I'm on another drive , so I guess this means it's time for another podcast episode . I find lately this is about the only time that I have to podcast . I've been just trying to keep up with all the things and I thought that actually might be a really great topic for this episode . I've been trying to keep things loose , trying to keep things real .
Someone DM'd me recently on Instagram and said hey , I loved it , keep it real . So here I am doing that . It is a very interesting season of our lives . We are at a point where we now have two small children One is three and then one is seven months . You know , when I started my business , I was 22 , I think something like that , maybe 23 .
I am now 38 almost , so it's been about 15 years and life has changed so much since starting no-transcript . You know , some people start their business before children If they have children .
Some people start their business and then they have children and we are definitely in the second camp and I can say that it has been a very , very interesting time of my life because I am still so incredibly passionate about wedding photography . I absolutely love it .
I started the Wedding Photography Society , our membership community , because I just wanted a place for people to talk about weddings , get information , become educated and meet up , which , if you're not a member , I highly recommend checking it out . It's the Wedding Photography Society . You can even do thatcom .
But I just I love it , I love it , I love it and it's such a unique career and I feel like we're all in the same camp . You know , we're working weekends .
Sometimes we're working weekends away from our families , but you know also , now I am a mom and that has very quickly become like , I don't want to say the biggest part of my identity , but it's like wedding photography was always my identity outside of . You know my family and , I guess , my personality , my husband .
It's like now I'm a mom and it's just , it's such a beautiful thing and you just can't help but love or I can't I'll speak for myself like I cannot help but love being a mom to my kids and it's just been a very interesting time of my life because it's the first time that I've ever been challenged so much with how I'm spending my time .
What am I doing every second of the day ? I mean , right now I um , I don't do a lot of family photography , but I drove three hours away to photograph my best friend's newborn and family session , and I'm driving back home , uh , to new Orleans right now , and so that's why I'm able to record this .
But it's like , as I'm on the road , I've spent about I don't know somewhere between five and six hours on the road today , and it's just , you really evaluate your time so much more . I used to drive all the time and I would listen to podcasts and never really thought a lot about what I was doing in that time .
I just was like , oh , this is cool , you know , I'm on the road listening to podcasts .
Now it's like , well , this is six hours that I could either be at my computer making money , I could be editing for my clients , I could be shooting a session , or I could be with my family , and that's very real and that's something that , if you are a parent , you probably can connect and identify with .
And if you're not a parent , then maybe you're not there yet , maybe you never will be , and that's okay too . But for me , I just never thought as much about time as I do now , and I was always a pretty efficient person . So when I started thinking about what I would chat about in this podcast . It was really just to share that .
It's not always , I don't know , easy , clear , the words escape me , but I've always felt like I kind of had it together and I think that's why I , in the last episode , decided I was going to take a different route for the podcast and just be a bit more transparent , because I feel that right now , more than I ever have in my life , like I really feel like
I'm not , I don't have it together . You know , I I am really truly trying my best , but I find myself lately feeling like I'm failing at things and I've I've always been like a hardcore perfectionist . I've always really strived to like be the best and do the best and blah , blah , blah , make A's you know , I don't know whatever .
Like if you're a perfectionist , you're probably like yep , yep , I get it . But I truly feel like lately I've been failing a lot . I feel like I've been failing as a friend , I've been failing as a wife , as a mother , I've been failing as a photographer , as a leader in our community sometimes .
And I'm still working my absolute hardest , I'm sleeping the least amount I've ever slept before , but I still feel like I am not able to juggle all the balls in the air and , to be honest , it's hard for me to feel that way and to admit that out , but at the same time , I know that it's okay , like it's going to be fine .
I hope that people can give me grace , I hope that my family will still love me . I hope that my kids will understand . I hope that our community will still believe in and see the value that we're providing , even though sometimes , like I , may lose my voice and have to reschedule .
Sometimes , like I , may lose my voice and have to reschedule , or you know , whatever the situation is or our clients get that , I've been pretty good about keeping deadlines , but you know , just understand that maybe I don't have like a sneak peek available like I used to all the time .
I mean , I always had a sneak peek available on Monday and I can honestly say that we shot a wedding two weeks ago and they still have not received their sneak peeks and it's not .
I'm not proud of that , I'm not , and it's gonna be hard for me to even post this , if I even do share this episode because , like as a perfectionist , it's hard to admit that you're failing .
However , I think it's also important to meet you , the listener where you are and to be very real about that and not to kind of hide behind the veil of perfectionism all the time . This has been a big part of , like , my personal growth . Um , I started seeing a therapist in 2014 , I guess . I saw her once a week .
