It’s our 100th episode! On this very special episode of Shoot It Straight, my friend and business coach D’Arcy Benincosa is interviewing me on all things involving my background, developing my business, and maintaining balance as an entrepreneur and mom. We’re also diving into the challenges that have defined my story and the defining values behind my 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 The Round Table, a community built for female photographers who want to continue growing their business while forging industry friendships along the way! In this group, you will learn practical ways to move your business forward, while finding community and accountability with like-minded photographers. Come join us and get access to the content and private Facebook community!
Review the Show Notes:
Does Sabrina have it all together? (3:10)
Sabrina’s struggles in the online business world (4:22)
Making decisions and how to say no (6:00)
Developing your intuition (7:44)
Sabrina’s upbringing and childhood (9:40)
Unpacking childhood (15:26)
Sabrina’s relationship with her mom (21:23)
How Sabrina found her husband (28:49)
Navigating change in ourselves and our relationships (32:08)
The backstory to starting a business (38:55)
Why business is going so well (44:07)
Fostering community (45:44)
Moving into the coaching world (49:29)
Rapid-fire questions (53:00)
Episode Links:
The Round Table: sabrinagebhardt.krtra.com/t/0xIncMJL8HXc
Episode 063: Money Month Guest D’Arcy Benincosa on Money Mindset: sabrinagebhardt.com/63-money-month-guest-darcy-benincosa-on-money-mindset
Instagram: instagram.com/sabrinagebhardtphotography
Connect With D’Arcy
Website: darcybenincosa.com
Instagram: instagram.com/darcybenincosa
Review the Transcript:
Sabrina: Welcome back to the shoot at straight podcast. My friends today is a very, very special episode. Today is episode 100 of the podcast and I can’t believe it quite honestly, I can’t believe that I have recorded a hundred episodes and that I have so many more coming. This has been such a fun journey, one that I was so nervous to start, but I’m so glad I did.
And I’m so thankful for each one of you listeners that has come along for the ride. So for today’s episode, we’re doing something really, really special. I have invited my friend and my own personal business coach, Darcy Benincosa to interview me. And let me just tell you, this interview is getting straight to the heart of my origin story, my upbringing, The reasoning behind why I do things.
It is such an incredible and deep episode and interview, and I hope that you will stick around. It is slightly longer than normal, but man, if you have ever been curious as to why I am the way I am or how I get things done or what I have achieved in my life or all of the things that I have struggled with along the way, this episode is getting into all of that.
All of that, and I hope you will stick around and stay tuned because it’s a great one. Welcome to the Shoot It Straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gehart. 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.
We’ll 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 too. The shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.
D’Arcy: Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I am not Sabrina. You might be Sabrina. voice on here. My name is and I have the privilege deep into one of your fav to ask Sabrina some of th have wanted to ask Sabrina Over a year ago at a conference that we were both speaking at, and as I’ve watched Sabrina’s business, I’ve watched how she has managed her life, how she approaches life, her philosophies about life, work, balance, rest.
I have just been so in awe. Of what Sabrina has created. So she’s allowed me to come on here and dig a little deeper. So Sabrina, welcome to your podcast.
Sabrina: Thanks Darcy. I’m glad you’re here. This is going to be such a fun chat for episode 100. We wanted to do something special and this was your idea, which I was like, yes, immediately.
Yes, we’re going to do this.
D’Arcy: Well, one of the reasons I wanted to do it as somebody who follows your brand, has listened to your podcast, has been able to be a guest on a podcast, you’ve been a guest on mine is sometimes you can come across as someone who has it so put together that it’s like, how is this woman so good at everything she does?
And I knew there was like a deeper story under that. So do people give that to you a lot? Do they feel like you just always have? Everything put together.
Sabrina: Yeah, I do get that a lot. And I’ve honestly gotten that as long as I can remember. Um, I have always been a doer. I have always had a lot of things on my plate.
I’ve always had a little bit more like a higher threshold for stress and capacity for having a lot of things going on and having my hands in a lot of different things. And people are always like, Oh my gosh, you’re so busy. You’re doing so many things. You’re you’re succeeding so well at all these things you’re doing.
And I’m like, Oh my gosh, you’re so busy. You’re doing so many things. Yes, that is true. I feel like I am generally a, an achiever, somebody who gets things done and goes after things that I want. But I also never want people to think that I have it fully together. Like a hundred percent. I do not. I never had it fully together.
I have a huge support system. I trip and fall. I have had stories after stories of things fail. I mean, you know, there’s a lot there.
D’Arcy: What is one of the things that you struggle with in The online business world that you’ve either made peace with or that you’re still trying to wrap your brain around that this is part of who you are and what you do.
Sabrina: I say this all the time, but it’s still something that I constantly struggle with. And I coach women on this too, is seeing what everybody else is doing online. And especially as like an educator in the education space, seeing what all these incredible educators are doing, the programs they’re creating, the opportunities they have, the goals they’re hitting, the new things they’re trying.
As a creative woman and a high achieving woman, it is so easy for me to think, I want to do that. I want to try that. I want to go after that same thing. I want to hit that same goal. And that’s more often than not, not the right move for me at the time or for my business or in the season of life that I’m in and having to balance.
seeing a great idea and thinking about potentially following through with it, but also knowing when to set things down, when to say no to things, when it’s not right for me is hard. Um, I’m constantly like, Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea. How would that be in my business? How would that work? And I have to say, I don’t have time for that right now.
I’m busy with my kids. I’m busy with what’s already on my plate. Um, it doesn’t fit into my business goals for right now. That’s not what we’re working on with my coach, all those things. Right. So it’s just a constant balance of like, what works now and what’s not for me, you know? So, yes,
D’Arcy: I feel like this is where someone who is similar to you, high achieving, wants to do so much.
