Nicole Begley (00:00)
Today's episode, Heather and I are chatting about what to do when comparison strikes its ugly head. Well, it happens to all of us, and we have some new ways to look at this, and this is really a must-listen for everyone. Enjoy.

Nicole Begley (00:16)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses.

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole Begley (01:15)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley and joining me today is my Bessie. Still up in Pittsburgh, trying to get her to move here because it's sunnier and warmer. Heather Lahtinen welcome back.

Heather (01:29)
So good to be here, Nicole. I actually do love Charlotte, North Carolina. In fact, if there was one place I would want to move, it is North Carolina. I love it there.

Nicole Begley (01:40)
Cool, come on down.

Your guest room is wait waiting all the time.

Heather (01:47)
I know and I'm so thankful. I remember when you built the house and you said you were building a Heather suite and my heart was so happy.

Nicole Begley (01:56)
I love it. excellent. All right. So what are we chatting about today? Cause this so just so you guys know a little like behind the scenes of how this works, like Heather and I have a standing weekly appointment to record a podcast. And, you know, some weeks I'm away, some weeks she's away, some weeks we're just busy. But, you know, we we get together probably probably at least two or three times a month minimum, to record one of these episodes for you. And sometimes we just kind of get on and we're like, What what are we talking about?

What's what's happening? What what what do we want to talk about today? And sometimes Heather's like, I have an idea and I'm not gonna tell you. I'm

Heather (02:29)
Yeah.

Nicole Begley (02:30)
like, All right. And this is one of those this is one of those situations. So go ahead, Heather, take it away.

Heather (02:36)
Okay, first of all, I just want to congratulate and acknowledge our Elevate members are killing it.

Nicole Begley (02:41)
Killing

it. my gosh. The past I mentioned this to you right before. I was like, the past couple weeks of wins in the group have been astronomical, just incredible.

Heather (02:53)
Amazing. And not just revenue. Revenue is absolutely a big piece of that. But we've had people just making huge progress in their marketing or maybe a project they're working on. Something shifted for them. So there are a lot of non-revenue victories as well. There's a

Nicole Begley (03:09)
Yep. Yep. The NRB.

Heather (03:12)
a lot of celebrating very, very large sales. You know, there are $5,000 sales, $10,000. There was one 16,000.

thousand dollar sale which was just this person it was her highest sale ever and also there are people struggling so it it's really important two things are really important that people understand number one it is not all about revenue inside of elevate if your goal is to make more money we absolutely support that because we love money but if your goal is is not around revenue maybe

This is something that you're doing for fun and also as a serious business, you know, that you want to make money, but you're happy with your current revenue level, then that's great as well. We want to support you no matter what your goal. The reason I make note of that is because someone said recently, well, Heather talks about money a lot. So I thought it was all about, you know, making more revenue.

Nicole Begley (04:09)
Hmm.

Heather (04:10)
Not necessarily.

Nicole Begley (04:11)
This actually reminds me of something. So James Wedmore is the leader of my little mastermind I've been in for a long time. And we always say in there, basically, it's like, what game do you want to play? Like each each year, all of us in that room have a new goal. And some people are trying to increase revenue, but other people are trying to s keep the same revenue but work half as much. Or like maybe just

even if the revenue goes down a little bit, but work like three hours a day. So there are so many different goals. And you know this, and I've s like screamed this from the mountaintops that our businesses, our photography businesses, there are approximately 8,732 different ways to price your business, to run your business, to like what to offer, what that business looks like, how to serve clients.

Like there is no one stop solution. I feel very strongly that any educator that is telling you you have to do it this way, this is the only way to do it, like run. Just that that's it's just not true. You and I have both run our businesses differently. We have seen I mean, we've been coaching students now for well over a decade, close to fifteen years or more, and we've seen every single iteration of

how a business is set up and there are not any that are more or less successful than the others. It's just based on what your goals are, what you want your business to look like, what you want your life to look like and building a business that supports your life. Mic drop.

Heather (05:41)
No.

Nicole Begley (05:42)
I won't actually drop my mic because then it'll disconnect and the podcast will over.

