156: Real Women, Real Stories with Meg Mosher

Sabrina: Welcome to the Shoot at Straight podcast, where honesty meets heart and real talk actually means something. I’m your host, Sabrina Gebhart, 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 Straight podcast, my friends. Today we have another installment of Real Women Real Stories. This is a candid series where I’m sitting down with women who have been through my Root to Rise Mastermind and we’re just having conversations that are on Honest. Vulnerable and full of growth.

And my hope for you, the listener, is that by hearing these women’s unique stories, where they were, what shifted for them, how they’ve evolved in their business and in their life, that you will feel less alone. More inspired and maybe even see a piece of yourself in their, in their journey. So let’s dive in.

Today I have my friend Meg Moser. And, uh, before we get started about your story and how we met and all the things, uh, Meg, will you just introduce yourself to the audience?

Meg: Hi, I am Meg Moser. I am a family and newborn photographer in Albany, New York. Um, so I’m about two and a half hours north of New York City, um, in the state capital of New York.

I have been in business for, I hit 10 years this past May, so that was very exciting. And I focus on, uh, photographing families, both outdoors and indoors and newborns at home. So I do not do pose studio newborns, just lifestyle newborns. And recently I’ve been getting more into documentary photography.

Sabrina: Yeah, and Meg’s work is beautiful, so we’ll have all of her links in the show notes. You need to definitely check out her stuff. Um, it’s just absolutely super inspirational and beautiful. Okay, Meg, we’ve known each other for a few years now, which is so fun. Time flies. Let’s take it all the way back to spring of 2023.

I get a DM from you. I get a DM from you and you are asking about the Root Rise Mastermind and if you can join, and I remember thinking me in the seat of, I don’t know who you are, which is so fun, but I was like, who is, who is this Meg? That’s like DM-ing me questions and asking if you can join. And it was also really unique because the program wasn’t open for enrollment yet, and so you were asking to join something that wasn’t technically open to the public.

And it was a first for me at that point. I think we were getting ready to do the third run of the program. And so, uh, every time, every enrollment period had been different. And anyway, this, it was a first and I remember I was like. Okay. Um, we went back and forth a little bit, um, about what you were looking for and all of that, and you were just ready, you just wanted the button.

You were like, just let me join, stop letting, stop asking me questions. So, I’m curious what brought you to that point? Like what happened before that, that you were so ready to reach out to a stranger and ask to enroll in something immediately?

Meg: Yeah. Okay, so this was 2023, you said? So two years ago. So I have been in business about eight years, and I’ll be honest, Sabrina.

Up until that point, I have never been, I’ve, you know, like joined. I’ve taken a bunch of classes online and I’ve done a few things, but I really haven’t, or I had not really invested in myself or my business in big ways yet. And that spring, I had actually hired Coley James to do my Dodo, which was a huge step for me investing in my business and in myself.

Which I was very skeptical at first of doing. It was definitely one of the, uh, best decisions I made for my business. But I had been working for her for about a year in 2023, and I mentioned to her that, you know, I thought the next step for me would be to join some type of retreat or mastermind. I had been to one conference, I did click away right before COVID, and I had really enjoyed that experience, but it was.

You know, a very large experience with tons of people where you, yes, I loved every second of it, but you kind of get lost in the mix, you know? And I was really looking for something that was a lot smaller that would really, um, help me develop like a community of other photographers. And I mentioned this to Kohl, and she immediately thought of you.

I think you were in San Diego, uh, like wrapping up your retreat at the time. So I went on Instagram and I looked and I was like, yes, this is what I want to do. Sign me up right now. You came highly recommended by Coley, who I’ve been working for. You know, with for a year, and I loved her, so I was like, Sabrina’s gotta be amazing.

Like, sign me up, we’re doing it. And I was so nervous. I was like, what if it sells out? What if she, you know, like, I’m like, I can’t wait. She’s just gotta like, get me the, get me the information and get this on my calendar. Because I think at that point, you know, I had been in business eight years and I was ready.

I was ready to do it.

