Freedom Focus Photography

The Hidden Reason You're Stuck

• Nicole Begley, Heather Lahtinen • Episode 279

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279 - Have you ever caught yourself procrastinating, undercharging, or shying away from marketing your business? It’s not laziness—it’s Success Intolerance. 

In this episode, we uncover why success can feel unsafe and how to rewire your brain to embrace the next level of your business.

What to Listen For:

  • What success intolerance is and why it keeps photographers stuck
  • Why your brain sees growth as a threat, even when you want it
  • The five most common ways photographers block their own success
  • The real reason you procrastinate on marketing and pricing updates
  • The powerful mindset shifts to rewire your beliefs around success
  • How tracking small wins helps retrain your brain for success
  • The number one coaching event that will help you break through your biggest blocks

Success isn’t just about strategy—it’s about how you see yourself. If you’re struggling with self-doubt, undercharging, or avoiding growth, it’s time to break through those hidden barriers. Inside Elevate, we help photographers normalize success, build confidence, and create profitable businesses without feeling overwhelmed. And if you want a taste of this work, join us for Coach Week!

📅 Coach Week is happening on February 25-27 at 2 PM EST. It's totally free, packed with mindset shifts and live coaching that will change the way you see your business. Don’t miss this chance to experience the power of coaching for yourself!

🔗 Sign up now at hairofthedogacademy.com/coachweek

 

TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS WITH COMMERCIAL PET PHOTOGRAPHY - Access our secret podcast now! 


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Nicole (00:00)
Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. This week we are chatting with Heather. She is back. We're talking about success intolerance. I know it sounds a little crazy, but believe it or not, there's actually all sorts of things that are actually blocking us from getting what we actually want. So if there is anything that you want really in your life or business that you haven't quite gotten yet, well, you're going to want to listen to this episode. Stay tuned.

Nicole Begley (00:26)
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 to $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 (01:25)
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the freedom focus photography podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Begley. And again, today, one of my favorite peeps, Heather Lahtinen, 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. 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.

But.

Heather (01:56)
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 are 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?

Nicole (02:27)
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. 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, know how deep our subconscious goes to block us from things that we want because it's scared that we will die.

Heather (02:37)
Mm.

Nicole (02:56)
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. It's like, my gosh, there's so many things, 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, it's the market. it's my, the people in my area. it's my pricing and blame external things.

Heather (02:56)
Yeah.

Yes.

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 intolerance. I wrote, it is the subconscious resistance to stepping into a new elevated version of yourself. And that's because it might feel foreign. It does if it's new.

Nicole (03:24)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (03:50)
and unsafe so you'll self-sabotage to stay in familiar territory.

Nicole (03:56)
Yep. my gosh. 100%. I think if you put that into 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, my God, I'm at the big school. Then by the time you're in third, fourth, fifth grade, you own that school. You are so confident in being there, but that first change and then you went to middle school, same thing, like sixth grade.

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, 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.

Heather (04:44)
exactly it. You nailed it. Photographers think they want success, but deep down they're uncomfortable with it because it's different. So that's that was like the perfect metaphor is being afraid of something that you know 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. So you could be blocking your success because just because it's uncomfortable.

Nicole (04:52)
We'll see you

huh.

Yeah, yeah. So give us a list kind of what are some, why would photographers kind of block their own success? Like what are some reasons why?

Heather (05:18)
Yeah,

I think the number one is fear of change. But 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.

Nicole (06:02)
Yeah, 100%. It's what they know.

Heather (06:04)
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

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.

Nicole (06:40)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, 100%. 100%. Okay, so fear of change, what else?

Heather (06:46)
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 maybe can't even handle it. Like you wouldn't, okay, so this happened yesterday. 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

Nicole (06:49)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (07:16)
the imposter syndrome of, okay, again, it's kind of like abstract, of feeling successful when you haven't been successful. So it's like...

Nicole (07:25)
Mm-hmm. 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. In your head.

Heather (07:29)
Yes.

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 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 of their things. Right. And we know that's not true because how do you learn a workflow? You have to put people in the workflow in order. Yeah. So that has to happen. they say to, okay, again, not consciously, sub.

Nicole (07:43)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Exactly.

