Overwhelmed? Start Here

332 - If you’ve ever sat down to work and thought, “I have no idea where to start,” this one is for you. Nicole and Heather unpack how to prioritize tasks in your photography business without getting lost in overwhelm, busywork, or decision fatigue.

What to Listen For

• The two buckets every business task fits into
• Why overwhelm is really a decision problem
• How to choose your top three priorities
• What to do when everything feels urgent
• Why busy work feels safe but stalls growth
• The fastest way to refocus your week
• How to stop hiding in endless education
• The self trust shift that changes everything
• Why marketing is part of your identity

This conversation is a powerful reminder that overwhelm does not mean you are failing. It usually means you need clarity. Press play, borrow this simple decision-making framework, and get back to moving forward.

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CONNECT + LEARN MORE:

Explore all things photography education at nicolebegleyedu.com

Ready to build a profitable photography business? Visit freedomfocusformula.com

Master the craft of pet photography at hairofthedogacademy.com

Follow along on Instagram - @nicolebegleyofficial 

Transcript

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Nicole Begley (00:00)
In today's episode, Heather and I are chatting about how to move forward quickly and easily when you feel overwhelmed by a long to-do list. We've broken it down to making a couple really simple steps to help you get clarity and be able to move from overwhelm to action quickly. So if you're ever feeling strapped for time, too many things to do, won't fit into the time allowed, well, this episode's for you. 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 $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 (01:25)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Bagley, and Heather is back in the house for a new episode. What's up, Heather? How are you?

Heather (01:36)
Fantastic what's going on over there? I miss you already

Nicole Begley (01:40)
my goodness. Hey, I just got back and I am back for two weeks. ⁓ Yeah, we just wrapped up. was co-teaching. This was my friend, Shelly Paulson's workshop, but I co-taught with her down in Wellington, Florida, which any horse person that is into the hunter jumper world knows that is the epicenter of well, actually dressage world too, in the winter of

Heather (01:47)
my gosh, two weeks.

Nicole Begley (02:07)
ridiculously beautiful sport horses and insane farms. Like ridiculous. Like, yes. Like things that I would call, Amy asked me, she's like, would you ever come down here for a year? Like assuming that like it was affordable cause it, cause it's not. ⁓ and I was like, man, if I had stupid money, yes, yes, I would. I mean, these are Heather, these barns are

Heather (02:15)
Yeah, it's just so beautiful, right?

That's

Nicole Begley (02:36)
More beautiful than most homes. and I mean, we're talking like 16 million for five acres, insane, stupid, stupid money, but beautiful. And every horse that we photographed was more beautiful than next. And our dog models, Amy found an agility group. they were like ridiculously well trained. was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. It was.

Heather (02:38)
Yeah.

⁓ that makes it fun, yes.

Nicole Begley (03:04)
It was fantastic and it was a great lesson in letting go of things you cannot control because leading up to the three day workshop, I'm watching the weather and it was supposed to start and I have an hour by hour like weather thing, weather underground, love the app. it breaks it down hour by hour. It was basically going to start raining Saturday morning, which was the start of our workshop till Monday at sundown, which was the end of our workshop.

Heather (03:32)
my gosh, no.

Nicole Begley (03:34)
The entire time and we had six shoots planned, we're like, well, there is literally nothing we can do to change the weather. So we're just going to lean into the belief that it'll all work out. And it did. We only had rain for one session and it just happened to be at one of those beautiful barns that we photographed in the doorways and the images are actually stunning. And it was a great lesson in pushing your creativity and making them happen even in situations that aren't ideal.

Heather (03:41)
Right, right.

Right. And now you no longer you and photographers that were there no longer have to fear the weather forecast because you just you you increase your self trust that you'll just figure it out. Whatever happens. Now, that's a good lesson.

Nicole Begley (04:09)
Mm-hmm, yep.

huh. Yep. Yep. Yep. And again,

there's nothing like no amount of stress and worry was going to change anything about the weather. The weather is going to weather.

Heather (04:23)
Right, right, right.

Yeah, there's that, you know, that's always how I felt about weddings. It's like when you're a portrait photographer, you do have some flexibility. Usually you can reschedule a session, but a wedding, you can't a workshop, you can't. So you have to figure it out. So I would argue that that's what you experienced was the best possible case scenario in terms of a lesson for you and others.

