162: Human Design Energetics and Business with Breanna Owen

Sabrina: On today’s episode of the Shoot It Straight podcast, I have my friend Brianna Owen, and we are talking all about human design and how it affects your business. This conversation is absolutely fascinating, and even if you don’t have any clue what I’m talking about when I say human design, please stick around because she’s going to explain it to you and you’re gonna hear a lot of me sharing kind of light bulb moments that went off with me.

When I was learning about this in my business, and it’s been something that I’ve been digging into personally and it’s absolutely fascinating. We talk about how to know when you’re doing something that is not aligned with your type. We’re talking about using human design, making your decisions. We’re talking about how your energy affects.

Your marketing and your email marketing. There’s so much to this conversation and I cannot wait for you to listen. So let’s dive in.

Welcome to the Shoot at Straight podcast, where honesty meets heart and real talk actually means something. I’m your host, Sabrina Gehart, and each week we get vulnerable, practical, and just a little bit bold so you can feel seen, supported, and ready to take the next step in your photography journey.

Let’s go. Welcome back to the Shoot at Straight podcast, my friends. Today I’m joined by a new friend who I have. Just relatively recently in the last few weeks, gotten connected with, and I’m kind of obsessed with her already, and I’ve started telling multiple people about her and like handing her name out everywhere.

So I am so thrilled to bring her to the podcast. I cannot wait to see where this episode goes today. And uh, Brianna, this is your first time on the podcast, but I know it won’t be your last. So that’s why I’m saying this is your first. First and probably will be many, but I wanna give the backstory. I first heard you on my business besties podcast, Coley James, the business first creatives.

And I immediately, I like remember it, I was on a walk and I immediately hit pause and popped into your dms on Instagram and started sending you like all of these voice memos. And then I was like. I need to send her like a text, a visual of what’s happening. ’cause she’s gonna think I’m like spam blowing her up, like cold pitching her.

And I was like, uh uh. So I gave her a little backstory of who I was and what was happening. But within a week I think of listening to that, I had already scheduled a call personally to work with you and scheduled her to be on this podcast. I was like, we are going down the rabbit hole so fast. So before we get into what we’re talking about today and how awesome it’s gonna be, will you just introduce yourself to the audience so they can learn a little bit about who you are?

Breanna: Yes, absolutely. Which, first of all, that was a lovely introduction too. I got like goosebumps, chills of like, yes, I love this and I’ve loved meeting you, and I am, I’m all for the, we can just go straight into the deep stuff. Like we can just go deep fast. And so we do. We vibe really well together and so I’m so excited to be here and I would love to have multiple appearances.

Yes, please. And then for anyone who is new to me, which will probably be most people, my name is Brianna Owen. I started in this. Digital entrepreneurial space as originally as a copywriter for service-based businesses. I did a ton of big picture digital marketing. I did all of the things, the websites, the social media, the emails, all sorts of stuff.

And really over the years, over the last eight years, I’ve really fallen in love with email marketing. Now at the same time of all of this, and maybe other people can relate to this too, this idea of like what you can do really well for other people you can struggle to do for yourself. And so as this copywriter, this digital marketer, email strategist for other businesses, I was having such a hard time of figuring out what that meant and what that looked like for me.

I was on this personal journey of really rediscovering who I was on top of it all. And that personal journey really led me to a new tool, a new to me tool called Cuban Design. And I loved it because all of these questions that I had about myself, all of these quirks that I thought that I had, like all of a sudden were explained and I had words for them, and I had a way to understand them, and I had a way to understand what they meant with other people, you know?

It did not take very long for me to be like, but what does this mean? How can I use human design in my business? How can I use human design in my marketing? And that was a question that I asked for years. It’s been four years since I first found human design, and I’ve been a copywriter for nine years. So I spent years asking this question, and at the end of 2024.

Literally all of the light bulbs turned on, everything connected, and I was able to see how human design could give me insight and clarity when writing clients’ emails and their marketing strategy to give them answers to their messaging questions, like all of that. And so that is what I do today. I use human design as kind of my, my insight and as guide rails for when I outline somebody’s marketing strategy.

Their email flows in the done for you copy that I provide clients.

Sabrina: Which again, I heard you for the first time on Coley’s podcast, and this is what you guys were talking about, and I immediately was like, holy crap, I’m obsessed. I knew what human design was before I had heard the term. I, I had taken one of those like free online things where very top line tells you like what you are.

I knew I was a generator. That’s kind of it. I hadn’t dug into like what that meant, what that looked like. I certainly hadn’t dug into like all of the little facets of who I am. Actually, my content strategist that I work with, she is really big into human design and last year she had said something to me that really sparked like.

