173: Letting Things Go To Make Space For New Opportunities with Annemie Tonken

Sabrina: On today’s episode of the Shoot It Straight podcast, I am replaying an episode where I was a guest on my friend Anami Tonkins podcast. This can’t be that hard. I have replayed episodes from her before. Many of you listened to both of our podcasts, so she should not be a new guest to you because she’s also been a guest on this podcast many times.

But this interview that I had with her earlier this year was about letting things go in order to create space for new things to bloom. It was something that I was personally going through and I still am at time of air, and it’s a really great conversation that brings some really interesting perspective to the table because often as business owners, we want to do more, pick up new things, add on offerings, expand, and while those are good ideas.

They’re not always the right move, and I just share about my experience with doing the opposite and actually needing to set things down in order to move forward. So it’s a really, really great chat and I’m excited for you to hear it today.

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

Let’s go.

Annemie: Have you ever had something in your business or even in your life? That you had done for a long time. People sort of expected it of you, and for a while you really enjoyed it, but then over time you started to feel like. It wasn’t lighting you up anymore, it got to the point where you were actually, you felt like you were kind of dragging it along behind you.

Maybe it was a specific offer in your business. Maybe it was a chore that you were doing at home that you know for a while you were really into. Folding your laundry in a specific way. You drank the Marie Kondo Kool-Aid and we’re really into it for a while. And then it got to the point where your whole family was like, well, we can’t help you with the laundry because you have such specific expectations about how you do it.

So that’s you. And then it got to the point where you were like, this isn’t fun anymore. I’m not enjoying it anymore. I just want somebody else to help me fold the laundry That is. Not the laundry part, but that in general is what Sabrina Gehart and I are discussing in our conversation today on the show.

Sabrina is sharing the story of three different major items in her business, both her education business and her photography business that she set down over the course of 2024, because she realized that even though they were working, they were bringing in money, they were successful by all sort of outside metrics.

They weren’t serving her anymore, and she decided to just let them go. I don’t know about you, but this is something that really kind of strikes a weird amount of fear in my heart because I tend to be someone who, if something is working, I’m like, great, we’re just gonna keep on pushing, keep it, keep it going.

Sometimes to that like detrimental end of burnout. And I just really valued this conversation and everything that Sabrina had to say because. It really makes perfect sense. Like we are creatives, we are business owners, and especially in our business, if we have painted ourselves into a corner that we no longer enjoy, what we need to remember is that we can just walk right over the paint.

Like it’s okay, you have permission. So if any of that resonates for you, I know you’re going to love this conversation with Sabrina. Welcome back to the show, Sabrina Gehart. How have you been, my friend?

Sabrina: Hi, I’m so good. I’m so glad to be back and I love these like, repeat conversations. ’cause now it’s been so many times that, I mean, I’ve lost track, which is awesome and uh, they’re always great.

So I’m excited for today’s conversation.

Annemie: If we were super curious, I’m sure I could just peek an Airtable and be like, you’ve been on the show eight times on these dates and these were the episode numbers and this is what we talked about. It’s so much information, but what we need to know is just you’re a, you’re a frequent flyer here on this can’t be that hard and for good reason.

You always have. Such great insights to share. I always enjoy talking to you. It gives me the, you know, personal, uh, I always get excited. I’m like, Ooh, yay. I have a, I have a official reason to catch up with Sabrina today. Yes,

Sabrina: me too. It’s always, we need to make this more of a, not just on the podcast, like, yeah.

You remember in 2020 when we had the like. Remember, the audience may not remember this, but we had, what was it, A monthly, a weekly, a biweekly. I think it was a

Annemie: biweekly little like zoom group that we would get together and talk about like what we were working on.

Sabrina: That was so fun. That was, that was one of the like highlights of 2020 was just getting to like constantly catch up with friends that were all over the country.

Annemie: I know, I know. And then we all got completely maxed out on Zoom. And maybe one day we’ll get back to where that’s a little less painful. But sometimes putting something, and actually this is a perfect segue into who you are and what you’re all about, but like, putting something on your calendar means that it actually happens.

