#011 How to Grow your Photography Business? Personal Integrity

Building Self-Integrity in Your Photography Business

We delve into the importance of self-integrity in achieving business success. In this episode, we emphasize the significance of consistently doing what you commit to, outlining how personal integrity directly impacts business reliability and growth. 

Through discussing concepts like the motivational triad and specific strategies for overcoming mental obstacles, they encourage listeners to set and achieve concrete 30-day goals. By planning ahead, managing time effectively, and using one's higher brain, listeners can build resilience and discipline, leading to significant strides in their business and personal fulfillment.

00:00 Introduction to Integrity

00:10 Meet Keith and Melissa

00:50 Understanding Self Integrity

01:13 Building the Brain Muscle

01:41 Balancing Multiple Responsibilities

02:06 Overcoming the Brain's Programming

02:37 Planning Ahead for Success

03:27 Handling Seasonal Rush

04:23 Maintaining Personal Integrity

08:16 Setting and Achieving 30-Day Goals

15:07 Listing Obstacles and Strategies

17:26 Final Thoughts on Integrity

19:27 Conclusion and Call to Action

Exercise: 30 day Goal

Definitions
Prefrontal Cortex: One part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is what truly makes us human. We use the prefrontal cortex to think about our thinking, make decisions, and plan ahead. The prefrontal cortex is reflective. It ponders. It considers. It isn't reactionary and instinctive like the lower brain, also known as the reptilian brain or the primitive brain.

Primitive Brain / Lower Brain / Reptilian Brain: Because the lower brain likes to be efficient, it is in charge of a lot of our basic functions that keep us alive and instinctive type behaviors like fight or flight and since it doesn't argue logic with you it doesn't object to you doing things that aren't always in your best interest like skipping the gym, sitting on the couch, binging your favorite show instead of attacking that to do list. It helps keep you in your comfort zone and keeps you safe from trying new things that might scare you.

Motivational Triad: a simple definition is that our lower brain is always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and reducing effort. To put it simply, it is our basic instincts.

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Transcript

The commitment to doing what you say you're going to do, no matter how you feel with no excuses, you do what you say you're going to do. This is integrity.

Welcome. We're Keith and Melissa, photography business owners for more than 25 years. And our mission is to help you find the success you want. And we know firsthand the role that mindset plays in figuring it all out. Now, today's episode. 

Welcome to another episode. So today we're going to be talking about integrity and hopefully you were able to listen to our most recent podcast right before this one, which talks about a few things that we're going to address, including basically how the brain works and the motivational triad.

So I don't want you to get lost as you're listening to this. So if it gets a little crazy, just listen to the podcast episode right before this one and you will be on the same page with us.

 Today we want to talk to you about having self integrity. I know we spoke of some self sabotage tactics last week and the importance of having integrity in your business came up, but beyond business integrity, I wanted to address, or we wanted to, we wanted to address the importance of self integrity as it relates to your business.

So how do you build this brain muscle? How do you become better at self integrity? Good question. Good question. I think we're gonna find out Well, you practice it you get better at it You commit to yourself and you follow through every single time and when you can't or you aren't able to then you don't beat yourself Up, that's the worst thing you can do.

And don't disappear and stop. You recommit and you create what you set out to do. And this builds a muscle in the brain that demonstrates to you that you have your own back. You can do hard things. You are resilient and reliable for yourself and for your business. We get asked often, how do you get as much done as you do? It doesn't seem like that, though. We get asked that a lot. Yeah, you're constantly thinking, why can't I get anything done? But then you, you, you, Take inventory. Yeah, yeah. Seems like we're getting a lot done. I mean, we have two kids.

We run multiple businesses. We recently published a book. We have photography workshops a few times a year. How do we get it all done? That's a good question. The not so secrety secret is that we are willing to do the things we don't feel like doing. That's really, I mean, that's very true.\

It can be difficult to overcome with your own motivational triad. Your brain's tendency is to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy. We have to overcome our brains programming in order to get things done. I'm making it sound easy, but it's not, of course. It is a battle constantly of prioritizing and being in integrity with what we want for ourselves and for our business. The simplest way to start training your brain to do the hard stuff is to plan. Not just plan, but plan ahead of time. Your higher brain, the prefrontal cortex, is on your side. It wants to evolve and grow. When you plan, use the highest part of your brain rather than your survival brain because it is this lower brain that wants none of the hard stuff.

It just wants to sit on the couch and scroll through Instagram while the other brain wants to check everything off your to do list in a timely manner and get stuff done. And unfortunately the lower brain wins out all too often. I hear you. I understand it. So we need to muscle up that higher brain in order to do the really important stuff for our business that will actually create results. I can think of some things that were just like a pain in the butt that just sitting around would be so much more fun.