There is a uniqueness to this that I am not tapping into. And what she had said that resonated with me was that as a generator, I do really well responding to people. So like coaching on the fly, q and as speaking like that kind of thing. I, I really thrive in that. And when she said that, and we were talking about it from a content.

Perspective, but when she said that, I was like, oh, she’s totally right. Like I love those kinds of settings. So that kind of started me thinking about like, I really do need to learn more about this and the nuances involved. And so then when I heard you on Coley’s podcast, I was like, well, here’s my person.

Let’s do it. So let’s, let’s start at the very beginning. ’cause I’d love to just kind of bring everything back to the elementary. For the listeners who have no clue what we’re talking about, will you explain a little bit about how our energetics are determined by this human design and what it even is?

Breanna: I will do my best.

So the way that I like to describe human design to people is it is this. System. It’s a tool that really, and at its core it combines like about five different other systems and tools in the world that people use around personality and character traits and stuff like that. But it, it is a combo of about five of them.

It’s based off of your birth information, so birth date, birth time, birth location, and it uses that to distill your. Genetically based off of. That’s why it’s human design is based off of like you’re genetically, who you are designed and created to be. So it’s more than a personality, like the best way that I could describe it would be kind of like a personality test, but it’s so much more, it’s so much deeper, and I love it because you don’t have to ask a million questions like I used to be so into the Enneagram, and I still love the Enneagram, don’t get me wrong, but.

All of those questions and being neuro spicy, I was like, well, I don’t know what I would be. I need more context around the situation, you know? And so like I didn’t even trust my own answers, like am I truly that type? Which is probably why I was mistyped for like almost 10 years. With human design, like as long as you know those pieces of information, like you could just, you can’t get it wrong.

And then it just provides so much nuance detail. Like there are literally billions of options. And so it’s also not this thing that is gonna, you know, people be like, it puts you in a box. Like it really literally cannot because there are a billion different setups, combinations that are possible.

Sabrina: Just for context, uh, you know, you just heard me say I’m a generator and I know from learning from you that that’s the most common type.

And so it, at first you’re like, oh, I don’t wanna be the common type, you know, I don’t wanna be what everybody else is. But within that, like I said, there’s so many tiny nuances and you and I had a call, um, a few weeks ago to start to dig into this. There the amount of details that you were able to give me about different situations and accepting and receiving and perception and just all these things.

It was like. I can see how these are unique to each individual and they’re not just this box of all generators have these 10 qualities. That’s not, which is kind of how the Enneagram is. It’s more generalized. But this is so specific, which is just fascinating, but it’s also kind of overwhelming ’cause I feel like how am I ever gonna learn all this?

Um, which we’re just still in the beginning of working on this together. So I’m sure I’ll get there. But right now I’m like. Yes, all of that is that you’re saying is true. But I’m still kind of overwhelmed. So now what you know, which I know is normal. So let’s talk about it from this perspective. Like you said, there’s billions of combinations and options for people.

Everybody’s still unique, even though this is giving them kind of a footprint or a roadmap to their personality and and them, which I think is so cool when we think about. The world as a whole and all of the career options and all of the ways you can show up. But when we drill it all the way down to the majority of these listeners that are female photographers, most of them are also moms.

So we’ve got, they’re all moms, they’re all women, they’re all photographers, and that. That role, that job is pretty generic. I mean, everybody shoots, edits, markets, emails. There’s not a whole lot of variety in that occupation. So how can human design play a role there when there doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of room to like deviate from the role, if that makes sense.

Breanna: Absolutely, and that’s such a great question. At the core, I thought, and going back to why I first even found and really resonated with human design, is I really feel like it gives every individual person permission to be wholly themselves not to feel like you have to do things the way that someone else does it or that success.

Only looks one way. And so thinking about these female photographers who are also moms, like human design is never going to tell you what to do. It is going to give you the best way, like how to do things that you want to do in the best way for you. So it is a how, how do you schedule, how do you, I mean, if we go bigger picture than even just marketing, how do you make decisions?

Human design, that’s one of the basic things that most people look at. Human design, forts and human design. We call it strategy and authority. You mentioned being a generator. I am also a five one generator. We have a lot in common and I, I know we have talked about. And generators in, so there are five, let me back up.

There are five energy types within human design. We have our generators, our manifesting generators, manifestors projectors and reflectors generators, and manifesting generators are what we call sacral types because we have defined access to this sacral doer energy, and about 70% of the population are.

Sacral. Like that’s where we get this idea of we are very common. Um, because if you think about it, we need a lot of doers to get things done. Otherwise, what would happen, projectors make up about 20% of the population. They are our guides, our advisors, they see things that the rest of us just kind of miss.

We want them. I love having projectors in my life. The projectors are the ones that I go to where I’m like, this is happening. What am I missing? What am I not singing? What don’t I get? If I need someone to remind me about my awesomeness, ’cause I just can’t do it for myself, I’ll go find a projector. I love our projectors.