Heather (08:02)
You know, their 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 a 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, hooey 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 how we talked about imposter syndrome related to calling yourself a professional photographer.

Nicole (08:17)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (08:32)
When you don't believe, you don't have the self-concept as a professional photographer, you feel like an imposter, okay, 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, that I can actually manage it.

So I feel like a fraud because how am I going to do that? And it's this weird cognitive dissonance kind of tug of war almost between what you say you want. I believe that's what you want. And 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 them?

editing, delivering, etc.

Nicole (09:19)
This actually brings up another thought, is the, think that can lead into then the beliefs of is what I'm offering worth it and having that whole like sense of worth around what you actually offer.

Heather (09:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, 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. like compound interest, 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.

Nicole (09:40)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Heather (10:01)
And that's a clue to me that there's probably a story on top of a story and maybe even multiple times.

Nicole (10:09)
Yeah. All right. So fear of change, imposter syndrome, many mindset issues we're starting to talk about here.

Heather (10:12)
Okay. Yeah, the next one is money mindset

issues. this is okay. Ask me Nicole how I know about this one. So

Nicole (10:23)
I know how you know.

You've had many conversations, my dear.

Heather (10:27)
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,

Nicole (10:40)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (10:54)
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

Nicole (11:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (11:21)
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, if I 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 gonna 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,

Nicole (11:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (11:50)
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.

Nicole (12:00)
Uh-huh.

Also, Action Girl has a little something that she wants to say about that.

Heather (12:06)
Please.

Nicole (12:07)
And that is, you mentioned that you have your tax savings in a business account, which 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.

Heather (12:12)
Yes.

You're right.

You are a thousand percent right, yet again, because yeah, I just looked at it the other day and I thought, what in the world am I doing? That money has to be transferred.

Nicole (12:34)
So anyway, just wanted to pop in here with my cape.

Yeah. Especially cause

you have to pay for it out of your personal account. Anyway, it's not like it's an expense. Your business pays. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Heather (12:45)
Right. It ends up being an owner's draw. 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 have 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.

Nicole (12:56)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (13:14)
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 start, 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.

Nicole (13:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And yeah,

I say, it gets harder and harder to, to un-intertwine those, to detwine them. I don't know what sort I'm 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-22 to Cole. You said, just get started. You don't need all the systems. And now you're saying to get all the systems.

Heather (13:40)
Yes. Yes.

Nicole (13:57)
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 in like maybe get your sign up for your sales tax and like just build your business. Like start there. Start there. You don't need to have 8,000 page like inquiry guide for your clients. Like that can be much later.

But there are definitely some things. 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.

Heather (14:51)
Yeah, well, that's it. 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 systems 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, detwine your money so that it's right. Right.

Nicole (15:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. 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 $101 and 75 cents. And they laughed at me and whatever. Yeah. They might still be working at the bank. I don't know. Yeah. So, all right. Okay. So how do we block success?

Heather (15:39)
Mm-hmm.

We talked about that on an episode. Right. Who had the last laugh? You're the one laughing now. So yeah.

Nicole (15:54)
fear of change, imposter syndrome, money mindset issues. We're starting to get into this too of the guilt around ambition. So.

Heather (16:00)
Yeah, there's

yeah, guilt around ambition is like these internalized beliefs that success or chasing success or just, you know, like aiming towards success is somehow selfish or greedy or it's different than than what your friends are doing or your tribe.

Nicole (16:18)
Or we've all been raised, 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.

I'm like, no, they chose to hire you because you're giving them something of value. anyway, yeah.

Heather (16:50)
Yeah,

and all of all of that is bad. You know, it's like bad or somehow criminal or evil. remember working with Michelle or 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

Nicole (17:05)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (17:18)
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 are 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 that I...

Nicole (17:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Well,

because they're worried about number five here, which is fear of judgment. Yeah, that's why they're feeling guilty, because what if my family friends going to 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.

Heather (17:41)
there, perfect segue. Yes.

Nicole (18:04)
Definitely, they grew up with these different things of work needs to be hard, work is safety, getting a job is safety, all these pieces. So we're over here, I'm gonna take pictures of people, kids or dogs or whatever you wanna choose pictures of, and yeah, I'm just gonna 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. And yeah, 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.

Heather (18:37)
Yeah, it's their crap. That's right.

