Lessons

Lesson Info

Who Am I?

I think I'm dreaming everything's too people told me that one but try just wait there is everywhere so one yeah wait who but why be try very hard to hide every time it's on me but you see you got so many only wanting are you happy get happy there's no way wait lane sammy booth don't waste my time but I'm loving way what a shame one thing that you really need me heart beats again whenever I'm happy are you happy to heart beats for you whenever I'm happy b I have to all right can't start a show without pretty pictures so now we wait we're gonna jump right in first of all when it's a little bit about myself I know a lot of you know me already and I know a lot of people have been watching the re watch so of course I'm I can't imagine that sick of me by now but I'm gonna pout power away at it again but my name is sandy push I'm from littleton colorado I've been living there about twenty years I went there twenty years ago I moved there and started to build my business now a little bit about...

myself deeply anybody who knows me knows that I border crazy manic insane I'm pretty sure if I didn't have this job I would be heavily medicated and I'm very since you know that I probably worked at a level and exists at a level that would make most people crazy I'm very very outgoing very energetic very passionate and very driven but almost in a crazy way I just have to get out there and I've definitely always been the odd man out I have definitely always been the not normal one I think I found myself when I was young I was extremely introverted so shy that you couldn't even imagine and terrified and even to this day I'm extremely introverted most people think of me is very coy or standoffish and the reality is I make so nervous about certain things things that don't bother me or speaking in front of hundreds of people teaching anything that I love thousands of people doesn't bother me but one on one I get so nervous that you'll see I kind of pulled back a little bit so if you ever see that it's not that I'm not that I'm standoffish it's actually quite the opposite but definitely always stood out I was always the odd child that had to have I think a lot when I was younger it was the emotional attention I was always doing really dramatic stuff like one time I got a sliver in my eye and I had to go to the doctor and go through the process of getting it out and of course the doctor turned and I was really young and he turned to me and he said you know if three or four days if it's still red or swollen you need teo come back and have a check so had all this amazing attention with the patch and everything for a few days and of course a few days later the past comes off and I lose the attention so I realize about four five days I've lost the attention so about the fifth day I'm downstairs putting dirt in my eye trying to get a sliver again so that I can go back to the doctor so I mean that's what I'm saying like over the top you know trying to find you know trying to make my mark as I grew you know I got into the eye was in the eighties so of course as I became a teenager it became the whole punk shave your head you know total chaos running around town I was definitely the odd man out there and always sort of stood out eventually I sort of tapered myself and realized that I didn't need that kind of I haven't quite got out of the eighties black thing I'm working on it but I got rid of the black lipstick so I'm doing pretty good but I told the hair down a little bit but you know I've always had sort of that I think that personality is based on keeping people out because of those fears eso it's really something that I just I've never ever fit in but as you grow everybody knows you go through the stages in your life and the fears and paranoia of high school in elementary um school and then the twenties were trying to find herself and then the thirties where you sort of get a grip on what you want but you're still worried about what other people think and then yes I'm officially in the forties now and it's interesting that now it doesn't really matter what people think it's not that I want to offend people are I don't care it's just that you really start to wrap your head around the fact that that it's okay that everything you do is okay so so I've definitely had a great journey uh several things I know about me I cannot be everyone just like you I get overwhelmed with this industry and all the things you could be doing and should be doing and all these amazing you know and I said this last time all these things that you know these photographers who were creating this breathtaking work the reality is I photographed babies and children and it's not amazing and it's not you know I get a few images that I consider strong images but my day to day work is pretty average it's I think I'm a good shooter I have strong techniques but I think overall as faras magic and amazement I am really good at consistency and creating sellable work I make my money by producing what I know the clients will purchase do I love being artistic absolutely do I consider myself artistic absolutely but I'm also very formulated some people get upset because they don't want to be in a box but I'm pretty consistent with uh it doesn't matter how many six months old you shoot they're a couple shots that are going to sell every time so why not go for it because that mom's gonna buy it and then if things work out and you can go to that next creative level then great but if the baby crashes and everything's over I got the shots and that's kind of my theory when I teaches lett's it's it's a method it's let's get in and do the job and then if there's time and if the situation allows let's get let's become creative because I watched photographers go through this whole frustration of having these visions and jumping in and okay let's put you over here and then okay let's run over here and by the time they get through three or four things that kids are falling apart and it's just they're exhausted and and they're you know they've sort of lost that momentum where you'll see when I shoot especially tomorrow in the next day I'll go in and very quickly get what I need I'll have an entire sellable siri's within less than ten minutes I could get in there and make that happen and then after that I step back and okay I got what I need now what can we do