Manifestors make up about 9% of the population. They are initiators. They get things going. They are trend federers. They’re the ones who do something for the first time. Then we have reflectors who are the rarest energy type at only 1%. And reflectors. I like to think about reflectors, kind of like an instrument panel on an airplane.

It’s might tell you what’s going on with an engine, but it’s not the engine itself. It’s not controlling the engine, it’s not overseeing the engine or anything like that. It’s simply observing what’s going on with the engine and letting you know. You do what that information as you would like. I’m telling you, here’s how that engine is operating.

Right? And so those are the five basic energy types. But what we have been saying is that there’s so much more to human design than just that. And so big picture, going back to big picture, how do you make decisions? What type of clients do you wanna work with? Um, what kind of routine is good for you? Like what?

Within that system of shooting and editing and all of the client responses and the delivery and the marketing, what of that do you focus on and where do you outsource and get rid of things? And so really human design, big picture wise for these female photographer, mom. Is to let you customize your approach to business and life in a way that will feel good.

It’ll feel good to you. It’ll feel good to your clients like whole picture holistically, because we’re all here to be more than a business owner or more than our role to other people.

Sabrina: Hearing you say that and reminding me that the generators and the, the Manny gens have that, that doer energy. I think probably most of the photographers are this.

Because it is a very doer thing, like it’s very action oriented. There’s a lot of balancing that goes on, but I love where you said it’s, it’s drilling down further and taking the nuances to help make your decisions on how you’re doing the parts of your job. Talk to me about. What it feels like when we’re not in alignment with our human design.

Like how do we know there’s room for a change, or we should change the way we’re doing something? Is Is there an obvious way to tell that?

Breanna: Yeah. In human design, we would call that your self theme or your not self theme. So for manifesting generators and generators who are both sacral types, our self theme is satisfaction.

Our not self theme is frustration. So when we’re in alignment, we feel satisfaction. We feel so satisfied. And so again, when your, your content creator that you were working with was telling you to like, Hey, respond to things, there’s a sense of one, you’re responding, which is part of your strategy, and two, you’re responding to something you feel satisfied about.

You’re responding to something you feel good about. The flip side of that, the not self side of that is frustration. And so for generators, manifesting generators, when we’re out of alignment, it’s going to feel frustrating. It is going to feel like, uh, what is happening? This isn’t easy, this isn’t good.

Like I’m frustrated and upset all of the time. Like that’s how you can really know, like are you in alignment? I mean, another way to look at it too is if things aren’t going the way you want them to, you’re out of alignment somewhere.

Sabrina: I wanna talk about the frustration piece a little bit, because I mean, we’ve all been there, right?

We’ve all been there in business and in our life where something feels frustrating. But we know as business owners that we can feel this frustration. But it’s kind, it can be kind of hard to figure out what is causing that frustration. Like is it a piece of something? Is it a, is it something we’re trying to pursue?

Is it a, like, how do we figure that out and pinpoint what is actually frustrating us? Is it the, the entirety of what we’re trying to do? Is it something small that’s fixable? How do we get there?

Breanna: Usually with manifesting generators. And, and, and so here’s the other thing. Anybody can feel frustrated. It’s a sign of misalignment for generators and manifesting generators.

So projectors feel misalignment with bitterness. They feel success when they’re in alignment, bitter when they’re out of alignment. For manifesters, it’s anger and peace. And for reflectors it is like awe, delight and disappointment. So it’s also recognizing because any human can feel any of those, but which one is misalignment for you?

And then when you’re like, okay, you know what? I am feeling my not self theme, then you start getting really curious with yourself of what’s going on. Usually for a manifester manifesting generator or generator has something to do with saying yes to something you should not have said yes to. We live in a culture, we live in an environment in a society where especially as women, especially as female, like as moms, how often are we putting ourselves last?

Are we considering our needs secondary? And when we do that, we have a tendency to put ourselves in a situation. But we have said yes to something we did not wanna say yes to. And usually. You can get like, what did I say yes to that I sh meant no, that I wanted to say no to? And maybe it’s a type of client, maybe it’s a situation, maybe it’s something to do with your schedule.

Did you let a kid do something or, or overcome it to something? But you can kind of get curious with yourself of like, okay, what am I frustrated about? I’m frustrated in this situation, but is it because of this thing or is it because of something related to this thing? So there is this element of, to me, frustration is a red flag of pay attention.

Like let’s stop and be curious and be, get self-aware what is happening.

Sabrina: I will say that. The saying yes to things we shouldn’t say yes to. I mean, everybody’s, everybody does it. I still do it from time to time. I’ve gotten a lot better at it as I’ve gotten older and I’ve also gotten really good at, if I did accidentally let a yes slip in, I back out of things.

