Arlen Ness

My dad sent me an e-mail with the news that Arlen Ness died…he was 79, happily married for almost 60 years, and an icon in the world of motorcycles. I actually met him, and was honored to do a photo shoot with him many years ago while I was still in school. I used to walk by his shop in Dublin on my way home from San Francisco and sometimes I would just wander around in the museum and dream about having a radical looking bike one day. When he died I realized what an impact he had on me and my career, and so I started to deconstruct that.

There is a specific reason why Arlen Ness was so influential in my career. My experience with him literally shaped the way I looked at my journey in photography - let me explain. I was in school, I think it was my 2nd semester, and I was taking a lighting class. I don’t even actually remember the assignment, but it had to do with lighting a portrait on location. I had the crazy idea, as I often do, to shoot with Arlen Ness in the museum upstairs at his shop….so I sent an e-mail. Let me tell you right now, since I’m sure that sounds fairly straightforward, it was terrifying. I sent a cold e-mail, to a person I didn’t know (who was quite famous), and asked if I could take their picture. This was the first step, and the beginning of a philosophy that I’ve carried with me ever since. If you’ve followed me for any length of time then you’ve probably heard me say it - “if you don’t ask, the answer is ALWAYS no.” Well, now you know how it started.

So that was the beginning of the idea, but what happened next was the beginning of the journey….they said YES. I honestly didn’t expect them to respond, much less say I could do it! I went through the process of setting up the shoot, and I showed up with a bunch of gear that I rented from school…that I didn’t really know how to use! I was in WAY over my head, there was shiny objects and reflections everywhere, I was just learning lighting on location, and I was shooting a celebrity. I was not only nervous, I was inexperienced. You might be expecting me to say, it was the best shoot ever and the stars aligned to make a magical image of him, but that’s not what happened. I took a mediocre portrait of an iconic human being. You know what though? I took it.

Many of you ask me what you should do when you get out of school or how you get a career started in photography, and this is the answer: YOU BEGIN. It takes courage and hard work to be successful, and you can start doing those things any time you want. You’ll fail, that’s good, but then you’ll learn, that’s better. What you have to fight is fear, the fear of failure, the fear of no, the fear of looking silly or being embarrassed. After you fail, and failure is the one thing I can guarantee, figure it out why and don’t do it again! Now, go be awesome, and enjoy this sorta decent portrait of Arlen Ness.

Isolation in the Modern Age: Green Bubbles

This might seem like a weird thing to blog about, but it was so traumatic for me that it needs to be done. This entire blog will be to tell you about my horrible experience switching to a Galaxy S9+ recently. The funny thing is, it’s a great phone, and it has a great camera (which is big reason why I switched) but man, I didn’t know how terrible it would be to go back to Android after being with Apple. Let me tell you why.

Warning: This next paragraph might be offensive to Mac users.

Photo Credit Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz

Let me start with a little backstory and some interesting facts you might not know. For starters, I work on PC, almost exclusively, in fact I am writing this on a PC (I know, I know, just take a deep breath and keep reading). My laptop is a PC. I have a MacBook Pro, but I don’t use it and it’s old. I actually bought a Mac out of peer pressure, because that’s what “creatives” use, but I realized quickly that it didn’t matter, and I could build a PC for way cheaper than a Mac. That being said I might have just lost a ton of readers, but oh well, that’s the long and short of it. I think Mac is great, but I’ve never had a problem with my PC, and with all the stuff I have in this PC it would cost me over $4k with Mac, I haven’t even hit $2k with all the upgrades.

OK, let’s get to the meat of this blog. A few years ago my wife and I decided to try iPhones, everyone said they were awesome, and so we decided to give it the ol’ college try. They were great, I have nothing against iPhone…they had been really reliable as far as things go. Recently though, I became a little tired of the lack of compatibility and flexability that iPhones have. In a brash moment of stupidity, I researched phones and bought a Samsung Galaxy S9+. Really cool, and as I said earlier the camera system was getting great reviews, which is what I use it for most. It seemed like a win win, but there was no winning involved, it was very much lose lose.

