What if the key to financial success is your mindset? This episode is the fourth in a mini-series all about money: spending it, saving it, and changing your mindset around it. My guest today is D’Arcy Benicosa, six-figure photographer and business mentor. We’re diving into how your money mindset determines your success, how creativity is tied to wealth, and what happens to your finances when you have clarity in your 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 Image Salon, a high-touch partner available to outsource your photo editing and get your time back. I have been working with Image Salon for years, and I love the hours that it gives back to me. Use code SABRINA50 at checkout to save fifty percent on one standard turnaround order. Let this be your sign to outsource your editing and get your time back today.
Review the Show Notes:
Get to know D’Arcy (1:59)
Your mindset determines your business success (3:41)
The starving artist (8:18)
Masculine and feminine energies in your business (12:59)
Building in the time to support yourself (17:43)
Money loves clarity (22:38)
Money loves speed (33:31)
The first step to develop a positive money mindset (36:45)
Rapid-fire questions (38:16)
Connect with D’Arcy:
Episode Links:
Review the Transcript:
Sabrina Gebhardt
Welcome back to the shoot it straight podcast my friends. Today is a really great interview with my new friend Darcy Bennett cosa. I had the privilege of meeting Darcy back at the photo native conference earlier this year and we connected on so many levels we see eye to eye and have the same heart for photographers and female creatives. Today, we’re chatting about money mindset, we’re talking about how your mindset determines your business success. We’re talking about creativity and wealth. And what happens when you have clarity in your business. Trust me you want to listen, this is such a great episode. Let’s get started. Welcome to the shoot it straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gephardt. Here I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur. while balancing business motherhood and life. myself along with my guests will get vulnerable, their honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in yet willing to talk about the hard stuff to to shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight. Welcome back to the shoot it straight podcast friends, it is so good to see you. Earlier this year, I got to meet today’s guest in person at the photo native conference. And I had followed her online for a very long time. So it was really fun to get to meet her. And we connected and we have so many similar thoughts and beliefs about women and business and mindset and all these things. And so we got to chatting and decided that we needed to get on the podcast together. So here we are today. Before we dive in, I’m going to let my special guest introduce herself to the audience. She probably doesn’t need an introduction. But let’s just be a little bit formal and let you go ahead and do that. Hi, everybody.
D’Arcy Benincosa
It’s so good to be here. It’s so lovely to be here with you, Sabrina. I’m Darcy Benincasa, I’m a destination wedding photographer. I’m a marketer, I am a branding strategist for creative entrepreneurs. And one of the things that I love doing the most is helping women make money. And I have been doing that for a very long time. And it’s kind of my superpower. And so I just love talking about money, how to bring more in how to price things, how to structure things, how to get your mindset, right around, moving more into maybe higher priced items, you know, maybe higher packages, things like that, like removing the barrier of thought, and feeling that can hold you back from making more money in your business.
Sabrina Gebhardt
I love it. i It’s such a fun topic. And this is what you spoke out if Oh donative. And I actually pulled out my notes before our call today, because I was going through some of the things you said, and I just had so many there were so many nuggets, and I don’t want to get into the whole talk. But we’re definitely going to bring some of them up today. So one thing that you said that I loved so much, and I have this underlined like three times in my notebook is that the money mindset of a business owner determines the financial success of the business. And I was like, Oh, dang, that is so good. I loved that point. And I think it’s a great place to start today. Because I feel like money mindset gets thrown around. And it’s kind of like this hip term that everybody’s using in the last couple of years. But I don’t think everybody really understands what it is. So will you explain kind of what your money mindset is, and then how you think it relates to the success of a business owner?