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 and how we let those opinions impact us. And 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.

Nicole (18:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. No one's gonna pay that.

Heather (19:16)
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.

Nicole (19:23)
Uh-huh.

Heather (19:45)
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.

Nicole (20:03)
Cool. Yeah.

Well, and I have two thoughts here. Number one is we need to be as secure 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 in 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, God, maybe they're right. Maybe they're right. they're like, yeah, you eat too much sugar, I'd be like, yeah, I might. I might. I might really like my sweet tooth. Well, shoot, I just made sourdough cinnamon rolls and they were amazing. When you come down. So anyway, so yeah, so there's

Heather (20:42)
if you believe it.

Oops. Yeah, I do.

I've got to get some of those. Yeah.

Nicole (21:01)
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. 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 an operational system upgrade.

Heather (21:16)
Yeah.

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 I can get a little crappy here too. If somebody offers me opinion, I'm like, well, 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, especially about the pricing. This happened. my gosh. If it's happened once, it's happened 10 times in the last week.

Nicole (21:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Heather (21:54)
inside of Elevate where somebody's friend said to them, whoa, you're gonna charge how much? Nobody will pay that. That's way too expensive. Ooh, and 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. Not receiving it.

Nicole (22:12)
Yep.

Yep. I love it. All right. So why do photographers block their success, fear of change, imposter center, 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 go through a couple of examples of how that might show up in their business.

Heather (22:29)
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. You're 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 intolerance.

Secondly, you avoid marketing because visibility feels safe. If you are visible, yes, yeah, yeah, you might get, if you're visible, you might get a client. my God. You might get, you might get a client or you might get judged. Well, which is it going to be? And because you want to stay safe, you're going to avoid the possibility of getting clients in order to stay safe. And you wonder,

Nicole (23:08)
Visibility feels unsafe. Yeah, hiding feels safe. Yeah.

or you might get judged.

Heather (23:29)
Why you're not succeeding. Well, okay. That's just like worth 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 intolerance, 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?

Nicole (24:20)
Yeah, no, I'm honestly though, looking at these, these top three, I've been there for all of them. Like, I don't want any of you guys to like start to get down on yourself of like, well shoot. and now, now I'm to 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. Okay. Yeah. Yep.

Heather (24:26)
Mm-hmm.

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. you, when I say reject, you could be outwardly saying no to meeting these people, going to this event. So outwardly saying no or subconsciously blocking it.

Like you don't need, 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 continue to tell yourself you're not ready. It's just so much danger in that position.

Nicole (25:42)
Yep. All right. And what's the last one?

Heather (25:43)
The last one is playing small or staying in this hobby mode instead of treating your photography like a real business. 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, know, which goes back to our episode on commitment, you know, are you committed to it? Only, you know that.

Nicole (26:05)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (26:09)
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 until you there's this quote. 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.

Nicole (26:34)
Hmm.

Heather (26:35)
And then

once you commit like Providence moves and all of these things open up to you, know, but as long as there's hesitation and you stay small and you're not, you're going to block it.

Nicole (26:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Yep. Yeah. That's a, that's

a, a, a manifesting principle and stuff too. It's like, yeah. Yep. And also by the way, again, if you guys try to like misread what we're saying here and we're saying that you have to have a business, if you are by, you are consciously choosing to do this as a hobby, that's great. Totally fine. It's when you want it to be a business, but you're, yeah, I'll just kind of keep it here. It's, it's about.

Heather (26:48)
Yes, that's it. Yeah, there's a great quote. Look, I can't remember.

That's fine. Yeah.

Nicole (27:13)
figuring out what you want and going after it unapologetically.

Heather (27:16)
Yes. Yes. Like how

can I, 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, how can I break through that? You just start to explore.

Nicole (27:23)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

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? Oh, there's my list. Okay. 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. Um,

Heather (27:43)
There's a list!

Nicole (28:00)
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 bubbling under the surface. 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 dig into.

Heather (28:21)
We need to clean up some thinking is what we need to do. Maybe we should get a coach, do you think?

Nicole (28:23)
Yep.

Maybe, maybe.

And what would that coach do? How do we start to break through this success and tolerance?

Heather (28:33)
Okay.