And of course, since I’ve got this commitment of the podcast, uh, this scheduling you in here just means. I officially and, you know, get to put you on my calendar

Sabrina: Exactly, which is a great reason to chat today. So I’m glad to here.

Annemie: It’s, it’s a great thing to record it because as I said before, you always have such great things to share.

We are talking about the sort of art of letting things go, which is not something I am great at. I like to, I’m a very additive person in my life. I’m like, okay, great. Now I’ve got this all dialed in. I’ll add another thing. I’ll add another thing. Even when I know that it’s time to let something go, I really struggle with this, so I’m dying to hear, you know, you sort of reached out and you were like, ah, I’ve been sort of mulling this over.

I’d love to chat with you about it. And I was like, great. Let’s turn it into a podcast episode. I, why don’t you just kind of kick things off by, first of all, for anyone who hasn’t heard you on the show before, introduce yourself and then, um. Then get into kind of what happened last year for you that had your wheels turning in this direction.

Sabrina: Yeah. Uh, hi everybody. In case you haven’t heard one of our chats before, uh, I’m Sabrina. I am actually still a photographer even though I’m here as an educator today, but. I’m still a photographer. I’ve been a lifestyle newborn and family photographer for 14 years. I’m in Fort Worth, Texas, but I’m also an educator and similar to ami, I’ve got my hands in like all the things.

I’ve got a podcast and a membership and a couple of courses and a mastermind and and, and, and, and so I’ve got my hands full, but last year. I went through this process of, obviously the universe was like, we’re gonna learn how to do this because Omy just like you, we are both Enneagram threes. We are so similar in so many ways.

And you say that you struggle with it, and I used to struggle with it. And I think last year was the year of me learning how to cope with this and mm-hmm. Listen to my intuition and follow through. And it’s been such an interesting process. So last year, over the course of a few months back to back, I went through the process of.

Releasing or letting go of three different things in my business. One of them was a course that I had been attempting to get off the ground and launching and kind of dragging behind me for a couple of years. One of them was. The decision to not host mini sessions in the fall for the first time in 13 years of my business.

Mm-hmm. And the other thing was deciding to take my mastermind, which normally was a two times a year thing and only do it once in 2025. And so I made these three big decisions almost back to back and on paper. It makes absolutely no sense to release these things, but intuitively I was feeling called to put them all down and so I just trusted my intuition, and last year was about seeing how that worked out and what happened when I followed through.

Annemie: I guess my first question was, you say last year was all about following that intuition. Was that something, was the, was that set first and then you were letting things go? Or did you notice I’m letting things go or I’m feeling called to let things go? I am going to. Do you know what I mean? Was it like a proactive approach or was it reactive to where your head and heart were?

Sabrina: Yeah, definitely reactive. Okay. Uh, I did not start off 2024 saying, how many things can I let go of? Right. Right. It’s my year of

Annemie: No. Yeah, exactly.

Sabrina: That was not where I was. And it started with this course. So this course I had is a great course. I’ve had plenty of students go through it. They still rave about it years later.

I know the material is amazing, but you and I know as educators that it, that doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter what’s inside the course and the value you provide doesn’t matter if you can’t. Market it and the audience isn’t interested in it. Right. And for whatever reason, outside of my control, it just wasn’t landing.

Mm-hmm. And I had tried everything under the sun. I had tried different kinds of launches. I had tried different price points. I had tried all, all kinds of things over the years to get it going, and it just wasn’t. I decided, uh, early last year that I was going to do a live launch of this course and I was going to do a brand new free webinar ahead of it, on a new topic that I was really excited about.

I hadn’t done the live launch webinar thing in a while, and so it was kind of fun and exciting to do it again. I had, I ran ads to this webinar for the first time and so I did lots of new strategy that time. Mm-hmm. And I thought, okay, this is, this is gonna work. Like this is the thing that’s gonna get it going.