What’s the way you come to making those decisions of what you’re going to say yes to and what you’re going to say no to? Do you have like a checklist of questions? Do you just use your gut?
Sabrina: Yeah. So, uh, it’s two part, I guess. I, Literally stop and think about, okay, if I follow through with this idea, what kind of time capacity is it going to require for me?
I’m very logical in that way. I really want to look at, okay, how many hours is this going to take? Is this something that I can whip together real quick, or is this going to take a month of my time? You know, like where does it fall? And then being really honest, like, do I have that capacity? Or not, you know, and there is also the second part to that is there is definitely an intuitive piece to it.
If it’s something that I don’t have the capacity for right now, I, I normally will get an intuitive hit as to this is something we need to make time for in the future or next year or next month or whatever, or, you know what, you don’t have the capacity for this right now. And it’s probably not right for you anyway.
So. And then it gets set down totally. So there’s definitely a logical part and an intuitive part. I definitely get those intuitive hits.
D’Arcy: How does the intuitive hit feel? Like, do you feel it in your gut? It’s my gut. Yeah. Yeah. No, a yes or a no.
Sabrina: Yep. And I have always had that. Not always. Uh, in my adult life, I have always had that.
And we’ve, I say, we, my husband and I have experienced that with every major decision or major move we’ve had, there’s been a deep intuitive hit as to yes, go, go forward with this scary thing, go forward with this shift, this move, whatever. And I definitely have it in my as well.
D’Arcy: So if you didn’t always have it, I love.
Intuition and I feel like women naturally have I feel like everybody naturally has it not just women, but I feel like so often it’s oh, we can override it with what we feel we should be doing. So was there anything specifically that you did to develop listening to your intuition?
Sabrina: A couple of things are coming up for me.
So one, I did not start getting intuitive hits until I started having a spiritual life, which was my, uh, almost my senior year in high school. And so I really align a lot of those spiritual or a lot of those intuitive hits with spirituality, as some people do. Some people, they can come from wherever it doesn’t matter where you think it comes from.
If you think it comes from earth or the universe or a God or anything like that, So that’s when they started for me. But as far as listening to them, it’s a practice in taking, like trusting it the first time. And then once you have experience seeing, okay, I had this intuitive hit, I trusted it. I followed through with it.
And when you see on the other side, like how it works out and that you did exactly as it should, and everything came together, it kind of gives you that win of like, okay, This worked this one time. I’m going to trust it next time. And it makes it less scary to trust your intuition. And the more you do it and the more things work out, you trust it more.
D’Arcy: Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, it makes sense for me and I agree about the spiritual life. Like I think it’s interesting because At first, like my spiritual life had me kind of one set of answers. And then as I sort of, I guess my religious life. And then as I guess, as I left that I had to listen more to my own body and what it actually wanted and what it was actually telling me.
And then it kind of brought me back to this new place. So it sounds like you didn’t have. A lot of spiritual, uh, you didn’t have a spiritual upbringing. Was it just kind of like, what was your upbringing? Like, like the woman who was formed today, you’re very logical. You’re very successful. You know, when to say no, you know, how to balance life and business, which so many don’t.
What were the things in your childhood that you feel maybe something specific that you feel sort of showed you the opposite of that life and, and formed you into who you are now?
Sabrina: My upbringing was extremely chaotic. And so a lot of my personality traits and nature now comes from surviving that, I’ll say.
My upbringing was really unique in that the first about eight years of my life, everything was, let’s say, quote unquote, picture perfect. My had a stay at home mom, a working dad. My dad had a great career that he was doing really well at my mom, um, was the picture of like dream, stay at home, Susie homemaker, right?
Uh, she. Was the Girl Scout leader. She hosted all, we always hosted parties at her house. Um, elaborate like theme parties and stuff with neighbors and friends. She taught jazzercise classes. She was gorgeous. Um, she was creative. And she just, everybody loved her. She was vibrant and exciting and all my friends loved her.
She made all of my birthday cakes from scratch to whatever theme they were, you know, like Care Bears and, and all this. And, um, everything was seemingly incredible. And up until that point and a few years after my younger brother was born, my mom started struggling mentally with some things that were pretty dramatic and seemingly out of left field.
And it got worse for a few years, uh, to the point that she was diagnosed bipolar. And if you know anything about bipolar, her being diagnosed in her late twenties is actually really, really late. Most people are diagnosed well before that. And I don’t know the scientific term for what happened, but it was her break was attached to the hormones and the postpartum from my brother from her pregnancy and with that.
And anyways, everything got flipped upside down at that point. Um, she was no longer picture perfect. My household was no longer peaceful and joyful and wonderful. I became a very self sustaining young child who was in charge of making snacks and making my own lunch and getting myself to school. Um, my dad was doing everything possible to stay afloat, but he was very much like the dad’s dad and like not a hands on parent.
And that was my mom’s role and he went to work and whatnot. And so he was really struggling with how do I parent these two kids? My mom was in and out of hospitals, long term stays. Her breaks kept getting worse and worse. And They couldn’t figure out her medication, which was making things worse. And all of this led to my parents getting a divorce and it was a very long, ugly divorce because they tried so hard to work it out.
They tried counseling. She tried again, trying to get settled on magic medication, but it was just. a disaster, a really long, messy disaster. We had arguments. We had police officers at our house. We had things that kids should never have to participate in. And then when it was all said and done, we lived with my dad because he was obviously the stable working parent.
At that point, I, it was me taking care of my brother and getting off the bus and making us snacks. And we didn’t eat together as a family. And it just, it became the opposite of what it was. And I didn’t feel safe, not with my dad, not in that household, but because of all of this chaos and this everything being flipped upside down, I didn’t feel safe anymore.