Nicole Begley (04:51)
Yeah, no, it was great. It went really, really well. We loved it. So much fun. And our students were fantastic. Yeah, amazing. ⁓ So, so yeah. So while today I'm back, my first day back in the office, ⁓ recorded a couple of podcast episodes and I'm staring down a list of to do's that are pretty long and also fairly substantial since we have a go live date of our new community.

Heather (04:57)
Perfect.

Okay.

Ha!

Nicole Begley (05:19)
new education portal where we're like taking all of our courses, all of our people from separate hair, the dog Academy, separate freedom focus formula into one new Nicole Bagley education portal, one new community that's like embedded in that portal, like massive undertaking, like re importing things, retagging everybody restructuring like the entire backend of the business, like massive undertaking. So anyway, so my.

Heather (05:46)
Yeah, big job. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (05:48)
It's going to be incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Heather (05:49)
Yes.

Nicole Begley (05:50)
Like I can't even tell you the joy I get looking at my new offers page and my new products page with like, with like actual naming conventions and like actual title screens that kind of like look organized and make sense. And we can find what we're looking for easily. It's, it's life changing, but, but if ever, if ever my time scarcity was going to come back,

Heather (06:08)
No!

Fantastic!

⁓

yes.

Nicole Begley (06:17)
Now is the time.

Heather (06:19)
Yeah. Okay. Well, actually, it's interesting that you're bringing this up because I had an idea of what we could talk about today. And what happened was I was talking with one of our Elevate members on a Lifeline yesterday and she's new to Elevate. And she was just, you know, sharing that she was feeling overwhelmed by all of the things one needs to do in order to start, grow or even run a business. And she is busy just like everyone else. She has responsibilities outside of photography, right? Everyone has

Nicole Begley (06:32)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (06:49)
a life they need to manage. And she was just feeling stuck in that overwhelm of like, don't, I don't even just know what I have lists everywhere to do some tasks. And I said, I've got you. I know what to do here. So I think that's where we should go today.

Nicole Begley (07:02)
Yeah.

I love it.

I love it. heard you even said there was going to be a matrix.

Heather (07:12)
Yeah, so I I'm an engineer and I like to develop equations or a matrix or something. Really, here's what happens is I'm on a lifeline or on a group coaching call for elevate and photographers bring me challenges and I don't just coach or or solve their problems. Typically, we work together to find a solution for them and then I create a way to teach it every single time. Like she brought this problem to me.

yesterday and by the end of the day, I had it locked and loaded for a podcast and then it'll be a training somehow in Elevate will work on that. Yeah. So, ⁓ She was telling me she was feeling overwhelmed. And the first thing I say about overwhelm is it takes you out of capability. It's just telling you you're not capable. So let's just start there and remind your brain that you are capable, but that doesn't always alleviate the pressure of staring down that large list. Okay.

Nicole Begley (07:48)
my God. I love it. I love it.

Heather (08:10)
The reason overwhelm comes from the list or so we think is because everything feels equally important. And it can feel difficult to choose if, especially if you don't completely trust yourself. And some of us.

Nicole Begley (08:18)
Mm-hmm.

And

when you're newer in business too, you don't have the experience to like discern sometimes what actually moves you and what doesn't.

Heather (08:33)
Right.

Correct. Exactly. So what happens

is many of us will just default to sort of a random task, you know? Correct. Correct. Or so we'll either do that or we'll do nothing, you know, but either way, I just want to reiterate that this is not a time problem. This is a decision problem plus an identity problem.

Nicole Begley (08:44)
Maybe something that gives us a little dopamine hit. just me. ⁓

Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm, say more.

Heather (09:05)
Okay.

Yes. So there are only two categories in your business and everyone's business. There are only two categories. And remember, I keep things really simple because my brain is simple. I have to keep it. I have to protect Heather from herself. So it just helps that I also instruct and coach. But two things in your business. One is client delivery. And that's anything that's tied to a paying client.

And two is marketing or anything you are working on your business towards something. So that's anything that brings in future clients. And that is it.

Nicole Begley (09:38)
Mm-hmm.

Like BC

and AD about when you get a client, the client pays you and now you shift to delivery fulfillment and everything before is marketing.

Heather (09:45)
You

Right, right, correct. Correct, everything.