And the webinar got tons of new people on my email list. Lots of signups, high attendance rate to the live webinar, which is really, that’s like in, that’s hard. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of engagement and questions asked on the call, so it felt like this is going really well. And then at the end of the webinar and into the launch of the course after that, I made zero sales.

Which was like, ouch. Okay. And you know, I’m one of those people that I know, there’s always a lesson. I know there’s success points in every part of the process. And I was focused on, the webinar went great. I forgot how much I love live teaching to new people. I loved that part. Getting a bunch of new people on my email list, also successful, but what’s not landing is still this dang course.

And so I was ving with my coach about it afterwards and. I’m, I’m a verbal processor. Sure. And so as I’m verbally telling her how I’m feeling and what happened, all of a sudden my intuition is like, put this damn thing down. And so I’m, I’m messaging with her and I’m like, am I dumb? I, I feel like I should just retire this thing.

It, it feels like I’m dragging it and it’s holding me back. And I was so frustrated. But it felt wrong, so to speak, to put a course that’s already made and built and created. And you know, that passive income thing. And she was like, if you need a permission slip, I’ll give it to you. And I was like, okay, we’re done here.

And literally just like that. I was like, this course is now officially retired. Took it off everywhere. On my website. Yeah. Sent an email to student saying like, you still have access, it still is alive. You can still log in, but you’re not gonna see it anywhere anymore. The immediacy that I like, the immediate reaction, physical, mental, of just not dragging it anymore was huge.

And the cool part about this lesson with that first experience of letting something go was almost immediately within just a couple weeks of letting it go, I had this incredible idea for something new and it flowed out of me faster than anything ever has. And within like 45 days, I had created a launch plan for it created like a free thing that would lead into it.

I had mapped out the entire thing. I had created the, like it happened so fast and this new thing is a marketing course and. When I launched it originally, I sold more sales of that first launch that I ever did, combined of the other course that I had set down.

Annemie: Wow.

Sabrina: The universe was like, I’m gonna reward you for trusting me.

I’m gonna show you that there’s something better on the other side of this. And that’s kind of where I got hooked. I was like, okay, so listening to our intuition pays off. Yeah. And I have always listened to my I intuition, but not in a like setting down things since. Yeah. Yeah. So I learned the lesson and that kind of kicked off everything else, I guess.

Annemie: That’s amazing. And I love that there was this sort of immediate validation of the move that you had made. I am going to play devil’s advocate here and say. Well, okay. First, I will acknowledge that if it had been like low sales in your launch, it’s almost like that would’ve been a little stickier and harder.

Yeah. Because that’s like, well, okay, so I have these students and they’re, I’m, I’m working with them. Like I find it easier to cut something off, certainly if it’s like completely dormant, but I also find that every time that I close. Door. It’s like all of a sudden I have all these people knocking on that door and I’m like, what?

Where were you when I was actually like, the door was wide open. Like I talk to people sometimes about how, for a while now I’ve had a popup on my photography website that says I’m not taking new clients. And now I get all these people being like, I know it says you’re not taking new clients blood. Like, are you kidding me?

Anyway, I digress. So in that situation, my instinct I think would be like, okay, fine. Live launch isn’t working, but I have a good course that I have like testimonials for. I know that people get value out of this course. It’s already built. Everything is set. I’m not gonna do anything to actively market it, but what’s the harm in having it stay on my website with a passive?

Evergreen sort of funnel saying like, Hey, here’s this thing, sign up for a recorded webinar, and then you get a series of automated emails, whatever that you’ve already created. Like what, why was your decision to actually close it down as opposed to doing that?

Sabrina: So two things. Number one, we had had it set up that way, Uhhuh in between live launches.

And I think maybe it sold two courses that way ever. Like okay, okay. It just wasn’t landing. Sure. The other reason is, let’s say I did just leave it completely passive completely. Like I don’t talk about it. It’s just there, people can find it. You still have that like little nugget in your mind that’s like, I have this course.