Not in a, in a Sabrina’s, flaky kind of way. But when I am feeling that deep frustration or overwhelm, I immediately go to what can move, what can I cancel? What can I reschedule? What can I back out of and apologize for? Not everything is is that’s available for, and that’s okay. But I’ve gotten really good at offloading when I need to offload.

And the immediate relief I feel in my body when I have moved something out of the way is almost shocking and I, I tell the woman, I coach this all the time. That this is more about how you feel and how you can move forward and less about people being disappointed in you. You know what I mean? Um, we have to be able to like get past that.

Like, they’re gonna be mad at me, you know, that kind of thing.

Breanna: Well, honestly, when you are saying yes to something that you, your body knows. You should have said no to, or it wanted you to say no to. And really what happens is like our brain overrides and we think ourselves to something. Our brain is never supposed to be making decisions.

Our decision, our, our authority is really in our body for all of the types. You are not going to give your best work. You are not going to bring your best self to whatever it was that was asked of you. So it, yes, it feels so good when you. To your body and in your body when you honor what your body is trying to tell you.

But also it’s a generous, kind servitude to whoever’s on the other end because they want, weren’t going to get as great of results from you as they will from someone who was aligned to be there and to show up in that way.

Sabrina: On the flip side of this. Is there a way again, um, I’m gonna assume we’re talking to mostly the generators and the manifesting generators.

Is there a way for this type to not fall into that trap so often to make them, to like stay in alignment? So it’s like a, in the decision making stage.

Breanna: So that’s when we kind of look at our. We look at our strategy and our authority together. And so, which is really how, how do you make decisions and how do you know how to make decisions?

And honestly, and this can go for almost all of the types, so 50% of the world need to wait for clarity to make a decision. Right. We can have, and we call that emotional authority, wait for clarity, is emotional authority. And we can have projectors who have emotional authority, right? Like you can be an emotional manifester like you can have, it doesn’t matter what type you are, except for reflectors.

Reflectors will always be lunar authority. But waiting for clarity is just that it’s not making a decision in the moment. It is giving yourself a second to ride the waves of the highs and the lows before you make a decision, and you kind of, you have to wait it out until you feel emotionally neutral about something.

So like Sabrina, you are emotionally, you are an an emotional authority. So when an opportunity comes to you, so as a generator, we are responding, we are responding to things outside of us. We are responding to requests of our energy. And as a five one profile line, fives get projected upon as well. So you are a generator.

People are going to ask you to do things and you’re a five one. People are going to see you as their savior for their solution. They’re going to come to you. Your job when things come to you is to take a beat, because you are going to have, and it can go back and forth on the order that this happens.

Sometimes you’ll be like, oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. And then you’re gonna be like, why on earth would I have said yes to that? Uh, that’s not gonna work and this is gonna happen. And like, Ugh, I’m dreading it. And then you’ll hit a point where when you think about that request, you’ll be like emotionally neutral.

You’re like, eh. That is when as sacral types these generators and manifesting generators, we also have access to our sacral, which is a gut response. And a gut is very much a yes no. Um, it’s an uhhuh or an Uhuh in my body. I’ve noticed that my body will like expand when it’s a yes and I will contract. It gets smaller when it’s a though, so sometimes it’s a gut sound and sometimes it’s like how your body is moving.

But for emotional authority types, when you hit that EM emotionally neutral spot, then you can ask yourself a yes no question. Is this something I wanna do? Do I wanna go on that vacation? Is this where I wanna go out for dinner? Is this like, do I wanna take on this job? Do I want to commit to this sport with my kid for the season?

Right? If you have emotional authority and you are a manifesting generator or a generator, you really only need to be about an 80%. Yes. Sometimes people hear people say, if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no. Really, if you’re emotional authority and you have access to your sacral, you really only need to be about 80% of a yes, and that’s good enough.

But if you aren’t 80% of a yes. It’s an indicator that it’s a no for you. So if you are a pure sacral type, like I don’t have emotional authority, I have sacral authority, I can make decisions in the moment. Somebody, you know when you were like, Hey, I wanna do these three things with you. What do you think?

I was an, IM like, immediately I could feel it in my body. I was like, yes, I’m there. All of those things. I did not have to wait. Now, that doesn’t mean that I, sometimes I do have to wait, but that’s because my gut isn’t giving me a response. It’s not that I always have to wait. It’s the uh, I don’t feel anything yet.

I need to wait for an UHHUH or an Uhuh. If we happen to have like a projector who is a splenic projector or something like that, like there are other authority types, other ways to make decisions, but they get increasingly more rare. Um, and if anybody is like, help me understand what it means to be a splenic projector or a mental projector, or whatever, let me know.