that's different how can I make this unique and I think that we do do we do achieve that but it's so much less stressed just stressful the way we do it because I just don't feel like I exhaust myself before I get to that point so I'm hoping to share a little bit of that definitely can't keep up with everyone it's impossible I have my own little unique world and at one point in this industry I had to step back and say yeah I'm a never create these majestic landscapes with people but I watched clients every day emotionally connect to what I do and so to me that's very worth it I am not going to go downhill this fast I promise you I could feel it just keep reminding you your sons are ok you didn't leave them in asia I could only be responsible for my actions I mean the things that I do I have to be accountable for everybody makes mistakes we've all gone you know on our journey and it's just something that move dang it we're going down fast wheels on the bus go round and round but really I can only be responsible for my actions and I could only you know really pursue finding what's best for me on chili laughter is the best medicine that's the one thing you'll find out about me is everything is funny to me everything I mean it doesn't matter how bad it is broken arm it's just funny to me because you know I said this last time but you know unless you're dead okay honestly and so for me it's just make a game out of it er those of you who know us and know our traveling schedule and we probably have the most rigorous travel schedule of anyone in this industry but every day is a game we have in fact I'll teach you this game is called the hope game brandon who you'll meet later and I learned this on one of our flight tours every single thing that could go wrong went wrong and we just every time we'd walk in a room it was wrong every time we'd miss flights every just everything went bad and it was just very daunting and finally we made up this game is called the hope game and what it is's before we go in any situation we hope for the worst we go I hope this room's too small and help there's no air conditioning and I hope this because then we get every wish we ever asked for so it's awesome like were the most blessed people in the world because we get everything we want so and if it doesn't happen it works out good too so we walk into it with that attitude of you know what if it happens we know it's gonna happen and if it does we just laugh it off because we wished for it so so there is something to be said about wishing for the negative because you know what to get what you want and you can consider yourself really lucky you got everything you want so really you're going to see that I laugh a lot we have a lot of fun I engage in people I fall in love with people you guys are about to be my new lovers so uh it is important to have a live audience because you give me that connection but you know what very quickly I start to feel the virtual audience is well through the communications and pretty soon I'll start looking there more than at you and that's just because I want to reach everybody and I know that you guys were just uh reach away here so all right bottom line is I make a fool of myself all of that time I will do anything I will try anything I am super you know ifit's jump off of it dive into it my biggest fear is shark so I had a little moment in thailand recently we were swimming or no philippines we were swimming and there was shark nets out in the water way far out there and I'm terrified of sharks the only thing I'm afraid of in the world is sharks and so I don't even go in water very often but boys wanted to sew went in a little bit swam snorkeling amazing all the sudden nemo was everywhere seem like live nemo's this big barrack ouda is and so I'm getting braver and braver and little by little I'm inching my way out and finally my son is like well let's go out to the shark nets and so we're swimming out you know snorkeling out there we're getting close this is the way out there were these big nets are these big white boys sitting there and we get all the way out there at all so I get out there and I look at my son and he looks because oh mom those aren't shark nets there no neck is there and we realised those aren't nets those were just little boys out and I literally I am not kidding you I had this a moment of sheer terror I was like I sucked in half the ocean and I couldn't move because I just was waiting for the shark just to come and eat because I am way way so it was I was literally paralyzed and then I was like okay backwards you know what I'm like you you know we back paddled all the way back but I that was my share moment of terror where I realized that I had made a mistake that I had assumed onda had pushed that limits so very rarely do I put myself in danger but I am definitely willing to do anything I love adventure and we live very hard um my story obviously I started photography when I was seventeen years old and I picked up a camera I never put it down I felt passionately and madly in love with photography bounced around over the all over the country for a few years landed in colorado twenty years ago started out of my home worked out of my home for six or seven eight years eventually opened my first studio this is my first studio place it was two thousand square feet this is not even this is actually year two or three when we had actually made it a little nicer but you can see kind of the evolution here you're one I had like commercial carpet and really ugly things then I pulled out and put in the floors and I'm not a designer by nature although I'm very proud of mice said I like the colors I picked but it's not natural for me I'm not a fluffy pretty girl like I'm not I don't get the whole girl thing I have a hard time with that and so you know this was a lot of trial and error and putting things up thinking it was pretty and then two years later tearing it all up and making it a little prettier and that was part of my evolution this first base was two thousand square feet eventually within three years what I moved into the space I was the only employee it was me and a tte that time my nanny aaron who aaron is still with me and has been with me for seventeen years and she worked out of my home taking care of my kids uh when my third was born he was very sick and she was there I had just opened