Frankly, getting the phone going was rough. I bought an unlocked phone, and the SIM card from my iPhone didn’t work (shocker). I ordered another SIM card, which actually took a while to get. Once I got the new SIM card I switched everything over and had the horrific realization that if someone had an iPhone and I texted them I would not get the return text. It was going to my iPhone, on iMessage. The solution? After calling the phone company and researching online, I was told to text everyone who had an iPhone and switch my phone to text message only. That’s where it started, sending out a shameful little green bubble to hundreds of people publicly proclaiming that I don’t have an iPhone anymore.

Photo Credit Adam Andres Pawlikiewicz

Great, text message problem solved. I was good to go! Wrong. After that came some really bad realizations. First of all, I send images to people all the time, and I have people send me images and videos regularly, especially BTS from my assistants. I also send my wife a lot of photos and get a lot of photos/videos from her. I couldn’t do any of that any more, I didn’t get most of the photos, I couldn’t send photos or videos to iPhones because they were to big, and videos from other people came through as tiny pixelated movies that you could barely see, if they came through at all. On a positive note, there is something called Samsung Share (which is like iMessage for Samsung) so you can share stuff with all your Samsung pals! Oh wait, I only know three people who have Android phones and only two of them are Samsung.

That was the beginning of the end for me, I completely took for granted how many people have iPhones and what that means. There is an actual end though. It happened when we realized my wife couldn’t have the kids send me voice messages, and as I was walking her through downloading something in place of FaceTime while I was trying to say good night to the kids on set. I was getting ready for two big trips and this was definitely the straw that broke the camels back.

This might sound dramatic, and frankly this whole blog post is just a giant 1st world problem rant about how a big baby had to buy another phone, but it was genuinely isolating. It was as if I couldn’t communicate with people, especially my family and other people in my industry. It was terrible, and never once in all of my research did I see it mentioned that switching to Android would make it so you really can’t communicate the same way.

You could think of this blog as a review for people thinking about switching from iPhone to Android, I mean, A LOT of people said they were thinking about it when I switched. I can tell you now with great certainty that you shouldn’t switch, not if you’ve been on iPhone for any length of time. I was literally discovering things almost every day that either wouldn’t work or need a new app to work so I could do seemingly normal things.

How does this story end? With me shamefully walking into the Apple store and buying another iPhone. Let me tell you, if you think new cars don’t hold their value (which they don’t) new phones are even worse. I sold my Samsung for $340, after using it for 2 months, I lost almost $400. On top of that, I had to spend almost $900 on the new iPhone…I’m not great at math, but it wasn’t good. My advice, just be happy with what you have: I have an iPhone and I’m happy with that.

Behind the Image - The Dress

Stoked to announce a new episode of Behind the Image for you guys! I did things a little bit differently this time around and I wanted to have the video in line with the images so you can see what I am talking about more efficiently. I also wanted to list the products I was using here so you can easily click on them and get a feel for what is needed, including the hazer that I use!

Equipment List:

Elinchrom ELB 500

Elinchrom ELB 400 (with HS Heads)

Elinchrom ELB 1200 (with HS Heads)

Elinchrom 69” Octa Box

Elinchrom 49” Deep Translucent Umbrella

Chauvet Hurricane Haze 1DX

Without further delay…here’s the new episode! Final images are below!

P.S. I keep saying “window” in the first part of the video and I should be saying “mirror”!

Defy Burnout - Part 2

Since I already gave you a nice long intro on part 1 of Defy Burnout I will just jump right in! I will say that if you didn’t read part 1 you should probably do that…because it’s the right thing to do.

Now that you’re not working 7 days a week and you have a schedule where you focus on each task and don’t jump around from one thing to the next (wink wink) Let’s talk about some other ways to help you fight burnout. Before we start I want you to know that the next few thoughts are hard, at least they are for me, and they are things that I work on ALL THE TIME. I am not writing any of this from a place of perfection, I would never be able to write this blog if I waited until I had perfected everything before I told you!

Take Care of Yourself - This is the main (and sort of the only) point in this post. Now, this will look different for many of you but I think there are a few things that can certainly help and I will list them as bullet points then I will chat about what they mean to me:

• Get regular exercise of some sort

• Try to get some sleep!

• Find a way to rejuvenate

• Have someone you can talk to

• Create ways to WIN!