Heather (05:45)
Gosh, no. Okay,

I've never heard it said that way and I love it. What is the game you want to play? my gosh.

Nicole Begley (05:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it

also takes when you say that that way, I think it takes the pressure off because

Heather (05:59)
Yes.

Nicole Begley (06:01)
it's supposed to be fun, guys. Which

Heather (06:02)
Right.

Nicole Begley (06:04)
I get it. It's not always fun. Sometimes it's very stressful. Sometimes we're feeling like, you know, just overwhelmed and and yeah, but the it it should be fun. How can we make it fun?

And the more fun you make it, the more success you're often going to have because you've let the pressure off yourself and you're stopped like white knuckling everything.

Heather (06:26)
Yes,

yes. And you, you know, James's program is called Business by Design. And you said that the other day. We were talking and you said, I need to focus on my business by design. But I love this added question, like what game do you want to play? Because there are some people making, you know, $10,000 to $15,000 a year in revenue and they want to get to $50. And they don't really have the aspiration to join our six-figure club. But

Nicole Begley (06:52)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (06:53)
they see people talking about it.

Or me, they see me talking about it and they think that they should want that.

And I'm like, No, who cares? You can do whatever you want. It's so I just really wanted to drive that point home.

Nicole Begley (07:08)
Yes.

And one more point on this too. There's a lot of people in Elevate, in Free to Focus Formula, like in both of our programs that we've worked with in the past too, that that are in a corporate job that have no desire to leave their corporate job and they just have photography business on the side. They want it to be profitable part-time. Or maybe they're like coming up to retirement and they're like, I want to do something creative that makes me a little bit of money. Amazing. Those are all valid goals.

And I I wanna jump on this soapbox for a minute too, because it's one of my other favorite soapboxes. And that is if your goal is part time, that doesn't mean like that you charge part time prices. I

see so many photographers that think or have said to me, like, well, I just do it part time, so like I don't need to make I don't need to set up my business in a way that's as profitable as somebody doing this full time, to which I say, mm.

Wrong. You you

Heather (08:02)
False.

Nicole Begley (08:04)
have more limited time. So you need to be more intentional with your offers. Doesn't mean it needs to be more expensive. Notice I said intentional, which means you need to actually get clear on how much revenue you want your part-time business to produce. And then we do the math and figure out what that looks like. And we set up our business with intention. So that's my other setbox. I'll get off.

Heather (08:27)
I love that. Okay, so it's not all about revenue. Non-revenue victories are hugely important. In fact, you'll be able to find way more of those than the revenue victories. So it's like if your revenue is not where you want it to be, but you have 10 other things that are working, why do we tend to focus on the one that isn't?

Nicole Begley (08:51)
Well, and to prove that this is how we often approach things, you and I start off calls every once in a while of like, Hey, what wins have everybody had? And like you can hear like a pin drop, crickets. I'm like I'm like, you guys, I'm not going forward until somebody shares some wins because I know you have them. But our human mind is just like, Nope, nope, just skips right over it to focus on the lack and the gap. and when we start to notice, like you guys

Again, we're doing things with intention. When you start to notice those non-revenue victories, just like when you start to have a gratitude practice, like you are training your brain to look at things in like the non-native way that our brain looks at things. Our brain is wired to look for danger, scan for danger, keep us alive, keep us safe. It is not wired to be like, look how great that's working. This is amazing. You're doing so well. It's wired

Heather (09:41)
Yeah. Right.

Nicole Begley (09:44)
to be like, there's a bear in that bush. You know, you're gonna

Heather (09:46)
Yes.

Nicole Begley (09:46)
get eaten.

Heather (09:47)
Yes. The people will ask me, why do we do that? And it's just what you explained. It's the negativity bias that keeps us alive. Okay. The brain's doing exactly what it is designed to do. That's great. Thank you very much. You have to take effort, it takes effort intentionally to focus on what is working. Okay. So we've laid that foundation. Have you ever been in a group, Nicole, where

Something you're working on, they're working on something similar, maybe in a different industry, and they have, I don't know, a six figure launch, hundred K into their business like that. And you're like happy for them and inspired, but then you're like, What the heck?

Nicole Begley (10:24)
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yeah.