Sabrina: It was such a unique experience from me being on the side of, of somebody who was like literally banging down my door, let me join this program, and it was just really cool. Um, obviously Coley and I are business besties and we go way back and so you can totally trust like both of our opinions on things.

We, she and I recommend a lot of the same stuff and a lot of the same people and we do have a lot of overlap. Um, a lot of her people come to me and a lot of my people then hire her. And so it’s pretty cool that you already had a relationship with her because you could definitely, you knew that you were gonna like me and that was actually the case, you know?

So it was just funny for me on the receiving end because I was like, but who are you and are you sure? And you know what I mean? Um, anyway, yeah, it was so funny. But I loved it. And you were so ready to join. Um, so I’m curious, thinking back to that first experience, what surprised you the most about joining the mastermind?

Meg: Okay, so you’re gonna find this funny because I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this to you. I had no idea what Voxer was or that we were going to be able to Voxer you. Like I remember being on that first call and you’re like, okay, girls, so Voxer starts this week, and I was just like, what? And then you described it and I was like, are you kidding me?

You mean on top of everything else? I can just like get on the phone and ask you questions and you’re going to give me personalized answers. Like, is this a joke? Like, yeah, that was the biggest surprise. And at the time, I think you did it Voxer four days a week. So it was crazy. It was very intense. I mean, I Voxer you every day, but.

It was a lot. Yeah, that was my, that was my biggest surprise. I will say, you know, I remember preparing for the retreat and being a little bit nervous because for, this was my first retreat and we were gonna go to Washington, DC and I had only been on the calls, so we started in July and our first retreat was like that first or second weekend in September.

And I remember talking to my husband and he’s like, so you’re gonna go stay in a house? With a bunch of strangers, like you’ve never met any of them before. And I’m like, yeah.

And I was so, I was kind of nervous, you know, I was like, I think this is gonna be great. Like I, you know, my gut tells me this is gonna be great, but like, it is kind of weird. Like, who goes and just stays in a house with strangers? Like, I knew I had roommates and, and then I got there and you know, my gut was correct.

It was an amazing experience. I, you know, became great friends with everybody that was in that house. We had a really small group. I think there were like eight of us, or nine of us maybe. So it’s awesome because I still keep in touch with everyone that was in that house that weekend. Yeah, it was just a fantastic experience all around.

Sabrina: Yeah, the the boxer piece, you haven’t told me that, that you didn’t know, which, let’s file this under the category of Meg was so excited to enroll. She didn’t read anything. She just wanted a link. She didn’t care about any of the details. So that’s hilarious. But yeah, Voxer is a really impactful part and almost every woman that’s done it, it’s one of their favorite parts of it because of Oh yeah, yeah.

It’s like so personalized. And you’re right, Voxer used to be more days than it is now. I’ve had to set some boundaries just because as the listeners, as you guys can imagine, most of these groups, um, have about 20 women in them between the online only seats and the retreat seats. Voxer with that many women, plus all my one-to-one clients, it’s a lot of hours in Voxer.

So we’ve set some boundaries. Currently, the way the program’s gone the last couple times, it’s been two days a week, which has been enough, you know, and so that way I’m able to kind of protect my time a little bit more. Voxer are really fun thing, and a lot of women that come into it have never used the platform before, the app before, and so it’s a new experience for a lot of them.

I started using Voxer about 12 years ago. I have a best friend who used to live in my area, and then she moved across the country and she was like, Hey, there’s this app called Voxer. It’ll be like, we can talk every day. And I was like, okay, cool. And so for a really long time, that was all I did on Voxer, was Voxer with my best friend every single day.

Um, but now I have all these women that I coach inside it. My coach is inside of Voxer. I Voxer with Coley. Um, and so now my Voxer thread is like super deep of all of these conversations I have, and it’s such a cool app. So listeners, if you don’t know what it is yet, this is not just a thing you can do with coaching, like get your best friends, like set up on boxer, get your husband set up on Boxer.

Um, it’s just super fun. Um, and then the retreat. Yeah. It’s funny, Meg, when you say that about like, I’m going to stay in the house with a bunch of strangers on paper, that doesn’t sound like a really good decision. Like, you know what I mean? But number one, it’s all women. Like we don’t invite boys and so sa safety wise, automatically, we’re just, it’s gonna be safer.