Reach out to me. I’m always happy to have those conversations too.

Sabrina: Are you ready to uplevel your photography business with more ease, profit and clarity? Route to Rise is my five month mastermind for female photographers who want to refine their systems, elevate their client experience, skip the burnout, and step into their next level with competence.

It’s a unique coaching experience that blends group support one-to-one coaching and guest expert trainings. You can join online only or upgrade to include an absolutely incredible in-person retreat. The next round open soon and spots are limited. So get on the wait list now at sabrina gehart.com/mastermind-waitlist.

I wanna kind of circle back around to let’s, let’s go straight to your zone of genius. This, this email marketing alongside of human design email marketing specifically is. Part of our job. Whether or not you like it, it’s part of the job. Can you just talk to me a little bit about some of the nuances of how your email marketing might change depending on your type and the, the nuances of somebody’s type?

Breanna: Yeah, absolutely. That really is my favorite thing to talk about, so thank you for, for doing that. It really goes all back into how. How do you show up? How do you fit email marketing into your strategy, your overall marketing strategy in a way that best serves you? So we have our type, our energy type, which is a really big deal for outside of the marketing sphere when it comes to human design, and it’s not as big of a deal for me.

I will say that if I know I’m working with a manifesting generator or a generator, then we like satisfaction is the name of the game. Like what is it that you are satisfied about? What types of clients bring you satisfaction? What services bring you satisfaction? So if you are like, and I, I would think too, like as photographers who usually have a niche.

A niche, right? Of the type of photography, you’re either a wedding photographer or a family photographer or a branding, right? Some people, especially manifesting generators, can do a lot of things. For the most part, people have an area that they focus on. Is that thing bringing you satisfaction? Or if you’re trying to figure out which type of clientele to serve or how to serve people, what bring makes you satisfied?

Because energy is everything. Energy is absolutely everything, and energy can be felt. So when you send an email. Out of duty or obligation or as something just to check off your list. When you send an email asking, like pitching your services to a client and you’re pissed off at your husband or you’re like really frustrated with your kids, that energy can be felt, right?

And so on the same time, when you send an email in total alignment, that energy can be felt, and that is the energy that. We’ll make people be like, yeah, I do want, like we can feel the excitement when you talk about things you’re excited about. We can feel it. And we’re like, yes, Sabrina, tell me more.

Please. Like energy type is one way that we can look at things. I love looking. There’s again, human design and marketing takes a little bit of a different approach because I love looking at what’s called your incarnation cross. Your incarnation cross is a set of four gates within your human design that make up about 70% of who you are.

If it’s 70% of who you are, then it’s probably a big deal when it comes to what you’re talking about and how you’re talking about it and whatnot. So like, let’s focus on the things that are a huge part of who you are. Another big one that I love looking at really is your, uh, your profile line. So there are six different profile lines and there are like 14 combinations, possible combinations of them, and they’re like, your, your public role, what you do.

Sabrina, you and I are both five ones, and so that gives insight into how we best show up in the world. Other people’s profile lines are going to give insight into how they best show up in the world. If there’s a photographer who’s like a two four photographer, well, the two line tells me that they are naturally talented and they’re just like in a way that they’re just good at what they do without really knowing it.

My two of my children are these two fours, and it was hilarious when we went ice skating as a family earlier this spring. ’cause two, my two older kids are two fours. My two younger kids are not, they do not have that two line in them. And. You could tell simply by how quickly my two older kids picked up on ice skating and how many more times my two younger kids would fall on the ice or Right.

Like you could just tell they were Nat, someone was naturally talented and someone had to work harder at it. So like those profile lines also tell us like, what parts of you do we bring to the table and highlight a little bit more? I could keep going ’cause this really is one of my favorite things to talk about, but your human design chart tells you who your ideal audience is.

And so when you can take these things of you and highlight who you are and what makes you unique, and who you’re meant to be in the world in a way that directly meets the needs of your specific ideal audience, that’s magical. Like I just, again, I got chills even talking about it, like that’s magical and I think.

For these female photographers who are probably juggling their house and their kids and you know, all the family obligations too, I think of the mental burden it releases and lets go of when you don’t have to think about what, what do I say in this email? How do I try to get this client to want to say yes to this proposal?

How do I like, uh, you have so many other things to be doing and to thinking and to be thinking about. If I could give someone the answers to be like, oh, well your, your people need to do things through trial and error. You can serve them best by calling out the bs. Oh, your people hate hypocrites, so they want to see that you are walking the talk.

So if this is what you’re telling them to do in their photos, how is it that you’re doing that too? Because otherwise they’ll never say yes to you. Like, we eliminate all the things that don’t matter, and we can focus on the things that do matter. That’ll feel good to you, that’ll feel good to your people on the other end, and it’ll work.

