Lessons

Lesson Info

Where do You Start?

Okay. Where do you start? So I pelt you and I pelt you with all these hard lessons and you've really got to go back to how we started the day and how we started Wednesday. We've got nine areas of startup business that we have broken down in. The first place you need to start is the one that terrifies you the most. And you need to take little steps to learn and grow just in that category. Go easy on yourself. You don't have to get all nine steps done in a month. Some of these lessons took me years and years and years. But just identify them as a block or a problem or hurdle. If your pricing evolution is growing, discuss your pricing with friends as instead of being I'm broke I can't afford it. I can't sustain this income. People charge so much less than me, I'm not making it. I'm gonna have to quit and get a job. Turn it into I'm learning to grow my income with photography. I'm learning how to evolve my price list and my sales by taking Sue Bryce's workshop. I am learning to advance my ...

business in selling myself. I am learning everyday to be a better photographer. Be kind, because if you listen to that, there's hope in that message. There's hope in that information. There's hope that you're actually becoming because you are. But if you're talking in limits, it's all you're gonna get is just constant limits and constant limits. Now, you can follow multiple educators. You can follow... I have people that just follow me. I have people that follow me and three others. I have people that just generally love a little bit of education from everybody. Alright. But the best foundation course I ever laid out was 28 days. 28 days was the workshop I did for Creative Life that basically was 28 videos. Then it became 34 videos and it just didn't stop. In fact, somebody wrote on NBC, the other day it's called 28 months now. If you join 28 day study group on Facebook, you can actually work through each video with 2000 other photographers owning their brands. The mentors are in there. It works. I created a website on suebryce.com. There's 200 videos on there. Advance videos, DIY, painting your own backdrops, making flower crowns from nothing. I have gone to every way of showing you a hack way of doing something. On suebryce.com, I've put money talks. There are 25 videos on there talking about money from a victim level to survivor, manager, to being proficient with money to actually accumulating it, to investing it. Because all these workshops out there teach you how to invest money but nobody teaches you how to pay your rent next week. And I was living week by week behind with debt. And I know what it's like to have a physical reaction to what turns up in your letter box when it's a bill and you can't pay it. And you know what? It's kind of like, I want to teach all levels. But these two learning modalities, right now, they are everything I've got. And they couldn't be more incredible. For what I started out, the journey in which I've done it, how I shoot, the evolution of my lighting, the evolution of money, the evolution of pricing. And on suebryce.com, we're gonna go deeper into nine areas. Next twelve weeks, we're gonna focus on one area every week. And just pull it apart. And I'm gonna do more, more, more videos. Because it's going to free you and get you to the next level. There is a community of photographers. But the problem with this community, is we get lost in it. Now, I love the Facebook community. I love convocation, I created it. I created it so you could talk to me on my website. And then what I did, was I created a critique software. That you could get your marketing and your photographs critiqued. Alright? I've put out everything that I could possibly put out there. And now, I need you to choose what it is you want to focus on learning. But I need you to get out of your own way at the same time. Because, I can just keep laying out lessons and lessons and lessons. And I'm still gonna go back to you. People ask me all the time, "Why don't I mentor one on one?" I can't do it. I've tried. I would go to people. People would pay me a lot of money to go to their studio for a day. And, yes, money is part of that. Money that's enticing. But I can't do it. Do you know why? Because I would go and you would be saying, "Should I shoot by this window? Or should I shoot here? Tell me how to pose like this. Tell me how to pose three women. Tell me how to pose curvy women." All I want to do is sit down and talk about you. All I want to talk about what's not working with you. And I realized that that's not how I could teach. Because I need to shift the personal stuff. It's the personal stuff that gets in the way. You've got to do the work. And you've got to do what it takes to do the work. But you can't lose sight of what you love and near. And when I say what you love, what you own, what you're working towards. Because it's very, very easy to lose sight of where you're going. Like, what are you building? What are you trying so hard to do? Like, are you just trying to get paid? Or are you trying to build a business that's going to pay you