How can you find more ease in your business? In today’s episode, I’m sharing a lesson that I learned in yoga about putting in the hard work early in order to create ease later on. I’m also sharing a few examples of how I find and create more ease in my own business.
The Shoot It Straight Podcast is brought to you by Sabrina Gebhardt, photographer and educator. Join us each week as we discuss what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, Shoot It Straight Podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
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This episode is brought to you by Root to Rise, a mastermind and retreat for female photographers where personal development meets business growth. During the four-month experience, students have weekly calls focused on goals, boundaries, money, and marketing. The program also includes incredible guest teachers, a private Facebook community, and weekly Voxer hours with individualized guidance and mentorship. Sign up today to join the waitlist.
Review the Show Notes:
The Root To Rise Mastermind Alumni Retreat (1:01)
Overcoming being a serial hustler (3:46)
You have to be willing to put in the work (6:00)
What ease in business can look like (9:07)
Episode Links:
Episode 53: Business Lessons From Yoga
Review the transcript:
Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gephardt. Here I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur. while balancing business motherhood and life myself along with my guests will get vulnerable through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in yet willing to talk about the hard stuff to to shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight. Welcome back to the shoot it straight podcast my friends.
Today’s episode is yet another lesson from yoga. If you remember back in episode 53. That episode was titled business lessons from yoga. And it was like today’s episode, something that came to me during a yoga class. I’ll have that episode linked in the show notes because it is a great one. So the idea for this particular episode came to mind while doing yoga in Charleston. I was there in January hosting the first ever Root to rise alumni retreat. That weekend was offered to my past alumni of the mastermind, and we treated it like a girls weekend and a business trip mixed together. We had the best time being together. And we also did some serious work on breaking down goals and action steps for the year. The women who attended are seriously going to crush it this year, I cannot wait to see how things pan out for all of them. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how an alumni treat would go. But holy cow, it was incredible. And I think it will officially become an annual thing moving forward because I can’t imagine not doing one next year.
Anyways, one morning during the retreat weekend, we had a private yoga class inside the most beautiful space in downtown Charleston. And the owner who was leading our class, she talked about the difference in how your body feels before class. And at the end of class. In case you aren’t a yogi. Generally there are a few poses that teachers will have you do at the beginning of a class that start to warm your body up. But they can also act as a marker for how flexible your body is at that moment and what it’s capable of. And then at the end of class, the teacher might have you do the same poses so that you can visibly see how much more loose and flexible you are. It proves a great point that all the work you did during class has given you visible progress, you’re more flexible, your muscles are warm, your body is loose. It’s the best feeling.
In this particular class in Charleston, and toward the end of class, we had just completed the peak poses. Those are the poses that we spent the rest of the class building towards. They are the hardest physically and mentally, even the most accomplished Yogi will still have a bit of struggle at this point. And that’s the point. After these peak poses when the group was physically stretched, shaky and sweaty, the instructor starts to talk about how all of our hard work was leading to ease. And that because our bodies put in the hard work earlier in class, we were primed and ready to create ease at the end. The sentiment immediately resonated with me and I knew I had to do a podcast episode all about it. In fact, the second class was over, I grabbed my phone to jot down the idea for the episode because I knew I would forget it if I did not.
Anyways, this thought that hard work is necessary to create ease is exactly the same in business. And yet over the years, I have seen people struggle with this idea a lot. And honestly, these are there are kind of two sides of the story that I see struggle in. On one hand, you have those entrepreneurs who believe in the struggle who believe in the hustle, but they never search for ease on the other side. And I’m going to be honest here, I was once in this camp. This is the group that starts a business puts their head down and does the work. They’re the go getters and the hustlers, these women know what they want, and they aren’t afraid to go after it. They keep going when things are hard and they’re committed to success. The problem is that when they become successful, and they always do because when you work hard, success is inevitable. So when they finally do hit that success, they don’t know what comes next. They don’t know what comes after having that successful business of their dreams. So when they reach that point, they just set another benchmark and keep hustling toward a new thing. And this happens over and over so that the striving never actually ends. Like I said, this was me for so long, honestly for like a decade. And it makes me sad to think about at the end of 2022 I realized I wasn’t craving more success.