And the way that I started coping, my coping mechanism was to start doing. When you look at me in middle school and high school, I went from being a completely average elementary school child to wanting to be the best, wanting to be involved in everything, want to be recognized for things. I wanted to be out of my house as much as possible.
I wanted meetings before school and after school and clubs and birthday parties and always spending the night with friends. I wanted my. Grandparents and my dad to recognize me for all of the high achieving things I was doing because I felt like I needed to bring joy to our family because we didn’t have it anymore.
And that stuff stuck. And I am so lucky that my upbringing, my story led me to things that were actually positive behaviors. And it, it does create, and I know we’ll talk about this, like some mind stuff that has to be reworked later, but it was mostly positive things, right? Like I didn’t fall into some other things that I could have fallen into, but that’s what formed me being this high achiever, this doer, this successful, always wanting to grow, et cetera.
That’s, that’s how I became me. It’s so
D’Arcy: fascinating. I mean, first of all, I relate with you completely in the fact that like, I think I’m older than you, but we kind of were in this generation where people started to have, you know, my mother was bipolar as well, and you have this like mental health issue without all the research that we now have today, without the medications that we have access today, and it was a really, a real struggle.
I think it was really misunderstood. I think a lot of people didn’t know what to do. It can be really surprising when it sets in so late. So you had such a A shift of like this ideal until eight and boom, everything shifts, everything moves, and it sounds like you kind of went into that perfectionist survival achievement mode, which so many do.
When did you start to unpack all the things that actually were happening, all the, you know, sadness that you probably buried, probably a lot of anger, probably, I mean, I don’t know. Did you have to unpack that with therapy? Did it start coming to a head somehow?
Sabrina: Yeah. So when my husband and I first got married, um, almost 19 years ago.
As it happens, when you start to live with somebody and get married, a whole bunch of stuff comes up and we have been together for five years at the time. And so I went into our marriage, very naive thinking like we’ve been together forever at this point, it’s going to be easy. And it was totally not easy.
And I found myself, we would, we would go from. little spouse, little snippets, little arguments of what happens when you’re learning to live with somebody. And I would blow it up into this like world war three situation. And I was fully aware that I was the one doing the blowing up. Like I was fully aware, but like, I couldn’t stop the train, you know, and I would leave our little town home at the time.
And I would go walk for like over an hour until I could just like, down and then I would swing so far to the other side and I would be this emotional basket case of, Oh my gosh, you’re going to leave me. I’m terrible. What am I doing? I’m ruining us. And I was like, there’s something wrong with me. I need to go see a therapist because I immediately thought.
I’m bipolar. I am my, this is happening to me. This is genetic. It’s happening to me. And so I went to see a therapist and I saw this therapist for almost, I think almost 10 times, like eight times maybe. And I told her going in, like, this is what I think is wrong. Here’s the story with my mom. Here’s what’s happening.
And she was so kind. And we talked through a lot of things that I had never spoken about that I had never brought up. I’d never gone to a therapist before. So I hadn’t even. Put two and two together about like upbringing and what I’d been carrying and these emotions, like you said, everything was just hidden and buried.
And at the end of our time together, she was like, you are welcome to keep coming back to see me, but we’ve done so much and you are a hundred percent not bipolar. And she was so kind. And so she released me and just kind of starting that work of like opening things up. made such an impact and it was such a great experience, but I actually did not go back to therapy for like 14 years.
Um, when a whole other series of events happened and I was severely depressed and I knew immediately that I needed support and wanted to get back into therapy.
D’Arcy: I think it’s so beautiful that you know, when you need support, I think a lot of people don’t know, or they fight it, you know, especially think of our mothers, you know, my mom, she would get on a medication and then she’d feel better.
So she’d be like, Oh, I can go off the medication now. Cause I’m healed. Right. And it’s like, Oh, the medication is the thing helping you. Or she’s just never allowed herself to get that kind of support. There’s almost like a. I need to do it on my own, but you, I mean, I think anybody who struggles with a parent who has some kind of mental illness gets worried or fearful that it’s happening to them.
Yeah. And, um, I remember asking my dad, am I bipolar? You know, cause I was having some extreme emotions too. And you just kind of, the thing was about my mom, she couldn’t see it about herself. And I don’t know, could your mom see that she was struggling or did she kind of was in her own world where. It was everybody else and not her.
Sabrina: No, she, she definitely did not see that she was struggling. She was the exact, just like your mom, the cookie cutter. She was forced on medication through like, not, you know, she didn’t choose to be hospitalized. It was forced hospitalizations and forced into medication. And then she’d come home and she’d feel great.
And she’d think I don’t need it. And she’d stop taking it. And then we would just go down the tubes again. And then it was forced hospitalization. Let’s try a different medication. I mean, it was just this constant cycle and she never realized. when she was in it, which, you know, makes it so hard to communicate with a person like that, to have a relationship with a person like that.
Um, there’s no rationalizing, you never know what they’re going to remember and what they’re not. I think there were so many, even of her good moments, you know, with bipolar, it’s one extreme or the other, there’s very little middle ground time. And she definitely would never remember the extreme bad, but But a lot of times she wouldn’t remember the manic positive either.
And I have so many. Memories of when she was first diagnosed those first couple of years where as a young child, I’m seeing her in the positive manic when she’s super happy and super excited and wants to do things. And I’m thinking as a child, my mom’s back, things are good. It feels good. I, you know, and then she’d fall off.
And as a child, I’m like, what did I do wrong? How did I mess this up? You know? And so it was just this constant cycle, but I, there was so much of it that she was not Even remotely aware of
D’Arcy: that’s the tough part. I think I think that’s what therapy has to kind of unpack because when they’re bipolar, they’re giving you a bipolar childhood and it’s very unsafe and very unknown.