Heather (10:27)
Like, why isn't it

why isn't that happened for me yet? What am I doing

Nicole Begley (10:30)
huh.

Heather (10:30)
wrong? You know, and you get all tangled up. So that does tend to happen when we have celebrations in elevate. For example, we have a sixteen thousand dollar sale. Everybody is thrilled for this person and supports and is inspired, right? There's just no question. But then most of our brains, if you are a normal human, will go into comparison mode. And you'll think that

I've never had that. I can't even get a thousand dollar sale. I can't even get clients. That will never happen for me. And you start to feel awful because of that comparison. You're familiar with this, yes? And

Nicole Begley (11:09)
Yes. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Heather (11:11)
it's it's awful because then you just get into this negativity spiral of, my gosh, well, what's wrong with me? And

Nicole Begley (11:19)
sí.

Heather (11:19)
what am I missing?

That I can't figure it out. And my photos are good, you know, or I've been doing this a while, or whatever flavor of that. I was talking with a friend about this recently, and I had somewhat of an epiphany of what's actually happening here beyond the obvious comparison, right? We could all agree.

Nicole Begley (11:39)
Right. Yeah. Comparison.

We know comparison is just nothing good comes from it. Period time. Yeah.

Heather (11:44)
Correct. We know we compare,

you know, compare despair, et cetera. Okay. When when we could choose inspiration, the brain chooses comparison and it feels awful. I have done so many episodes on the Elevate Daily, which by the way, people love. It's a really short daily episode that I drop in Elevate. It th usually, I don't know, two to five minutes long, just something really quick that's going on. I cannot tell you.

the number of episodes I have done on how we take things personally. And how one of the skills I've cultivated over the years that has changed my life the most is learning not to be offended by something and not taking things personally. So we talk about it in 50 million different ways. So I was talking with this friend about these sales and I said, my gosh, it was like clear as day to me. So you're comparing yourself and then you're taking it personally.

You are making that number mean something about you.

Nicole Begley (12:45)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (12:46)
So you take it personally. What does that say about me? I haven't figured that out.

Nicole Begley (12:52)
Because you had anything to do with somebody else's anything. Like you were not even involved. You weren't even there.

Heather (12:58)
Exactly.

That is exactly my point. Somebody

Nicole Begley (13:02)
huh.

Heather (13:03)
else has a sale, a number, you see it on the screen, and you find a way to make that mean something about you. Wow, I would say congratulations. You are very skilled at taking things personally. And I'm I'm poking fun at this, knowing I do it as well.

Nicole Begley (13:17)
Right,

right. Yes. No, I mean it's human nature. It's human nature.

Heather (13:20)
Yes,

Nicole Begley (13:21)
Yeah.

Heather (13:21)
I do the same thing because here's what happens next. You say things like well, I've already said, you know, what am I missing? this must mean something about me. That number must mean something about me or how I'm running my business or what I don't know, or I'm stupid, I can't figure this out, nobody wants what I'm selling, my prices are too high, too low, too stupid, they hate my soul, whatever. You just spiral and all of it.

Is based on you taking someone else's sale personally. I want you to think about this. That actually makes no sense whatsoever. That number has nothing to do with you.

Nicole Begley (14:05)
And it's

almost like like as if that client, that success that that person had, like that you're making it mean that you and that person went to their client and said, Hey, choose one. They're like, that one, not you. I'm not choosing you. Meanwhile, you've not only never met or no,

Heather (14:26)
Right. Right. Right. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (14:29)
or like you you were not involved.

Heather (14:32)
You have nothing to do with that sale. And I said to her, right, because the world revolves around you. And everybody

Nicole Begley (14:39)
So

Heather (14:41)
else's sale has something to do. It is laughable. And I hope that, you know, don't be, don't be offended by this, anyone. It's funny that we do that, that we take it personally and make it mean something about us where you could catch that.