I was actually craving more ease. And I had no idea How to achieve that. So I hired a coach to help me through the process. I’m definitely not 100% there yet, because learning to lean into ease is so dang hard, especially after you’ve been hustling for what feels like your entire life. But when you start looking for ease, you see that there are choices we make every day in business that can lead to things being easier. Simply put, as I overcome, being a serial Hustler, I’m constantly asking myself, How can I make this easier. And when it’s possible, I’m choosing the easier path one step at a time. But hear me when I say this. I am at the point in my business where I can choose ease and still see growth and success. Because I hustled first, because I worked hard and set a strong foundation, because I wasn’t afraid to chase my dream. Because of all of my hard work. In the early years, I am able to choose ease on the other side of all of that hustle. And this is where I see the other side of the story. The other way that entrepreneurs struggle with this belief is the opposite of the first group.
Some entrepreneurs choose to start a business because they want ease from the beginning. They don’t want the hustle. Maybe they walked away from a career that was filled with hustling for a boss that they think they should be able to build a business without much effort and their success should feel easy. For example, I had a mentoring client once that was struggling to get her business going. She was a very talented photographer, but since but she spent years taking stabs at being a successful business owner and just couldn’t get things off the ground. On her intake questionnaire for me, she mentioned wanting to be rich without much effort. Yes, she definitely said it in jest. There was definitely an lol in there. But it was obvious from the way that she answered the other questions on the form, that that underlying belief was actually true. And the truth is, if you aren’t willing to put in the work, you won’t ever get to the successful side where you can invite ease into your life. My friend, business is hard. It’s scary. It’s not for the faint of heart. You must be willing to hustle and work and put in some pretty intense effort to find the success you’re dreaming of. But it’s so important not to get stuck in the hustle.
Once you find success. Once your hard work pays off. Once you have hustled and built the thing, then it’s so important to start to look for ease. Because at least in my opinion, that’s the true marker of a successful entrepreneur when you can see the markers of success, whether financial or otherwise, and run your business with ease. Today’s episode is brought to you by route to rise a four month mastermind and retreat for female photographers. That is where personal development meets business growth. During the four month experience, students have weekly calls focusing on a variety of topics that both better their lives and their businesses.
Think topics like goals, boundaries, money and marketing, and many many others. The program also includes incredible guest teachers, a private Facebook community and weekly Voxer hours, where you get individualized guidance and mentoring from me on topics that matter to you and your business. One of the best parts of the experience is definitely the three day in person retreat. Consider this the most fun girls weekend ever. We eat well do yoga, photograph three sessions, work through portfolio reviews, take headshots and build deep friendships. I can tell you that the women who have gone through this program have had some absolutely incredible transformations reached massive goals and changed the trajectory of their businesses. If you want to get on the waitlist to be notified when enrollment opens again soon, you can head over to the link in the show notes and get on that list. And now back to the episode.
I don’t want to end this episode without giving you a little bit of guidance of what ease can look like in business in case you’ve listened to this entire thing so far, and you’re thinking to yourself ease. Sounds great, Sabrina, but what the heck does that actually mean? So I’m going to share just a few of the ways that I am choosing ease in my business in hopes that it will inspire you. So first of all, this one may seem really obvious, but outsource as much as possible. I am at a point in my business where I don’t need to be spending my time doing every single task. I have rates that are high enough to support me paying for things to be outsource, the more experience you have and you’ve learned to do the things yourself and you understand what your business needs to run. The more proficient you are at your craft.
The more you can charge for something and the more you can charge and the more experience you have and the more you understand your business The more tasks you can hand off to others, it’s very obvious, but it frees up your time and energy. Number two, I am trying so hard to stop overcomplicating everything. This is a really tough one for me, because my brain naturally loves to choose complicated. I’m constantly asking, How can this be easier. And often, this looks like choosing a super basic way of doing something, instead of the what I think it should be done, right the way society is telling me to be that it needs to be done. So here’s an example of this. Earlier this year, I secretly launched a brand new high ticket experience. Normally, I would have spent hours creating a beautiful sales page and then spent time writing emails to pitch this offer. Instead, I skipped all of that, I created a freaking Google document. And it had all of the details of the offer. And then I had a Payment button at the bottom for someone to register. And that was it. I literally skipped all the other steps and launched the offer from a Google Doc, it was so easy, and it’s sold out in a week. The only reason I am able to do that is because I have spent so much time building up my reputation as a coach, I have spent so much time proving myself, I have done all of that hard work that I was able to launch this particular thing in the easiest way possible. I wouldn’t have been able to do that three years ago, before building up my coaching reputation. No, no, I had to hustle first.