One of when I developed Route to Rise, I didn’t, uh, the, one of the big reasons I wanted it to be more than just a weekend experience was so that we could develop relationships with each other and not just have like, yes, the weekend is incredible. But because like you said, you were on calls with these women, you at least like recognized their faces and had a little bit of an idea about where they were from and what they do and how many kids they have, and it helps this level of trust and vulnerability so that by the time the retreat starts.

We’re not like, Hey, I’m Meg, I’m Sabrina. Nice to meet you. Where do you live? Like, we’ve skipped all of that and it’s like hugs and it’s so good to meet you and we just dive right into the good stuff, you know? So there’s never any fear about, um, having a good time and trusting the women you’re with. I mean, we just bring in like the best people, you know, so it’s super, super fun.

I’m curious, Meg, when you think about all of the times, ’cause you’ve done root rise three times, right? Three times. So in the three times that you’ve done it, do you think there’s a particular conversation or piece of feedback that like really stuck with you the most?

Meg: You know, I, I’ve had trouble coming up with this with an answer to this question because I feel like.

What I come up with is not like big enough. It’s not like, you know, like why did it take her? Like going to do route to Rise to have this epiphany. But, you know, I, I don’t know. But, um, you know, there’s two things that Sabrina, you have really helped me with over the last two years, and that’s affirmations.

Which are key now, and that marketing is key now. Um, you know, it’s, it’s interesting because before, and, and I’m not great at marketing and I’m still not great, but I think that I have made vast improvements, especially in the last year. It’s funny because I used to just, it was like, what? Who am I photographing right now?

Okay. They’re going on my social media and now all of a sudden I feel like a clothing store because I am like, trying to think three months in advance. I’m like, like right now, I’m, you know, it’s June when we’re doing this interview, but my thought is. Okay, we got a book fall. I gotta think like, so I’m posting things that I created in Canva, which I never would’ve used before I joined Root to Rise.

I’m talking about like eight reasons why you wanna do a full family photography session. And what’s another one, like seven different types of photos that you should expect to see in your, um, in your full family gallery this fall. You know? I finally have like come around with that mindset that like, I need to think like three months down the road.

And so I guess that would be like my biggest takeaway from Root to Rise,

Sabrina: you know? So when you started, when we started together, you’ve been in business about eight years and now you’ve crossed the 10 year mark, which is amazing. It’s one of those things that this is what’s gonna keep you going in the years ahead.

Because having an intentional marketing plan and thinking about where you’re going before you’re going there is something that. Like legitimate businesses, do you know what I mean? As opposed to just being like, oh, I got an inquiry and I’m gonna photograph them and then maybe I’ll get another inquiry and just kind of willy-nilly the whole thing, which is a perfect example.

You can get by for years doing that. But there’s also like a level of stress involved with that because you never know what’s coming and are you ever gonna have clients again and what’s the plan and what am I doing? And so there’s a level of fear that comes with that too. And so it’s almost the difference between being like, okay, I’m done being like a semi hobbyist and I really am ready to be like the CEO of my business and making intentional business decisions, you know?

Meg: Yeah. And actually, if I can add something. I think this is the third year in a row where I have like quote unquote released my fall calendar on a specific day in June to, and like kind of like told clients about it ahead of time. Thanks to like your marketing and your help, like I have improved on my process for doing this, right?

Like, you know, the first year, I think I sent out an email like a week before and I was like, oh, hey guys, like next week my fall calendar opens, so get excited. Versus like, now I like actually have a plan. And I will tell you, Sabrina, I think that first year that I sent out my newsletter being like, look guys, my fall calendar is open.

And they can go on and they can book the session without my help. Like, it’s like through, they pick the date, they’re automatically sent the contract, they automatically make the deposit. I booked zero that first day. I mean, I ended up booking, you know, I got a full fall throughout the summer and stuff, but it was really disappointing ’cause I booked zero.

I released my fall calendar yesterday and I had five people book like. Yay. It doesn’t sound like a to like a lot, but No, that’s great. The first day that I released my calendar and my clients, they’re, you know, this is the third year in a row that we’re doing this. They are ready, they know what to expect, and five of them put down deposits yesterday.