D’Arcy Benincosa
Yeah, so we could even just say, your mindset, the mindset of the business owner determines the face of the business in some form or another. Our businesses are an extension of ourselves, how we see ourselves how we value ourselves, how we speak about ourselves, how much confidence we have, how many gifts we’ve been able to see and one of the systemic issues with women because of just society is for a lot of times our voices have not been safe to be heard we it hasn’t been felt safe to be seen. It hasn’t felt safe to own land or build a seven figure business are all of these things. And so money mindset is really do I wake up every day and make thoughts and decisions based on abundance or based on scarcity. Another way that we could say this in the hippie world is do I make thoughts and decisions based on love or based on fear? And 85% of the population makes decisions based on fear and scarcity. And when you can become one of those 15% who makes their decisions based on a button Since wealth and love, then everything starts to shift in your business. For example, it let’s put it down even to like running a Facebook ad, if you’re in scarcity, you’re going to think of the lowest common amount that you could possibly spend to maybe make $1. But then, but you probably won’t even run a Facebook ad because you’re gonna get in your way and say, Oh, this didn’t work for month one, I coach a lot of people through Facebook ads, I coach a lot of people through marketing strategies, as well as abundant thinking. And if it doesn’t work month one, oh my gosh, I wasted $300, I can’t do this again, instead of an abundant mindset is for every $2, I invest, I get $6 back. So it is worth continuing on to understand the algorithm to understand the ads to understand this thing. It’s a very basic thing. But even the mindset of I’m about to send the proposal I shoot very high end luxury weddings. So my proposals, the lowest amount that I’m going to charge is a five figure fee, right? So I used to shoot weddings for 800 1500. And I made a really big leap from $4,000 weddings to $10,000 weddings, actually, in a period of six weeks. And a lot of it was my mindset, because my talent was there. I had been photographing for years, I was very aware, I’m I am not an advocate of somebody just charging somebody $10,000 And they don’t have the talent, the skill set the mastery to back it up. That’s not abundance that’s going to bite you in the butt. So we need to make sure we are becoming the people, the women who can operate a business through the lens of abundance instead of through fear and scarcity. And like I said, for only 4% of businesses in the entire American in the entire USA, will make it to a seven figure paycheck and will last more than five years. I’ve been in business for 12 years, and I’ve hit seven figures multiple times so that I do fully attribute to the way I think about money, wealth and abundance. Yeah,
Sabrina Gebhardt
I think people don’t realize how many decisions and thoughts they have throughout the day that you can point back to scarcity or fear, right. And they think it’s just the bigger things, right, like being able to say I’m scared to make this decision. I’m scared to try this new thing, when really, it really lies under so much of what we do our language, how we talk to ourselves, the offers that we create, when we’re creating offers out of fear, because oh my gosh, my calendars empty or nobody’s booking, I’ve got to throw up this sale or slash my prices or do discounts. That’s all out of fear and worry, right? And people don’t realize that it really does sit with all of our thoughts, you know, and it’s not just the big decisions that we need to work on leaning into abundance, and that positivity and that love, like you said, but it’s all the little stuff too. It’s all the underlying threads of our day to day. So taking this thought about money mindset and financial business success a little bit further, when you think about the photographer’s that you coach, which is so many you coach, so many photographers, is there a particular mindset piece that you feel like is super, like the most common the one that comes up for like everybody that you work with?