There’s this beautiful series on Amazon Prime called Modern Love and the last season had an episode with Anne Hathaway and she plays someone who’s bipolar and I thought it was the most moving and almost realistic. variation. I mean, it’s like a musical. So when she’s in her high, she’s like singing and dancing and, and then she has these lows and it was like, whew, that was, that was a lot.
That was, I don’t know, it was really powerful to watch. What’s your relationship with your mom like now?
Sabrina: Well, my mom passed away almost six years ago, and it was very sudden and unexpected. And she passed away almost exactly six months to the day after my grandmother passed away. Her mom, my grandmother, her mom was my person.
And so losing Mimi was extremely hard. And then losing my mom completely unexpectedly was, you as you can imagine, just even more hard. But my relationship with my mom in the end. And when I say the end, probably the last 10 years of her life was almost non existent because she had been so medicated by so many different drugs over the course of her life.
Um, and each time it was more and worse. And for the listening audience, if they’ve never experienced a relationship with a loved one, who’s been on that kind of medication for their whole life, it literally takes their personality away. It dulls them down to almost nothing. And we would go visit her and take the kids and she would just sit in a chair and wouldn’t say anything.
She wouldn’t have conversations with us. She was like, like a ghost of herself. And so that was really, really hard. And then there’s also the part where I did carry with me this resentment of what could have been what I should have had as a mom, but I didn’t get. And it was just hard. It was really a hard balance.
We had She still had ups and downs while I was in college. I mean, Darcy, we didn’t even know if she was coming to my wedding. Like I remember, I will never forget our wedding planner. We had our last meeting, like the week before the wedding to go over the last little bit of details and button everything.
And she asked me, she said, this is a question I never want to ask, but I always need to, so that I know what I’m getting myself into. Um, Are there, is there anybody that could potentially be a problem that I need to keep away from you, that I need to keep away from somebody else. She wanted to know like the general consensus, read the room, which I loved.
And I thought, I thought it was so responsible. And I literally had to tell her, I was like, I don’t know if my mom’s going to come or not. And if she comes, I don’t know what kind of state she’s going to be in. That’s just what I had come to expect from her, you know, uh, I never knew what I was going to get.
I was always on pins and needles waiting for something terrible to happen. And then if she did show up and she wasn’t a good place, it was like, what’s going to come out of her mouth. You know, who knows? And so we did not have a great relationship. And when she passed, it was really, really hard on me.
There was so much regret and so much would have, could have, should have, you know, that I never got to say or do, which was hard, you know, it was really hard, but growing up. I had my grandmother and she stepped in as the mother figure that I didn’t have. Love grandmothers. You know,
D’Arcy: when you, I’m not going to keep the whole podcast on your mom, don’t worry.
This is my last question about moms, but, um, have you had to learn how to mother yourself and how, how did you do that?
Sabrina: I think that’s a constant work in progress. Especially now that I’m in a season where I am a mother, I’m constantly having to remind myself that I did not have an example and that I am creating new, a new story for our family.
And I’m having to teach myself and mother myself as a mother. I would have hoped to be mothered by a grandmother. You know what I mean? So it’s constantly like, I see it the most when I’m parenting. I see it the most when I’m thinking, why am I responding this way? Or what do I do in this situation? Or how do I support my child?
And I don’t have anything to pull off of. And so I’m having to put on this mother hat of mothering myself because I don’t have a mom to call and say, what did you do? What should I do? You know, and getting that advice from and stuff, but it’s really just a constant work in progress. You know, it’s Not something that will ever be done because the fact of the matter is every day of my life is a new day in which I don’t have a mom or I didn’t have a traditional mom, you know?
And so today at 44 years old, 44 and three weeks is the first time I’m 44 and three weeks experiencing these things without a mom. Tomorrow it’ll be, you know what I mean? So it’s a constant new day, a constant having to give myself grace and a lot of prayer and Seeking from people who do have, have those healthy moms or do are a little bit further along than I am that I can ask for support from.
D’Arcy: Yeah, that’s, that’s a really beautiful outlook. Um, 4 4, it’s going to be a good number. It’s a good year, the 44. Um, I think, you know, Looking at things with compassion instead of judgment. I’ve had to do that a lot in a lot of the ways that I try and mother myself, that how I show up in relationships. I do want to kind of bring it back a little bit to your husband because it feels like, so now you two have been together, you’ve been married 19 years or together 19 years, no married 19 years, but together like 24.
Yeah. Dang. I know it’s a long time. It is.
Sabrina: Today’s episode is brought to you by the round table, a community built for female photographers who want to continue growing their business while forging industry friendships along the way. In this group, you will learn practical ways to move your business forward while finding community and accountability with like minded photographers.
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D’Arcy: How did you, from having like the upbringing that you did, how did you choose your husband? Were you looking for somebody who has a safe space for you? Cause it sounds like you made a pretty good decision.
Yeah.
Sabrina: Um, I will be honest. Choosing my husband doesn’t feel like the right words because I don’t feel like I, you know, I had this whole lineup of all of these choices. You know, I am in Texas. I went to college in Texas, uh, in the deep South. A lot of people go to college to get their MRS degree and just get married.
Right. That’s what all of my friends were doing. And so I definitely in college was not the feminist that I am now. I was very much like, I hope I didn’t want to get married right after college necessarily, but I wanted to like find my person. I actually thought I was going to marry somebody else. I was in a long term relationship right before, um, my husband and I thought I was going to marry him.