I had to go through a few therapists to find one that I really connect with connected with , um , you know , because sometimes you'll go to therapy and they will impose their beliefs or religion or ideas or whatever on you , and this happened to me a couple of times until I found someone that I really felt was the perfect fit and I went in at the time thinking
, thinking we wanted to talk about this , but then we ended up talking about the other thing , and then the other thing , and then the other thing , and before you know it , you're like , oh my gosh , there's so many things that I didn't realize about myself , about my life , and I also felt like there was a lot of negative perceptions I guess that I had about
therapy in general , perceptions I guess that I had about therapy in general . But it was really cool for me to realize that it's really not a bad thing and everyone , every single person on this earth is a human being that is not perfect and we all have things that we want to work on and do better at and strive for , better at and strive for .
And one of my biggest realizations was that I really struggle with perfectionism . And since then I have listened to , you know , podcasts . I have been really honest with my partner , my husband , my spouse , brad , about where I am , who I am , and he has been so great in helping me work through those things .
I don't even know why I'm telling you all this stuff . I guess I feel like I'm going down a rabbit hole . I'm like I'm going to regret this , but you know , I just I want to be real .
I want to be very real and as a professional and someone who really , really , truly believes in things like you know , doing a good job and pleasing your client , and a lot of the focus of this podcast is about business . It really is and I want it to continue that way .
But also I want to be really open and transparent about what is going on and what goes on behind the scenes of the person behind the camera , behind the business . Maybe you're not a photographer , maybe you're in another industry , but like we are real people running businesses and we have feelings . And guess what ?
Sometimes , if you're you know a parent , you're going to have a sick child . Or even if you're not a parent , you're at some point in your life going to get sick . And , um , you know , up until my oldest daughter was born , I never missed a wedding before was born .
I never missed a wedding before and I had to experience what it was like to explain to a client who had booked me 18 months in advance that I was not going to be able to photograph her wedding . And that was really hard .
Even after going through COVID and all the things that we had to go through during that time with the business , it still felt really kind of wild to experience that and heartbreaking in a lot of ways because I felt like I was letting someone down , even though I was being there for my , for my daughter .
And so you know , if you're someone listening in , I just kind of want to meet you where you are or where you might be or where you were , and let you know that things aren't always perfect and running a business is really hard Figuring out where to allocate your time , especially if your plate is really full , you might not always have the support that you need
. Our families do not live near us , and that has been incredibly challenging , not just from an emotional standpoint , but from a logistical position as well . I can't call my parents or my brother or whoever like when I'm in a bind and say , hey , can you help me out ? Can you X , y , z ?
It's like no , we're on our own , and a lot of people are in that camp too , and so I just want to let you know that you're not alone . We're all just trying to figure it out . We're all just doing our best .
If you're looking for a community , I would love for you to , you know , check out the Wedding Photography Society , especially if you are a wedding photographer . I think there's a lot of people there that are in in that same boat of of trying to um figure it out and doing a really dang good job at it .
If I must , if I can brag on them , I think there's some people that are absolutely killing it , and um know that we're we're trying to continue to just doing a good job and and showing up in all the ways and all the capacities , and we're just thankful . We are very grateful .
We're in a very , you know , amazing position and our hard times are , they're just temporary and they're seasonal , and thankfully we're we're in a good place in life , um , and I truly believe that community and um , friendship and camaraderie makes the hard times so much more tolerable and easy , and so , um , I just appreciate you for tuning in , for listening to me
work through these ideas out loud . I kind of feel like past two episodes I've just been like journaling a little bit I'm not even 100% sure where the episodes are going and like I'm cool with it .
I'm cool with it , I'm cool with this , this , this new place of life that I'm at , and and maybe you know you'll listen to this at some point and be like , oh , she's really all over the place and and I am , and you know what .
That's fine , that's fine , I'm accepting it , I'm embracing it , I'm thankful , you , I'm thankful for this season of life , because it is hard but it is beautiful , and I truly think it's about the journey . It's about the journey that we're on and one day we're going to be like at the end of it and be like dang .
That was really fun and exciting when it was happening and now it's just boring and I miss that . So anyway , thank you , I'm here with you , I'm walking alongside of you on this journey of life , of business , of entrepreneurship , and if you do have anything specific that you would love to hear me chat through or talk about , feel free to shoot me a DM .
If you enjoy this random journaling that I'm doing here on the podcast , let me know . And if there's something that you would love to To talk through , just shoot me a DM and I appreciate you . Have a great day .