#98. The transformative power of allowing yourself to be seen.

Today, we're going to talk about one of the hardest, trickiest, sneakiest little challenges that tend to hold so many of us back …

Allowing ourselves to be seen.

Are you the one who takes all the family photos, but you're never in them? Or are you the one who loves the way your friends look in all your pictures, but you always criticize yourself? 😞

Maybe you’re the one who has a great little practice going, but when your audience checks out your website, they can’t find a single photo of you. 

Or perhaps you've got a picture up there, but it’s ten years old and you don't look anything like that anymore. 🥸

(Whoooo boy - that's a mistake, because when people meet you, there's a big disconnect right off the bat.)

I want to talk about this whole idea of having a good picture taken, because you need this for your website, you need it for marketing materials, you need it when you're giving a talk somewhere. 

But here's the problem.

Most of us don't like having our picture taken, and so we shrink, we play small, we hold back, and minimize our talents. Let’s dive into that…

Today we’re going to talk about;

1. How putting yourself out there can transform your therapy practice.
   
   
2. What happens when you find the right photographer…  (#Magic!)
   
   
3. How to feel your best in front of the camera.
   
   
4. What we can learn from a bunch of six year old girls (seriously!).

I know that many of you can relate to how hard this can be, but it's time to change that, guys. 

It’s time to let the people who need you, find you, see you, and connect with you.

You don't help anybody by blowing off your brilliance!

So, show up and let yourself be seen - because once you make the decision to stop hiding, amazing things start to happen.

(And if you like this episode, you’re going to LOVE what I have in store for you next week!).

Take a listen!

~Wendy
  xoxo

P.S. If you’re enjoying the podcast as much as I hope you are, could you help me spread the word? Who are two friends or colleagues you know who could really use a boost of encouragement each week? Who else needs this kind of teaching? Please share this episode with them - and thank you!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode Number 98. Today, guys, we're going to talk about one of the hardest, trickiest, sneakiest little challenges that tend to hold so many of us back. We're going to talk about what it means to let yourself be seen, literally. Yeah, we're talking about you, your headshot and your love-hate relationship with photography. There's more to this than you might think, so stay tuned. Hi, I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves and, with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, I've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy alignment and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered but people-forward. This is the Ideal Practice Podcast. Hey folks, this is Wendy Wendy Pitts Reeves, your host here on Ideal Practice. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode and hanging out with me today. We are officially, officially in my favorite month of the year. Just want to declare that right now, because that means yours truly is going to be in a really good mood for a while as this goes live.

Speaker 1: 1:33

I am actually still in and at the tail end of my visit to Colonial Williamsburg. I have been to Williamsburg many, many times. I mentioned that last week, but I've never been here in the spring, and golly it is so pretty. The gardens and the flowers have just been phenomenal, and what a treat, what a treat it has been to be here this year. Well, let's talk about something else. That's beautiful, even though we don't always think it is. I want to start by just sort of setting the stage here and telling you, sharing with you, a little personal story. If you don't mind, Several years ago, I was nominated for, and became a finalist in the consideration for, a pretty significant award that happens in Knoxville.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Every year, the local YWCA gives out what they call their tribute to women award, and it's always given to a woman who has made a major difference in some way in her community, has done something that significantly impacts the lives of women and girls in our region, and I was one of a handful of really amazing, outstanding people who was nominated for that position and actually was a finalist. I did not end up getting the award, but to even to have been recognized in that way was a tremendous honor, and it was a big deal as we were leading up to the night of the award announcement, which included, like a big event and a theater and all of us on stage and all kinds of stuff, lots, lots of hype. We were given a number of bonuses just for being a part of this, and one of them was we got interviewed for a video. One of them was we got a free professional headshot that they would use as part of the promotion for the award. It was really nice and I was so excited to be a part of it.