And in the same conversation, he told me that he realized that we were not going to get married. And so we broke up and I was absolutely heartbroken and devastated. My husband came in line right next and I wasn’t really ready to be in a serious relationship after having just gotten out of one, but he pursued me with such respect and reverence and he’s so funny.
Uh, he has the most incredible morals of any person I’ve ever met and I fell in love with him pretty fast. To be honest, pretty fast. He has or had the opposite upbringing of me. Uh, his parents are still happily married and he has three siblings, one of which is adopted, and uh, I just. I don’t know.
Everything kind of fell into place so much of our love story. He was, you know, pursued me with such romance and love letters and, and all of these things. It just felt, I felt so special and so seen and I, we were, let’s see, we were together for five years before we got married. We were. engaged for two and a half of those years, which do not recommend for the listening audience, do not recommend, but we had a good reason.
He was in law school. We were going to wait until he graduated law school to get married, which in hindsight was absolutely the right thing to do. Um, I got to learn how to live alone and be a career woman and do things independently before getting married, which was really important. But So when you say, how did I choose him?
I think he was chosen for me. And I think there was a lot of intuition involved again, and just trusting, uh, the process and trusting my guts. And he just had a lot of qualities that honestly, for a long time. Early in our relationship, I didn’t feel like I was good enough for him. Um, because my upbringing was so chaotic and I had so many more insane stories than he had, you know, and I just thought you don’t want this mess, you know, there’s a lot of baggage here, but we were meant to be together.
And. We are happier now than ever, you know, I mean, he’s my best friend. He’s so much fun. We have all these inside jokes and I don’t get love letters anymore, but that’s okay.
D’Arcy: We’ll write him a little note, say, bring back the love letter. I find it. So you’re a coach. I’m a coach. You’re an educator. I’m an educator.
I, you know, as I coach, uh, people, Oftentimes, their significant relationship tends to come in, infiltrate into their business, and it can be either really amazing or really, really hard, and they feel that they are, you know, torn between between, Especially if they start to make a change later on, right? So like you said, you weren’t in a feminist awakening when you married him.
Did you have that in your marriage? How did you, you know, was he okay with that? How did you guys, what, how have you two changed together? Maybe one example. And how do you ever have to coach your clients on or not even coach them, but like, do you recognize things that are patterns? that really women need to kind of learn to navigate or maybe they aren’t being their authentic selves or maybe they’re afraid to tell their partner how they really feel or I don’t know.
Do you see repetitive patterns with women in their significant relationships that are detrimental? That was a really long question. Yeah,
Sabrina: I, I think we get stuck in old stories that aren’t true anymore really often and we can find ourselves continuing to think we’re supposed to think or believe a certain thing when really that’s not who we are anymore and constantly reminding people and myself and my husband that like we are always changing.
Like I said a minute ago, every day is a new day and we’re not the same person that we were the day before. You know, the world has changed. Our relationships have changed. The people that we have relationships with have changed. It’s like this spider web effect. And so always being open to having small or major shifts as life takes you down the road, you know, and the feminist parts, I’m definitely not like the biggest, biggest feminists.
I’m not out there picketing and, and emailing my senators and doing all these things. But I believe that Women, we don’t get, we don’t get the same things that men do and we deserve more than we get. And honestly, I think our kids, we have girl, boy, boy. And I think it was having a daughter, having a daughter and having her first and seeing her come and into adulthood.
She’s 16 and a half right now. And so we are looking at colleges and thinking about what the future of her life is going to hold and what her intimate relationships are going to be like. And Starting to think about these things as we project her into the world, and that has made it very clear how strongly we feel about the opportunities we want her to have and should have.
And I think that’s really opened our eyes a lot. Just raising a daughter, you know, but part of it does come from I am an achieving woman. I want certain things that are. or maybe historically haven’t been considered normal or okay. And, uh, yes, technically I am a stay at home mom, but I am also a very busy working woman at home and I do not cook.
I do not go to the grocery store. I don’t clean my house. Um, I have tons of childcare support. My husband and I share the laundry duties on the weekend and some weekends he does all of the laundry. And so we have a very unique relationship as far as household chores and things that need to be done. He also takes kids to school, picks kids up from school.
He does so much more than quote unquote, a regular husband, dad would. Um, and he loves to do those things. And he’s fully supportive and knowing that like, Oh, if I’m picking up one child at school on Friday, it’s so that you can have longer office hours for your thing. You know, he knows that I have something that’s mine outside of our relationship, outside of motherhood.
And he fully supports that. And it’s been a little bit of a learning curve getting there. You know, I’ve been in business for 13 years now. It definitely was not necessarily that way in the beginning, but we’ve worked through it.
D’Arcy: I love that you just say it so easily. Like we all have stories we hold on to that aren’t true.
Wake up and get rid of them. Yes. Some people just really want to hold on to their story. They really want to, even, even like looking at, you know, your childhood, you could really. hold on, like you said, you could have gone so many different directions with how your childhood was with that, with that really intense divorce and lack of mother.
You could have gone, um, seeking approval in, in ways that would have been really detrimental to you. And yet you chose that. I think, do you feel like that was just part of your genetic makeup? Like, do you feel like you were just kind of, gifted with this ability to make the best choices for yourself?
Sabrina: No, I definitely, let me rephrase that story.
I made a lot of poor choices. Okay. In high school I did All the things I broke, all the laws, I was very bad, but I did that stuff on the side as like an outlet while I was super achieving on the other side. So I had like, I was like a two sided personality, you know, I was one of the people that make the drill team and would be on honor roll and would be invited to be a part of this special student council and doing all these things while also partying hardcore.
you know, having intimate relationships with guys that I shouldn’t be trying out all kinds of things. I mean, part of it is definitely divine intervention. I mean, 100 percent there is divine intervention involved because any one of those steps I took in high school could have led me completely down another path.