It’ll grow your business the way you want it to.

Sabrina: That’s so fascinating, and it’s amazing that there’s an answer for everybody. Like it’s, it’s not like. There’s gonna be a type that’s like, you shouldn’t be emailing your people at all. You know, it’s not a, it’s not a you should or shouldn’t be doing it.

It’s a, a better way to do it that works, that feels better to you and also is received better, which is just so fascinating. So, I mean, I know we could talk about this all day and there’s a zillion different ways we could talk about it and ways we could get into it. Um, and like I said, when you and I got on our first call, I mean, we just kind of dipped the toes in a little bit.

I think I took like four pages of notes and I still wanna go back and re-watch the video. I mean, it’s just fascinating. There’s so much. If someone is listening today and they’re like, okay, I’m sold. This is incredible. I wanna know more how, where can they start? How can they start learning more about their human design and how it applies?

Breanna: If anybody listening is like, okay, what can I, how can I use this in my business, in my marketing and my messaging? Please come talk to me. I would love to have that conversation with you if you are just wanting to test the waters of it. I offer one-on-one calls, just like a one hour call and we can get into it.

Or if they’ve got like a specific question and you’re like, well, I just wanna know, I’m not, maybe there. Pitching a lot of proposals, but not getting a lot of yeses. Okay. Well, let’s look at what your chart says and we can talk specifically about ways that you can. Position your pitch to get more yeses or whatever.

So if they wanna dip their toes in or just have a specific question, I’d love to do a one-on-one. The other thing, kind of like bigger picture that I do for people is we can take your service and we can go big picture. What does this look like in your marketing and your messaging? So you have a specific service.

You have a specific offer. What is the follow up email system? What does that need to look like? Maybe you’ve got what’s the email system need to look like on the front end? So if people, and this is, this is where I get real excited about photographers and maybe we could have a whole other conversation specifically talking about this, almost like onboarding email sequence of somebody books with you, but their session is weeks, months, years.

If you are a wedding photographer, away. What do you do to stay connected and serve those people and help them feel good and safe and confident in their decision to book with you? What could that look like between the time they book and the time the service happens? The service happens. We all know that you photographers do more than show up and click a button a hundred times.

Like there’s so much more to what you do. So what does it look like for you to again, help them feel safe and confident and excited? Just all the good, good feelings between when the photo shoot happens and when they get their pictures. I don’t think anybody likes having clients reach out to them and be like, okay, so, but when will I get, when will I see them?

When will I see my gallery? Do I get a sneak peek? Like nobody likes that. Or the best, one of the best things is using your email sequences for testimonials, reviews, referrals, like all of that kind of stuff. So. I think I lost the question, to be honest. No,

Sabrina: just that I was, uh, where to where they get started with it.

Yeah. But no, I think that’s a great. That’s a great, we will put a pin in that and have a whole other conversation about like the email workflow for your, because that sounds fascinating. I already wrote it down. I’m like, pitch Brianna for the next podcast where we’re gonna talk about this, but just getting started with human design so they can reach out to you for a one-on-one call.

Just, it can be specific, it can be generalized. Which is fantastic,

Breanna: but I do have more of those. If they’ve got, like, if somebody has a deep need of, I have the service I’m trying to launch, or I’m really struggling with this, like I do look at this. I do use human design to look at a whole email sequence around a specific service or product.

So,

Sabrina: yeah, which I love. I will say if you’re listening, and this has been even remotely fascinating to you, book a call with her. Just trust me. Um, you do have to have your birth certificate available to you. So like you need to know what time exactly you were born. And that’s a birth certificate thing.

’cause most of us just don’t carry that information in our brain. And that’s what our friend Coley James is waiting on is her dang birth certificate. So we can officially know what she is and take this conversation farther, which will be fun to know.

Breanna: Do you wanna know a couple of caveats around that though?

I’ve certainly worked with people who do not know their time of birth and they don’t know how to access it. So if somebody is like, great, I know when I was born, I know where I was born, but I don’t know what time I was born. Still reach out to me because we can go about this couple of different ways.

One, we can play with the times and see what is consistent and only go based off of what is consistent. The other thing is we can use your business. Birth information.

Sabrina: Oh, interesting. Right. Yeah. So

Breanna: this is especially true for the clients I work with who feel like their business is somewhat separate from them.

If you have your name attached to your business. That’s probably not the case. But not necessarily. If you are, like, I know when my business was quote unquote born, I know where I was. I know what date it was, I know what time it was. We could go based off of your business chart, especially if we’re talking about your business and your business marketing.

So tho there are a couple of ways around it. If somebody. Is not sure about their time of birth or they’re like, it’s not even on my birth certificate. ’cause I’ve definitely encountered people where like, it, not every place puts it on their birth certificate.