You get upset because you wish you had it. That's fair. And

Nicole Begley (15:00)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (15:02)
also, if they can do it, so can I. You can at this moment, when you when you are now aware that this is happening, you can choose inspiration over comparison. You do not have to go down that spiral, fall into that trap of their sale means something about me. It means absolutely nothing. Zero. You cannot tie.

any real meaning to that sale, that something about you or your business. But that is exactly what's happening when you get into that comparison mode. So once again, I urge you to listen to any podcast that we do or I've done on the Elevate Daily talking about learning how to not take things personally. That it just doesn't mean anything about you.

Nicole Begley (15:49)
So when you find yourself somebody that in your circle has the success that you've been hoping to to have and you just haven't gotten there yet, and you find yourself in that like, like why like and it's almost like it's a little bit of a shame piece of it, like why have I not done that yet? Like I'm happy for this person, I really am. Like there's no ill will towards towards this towards this other person, but you're just like

Making it mean something that's like is missing in in your offer in your whatever and in your business or in you personally. So what's a better question to ask ourselves

during that moment? Like how when we because I think part of the challenge is noticing when we're in these spaces. And

Heather (16:36)
Yes, that's a lot of it. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (16:38)
then then the next piece of that challenge, part B, is how do we shift it?

Heather (16:44)
My first question when I have an emotional response, a negative emotional response, is always to get curious and ask myself, I wonder what's going on here. Like truly. And it could be, yeah, I'm I want that. I'm jealous. I wish I had that. I wish I could figure that out. And then, like, no kidding. Like that makes perfect sense. Of course, I would wish that I would have that kind of sale. And then, okay.

the and if you want to be funny to sort of break the tension, you could ask, does this mean anything about my soul?

Nicole Begley (17:18)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (17:19)
that's right. No, it doesn't. How could I use this as inspiration?

Nicole Begley (17:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (17:26)
How could I lean into a belief that this could be or is possible for me? I would just get really curious as to what's going on there beyond, you know, I'm terrible. This means something about my pricing or or how

Nicole Begley (17:40)
No, no.

Heather (17:42)
I structure my business, whatever, what I can and cannot do. None of

Nicole Begley (17:46)
Would

Heather (17:46)
that nonsense.

Nicole Begley (17:47)
would you dig into breaking down maybe some of the specifics, like, how did this work for this person? Like, did they do something? Or did they have some like, how did they find this client? if I tried marketing that way, like getting curious about what led to that success from a non-judgmental way of just like, huh, I wonder if there's something here that I can learn from and

elevate my path.

Heather (18:16)
Yes, I I am in a group, my mastermind, where someone is doing really well with their low ticket offer on Facebook ads. And I reached out to them and

Nicole Begley (18:24)
Uh-huh.

Heather (18:26)
I said, and I quote, tell me more. Tell me more. What is

Nicole Begley (18:30)
Uh-huh.

Heather (18:32)
what is working for you? What what isn't? I would love to hear what's going on. Because I'm never going to argue with someone who's making more money than me. I am going to get curious.

Nicole Begley (18:43)
Mm-hmm.

I think that's a that's a key is instead of like because the comparison, we're shutting it down, right? We're like, my gosh,

Heather (18:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (18:53)
I'm never gonna get this. Da, I'm terrible, blah, blah, blah. Even if you truly are very happy for that person, you're just like, you're putting a wall between you and and them because of your own thoughts of what it means about you, nothing

Heather (19:06)
Right.

Nicole Begley (19:07)
about them. but instead, yeah, maybe it's like

What is there? What is here that that could help catapult me to my next level? Mm-hmm.

Heather (19:18)
What can I learn from this? That's that

is like the actual definition of inspiration. You

Nicole Begley (19:22)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (19:23)
are inspired by that. So you get curious and you want to learn more. How did they structure it? What what did the person buy? Everything you could add in it and inside of elevation.

Nicole Begley (19:31)
Yeah. Where did they come from?

How did the process yeah, like what yes, what did the process the the pre session education look like? Yeah.

Heather (19:40)
And inside of Elevate, this is what we do. We ask people hey, break that down for me. Tell me what was going on. How did that client find you? What did they buy? Where did you go? What was the everything. Tell me everything. Instead of, like you said, shutting it down because you know that means something about my soul. It doesn't mean anything about you until you assign it a meaning and you create a narrative that you have.