100%. But it was a coping mechanism. It was a coping mechanism. And again, remember I was doing everything possible to not be at home. And so sometimes it was positive things I could fill my time with other times. It was going to the parties and the ragers and whatnot. Right. But by the time I got to college, I was bored with all of that.
And I was, I mean, I definitely partied in college, but not like most people, right? I would go to the occasional party, but I enjoyed spending time with girlfriends. I enjoyed going on dates. I enjoyed more gentle fun in college. Um, and that’s when I started to get my head screwed on straight and realizing that I wanted to have an impact and I wanted to have a career and I wanted to be a high achieving woman and I had to buckle down and work for it.
D’Arcy: Is your astrological sign Gemini? No. Okay. I was
Sabrina: like,
D’Arcy: no. Um, okay. So you started your business 13 years ago. What gave you the idea? Like what, what were you doing before? Um, it sounds like you would have had a three year old at that time. Like tell me the foundation, like what drew you to say, I’m going to start my own thing.
Sabrina: Yeah. So a little bit of the backstory, both of my parents were amateur photographers. So we had a dark room in my garage growing up. They both had a camera attached to them. My mom was more of the, like what now we call documentary photographer. She was always of my brother and I and families and people laughing at parties and whatnot.
My dad was more of the landscapes, the plants, the travel, that kind of thing. So I grew up camera in hand in high school. I was the girl who took a camera to school who took a camera to the parties. I had probably hundreds of thousands of photos from random high school occurrences. Okay. But when I went to college, I put my camera away and I thought briefly about taking a photography course or something, but I was really interested in trying new things.
And so I put my camera away. And then after college, I went into a corporate career and I did not pick up a camera again until my daughter was born. Literally, we were home from the hospital 24 hours. And I had a camera in my hand again, and I remembered how much I loved it. I immediately decided to stay home with her, which was a pivot.
This was one of those big gut decisions we talked about earlier where I had that intuitive hit. We had a daycare chosen. We had paid a deposit. We had made all the plans because I had the most badass job and I loved it. And I loved my boss and my staff and what I was doing. And I was absolutely not going to be a stay at home mom.
And I’m she’s like three days old and I’m holding her at home and I’m weeping to my husband that I cannot let someone else take care of this child. I absolutely can’t. And at the time I made more money than him in my corporate career. And he’s like, uh, how are we going to do this? If you quit your job?
So Darcy, I’m not kidding. We immediately put our house on the market for sale by owner. This was Thanksgiving week. Okay. Nobody buys a house during holidays. We had an exact dollar amount of how far we had to downsize to be able to support this transition of me staying home. And all of it fell into place before my maternity leave was over.
Before my maternity leave was over, we had sold a house. I bought a house for the exact dollar amounts and the whole time we were just following our intuition, just following our intuition. And so two days before my maternity leave was over, I called my boss and I told them I wasn’t going to be returning.
And I loved being a stay at home mom for one year. And then I was bored out of my mind. I was bored out of my mind. The routine, the monotony, I just, I could not. And I actually started sewing when she, when she was born. Um, I started sewing like over the top little girl’s clothing. Like ruffles and patterns and just this over the top stuff.
And When she was one, I decided to open an Etsy shop. And so I opened an Etsy shop with all this baby clothing and these little girl clothing, and I started making a money. That was my first stab at being an entrepreneur. And. At the end of that first year, I felt so accomplished because Etsy was very new at this point, like way back when it was very new.
But at the end of that first year, I had made 20, 000 in my little Etsy shop. And I was like, this is huge. This is amazing. But what happened is as I was leveling up that business and using my marketing and business experience for my corporate job and applying it to this little Etsy shop, I was gifted a DSLR and I started to learn how to take really good photos, or let’s say there’s air quotes here, really good photos of my daughter, who was my model, um, in these outfits.
And they were for my Etsy shop because the better the photos are for the listing, the more sales you will have. And that’s when I was like, Hey, these photos are pretty good. I think I should do something with this. And, uh, about a year later, um, I decided I was having more fun with that than I was the Etsy shop.
And the rest is history. I definitely started my business way too soon. And, uh, at the time I told my husband, I think I want to start a photography business. And he’s like, he kind of had whiplash from like, stay at home. Mom started an Etsy shop and he’s like, what, why, why do you want to do this? And he really, he wasn’t unsupported, but he wasn’t super supportive either.
And I was following my intuition.
D’Arcy: Yeah, so that was 13 years ago, and now, you not only have a successful photography career, you have a successful coaching career, you sell out your mastermind, you do courses, I mean, you just do so much, and the thing is, as we have chatted over the last, you know, year, I always, I’m like, how do you sell out so easily?
It’s you’re just like, Oh, I pre opened the doors and it all sold out before I even had them. Bring it to my list. Like, what do you think it is about the groove that you’re in, in business that allows it to, I don’t want to say be easy, cause I think that would be a disservice to all of the work that you do, but why do you think it does so well?
Like, is it your organization? Is it your. Boundaries.
Sabrina: What do you think it is? First of all, it’s taken time to get here. You know, it wasn’t always this way, and I think I do a really good job of seeing the women I coach, like truly seeing them and holding space for them and. I also build a really, really excellent community.
And those two things I have started to become known for, and which is amazing to be known for something. And so now people that come into my circle, they want this experience that other people have had. They want to be seen. They want to be heard and they want this incredible community that sticks together long after their experience with me is gone.
And people come to me wanting that. And when they come to me, many of them have already decided. They don’t care what the dates of the retreat are. They don’t care what the guest speakers are. They don’t care the details. They know that they want to participate in the next run of this mastermind or join this membership that they’ve heard about.
so much. And so I think reputation is part of it, truly. And those are the two things that I hear most often.
