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

There's more to this than you might think , so stay tuned . Hi , I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves and , with over two decades of experience in the private practice world , I've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way .

This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy alignment and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered but people-forward . This is the Ideal Practice Podcast . Hey folks , this is Wendy Wendy Pitts Reeves , your host here on Ideal Practice . Thank you so much for tuning into another episode and hanging out with me today .

We are officially , officially in my favorite month of the year . Just want to declare that right now , because that means yours truly is going to be in a really good mood for a while as this goes live . I am actually still in and at the tail end of my visit to Colonial Williamsburg . I have been to Williamsburg many , many times .

I mentioned that last week , but I've never been here in the spring , and golly it is so pretty . The gardens and the flowers have just been phenomenal , and what a treat , what a treat it has been to be here this year . Well , let's talk about something else . That's beautiful , even though we don't always think it is .

I want to start by just sort of setting the stage here and telling you , sharing with you , a little personal story . If you don't mind , Several years ago , I was nominated for , and became a finalist in the consideration for , a pretty significant award that happens in Knoxville .

Every year , the local YWCA gives out what they call their tribute to women award , and it's always given to a woman who has made a major difference in some way in her community , has done something that significantly impacts the lives of women and girls in our region , and I was one of a handful of really amazing , outstanding people who was nominated for that

position and actually was a finalist . I did not end up getting the award , but to even to have been recognized in that way was a tremendous honor , and it was a big deal as we were leading up to the night of the award announcement , which included , like a big event and a theater and all of us on stage and all kinds of stuff , lots , lots of hype .

We were given a number of bonuses just for being a part of this , and one of them was we got interviewed for a video . One of them was we got a free professional headshot that they would use as part of the promotion for the award . It was really nice and I was so excited to be a part of it .

Well , the day came when I went and did that video and that was easy and fun . We just sat in a couple of chairs in a theater and someone asked me a bunch of questions . I answered them and , off the cuff , and that was easy , no big deal . But the photo , the headshot , was a different thing .

So we were all asked to go to a particular studio with a particular photographer that I did not know and take whatever we wanted to wear for our picture and go have some pictures taken right Free on the house one of the bonuses of being a part of this . Well , I did all the things you do before something like that , right , I got my haircut .

I took special care with my makeup . That day I wore what I felt like was an outfit that I felt really comfortable in and I felt was like one of my better sort of power outfits . You know what I'm talking about . Right , I felt fine going into it .

Well , fine , might be stretching it , but I was alright , I was ready for it and I was excited to be able to have this done and not have to pay for it , to be honest , because it can be expensive to go get a nice picture taken . Well , I was there for maybe an hour , hour and a half .

At the end , the photographer sat down with me , as they do , and showed me all the pictures and then let me pick out a handful or I've forgotten how many but sort of select my favorites that day that she would then send to me later in a file . And I went through the motions .

I sat there and smiled , I was nice , I made small talk , I chatted , I did my best , I looked at the photos , I made my choices and then I walked out the door and went out and got in my car and put my seat back and just cried . I just cried like it makes me feel a little sad even now thinking about it .

I was so distraught because I hated the pictures , I hated the way I looked . I didn't feel like it's just . I think the best way I can describe this is that the person I saw in those photos is not the person I feel like I am .

And this is an important point , as I'm sharing this with you , as I'm thinking this through when we see our picture , it's not just that we don't like you know that we've got an extra chin that we wish we didn't , or that we've got a few extra wrinkles that we didn't know we had . That is part of it .

Like there is that literal oh my goodness , is that what I like to say ? There is that . But I really think it's more than that . When I think about those pictures which , by the way , none of you have ever seen , nor will you but when I think about those pictures , I think what really the disconnect as I'm thinking this through is .

It is an energetic disconnect . It's not just physical . It's like that's not me , like the person in those pictures looked stiff and fake and not herself , which I think is probably how I was feeling that day . Right .

So that was rough and I will say that was one of the hardest of that type of experience that I've had , but I have had that kind of feeling more than once after having my photos taken .

So part of that is probably my hangup , but some of it , I think , has a lot to do with the process itself the photographer that you're working with , the prep work that you do in advance , et cetera . There's a lot to go into a good picture and actually next week , I want you all to tune in for this .

Next week , in our next episode , you're going to meet a photographer that I've been talking with , who is delightful , and we're specifically gonna be talking about the concept of a brand photo shoot , which is more than a headshot . But everything that she said about a brand shoot applies to this as well . So I do invite you to tune in .

Make sure you catch that next week . Her name is Sandra Costello . She was a real hoot to talk to . You're gonna enjoy that one .