D’Arcy Benincosa
Yes, it’s the starving artist. That because I love what I do so much nobody would ever pay me very much to do it and I will do it for free. And while you do want to love what you do so much the starving artists archetype mentality is hurting the entire industry because when you’re, you know, in a same in the same area and somebody’s charging $1,000 for a photoshoot and another person is charging 100 The artist world is really interesting because we have very big discrepancies in what we can charge. Whereas my sister who is an accountant, she’s pretty in line with what all accountants charge generally lawyers unless they’re celebrity lawyers, they charge a similar hourly rate within a couple $100 and it will of course depend on skill set and and you know where they’re focused on. But with artists we’ve just got this like empty plate of, well, I could do a family photo shoot for $99 I once God bless Utah, there was a photographer who was doing family photos for $39 No, now I don’t know what will. She’s not in business anymore. Let’s just say that because of course happens when you when you are not charged doing enough is you take on way too much you get way too burned out, you don’t serve your clients well, and things really start to fall apart. And that is scarcity. Scarcity is when you take on so much work more than you could actually possibly handle. A lot of artists do not know how to say no, anytime a job comes in, they say yes. Why? Because they’re in scarcity because they don’t charge enough because they need to. So what is the biggest issue in our, in our industry right now overwhelm, and burnout, they’re burnt out, they’re overwhelmed, they’re too much, they want to zone out, they want to watch Netflix, they are doing everything that is actually pushing the money away. So they are, they are sacrificing long term success for short term reward, the short term reward might be that $99 client or a $500 session, but the long term would be serving the clients that you have up leveling them, understanding your capacity, and actually utilizing your creativity to draw and magnetize your clients to you. Creativity and wealth, creativity and money are the exact same energy, they are birthed from the exact same parts of our body, they have such similar energy. So when you are being creative, you are in the zone of bringing wealth into you. But what happens is so many people get burned out, they lose their creative edge. They don’t take creative photos, they’re shooting, they’re shooting and spraying. They’re they’re doing the same thing again and again. And they’re starting to lose their passion. And they think, oh my gosh, if I photograph one more wedding bouquet, I’m gonna die because I don’t like this anymore. Whereas I really foster my creativity in a lot of ways. I scheduled it into my life because I need creative shoots, I need to branch out into what feeds me, because that will feed me money monetarily wise, like it’s the same energy. It’s the same circulation.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, I love that you said creativity and wealth are of the same energy. And you can totally feel when you’re in that energy. Because it’s that flow, it’s that ease, it’s that it feels good. And the right clients are coming and you’re getting all green lights, and you’re creating work that you love. And it feels like this is too easy, right? But I feel like what happens is, then we get sucked into the masculine energy of but we have to do all these things, right? We have to do all these things for our business to be quote unquote successful. And so then we get sucked into like the the excess, the overwork the saying yes to too many things, the not being willing to pay people to help support you having to do all the things yourself, it’s that masculine energy have to be legitimate. I have to do this, it can’t feel easy, right? Whereas the feminine energy is the creative, the flow, the passion. And it’s so interesting to see so many female photographers start their business that way, right? They’re passionate about images, they’re creative, they feel drawn to a certain genre, but then they let themselves get sucked into that masculine energy and dictated by this is how it has to be you have to say yes to things you have to charge a certain rate you have to do that. And that’s where that overwhelm comes in. Like you said that the taking on more than we can handle. Yeah, I
D’Arcy Benincosa
mean, overwhelm can come in masculine and feminine energy, both because women can really overwhelm themselves with their perfectionism, which is a feminine, it can be a feminine trait, they can overwhelm themselves with self doubt, with overthinking with not understanding their own emotions with burying their emotions, an artist in a feminine space, she feels her emotions she gives into that flow, she has specific creativity, what happens is oftentimes she’ll not use the masculine I have coached just as many creatives in toxic feminine energy as I have an embed masculine energy, a supportive masculine energy holds the container. He is the structure, our businesses do need more structure, I do need to check my website stats once a month and understand what’s happening. I do need to understand how to save for my own retirement and invest money and not just tell myself, I’m not a numbers person, which is what I told myself for years. And as an artist, I do need to understand that this is the pay structure. This is how I send contracts out. This is how I bring money in and I don’t show up to a shoot without a deposit paid, right. So both masculine and feminine are there to hold us to protect us. It’s like we need the structure. But yeah, you take it to an extreme and it’s burnout. It’s hustle it’s feels bad. It’s B and then and then what happens when you’re too much in your masculine your relation Ship if your relationship is with a man is going to be very strained, it’s not going