need to think or believe to

take inspired action. What does Nicole think or believe? So maybe you could extend

that to somebody that you respect or is successful. You say, I wonder what she's

thinking. Well, she's probably thinking that she's going to figure this out. She's

probably thinking that she's doing a lot of really good, right things.

She probably believes in herself or has this has generated the self concept of I

know what I'm doing and I have resources and I'll figure it out. And you know,

like the self belief, the belief that I can do this confidence, you kind of

generate your own confidence and that feels good and hopeful. And then that leads to

inspired action. It's okay if you're not there yet. It's just like, is there

something better than what I'm currently thinking. Could I poke holes in what I'm

currently thinking and just get to something we call them ladder beliefs, you know,

where we take a not so helpful belief and we just like take it up one notch,

maybe. - That's all we had to do for my time scarcity, right? I remember you

throwing out all the things. Can you believe there's enough time to get things done?

No, can you believe you'll get the important things done. No. I was very much just

like, no, Heather, I can't. You're like, can you believe you have five hours a day

to, to work? I'm like, yes. You know, then you're like, wait, and isn't that

exactly what you want? I'm like, okay, okay, to shake. Yeah. You got a very

difficult client. Sometimes yeah, I was deep. I was entrenched in that. But yeah, it

started off as a ladder belief of like, all right, you have this much. Can you

believe they do this a lot with like body dysmorphia, people that have, you know,

eating challenges, like body image challenges, where it's like,

can you believe you're beautiful? Can you believe this? No, no, no. Can you believe

you have a body? Right.

Start there. But the one thing I didn't want to share as you were saying all that,

like my favorite thought that I come to all the time is there is a solution for

every problem. - Oh, you do say that. - So like if I found that I was working from

like that frantic desperate energy, I would say there is a solution to this problem.

Like what could that solution be? Let's write down a couple of different solutions.

Is there one that I feel a little bit more inclined to? Ask yourself what would

make marketing my business fun. No, I want for this because here's the kicker,

too, that what marketing works for me, what marketing works for you might not be

marketing that works for someone else. And you and I have said this, I have gotten

on this high horse several times where anyone that is telling you there is one way

to do anything in your life or business is wrong, quite frankly,

because there are a gazillion different ways to do things. And the way that works

for me might have to shift a little bit for you or your market. So there's,

yeah, there's just so many different ways. And there's always a solution to every

problem. I love that. And here's why that's a good thought to think, because

oftentimes what I will hear people say is Heather, nothing is working.

It feels Like nothing is working or I keep thinking that nothing is working to

which I would respond. Well, but there's a solution out there, right? I mean, you

believe there's a way to get this to work and they say, yes, of course. Yeah.

Okay. So what do you want to choose to think today? Do you want to think nothing

is working or do you want to think there is a solution? And that might seem like

a small shift, but it changes everything. Yes. 100%. Yeah.

And by the way, if you guys don't want to wait for the next get coach, what does

it get coached by Heather? Yeah .com. If you don't want to wait for the next get

coached by Heather .com and you want to jump right into elevate, use the code

podcast to save the $200 enrollment fee just for you guys. Yep.

Yep. We set that up. Yeah. Freedom focus formula .com /elevate. We, I'm really proud

of this Nicole. We had one of these complimentary coaching workshops earlier this

week and we had someone who rejoined elevate. So she had left elevate,

I believe due to financial constraints, but she knew, she knows that it was so

tremendously helpful and impactful for her that she figured out a way to come back.

And I think that speaks volumes as to the value of the program. Oh my gosh.

And by the way, like not gonna lie, other programs that I see that have this level

of coaching support are two or three times the price. And you and I have both had

coaches, different coaches are like, that price needs to go up dramatically for

what's in that program. We're like, nah, we want it like truly you guys one sale

pays for six months. And that by the way, that's the first challenge, I have

monthly challenges built out inside of elevate. And the month one challenge is to

make a thousand dollars in your business so that you can pay for elevate, which

means then everything else just becomes bonus, bonus money, right? Profit. And I like

to say that don't forget when you learn something, it compounds upon itself over

time. So like the ROI and just the amount of value just gets rater with the longer

you stay. And yeah, listen, you're going to make more money. There's no question.

Everybody does. And yes, you're going to have times when it feels like you're taking

two steps backwards because something is challenging you. But that's actually a good

thing because you have us to support you. And I promise you, I promise you do not

want this to be easy. You don't. You need the challenge. My best good buddy loves

complex things because she likes to solve puzzles. So if you put her in a,

it's Nicole spoiler alert, it's Nicole. If you put her in an environment or in a

business that was easy and straightforward, I think she would wither up and die. She

know I would hate it. That's why I don't like to do any of the repetitive things.