• Look at those victories

Exercise - I know a lot of you feel like me, you hate the gym (I really hate the gym), but I don’t go because I love it and I don’t expect it to grow on me. I also don’t post about going to the gym anywhere, because I don’t care if you see me go and I don’t really want anyone watching me! The point is not about if you love it, it’s about taking care of yourself so you can have the stamina and health to keep doing what you love. It doesn’t have to be the gym either, go for a run, a walk, walk up and down the stairs at your house. Something to get your blood pumping!

Sleep - Here’s something about me, I actually don’t like sleeping. It’s not something I look forward to. I’ve spent many years trying to figure out a way around it, but alas it is much like exercise, your body needs it to function. Here’s where I am right now; I stopped working late, I used to work until 1 or 2 am regularly, now I try to go to bed around 10 and get up around 5. I am MUCH more productive, and I feel a lot better.

If you’re wondering what my routine is…it looks roughly like this:

• 4:30 or 5 am - Get up

• 5:30-6:30 am - Gym

• 6:45- 7:00 am - Quiet Time

• 7:00 am - 6:00 pm - Work

I also don’t go to the gym every day and I let myself sleep until around 6 on those days! It’s been really great so far, I mean I still hate the Gym, but I have definitely seen a jump in productivity.

Rejuvenation - If there is any place where I am lackluster it’s in rejuvenation. I do not allow much time for this, even though it’s critical. I was reminded of this yesterday as I was driving out to a location to scout for an upcoming shoot and I had to stop to pee (it was a rural location). I got out of the car and walked into the woods, there was a creek there I hadn’t seen, and all I could hear was the silence of the woods and creek. I just stood there. I took some deep breaths. It was great. In our world silence is taboo, if you are quiet you aren’t consuming, so it’s frowned upon. I am challenging myself to take more time to rejuvenate, to take a breath, and find some quiet in our crazy world. I am challenging you to do the same.

Talk - If there is a culprit to losing sleep it’s my wife. We love to talk. We still stay up super late and chat about everything and anything, it’s always worth losing sleep over to me. I have other friends and I go to coffee regularly with people who challenge me and can just sit and talk, but she’s the one I go to with everything…especially the hard things. When I first started my freelance career we had to have many talks about when and if we needed to sell the house, these are hard conversations, but they are better had than held inside. None of us should try to handle heavy things alone, we need outside wisdom and guidance. Don’t get so caught up in your work that you don’t have time to let people that you love speak into your life.

WIN - If you’re anything like me, which hopefully you aren’t, then you really struggle to actually see when things go well. I think the statistic is something like for every negative thing said to you you’ll need 10 positive to counteract it. Now think about the amount of negative stuff we see on social media, a lot of it about our work or something we’ve done. You may not be shooting for Nike yet, but certainly you’ve accomplished something! CELEBRATE! Go get that coffee drink you love but don’t get because it’s expensive, hit up Red Lobster and get them cheesy biscuits, DO SOMETHING! When I finish a job, or hit a goal of some kind, we go out as a fam and have fun. My goal is not to work my life away, it’s to work so I can have a life!

Look - This might seem like the same thing as celebrating a Win, but it isn’t. I often need to look at the list of people I’ve worked with, the images I’ve created, the places we’ve traveled because of photography and I just need to let it sink it. I’m here, I’m in it, I’m doing what I love with the people I love, for companies that I have always wanted to work with. Sometimes there won’t be as many victories, but it’s still important to look at them and acknowledge how hard it is to do this.

That’s my bullet point break down, but I want to conclude with what I think is one of the most important ideas in Defying Burnout and that Defining Success. We are all chasing a white horse by the name of success, we’re constantly bombarded with new ways to be successful. What does that mean? More specifically, what does it mean to you? Before you go working 100 hrs a week trying to become successful do you even know what you’re working towards? Here’s my definition in a nutshell:

Success is being able to be with my family, not lose my house, pay my bills and have fun experiences with the people I love. It’s also having a career that I think is incredibly fun (I even struggle with feeling guilty about how much fun I have) and working with brands that I believe in to help people enjoy life and achieve their goals.

One think I’ve never had as a part of my definition is money. I don’t think of numbers as the success. I think there are a lot of people with a lot of numbers next to their name who would agree with me. I like money, or rather I like spending money, but being able to do that isn’t success…it’s just fun! Whatever your definition is, just make sure you have one. There’s no worse feeling than getting to the end of your journey only to find you weren’t really going anywhere. At least, that’s what I’ve heard, and I believe it.