to have any chemistry, you’re going to lose out on a beautiful love life because you’re going to you guys won’t be attracted to each other anymore because there’s not that like, polarity. Right? And that’s a whole other topic that I did not explain enough in this. So don’t come for me with that. Because there’s, there’s a lot about gender. And there’s a lot about, like, you can change masculine and feminine energy and all of that. Yeah, we’re not going to talk about but yeah, so I think that I just bring it down to one question, and you have to get really, really truthful is what is my actual capacity, and what is the life I want. So for me, when I stopped working 24/7, I want to be out of the office by four or five. And I don’t really want to work Fridays. So I do more of a four day, sometimes three day workweek, I am very structured in that time, I am very productive. I do not, I do not get on my phone, I parent myself, I don’t get distracted, I don’t waste hours on social media I am I am productive. And though that is a good amount of time for me to be productive. We’re on the, you know, Sundays I want no schedule I want to sleep in however I want. Yes, I’m childless, I know, I get to do these these awesome things. But like, I want to bake, I want to have family over I want to be in a communal space. So I have to know what I need to perform at my best. And that is a facial a month, that is massages after every wedding that I shoot that is you know different things. And once you understand what you your needs are, which many women don’t even know what their needs are, what their needs are and their wants, then you find a way to meet that. And you do that by having a very supportive structure of your business. And like you said, you have to believe that it’s possible, you have to have that mindset of if it’s possible for somebody else, it’s possible for me, and this is how I’m going to set up my own success.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Right? I love that. That’s one of the same things that I coach a lot of women on as well is the understanding what your capacity is. And that capacity is going to change from woman to woman and also from Season of Life to season of life. Right? The energy you have now versus the energy you have when you are a newlywed versus the energy you have when you have a baby versus the energy you have when you’re an empty nester, I mean, it all fluctuates, right. And it’s so important to evaluate what it is now, but then also hold it loosely and allow for it to shift as things shift. And the capacity, I love how you said building in the time to support yourself. Because that is a huge part, you can know what your capacity is in your schedule, like the hours that you are available, and when you can work. And when you cannot, that if you don’t also account for the time and the space to support yourself, that capacity starts to shift because that’s when you get bored with what you’re doing. You’re not taking care of yourself, you’re overwhelmed, maybe not in your business, but in all of the other parts of your life, you know, and women think it’s frivolous, they have a hard time understanding that taking care of yourself. And creating space to support yourself is part of what helps you thrive and be at your best for the people around you and for your business. Right. Yeah, it’s a really
D’Arcy Benincosa
old idea that we have to do it. All right, I had, I was coaching somebody the other day, and she’s a new mom. And she’s like, Hey, I hired a nanny for nine hours a week. But I should be able to do it all I’m like, Honey, you need to get her for 18. Like I don’t I don’t know, old idea that we have to do all that we can’t share our emotions that that we just have to wear all the hats. I really think those ideas, those old structures are crumbling, and we’re the ones crumbling them. Every time we self care. Every time we make a solid business decision that offloads some of the things we don’t love doing, then we are able to step more into what we do love doing, we are able to step more into our creativity. And from there every idea of how to bring wealth or money into your life can come because you’ve given it space to come in, when it’s full of everything, every schedule, every meal, every everything and at the end of the day, you just fall into bed and you don’t even remember that you’re human or that you’re a woman or that you have dreams bigger than what you’re doing. Yeah, it just keeps you stuck, you know, like you. feminine energy is flow. And so many people get really stuck because they don’t know how to allow or give permission for themselves to step into the next version of themselves. And you know what the next version of yourself often includes as being a leader, it often includes delegation, it often includes that Queen energy of somebody who knows how to run an empire. Instead of being the employee, you become the CEO. And most CEOs treat themselves like an employee, they’re doing every single task every single thing, and your business cannot grow with your energy stuck in that position.