Sabrina: Um, I just had one more question that just popped into my mind.

When you and I were on our call, you were telling me things, and I literally said to you, I was like, is it crazy that I have fallen into exactly what I should be doing? And so that makes me curious. Have you worked with people where that’s the opposite? Like they are not even close to what they should be doing or how they should be doing things where it’s been like.

A black and white switch, or is it normal for people to kind of have landed in a place that’s close to where they should be?

Breanna: I have worked with people, I’ve looked at people’s charts who are incredibly out of alignment. They’re operating from their not self theme, they’re operating from because, because the reality is anybody could, like, the activity itself is neutral.

The question is, is it good and right for you? Is it the best practice for you? And I’ve certainly worked with people who are based off of conditioning from their home culture or society, or just trying to follow what other people are saying are best practice. They’re like, I’m doing all these things that other people have told me should work, and it’s not working.

What’s happening here? It’s like, oh yeah, you’re out of a, you’re out of alignment. You’re not. Doing the thing that’s best for you. Of course that’s not gonna work that way. So usually there’s some element of, oh yeah, this is an alignment for sure. But I’ve certainly worked with people where it’s like, okay, so you wanna do this thing?

Your approach isn’t working. Here’s an approach that should work better for you.

Sabrina: Yeah, that’s fascinating. Uh, okay. Listeners just. Just reach out to her. Okay? Just do it. You’ll make me later. Just trust me. Um, and again, this won’t be the last time you’re on the podcast. This won’t be the last time you hear about this, because I am like going down the rabbit hole and it’s, I’m excited about it, which I’m excited to share about it.

We’ll stop there for today, but I wanna end with some kind of fun questions so the audience can get to know you just a little bit. This is what I do with my guests. So Brianna, tell me something that you, it’s like a hobby or something fun that you are pursuing purely for joy this year.

Breanna: That would be my garden and landscaping.

I mean, I’m a big house plant lover anyway. I’ve got like a jungle of house plants and inside my house. But this year I’ve grown a ton of wild flowers and we’ve really expanded our landscaping around our house and it’s, I love it so much.

Sabrina: That is so fun. I have not been able to get into that personally. I feel like maybe in my future.

A little bit, but I dunno. Uh, I think it’s too slow for me. Like I want to see, I want, I want something that I can touch every day or see progress every day. And gardening is not that, it is not, it is a long game and I, I don’t know, maybe I don’t have the patience for it, but my husband deals with this, so.

Okay. What is something other than human design and email, what is something that you’re always up to talk about

Breanna: and it can’t be human design.

Sabrina: Yeah. Something else. Give me some else.

Breanna: I know, right? Probably like. Jesus. Or gardening or parenting, like any of those, I could probably be like, let’s go, let’s talk about it.

Sabrina: Um, okay. Do you have any vacation or travel planned?

Breanna: I do. But it’s a surprise and I think that my family might be listening, so

Sabrina: Oh, that’s exciting. I know. That’s really exciting. Okay. I love a good surprise trip.

Breanna: I will say that something that, what I will say about this is that something my family has decided to do is that when each kid turns 13, they get a solo trip with mom or dad.

My daughter is actually technically turning 14 this year, but we didn’t, weren’t able to go on a trip last year, so I will be traveling soon for her trip.

Sabrina: That’s so awesome. Um, the listeners know this, but I solo travel with all my kids. Most years, starting from like eight and up, I have worked it to where I am.

Most of those trips I’m photographing clients. So I’ve mixed like business with the kids and I bring one along and it kind of pays for our time together and they get to see me work. But then we have a lot of play time. I get to go all these cool places. So that has been something so fun and I scream about those experiences from the rooftops.

I’m like, if you can figure out a way to travel solo with your kids, even if it’s just road trips. It creates the most magical core memories because man, when you get that kid one-on-one away from everybody else, and you let them make all the decisions and they get your undivided attention, they’re different people, you know?

And it’s, it’s literally the best.

Breanna: Well, and we have four. And so that like undivided attention just doesn’t exist. Right. Really at home. Right. So I’m really excited for this trip. Yes.

Sabrina: My oldest is a rising senior, and so she will be 18 in a few months, which is wild, and going off to college next year. And so she’s been going on solo trips with me for almost 10 years and some years we’ve done more than one together, but just the way that the dominoes fell and stuff, it’s all of like all of my favorite memories with her are just when it’s she and I and it’s You’re gonna have the best time.

Oh my gosh. I’m so excited. That’s amazing.

Breanna: Can also, can we just take a side note. Satisfaction in action.

Sabrina: Yes.

Breanna: For the record, like when you, we are both generators and the way that, like you’re talking about how satisfied you are in those experiences in doing it, it made me really excited for what I was about to do.

