I've been in business for almost 15 years now. And with that longevity comes a lot of privilege, right? I feel like I wake up knowing what I'm doing in my photography business. I know what my goals are. I have a clear sense of what the path to get there is. I feel confident when someone asks me about the work that I do or asks me about my pricing.
I... don't feel that sort of fear or dread when I'm getting ready for a session because I feel confident that I'm going to be able to get the job done, like all the different things. There's many, many ways in which longevity gives you a leg up.
But for a long time, when I'm talking to one of my students or just another photographer who hasn't been in business for as long, And they say something along the lines of like, Oh, I can't wait until I'm there or, uh, you know, I think that's just easier for you because you're, you've been around the block. And my response is always the same. Yes, no doubt.
It's great to have like some of the bumps behind you, but there are also some real benefits to being newer in your business, to being a newer photographer, right? Like I. I mean, I've never been someone to try hard drugs or anything, but people talk about like that initial high and it's so amazing and you spend the rest of your addiction chasing that particular high. And I feel that way about photography. Like I was, I don't even know the word for it, obsessed, enamored, infatuated with.
you know, the images that I started to realize that I could make pretty early on, like well before I started my business. And it gave me life. I mean, it gave me energy. I would take my camera everywhere, right? I, I thought about almost nothing else.
I mean, I was also a new mom at the time, so I had plenty to think about, but, but that sort of excitement has certainly, I get it, I get bits and pieces of it from time to time, but you know, photography over the years has gone from being a passion and an obsession and a hobby to being a new business to now being like kind of a job, right? And I love my job. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it's not, you know, it doesn't light me up. It really does, but it has changed.
And as Riley and I are celebrating our one year anniversary, right around the time that I'm recording this. And so I'm doing a lot of thinking about kind of, you know, relationships over time. And I read an article that somebody sent me about the four stages of romantic relationships. And it just like hit me like a hammer in the forehead that are.
relationships with our art, with photography, are kind of similar in a lot of ways, pretty strikingly similar to the romantic relationships that we have and sort of those phases of the relationships. And I think that it's worth kind of talking about these comparisons, because I think that each have lessons to teach the other, right?
If you are newer in one and longer in another or vice versa, I think that that's there are some interesting kind of comparisons and insights because just like in relationships, each stage of your creative business is going to have pros and cons like we were just talking about. And each stage is going to have some sort of issues to watch out for. I've really enjoyed thinking about this and I figured maybe you might enjoy it as well. Welcome to This Can't Be That Hard.
My name is Annamie Tonkin and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it and I can show you how. Okay, so let's talk about the four stages of romantic love.
And if you Google this, you know, you can find them called different things. And, you know, I don't know that there's any real scientific basis for this, but it, you know, that has borne out in my own experience. And I've certainly seen lots of other people go through this. And that first stage is kind of the obvious one. And that's the spark, right? So this is when in a romantic relationship, you... You meet somebody, you fall for them, and you just become completely enmeshed, right?
Everything feels right when you're together. Everything feels wrong when you're not. You kind of want to talk about that person and think about that person and touch that person all the time. And I feel like that is very much, well, it was the way it was for me when I first got into photography. It was like that spark ignited. And again, you know, I mentioned this before. It's like I went. everywhere with my camera. I was totally obsessed.
I would be so tired at the end of the night and still like, I'm just gonna go, I'm just gonna go look at that one photo on the computer one more time. I just wanna, I wanna see, I wanna check the settings. I wanna, whatever. It was all I read about. It was probably exhausting to the people around me to hear me talk about it. And like when I was on trips, you know, oh, can you pull the car over? Can you, I mean, I'm sure that you guys can relate.
It's very much the same as when you are in a new relationship. You're intolerable. And for all the world, you don't care. Like you may be intolerable to other people, but it doesn't matter because you are just in it and you love it. And it's amazing. And then you get to stage two, which we can call the reality check. So in a romantic relationship, you know, maybe you've moved in together or.
You're just, uh, you've been together long enough that the novelty is starting to wear off and you start, it's not that you are not still super into this person, but the reality starts to set in. Right. So you didn't all of a sudden you notice that this person leaves their dirty socks all over the place. You know, they're not, they don't clean up after themselves and the around the sink or whatever the case may be.
And unlike when you're in that first new phase and you're, you know, just spending bits and pieces of time together. Now you're like, you're kind of in it, in it for, for the good and for the bad. And it starts to feel serious. And that seriousness is exciting because it's like, Ooh, we're moving into this like next phase of our relationship, whatever. But it also feels kind of serious with a capital S like, huh, things are getting serious.
And some days feel easier than others, but Again, you start to kind of take notice of the things that maybe you don't love, get annoyed by things. And every once in a while you get that little like thing in the back of your head that says, you know, are you getting ahead of yourself here? Are you over committing? Who is this person? What is this thing that you've done in relationships? They then talk about how you hit some kind of cycle where you're in kind of reality check land.
and then in hopefully not all the time, but bits and pieces of crisis. So by the time you hit the crisis stage in a relationship, like the rose colored glasses are long gone. And oftentimes you have this true sort of nostalgia or sense of loss around the early relationship that you had. Sometimes you're like, I don't even know what I was thinking. Like this, this is a totally different person. And this is when things, you know, resentments start to build up.
This is when people start couples therapy. They are questioning, like, did we make some enormous mistake? And this stage is very much the like kind of the crux, right? It's the most difficult and it's where a lot of people face a fork in the road. Like, do we stay together? Do we separate? And sometimes that separation happens at this, but sometimes it doesn't.
And, you know, you kind of push through the crisis and maybe you go back a little bit into that, you know, earlier phase, the reality check phase. I don't think that these are completely linear, but there is this messy middle, like there is with so many things in life where you kind of go back and forth between like, yeah, I think this is working. And like, I don't think this is working. And you know, it is, that's just the reality.