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 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. 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 my

When I catch a thought that is ill-served, I just say, that's interesting. I'm so curious as to why I'm thinking that 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 so dumb. It's just a stupid thought. And be careful here because just yesterday we were on a call and someone said, this is so silly, but.

Nicole (29:37)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (30:02)
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. OK, 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, that's so interesting what my brain came up with. And I'm just going to look at it and then challenge it. OK, number two is to normalize success. Surround yourself.

Nicole (30:04)
Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Right. Mm hmm. All right. I love it.

Heather (30:30)
with photographers who are thriving. I don't know, like maybe inside of Elevate, for example.

Nicole (30:35)
Well, maybe.

Maybe. The wins that come out of that group on the regular blow my mind. amazing.

Heather (30:41)
It's

an, 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

Nicole (30:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mm, mm-hmm.

Heather (31:09)
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. just, we are normal, normalizing success so that it just becomes like the regular, it's just what we do here.

Nicole (31:42)
Hehehe.

Yeah.

Well, and then also when you start to drop into the belief, which is one of my favorite beliefs is that for every challenge, there's always a solution. Like 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,

Heather (32:07)
Yeah, you do say that.

Hmm?

Nicole (32:19)
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.

Heather (32:26)
There's always an answer. You can figure it out. 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 tend to have 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. It OK, two things happen. I started to expand it, like slowly growing it. But then I was also expanding the amount with which it grew.

Nicole (33:20)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Heather (33:21)
And

so then, you know, it starts to compound. starts to explode after that. But I started out with small steps. 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 shift.

Nicole (33:40)
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.

Heather (33:59)
Yeah.

Nicole (34:07)
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. okay. Well, I love number four.

Heather (34:09)
Yes. Yes. Small stop.

Yep. 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, but you have to really maybe stop. Okay. I was talking with a client yesterday about this.

Nicole (34:32)
That's a big day sometimes Heather.

Heather (34:44)
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 in celebrating these small wins in order to build them up to a bigger success. But when she zoomed out, it was overwhelming. didn't look like anything was changing. And I said, hey, hey, let's zoom in. How did you win today?

Nicole (34:46)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (35:11)
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.

Nicole (35:24)
And it also rewires your brain to start to look for more of them, like the 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, know, writing down those victories, the little wins every day of just having nothing to do with revenue. So.

Heather (35:27)
Yep, it does.

Yes.

Right.

Nicole (35:53)
Yeah, whatever it you're wanting to grow or get better at, seriously track the wins of that thing. Yep.

Heather (36:00)
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, automatic. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be like everyone. You want to be different.

Nicole (36:06)
Yeah, that's how our brain is wired.

Yep. All right. So then when you're tracking your wins, this last one becomes really easy.

Heather (36:13)
Lastly.

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 the one of the biggest blocks is believing that you are a quote, real professional photographer. You're an entrepreneur. You run a business. So you have to first understand like,

Let me help you under maybe we should do a whole episode on the self concept. I don't think we have. And then you, you just figure out where you're at. Like an example, I asked 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 photographer. They were saying, well, I used to be.

a nurse or a speech therapist or whatever.

Nicole (37:16)
We're

there to say, well, I'm trying to start a photography business.

Heather (37:18)
Right, right. So my challenge

to them actually is to happen 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 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. 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 gonna work.

Nicole (38:05)
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 must simply must do it now. Even if you didn't fall, come back, do it again. It's three days. We try to keep it to an hour, might go a little bit long for having a really good conversation, but three days, 2 PM 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 too. So you 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 hairofthedogacademy.com/coachweek

 one word Coach Week, you can sign up for it there. And yeah, we would love to see you guys.

Heather (39:20)
It is

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. just were, it actually is sometimes more helpful in a way.

Nicole (39:42)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (39:46)
because you can see, they have this problem and then you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I think I do that as well.

Nicole (39:53)
Yes,

yes, so much. Alright, so I hope you guys found this helpful. Definitely come join us for Coach Week. is free. It only happens like twice a year, so come do it. It's so good.

Heather (40:05)
Don't miss it. Don't miss the opportunity. If you're

feeling stuck and 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.

Nicole (40:18)
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. hairofthedogacademy.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 where you're like, Ooh, that, that seems like that could be me. and.

Heather (40:27)
Mm-hmm.

Nicole (40:44)
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.