100% made up in your head. It's just all of it is nonsense. I understand why I am envious when I see someone succeeding because I want that. But at that point, in that moment, or the next, because give yourself a second, you know, I have a choice. I can spiral down comparison as easily as the next person. Or

I could send a message to that person and say, Tell me more.

Nicole Begley (20:36)
Mm. Congratulations. Tell me more. Yes. Hundred percent. Yeah.

Heather (20:39)
Right, exactly. I'm so happy for you and also

dang man, I'm trying to do the same thing and I could I could really use some encouragement, you know?

Nicole Begley (20:48)
Yeah.

Heather (20:49)
If somebody had that kind of sale, I promise they want to help you because they have also struggled. So let's be clear about that. People don't hit the scene with that kind of sale, you know, a ten or twenty thousand dollar sale. They started out somewhere

Nicole Begley (21:03)
Uh-huh.

Heather (21:03)
and they somehow got to this point. Well, tell me how.

Nicole Begley (21:07)
Somewhere along the

lines they were excited for their first five hundred dollar sale, their first thousand dollar sale too. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (21:10)
Yes. Yes. We all were. And then

we're trying to figure this out. Okay, let's let's collaborate and talk about it. But taking it personally just does not have any upside whatsoever. It just makes you feel like crap. And it has nothing to do with you. On no planet

Nicole Begley (21:27)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (21:30)
does that number have anything to do with you until you spin some sort of tail.

Nicole Begley (21:36)
I love it. No tail spinning around here.

Heather (21:39)
No.

Nicole Begley (21:39)
my goodness. All right. Well, this was been really helpful. I hope you guys were able to to find situations where maybe that you have done this in the past. Again, no shame. We're we're human. We're human. We've all done it. Every single one of us. So being able to notice it is is definitely one of the first. And I think this still comes back. I've said it before, I'll say it again.

that like our feelings are a barometer for our thoughts. So when we are feeling negative emotions, then what are we thinking? And so in this case, if we're feeling negative emotions about something that happened for someone, like we are often then thinking, like we're not thinking that like, that person's a terrible person, blah blah blah blah. We're usually thinking like, well but

Why why not me? What's wrong with me? D like we're making it about us. yeah. Uh-huh.

Heather (22:29)
They just pause there for a second.

We are making it about us.

Nicole Begley (22:34)
Uh-huh.

Heather (22:34)
And when you think of yourself, you are miserable. And when you think of others, of serving others like in your business, or be inspired

Nicole Begley (22:43)
Uh-huh.

Heather (22:44)
by others, peers, you you feel better. You feel differently. The minute you turn your focus on yourself, you are going to feel miserable.

Nicole Begley (22:54)
Yeah. I mean, and that a hundred percent, like you said, goes for marketing too. Like the minute we're marketing from I need this client, I need this person to book. And you know, it gets challenging when we have financial needs and we really do need this person to book, but when you're approaching it from that, there's it's that get versus give energy that you talk about too. Like instead, like how can I actually serve this person? and approaching from that service perspective.

Which also helps for people that are a little bit nervous to market their business. Like we're not because they I think they have a thought in their head that when I'm marketing something, it's to get something, but instead we're marketing a service to give something and there just happens to be a financial transaction involved.

Heather (23:40)
Exactly right. When you're focused on yourself, you feel like garbage. You focus on serving others, you feel amazing. And I'm going to let you guess what the results are based on what you're focused on.

Nicole Begley (23:52)
Yeah, right. Follows follows those feelings.

Heather (23:54)
If you're miserable and you're focused on yourself

and where you are lacking or trying to get or scarcity or desperation or whatever, your your results are going to reflect that. But when you are in service mode and inspiration, you're you're go you're going to feel better, you're going to take better action and you will get better results.

Nicole Begley (24:16)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (24:16)
Speaking of results,

I would like to make an announcement that we are hosting a revenue challenge in September inside of Elevate that everyone will be invited to. So keep your eyes open for that.

Nicole Begley (24:26)
Yes. I love a revenue challenge. Woohoo.

Heather (24:30)
Woo!

Nicole Begley (24:30)
All right. So good. All right guys, thanks for being here with us and we will see you next week.