Speaker 1: 3:29

Well, the day came when I went and did that video and that was easy and fun. We just sat in a couple of chairs in a theater and someone asked me a bunch of questions. I answered them and, off the cuff, and that was easy, no big deal. But the photo, the headshot, was a different thing. So we were all asked to go to a particular studio with a particular photographer that I did not know and take whatever we wanted to wear for our picture and go have some pictures taken right Free on the house one of the bonuses of being a part of this.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Well, I did all the things you do before something like that, right, I got my haircut. I took special care with my makeup. That day I wore what I felt like was an outfit that I felt really comfortable in and I felt was like one of my better sort of power outfits. You know what I'm talking about. Right, I felt fine going into it. Well, fine, might be stretching it, but I was alright, I was ready for it and I was excited to be able to have this done and not have to pay for it, to be honest, because it can be expensive to go get a nice picture taken.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Well, I was there for maybe an hour, hour and a half. At the end, the photographer sat down with me, as they do, and showed me all the pictures and then let me pick out a handful or I've forgotten how many but sort of select my favorites that day that she would then send to me later in a file. And I went through the motions. I sat there and smiled, I was nice, I made small talk, I chatted, I did my best, I looked at the photos, I made my choices and then I walked out the door and went out and got in my car and put my seat back and just cried. I just cried like it makes me feel a little sad even now thinking about it. I was so distraught because I hated the pictures, I hated the way I looked. I didn't feel like it's just.

Speaker 1: 5:28

I think the best way I can describe this is that the person I saw in those photos is not the person I feel like I am. And this is an important point, as I'm sharing this with you, as I'm thinking this through when we see our picture, it's not just that we don't like you know that we've got an extra chin that we wish we didn't, or that we've got a few extra wrinkles that we didn't know we had. That is part of it. Like there is that literal oh my goodness, is that what I like to say? There is that. But I really think it's more than that. When I think about those pictures which, by the way, none of you have ever seen, nor will you but when I think about those pictures, I think what really the disconnect as I'm thinking this through is. It is an energetic disconnect. It's not just physical. It's like that's not me, like the person in those pictures looked stiff and fake and not herself, which I think is probably how I was feeling that day. Right. So that was rough and I will say that was one of the hardest of that type of experience that I've had, but I have had that kind of feeling more than once after having my photos taken. So part of that is probably my hangup, but some of it, I think, has a lot to do with the process itself the photographer that you're working with, the prep work that you do in advance, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 7:00

There's a lot to go into a good picture and actually next week, I want you all to tune in for this. Next week, in our next episode, you're going to meet a photographer that I've been talking with, who is delightful, and we're specifically gonna be talking about the concept of a brand photo shoot, which is more than a headshot. But everything that she said about a brand shoot applies to this as well. So I do invite you to tune in. Make sure you catch that next week. Her name is Sandra Costello. She was a real hoot to talk to. You're gonna enjoy that one. But I wanna talk about this whole idea of having a good picture taken, cause, guys, you need this for your website, you need it for marketing materials, you need it when you're giving a talk somewhere, like there are so many ways that you need to have this done, but here's the problem Most of us don't like having our picture taken, and so we tend to hide behind I don't know some kind of a terrible fellow.

Speaker 1: 7:55

That some picture a friend took of us with their iPhone at a party somewhere or where we were out on a picnic or at an event at our kid's school, or maybe it's not that, maybe. Maybe you've got a picture and it's one that you've always liked, but it's from 10 years ago and you don't look anything like that anymore. I've seen that a lot, and let me tell you that's a real mistake, cause then when people meet you, you don't look at all like what they're expecting and there's a big disconnect right out the bat. Sometimes you don't have any pictures at all, so this is a problem, but here's the thing I want you to think about this Little girls love having their picture taken, don't they? Perhaps you have a daughter of your own who might be a little bitty, perhaps you have granddaughters, perhaps you have friends with daughters, but perhaps you just remember little girls love having their picture taken If you pull out a camera around a group of six year olds and they will fight to get into the picture frame.

Speaker 1: 9:02

Facebook is full of one little princess after another just showing off her sparkly new shoes or her Halloween costume or her latest dance move. Look at me. They all say, and you can tell from looking at them that their joy and their pride is honest, honest, real, unpretentious, engaging. And their sheer joy draws us in, doesn't it? When you see a photo or a video of some cute little girl showing off, what do you do? You look and you drink in their pride and you share it with them, happily easily. And it's not just oh, isn't that cute, it's also go girl, yay for you, I love it. It's great when you see a little girl who's just being all that, isn't it? Do you know what I'm talking about? Can y'all get this? Far from judging them, we join them. It never even occurs to us to see them as bragging or selfish or all that kind of stuff. We don't think that way because we get it. They're just happy and proud, as they should be, and genuine pride. That is self-joy, self-respect. Well, that's catching, isn't it? And we want them to feel that way and we want them to share it with us. That's the cool part.