back? You know, the definition of a business owner, is somebody that doesn't need to be in the city. They can be somewhere completely else. And they're still making money. That's a business owner. But when you're a photographer working in your own business, you're getting paid. But if you're not working, you're not getting paid. Technically, that's a job. And you're just your own boss. So I kind of am fighting with this idea, constantly. To teach photographers how to be in business. And just teach them how to get paid and manage their money. Cause, I've found, most of you don't want to be in business. You just don't want to be in debt. And the weird thing is, is if most of you were supported reasonably, you'd pretty much do it for free because you like it so much anyway. So you're actually not working towards anything. How can you tell the universe what you want? Sorry, how can you say to the universe, "I'm not getting what I want."? And the universe is like, "Um. You didn't tell us what you wanted." You know declaring what you want and owning it is the first step to actually making it come true. I ask this question every single time. Tell me what you want. Declare it, own it. And be specific. Now, here's a really good lesson. I wake up every single day and I think about what I want. I hold it in my mind. And you can call it meditation. You can call it prayer. You can call it quiet time. I lie in bed and I hold the idea of what is coming to me, to my heart. I visualize it coming to fruition. I imagine myself getting it, excited about it. I think about how awesome my life will be once it arrives. I see myself doing it. And I think about it. I think about it like it's happening. Yes, I do all of that. But, then I do the one thing that makes it come true. I spend the whole day thinking about how to get it. I think about creative solutions. I look for opportunities. I look for tag words that bring out the thing that I want. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh!" I was just thinking I want that warehouse. And I walked in and there was a sign for a warehouse down the road, for sale, exactly what I want. Magic, or I was looking for it? But I don't wake up every day going, "I can't, I won't, I don't. And shame, and guilt, and pain, and nothingness. And I'm not good enough. And I can never have this. And I can never have that." Okay, sometimes I do. Cause I did that for years and years and years and years. But the truth is, is that's what I do. It's not magic manifestation. I hold what I want in my mind. Every morning, I dedicate time to what I want and what I want to create. And then I hold it in my mind and I take action towards it. Every single day I look for opportunity around it. And I change something. And some days I change nothing. But you know the saying? If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. So if you change nothing, nothing changes. And then, I know that if I wanna make change, I've got to make a daily practice, every day, of taking one step forward. And why is that so hard? Like, why do we struggle so much, just to take action? And that is because we do everything. We take action with guilt and shame, instead of taking action with pride and confidence, love, joy and honor. And then, that would be my advice. Take action. On anything, it doesn't matter what it is. Even if it's just, I'm gonna take action on my ownership. I'm gonna take action on telling the universal god, or whoever it is you talk to, what I want. And I don't say, "Can I have a Ferrari? And, maybe like a big house?" I'm like, "I want this many shoots a year. I want this many sales. I want this many. I want this much average. I want this to happen. I want full workshops. I want this. I want this." I envision that I've got everything it takes to bring to the table everything to make that come to fruition. I value it. I value the exchange. And it comes back to me. And every year, my dreams get bigger and bigger. And my goals get bigger and bigger. And I get frightened again. And then I remember I've been here before. I've done this before. I can do this. I'm excited about this. I'm not asking for a mansion. I'm just asking to take action doing what I love every single day. And it's working. So, I beg you to do the same. Any questions? I'm just gonna come up here and join you. Man, why is it that I'm always speechless at the end of your lessons? This has been an incredible workshop. Thank you. Thank you. There are so many comments in the chat rooms. And keep those coming. And go to Sue's Facebook page and keep those coming. But, I think, you started this class... I know cause I wrote it down. Talking about hurdles, and saying that they don't stop, they're just different. And I feel like that's what you've just come back around to. But, giving us and empowering us with tools to work through that. Not just always say like, "Oh, it's always gonna be there. It's always gonna be a hurdle." But here's what to wake up every day and do. I don't mind hurdles because I can smash through hurdles. What I can't, what I struggle with, are belief systems. That you believe something so