Yeah, and it’s awesome, but nobody wants it. It’s like this little sticky thought that you’re carrying it around like, like the fly that won’t go away. Sure. It’s just kind of bugging you. Yeah. Especially for us Indian gram threes where we, I’ve got other things that are awesome.

Annemie: Yeah. That people

Sabrina: want all the time.

And so then it’s like the performance of like, why won’t this one thing just go already? Totally. You know? And it just felt better to just say, you know what, bye. We’re like, we’re done. Yeah. I am not gonna drag you around anymore. And I think the other reason honestly is because the things that are taught in that course are still things that I coach on Uhhuh.

There’s still things that my one-to-one clients talk about with me that my roots to rise, mastermind women get from me, that we talk about from time to time in the membership. Like it’s not like I just. I’m not coaching on those things. Sure, sure, sure. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so it was just that package wasn’t working.

So the container,

Annemie: yeah, the

Sabrina: container for some reason wasn’t cool. So that’s a, that’s fine.

Annemie: Okay. And I sort of figured that those were gonna be your answers. It’s like the mental space that something takes up is not zero, but you know. Physician heal, heal thyself. I can talk all day about That makes perfect sense.

Doing it is a different thing. Yeah. Okay, so you made that decision and then what was it in the summer that you were onto the mini session? Yeah. Job process. Talk to me about that.

Sabrina: Yeah, so normally, historically, again, I’ve been in business 14 years. Last year it was 13. Every summer for 13 years, I released my fall mini sessions in July.

And as you can imagine, after 13 years of it, I can do it. My eyes closed. Sure. Like it’s a well-oiled machine. It’s not hard. It’s super easy and I know how much money it’s gonna make me. I was gonna say, it’s just, yeah, it’s probably

Annemie: really easy to fill ’em up too. Yes. ’cause you’ve got the list and people expect it and yes,

Sabrina: it like it so easy and not hard at all.

But I was having so much pushback or what I recognized as internal pushback. For sitting down and doing the work, I just could not bring myself to do it. I could not bring myself to sit down and block off the dates and schedule the studio, and even though there wasn’t a ton of work involved, because it is a wello machine, I just couldn’t do it.

I kept coming up with excuses or being distracted or whatever, and I recognize that. Because I coach women through this as like there’s a, there’s a pushback here. Yeah. Like something’s going on. And so again, I sent a message to my coach and I’m like, this thing is happening. And is it because I’m on vacation?

I was in Colorado with the time. Is it because I’m on vacation? Uh, is something else coming up? Talk me off a ledge. Tell me to just do it already. What? I’m being silly. And one of the things I kept coming back to was. I have to do mini sessions to stay relevant as a family photographer. Which we know is not true.

Sure. But I was telling myself that story. Yeah. But more importantly, not necessarily to stay relevant as a family photographer, but if I’m not still a family photographer, I won’t be as relevant of an educator. Sure. Which was the bigger piece for me. Uh, she basically talked me off a ledge and she gave me some really great advice that was like.

Kind of vision casting, what would my fall look like without mini sessions? If I do decide to try this, I’m not, you know, ending my business. I’m just putting one part of my business down. And the great news is if I decide in a year or two years that I want to pick it back up, I can. ’cause I know how to run a photography business.

And so I decided, I said, okay. I don’t know what this is gonna look like. I don’t know what my fall’s gonna look like. I may be shooting myself in the foot right now, but I need to trust this process. I am obviously not in it this year. I asked myself, did it mean that I don’t wanna be photographing at all in the fall?

The answer to that was, that’s not it. I still wanted to be photographing, but I wanted to be doing the babies and the first 48. That’s where what I really love, especially the first 48. I didn’t wanna be in the hustle and bustle of the fall mini sessions. Holiday minis. Yeah. Yeah. And so I just said, you know what?

I don’t know what this is gonna look like financially. I don’t know what this is gonna look like to my clients. Uh, are they gonna be mad? I just, I don’t know, but I’m trusting my gut. So I sent an email to my email list saying, in case you’re waiting for these, I’m not going to be doing them this year. I will still photograph your family.

