Podcast Ep 352 - Fear of success or success intolerance? Either way, you could be blocking yourself!

Success intolerance is one of the biggest hidden barriers to growth, yet most people don’t even realize they have it. In this episode, Heather Lahtinen and Nicole Begley break down the difference between fear of success and success intolerance. They explore how subconscious resistance to success can manifest as self-sabotage, imposter syndrome, and procrastination. If you’ve ever felt stuck in your business despite wanting more, this conversation is for you.

👉 Want coaching to break through your mindset blocks? Join Heather for a complimentary live coaching workshop at www.getcoachedbyheather.com!

Show Notes:

• The key difference between fear of success and success intolerance
• How subconscious resistance to success leads to self-sabotage and doubt
• Why photographers might unknowingly block their own growth
• The psychological reasons behind feeling uncomfortable with success
• Actionable steps to reprogram your mindset and embrace success

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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 we are talking about

success intolerance. 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. In this episode, I'm sharing a recent

conversation with my friend Nicole Begley around success intolerance, but before we

dive in, there is a distinction I would like to make. I'd like to point out the

difference between fear of success and success intolerance because while they are

closely related they have distinct psychological and behavioral differences.

Fear of success or anticipatory anxiety is the fear of what might happen if you

achieve success and it often manifests as worry about a potential negative consequence

of success, such as losing friends or alienating peers,

maybe increased pressure and expectations or the fear of not being able to maintain

that success. This fear often leads to hesitation and avoidance behaviors.

People hold back because they don't want to deal with the perceived downsides of

success. A great example of this is photographers that hold themselves back worried,

this is funny, worried that if they put something out there, they'll get too many

clients and then what they won't know what to do. And I always laugh because I

say, well, who controls your schedule? Like you don't have to book all of those

clients. And then what if I get all of those clients and I book all of those

clients and, and I don't have the systems in place and I screw something up and

everything is terrible. And then what if I do it, but I can't maintain it. And I'm

using that tone of voice where it's like really hurried and rushed because that is

clearly anxiety speaking. That's a fear of success, which is different from success

intolerance, which is a subconscious rejection. This is a deep,

often subconscious discomfort with being successful as if success is incompatible with

your identity or your sense of self. Rather than fearing future consequences,

it's an inability to accept success even as it happens.

This leads to self -sabotage, imposter syndrome, and unconsciously resisting actions

that would lead to growth. Success feels unsafe or foreign.

So the person unconsciously reverts to old patterns. An example of this might be a

photographer who starts booking high -end clients but feels uncomfortable with the

attention, the wealth, or the responsibility. So they procrastinate, they underdeliver,

or suddenly doubt their abilities. So the key difference is that fear of success is

anxiety about future success. Success intolerance is the inability to emotionally

accept success as a part of your identity. Both of these can keep photographers

stuck, but success intolerance is trickier because people often don't even realize

they are rejecting success. They just feel off, something isn't working, they start

to self -sabotage without knowing why. If you suspect that you may have either or

both of these issues, the best thing to do is get coaching and you can join me

for our next complimentary coaching workshop. Just head over to www .getcoachedbyheather

.com and register. I hope that you enjoy this conversation.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography podcast. I'm your host,

Nicole Bagley. And again, today, one of my favorite peeps, Heather Lottnen, she's

back in the house, ready to roll. We're talking about success intolerance,

which when I hear that, it makes it sound like there's going to be, you know, a

quick trip to the bathroom. Okay. That's just where my head went, you know,

but that's not what's happening today. That is not what we're talking about. Oh my

gosh. You're so funny. Yeah. So what happened was I'm putting together this training

for Elevate next month in our live retreat. You've got to get in on this training.

And the training is about how we block success, like the different ways that we

might be blocking success. One, just one, because there's several. One of those ways

is success intolerance, which, okay, before I like get into it,

when you hear that besides the bathroom, what else, what else do you think of?

I mean, I start to just think of just all the different ways that we could be

blocking success and I immediately go to just the subconscious ways that we might be

blocking it. So like just, and I don't know if that's partially because I've been

doing so much of this inner work over the past many years that like I know how

deep our subconscious goes to block us from things that we want because it's scared

that we will die.