Everything either falls into one of these two categories and that's it. There's nothing else. It's either client delivery or marketing. And if, for some crazy reason, a task does not fit into either one of these, it's likely very optional, avoidable, or, you know,

I don't know, it just doesn't-

Nicole Begley (10:17)
I guess that

could technically be a third, like paying your sales tax payment, paying your, well, I guess that one's the source subject. I shouldn't say that one right now. Paying any sort of tax payments ⁓ or like paying your insurance premiums or whatever. Like those kind of admin tasks technically aren't marketing. So there is one third little bucket that is usually not fun and has to be done. Yeah.

Heather (10:25)
Thank you, Nicole. Yeah.

Yeah, administration. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, I could go for that.

Nicole Begley (10:44)
can

see that just one little bucket extra bucket on the side.

Heather (10:48)
Right. And it's very small and it's something that you could schedule once a month, one hour to take care of silly things like that. OK, so let's let's break these down. We always have have these two categories. Let's start with client delivery, because in my mind, that's always the number one priority. And this should feel very obvious. mean, an example is shooting the session. Editing the session.

Nicole Begley (10:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (11:15)
album design, artwork design, client communication, delivery of galleries or products, ordering products, preparing for upcoming sessions. If you have client work, this is your priority, period. No debating, no overthinking. You have got to take care of your current clients or you will not have a business. So for me, my number one priority is always elevate in my one-on-one client.

Nicole Begley (11:30)
Done. Yes, I agree. Yep.

Heather (11:45)
Period. There's no debating that priority. So if there's something I need to work on related to that, that's what's happening today. And I'm not going to argue with, I don't know who I would argue with, but I'm not arguing with that person in my head about, it's just period. You take care of your clients or you're not going to have a business.

Nicole Begley (12:04)
I'm wondering though, is there a situation, because I forget what, whose name it is about this, but basically the amount of time you have to complete a task, like the amount of time it takes you to complete something expands based on the container you give it. So is there a situation in which, I don't know, you spend all day editing five images because you're like working on delivery, but then you're never actually looking at the marketing side because

Heather (12:17)
Yes. Yes.

Nicole Begley (12:31)
you're procrastinating because you don't know what to do, or you don't know, you're scared of the results or putting yourself out there or whatever reason. So you choose to say, I'm busy working with my delivery, but at some point that delivery is going to run out and you're not spending any time on marketing.

Heather (12:49)
Yeah, 100%. Yes. There has to be some level of discernment where like you can see that you're taking too long on a session because you're avoiding something or you you need to talk to one of us or talk to me in a coaching call to see like, am I procrastinate you? Here's the thing. If you can cultivate some self trust, you know, when you're doing this, you know, you know,

Nicole Begley (13:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I think

we're talking about like the times where you're literally sitting down and you're like, I don't even know where to start. I want to get something done and I don't even know where to start. So it's not like, it's Tuesday. Let me just, you know, mess around with this edit all day when I know I should be doing these other things. This is to get out of the stress of the world is crashing down and there's no way I can complete this. Okay. Great. Yep.

Heather (13:20)
Correct.

Correct.

Right.

Correct, you're absolutely right, 100%.

Okay, so that's the first category. The second category is marketing, working on your business. And this is where people do tend to spiral because we do need to organize this. I have this organized into like three subcategories. don't, I'm.

I am very set on the fact that there are two high level categories in that little third bucket you talked about. You cannot argue that with me. These ones are a little bit more malleable because we have lead generation, marketing, visibility, which is meeting people, making offers, maybe networking groups or posting on social media, email marketing, blogging, SEO, referrals, whatever. That's just lead generation. I need to go out and generate some leads.

Then we have conversion, which is turning those leads or interest into clients. That would be responding to inquiries, maybe having a sales conversation, a pricing conversation, sending a proposal, following up with leads. This is the conversion. So we're getting the leads and then we're converting the leads. And then we have what I'm calling foundational support systems. This is your website, your portfolio.

your pricing structure, your CRM, your workflow setup, your offer creation, basically anything that doesn't fall into those previous two categories. But all of this falls under the umbrella of marketing, working on your business.

Nicole Begley (15:08)
And I would like to say of all those pieces, I think again, I see the traps you guys fall into and that is spending three months tinkering with your website and not doing one darn thing in that leads category. Like, why have I not had any inquiries? I don't know. Maybe you haven't done anything for leads.