greatly, that it is truth to you. You can shift that. Like I have been confronted emotionally. I've been confronted financially. I've been confronted, you know, on every level, physically. Within owning a business. And every level that I've been confronted in, was a solid belief system that it couldn't change. Or it wasn't going to be different. Or poor me, or it's not right or it's not fair. And you know, even now, I just know... I'll share something really personal. I actually got laryngitis, due to reflux. I had quite severe reflux for seven days. And I got acid laryngitis. Which is how I got sick. So I had, building up to my creative life, becoming sick and sick. And that happened and I just felt hijacked. My voice was slightly going on day one. And I was shocked by it. I don't hold any illness in my body, because I don't hold any blocked emotion anymore. I was a very sick, very overweight girl for many years. Cause I had a lot of blocked stuff that I didn't know how to speak up, I didn't know how to speak for myself. And last week, three things happened on a personal level to me that were weighing on my chest. Like somebody was standing on it. And I actually was unable to move the emotion around those three situations. One was grief, one was fear over taking a step, and one was anger. And those three emotions were like somebody was just stabbing me, like this, repeatedly. And by Wednesday, I'd lost my voice. On Thursday, sorry Thursday I'd lost my voice. On Thursday, I asked Kenna and my other, my friend Nikki - Nikki's sitting right here, to come with me and we went back to my hotel room. And I could not speak. So I could only whisper as you well remember. And I asked the girls to hold a space for me so I could emotionally express my truth within what I was feeling in all this pain and anger. And at this moment, at a cellular level, I was very sick. But the truth is, is I knew it was just trapped emotion. And in order to get it out, I had to turn it back into words, and back into tears, and scream it out and cry it out. And for three hours, these two listened to me while I cried and screamed and railed. And by the end of it, I had maybe ten percent, twenty percent of my voice back. And I keep going through the night, I keep confronting it. And in the morning it started to heal. And by Saturday, I had my voice back but I was of course, exhausted. Something that that is, something that's very real to me, the fact that I can confront something now, so quickly within my body and react to it, empower it out of my body. And just not hold onto it, is extraordinary being that I've actually had my gallbladder removed. I've had an organ collapse in my body. Which is resentment, by the way. And removed because I was unable to express myself. To speak up for myself. To own my own feelings. To be important enough or worthy enough to say that I'm bloody angry right now and I have every right to be. I never used to think I was good enough to say how I feel. And I never felt I was good enough to speak up for myself. I never felt like I was good enough to be anything. So I just sat there and kept eating it. And getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And swallowing my own pain, my own anger. And now, I feel very differently. The hard part for Nikki and Kenna was, I was greiving, and I was angry and I was in fear over situations, was for them to hold the space for me around my feelings, and what I was responsible for. Not the people that were making me feel that way. Because your natural reaction in nurturing someone is to say, "That bastard. Or let me help you." But I was like, "Nope, I need to own my anger and my grief and my fear and my pain. Because it's on my chest and it's hurting me, irregardless of what that person has done." And so to hold that space for somebody, yourself. To hold that space for yourself, you have to go through a process of ownership, and deservingness and deservability, or you know, honor and self love that you can get to. And to get to there, takes quite the journey. But watching myself go through that process this week, was an extraordinary eye opener to what I can change and shift and confront within myself. And if I can show you that truth and teach you that, I can change everything about your path. On behalf of everybody out there, thank you for sharing your truth. It was a tremendous honor and experience, to actually witness that for you. And that truth allows people at home, that you just shared, to look deeper into their own. So, I can't wait to see what you keep putting out, in terms of content. My goodness, I feel like every time you're here, that it's just the beginning of more and more and more. Well, I'm becoming too, so... You are, you're changing and growing. Everyone's becoming and I'm also becoming. And I've been so suppressed for so long, with my own voice, with my own pain, that I feel like my becoming is saving me. I'm stepping up into more of what I didn't even know was inside me. I feel like becoming is, we all need to be becoming, so that we can keep moving forward. Instead of giving ourselves limits of "You can't".