So even though there's no reason for it to actually be concerned about that, but

it's trying to keep us safe. So that's just kind of where I start to go is like,

oh my gosh, there's so many things, so excuse me, that are getting in the way of

people getting what they want and likely they don't even know that that's what's

blocking it. And they're just going to then go to, "Oh, it's the market. Oh, it's

my people in my area. Oh, it's my pricing." And blame external things.

Yeah, they blame circumstances. The circumstances are what's creating the result,

which, as we've learned, that's not the way it works. But this is so funny because

listen to what I wrote as my definition or approach to success and tolerance.

I wrote, "It is the subconscious resistance to stepping into a new elevated version

of yourself." That's because it might feel foreign,

it does, if it's new, and unsafe, so you'll self -sabotage to stay in familiar

territory. Yep, oh my Oh my gosh. 100%. I think if you put that into like a way

that we could kind of drop into feelings or experiences we've had in the past is

like when you walked into kindergarten, you were like, "Oh my god, I'm at the big

school." And then by the time you're in third, fourth, fifth grade, like you own

that school. Like you are so confident in being there, but that first change. And

then you went to middle school, same thing, like sixth grade. Oh, by eighth grade,

you own the school. So it's the same thing whenever we get to a new level of our

business or start our business or grow our business, like you start off and you're

like, oh, this is different, I'm not comfortable, I don't know what's going on, am

I really cut out for this? Is this really for me, who do I think I am? And then

as you get a little bit more confident in it, you're like, yeah, no, this is where

I'm supposed to be. - That's exactly it, you nailed it. Photographers think They want

success, but deep down, they're uncomfortable with it because it's different. That was

the perfect metaphor, is being afraid of something that you were so excited to go

to school when you were going to kindergarten, you were so excited, but there is

this fear because it was uncomfortable or it was new. You could be blocking your

success just because it's uncomfortable. Yeah. Give us a list.

What are some, why would photographers block their own success? What are some

reasons? Yeah, I think the number one is fear of change. But listen,

hear me clearly. It may not be what you think. It's because even if you don't like

your current reality, meaning you're not getting the clients, you're not making the

money, you're still comfortable in it because that's what you know. So, even if your

current reality is not serving you, it's comfortable. And anything outside of that

would be scary because it would be new and it would be uncomfortable. And there's

like this thing, it's strange, Nicole, we get into these habits. This is going to

sound really kind of woo -woo, but many people are in the habit of feeling

miserable. 100 % it's what they know. It's what they know. And so they stay in it.

They will, they will tell me all day long. No, Heather, this is not what I want.

I'm miserable. I'm trying. I want to get out of this. Now, listen, I believe them

on because I believe that that's what they're thinking. But on the subconscious

level, I can see what's going on is like, They are attached to feeling badly

because that's familiar, so it's safe and it's comfortable. If you're not getting

clients and you're not making money, you might say you hate it, but your brain

actually loves it.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. Okay, so fear of change. Okay, next one is imposter syndrome,

which we've talked a lot about, and that's just believing that you're not ready for

bigger opportunities that you, you maybe can't even handle it like you wouldn't.

Okay. So this happened yesterday. Oh my gosh, we had the most fantastic coaching

call inside of Elevate. It went longer than normal because we were just on a roll.

This was two hours, but we were talking about the imposter of,

of, okay, again, it's kind of like abstract of feeling successful when you haven't

been successful. So it's like, yeah, it's like we're getting your first pet

photography client or your first photography client, you haven't had a client yet, so

you're not really a photographer yet. Yes. And you don't believe that you can handle

it. So a lot of times what people will say to me is, well, I don't, I don't have

the systems in place or I don't have the workflow or I don't know what that looks

like. And so they're blocking clients because, well, first of all, they think that

they need to have all the things. Right. And we know that's not true because how

do you learn a workflow? You have to put people in the workflow. Exactly. Yeah. So

that has to happen. But they, they say to, okay, again, not consciously, you know,

the, the brain is saying to them, well, you don't have the workflow. You don't have

the systems. You don't even have an email list. You don't have CRM. You don't have

anything. So how could you possibly take on more clients like in integrity, you

know, which is just, it's all just like, who we in your mind, you know, it doesn't

make any sense. But to your brain, it does. So there's this strange, it's not,

it's like, you know, we talked about imposter syndrome related to calling yourself a

professional photographer. When you don't believe, you don't have the self -concept as

a professional photographer, you feel like an imposter, okay, blah, blah, blah, you

work through that. This is a different layer to that. This is I can't handle or

I'm not ready for more clients, more money and more success because I don't believe

I don't have the self -concept, then I can actually manage it. So I feel like a

fraud because how am I going to do that? And it's this weird, It's this weird

cognitive dissonance tug of war almost between what you say you want.