Like every year we run into the seasonal rush. At the same time it seems you've got, people want holiday portraits. There's weddings going on. Corporate stuff, like there's parties, there's uh, other events. There's, you name it, there's kids are busy at school and kids are busy at school, family stuff. School.

Yeah. You've got all these things and everybody, everybody wants their photos. And so we have delivery times that we, uh, we guarantee throughout the year. We could easily just kind of sit back and go, Oh, because of the rush. And a lot of people do, it's just, it's one of those things. People always say, Oh, at this time of year, we're going to take longer to deliver.

Well, we try not to, it's possible that we could, but we never do. And it's hard. It's really, really hard. But. just buckle down and get it done. , it definitely requires motivation. It requires planning and, uh, time management, things that I don't love to do, but That's integrity.

But it's integrity. I've promised these delivery times, I get them done and because of that, we have clients that are loyal to us because, and the only reason they're loyal to us is not because they just feel that they have to be, it's because we do a good job and they know that they can count on us and we're integrity, how personal integrity comes into this is.

It's one of those things where I promise I'm going to do this, but now there's a lot that gets in the way. So you have to wake up every morning at a reasonable hour. You have to get everything. You've got to be a parent. You've got to be a spouse. You've got to do all the little things that jump in. And try to derail you.

Dog owner. Dog owner, you name it. There's so many things that don't have anything to do with this, but there's only 24 hours in a day and everything has to be done. So if you let things pile up, suddenly what's going to, you know, I'll just do that tomorrow. Well, then that's two things you've got for that minor convenience of today.

You've doubled your workload for tomorrow. And then it just, if you could do it one more time, it just continues to grow. It becomes this huge burden. And so if you just do the hard stuff and get it done, then eventually you're going to break through, you're going to get to the other side. Why the sweat off your brow is going to toast to your success and once good, and then get a breather, but it can get away from you like that.

Without being methodical and having your personal integrity to show up when you said the time you said, doing what you said, your, what your schedule is. Absolutely. That's a great example. I know these are some of the hardest times of the year for us because of that, that push, push, push.

, keeping on, keeping on schedule and keeping with integrity. But we've done it and we've done it for a long time and it's paid off. It's like, we're a well oiled machine. And I think that's an integral part of keeping the business prosperous and profitable for the longterm, Because of these processes that we have in place.

But I also bet you've used your higher brain to do that. I bet your lower brain that was asking you to. Oh yeah. My, uh, my butt was being pulled to the couch once my thumbs were just all ready to go on some, uh, get some Instagramming done. But I think we're lucky. We live in a time when you can, uh, you can record shows or these streams.

So you can watch them on demand. You don't have to put a VHS tape in there and remember to hit record or, or worse, learn how to program the stupid thing. But of course we do do find time every night to watch the holiday. It shows that the kids, no matter how old our kids get, we were very, that's another one of those things that you have to fit in there.

Yeah, you have to watch Heatmiser. Exactly. Our daughters wouldn't forgive us if we didn't do that. This is a great example of the things that we do to grow and evolve them. And it makes us skilled, capable, resilient. And resilience is another one of those words that keeps popping in. It's been in a few episodes recently. Integrity and resilience, I think, go hand in hand. Resilience is key.

The getting it done process is using this part of your brain. You plan what you want to do ahead of time and you actually do it. It's crazy, but it is hard. There's Instagram and Netflix and friends and millions of other things that are more interesting and more entertaining than a lot of the things you need to do in order to have an easier, more successful business.

 So how do we start showing up with more self integrity? It's simple and it's hard. It's so different. It's so true. Many photographers will say things to us like, I'm just not showing up in my business.

I have no idea what to do next. I don't know what to focus on. And honestly, that points out to me that even though this isn't the result they want, they are in essence not taking their business seriously enough. You have to have a plan for yourself for your business that makes you grow each and every day.

You can't just show up with a quote, what am I going to do today approach, because that's when you're going to get more of the same and you're accepting mediocrity from yourself. That is not self integrity. Let's start training that integrity brain muscle by picking one 30 day goal that you're going to commit to for the month.

As I mentioned, the secret is not necessarily fun. It's that you do it no matter what. I guarantee you, it's not going to be fun. You question even being a business owner. So pick something that you want to do for your business. Insert a date that's 30 days from now. By this time. By this time, 30 days from now, I will have completed and created, for example, maybe you want to write your customer service journey, the customer service manual you've been wanting to write for three years, or maybe you want to post on TikTok for 30 days in a row, or you want to update your portfolio with more photos from the niche you've chosen, or maybe you want to take a sales course, whatever it is that you decide on to do for 30 days.