Speaker 1: 10:41

But somewhere along the way that changes. There's tons of research that shows this. Somewhere around fifth or sixth grade, girls in particular begin to doubt themselves, their abilities, their looks, their right to show up and be seen in the world, and sometimes pretty slow and subtle ways, this kind of insidious poison of self-doubt begins to creep in. The critics in our head get louder and we step back from a place that we once held at our own center stage. You see this in girls. If you're around girls who are, like, say, three or four years old up until fifth or sixth grade, you'll see exactly the behavior I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 11:38

But once they hit pre-adolescence and start moving into adolescence, you will see girls begin to shrink, to play small, to hold back, to minimize their talents, their accomplishments, their abilities. You'll see it in all kinds of ways, and here's the problem. We bring that with us as adults. We bring it to our lives in all kinds of ways, in ways large and small. We start hiding behind the curtains, we shrink oh don't look at me, I'm nothing really. That's the way we begin to approach things, and it's not just about photographs either. But I'm talking about photographs because that is such a great metaphor for this and so accurate.

Speaker 1: 12:28

But I see women in particular shrinking from center stage. All the time In your everyday life I see women who pass up on opportunity to chair a committee at work or in a volunteer project or at a job, even In your career. Often I will see women who don't even apply for the job that they really really want, because, after all, who are we to want even more and why would they even look at us? And you know that spills over into our role as a business owner, as a private practice owner. We stop trusting in our own abilities, we downplay our accomplishments and our expertise. We minimize our skill set, our experience, our training, our intuitive sense of what to do. We no longer. We stop dreaming about doing what makes us happy and we tend to settle for less and less of what we really want. We hide Often we apologize for who we are, and I don't know about you, but I have seen this happen and there have been times when I've done it myself. We tend to disappear from our own life. We no longer choose to be seen. Now the pictures are all of our kids or our dogs or the flowers in our yard. Yeah, are you with me? We stopped showing up.

Speaker 1: 14:06

Well, I was thinking about that one day this has been a few years ago when I left home at five o'clock in the morning to make a four-hour drive to Atlanta for an appointment. I was there because, as I shared with you at the beginning of this episode, I too have struggled with this and I was determined to change that. I was serious about my business, my practice. I knew I needed to up my game in terms of how I showed up in the world, so I made a major commitment to allow myself to be seen in a way I've never been able to do before. I agreed to work with a talented and a special photographer for an entire day, an entire day, a completely personalized photo shoot. It was an expensive day, but it was a real commitment. I wasn't messing around right Now. I was on the wrong end of the camera this time. That was hard for me, but it was one of the most powerful experiences that I'd ever had.

Speaker 1: 15:17

At that point, when you work with and here's my message to you when you work with the right photographer and I'm not talking about a quick off-the-cuff half an hour somewhere in a studio, y'all when you work with the right photographer, they can be like a magician, almost like a photo therapist. You'll hear this when you talk, when you hear me talk with Sandra in next week's episode, because we talked about this a lot in some detail. Here's the thing so many women, so many of us, are out of sorts with our own bodies. We are ill at ease in our own skin. So many of us have completely forgotten that happy little girl that we once were, you know, the one who would dance and twirl for the camera with ease. Well, that has to change and, as I shared with you earlier, the picture that I see on the screen is so often not what I see in my head or what I feel in my heart.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Until that day a few years ago, when I hired a true professional, when I invested real dollars and when, for the first time ever, I allowed myself to show up in a bigger way. I learned something from that. First of all, I learned that it really helps to have the right photographer, and there are lots of good ones out there. I have now worked with two or three different folks like this and who have all been excellent since then, but until that day, I had not had much luck with that right. Well, I want to ask you are you the one who takes all the family photos, but you're never in them yourself? Or are you the one who loves the way your friends look in all your pictures, including selfies, but you criticize yourself? Are you the one who has a great little practice going, but when you're, when you're potential clients, your audience checks out your website? They don't have no, they have no idea who you are, because you're basically invisible there. Either there's no pictures at all or they're like teeny tiny and they're hidden on page four or whatever Right I had. I have had that.