I believe that's what you want and what in your brain is like, "No, but that's not

you. You're not organized. You don't have the system." How do you even know how to

manage the workflow from getting the client, onboarding them, photographing, editing,

delivering, et cetera? It actually brings up another thought, which the, I think that

can lead into then the beliefs of is what I'm offering worth it. Yeah. And having

that whole like sense of worth around what you actually offer. Yeah. It's what

happens is all of these things actually unbeknownst to you begin to spiral and when

they spiral, they actually are compounding on one another. So like compound interest,

but but in a bad way. It's not serving you. You don't even realize that that's

what's happening. It's just like your brain spins another story based on another

story. And then many times what we'll hear is photographers will say, "I feel

stuck." And that's a clue to me that there's probably a story on top of a story,

maybe even multiple times. Yeah. All right. So fear of change, imposter syndrome,

money mindset issues. Yeah, the next one is money mindset issues and this is,

okay, ask me, Nicole, how I know about this one. Oh, I know how you know.

We've had many conversations, my dear. Yeah, so you say you want to make more

money. Again, I believe you, but your brain is like, I can't handle that. I don't

know how to handle that. I haven't implemented profit first. I don't even know what

that means. I don't have business checking accounts. I don't know what I'm doing.

All my money is mixed. Well, you're never going to grow your business with thoughts

like that. You are absolutely blocking your success. I remember telling you at one

point, like this is like in fairly recent history, maybe three or four years ago,

I said one of the big things that scares me about growing my business is paying

more taxes. And I use profit first. So I have a system to save taxes.

It's in a savings account for my business. It's protected. I don't spend it. So I'm

very responsible. I know what I'm doing, but my brain was telling me that I wasn't.

And I was like, well, I have these. I knew I had them. It's kind of bizarre. I

knew it. Some people don't even realize this is what's happening. But it's like,

have to write a check, you know, so to speak, to the IRS for quarterly taxes every

quarter for five, 10, $15 ,000, whatever it is. I'm going to lose my crap,

man. I don't know if I can mentally handle that even with the money in the

account. I was still blocking it and I had said to you, I know I have to get

comfortable transferring these big numbers to the IRS every quarter in order to grow

or I'm always going to be blocking. Also ActionGirl has a little something that she

wants to say about that. Please. And that is, you mentioned that you have your tax

savings in a business account. The business savings accounts, generally I have not

found any that pay any sort of interest worthwhile. So you have to pay those taxes

out of your personal account anyway. Just take that all as an early owner's drop

and just keep it in a separate personal account that is your still tax account, but

then you can be getting four plus percent interest. You are a thousand percent

right? I just wanted to pop in here with my cape. Yeah, I just looked at it the

other day and I thought, what in the world am I doing? That money has to be

jammed. Especially because you have to pay for it out of your personal account

anyway. It's not like an expenditure business pays. It ends up being an owner's

draw. Yeah. Tax is paid. So yeah. No, you're right. But I want everyone to think

about like how you're managing your money now. Are you managing it? Are you getting

paid and it's going into your personal checking account? Listen, I've got to tell

you straight to your faces. If you have photography money coming into your personal

checking account, you will not be able to grow your business. You will block success

because your brain knows that that is incorrect, that is not the way that we do

it. If nothing else, go open one simple business checking account and just separate

those finances. That is like rule, starting point number one.

You have to keep them separate. You are blocking success if they're all mixed in

together. - And then next, these are all like different levels, yeah. - Yeah, and it

gets harder and harder to un -intertwine those, to retwine them. I don't know what

someone's looking for. But anyway, like as your business does, maybe start to get

off the ground, but you haven't set up some of these systems. And I get it, all

right, I can hear you guys, I can hear you. You're like, it's a catch -twenty

-tutical. You said, just get started, you don't need all the systems. And now you're

saying to get all the systems. "Well, so forget it. I can't do anything. I'm just

not going to do it." Okay, stop. Stop. There are certain systems that we do need

to get in place like ASAP, Action Girl Cape is on. We need a checking account

really and maybe get your sign up for your sales tax and just build your business.