Heather (15:23)
And then wondering why you're not getting clients.

Yeah,

because they just like really tweak the website or tinker with the pricing or, you know.

Nicole Begley (15:38)
Yeah. And

that comes down to that procrastination where I think, A, I think we've had conversations about this where procrastination is usually because one of two reasons, you're not sure what to do. So you just avoid doing it or you're scared to do it because of the rejection that might come with trying to market your business or whatever that you're scared of some sort of outcome from the action.

Heather (16:05)
That's it.

You're scared of whatever's downstream of that. Like if you get 12 clients, your nervous system would freak out because you are afraid of your workflow falling apart, your inability to possibly deliver or who knows what else, right? There's something downstream of that. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, I believe that the missing piece here, because like you said, there are all of these things you need to do to market your business. So we're still

Nicole Begley (16:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Heather (16:32)
We're still in this position of overwhelm because I just listed a bazillion things. And it's like, well, okay, if I'm not doing client work and I need to be marketing, well, my gosh, what do I do? There's all of these things. Okay, here is the missing piece. This is where the magic happens. You do not need 27 strategies or 55 ideas or tasks. You need three at any given time, three clear priorities in your marketing.

Nicole Begley (17:01)
Hmm

Heather (17:01)
Three

clear ones. So one of them might be your website. It might be the time that you've designated as the website is one of your priorities. And that's fine. But I'm thinking that at least two of these priorities need to be something around following up with inquiries and reaching out to five people or meeting more people or making more offers because that's the only way you get clients.

Nicole Begley (17:24)
Yeah.

Would it be fair to say that you should like when you look at your week and your goals and like I try to have, all right, what's my big project for the week? Like what at the end of the week am I going to feel good about getting done? And each day I'm like, what today other than the admin, the little things that pop up to take up my time, like what is the one thing that's getting done today that's going to move the ball forward? Should we?

Heather (17:37)
Yes.

Nicole Begley (17:48)
Maybe we need a minute and we need to get out of that overwhelm for a second first and we go and we work on our client delivery. But then when we have a mental openness space, come back and choose one project and leads one thing and conversions. And then you can do also one thing in that other market. Yeah.

Heather (18:03)
could. Yeah, you could.

Yeah, that might be a solid approach for someone who's really unsure where to focus. Yeah, I don't hate that at all. Yeah. Okay, so it does need to be the priorities do need to be very clear. You know, again, it's like, I'm going to book 10 calls this month, or I'm going to book five clients this month, or I'm going to ask every client for a referral, I'm going to reach out, you know, it's, I think

Nicole Begley (18:10)
⁓ huh. Yeah.

Heather (18:32)
I don't know that the exact priority matters as much as just the decision, deciding what matters. This is where you build that self-trust. These are my top three priorities this week, this month, and then here are the tasks that I'm going to do in order to work on those priorities. And if the website or the pricing isn't on that list, then I'm not going to tinker. Especially if I have limited time, which everybody tells me they do.

Nicole Begley (18:38)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Heather (19:01)
Right? Nobody except me, no one is out there saying that they have all the time in the world. So if that's the case, then stop messing around with things that don't need to be messed around with.

Nicole Begley (19:13)
huh. Yes. Agreed.

Heather (19:15)
Okay, so

the self-concept layer to this is, you know, not being stuck because you don't know what to do, but being stuck because you're thinking, what if I choose wrong? What if it doesn't work? What if I waste time? What if this isn't the right priority? Should I be choosing something else? And when you're stuck there, you avoid making a decision, you avoid choosing, you stay busy, you know? It feels like you're busy, but it's safe.

Nicole Begley (19:32)
Hmm

Heather (19:45)
and you stay stuck. So I think it's important to develop this concept of self-trust as a business owner, as a CEO, to commit to selecting these priorities and saying, this is what I'm doing. I am sticking to these three priorities in my business. And by the way, when I was talking to this elevate friend yesterday, I said to her, I got you. Okay, this is easy. You have one job. I just want you to get paying clients in front of your lens. And I don't care what you do to make that happen.

Nicole Begley (20:15)
Hmm.