I will still photograph your newborns, but everything is a full session. Then I waited Uhhuh

Annemie: and, um, I love, I’m just gonna pause and say I love slash hate that feeling after you hit the publish button. Yeah. Or the send button on an email, and then you’re like, oh, and your stomach bottoms out. Yes. You’re like, well, it’s out there now.

We’ll see. Right,

Sabrina: right. Literally within two days of sending that email, I had not only several responses to that email of longtime clients that are, that literally didn’t even care. They were like, okay, great. When can we get our full session on the books? Right? Literally, they didn’t even care. But I also, and this was again like that nod from the universe saying like, I got you we’re in the right spot.

I had three count them, three Google inquiries from new clients who wanted to book first 48 sessions. And I was like, oh, we’re gonna be just fine. Amazing. Because the photographing I was gonna be doing in the fall was gonna be what I wanted it to be. And then seeing myself now that we’ve gone all the way through where the fall has passed, I’ve survived it.

I was as busy as I wanted to be and I can’t tell you how many times it was like a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon and I’m seeing or hearing about peers with many sessions and I was like reading a book on my back porch like, yep, this is. I’m so glad that I listened to myself. So

Annemie: yes, absolutely. After ri, my husband retired from wedding photography, which was a very stressful decision.

And like, who am I to turn down, you know, thousands of dollars? Yeah. When I’m perfectly capable and I have all the equipment and it’s on the weekend and then to this day, and that was back during like the early part of COVID To this day, if it’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Inevitably, he will turn to me and be like, do you know what?

I’m not sad. I’m not doing right now. I, yeah, I totally hear you on that. Okay, and then. Round number three of setting something down came in the fall.

Sabrina: Yeah.

Annemie: Or in the late summer.

Sabrina: Yeah. So at this point I had made two big decisions to let things go, and I had already seen the positive, like Yep. On the other side, like I knew I felt good about my choice.

I, I still, I wasn’t regretting anything. And so at this point, I was leading into the launch for the spring route to rise that was building up. So I was doing all of the like prep work for that. I was getting the, you know, the sales page ready and the guest speakers lined up and the house booked and everything like that.

And I kind of had this intuitive hit in that process that I should only do it one time this year. Historically, I had done a spring run and a summer fall run. Immediately my brain says, well wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is a huge, huge revenue in your business. Yeah. You wanna put half of it down, like, where’s this coming from?

And I, so I started to think through like, why was I thinking that? And a couple of things were coming up for me. One was the practical sense of my oldest child is going to be a senior in the fall. Mm-hmm. And she plays a fall sport and. Obviously I don’t wanna miss any of that, but also like logistically, her last homecoming and all of these lasts for her that I don’t have those dates that far out and if I’m booking a retreat or you know, like I don’t wanna mess that up.

So practically speaking, that was coming up for me, but also I was feeling like there’s something else that’s coming. And unlike the last two decisions I made, this one was much more of a question mark.

Annemie: Mm-hmm. You

Sabrina: know what I mean? Yeah. Like, like I felt like I was literally having to step off of a cliff into the vast unknown, but because I had just successfully set down two other things.

I was very in, in tune with like my intuition and I trusting everything, and so I was like, okay. It wasn’t hard to, it was, this was the easiest decision to make.

Annemie: Interesting. Yeah. It was the

Sabrina: easiest to make because I had flexed that muscle, you know? Right. But here we are, what is this, six or eight months later, and I still am like, I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t have anything officially planned or replacing that.

Right. I still, I was telling you before we started recording, I’ve got some ideas. Yeah. Things are brewing, but I don’t know. And so I’m still kind of sitting in that unknown, but on me, I’m not scared. Yeah. Like I’m excited about it, which is really cool.

Annemie: Yeah. Well, the bigger the void, I think the more time it takes to thoughtfully fill it and to bring it back to re’s.