That’s it. I truly hope this helps you Defy Burnout. I want to see you reach your goals and be alive to watch it happen! If you have questions or comments make sure you post them below and until next time…

DEFY MEDIOCRACY

Defy Burnout - Part 1

INTRO

Hopefully you’ve noticed by now there are a couple new taglines floating around my brand: “Defy Mediocracy” and “Visuals for the Victorious”. My reasoning behind Defy Mediocracy was simple, I’m tired of people settling for good enough. We all know the saying “everyone gets a trophy”, well I don’t agree with that. Some people get trophies, the people who actually win. Before you log off this blog thinking “this guys a dick, I like getting free trophies” let me explain. Our market, photo/video, is saturated with crap. Scroll through Instagram, there is a lot of really bad imagery out there. If we’re being honest with ourselves, those people will not get hired. No trophies. If you don’t care about your clients you will not get hired. No trophies. If you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, and don’t deliver a high quality product in the timeline you were given, you won’t get hired again, or you’ll get fired. You get to polish one trophy forever, have fun with that. No matter what our culture tells us, we don’t all get trophies, and if someone gives you a trophy for nothing, you should give it back…you don’t want trophies like that.

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Wow, that was a long intro, well it’s my set up for a series of blogs I am calling DEFY. I want to take a look at certain things that hold us back and talk about how I DEFY them. I don’t want you to settle for good enough, or getting meaningless rewards. I want you to WIN. Despite what people say, there are winners and there are losers, the first time you bid a big job and another photographer gets it instead of you, I won’t need to explain this. It sucks.

Let’s get started!

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DEFY BURNOUT!

When I first started working in the photo industry I remember my boss at Sugar Digital telling me this was a “high burnout” industry, and they did everything they could to keep people happy and refreshed. In my naive inexperience I thought “I’ll never burn out, this is my dream!”, like I said, naive. It wasn’t more than a year later that I was hurting to do something else, anything else! It wasn’t my boss, or the job, it was that I felt uninspired and lost. I ended up going back to my career in scuba diving (that’s another conversation) and I kept doing my own photo/retouching work on the side. I did this for a while, often working 70-100 hrs a week to meet all my deadlines and manage a store. It’ll come as no surprise I found myself burned out again, and finally was able to quit my scuba job to become a full time free lancer.

There you have it, I quit my job, became a full time freelance photographer and I never struggled with burn out or inspiration ever again! JK, it was worse. Shortly after I quit we found out we had another kiddo on the way (we already had a 1 yo at home). I can’t totally explain the pressure I felt, scratch that, the pressure I feel. I’m the sole provider for our family, if I don’t make money we don’t have dinner, we lose our house and other horrible things that I don’t like to think about!

This is what you call a petri dish, a place where you grow bacteria…not the good kind. It’s the environment where burn out grows. As a result of the self imposed pressure I was working 70-100 hrs a week consistently, often working 7 days a week. This leads to my first point for fighting burn out: DON’T WORK 7 DAYS A WEEK. It’s soul sucking, it’s scientifically proven and it’s just not good for you. Lez be honest, I still have to do this sometimes, but after the crazy schedule I build in time off to compensate. It’s a different kind of tired, it’s exhaustion, and you will not be the creative person you always dream of being when you feel like this!

This leads me to my next thought, and that’s to HAVE SOME SORT OF SCHEDULE. I fought this for a long time, I thought “there’s no off hours when you’re a freelancer!”. Being honest again, that’s kind of true, but you also have control over how available you are. I tend to work from around 7 am - 6 pm Mon-Fri, and as needed on Saturdays. I try to avoid working on Sundays like the plague, that’s our day, that’s my time. I don’t even do social media on Sundays, and I try really hard not to use my phone as little as possible. I would also highly recommend letting your family know those hours, especially if you work from home. Let them know that “if daddy can focus on his work he will be able to be done faster and hang out!”. I use this kind of language all the time with my kids, that way they understand that I can be more efficient with my time if I’m not bouncing my attention from one thing to the next.