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Today’s episode is brought to you by image salon. Image salon is a high touch partner to outsource your photo editing and get your time back. I have been working with image salon for years to outsource my editing. In fact, I just submitted my 490/5 order. If you do the rough math on that, each order saves me about three hours of editing time, that is 1485 hours saved. That’s more than 185 work days, that’s six months of work days, getting all that time back has allowed me to do so much more with my life. In some seasons, I use that spare time to be with my family. In other seasons, I use that extra time to take on more clients. And most recently, I have used all this extra time to build my education platform, so that I can pour into coaching other photographers and creatives just like you. Now, years later, I literally cannot fathom doing all of my own editing, I love the support that image salon gives me and I love all the hours that allows me to spend doing things that matter to me and my business. If you use code Sabrina 50. At checkout, you can save 50% on one standard turnaround order. This can be used for both new and existing clients. So let this be your sign to outsource your editing and get your time back. There’s a couple of other things that I had written down from your photo native presentation that I want to make sure to bring up because again, it was such a great chat, it was such a great chat. So looking over my notes, there, you had a list of things that Money loves. And I’m not going to go through the whole list, but two of them really jumped out at me that I want to chat on today. So the two things that I’m going to bring up are Money loves clarity and Money loves speed, those two jump out specifically because I know that my students and myself can get stucked in those two really, really easily. So I want to have you speak on them a little bit more. So let’s start with the first one. What do you mean by Money loves clarity? Ah,
D’Arcy Benincosa
well, it’s just as simple as I want to make this amount of money. And I’m really this, this is what I want. Just choosing a path, you know, and and then going all in on that path. Creatives have a really hard time on this, because they really could do 27 things and be very happy. They could take family photos, they could take weddings, they could be a planner, they could be a florist, like I could be all of those things. And when you get really clear on what it is you are offering and what it is you are serving. And even if we take work out of it, be very clear what you want in life. And you need to pick a path and give everything to that path. And a lot of people hesitate. They deliberate, they are uncertain. Oh, what should I do? But is this the right choice. But is this the right choice until you make a choice. Not making a choice is a choice. And not making a choice keeps you in limbo. It keeps you out of the energetic path of what you could attract if you go all in. And so I remember a very real time in my photography business where the wedding increase stopped coming in. And I was killing it. I had been shooting a ton. I was making like half a million dollars just as a photographer, which is kind of insane. And it just stopped. And I but I knew that it was time for me to move into the educational space. I knew I had the reputation to do it. I knew that I would be a killer business coach like all of these things, I had the maturity have the expertise, I’d already grow my own business to half a million just by shooting weddings, like that alone is pretty big. So when they stopped I could have either freaked out which I did for a week I’m like why is going great. You know, I used to get like to date and and literally everything stopped. Now to me. That was my highest self that was co creation with the universe saying we’re gonna give you this time of not shooting to develop your educational system and I had an I picked the path and I went full and I hired a coach. She was the most amount of money I’ve ever spent on anything she was $12,000 for like a four month package and I did everything she said, because she was already having an incredible coaching business. She had been a photographer, she was coaching. Within two months, I created the website, I created the offer, I was clear on what I was doing, I was clear on who I was serving, I put the time aside, I lived off my savings. And I did everything. And the week I launched it, I made $21,000 and booked, like, I can’t remember five or six clients, something like that. I thought, oh my gosh, and within six months, or four months, something like that I had added almost 150k in revenue. And by the end of the year, almost like 300k in revenue just from developing the coaching aspect. Now, that’s what I mean by clarity, you you, you could either deliberate. And I could have pushed back and been like I need to book more weddings, I need to book more weddings, or I could have, which is what I did realize this was happening for me. I wasn’t being punished, I wasn’t a bad marketer, there was an obvious shift in why the energy needed to change. And I went full force in it. And the clarity around that has now built my seven figure business. And my coaching business, I will say alone is seven figures. So I also still do photography. And that is a six figure business as well. And my workshops, which had been a six figure business. So when you talk about capacity, I actually have a lot of capacity to do a lot. I do a lot more than most people. I don’t have children or anything like that. So I do work a lot. But I really enjoy and I am I have the capacity to create a lot of things. Not everybody’s creation and things like that look different and time of life looks really different to
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, yeah. I love that. And I love how you said, not making a choice not making a decision is making a decision, right? Being willing to stay in indecision and stay in that, which I do. There’s a fear piece there. There’s also a scarcity piece there of what if it won’t work? What if I can’t do it? What if I fail, you know, the worry, the negativity, and just taking one step forward, just pick a path, just pick a path, it does not have to be something that you’re married to forever? I think so many creatives get stuck on that like, Well, I mean, am I sure that I’m going to want to do this, it doesn’t matter. Just go all in and go after that thing. And you can change your mind later. Like you can choose another path later if it’s not working out the way you want. Or if it doesn’t feel the way you want or whatever. But taking one step forward in clarity and making a decision is what gets the momentum going. Right, it gets you out of that stuck space.