And then if you do make it through, that messy middle, you reach the fourth stage, which was called a whole bunch of different things, maturity, deep attachment. Basically, after the third stage resolves one way or the other, you're either out or you've made it through. And if you make it through, you reach a stage of relative stability. So you're still, of course, going to have days that are easier and days that are harder.
but you start to be able to anticipate the landscape a little bit better. You know where the problem spots are, you get better at either addressing those or kind of sidestepping them a little bit. And you also know where your sweet spots are. You have found the things that are worth coming back to. If you've made it to this stage in a healthy relationship, you have found that balance and you like the person as well as love that person, right?
You no longer need to spend every single minute together. And that's not because you don't love each other, but because honestly, at this point, you trust each other and yourselves more. And you know that breathing room in a relationship can be a good thing and establishing, you know, other things that you're into and all that sort of stuff. And the fact of the matter is that over time, almost inevitably, your feelings and your hopes and your expectations, are going to change.
They're going to be different in the fourth stage than they were in the first stage or even the second stage. And that's not always for the worse, right? In many ways, sometimes those things become better. But regardless, they will be more grounded in reality because you actually know that person you have taken off. There's no, again, the rose colored glasses are gone. You know and love that person for who they really are, the good things and the bad things.
And so in knowing that you are, there's less tumultuousness. You're less likely to get disappointed or angry or hurt. And the thing to remember, I'm going to bring this back to photography. The thing to remember is that each of these phases has its place. There are things to enjoy in each phase and there are things to watch out for. So just like love, The rose colored glasses that you put on and that you have to put on honestly, in order to start a business can be intoxicating.
And they are the way that we convince ourselves that the amount of work that's required to start a business, to put yourself out on a limb, to market yourself, to learn all this stuff about SEO and all the different things that you have to learn. That's how we convince ourselves that it's worth it because we love this thing so much. And that is not a bad thing.
But if you expect naively that everything is going to be easy all the time, that the rose colored glasses are reality, you're probably in for a rough ride because as those challenges arise and at times get really intense, you know, you're going to question yourself. You're going to question your plan. You're probably going to have moments of like total despair. And, you know, I just think I'm going to quit.
And the thing that's important to know and the thing that I find reassuring about reading things like the four stages of a romantic relationship is like there is a process here. And when it's really hard, it can be really comforting to know that it nothing, you know, that that that process has been gone through a million times and will, you know, you're not the first and you're not the last. And I know that I talk. a fair amount about the importance of building your photography community, right?
Your entrepreneurial community, your photography community. This business, like a lot of small businesses, but in particular, because we are often operating independently, can be really lonely. And when things are hard, this is where it's the most important to have that community. It's kind of like...
You know, when you're having a hard time in a relationship, when you're you and your partner are fighting, it's really important to have a friend or at least, you know, a therapist, a professional that you can talk to and sort of help work through those things. OK, and then I want to talk about this stage three decision point. Now, you feel however you feel about. divorce and whether that's even an option or like what the circumstances would have to be.
I think we can probably all agree that when it comes to business. Sometimes a breakup is required. Yeah, there is a time and a place where a business isn't serving someone where the finances aren't working, whatever the case may be, the time commitment is too much where someone should be able to say, you know what? It's time we're going to close the business and they should be able to do that without feeling like they have failed or feeling any shame.
But I, I acknowledge that that is a lot easier said than done. It's one thing for us to say like, Oh yeah, you know, it was time she closed the business, but when it's, it goes from she to me, I'm going to close my business. That's a whole can of emotional worms, right? Individual businesses that we own, that we start, they're like, They're like relationships. They're like babies. There's a lot of complex emotional baggage that goes into them.
So kind of like someone who is contemplating divorce, they're at that crossroads in their marriage. Business owners who are considering closing their businesses often feel kind of trapped between like the feelings of frustration that they have with whatever's not working right in their business. And also between, you know, between that and the feelings of shame. that they have or that they anticipate having if they were to actually go and close their business.
So I just wanted to kind of acknowledge that on the side, depending on where you feel like you are in this cycle right now, and if you happen to be at that crossroads, just know that it's kind of a both and situation. Like you can intellectually acknowledge that it should be a business decision. And you can hold space for the fact that it is an emotional decision.
But I hope you can also find comfort in the fact that from a third person perspective, there isn't a lot of judgment or shame or, you know, feelings of, well, that person failed from the outside. Most of that comes from the inside. But if you do stick it out with your business.
The other thing to know is that as long as you keep moving forward, as long as you keep trying and creating and being open to the path, there will come a time when you find your footing and you sort of enter that final phase where you trust your business, where you trust yourself so much that you are, you know, able to do things like turning down clients who aren't the right fit or setting real meaningful boundaries around your work and your life.
and even, you know, step away from your work periodically to go on vacation and rest and recharge. Not because, you know, some, you know, someone told you to, or you heard that you should, or you read a book that said you should take time off. That's fine. But at that stage, you're doing it because you know deep down that your business isn't going to fall apart in your absence.
You have built a business on, you know, with systems and with credibility and trust in your market and among your clients, you can do those things. And when you rest and recharge, that will truly help your business to thrive. So no matter what stage in this four stage process, you feel like your business is in, I want to remind you that that is all it is. It is a stage. It is a very well -worn. process that we go through as business owners.
And I hope that like me, you take some comfort in that knowledge. So if you are in it for the long haul with your business, whether it currently feels amazing or impossible, just remember that this too shall pass. Have a great week. Well, that's it for this week's episode of This Can't Be That Hard. I'll be back same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode, along with all the relevant links, notes, and
downloads at thiscan'tbethathard .com slash learn. If you like the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review in iTunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.