Heather (20:16)
There is nothing else. She doesn't currently have client work. So I said to her, whatever it takes to get a paying client in front of your lens. And by the way, she came up with a couple of people that she was going to reach out to to make offers to, know, people that she knew in her network that had been interested maybe in scheduling a session. I said, good, go get them booked. Get them on the calendar. That's your only job. Everything else, bonus. It's fun, but not necessary because if you don't have clients, you don't have a business.

Nicole Begley (20:40)
Yeah.

Yeah. And around that, there's one thing I like to do with goals. Like say your goal is to get five clients. Like, okay, that's a great goal, great outcome. But I think people are like, all right, my goal is to get five clients, but they never take the next step and break down what actions they're going to take with that outcome. And so like, if you have a goal, that's a certain revenue goal, a certain number of clients goal, something that is not based on I did it or I didn't do it.

Heather (21:04)
Yes.

Nicole Begley (21:16)
by the actions I took, I want you to walk it back and say, what actions do I need to take to reach that goal? And those actions are your goal. That also takes that judgment off whether you hit it or not off because your goal was now to reach out to those five potential previous clients who cares what the outcome is. The outcome is not your goal. Your goal is to do the action.

Heather (21:36)
Yes. ⁓

my gosh, mic drop. I love that. You said walk it back, walk it back.

Nicole Begley (21:43)
Yeah, yes.

Yeah, your goal is the action and it takes away that fear of failure because again you did it or you didn't do it. And I think it also builds momentum because you're making progress. You are starting to trust yourself more because you know what the clear goal is and you are in control of the success of that goal or not. So.

Heather (21:57)
Yes, yes.

Yes.

Nicole Begley (22:12)
That's my mic drop for the day. New way to do goals.

Heather (22:13)
my gosh, that's brilliant.

OK, I also came up with like this is sort of the matrix. It's it's the daily filter. So to make this practical before you start any task, especially if you're a little bit confused about what you should be working on, you could ask yourself, is this client delivery or is it marketing? It has to fit into one of those two things. Is this client delivery or is it marketing? then. Yes, yeah.

Nicole Begley (22:34)
No.

or the little tiny admin bucket on occasion.

Yes.

Heather (22:42)
And if it's marketing, then the next question is, does this align with my top three priorities? And if it doesn't, don't do it. This is the discipline. And it's like, if you want to stay swimming in this confusion, I think that's just a lack of commitment, lack of decision, what those three priorities are. I have my three priorities in front of me, all written down near my monitor.

And whenever I sit down, if it's not client delivery, if I'm not on an elevate call or with a private client, I'm marketing. And I ask myself, okay, is what I'm about to do? Does it align with one of those three things? If the answer is no, I've got to move on. just, you know, I'm not going to indulge in false productive work. Okay. I'm not saying ever. Every once in while, your brain needs a break. Correct.

Nicole Begley (23:28)
the

You're looking for the dopamine hit to feel

productive in a safe way.

Heather (23:38)
Correct, correct, feel productive in a safe way. And that's just not gonna, that's not gonna usually lead to growth. I'm not talking about, I'm not aiming for 100 % perfection here. I'm just trying to help you guide your decisions. And I mean, the truth is, if you're not working on client work and, or if it doesn't lead to a client, then what are we doing? I don't know if you should be working on it.

Nicole Begley (24:04)
And

you can save if you're just like, really enjoy tinkering with my website. Make that a reward for after you do the hard thing.

Heather (24:12)
Yes, perfect. Yes.

Yeah, I love that because sometimes I like tinkering in Canva. I shouldn't be in there.

Nicole Begley (24:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

They hate, I hate Canva. leave that one for my team. Every time I get in there, I'm like, ⁓ just graphic design. know good graphic design and I know what I like, but I can't create what I like. So the whole different skill.

Heather (24:31)
Yeah, yeah, same. Yeah, yeah. And so

until those top three priorities in your marketing, until they are done, and by the way, they'll never be done because you'll finish one, you move on to the next. But you have to. Never, never done. So until those three priorities are done, spoiler alert, they're not done. You know, you don't need to be tweaking your logo.

Nicole Begley (24:42)
And you have to keep marketing if you want to keep getting clients. Like the marketing work never ends.

Heather (24:58)
You probably don't need to be redesigning your website. Okay, maybe that's a project that happens every so often. I'll give you that. But you know when you're messing too much, you know, when you just need to step away and say, okay, that's good enough.