D’Arcy: I wonder if you’re so good at creating a community because of the, you know, it sounds like you by default from your childhood became a very social person. And then, you know, What do you feel, like, how did you learn to create and foster this community where you do help people be so seen and heard, like, what are your community hacks?
I need to know, like, how do you bring people together and then keep them together for so long after?
Sabrina: Yeah, um, I think one of the things that I do really well is I require people to be vulnerable right out of the gate. And I tell them that when they join, I tell them that on our first call, I tell them that at first meeting, whatever that looks like, whatever that first group connection point is, I tell people, I’m going to be vulnerable with you and I need you to be willing to be vulnerable with the group.
And it is incredible what, when you get vulnerable women together, what kind of connections are made when everybody takes the fake surface off and is willing to show you that they’re struggling with the same thing you are. right? Or they have the same history that you have. It brings so many intentional connection points together when you get women together like that.
And it’s incredible the things that come up in these discussions, things that we’ve covered today, things like mental health with their kids, their partners, their parents. struggles that they’re ha with their therapist, dis health medication, business spouse, kid problems. It say, okay, the veil comes room, we’re on this call, You need to be willing to be real.
And I think that’s what does it. I think it’s just laying that expectation of like, this is it folks. We’re here. And it does take some women a little bit longer than others. There there’s often, I’d say a third of the group that immediately is like, all right, let’s go, you know? And then there’s the middle group who it takes maybe a couple of times together and then they start to unwind.
And then there’s some that don’t come until the end. But even the women who don’t open up until the very end, they’ve been absorbing the whole time. They’re developing relationships. They’re seeing other women. They just aren’t really opening themselves yet. But by the end, everybody’s there. Everybody’s come together.
And I think that’s it.
D’Arcy: I think you’re right. I mean, listening to you talk, I’m like, Oh, it’s, it’s simple. You are creating. A space where people can come together to connect and be real. And when so much of our connections are online and now our connection touch points are with AI, and there are so many connection touch points that are actually connection.
So you’re providing this space, this time, you are holding the container. You’re leading the way you’re being vulnerable and allowing these women to come together. And I, and I think. allowing them also to come together to have some creativity too. It’s like you process a lot of things but then you take that very feminine energy of creation and you, you lead them through a creative process.
When is your next one? Where are you going?
Sabrina: Um, so we have a fall run that’s going to be the retreat portion of that’s going to be in Seattle. And then we have an alumni events, an alumni retreat because my women demanded me to create an alumni retreat once a year. The alumni retreat, this will be our second alumni event.
It’s going to be in January. At time of recording, it’s probably been booked, but it’s most likely Coachella, California. So right outside of Palm Springs area. Um, and then there’ll be another run of the mastermind in early 2025 and that retreat is to be determined currently. So
D’Arcy: yeah, that sounds great. So, okay.
I have just a couple more questions then we’ll wrap this up, but. One, I was going to ask you, what do you feel is your most beautiful work as a coach, but you may have already answered that is creating that community. But is there anything else that you, like, when did you know it was time to move into the coaching world?
Sabrina: Hmm. That’s a good one. I definitely was nudged into mentoring first. I think many educators start there. It’s a really safe, easy place to start. And I was asked over and over and over again if I would mentor people. And I pushed back against that for a really long time because I didn’t think that I had what it took to teach someone.
I didn’t think I knew anything special. But at some point, again, following that intuitive hits, I just kind of said, I’m going to say yes to this one person and see what happens. And I loved it immediately because of that connection, because of getting to spend time with a woman at that time. It was all of my mentoring was in person.
And so getting to connect with another woman, getting to solve her problems, getting to see her and, um, really speak into her business. Thank you. I was obsessed with, and it was actually during the pandemic that I dabbled in group coaching for the first time when the pandemic happened and everybody was, you know, freaking out and bored and all of that.
I decided to put together an online mastermind group, uh, for the first time to kind of test the waters and see, you What I could do with a group. And that was an incredible experience. And many of those women are still with me today, which is incredible. And they connected. And so many of them became real life friends that are from other states and they’ve, they’ve visited each other.
I mean, it’s just makes my heart so happy, but I think community is a huge part of where I thrive with coaching women, but also seeing them is something I really thrive at and holding space for them. There’s something about being a female entrepreneur that your partner can’t see, your best friends can’t see, even your therapist can’t fully see.
But yet, us women that are in it, we have so many of the same struggles, you know, and It takes one to see one, you know, it takes one to really appreciate one, their struggles in their business, their struggles in their relationship, their mental health struggles to see the full picture. And it is such an honor to hold space for women in that way.
And I cherish it right up there with being a mom.
D’Arcy: It does take one to see one. I say that all the time takes one to know one like it really does. I think that is So wise. And, um, yeah, I just, I love watching you be a coach. I just think you are such a wise woman with so many gifts and so many beautiful perspectives to share.
I always love getting to know your perspective on something your heart takes on life and business because it feels like you really come at it from such a, balanced place. And I know that’s something you’ve really worked on, um, is being in that balance, is time blocking, is making sure you’re not burning out.
And I think that you hold that space for everyone who comes in and coaches with you. You know, the coach really holds the container of what the women who come in want to have, but haven’t quite been able to. So you probably bring in these women who maybe don’t know how to set boundaries or are a little unsure about how to listen to their intuition or aren’t sure what to say yes or no to and, and you really help them energetically and strategically hold that space, which is, you’re just absolutely in your life’s calling.