But I wanna talk about this whole idea of having a good picture taken , cause , guys , you need this for your website , you need it for marketing materials , you need it when you're giving a talk somewhere , like there are so many ways that you need to have this done , but here's the problem Most of us don't like having our picture taken , and so we tend to hide

behind I don't know some kind of a terrible fellow . That some picture a friend took of us with their iPhone at a party somewhere or where we were out on a picnic or at an event at our kid's school , or maybe it's not that , maybe .

Maybe you've got a picture and it's one that you've always liked , but it's from 10 years ago and you don't look anything like that anymore . I've seen that a lot , and let me tell you that's a real mistake , cause then when people meet you , you don't look at all like what they're expecting and there's a big disconnect right out the bat .

Sometimes you don't have any pictures at all , so this is a problem , but here's the thing I want you to think about this Little girls love having their picture taken , don't they ?

Perhaps you have a daughter of your own who might be a little bitty , perhaps you have granddaughters , perhaps you have friends with daughters , but perhaps you just remember little girls love having their picture taken If you pull out a camera around a group of six year olds and they will fight to get into the picture frame .

Facebook is full of one little princess after another just showing off her sparkly new shoes or her Halloween costume or her latest dance move . Look at me . They all say , and you can tell from looking at them that their joy and their pride is honest , honest , real , unpretentious , engaging . And their sheer joy draws us in , doesn't it ?

When you see a photo or a video of some cute little girl showing off , what do you do ? You look and you drink in their pride and you share it with them , happily easily . And it's not just oh , isn't that cute , it's also go girl , yay for you , I love it . It's great when you see a little girl who's just being all that , isn't it ?

Do you know what I'm talking about ? Can y'all get this ? Far from judging them , we join them . It never even occurs to us to see them as bragging or selfish or all that kind of stuff . We don't think that way because we get it . They're just happy and proud , as they should be , and genuine pride . That is self-joy , self-respect .

Well , that's catching , isn't it ? And we want them to feel that way and we want them to share it with us . That's the cool part . But somewhere along the way that changes . There's tons of research that shows this .

Somewhere around fifth or sixth grade , girls in particular begin to doubt themselves , their abilities , their looks , their right to show up and be seen in the world , and sometimes pretty slow and subtle ways , this kind of insidious poison of self-doubt begins to creep in .

The critics in our head get louder and we step back from a place that we once held at our own center stage . You see this in girls . If you're around girls who are , like , say , three or four years old up until fifth or sixth grade , you'll see exactly the behavior I'm talking about .

But once they hit pre-adolescence and start moving into adolescence , you will see girls begin to shrink , to play small , to hold back , to minimize their talents , their accomplishments , their abilities . You'll see it in all kinds of ways , and here's the problem . We bring that with us as adults .

We bring it to our lives in all kinds of ways , in ways large and small . We start hiding behind the curtains , we shrink oh don't look at me , I'm nothing really . That's the way we begin to approach things , and it's not just about photographs either . But I'm talking about photographs because that is such a great metaphor for this and so accurate .

But I see women in particular shrinking from center stage . All the time In your everyday life I see women who pass up on opportunity to chair a committee at work or in a volunteer project or at a job , even In your career .

Often I will see women who don't even apply for the job that they really really want , because , after all , who are we to want even more and why would they even look at us ? And you know that spills over into our role as a business owner , as a private practice owner . We stop trusting in our own abilities , we downplay our accomplishments and our expertise .

We minimize our skill set , our experience , our training , our intuitive sense of what to do . We no longer . We stop dreaming about doing what makes us happy and we tend to settle for less and less of what we really want .

We hide Often we apologize for who we are , and I don't know about you , but I have seen this happen and there have been times when I've done it myself . We tend to disappear from our own life . We no longer choose to be seen . Now the pictures are all of our kids or our dogs or the flowers in our yard . Yeah , are you with me ? We stopped showing up .

Well , I was thinking about that one day this has been a few years ago when I left home at five o'clock in the morning to make a four-hour drive to Atlanta for an appointment . I was there because , as I shared with you at the beginning of this episode , I too have struggled with this and I was determined to change that .

I was serious about my business , my practice . I knew I needed to up my game in terms of how I showed up in the world , so I made a major commitment to allow myself to be seen in a way I've never been able to do before . I agreed to work with a talented and a special photographer for an entire day , an entire day , a completely personalized photo shoot .

It was an expensive day , but it was a real commitment . I wasn't messing around right Now . I was on the wrong end of the camera this time . That was hard for me , but it was one of the most powerful experiences that I'd ever had .