Nicole Begley (25:10)
I have a new identity thought that I'm wondering if people need to start leaning into. I mean, we've already talked about like leaning into the, I'm a business owner and entrepreneur, just not just a photographer. But what if we took that one step further and said, I'm a marketer.

Heather (25:13)
No. Okay.

Yes.

Nicole Begley (25:28)
Like what's the job of a marketer to get seen and to market? And isn't every business supported by marketing, which leads to sales without marketing, no sales.

Heather (25:43)
Yes. Yes.

without marketing, no sales. I'm a marketer. I will add that to our list of self-concepts to work on developing. Yeah, because the thing is, if you don't have that self-concept, and most of us don't by default, that's okay, because that's not what we were, then you can imagine that working on your high level category of marketing is pretty difficult when you don't identify as the type of person that does it. Let me think about it.

Nicole Begley (25:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

huh. Yes. Yes. Well, like you and I are both,

you're an engineering major. I'm a science major. we're not, we were not a marketing major. Like I did not, I did not ever consider myself skilled in that area till probably seven years ago.

Heather (26:22)
No, no, I didn't think any of that.

Yeah, same. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (26:34)
And it just came

from practice and continually showing up and doing it.

Heather (26:37)
Right. And now,

you know, I, I consider that like my major job, you know, aside from my delivery, the next most important thing is marketing, because how would I get clients to deliver to unless I'm marketing? OK, so at this point, we should be very clear. There are two categories, tiny third one. There are two categories, client delivery or marketing. There are three priorities in the marketing.

Nicole Begley (26:42)
Yeah.

Yes, correct.

Heather (27:07)
And I want to take this one step further because part of her question was, Heather, there is so much information inside of the Elevate portal. I just do not even know where to start or what to watch. And I have always said it is a library to reference. It is not meant to be all consumed. It's not a course. No, it's a coaching program with supportive materials. OK.

Nicole Begley (27:27)
It's not a course.

Yeah.

Heather (27:37)
So, but I understood what she was saying because I own courses, trainings like this as well. And you want to, you're just excited and you want to consume a lot and you want to learn it all. And she wants to use her time wisely because again, she's very busy. So I thought I've got to find a different angle to explain this because telling people they don't need to watch it all is not working. It has never worked. They still think they do. So.

Nicole Begley (27:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Heather (28:04)
Here's where education fits into this. It is not a third category. It falls under marketing because the only purpose of learning is to improve your market and improve how you deliver. Okay, I'm setting aside the craft of learning how to photograph. Okay, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about business.

Nicole Begley (28:20)
Even that

could be considered marketing a little bit because you're creating the desire for what people can get. Yeah.

Heather (28:26)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So obviously our photographer friends, especially those in elevate are not lacking information, right? Because it's all there. But sometimes they fall into this. Well, I'm just going to watch, you know, call after call after call because it feels productive, but it's often avoidance. So I have a tutorial decision filter, training decision filter, you know, before you hit play.

Nicole Begley (28:47)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (28:56)
on any one of these trainings inside of Elevate, you ask yourself, does this directly support my top three priorities?

Nicole Begley (29:05)
I love that because listen, just listening to more education and more calls is going to add to your overwhelm because you're going to come up with more ideas that you want to implement.

Heather (29:13)
Correct. Correct.

So if you've defined these top three priorities, which I have mine, she now has hers, then when you log into some training portal, you can say, okay, look at my three priorities, look at these classes, which one of these supports one of those? And that's what you watch. And if it doesn't, you don't. Unless, you know, there are times where I have, ⁓

Nicole Begley (29:33)
Yeah.

Heather (29:41)
really training for me can sometimes be entertainment.

Nicole Begley (29:44)
I mean, you

were down here and we watched the training on a Friday night.

Heather (29:47)
I told Craig about that last night. said, Nicole and I were like, it's Friday night. What do want to do?

Nicole Begley (29:54)
Let's go watch a training upstairs

in the TV room on the big screen.

Heather (29:59)
my gosh. And it was the best night of my life. I loved it so much. We had pizza and we watched training. my gosh. Yeah. So in that case, you know, we did actually watch something that was directly related to our priorities. But if we wanted to watch something training for fun, I would have been okay with that.

Nicole Begley (30:06)
Ha ha ha.