But because I’ve done that, I could choose easy on this side. And it truly was so easy. Another way I look for ease is I am a huge believer in Done is better than perfect. Choosing ease in business often means ignoring perfection. And this is where I see so many women get stuck. Okay. And it’s hard because perfection is what’s causing you to stay stuck, when if you can just choose Done, get the thing done. Even if it’s not perfect, you would feel so much more ease and your business would be moving forward. A perfect example of this that I see time and time again is website work is specially with launching a new one or adding new offers to it. Just get it launched already. Stop spending weeks and weeks of your time waiting for every single detail to be perfect. The longer you wait, the longer your business is at a halt. Just get it good enough and hit publish, you can make adjustments later. Choosing Done is better than perfect is a great way to add more ease in your business. Another thing that I’m constantly working on, in my own business to choose ease, is asking myself if the time is right. For this particular new project new offer new experience. This is a tough one. And I still really struggle with this from time to time, I am always overflowing with new ideas that I have for my business and things I want to take on.
And oftentimes I don’t actually have the capacity to do them. I find myself working so hard for this new thing. And when I stop and ask myself if the time is actually right to pursue it. Oftentimes the answer’s no. When that happens, I want to choose ease. And so I’m willing to put the project down for now and look at when I can handle it. I’ll look over my plans for the year and slide it into another month when I have more capacity because I don’t have as much going on. This last way that I try and find ease in my business is kind of funny, and it seems kind of obvious. Make it easy for people to pay me. And I hope you hear me say that because I see this all the time with the women I coach as well. Make it easy for people to pay you. Again, you’d be shocked at how often this comes up. And I will be honest again, I struggled with this one for years to here’s an example. I was about to launch my mastermind about a year ago for I don’t know what that point it was for the second or third time. And I was doing all of the pre launch planning and I was starting to talk about it and build buzz on Instagram and on my email list. And I had people reaching out to me telling me that they were ready to join when would when would the doors open? And I was telling my coach at the time all about this and she’s like, why don’t you just send them the registration link.
And I was so hung up on the fact that well, the doors aren’t open yet. I can’t do that. And she’s like, stop. Do you hear yourself? You have people that are asking when they can pay you because they are so jazzed and so stoked to join your highest ticket offer and you’re telling them Nope, you can’t do that yet. You have to wait. She said that’s ridiculous. Just give them the link and let them register. Let them pre sell a seat. Let them pay you because they’re ready. And I really sat with that for like 48 hours because it felt wrong. It felt against the against the rules, if you’re, you know, so to speak. And I, again, I sat with it for 48 hours. And then I started to realize that the rules were fake, and they were made up, and I was making this hard on myself. And if I was pushing back on these women wanting to join my program, if I was making it hard for them to pay me, what else was I telling the universe? What else? was I saying no to without meaning to say? No. So it sounds really, really silly. But I immediately after a couple of days, I said, You know what, my coach is absolutely right. reached out to these women gave them the link, they joined. And guess what happened? More people continued to ask when they could join, more people continued to ask if they could sign up now. And it’s wild, because I have had that happen.
Every time I’ve launched this particular mastermind. People are knocking at the door before it’s open. And they want to join and I no longer struggle with that. I no longer struggle with saying, awesome, here’s the link, I’d love to have you join. It’s because I’m choosing ease. I’m letting people pay me when they want to pay me. The same thing goes for you. When you have little small offers when you have clients in your inbox that want to shoot a session, and you’re just hemming and hawing over. I don’t know what to charge or I don’t know if this that or the other or I don’t know if I could do that. Well, listen, if you’re making it hard for people to pay you, you have put up a big red stop sign to the universe, that you are not willing for things to be easy that you are not willing to allow money to flow in easily. You’ve got to take that stop, sign down and let people pay you. Okay, trust me from somebody who has learned this lesson. It is absolutely incredible. What happens when you make it easy for people to pay you. Okay, stop hemming and hawing over things. Send them a link to book send them the invoice to pay the deposit, whatever that looks like for you. Make it easy for people to pay you get out of your head. Okay, so, after hearing me talk through all of this, okay, which camp do you think you’re in?
Be honest, there’s not one that’s better than the other? Have you been hustling and hustling? And maybe it’s time to take a breather, and find ways to invite ease into your business? Or are you on the opposite end of the spectrum and struggle with hustle because all you want is ease? Once you’ve been honest with yourself about which camp you fall into? It’s time to find some balance. How can you do more of the thing that you need, so that you can have both success and ease in your business and your life? That’s it for today’s episode of the shoot straight podcast, my friends. Thanks for being here. We’ll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening to the shoot it straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode at Sabrina gebhardt.com backslash podcast comm find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gebhardt photography. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review. Until next time, my friends shoot it straight.