And that was amazing.

Sabrina: Which is incredible. Yeah. There, there’s that education piece that you said you have now trained your clients that this is the way we do things and because you’ve done it so intentionally and you do it so early, like you said, your fall will will fill up. Like it’s going to fill up, it’s, we are recording this in early June.

Like I have no doubt that your calendar will be full by the time you get there, but what it does. That intentionality, it gives you that little boost of income and like almost that dopamine hit of like, okay, it’s gonna be fine. So it takes you out of that fear of, what am I doing for fall? Am I gonna book up for fall?

What’s it gonna look like? Like it just takes you out of that spiral. ’cause you’re like, I already had five families signed up immediately, and I’m sure that you have plans to send another email and to talk about it more and all of that. So that’s incredible. I love that. I also love how you said that affirmations were a part of something that’s really transformed for you because here’s what I want the listeners to hear.

Marketing is a very tangible, businessy thing, and affirmations is a very like mindset, personal development thing. And that is so, such a perfect picture of the way that I, I my hope that the program goes for everyone. It’s why I put pieces for both personal development and business development in it because women need both.

And maybe affirmations was a huge part for you. And maybe like mindset work was a huge part for another woman. And maybe reading one of the particular books we read together was something that stood out to somebody else. But there’s always. A personal development piece that is impactful that you will be able to like carry forward that will help you not only in business but also as a mom, as a wife, you know what I mean?

Just in life, which is huge and I love that. Okay, so we mentioned you’ve done rise three times. You did a retreat all three times and which is so fun. I love that. So when you think back to the three different retreats, being physically in a room with women who have big dreams, big goals, they want big things for their life and their business, how does that energy of being in the room with those women like impact your own energy and your own clarity about what you want?

Meg: I mean, I can’t say enough good things about the retreats. First of all, if you are on the fence about doing Route to Rise and you’re gonna do it, you have to do the retreat. Like the retreat is the most amazing experience. Yes, it’s all fantastic, but I, you know, like I don’t have a big community of photographers in, in Albany, New York.

I, I do have one good friend who’s a photographer up here, but I don’t have a huge community and that’s what the Root to Rise group has become to me. I love that we’re from all over the country, so there is no competition between any of us. It’s all about helping one another. It’s all about like bouncing ideas.

You know, I can steal from them. They steal from me like I want, it’s not even stealing. It’s like, I want help you. Like I had, um, somebody from our most recent retreat, like asking me about my backyard sessions and I like vox them all about it and I’m like, you know, this is the part that is. Not working for me and you know, I just wanna warn you about it, but like, if you are gonna do that, like fantastic, like these are a great opportunity.

It’s just so special. It honestly is, and I don’t know if, if you’re gonna ask me what my favorite part about the retreat is, but it is just sitting in the living room with everybody and, um, you know, we do a lot of activities like we, we look through, um, portfolios of everyone’s, and that’s like a fantastic experience because you’re getting feedback on your own portfolio, but you also get to see the artwork of all the other photographers, which is amazing.

And like the mastermind aspect where we talk about like everybody brings a problem to the table. And you know what’s so great about it is that I’m not learning just from when we reviewed my problem. I’m learning when we review everybody’s problems and being able to like share things that like, I don’t even.

Maybe I’m sharing something that like I’ve been doing for years or thinking for years and it’s like no big deal to me anymore, but it’s could be brand new to somebody else and it’s awesome. It’s like I can’t describe it any other way like it. It is the most incredible experience to be in a room with a bunch of other photographers and just sharing and talking and.

Everybody gets along so well and we’re all just learning.

Sabrina: Yeah. It’s funny that you mentioned like our mastermind time, so back it all the way up to my very first Roots Rise retreat in 2021. 2021. Yeah. I’m planning out like the agenda for the retreat. Like I knew how many days. I knew that we were gonna photograph sessions.