Then write it down and then write down that I know I will be done because, and then , list that tangible item. I'll have the customer journey PDF ready to be sent out to any client who sends me an email or I'll see the 30 posts on Tik Tok or you'll see the new gallery on your website with the 30 new images for your niche.

Thanks. Or you'll have five new sales techniques ready to use in your next client meeting, whatever it looks like to you, you're going to write that down.

There's going to be some days in the 30 that you aren't going to want to do what you said You were going to do because it's a lot.

It's hard to show up 30 days in a row for something we know we aren't going to want to do this every day, but you're going to You have to develop this skill in spite of any discomfort or not wanting to do something. You have to learn to do it anyway.

Because the reward is the success that you achieve or the feeling of accomplishment that you get when completing it and knowing that you are one step closer to having that business that works for you. Answer these questions for yourself. Why do you want to achieve this goal?

And then how will you be accountable for it? Following through for 30 days, we'll build the resilience for yourself that you've got your own back that you can do things hard things. You will create a better relationship with yourself. You can move your business forward. You are creating evidence for you that you can rely on you and that you get things done and you will be operating from self integrity. Yeah. I mean, if you can't rely on you, you can't expect anybody else to rely on you. It's true. Yeah. Very true.

 You can take your personal integrity is something that cannot be taken from you. Regardless of what happens in the world, let's go to your integrity, how you treat, uh, your situation and yourself and how you, kind of how you expect to be treated. That is unique to each of us.

And so if you don't hold tightly to that, then let's go, then you really, what do you have? Yeah. Well, and I think that people don't recognize how important that is to the success of their business because they do tell stories like that. I, myself might say, yes, I put in a hundred percent today, but did I, and I'm not, only, you know, that, and that's your, your, that's why it's self integrity and not just regular integrity, because if you're complaining or you don't understand why you're say, not booking clients or not making enough money or not pushing the needle forward, you're stuck somehow in your business, but you can't.

reconcile like how you've been spending your time or what you've been doing and not showing up every day in order to do this. Like the two go hand in hand and the business can't grow and a business can't become more successful if you aren't showing up every day with intention. Yeah. You're lying to yourself and sometimes we're the easiest, people to lie to is lying to yourself.

But eventually you're going to reflect on that and, you're going to have to pay, you're going to pay the price because , time will keep ticking on. Keep wondering why your business isn't doing well, why it's stuck, why it's not doing what you want, why your life is so challenging. And now you're working in January for December's jobs.

, these are all things that go together. And like, when you want to create that life that you absolutely love and a business that affords that for you, Getting in these habits that they can be uncomfortable and hard to set up at the beginning. But I think that once it's almost like you're in a groove, right?

 I don't think we think twice about it at this stage because sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself into this whole thing, but once you get the momentum going, then it's hard to stop.

When you have discipline like this in your business, you create freedom. Sounds counterintuitive because it sounds restricting. Discipline sounds like, Ooh, I'm being held back, but actually it's, it's the opposite when you have discipline and you, and you follow your schedule with integrity and you show up and you do all the hard things, you actually create more freedom in your business.

Yeah, true. Even though you feel like a task master or, it just needs to. Yeah, once it becomes a thing and you have it scheduled and you're, you've got the momentum going, it just becomes autopilot. .

 The commitment to doing what you say you're going to do, no matter how you feel with no excuses, you do what you say you're going to do. This is integrity.

So with this exercise, you will have to practice putting yourself in there for 30 days. It's on the calendar. If you rely on your primitive brain, maybe nothing will get done. But to evolve, we need to rely on your prefrontal cortex to move us forward.

 Write down every single thing you need to do to get this done in 30 days. Okay, so let's use the video that you recently made. You needed to put the shooting days on the calendar. You needed to sketch out each scene. You needed to watch more tutorials on DaVinci Resolve, which you're doing a lot of that right now. You need to photograph your cameras.

You needed to put editing days on the calendar. You had to find the right music. You had to do the voiceovers you had to post on YouTube and other social channels that you were working on. So there were a lot of steps, every single step to get that movie made and posted on YouTube. You have to make a list for it, like a very thorough list.

There's a lot that that's just really an overview because there's obviously a lot more things that go into making, making the video and for it to be done in 30 days and you have all these, you have a succinct list. It's going to be much easier for you to move through that and make sure everything's done.

Yeah. I get this way. You don't, you don't miss something because it was so easy to miss it when there's so many things to do. If you don't have them planned, then it's, it's almost impossible that something doesn't fall to the wayside. Exactly. And it can end up costing you more time. At the best, you put out a substandard product.