Bouncing…that’s a good segue. I grew up with this idea that “you need to learn how to MULTI-TASK”, that’s wrong. I still struggle to overcome this idea. It’s not multi tasking, it’s called inefficient. I have learned a lot about this over the years, and in a nut shell you’re brain is struggling to jump from one thing to the next, therefore making everything mediocre. It also trains your brain to under perform, so don’t do that. How does this relate to burn out? Two reasons. First, if you multi task you’ll get half as much done in twice the time. It’ll feel like you’re SUPER BUSY, and you are, but not in a good way. You’ll feel like you’re always behind, and you never finish what you start, these are very defeating emotions. Secondly, it makes for a messy brain. When you’re mind is always jumping around and can’t focus on something it’s very hard to be creative. When you can’t feel creative it’s easy to feel discouraged, which leads to faster burn out…because you’re busy all the time doing things you don’t want to do…and you’re doing them poorly!

This is a long topic for me, and I think I will make this a two part blog in the name of digestibility. I want you to know that this is a long because I have a lot of experience with burn out! Mine is greatly self inflicted, and I still struggle with it all the time. I just hope that in some small way my struggles can help you find the light in your own. Next week I will finish this blog with a few more tips and thoughts!

Until then I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR HOW YOU FIGHT BURN OUT IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!

DEFY MEDIOCRACY

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Creating with Purpose

This blog is kind of a follow up to the last post about community, but at the same time it’s kinda a new topic as well. We all, as creatives, have a unique skillset, one that I believe is important to the world around us. Many times we are able to offer solutions to problems that sometimes seem impossible to overcome, or hard to address. I specialize in photography, so that is the lens that I will look at this with (pun intended) but you can think of this in terms of almost any career!

Because of the weight that the arts posses I think they also come with somewhat heavy responsibilities. It makes me think of Spider Man when his Uncle says “With great power comes great responsibility”. This responsibility will most certainly look different to every creative, since we all have different things in our life that we are passionate about. My idea though is rather simple, use the incredible gift you have to create for a purpose. Is there a local organization that you support that could benefit from your skillset? Go make something with them! Is there a way that you can partner to raise money for someone or something? Go do it!

I am most certainly not saying to give all your work away for free, we all need to make money and put food on the table. I do believe that we should all strive to do big projects like this, for free, at least once or twice a year. I personally look at organizations that I currently support or attend, like my church or the local homeless shelter. Why do this? Well, let me tell you!

1. It’s good for you! It’s not me just saying that either, people who give and are generous with their time and resources are way happier. Try it. If you don’t believe me go Google “are generous people happier?” and read the articles from places like Time, Science Daily, The New York Times, Nature, I think at least some of them are reliable ;)

2. It’s good for your community…which last time I checked is where we live! I am not saying to go support just any old foundation, charity or cause. Chances are you already have something you’re passionate about and give financially to, maybe give a donation of skill next time!

3. It’s good for business! I have landed new clients based solely on my Pro Bono projects. I believe that is directly tied to the fact that we are passionate about the subject matter and the story is sitting there for someone to tell.

4. Personal Growth. Just in case you need another reason, I have found that some of the biggest growth I’ve seen as a human being and as an artist is when I am doing these projects. There are many reasons why, but it is well worth all the blood sweat and tears that you will shed.

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I want to finish by giving shout outs to a few people and organizations who are doing exactly this and who I believe in. These are just a few! Please share any awesome people or organizations you know doing awesome things in their community in the comments below!!

Mariangela Abeo - Faces of Fortitude (www.facesoffortitude.com)

Tommy Reynolds - James Dunn Project (www.tommyreynolds.co.uk)

Neighborhood Film Company - Apprenticeship Program (www.neighborhoodfilmcompany.com)

Krochet Kids Intl - www.krochetkids.org

International Justice Mission - www.ijm.org

There you have it…go be awesome and love well!

DEFY MEDIOCRACY

Community - A Connection Based Business Plan

Hey-o! My last post was a bit heavy, so I wanted to follow up with something chipper…at least I think it’s pretty chipper! I want to talk about the way I structure my business, it is most certainly not new, and I also take MANY other things into consideration as I navigate the world of marketing and advertising. I will talk about some other ideas here as well but I want to mostly focus on one idea: Community.