Sort of career shift journey. He went through a solid two years, three years where he was like, I don’t know what’s next. Yeah. We have short-term rental properties that were keeping us afloat with in terms of like his income, but his time was definitely like underutilized and he was antsy about it. Yeah.

And I just kept being like, just keep. The door open. You can’t, if you jump into something else and it’s the wrong thing, right, you’re gonna, you’re gonna regret it and that’s gonna be harder. Again, that was like his 15 year career. Yeah. As a wedding photographer, wasn’t just going to like, instantly flip over into something else.

So that makes sense to me that it’s taking you time to, to figure out what the, the next step is. And I’ll be curious to see whether root rise goes down to once a year, every year, or whether this year is sort of a blip or what. And of course I’m dying to know what you end up filling it with. The thing that has come up for me, as you have told these three stories, is that through it all, you’ve been extremely thoughtful.

You have a coach who you’re bouncing these thoughts around with and all that you know. I always am hesitant to give. Advice, like, listen to your intuition, or like leap in the net will appear, right? Because I know that the net doesn’t always appear right in the way that we want it to. So my thing is always make sure that you are not putting yourself in an unsafe position.

Is there any other advice that you would give to somebody who’s got something that they’re, that they feel like they’re kind of dragging along, that, you know, they’re feeling all this friction when it works. It’s a tried and true thing, but they’re thinking about letting it go, or they want to let it go, but they’re afraid to, you know, what advice would you give somebody as they, as they consider that?

Sabrina: So when we’re talking about photographers, obviously one thing, and, and this is again, something that my coach reminded me. If, if we’re talking specifically about one of your offers, which is probably what we’re talking about, just reminding them that you built the offer to begin with. Mm-hmm. So if you decide that you’re gonna set it down, let’s just use the mini session example.

You don’t wanna do mini sessions anymore. You wanna still do all the other parts of your business. Cool. You can set them down and not do them, and you can always pick them back up later. Right. You know what I mean? You can, you have built a business before you can build it again. That’s the amazing thing about being an entrepreneur is we know how to make money.

Yeah. We know how to make money and sometimes we have to get scrappy, but it’s, it doesn’t feel as risky as a massive career change, you know? Right. And so we have that ability literally at our fingertips. I truly believe that we get rewarded for taking these big, brave steps. I truly believe that. And if you have had something stirring about something you don’t love, something you don’t wanna do, something you wanna try, but you’re scared, whatever, that stirring is there for a reason.

Yeah. And you really have to take action on it because you’re, you’re almost doing yourself a disservice not to, you’re not being brave enough to step into what your reality is. And now we’re getting like super woo woo. But I, I believe that like yeah, we don’t just have, for example. We have these, when we talk about like big visions for our life and like what are your ultimate dreams?

We all have different ones. Okay. So that should be really obvious that we have ones that are aligned for us, that are things that we are capable of stepping into making happen. Okay. I have never once wanted to be a doctor, wanted to be an engineer, wanted to like develop apps. Like there’s a lot of things that like I just, nah.

Yeah. Like my brain’s not even there. It’s an easy no. Yeah. Right. But then there’s things like writing a book or opening a flower shop. There’s those kinds of things that I’m like, may, maybe I could do those things. Yeah, yeah. You know, and it doesn’t mean I’m going to, but like we have unique stirrings for a reason and so, so I, so often when I coach women on this, they kind of push back on, am I just having this idea?

Because I saw somebody else do it.

Annemie: Mm-hmm.

Sabrina: Is it really my idea? And I’m like, well, sit with it for a little bit. Is it your idea? I think probably it is. Sure. You may have been inspired by somebody else. Sure. But if it’s, if it’s sticking with you, if it’s intriguing to you, if it’s, you know, perking your curiosity, it’s probably, you’re, you’ve got a version in there somewhere.

Yeah. So why not take the big, brave step and go for it? If it’s a fail, you can always pick back something else, but it’s not gonna be a fail.