Start there. Start there. You don't need to have 8 ,000

guide for your clients. Like that, that can be much later, but there are definitely

some things. So like ask yourself, am I avoiding setting something up that I know

my business needs, whether it's foundationally into whatever you are, maybe even to

the next step that you know, you know what you need to do to take your business

to the next level, but yet you're not doing it. So why ask yourself, what am I

avoiding? And then maybe we start to find out why we might avoid it and then just

freaking do it. Yeah. Well, that's it. It's like you ask yourself, how am I

blocking my own success here specifically related to money? And I know exactly what

you're talking about when I say the same thing, which is your only job is to get

a paying client in front of your lens. I don't care if you have zero system set

up, just go get somebody paying you in front of your lens. And then they say to

me, but Heather, you say have all of these systems in place. And that's where I

say, hold on, I did not say that we are not talking about some massive either or

black and white scenario. We are saying one business checking account, start there

just so you un -intertwine, de -twine your money.

I don't think either of those are words, but whatever, we're making them up as we

go. And you guys, I opened my business checking account with one check for 175

cents. And they laughed at me. And we talked about that. Yeah,

everybody's still be working at the bank. I don't know. Right. Right. You had the

last laugh. You're the one laughing now. So, yeah. So, all right. Okay. So how do

we block success, fear of change, imposter syndrome, money mindset issues? We're

starting to get into this too of the guilt around ambition. Yeah. There's, yeah,

built around ambition is like these internalized beliefs that success or chasing

success or just aiming towards success is somehow selfish or greedy or it's different

than what you're friends are doing. We've all been race. Yeah. Work is hard. So now

we're doing something we love. So certainly I don't deserve to be paid for something

I love. And that's guilty of me to then try to get more work doing what I'm

loving because I love it and we're not supposed to like our works. And now I feel

guilty that I like my job or, you know, and that I'm like pulling money away from

stealing money from people. Like, no, they chose to hire you because you're giving

them something about you. But anyway, Yeah, and all of all of that is bad,

You know, it's like bad or somehow criminal or evil. I remember working with

Michelle, our good friend Michelle, around this years ago, and we talked about how

when our dads went to work, it was noble to struggle. If you went to your job for

30 years that you hated and you were miserable, but you did it anyway, look at me,

to take care of your family and bring home that there was nobility in the struggle.

So the opposite of that is that if you're doing something you love for fun and

you're not struggling and it's amazing You're making ton of money. Something's wrong.

That's like alarm bells. Like that's bad. That's different. That's not what I learned

growing up That's not what I saw. So I should feel for some reason. I should feel

badly

Because they're worried about number five here, which is fear of judgment. Oh,

they're perfect Yeah, that's why they're feeling guilty because my family friends

gonna think of me when they've when especially especially if you come from you know

your family maybe you know my my grandmother grandparents were around during the

Great Depression my parents were born right after World War two like there was

definitely like they grew up with these And things of work needs to be hard,

like work is safety, like getting a job is safety, like all these pieces. So we're

over here like, I'm going to take pictures of people, kids or dogs or whatever you

want to choose pictures of. And yeah, I'm just going to do that for a living. And

people are like, no. And even if your family like wants to support you,

they're still worried about your safety because of their own programming that they

had growing up from their parents that were in the depression. So like, it's not

about you. (laughs) - Yeah, it's their crap. - Yeah. - That's right. - It's their own

thoughts and they're likely doing it out of love because they're worried for you,

but you just need to tell them, "Thank you, I'm good." - It comes from a well

-meaning place. I actually just released an episode on my podcast, 348, where I talk

about well -meaning friends and family who have opinions. Yeah,

and how we let those opinions impact us. And this, this is perfectly tied into

that, which is people are going to judge us and they're going to have thoughts

about what we are doing, what we should be doing, not be doing, charging, whatever.