Okay, I have a couple of rapid fire questions to end the episode with. This is one question I always love to know. What is your guilty? What’s a guilty pleasure? Oh, a guilty
Sabrina: pleasure. That’s a good one. A guilty pleasure. I, food wise, I love anything chocolate. And if it’s in the house, I will eat it. So I try not to keep it in the house all the time because if my husband makes like, Gluten free brownies for me.
All bets are off. I will eat the whole pan. I have zero self control whatsoever. I
D’Arcy: think a guilty pleasure is just eating a whole pound of brownies and just embracing it. You know, we need to do that at least twice a year.
Sabrina: Totally, totally. Yeah. It’s a problem.
D’Arcy: Um, what is something you might be embarrassed about if we knew Ooh, embarrassed.
Uh, that’s a really hard one because I don’t For me, I’ll I’ll tell you mine. This might help. Yeah, tell me. It’s the voice I speak to my dogs in, I never thought I would become this person. It’s like, Oh, like my dog is only seven pounds and I just treat him like this little stuffed animal and the voice that comes out of my mouth when I do it, I’m like, um, I have advanced degrees where this voice came from, so.
I don’t know. I just, I was like, what’s the thing you’d be a little embarrassed about. Okay.
Sabrina: So going off of that thread, I definitely have the puppy voice for sure with my dogs, but I also, I also sing a lot of phrases to my kids and around our house. Like I say things in like sing songy tones and my kids are constantly like, mom, stop.
And then I do it more. Um, and I can’t even think of one of them off the top of my head, but I do it on a regular basis. Yeah. I do it more so the more relaxed I am, the more I do it. It’s a really good marker for like where I am mentally. Yeah. Like when we’re on vacation, it’s almost constant. . Yeah. . Yeah.
D’Arcy: I would love a mother like that.
I mean, I’m a Broadway person, so I’m like seeing everything to me an accent, please. That’s awesome. Um, what is, uh. A major bucket list item for you that like seems kind of impossible, but you’re like, I need to do that one day.
Sabrina: I have three ideas that come to mind. One is I, I feel like I have a book in me.
I don’t know what the book is. I don’t know what genre it is. I don’t know what I’m going to say, but that’s kind of been floating for a few years and I say it out loud and I’m waiting for inspiration to strike, but I feel like there could be a book somewhere and I really want to own a home in Colorado.
I want to own a home where we could spend the summers and rent it out in the winters. And yeah, Colorado is my happy place. So I’d love to own a second home there. But the biggest one is When my grandmother passed away, I was the one that went through all the things and sorted out all the things. I took care of her estate and she was the historian of our family.
She had scrapbooks from all of these trips and adventures she’d been on. She’s traveled the whole world multiple times over and had been on so many adventures. And when I was going through all of these scrapbooks and all of her adventure things, she has an itinerary from a trip. She took in like 1972 to the Amalfi Coast.
And the itinerary literally has what days she’s where, restaurants, hotels, sites, the whole thing. And I would love to take that exact trip.
D’Arcy: Oh, I love that. That sounds perfect. Oh, I can’t wait. I hope you, I hope you do that soon. I think that it’s just, that’s so beautiful. That’s such a good bucket list item.
I guess we’ll wrap up with. Maybe I’m curious when you have down times or you’re feeling a lack of motivation or you’re feeling it may be a little defeated or you can just kind of feel those things coming. What’s your greatest hack with, um, rebalancing your energy again?
Sabrina: Uh, the first thing I do is let myself feel the feelings, let myself be down, let myself stop.
Uh, if it means I miss a deadline or I have to reschedule something or have to rearrange things or ask for child care help, it’s okay to need a day or two or a week. It’s okay to feel upside down. Um, and. Allowing myself that because for years it was the push back against. No, you can’t stop. No, you have to keep moving.
No, you have to stay busy. And I’ve really done a lot of work to undo that. And it’s much more healthy to just let yourself stop. Let yourself feel the feelings, you know, and go through whatever you need to go to through physically or mentally or both. And then treating yourself with extra care during that time, treat yourself like you’ve got the flu, you know, eat the foods that make you feel good, sleep longer, do things that make you happy.
Take a walk, read a book, be really gentle with yourself. Like you would, if you were taking care of a sick child. And then set a point at which you’re going to pick yourself back up and move on.
D’Arcy: Hey, you’re such a good mom. You, you have such beautiful mother, mother tendencies. I love it. But that was beautiful advice.
And, um, that’s, that’s perfect. That’s exactly. That’s exactly how you do it, you know, and I love that you allow yourself the space and time to process the things that you need to process. I think that is one of the healthiest things we can do, instead of just push, push, push, push through. But it’s that, it’s that beautiful place of doing and then being, you know.
If you need to be sad for a little bit, be sad. Or if you need to Eat a whole pan of brownies one day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it has been such an honor to come on and just get to know you even better. I love the way our friendship has developed. It’s one of the things that I, it’s why I love to still go to conferences because I know when I can meet other creative women, um, doing similar things and having that similar perspective.
It’s like you said, like it’s my parents still aren’t sure what I do. They’re like, what is your job? You know? And so it’s so nice when I can. Go be understood. Um, you and I always have the most compelling conversations and I just love your podcast and I’m so grateful that I got to come on here and just dive a little bit deeper and get to know you better.
And uh, happy 100th episode. That’s huge.
Sabrina: Thank you so much. This has been So fun. Um, I appreciate your time and your thoughtfulness. Uh, you are an excellent interviewer. So thanks for being here and I can’t wait to hear the feedback on this episode. I know it’s going to be great. Yeah.
D’Arcy: Leave it in the comments.
Let us know what you liked. Let us know what we need to dive deeper into for the hundred for the 200 episode and happy, happy birthday to you. Thank you.
Sabrina: 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 sabrinagebhart.
com backslash podcast. Come 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.