At worst, you completely mess it up. Exactly.

And then monitor whether you're on schedule or not. So to your point, break it down even more than that, like account for everything, just so you weren't surprised if something sneaks in that you hadn't thought about, which we just said, be like repeating ourselves. 

Once everything is out of your brain, it starts looking easier. It's, it's cleaner to see how it will all take shape. Like literally seeing it, it's like black and white. You can actually see your brain on a piece of paper. Like, okay, you know, I can do that. That's much more manageable. You can recognize how capable you are of creating what you want, right?

I agree. Now list the obstacles. What could come between you and your goal? What could come between you and this video? Any number of things.

It's Paris, it could rain. It's Paris, well it's Paris, it could rain. There, a concert I didn't know was happening could just fall on my lap. I'm like, oh, I'd love to go to this place and see these people that I would love to see, or I can get done what I need to do. Hopefully the worst job could come up and that takes you away from your savings.

Yeah, which, yeah, yeah, which isn't necessarily worse, but it was going to be because at least I, I get paid for that. But it's good, it does, it does get in the way and these things have happened. I'm More times than we care to count. Well I mean, something can happen to the camera that you're using, Yeah. The footage may not come out the way you want it to, Uh huh.

You have to literally go back and reshoot the whole thing. I might have to parent. Yeah, that definitely falls in. Maybe your battery dies while you're out there shooting, You have to come all the way back home. Or you don't know how to do a particular editing sequence. So off to watch another YouTube video about how to do something.

And it's, there's a lot of things that, that can pop up that, that the obstacles that could pop up that could potentially derail your plan to have it completed in 30 days. As it is, I find was good. Since I don't know as much about this as I'm going to know in the future, things take longer because I keep having new questions, but the day doesn't get longer.

So I now have West. I've spent a lot more time doing what seemed to be easy, but I've, I've determined that I'm going to get it out. So I will put in whatever amount of time and energy it takes to get it done. Otherwise it won't get done. Well, and it helps to list these obstacles because then there's become steps that if something gets in the way that you need to be prepared for, like say, I want to post on Tik TOK 30 days in a row. What could my obstacles be? Say I have back to back weddings next weekend.

So I'll need to pre plan my content.

Obstacle or excuse could be that you don't have enough ideas. That's a good one for me with social media. You never know what to post on, on socials, or at least I don't. So brainstorming ideas would end up being an action item that would, I would need to add into my to do list. 

Write down these obstacles so you know your strategies to overcome them. You know your own bullshit and don't make excuses. During the 30 days and after you will notice that you have changed your relationship with yourself. This is just one exercise. As you approach your business with more personal integrity each day, you will start to see big changes quickly.

Spend time with yourself and try to understand yourself better through exercises like this. Once you understand yourself, shit starts to change. Remember, this is within your control. Whether you beat yourself up is also within your control. So much is outside of your control except for you. Focus on the actions you take when you falter or fail, get right back up and remember today is a new day because invariably you are going to fail.

Don't make excuses. And when I say don't beat yourself up, because I think a lot of people don't like goals and don't like goal setting. So I think that making sure that if you don't hit your target, you don't post 30 times on Tik TOK, or , you don't have your video finished in the 30 day window.

That's okay. Because you learn so much while you were trying. But the idea is to have those goals out there so that you're striving for something within your business and to help yourself see to prove to yourself that you're, Completely capable of self integrity like this. Yeah. It's really, like we said, it's just building a brain muscle.

Yeah. It's is like working out. It's going to start off difficult, it's just the way it is, but by doing it, it becomes easier and becomes faster and then you can do more and you'll get to your, you'll get to your goal. But, expect it to be hard and, uh, you'll enjoy the, you'll enjoy your success more. Well, definitely, I think you'll enjoy who you become in the process as well.

That you can rely on yourself and that, you know, when you say you're going to do something, you're going to do it and only you know, like, wait, how you're not showing up. Yeah, it's funny. It's one of those things where it's strange to think what's going to, there's somebody out there that, uh, wants to do something hard.

No, no one really wants to do something hard. You want to do things that are easy, but they don't become easy until you get past the hard. And these exercises really are just a method to get you to start doing the reps. Basically, it's almost like going to the gym, like the exercises just get you to the gym and get you started, being a little bit more self aware about how you're doing things in your business.

Anyway, in the show notes is definitely gonna be some definitions, Please watch the previous podcast that talks about things for exactly And there will also be a link to the 30 day exercise in the show notes as well So thank you for joining us today.

Thanks. See you next time. Take care. Bye. Bye

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