I knew I wanted portfolio reviews, but I had this PO pocket of time that. Technically, I was like, I need to put something there for this time. And so, and I’m thinking through what would best serve the group? Would it, should it be downtime? Should we just have more chill time? Should we do an activity? And I was like, I kind of had this intuitive hit of like, what if we just sit around and like solve each other’s problems, you know?

But I didn’t know how it was gonna go. That was the, honestly, when I looked at the agenda, that was the one chunk of time that I was like, Ooh, this could be a real big fail. But I, it was the first time I’d done it and I was like, we’re gonna try it, and if it’s not going well, we’ll abort and do something else.

And it ended up being one of the most impactful parts of the entire weekend. And I was like, okay, mastermind time is here to stay. And so now we do it at every retreat. And it’s so powerful because every single person in the room brings something to the table. And like you said. They’re all so different.

So the problems are, so some of them are very logistical, some of them are vision oriented, some of them are heart oriented, you know, like they’re struggling with mom guilt. I mean, there’s, it really does span the, the gamut of, of things. But the conversations are so great and what’s so beautiful about it, and I tell the women this at the retreat is.

I’m the facilitator. I’m gonna start the conversation, but I’m not going to provide the answers, so to speak. Everyone else speaks and offers their thoughts and their encouragement and their ideas. Nothing is off limits. And it’s cool because it really is this powerful experience of all of these creative, kind, wonderful, successful women who are like swooping in like mother hens to help solve these problems, you know?

Um, and so it just ends, ends up being so beautiful. There’s always tears. Somebody always cries during mastermind time, sometimes more than one. Which is okay. I love that there’s a, a level of vulnerability in that space where we can ask the hard questions. It is a really, really impactful part of the retreat that I just love.

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I’m curious if, when you think again about where you were when you started the program, where you are now, the things that you’ve gone through, successes, you’ve had wins, you’ve had, changes you’ve made, is there something that you have achieved in your business or goal that you hit or something new you tried that you.

I don’t think you would’ve done without root to rise, or maybe it would’ve been a stretch.

Meg: Yeah, I mean, I have a few. So one of the first things that I wanna talk about is Christmas tree Minis, which I did the first fall that I was in root to rise. So this would’ve been fall 2023. I am not a big fan of many sessions.

They stress me out. Um, the whole idea of having like 10 families at one time. What if the weather’s bad? I live in upstate New York. It’s not like sunny here all the time. You know, my sessions focus on a lot of play with my clients. Like there’s so many reasons why I’m not a big fan of many sessions. But I do also realize that I am missing, I’m missing a group of cl potential clients that just are never gonna pay my prices, and I could, you know, book them.

So I had, after listening to other, uh, women in Route to Rise, talk about their mini sessions that they were planning for, I was like, you know what? I’m gonna give this a try. And I did because of Roots Eyes, which I, and I kind of jokingly was like. Loving root to rise so much that I was like, I’m gonna give this a try and I’m going to make all the money I need.

Doing this Christmas tree mini weekend to do root to rise Spring 2024. So that was the big goal because I was like, my thought process was if it weren’t for root to rise, I wouldn’t be doing this anyway. So if I can make, I think it was like my goal was like $4,000 or something to do root to rise spring 2024, then I’m gonna do it.

And I did.

Sabrina: Yeah. And you did pretty easily, if I remember correctly.

Meg: Yeah. Well, I,

Sabrina: yeah, I didn’t like You came really close, didn’t you? Come really close. Like when they opened and then you like hit the mark like kind of at the last minute or something. Yeah,

Meg: yeah, yeah, yeah. And no, it was fantastic. And you know, now I have this problem where like, I did so well and I’m like, do I have to do them again?

Sabrina: Yeah. But you know, I mean, talking about minis though. For you, you wanted to try something new, number one. And number two, you looked at it as a financial goal. Like it wasn’t a, I’m gonna see if I can force myself to like mini sessions because quote unquote, I think I should. You were just game to try something new.

And again, you had that financial goal of like, I wanna do root rise again. It’d be cool if I could fund it real quick out of this one thing. And so it was kind of a test. And the thing about it is minis are not for everyone. And different years people have different financial goals, you know, and it is absolutely appropriate to add in things at certain times to support what your needs are at that time.