studio and she was there for me then and we just kind of built aaron is actually my personal image artist she does all the shells all the pretty work you see it's all aaron so big shout out to erin um so we started this and quickly I had to hire employees and we grew very quickly marketing for some reason is my forte I have no experience in this in the sense of education I did not go to college in fact I confess this last time but I didn't even go to high school I dropped out in ninth grade is pretty much family in sixth seventh and eighth anyway um I just did not understand people and relationships I had a hard time it wasn't that I could do the schoolwork in fact that stuff came easy for me it was dealing with people dealing with teachers on that goes back to that extreme paranoid about everything I cared about what everybody thought I'd open my mouth and then spend twenty minutes going why'd you say that you're so dumb and you know we're talking myself through it so I didn't even have a high school education I consider myself very street smart I was a little bit of a hellion when I was young and so I was you know doing some crazy things and I learned people and I learned communications and to be safe I learned how to understand what was really happening howto listen to somebody and kind of read between the lines and figure out what they really wanted and that's really where my marketing experience come from comes from is really that street experience taking care of myself protecting myself and and taking care of people around me and so you start to become very wary but it also opens up the hole uh sales understanding people understanding why people do things and I sort of build it from there so far as education I don't think education certainly I don't want children hear this it's not that I don't think it's important but I think that sometimes we get hung up on school and how you learn things and and it's it's not really about the books as much as it is about the communications that you go through so when I moved in here I found that marketing was what I was good at and very quickly I grew to the point where I had no employees and then it was one and then two and then three and then four and then we were up to eighteen we expanded this studio expanded to five thousand square feet we continue to grow by the time we blew out of that studio we were up to thirty two employees in we had rented another space so seven thousand square square b thirty two people and then we four years ago I purchased the building that we're in it's just under eleven thousand square feet at that time there were thirty two of us and now we have scaled all the way back to I believe about fifteen now we have gone an incredible journey we've gone I have gone from a humongous studio making several million a year in photography only to shifting my life and trying to prioritize and it was kind of nice that you said that today about time because sometimes in life you spend so much time pursuing your dream you don't realize what you're giving up and so I'm definitely not here to say that I've always had it together and then I've always had all the time in the world I sacrifice just like you'll have to I always say that you know life isn't about balance it's about choice and sacrifice and I built all of this now one of the advantages of that I had is that when I opened this studio I was pregnant with my fourth and my husband retired to stay home with the kids we had our four I was pregnant with my youngest and we also were foster parents we had six foster children all boys so number ten was on the way and so you can imagine with ten children in the house opening up a business he I chose to retire and he has been retired ever since so we've had that advantage of having a state home parents so when I say that I sacrificed a lot there was always for us it was there was always a parent in the home take in care of the kids I just had to be out there toe pay for things but when you have the burden of you know the responsibility of the income you work really hard to protect that so so I'm not saying I did it perfectly but after a while I definitely started to realize what I did and didn't want in the last two years I have really refined my business I've decided how much I want to shoot it's much less than I used to shoot how much I want to teach and how much how many employees I wanna have that was the hardest thing is letting people go because I love people but I started to realize that in order to refine I would have to make some big decisions so so later tomorrow I'll show you a little more about the studio what we're doing now but it's been an incredible journey it's something that I wish I could just show you the video of my life and say look don't do any of this do your own thing but hopefully I can share some of those things as we go along all right I'm here to show you how I work with children children is definitely my forte I grew up in a very big family lots of children tons of cousins when my grandmother passed away I had sixty eight cousins and one hundred and thirteen second cousin so you can imagine when I say big family I mean we were had hundreds of kids and children they have always I love kids because they're so humble and they're so free and so I tend to gravitate that's about where I tend to make it in life is that level so so it's very easy and very natural for me to understand children tomorrow we're going to talk a lot about psychology and working with kids and why it's easy for me to do what I do and give you all the shortcuts that we have learned over the years I'm also here to soak in your energy I mean you guys were here for me and I'm here for you and uh I love having you here and I love having the virtual audience as well because it's you know through that communication I start it really is amazing how small the world really is um obviously the real reason I'm here these are my ford biological children all of my foster children are grown up um they're all having babies so technically I'm a grandma many times over might showcase some of those pictures tomorrow but it's really need a lot of them have stayed close some of them it's funny in the last three months I've had four of my toughest foster children they were all teenage boys show up and they completely disappeared out of my life and now they're all coming back and