Speaker 1: 17:24

I actually, oh, about a year ago, um, I had a coaching call with a, a, a therapist, who, when I went to look at her website and kind of learn a little bit about her before we got on the call, she had not a single photograph anywhere on her site at all, anywhere Zippo, nada. And I couldn't find one anywhere else, like there wasn't any. There weren't any other online profiles. I had no idea what to expect. What to expect when I met with her and, goodness gracious, when I did meet her what a delight. She was funny and witty and smart and beautiful and just had so much like just delightful energy vibrant, gorgeous, real down to earth energy. That totally came across as soon as I met her, but, golly, I couldn't have. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have known that if we hadn't met on a call. Now, since then, with some coaching, she's been a great coach. She's been a great coach Call. Now, since then, with some coaching, she's changed that. She's completely revamped everything that she's done and she's she's showing up in a completely different way today. It's so much better, so much better. It's very exciting.

Speaker 1: 18:37

But I want to speak to you guys, because I know that some of you out there can relate to this. Some of you also are hiding and it's time to change that, guys, so that your clients, your audience, the people who need you, can find you and connect with you. You don't help anybody by blowing off your brilliance. You don't help anybody by hiding behind the camera. You're not going to be able to do any good by pretending to be anything less than the beautiful, talented, brilliant clinician, healer, professional human being that you really, truly, genuinely are and y'all. I'm not talking about perfection. I'm not saying you need to put on a suit and go look like a I don't know corporate exec. I want you to be as real as you can possibly be, but I want you, I want you to do this.

Speaker 1: 19:35

I learned that day what a true photo shoot really means and what it takes to pay for a professional, and I walked away with a handful of pictures that not only I could stand, but I kind of even kind of liked a few of them. Now I'm not using those pictures today because I don't look at anything like that anymore, but since then I have repeated that process every few years, and it's an ongoing thing. It's something I constantly work at. It is something I still struggle with, but I appreciate it a lot more than I used to and I understand how important it is. I just really want to invite you to do.

Speaker 1: 20:14

Your clients will relate to you when they can see your smile, when and get a sense of you, and honestly, I think the more real, the more casual those photographs are, the better. But they still need to be taken by a professional, someone who knows what they're doing. So go get your picture taken, get several, make the investment of time and money with a photographer that you love, someone who makes you feel good about who you are. Tell her what you want, play, change clothes. Let somebody help you with your hair and makeup. Take a friend with you who will make you laugh. That would be a great way to do this. But show up, let yourself be seen, because once you make the decision to stop hiding, amazing things are going to happen. Because, yeah, we all get it. You're just happy and proud, as you should be, and genuine pride that is, self joy and self respect is catching. Your audience wants you to feel this way and we want you to share your delightful, lovely human self with us. Be sure and tune in next week for a whole conversation about what it means to take this to a deeper level in terms of a brand photo shoot. But when I'm giving you today, you can take action on right now. That's what I've got for you today. Have a great week everyone. I hope this inspires you to not be so afraid. Go have some fun, get some pictures that make you happy and share it with us, and I will look forward to seeing that. Thanks everybody for being here, have a great week and I will see you next time right here on the ideal practice podcast. Bye now, hey y'all.

Speaker 1: 22:07

If this program has become important to you, if ideal practice matters, it would mean so much to me if you'd be willing to take just a minute to do one or two of the following things. First of all, would you follow or subscribe to the show here at ideal practice? Following me helps you because you'll never miss an episode, but it helps me as well for all kinds of reasons. To do that, all you have to do is go to the show page for ideal practice on Apple podcast or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts there. Just click on the plus sign that you'll usually find in the top right hand corner, or click on the word follow that you're going to find somewhere there on that page. Of all the things, this really is the most important thing you can do for the podcast itself While you're there. It would be extra special if you would be willing to give me a five star rating and, even better than that, a review with your own words.

Speaker 1: 23:12

Your words matter, and when you write what you feel, what you think, you uplift and encourage others, and I love that. If you want to go a step further than that, take your favorite episode or two, one of the ones that has meant a lot to you, and share it with a friend. Could you do one or two of those things for me? I promise I will love you forever. You guys matter to me and I value you support more than I can possibly say. Thank you, sweet friend, for anything you can do to help me out and support the show. I'll see you again soon.