Let me start by saying there are different kinds of community. There is the community that you keep closest to you, that you tell everything, people you confide in…this is not that community. I only bring this up because I want to make sure you know there is a very clear distinction between a work/business community and the close community you call “your people”.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the idea of business community. In recent years photographers have seen a drastic change in the way we do business, price drops, budget cuts, content demands, the list goes on and on. Clients want everything from one person and they want it yesterday, for less money. That’s the result of a lot of things, but there is a lot more competition (and GREAT competition) in the market now. I believe that there is one (albeit not the only one) way to truly distinguish yourself and keep clients coming: Community. This can go under the guise of many names like, well networked, social butterfly, gregarious, etc. The point is, you need to KNOW a lot of people in a lot of different fields. This doesn’t mean you have someones e-mail, this means if you e-mail that person they’ll actually respond to you. It also doesn’t mean all you ever do is ask someone for help or work, it means you both enjoy being in community and create mutually beneficial opportunities.

How do you get to have a community? You look up from your screen, chair, state, city…and you go meet them. Since the beginning of my career I have put money and time into traveling to places where my potential clients could be, and meeting people. Recently I had a client call me 2 years after our first meeting and book a job, this is not an uncommon occurrence. That’s a long time, yes, but this is not a short term career path so that’s no big deal. Any photographer should be aware that one client today does not mean loads of clients tomorrow, you should always act like the next client is your last.

So, was it magic? Did two years go by and all of the sudden a fairy sat on their desk and said “Hire Aaron!”, most certainly not. In the time between a face to face meeting and the time until they hire you, you need to be in contact! That looks like a lot of things, e-mail, mailers, postcards, thank you cards, holiday cards…be creative! One of the major things is to remember that we are all PEOPLE, so it is personal. In the world of Instagram feeds and Twitter bashing you need to focus on the people. Ask how they are and remember who they are! Do they have kids, do they like certain activities, how is business, and a million other questions you would ask a normal person, because they are a normal person.

This is not a new idea, it’s called staying “front of mind”. I learned about this in Real Estate, the basic idea is you need to be the first person they think of should a need arise that you can fill. It takes A LOT of time to become front of mind, and now I think it’s even harder than it used to be. This is why I believe you need to start the journey as often as you can with a face to face meeting. Grab lunch, coffee, go to their office, whatever you can do…but make it a personal experience.

Ok, that's more about clients, but there is also a piece of this business community that I think is often overlooked and still important. Other Creatives. Now, I don’t have a ton of photographer contacts, and that’s not exactly what I am talking about, but I do have a lot of contacts who relate directly to my field. Make Up Artists, Hairstylists, Wardrobe Stylists, Producers, Directors, DP’s, Assistants, Retouchers…hopefully you get the idea, the list is long. Why do I want to know all of these people? There are two major reasons. First of all I NEED these people to be successful, and I want to have good relationships with them BEFORE I get on set with them. Second of all, it is much much easier to gain clients from referrals than cold calls. I can’t tell you how many big clients I’ve gained from referrals, in fact most of them are still my clients today.

As a final thought on this I want to encourage you to think outside the box when it comes to your business community. I strongly believe that knowing a lot of people outside of your “obvious” peer group sets you up for the greatest level of success. Example, I have a lot of contacts in real estate (not from my days as an agent) and that is how I have access to so many locations. I know lots of coffee shop owners, and baristas, they are some of the most well connected people you will ever meet. Sounds weird, but it works. Those are just a few ideas, but there are many many people who are more relevant than you give them credit for. Be Kind to Everyone, it’s just a good way to live life and you never know where your next client could come from.

I want to close with a thought. I was talking to a friend the other day, one from “my people” community, and I realized that there is a dangerous line that some people aren’t seeing in these communities. I have seen many different creatives who have burned other people, I think most of them are actually oblivious that it’s happening, by acting like the business community is their “my people” community. As a freelancer I don’t want to give anyone who works with me the impression that I would never use another freelancer, that they are the ONLY people I work with, or that my success means their success. We are all on our own journey, and we all need each other, but don’t make promises you can’t keep, or set false expectations for the people around you. This also goes for your clients, you want to be friendly, yes, but remember this is neither the time nor the place to talk about your struggles, life decisions or other personal information. Save those conversations for your “people”.

Alrighty! That’s gonna do it for this one.

DEFY MEDIOCRACY.