Right. So when you say like, do I have to do them again? Well, I don’t know. Do you have a financial goal? Do do you wanna like use it for that? ’cause if not, no. You, when we add things to our business, they don’t have to be permanent things. You know, they can be a one time, or maybe just this year, next year, they don’t ever have to be like, well now it’s, it’s written in stone.

It is officially an offer that I have every year, forever and ever, you know? But I loved that you tried it and you had so much success. It was fun to see that. It was fun to see that for you.

Meg: I guess I should also talk about my kitchen. Yeah. So one of my goals for which, you know, it’s interesting ’cause when I started my business.

I wasn’t making very much money and a lot of my money would go back into my business. And over the years, like I started actually making a, a real salary and somewhere around here, like five or six, I was like, it’d be really nice to. Redo our kitchen because listeners don’t know this, but I have four children and we had a pretty tiny kitchen, um, the original kitchen from when our house was built, which was like 25 or 30 years ago, so it was pretty outdated.

We had blue countertops, so. I used root to rise to like make that my goal. And over the last two years I hit it, I went above the goal and um, we redid our kitchen this past winter and was completely funded by Mag Mosier Photography.

Sabrina: Yeah. Which is so incredible. And so that the listeners know, like when she says funded like.

Paid cash for like truly funded, like you didn’t take out a loan that you’re paying back with your business. Like you were able to pay cash, a very large sum of cash for this incredible kitchen renovation, which included like expanding stuff and moving stuff around. Yeah, we,

Meg: we knocked out. A wall and a half and add it.

My kitchen is huge now. People walk in and they’re like, wow. Yeah, it’s awesome. Like, well, we do have four children and my husband is six five, so I’m expecting them all to be pretty tall. Yeah, it was. It’s an amazing feeling to know that, like I wrote every single check. Like it just had my name on that check.

Not my husband’s just my name. And you know, we paid for it like a hundred percent in cash through Mag Moser photography. And yeah, its kind of sad watching my bank account drain, but I guess that’s part of life, right?

Sabrina: Yeah. But I mean, what an incredible gift for you and your family, because how many times a day are you in that space?

I mean, countless. Yeah, like we live in there. Yeah. Basically. So many women I coach and that send me messages and stuff, they struggle with, number one, paying themselves. You know, that’s a whole nother conversation for a whole nother day. But they struggle with feeling like they’re adding value to either their family or to their bank account or whatever, because, and it’s kind of, it’s kind of tied to like struggling to pay themselves and being profitable and you know, that’s a whole thing.

Not only were you PA taking a paycheck, but also adding massive value to your family by giving yourself the gift of something that you use. All the time, every day, constantly. Um, that brings you so much joy and so much pride. So that was such a cool goal to hit and to see you not only hit it, but now you’re on the other side of the renovation.

Like you’ve gone through the whole thing and you’ve moved back in. Moved back in and it’s done. And when we started together just two years ago, it was a goal. And now you’re already like. Fully on the other side of it and living in it, which is just really, really cool.

Meg: Yeah, no, it’s awesome. It’s, you know, I don’t know if you know this, but, so like the year that I started Route to Rise, I had somebody come and at that point, like I had a lot saved and I was hoping that we were gonna be able to do it, and basically based on what I wanted to do, he was like.

Your X amount off, and it was a very large amount and, and he left. And it was kind of crushing because it was like, okay, if I wanna hit this goal, I need to basically like make a third of what I already have, you know, like add to this fund. So when I came to you, it was like. This is where I am and this is the goal.

And, and it felt kind of like I had already been told like, no, you don’t have enough money. Can you actually get there at that point? Because a lot of times I feel like you think like, oh, they said no, you know, time, time to look for the next goal. Like, but no. I was like, no, we’re gonna stick to this and we’re gonna get it done.

Sabrina: Yeah. Which is so awesome. And you did and seeing such a. A big dream realized is just so, so cool. I am curious if. Through the program, through the experience of working together. If there are any like habits or boundaries that you’ve created or come up with during the program that are still kind of sticking with you now that you are officially graduated, um, is there anything that we worked on together that you feel like is, is gonna stick with you?