And it might also be influencing your listeners to also be like, oh yeah, I really should do that too, huh? Like, that is, that’s because we were speaking from satisfaction, which is so aligned for us.

Sabrina: Right. Which I tell people all the time as parents do, I’m sure I’ve made a million parenting mistakes, but you know what I’ve gotten right?

The, these solo trips, you know, and when we pair our life down to the, to the most important memories, like those are core memories in the bank. So, oh my gosh, I’m, which has

Breanna: a a five line, you’re all about these tangible solutions and like, go take one-on-one solo trips with your kids is so tangible. So tangible.

So I love this.

Sabrina: So tangible. Yes. Okay. Last one. Um, what is a business tool or a hack that you’re loving right now?

Breanna: Okay, so I have three, but the one that I will talk about right now would be my walking pad and my movable, versatile standing desk. It is. Amazing for me.

Sabrina: Yes. Are you doing it for like a set amount of time every day, or are you just standing all the time?

Breanna: I, I really only stand if I’m walking to be clear. Okay. Yeah. I started walking, uh, last, like March of 2024. I was like, I’m gonna walk more. I, it’s just good for my mental health. It’s good for my body. Come to find out, looking at my human design, like my brain. My brain does best when my body is active. So of course I go on these walks and I have all of these ideas and whatnot.

And then living in the Midwest, there comes a time when walking outside is not feasible. It is very cold or icy or whatever, and I didn’t want to lose traction come winter from this walking habit that I had created. And so I had really been looking at how, and I hate. It’s not that I hate the treadmill.

My treadmill is in my basement. Mm. And I hate my basement. Right. You and I are both markets environment. So this like dark Dungy cold basement is not, not a vibe. Our thing. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Caves environment all day long. They’d love it, not me. And so I’m like, I need to be able to walk upstairs where there is sunlight in January in Iowa when I can get it.

So I’ve learned to start walking like. When I’m listening to calls, um, if I can’t go on a solo walk, like out in nature, I will walk while I work. I just listen to my body. When my body is like, we are done walking, I stop. Some days that’s at two and a half miles and some days that’s at eight and a half miles.

So I just, I love it so much, but that active brain, while my body is working, it’s like chef’s kiss for a walking pad and desk.

Sabrina: That’s amazing. I have a walking pad and I, my whole desk doesn’t raise, but I have like a riser for like my laptop and notepad and stuff, and so I’ll do the same. I will say I’ve gotten out of the habit of it.

I’m still trying to walk every day. I, I just don’t, I don’t enjoy it as much as being outside. But I should do it just for habits’ sake, and I am very productive when I do it like it, like my brain is flowing and it feels good.

Breanna: I will say I don’t do well if I’m just walking on the walking pad to walk on the walking pad.

But if my brain is doing something else, like if I’m on a call, if I’m trying to do like a work thing, I can type pretty well while I’m walking. So if I’m not thinking about the fact that I’m walking. I don’t really ever notice it.

Sabrina: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a really good point. That’s a good point.

Breanna: And the hack, my hack for you if you want more of a desk, is I got one of those hospital tables.

Sabrina: Oh. They

Breanna: just kind of like roll around and they Yeah. Can go up or down. Oh, that’s so smart. It doesn’t take up a ton of room. And my house, when I’m not using it, I can take it outside. I take my walking pad outside a lot.

Sabrina: Oh, that’s nice.

Breanna: I can, wherever I need the walking pad to be or wherever I need to be working in my living room, my bedroom, wherever.

Like it’s working really well.

Sabrina: I love that my friend. Let’s, let’s end with you telling everybody where they can find you online.

Breanna: Absolutely. I’m actually gonna send everybody to. My website, so Owen, your mark.com/links is the best place to find me because, uh, that will include like where to find me on Instagram that will include my favorite resources for looking up your human design chart.

And all, all of my things are in one spot there. So definitely go to owen u mark.com/links.

Sabrina: Perfect. This was a great chat. I knew it was going to be. I am gonna go ahead and tell the listeners right now. If you listen to this episode today and you thought it was fun, send one of us a DM and let us know, because I’ve said this on the podcast before, but podcasting feels one way a lot of times when we don’t get that feedback.

And so I love, love, love hearing from listeners when they tell me they listen to an episode. What their favorite part was. So send one of us a message and let us know that it was received well and you enjoyed it. Um, and this won’t be the last time that Brianna’s on the podcast, she’ll be back again. So thank you so much for your time, my friend.

Breanna: Can’t wait. Thank you for having me. It was so wonderful, and it was wonderful to get to meet all your listeners too.

Sabrina: All right, my friends. We’ll see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Shoot at Straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode@sabrinagehart.com slash podcast.

Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gehart 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.