At that point , when you work with and here's my message to you when you work with the right photographer and I'm not talking about a quick off-the-cuff half an hour somewhere in a studio , y'all when you work with the right photographer , they can be like a magician , almost like a photo therapist .

You'll hear this when you talk , when you hear me talk with Sandra in next week's episode , because we talked about this a lot in some detail . Here's the thing so many women , so many of us , are out of sorts with our own bodies . We are ill at ease in our own skin .

So many of us have completely forgotten that happy little girl that we once were , you know , the one who would dance and twirl for the camera with ease . Well , that has to change and , as I shared with you earlier , the picture that I see on the screen is so often not what I see in my head or what I feel in my heart .

Until that day a few years ago , when I hired a true professional , when I invested real dollars and when , for the first time ever , I allowed myself to show up in a bigger way . I learned something from that . First of all , I learned that it really helps to have the right photographer , and there are lots of good ones out there .

I have now worked with two or three different folks like this and who have all been excellent since then , but until that day , I had not had much luck with that right . Well , I want to ask you are you the one who takes all the family photos , but you're never in them yourself ?

Or are you the one who loves the way your friends look in all your pictures , including selfies , but you criticize yourself ? Are you the one who has a great little practice going , but when you're , when you're potential clients , your audience checks out your website ? They don't have no , they have no idea who you are , because you're basically invisible there .

Either there's no pictures at all or they're like teeny tiny and they're hidden on page four or whatever Right I had . I have had that .

I actually , oh , about a year ago , um , I had a coaching call with a , a , a therapist , who , when I went to look at her website and kind of learn a little bit about her before we got on the call , she had not a single photograph anywhere on her site at all , anywhere Zippo , nada . And I couldn't find one anywhere else , like there wasn't any .

There weren't any other online profiles . I had no idea what to expect . What to expect when I met with her and , goodness gracious , when I did meet her what a delight . She was funny and witty and smart and beautiful and just had so much like just delightful energy vibrant , gorgeous , real down to earth energy .

That totally came across as soon as I met her , but , golly , I couldn't have . I wouldn't , I wouldn't have known that if we hadn't met on a call . Now , since then , with some coaching , she's been a great coach . She's been a great coach Call . Now , since then , with some coaching , she's changed that .

She's completely revamped everything that she's done and she's she's showing up in a completely different way today . It's so much better , so much better . It's very exciting . But I want to speak to you guys , because I know that some of you out there can relate to this .

Some of you also are hiding and it's time to change that , guys , so that your clients , your audience , the people who need you , can find you and connect with you . You don't help anybody by blowing off your brilliance . You don't help anybody by hiding behind the camera .

You're not going to be able to do any good by pretending to be anything less than the beautiful , talented , brilliant clinician , healer , professional human being that you really , truly , genuinely are and y'all . I'm not talking about perfection . I'm not saying you need to put on a suit and go look like a I don't know corporate exec .

I want you to be as real as you can possibly be , but I want you , I want you to do this . I learned that day what a true photo shoot really means and what it takes to pay for a professional , and I walked away with a handful of pictures that not only I could stand , but I kind of even kind of liked a few of them .

Now I'm not using those pictures today because I don't look at anything like that anymore , but since then I have repeated that process every few years , and it's an ongoing thing . It's something I constantly work at . It is something I still struggle with , but I appreciate it a lot more than I used to and I understand how important it is .

I just really want to invite you to do . Your clients will relate to you when they can see your smile , when and get a sense of you , and honestly , I think the more real , the more casual those photographs are , the better . But they still need to be taken by a professional , someone who knows what they're doing .

So go get your picture taken , get several , make the investment of time and money with a photographer that you love , someone who makes you feel good about who you are . Tell her what you want , play , change clothes . Let somebody help you with your hair and makeup . Take a friend with you who will make you laugh . That would be a great way to do this .

But show up , let yourself be seen , because once you make the decision to stop hiding , amazing things are going to happen . Because , yeah , we all get it . You're just happy and proud , as you should be , and genuine pride that is , self joy and self respect is catching .

Your audience wants you to feel this way and we want you to share your delightful , lovely human self with us . Be sure and tune in next week for a whole conversation about what it means to take this to a deeper level in terms of a brand photo shoot . But when I'm giving you today , you can take action on right now . That's what I've got for you today .

Have a great week everyone . I hope this inspires you to not be so afraid . Go have some fun , get some pictures that make you happy and share it with us , and I will look forward to seeing that . Thanks everybody for being here , have a great week and I will see you next time right here on the ideal practice podcast . Bye now , hey y'all .

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