Mm-hmm.

I love us! If I wanted to watch, you know, training for fun.

Heather (30:26)
my goodness, I know it's so hilarious. OK, so but if you're very, you know, if you're a person that's limited on time or, the photography business, right, you're trying to do all of these things. You don't go into one of these training courses and try to watch everything. You have to match it up with your priorities. So, for example, if one of your priorities is to post three times a week, then watching a video on Reels could make sense. If one of your

Nicole Begley (30:34)
Yeah.

Right, right, yes.

Heather (30:56)
priorities is to follow up with inquiries, then watching a video on email templates probably makes sense. But I don't have an example here of something that doesn't make sense, but you can figure out, know, like if you want to focus, if your goal is to go out and meet people in person, then watching a social media course probably doesn't make sense, right? If you're trying to get out and meet people in real life in person.

Nicole Begley (31:04)
Great.

Heather (31:24)
It has to align. So I have actually two ways you can sort of reconcile this. The first way is does this support one of my three priorities and or is it something I can apply in the next 24 to 48 hours? Is it something I need right now based on my priorities? This is huge because if you can't use it immediately, then it's likely maybe too advanced to, like you're not there yet, which means it's not relevant yet.

Nicole Begley (31:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Heather (31:54)
And then it's just going to cause more mental clutter and overwhelm. So don't do it. You know, if you, if you see something, you can just like put a pin in it, you know, make a note. Yeah. I want to come back to this when I'm at that point. Then.

Nicole Begley (31:56)
Yeah. Uh huh.

Yeah, make a list for future projects.

Heather (32:11)
Yes, correct. What I want to, so for example, I'm really dialed in with my Facebook ads right now, but I came across this training and one of the courses I own, it's how to scale your ads from $1,000 a day to $3,000 per day. So you might not believe this, but I'm not quite there yet.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna fill my brain with that, with that mental clutter right now. I'm just not there. It's just gonna confuse me. So, but I know, you know, I made a note of it, like when and if I get to that point.

Nicole Begley (32:47)
I would

like to get to that because my credit card earns three points per dollar spent. So $3,000 a day on ads is $90,000 a month spending on Facebook ads, means, mean, wait, yeah, $90,000 a month, which means it's 270,000 points a month. Oh man, I'd never be home.

Heather (32:50)
Woo!

Yeah, it does.

a month.

You better look out.

Okay, so there's those two filters with like, have to, you know, are you starting to see the bigger picture here? There's two categories. And then if we're talking specifically about learning and training, we can even narrow that down. These decisions can be made. I mean, instantly. Now you might spend a couple of minutes, know, hours or a day, whatever, determining those priorities. But once you...

Nicole Begley (33:42)
And they might shift

a little bit, you need to not. Yeah. Don't get rid of your marketing one for another non-marketing bucket. Yeah.

Heather (33:44)
Of course, of course. We're flexible.

Right, right.

So then when you're watching something, you can ask yourself, you know, am I watching this to solve a real problem or just to feel better, like that I'm being productive? And then what specific problem am I trying to solve? And if you can't answer that clearly, you're probably avoiding something. We call it buffering, you know, when you're just doing something else, feel productive, but avoid so that you don't have to fall into this binge watching everything, you know, and

and I'm missing something that's just a lack of self-trust. The self-concept we're building here is more trust in what you're doing and grabbing those priorities. And then here's the thing, if you're solid with those priorities, then it is go time. Let's go diving and we're taking care of it. But if you're sort of wavering and I'm not sure about these priorities, you're going to be in the same exact position. I just want to encourage everyone to choose the priorities. Give yourself some flexibility, but

choose them, decide, commit, and then boom, you just go do that. Education though, I mean, this is important because education without implementation, it's a form of procrastination with a notebook.

Nicole Begley (35:09)
Can we make that a bumper sticker?

Heather (35:12)
It's hilarious.

Nicole Begley (35:13)
Like DC's, no, no Taxi Show without representation. What was our, our new bumper sticker?

Heather (35:16)
Yes.

Yes. Education without implementation is just procrastination with a notebook.

Nicole Begley (35:22)
It's procrastination.

And it rhymes. mean, that's God's catchy.