And here's the bottom line to that. People are going to have their opinions and

they're entitled to them. That's fine. I'm just not going to receive them. I'm not

going to allow any negativity on any level of my mind, any of their thoughts, like

mess with me, you know, because I am so certain in my belief with what I'm doing

that what happens here is if this fear of judgment starts to really bother you,

things they say, it's because you are not in full belief about what you're doing or

what you want or the fact that you can make it work. Because I am so certain

about my mission and my vision, my business and my life. Nobody in my life messes

with me in this area because if they want to dance, I can dance. So if somebody

wants to share their opinion, I'm not only not going to receive it, but I'm going

to have my own opinion back and not receiving it is what's key here. They're going

to judge you. They're going to have thoughts. I just don't see how worrying about

it benefits me. Well, and I have two, two thoughts here. Number one is we need to

be as secure in in our how we're showing up that if somebody said to me,

you're a smoker, I could be like, no, I've never smoked a cigarette my whole entire

life. Like whatever, like, okay, have fun thinking that whatever, like, it would not

affect me at all because I know to my core, I have never smoked a cigarette and

never will. However, when somebody says something that maybe we have in our little

subconscious, that's when it's affected. That's when we're like, "Oh, God, maybe

they're right." Maybe they're right. If they're like, "Yeah, you eat too much sugar,"

I'd be like, "Oops." Yeah, I do. I might. I might. I might really like my sweet

tooth. Oh, shoot. I just made sourdough cinnamon rolls and they were amazing. I've

got to get some of those. When you come down. Yeah. So anyway, so yeah. So there's

that piece too. but I also want to offer a suggestion for a new thought for

yourself if you have family and friends that are giving you unsolicited advice.

And that is they are just doing the best that they can do with the programming

they have.

They are just looking out for you based on what they think is best. It's their

programming. This is your programming. You got a operational system upgrade. Yeah. And

thank goodness. And I want to be an example for them. I want to show them what's

possible. You know, furthermore, I can get a little crappy here too. If somebody

offers me opinion, I'm like, well, oh, tell me about your entrepreneurial journey.

Tell me about the business you own. Tell me about your photography business, because

the people offering advice have no experience in this whatsoever. It's not about the

pricing. This happened, oh my gosh, if it's happened once, it's happened 10 times in

the last week inside of Elevate where somebody's friend said to them, "Whoa,

you're going to charge how much?" Nobody will pay that. That's way too expensive.

Ooh, are they cringe or they do something like that? I'm like, I would look at

them and I'd be like, "Hey, not helpful. Keep it to yourself and tell me again

what you know about pricing or economics or any of it." Yeah. Not receiving it.

Yeah. I love it. All right. So why do photographers block their walk their success,

fear of change, imposter syndrome, money mindset issues, guilt around ambition, fear

of judgment. Take us through how this might show up. We've talked about a little

bit of those, but let's kind of go through a couple examples of how that might

show up in their business. Yeah, and the reason I want to talk about how it might

show up in your business is because I want you to really grasp the importance of

this, the like the gravity of it. This is very much worth looking at because One

way it shows up is undercharging, despite any demand or people hiring you,

you're still always worried about your pricing. Your pricing too low. You don't

believe in your worth. You question your value, all of those things. That is all

coming from this broader success and tolerance. Secondly, you avoid marketing because

visibility feels safe. If you are visible. Visibility feels unsafe. Yes. Yeah.

Hiding feels safe. Yeah. If you're visible, you might get a client. Oh, my God. Or

you might get judged. You might get a client or you might get judged. Well, which

is it going to be? Because you want to stay safe, you're going to avoid the

possibility of getting clients in order to stay safe and you wonder why you're not

succeeding. Well, okay, that's just worth knowing, you knowing, you know, like, okay,

next is procrastinate, you procrastinate on business building tasks,

like maybe updating your website or reaching out or any, any pricing adjustments you

need to make or changing your marketing strap, whatever it is, just like as a

whole, you procrastinate. That's a sign. Well, it's a sign of a lot of things, but

one of the signs is that's success and tolerance because if I truly cleaned up my

thoughts and wanted success, I would not hesitate. I would not procrastinate. I would

be taking so much action, imperfect action, action where I don't know, I'm guessing

and I'm just putting myself out there. But blocking success goes hand in hand with

procrastination. I mean, it's like super obvious, right?