Annemie: Did you, did you see that movie, everything Everywhere? All At Once? No. So that movie is a total, like people love it or they hate it. Okay. Like it’s not, there’s nobody who’s like, nah, it’s fine.

Um, I am On Team. Love it. Okay. Like, I thought it was great. But the basic premise is that, you know, there’s like in Infinite. Versions of the universe out there and in the movie they figure out a way to like hop between them. And I just thought it was like brilliantly done and the amount of creativity and sort of the number of shots and sequences that they had to film.

We’re mind boggling. But it really does get you thinking about like, could Sabrina, is there a world out there in which Sabrina opened a flower shop instead of getting into photography at all? Right. And the answer is absolutely like there are these paths not taken. And I agree with you that when you’ve got something that at one point you were really excited about.

Or you built because you felt like you needed to or whatever, and then as your own boss, you’re having to be like, come on, go do that thing. Yeah. I do feel like that is a giant red flag. And if you don’t pay attention to that red flag, the potential is for, you know, burnout, resentment, et cetera. And there’s really no excuse for that when you’re running your own business.

Sabrina: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I agree so much. I don’t wanna say you have to love every part of your business ’cause like, Nope, nobody likes the finances. That’s not real. Yeah. Nobody likes the spreadsheets, nobody likes the whatever. But if you don’t like the big highlights of your business and the majority of what you, you’re doing the main doing the thing you’re selling.

Yeah. Somethings wrong. Yeah. Like. Being an entrepreneur is freaking hard. And if you’re not happy most of the time, what are you even doing? Yeah. Like why? Why you need to really have a heart to heart with yourself about like, why did I get into this again? What do I wanna be doing? And honestly, on me, part of it is like we change.

Annemie: Yeah. You know, when you, and we’re creative people, so I think that we, yeah. I don’t wanna say we change, but our interests and our, yes. The things that spark our creativity shift. More rapidly than is convenient sometimes.

Sabrina: Yeah, definitely. And you know, something you used to love or you weren’t interested in at one point, now sparks your interest in this new season of life.

Let yourself explore it and if you love it, like it’s okay to make pivots and put things down and pick things up and, and also like decide that you don’t wanna be a photographer anymore ’cause you’d rather open a flower shop. Like that’s cool too. I mean, I, I just, people. Get stuck in the rut of this is what I created, it’s working, I have to keep doing it.

And that is absolutely false.

Annemie: Be, uh, mindful of the bills that you have to pay and all that sort of thing, but don’t be overly mindful of them if you can’t afford to go open a flower shop. Go work part-time at a flower shop in between photography gigs to, uh, to figure out if that’s a course that you wanna follow and do so responsibly.

Yeah, that’s my little, uh, caveat at the end. Oh. Uh, Sabrina, you are just always such a joy to chat with. I loved this. It’s really got my wheels turning about. Of course, we all have that one thing and I’m like. Oh, she’s calling me out so hard on it, so I’m gonna have to go do some deep thinking about that after this.

Uh, but in the meantime, let everybody know where they can find you, follow you, all the, all the things.

Sabrina: Yeah, you can definitely find me on Instagram. I spend a lot of time there. I, I still am one of the people that enjoys it over there, so come say hi. At Sabrina Ghar Photography, send me a dm. Tell me you loved our, our chat.

Uh, ami, anytime I’m on your podcast or you’re on my podcast, I get more messages about like, when are you and Ami gonna collaborate on something? I could listen to the two of you all day, and then when you and me and Coley to the podcast together, that was like the trifecta of messages. Yeah. Of like. What universe can we do something with you three?

I mean, it is wild. So, uh, yeah, I do feel like there’s

Annemie: like

Sabrina: some

Annemie: magic with the three of us. Oh, there is. It is really fun.

Sabrina: There is. I already have my wheels turning if y’all don’t. So

Annemie: that big space in the fall. Exactly. Exactly. Dun, dun, dun. Cool. Oh, man. All right, well I will let you go and I will talk to you soon.

Thanks for having me. Thank you. Bye.

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.