Heather (35:28)
I mean, it's just brilliant, right? So, okay. I mean, really, what does this boil down to? Self-trust. I've just given you the matrix and all of the filters, and now you just ask yourself, is this client delivery or marketing? If it's marketing, is it one of my top three priorities? If I'm learning, does it support one of those priorities? And can I implement it immediately?

Nicole Begley (35:52)
Love it. Simple.

Heather (35:53)
And then

boom, I mean, done. I need to maybe put this on a ⁓ worksheet. I'll do that. I'll put it in Elevate, create this worksheet, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. then TM Heather Lattinen, something like that. Yeah, registered. No. So you know what else I'll do on that worksheet is I'll leave like three lines for write your priorities here. And then I would actually...

Nicole Begley (35:57)
Amazing.

You need to the tagline at the bottom.

Hmm.

Heather (36:20)
I would print it right physically with my hand and a writing utensil. I would write down those three priorities and I have mine taped just like up right next to my monitor so I can see it every day. And the thing is, I often talk about past Heather, current Heather and future Heather. Past Heather does the work so that current Heather, all she has to do is obey.

Follow the protocol, it's written down, do what past Heather said, she did the thinking. Because if I don't do that, current Heather will always screw me over. She'll just do whatever she wants.

Nicole Begley (37:03)
Yeah, that, doesn't so work, work for my brain. Actually, next time you and I get together, we need to have a conversation about those hacks for, ⁓ making sure that current Nicole and current Heather don't screw future Nicole and future Heather. And those hacks are different because our brains are different.

Heather (37:23)
good point. That's a good point. Yeah, you should make a note of that in our planning. Yeah.

Nicole Begley (37:24)
Yeah. Yeah. huh. That'll be really good. So that is

coming in the next couple of weeks, guys. We'll record it next week.

Heather (37:31)
Yeah, no, that's really good. Yeah, to the best of your knowledge.

Nicole Begley (37:34)
Cause I don't obey. I

cannot obey like what, who the hell does Pastor Nicole think she is telling future Nicole what to do? Makes me want to do it less.

Heather (37:41)
Yeah.

She can suck it. I'm not doing what she told me to do. Yeah, no, that doesn't work for you. That is so funny. No, you're right. You're right. We talked about that when we were together. That's

so important. I was telling Craig about this. said, Nicole and I teaching at Elevate Live, it was like a convergence of brilliance I can't even describe. But part of that is because we view it differently.

Nicole Begley (38:10)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Heather (38:12)
And so I teach something and then you always raise such good points that I would have never seen. I would have not known that without you saying, hey, but that my brain isn't going to doesn't work that way. And then I'm like, my gosh, you're so right. Absolutely. And then you share your approach. So I have mine. You have yours. And everybody's going to probably fall on their own, but similar. You know, they're going to identify sort of with both or one way or the other. And it's

Nicole Begley (38:35)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (38:42)
Brilliant to have art. Smart.

Nicole Begley (38:43)
Yeah, and it gives them

permission to be whatever works for them too. Yeah, I know I struggled with that for a long time of like, but I'm supposed to be able to use this planner, but I'm supposed to be able to do this. Like, why can't I do this? Like, what's wrong with my, ⁓ I used to think that I could not be an integrity into myself because like I couldn't follow through in those types of situations that were set up for someone that was not like me.

Heather (38:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yes.

Hmm.

Mm.

Nicole Begley (39:12)
I found my own system and turns out I am very integrative. I just need to set up a system that works for me.

Heather (39:19)
Yeah, and once you do, it's much easier to execute. I think that's the key is like getting really clear on how your brain works and also, you your priorities and what you want to accomplish. So there's like constraints and clarity, I think is if I were to summarize what I'm teaching today, I would say it's, you know, the constraints of the two categories and then the three priorities and then getting clarity on those.

Nicole Begley (39:23)
yeah.

Heather (39:47)
And that makes this consistent and simple and I mean, just much easier to execute, I think. Yeah, it's good.

Nicole Begley (39:55)
100%. Yes, for

sure. Oh my gosh. This was a great conversation. Thank you for bringing this. Um, and I, I'm sure you guys enjoyed it. So reach out to the Instagram and Nicole Bigley official at flourish Academy, let us know and, come join us inside of elevate too, because that's a great place to be. But anyway, Heather, it was great to have you and we'll be back next week. See you guys.

Heather (40:16)
Nicole, it was great to be here. Thank you.