Yeah. No, I'm Honestly though, looking at these, these top three, I've been there

for all of them. - Mm -hmm. - Like, I don't want any of you guys to like start to

get down on yourself of like, oh, well shoot. Oh, and now, now I'm gonna use this

podcast as an excuse, see I'm not ready. Like, see I'm doing all these things.

Like, we've all been there and you just keep moving through it. - Yeah, you just

keep going. Okay, the Next one is you could be rejecting saying no to opportunities

because you don't feel you're ready. You're just not ready. How could you be ready?

Because, you know, you don't have the systems. You don't have any of the things. So

you, when I say reject, you could be outwardly saying no to meeting these people,

going to the cement. So outwardly saying no or subconsciously blocking blocking it,

like you don't, like when you open up your mind and you clean up your thoughts,

you will be shocked at the opportunities, insights and connections that just come

into your life super easily. Like they just flow. So you, you are rejecting again,

either like knowingly saying no, or you don't even realize that you're blocking

opportunities because you you to tell yourself you're not ready. It's just so much

danger in that position. Yep. All right. And what's the last one? The last one is

playing small or staying in this hobby mode. Instead of treating your photography

like a real business. I mean, that is classic success and tolerance. That is how we

block it. It's like, well, you know, I don't know, is this really a real business?

Or Am I just, you know, which goes back to our episode on commitment, you know, or

are you committed to it? Only you know that. If you're not committed fully, you

know, maybe just like you're in a little bit or you're trying to commit, you're not

sure this is real. You are going to play small. You are going to hold yourself

back again consciously or at the sub level, without you even knowing it.

And that is going to always block success Yeah, there's this quote. Oh my gosh.

I wish I had it in front of me It was like until you're committed. There's always

hesitation You know that quote and then once you commit like Providence moves and

all of these things open up to you You know, but as long as there's hesitation and

you stay small Yep, yeah, that's that's like a manifesting principle.

Yes. That's it. Yeah, there's a great quote Look, I can't remember and also Also,

by the way, again, if you guys try to misread what we're saying here and we're

saying that you have to have a business, if you are consciously choosing to do this

as a hobby, that's great. That's fine. Yeah. Totally fine. It's when you want it to

be a business, but you're, "Yeah, I'll just keep it here." It's about figuring out

what you want and going after it unapologetically. Yes. Like, how - Yes,

like how can I release the block or how am I playing small is a good question to

ask. And where can I really step into my power? Like how can I break through that?

You just start to explore. - And part of that could be too like, for me it's like

how am I playing small doesn't always come to mind of what I'm doing. But if I

ask myself like, where am I holding back or what am I procrastinating on? There's

my list. - There's a list. Why am I procrastinating on these things? Often for me,

it's me feeling like I need to do it perfectly. Like, I don't have all the

information I need, but I'm never going to get all the information I need. So I

might as well just freaking start and get the information than the idiots I go. Or

there's another subconscious fear that we're talking about here, a fear of judgment

or an imposter syndrome kind of thing that's under the surface. And so asking

yourself those questions and starting to be just cognizant guys of noticing these

little speed bumps that are showing up in your life because that's the clue that

there's something else going on that we need to like into. We need to clean up

some thinking is what we need to do. Maybe we should get a coach, do you think?

Maybe, maybe. And what would that coach do? How do we this a break through this

success and tolerance. I have five things you can try five ways to do this. Number

one is to rewire your beliefs. So that would mean identifying and challenging the

thoughts that make success feel unsafe to you.

But here's the thing here's here's the challenge there is that we believe our

thoughts and we don't even think to question them. And then everything flows from

that thought that we believe. So it's like getting to the root thought could take

some exploration, you know? So you have to go like one thought above that, one

thought, well, what's driving that thought? So you have to identify that thought and

then ask yourself, oh, it's so interesting. Why, what am I thinking that's causing

me to feel unsafe and get really curious. This is about awareness and curiosity,

and it is not about judgment. We're not using this against ourselves. We're just

saying, like, when I catch a thought that is ill -served,

I just say, "Oh, that's interesting. I'm so curious as to why I'm thinking that and

what's..." And then it's driving this particular feeling, which is usually negative. I

don't anymore. I used to. I don't use it as an opportunity to say, Heather,

you're such a loser. You know, it's a dumb, such a stupid thought. And be careful

here, because just yesterday we were on a call and someone said, this is so silly,

but and I said, well, we got to stop you right there. Don't judge the thought.