saying thank you and showing off their babies and it's it's that wonderful circle of closing that gap so it's kind of cool but currently I just have these four and the two oldest are now in college they're both in the university of utah and the youngest fourteen and thirteen are still at home hanging with me I still have to note that it's still impossible how many of you guys struggled photographing your own kids anybody here yes thank you I've always said that I'd rather pull out my own teeth with pliers than photograph my kids and so it's still the same no matter how hard I try it always feels like this um they are just and I think it's because they're photographers children they just hate having their picture taken so that was kind of feels like this eventually we get it to this um this was just a fun little thing I literally my oldest son is so difficult and hates it so much that I had a sort of blind side him so is able to get this but the reality is and everybody should know this this is actually what it took teo make that happen about three head swaps some tummy tuck some jack and fix it so it's funny with our own children how over the top we go to fix things and perfect things I mean other people's you know sessions we do a nice job but with their own we're just so um you know critical of our own and I think it's because we know what we want and our children don't want to give it to us and so uh nothing comes easy as it should be I suppose I do want to thank all of you guys for being here I think that you know I know this was very late you guys just barely jumped on and had to get tickets and things and I know that's an investment and I know creative live does such an amazing job making this making you welcome so glad to have you here we do have some awesome sponsors that will be talking about throughout the show many of which have given us some great prizes to give away is too so I know you guys are gonna be loaded up with goodies and uh virtual audience as well they're gonna have a lot of great prices going out biggest thank you to my staff you're going to meet helen and brandon tomorrow helen has been shooting with me for ten years she's incredible brandon manages all the tours he's been through all the chaos I mean we pretty much live and die on tour buses and airplanes and nobody works harder than him except maybe erin who is not here and she's of course she literally I saw her post something on facebook at three a m she was still work king on this show so uh everything you see is definitely erin's creativity the images are mine but she makes them she puts it all together it makes it beautiful so big thank you to all of those a couple reminders I always want to say that I don't take credit for what I am everything I am is an evolution of hearing or learning from somebody else nothing I'm going to teach you is easy there is no easy button I cannot tell you that you're not gonna have to work or that there's a shortcut we can simplify things but you're gonna have to put in an effort any student that I have that is successful has made those choices they make it you know they make a choice to pursue the things that were going to teach you work I mean these marketing campaigns these business management techniques they absolutely work not just for me and it's not just for people in big cities or not just for people in rural communities it works for everybody it's a matter of refining it to work for you and pursuing it putting your heart into it so we're definitely gonna gonna show you howto work really hard um this is one of my favorite quotes because I truly if I had an hour to I would tell you all of the mentors and the amazing people that have affected my life but all I can say is that I am really grateful for all of their time because just like you were here I've sat in audiences soaked it in and taken notes and you know it's something that I would never take credit for anything because I'm sure I saw it somewhere else so I want to make sure that you understand that real quick note I know that with creative live we'd love to have you follow us is well in fact we will be giving away things all day as well on facebook so if you go to our fan page for the most part we're gonna do everything on the fan page today so go there not you guys you stay here you're getting everything anyway so it's all good but please do go there and tell us what you think of the show as we go along we're going to be giving pretty much most of the things we're seeing in the show today we're going to be giving those away just you know let us know what what you think what you like um and you'll definitely be one of one of our winners were giving away things all day every day including through the re watches so those of you will give three in the daytime and three in the night time to make sure that our international friends get treated well as well this is an all new show there are a few things I had to use from last show because I know that half the audience is new so there are a few of the kid techniques I taught last time that we have to revisit because they are critical to what I do but eighty nine pride ninety two point something percent is all brand new material unless it's really critical to to the success of what we do I tried to really filter in a lot of good funds stuff I want to be a complete program I am in a cram in everything I can in the next three days we do have a life shoots tomorrow life should the next day but every single second I have to give you marketing and business building techniques I intend to do that we have a lot of discounts on a lot of giveaways which we'll talk about throughout the show not here to be an infomercial and I know most of you have seen me on tour you know that that's a huge hot button for me because I don't like to have to get up and try to sell stuff to you however a lot of r and r s v u students know that uh you know I put my heart into what I do and my goal is to always make it easier for you so we do have educational materials everything I showed today is on you can do dot com on dh so just so you know where it's at and where you could find it because I know that the chat rooms get busy with the what did she say where did it go it's all there I put it on every slide that something comes up just as a reminder that you can't get it because it's you know we're trying to simplify things