Meg: You know, all of it. Honestly, like, you know, I would say I feel like. A much more well-rounded business owner. When I came to you, I didn’t have questions about like my photography style or that kind of informa, that kind like my portfolio or anything like that. It was really more about, um, building a community and like building an actual business.

Because when I got into this, like, I’m not here because I wanna be a business owner. I’m here because I wanna take people’s photo. You know, like the business side of it is not. The part that I really enjoy and, you know, without route to rise, I would still be back there. I would still be like posting about spring and summer photos right now.

It definitely the marketing aspect and the just overall well-rounded business owner. I, I blog now, I used to blog like once a year. It would be like the 2023 recap in like. Two weeks after New Year’s, but now I’m like blogging twice a month. I’m creating like content and it’s crazy. So like that is a huge part of it.

Um, something little that I got from you was the parking lot, which we have talked about a few times, which I absolutely love. I don’t know if you wanna describe that.

Sabrina: Yeah. The parking lot is something that I love. Um, this is, I’m not sure if I’ve talked about it on the podcast before, so I’ll just fully explain it to the listeners, but the parking lot is being willing to take an idea or a task or something that you’re coming up with and putting it in a parking lot potentially for later, or potentially for never as creative women, Meg, you know, and I know that like we constantly have ideas.

Whether it’s about our kids, our family, our health, um, vacations we wanna take, things we need to do, but also business things we should be doing, things we wanna try, things we’re seeing other people doing, things we’re reading about, like the list of stuff in our brain is endless. It’s endless. And we can often find ourselves in this.

Overwhelming pit where we’re just anxious and we’re overwhelmed and everything feels too heavy. And that’s when I encourage my students and the women I coach to do a really solid brain dump. ’cause nothing feels better than getting it all onto paper. And then kind of organizing that list and taking everything that is not urgent, does not have a deadline.

And shifting it over to the parking lot. You can always revisit the parking lot later. You can always un park a car and pull it back onto the list. But giving yourself the grace to say, not right now. Is so freeing for our brains.

Meg: You know, I think that it sounds like such a simple concept, but in reality, you know, like, like you said, I constantly have like ideas and I will like fill up.

I, for whatever reason, I like to fill up note cards and, and I will just have piles and stacks of them. They’re all jumbled up and mixed up and you know, like just getting ’em into like one place where I can like go through, I can highlight, you know, like I have blog posts, ideas in there along with things like, get our passports renewed, you know, like.

It just, it, it has been incredibly helpful for me and to bring down my anxiety of like, well, where’s this gonna go if it doesn’t live right smack dab in the middle of my computer. You know, like, you know what’s interesting is recently, so I’ve started doing the parking lot, I don’t know, like two or three months ago, and like recently I crossed things off on it that like I had put on there back in like March that I never thought I was gonna do.

And I’m like, wow. Yeah.

Sabrina: I love that. It’s amazing. Probably because you were able to pull them out. When you had the capacity to actually do them. So instead of them causing like stress and anxiety, because they were always on your perpetual list, you were able to say, oh, this week I’ve got time, I’m gonna pull something off and get it done.

And it feels so much better that way. ’cause like you said, then it feels like you achieved something big ’cause you weren’t sure you were ever gonna get to it, as opposed to feeling like a failure every single week because you weren’t getting through your list, you know?

Meg: Oh. So that’s been huge for me. And then I would just say, you know, I think that.

Boundaries, although I do think that they kind of fall under, like I’m just a more well-rounded, uh, person, photographer, business owner. But you know, I used to edit late into the night and I now stop editing usually before dinnertime. And I actually watched TV with my husband every night, which. It’s huge for me because for years we didn’t do that because I was working at that time, and sometimes I have guilt about it because I’m like, oh my God, I’ve got seven photo sessions to edit.

But then at the same time I’m like, okay, like they don’t need their photos back in two days. Like it’s okay. Like I need to keep like my relationships healthy and do something for me and do something for me and my relationship with my husband and sit back and zone out and binge some Netflix. And you know what?

I can edit those photos tomorrow and if they get their photos after a week, that’ll be just fine and dandy.