The thought is not silly if it's impeding your progress. Okay, I promise you it's

not. And it's a big deal and we need to look at it, but we don't judge it. It's

just like, oh That's so interesting what my brain came up with and I'm just gonna

look at it and then challenge it. Mm -hmm. All right I love it. Okay. Number two

is to normalize Success surround yourself with photographers who are thriving.

I don't know like maybe inside of elevate Maybe I the When's the come out of that

group on the regular blow my mind? It's an I got two emails this morning from

people who experienced major shifts because of the coaching call yesterday. And

actually one of my goals, this is what I tell myself daily. I say,

how can I speed up everyone making more money? That's the question I asked myself.

And then the second is how can I normalize big numbers? So,

and the way I do that inside of Elevate is I'm just always talking about it. I'm

always talking about my revenue. I'm talking about the sales that they have. And

this could be your first $500 sale or your first $5 ,000 sale. I just want to

normalize success and winning in big numbers and thriving. What I do not tolerate

inside of that group Is anything that's like complaining or victim or the economy or

the weather or anything It just does not fly with me and in that ecosystem.

Everybody that joins, you know picks up on that pretty quickly Because it's a house

of champions now that does not mean we don't struggle and we share those struggles

And how can we work through that? We just don't stay there. We're just we are

normal normalizing success so that it just becomes like the regular, it's just what

we do here. Well, and then also when you start to drop into the belief, which is

one of my, my favorite beliefs is that for every challenge, there's always a

solution. There's always a solution. Like, okay, maybe the economy is crap. There's

always a solution. Maybe, you know, I moved to a smaller market. There's always a

solution that like if you want to do something there is a path to get there.

It might not look like what you thought originally, but there's always a solution.

There's always an answer. You can figure it out and you can make anything work.

Okay, so that was number two to normalize success. Number three is to practice

taking small steps. If your brain, and you know your brain,

if your brain, like I said, never anxious thoughts. So my brain tends to react very

strongly to things. So if it's something that's, you know, like emotionally triggering

for me, then I just remind myself that I can expand my comfort zone gradually, like

I can take small steps, which is what I did when I started breaking through this

idea of like, paying the government, you know, like it started out with numbers I

could tolerate. And then I slowly started to grow it. Okay, two things happen.

I started to expand it, like slowly growing it. But then I was also expanding the

amount with which it grew. And so then, you know, it starts to compound, it starts

to explode after that. But I started out with small steps. So listen, if you're the

type of person that wants to dive all in and can take great big leaps. Of course,

I support that. But if you get the feeling that you're blocking success, maybe you

just need to find some small things to show. Or you're not believing it. And that's

like one of those things we talk about too at the Belief Ladder, which we've done

a podcast episode on. But where it's like, okay, this works really well.

Well, heck, even for photographers, let's just start off, you're starting out. And

you're like, you need to believe you can have a $5 ,000 sale. And you're like, "I

don't believe I can do a $500 sale." Then so like maybe the first belief is, I

can sell one print, you know what I mean? Like I can sell one thing and then you

can work it up. So it's the same kind of thing. Just go with whatever steps that

you can, that you can actually get behind. - Yep. - Okay, number four. - Number four.

- Yes, you need to track your wins because success is not a single event.

It's a series of small victories. You need to do like daily, like where am I

winning today? And if that means you put on pants, then I am happy for you. That's

a big day sometimes. That's a big day. But you have to really maybe stop,

okay, I was talking with a client yesterday about this and she was zooming out to

look at the overall success, which sometimes serves you, but sometimes doesn't in her

case. It made more sense to zoom in and tell me how she was winning yesterday and

celebrating these small wins in order to build them up to a bigger success. But

when she zoomed out, it was overwhelming, it didn't look like anything was changing.

And I said, Hey, hey, let's zoom in. How did you win today or yesterday or maybe

last week and I beg of you to write them down or come up with a system so that

when you are feeling awful, you can go back and look at those wins and remind

yourself how awesome you are. And it also rewires your brain to start to look for

more of them. Yup, it does. Like scientific evidence. We also did a non -revenue

victories podcast, which is one of my favorite things. If you're someone that feels

like focusing all on the revenue and you're like, Well, obviously, if I make $10

less this next year, then I suck and my business is going to fail where,

you know, writing down those victories, the little wins every day of just have

nothing to do with revenue. So yeah, whatever it is you're wanting to grow or get

better at, seriously track the wins of that thing. Very important. Very important.