Right. Right. You need the challenge in order to move. And I have this call inside

of elevate where it's a very impassioned speech, Nicole. I mean, I was just like,

someone said to me that that was the best I ever delivered because I was so fired

up about why you want these challenges and keep this in mind. Every challenge you

face, it feels very hard, right? Maybe even insurmountable, but it's only hard until

you figure it out. And then that challenge is easy for life. Like just when you

learn how to walk, you know, and it's empowering. Yes. If you think back to one of

the most stressful or hardest things, like I look back to, um, Barks Zealand when

we were going to host a workshop in New Zealand and Kaylee was leaving two weeks

early to do some traveling prior to the workshop and was denied boarding L .A. to

New Zealand because of a visa issue. We had people flying in from all over the

world for this workshop shop. And we now have to get visas. I'm like, I can't

sneak into New Zealand. Like, what this is going to be an issue. And that's one of

those things. I'm like, man, if I can figure that out, like we fast tracked it, we

got it done. And no, no one was the wiser. And I'm like,

Okay, if I can manage that stress, whatever, we got this. I can figure anything

out. I actually encourage people to write their own mantra. And for you, it would

be, you know, a girl who can figure out how to go to New Zealand when denied visa

access can figure out anything. Yeah. So if you, if you look back at something that

challenging that you figured out, you can find evidence to support why you can make

this work, or you can find a bunch of evidence to show you how this is going to

be hard. But number one, you don't want it. Are you sure you want it to be easy?

Are you sure you want to be further ahead than where you are? Like, what if this

is just one of those things that people say? Like, I wish I was further along or

I should be making more money. Are you sure? Because I would just question that. I

don't think you should. I think you should be exactly where you are. Well, and then

there also comes the piece of, you know, the money mindset, mindset, the acceptance

of feeling, even though we all know we're worthwhile, like, but it takes a minute

to feel worthy of different things. And like, if you're not working on those as

you're climbing the mountain, like if you were just helicopter dropped, right?

Helicopter dropped on top of the mountain. That's why I forget the stats, but it's

something high 90 % of lottery winners, like end up losing everything and going back

to the same level of income or less than they had before the lottery,

because it does not fit with their identity. Like you have to accept, like all

those little lessons built upon themselves to get you to the place of success,

which if you believe it's there on that timeline somewhere, you will get there.

Just don't give up. - There's just, oh my gosh, that's it. You only have one job,

don't quit. Yeah, that's your rule that if you want to quit, you're not allowed to

quit when it's hard. Yes, yes, that yes, you can quit, but you need to quit when

it's working. I want you to quit when you just had your biggest sale. Yeah, that's

when you were allowed to quit because then we know that the reason is clean. Yep.

Yeah. But if you tell me you're quitting because you're struggling to get clients. I

just, I just question that, you know, I would just wonder, well, are you quitting

because it's hard because I don't think anyone picked up a camera to experience

stress. I think they did it for fun. You loved photography and then you thought,

could I make some money doing this? And I promise you, if you work with me, I

want it to be fun and light and easy and we're happy and we're grateful and we're

joyful, even when, even when things feel terrible and like they're not working

because I'll help you see a different perspective that helps you to appreciate the

journey. And it's like, you were saying about the lottery winners or climbing the

mountain. If you're dropped or you get the money, you didn't earn it and you know

you didn't earn it. And then your brain does all kinds of things to sabotage you,

like the lottery winners go broke and the guy falls off the mountain. I don't know.

I'm making that up. Well, in the first minute, say all of a sudden again, you were

dropping that super successful business. The first minute that things that you're

doing now are not working. Like, when you've built that from scratch, you know,

I can do it again. Like, you know that you have the power to continue to do this.

So you need to go through let me ask you something. Yeah, this is really good.

If your business poof imploded, like if the police came and said you're not allowed

to teach photography, right? You can't do everything just for whatever weird reason

just disappeared tomorrow. What are your thoughts? What would you do?

Be like, Oh, great. I'll start that travel influencing business. You would do

something else and you would figure it out because you credit card, mile hacking.

Yeah. I like, I don't think you're afraid of that. Are you? No. Why not?

Well, because I know that like they can't take away the knowledge that you gain

building the first business. So, um, I can do it again. I have no fear of

something happening in my business because I'm like, well, I built it, so I'll just

do it again. That doesn't mean I would like it, right? But I could do it doesn't

mean that things don't change. So that like marketing strategies that used to work

will always work. Like no, things are always changing and shifting. So, but I

figured it out the first time I could figure it out again. Because that's just who

you are because you went through all the challenges. Yep. I love it. This has been

really good. Yeah, this is really good. And I just want to challenge everyone if

You feel like you're behind or you should be further ahead. Just know that that's

imaginary number one and it's really not serving you. So let's,

let's choose a different thought, a better thought. Yeah. And if you guys have that

manual that says exactly like at what point you have to hit different, different,

what, what's what I'm like for points, highlights, checkpoints, you let us know,

send that because we'd love to look over it. Yeah, absolutely. And get on, because

I want to know what the manual says. Yeah, somebody clue me in and make sure you,

you join one of my free coaching workshops. And even if you, if you're not in a

position where you want to get coached, I can totally understand that because it

takes some courage. Then just join us and listen in because there's such a thing as

secondhand coaching and you can learn so much just by listening to other people get

coached. These workshops are always free, but the replay is only available inside of

elevate. Yeah, I love it. Awesome. All right, guys. Great catching up with you,

Heather. Yes. Thank you. See you guys soon. Bye, everybody.