Sabrina: Yep, totally. I love that. And honestly, it seems like such a small thing, but. I bet it’s had such a big impact on you and burnout and your relationship with your husband and just being willing to make that small shift and say, I’m no longer available to edit every single night.

Like, that’s not, the lifestyle I’m living is just so good for you. And it’s also, you’re also better for your clients too, because you’re more refreshed when you see them and Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. Let’s, let’s all also be honest that I’m sure like late night editing is probably not our best editing either.

You know what I mean? Yeah. No. So I love that, Meg. Okay. I love to end this episode asking, um, what a favorite retreat memory was. Is there a particular moment that stood out from any of our retreats that was just,

Meg: oh my gosh,

Sabrina: the best.

Meg: I don’t know if I can pick one favorite. I just like had such a great time on all of the retreats.

They were all like such very different experiences. You know, I, I would say maybe Washington DC was extra special to me, not only because it was my first one and it was a really small group, but I used to live there.

Sabrina: Mm. So that was

Meg: really kind of cool. Yeah.

Sabrina: I

Meg: really enjoyed that when we like went. Out in Georgetown, and we were at, um, um, we were at Natasha’s apartment, and that was kind of cool.

I really enjoyed that. But I mean, honestly, I, I really enjoyed all of them. Like I’ve made such good friends with so many of the women. Um, you know, like I keep in touch with like, pretty much everybody that was at the DC retreat. And you know, like Kate is doing my, um, I’m doing my first set of, uh, photos, uh, branding photos.

In two weeks.

Sabrina: That’s so, I love that so much. I love that you guys are gonna do that together. That makes me so happy. Yeah. DC was our smallest retreat ever, and honestly, it was so perfectly aligned for the women who were there. The women who were there needed it to be a smaller retreat just at that season and time, and so it was just wonderful.

Yeah, I think there were nine of us total. Then Coley crashed. Um, she would come like hang out on stuff with us. She was like the surprise guest, the surprise uninvited guests that we always let crash. So that was really fun. But that was such a great group. And then you actually immediately enrolled in the largest retreat we’ve ever had.

So you went from the smallest to the largest. We had the largest group ever in Dustin. But it still was super fun. And I know that you, at the time when you enrolled were like. How’s that gonna go? Am I gonna enjoy being in a group that big? Is it gonna be wild? So what did you think? Like one versus the other?

Meg: I mean, I loved both experiences. You know, and I’m glad that I got to experience both. I think I definitely came out of the first one with stronger like friendships with the girls because there was a lot less women to talk to. So, you know, you spend time talking to the same women over and over again, and you really get to know them, which that’s amazing.

And I definitely feel like I enjoyed the photo sessions that we did more because we were able to have better access. To photographing the families and better access to asking like you and Natasha questions and stuff like that. But the big, the Destin retreat was awesome in its own way because it was kind of like.

More of what I would think of as like, it’s more of like the, a mix between a retreat and like a conference. Because you get that bigger feeling of like, there’s so many people like, like if you looked around at any given point, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, is everybody here or not? You know, like.

And you get to meet so many more people from all over the country, which is awesome. But you might not be developing as strong of friendships with them because you’re just meeting so many people. So they definitely, so my advice would be to do both. Yeah.

Sabrina: That’s hilarious. Yeah. The retreats are an interesting bird because.

I have them at a different location every time, and therefore the, the houses have different amounts of beds and therefore I have different enrollment sizes for different locations. And so that’s something that’s kind of unique to me. A lot of people that host retreats have them at the same place every single time.

And so they have a certain number and that it’s always the same and you know, the location stays the same and all that, but we go all over the place. And I am forever looking for beautiful rental properties, uh, that have certain amounts of beds. And so some retreat groups are able to be larger than others, depending on what locations we’re in and stuff.

It is a little bit different every time. Anyways. Meg, it’s been so great to hear about your experience in the program and I’ve loved serving you for two years. It’s been so fun to see you grow and all the things that you’ve achieved. And anyways, I just love you dearly. So thanks for taking your time to chat today.

I appreciate it. Yeah, anytime.

Meg: Thank you.

Sabrina: 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.