It's really easy. Anyone can look for and find how they're losing. That's very easy

for the brain to do. Yeah, that's how our brain is wired. Yeah. Yeah. You don't

want to be like everyone. You want to be different. Yeah. All right. Lastly, then

when you're tracking your wins, this last one becomes really easy. Yeah, you're

working on your self -concept. You start, you must, you want to see yourself as a

successful photographer before others will. What matters is what you think and how

you feel about yourself. I've talked about self -concept a lot. It's what I teach

inside of Elevate. It's one of the biggest blocks is believing that you are a "real

professional photographer." You're an entrepreneur. You run a business. So you have to

first understand, like, "Let me help you." Maybe we should do a whole episode on

the self -concept if I don't think we have. And then you just figure out where

you're at. Like For example, I ask people in elevate how easy is it for you when

you meet someone new and they say, what do you do? How easy is it for you to

say, I'm a professional photographer? What's the first thing? How do you answer that

question? Well, it turns out many of them were not answering it that they were

professional photographers. They were saying, well, I used to be a nurse or a speech

therapist or whatever. Or they would say, well, I'm trying to start a photography

business. Right. Right. So my challenge to them, actually, it just happened the other

day, I said, I challenge you guys that are struggling with this. Some of them have

it locked down. That's cool. But for the ones that need help, the next four people

you meet, I just want you to really like pause for a second and say, I'm a

professional photographer and see how that feels to you. It's like trying on a new

outfit. You've got to just try it on. It might be uncomfortable at first, but I

promise you, you look fabulous in it. And then once you do it a few times, it

starts to become your identity, which is what we're getting towards improving that

self concept. And that will, I mean, listen, think about it. How could you be

successful as a professional photographer if you do not refer to yourself as a

professional photographer? It's not going to work. Yep. Yep. All right. So these five

steps, rewiring your beliefs, normalizing success, taking small steps, tracking wins,

working on your self -concept. Actually, we dive into that self -concept during Coach

Week, which we have coming up again at the end of this month on February 25th,

26th, and 27th. If you guys didn't take part when we did this in the fall, you

simply must do it now. Even if you didn't in the fall, come back, do it again.

It's three days. We try to keep it 10 hours. Might go a little bit long for

having a really good conversation. But three days, 2pm each day, Eastern. And we are

starting the calls off with a little bit of training. The day one is going to be

about the self -concept. And then we're going to open up the floor for actual

coaching because the coaching is the magic that actually helps you take major steps

forward. And even if you're not the one getting coached, like it's still so, so

applicable, but we're opening the floor for you to actually get coached to. So

you'll want to be there live. If you can't make it live, there will be a replay,

but you definitely want to come join us for that. If you go to hair of the dog

Academy dot coach week, one word coach week, you can sign up for it there. And

yeah, we would we would love to just mind blowing how transformational coaching can

be. And like you said, even if you're not the one receiving the coaching, just

listening and watching someone else get coached can change. I had mentioned we did a

coaching call yesterday and a few people said to me that it changed everything for

them or that had a huge impact and they weren't even the one getting coached. They

just were, it actually is sometimes more helpful in a way because you can see they

have this problem and then you're like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I think I

do that."

Yes. Yes. So much. All right. So I hope you guys found this helpful. Definitely

come join us for Coach Week. It is free. It only happens like twice a year. So

come do it. Don't miss it. Don't miss the opportunity. If you're feeling stuck or

you're not sure why, or you're just curious like, why does Heather continue to talk

about this coaching? What's the big deal? It's really impactful, seriously. - Yeah,

that's actually a great point. So if it's hard to figure out like, what actually

happens on these quote coaching calls? Like you get to see it in action, come check

it out. HairTheDogCatabee .com /coachweek, one word. All right, Heather, this was

fantastic. I want you guys all to get out there and just asking yourself where

you're holding back or Do any of these have any of them kind of hit home? You're

like, oh, that that seems like that could be me and yeah Let's talk about it

during coach week and we also gave you some of those steps that you can take to

start to get out of it now So thanks for being here. See you guys next week