A Little More...Getting to Year 4.

UPDATE!! I wanted to share this lates video from Tommy Reynolds on Personal Work and Creating because it’s so relevant to this post! See below:

Last year I wrote about starting a business, and if you didn’t catch that post you can check it out here: 3 Years Ago…I started a business. This year has been crazy, and also really mentally stressful. It has also been emotionally fruitful and filled with growth in every way, and I have a few thoughts as to why.

One of the major things I want to touch on for this post is what I am calling mental fortitude. It has surfaced as one of the most crucial components to success that I can see in our business. What I mean by mental fortitude is the ability to keep moving forward no matter what is happening to you or around you. Sometimes it might mean you are literally dragging yourself out of the house or office to go shoot something (make, sing, write, draw, you name it) anyways. I think it is easy to fall into the trap of looking at everyone around you and it seeming easy. Like they wake up crapping creativity and blowing the next beautiful image into a tissue. IT’S NOT EASY. There is a full stop here, you need to know that the people you see as successful did not wake up one day a get slapped in the face by that success, they earned it. It isn’t the cool photos that make you a success, it’s all the other grimy stuff you do day in and day out that makes you great.

Out of this subject also comes a topic that has been on the pens of many people lately, imposter syndrome. I think the fact that people are actually talking about this is GREAT, and it’s definitely something I deal with all the time. I love the way Wikipedia defines this: “Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud". This can be a paralyzing place to live, I know that first hand, and it makes the idea of pushing yourself to keep going even more important. I want to make sure you know I deal with it almost every time I send an image to a client. In fact, if I don’t hear from the client within an hour or so, I almost automatically assume they hate what I sent and are trying to figure out how to tell me! How do I deal with it? I talk to my wife and friends about it. I let someone who knows me speak wisdom into my life. Then, I KEEP GOING! You can’t let the fear stop you, and that leads me to the next idea: Just a Little More.

Just a Little More. Sounds so simple doesn’t it? It’s something that I think most athletes understand more than most people, and I have the advantage of having been an athlete. In any sport you have to learn to push yourself past the point of discomfort again and again and again, until you can go farther than you ever have, maybe than you ever thought possible. Another example is when my wife went into labor with our kiddos and I coached her through it. It was never about telling her that she would have a baby soon, it was about getting through the contraction that was happening RIGHT NOW and convincing her that she could handle another one. This is most certainly a testimony to her mental fortitude (NOT MINE!), but I think it’s a great example, especially since her second labor lasted 36 hrs and was incredibly painful (and was a natural birth!). Sorry, I have to brag on my wife from time to time :) Where was I? Oh yes, a little more. So here’s the idea in a nutshell: Stay focused on completing the task at hand and then going a little bit further (One more shoot, one more drawing, one more retouch). Long term goals are great, and you need to have them, but make sure you keep moving in the midst of doubt and frustration onto the next part of your story, otherwise it can be easy to get stuck in a place where you don’t move forward at all.

Lastly, since we’re on the mental path at the moment let’s talk about mental health. Both physical and mental health are huge for freelancers, and I might as well be in the audience with you while I type this, because it is a constant struggle! I go to the gym, sometimes, I eat well, most of the time, I sleep, when I can…the list goes on and on. There is a time to push, and in the first years this will be more than most people can handle because of how fast paced the world has become, but you need to figure out how to give yourself rest. I started having quiet times for 10-15 minutes every morning, and it has been a game changer. That’s just 10-15 minutes! I also work really hard to take a whole day away from social media, this is the breeding ground for self-doubt. I try to go to the gym twice a week, I want to go more, but it isn’t realistic with my schedule currently (especially with an infant!). Right now my current goal is working on being present, meaning when I am done with work I am done. I want my wife and kids to have my full attention when I get home, and it’s easy to fall into hopping on your phone the check how things are going. If for some reason I need to answer an e-mail or text I will tell them what I am doing, and finish as quickly as possible, that way they know what’s going on and I am not just staring at my phone for no reason. This is just the beginning of my health journey, and I still have a LONG way to go, set yourself up to succeed by starting now!

That’s going to be the end of this blog and there is certainly more to come! Now we charge headlong into year 4 with number 5 in the crosshairs!

DEFY MEDIOCRACY.