D’Arcy Benincosa
Yeah. And I would say you have to make the decision from your heart because your heart does know where you want. Most of the time, like 95% of the time, you do know what you want to decide. But then your head tricks you and you go into this place of not trusting yourself or trusting your heart or trusting your gut. So I a phrase that I say often to myself is I make good decisions, and I trust all of them. Even if that means I went down a path. I mean, I made a decision that felt very true. In March, it was supposed to lead to this epic contract. And within the period of doing it, it totally fell apart. But what happened was, I learned so much about the person I was partnering with, because they’re very similar to me. But I don’t want to say they went to the dark side, but they kind of went to the dark side, like this was in a therapy coaching modality. And I almost promoted him on my podcast, and I was almost partnering with him in business. Now our intuition our gut is not when we follow it doesn’t mean it’s always going to turn out perfectly. What it means is we’re going to learn the lessons we need to learn. And even though that didn’t, quote unquote, make me several million dollars, which is what I thought it was going to do. It taught me a lot of things about the next level of my business, that I’m creating a next level of integrity that I need to have really solid awarenesses around people behavior, that I cannot recognize that I don’t make these mistakes, again, all of these things. So sometimes we make a decision and it doesn’t, quote unquote, work out. But I believe life is always working for you. It is always moving towards where you need to be. And at the end of the day, building a seven figure business I could care less at this point about lots and lots of money. That’s what happens when you make lots and lots of money. It’s one of those things that everybody’s like, well, I want to make lots and lots of money first before I learned this lesson, good. Go make lots and lots of money. And you’re gonna realize money is not the thing. It’s who you are becoming. It’s who what in you gets developed that highest self of becoming a leader. Understanding how to make decisions, understanding how to trust yourself, understanding how things work. Like, the person you become along the road of your business is so beautiful as long as you can free her from overwhelm, and exhaustion and doing all the things and let her move to the next level of her evolution. Yeah, the whole point of what we’re doing here.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I, I talked about this the same thing and my photo native talk about your heart is telling you one thing, your brain is telling you another thing. And oftentimes, our brain is lying to us, because it’s created to protect us from quote, unquote, danger. And anything new is dangerous. And we need to lean into exactly what you said, trusting our heart, trusting our gut, that thought that passion, that idea is there for a reason. And like you said, it may not be the magical end all be all, but there’s something in it for you. There’s something there that you are meant to experience, go through whatever, and it’s always on the path to the thing that is yours. Right. So I love that, that we’re on the same page with that, I think it’s I think it’s so important. I think it’s so important that like, listening to your heart. And that’s such a woowoo thing, which I know that you and I love, but like a lot of people hear that and they’re like, okay, okay, but I’m going to stick with facts. And my brain tells me it’s not safe, when in reality. And this is exactly how I coach women through this is, but you are still safe. If you think about the worst case scenario and your situation where you thought you had this great contract. And you were excited about what the potential was, and all these things, and then it fell apart. Worst case scenario, was Darcy still safe? Was Darcy still fed? Was she still taking care of you know what I mean? Like the core stuff is still okay. You’re still okay. Like the worst case scenario oftentimes, is not really that horrible. You know,
D’Arcy Benincosa
the worst case scenario for anybody generally, in America listening to a podcast on a phone, exactly is going to be better than 99% of what most of the planet’s worst case scenario is. I mean, I would just move back in with my parents. And my mom would make me like oatmeal every morning. Yeah, their guest bedroom, and I would start again, you know, it’d
Sabrina Gebhardt
be fine. Yeah.
D’Arcy Benincosa
When you look at that, I’m like, Yeah, nothing, nothing can. Yeah, you just you really lose the fear. And I think it’s crazy that people are not into their hearts, you really think people would be like, but your heart and this is where we’re going. This is where our planet is moving to. Everything is starting to become heart centered. And that’s how people are going to make their buying decisions. You know, they’re not making their buying decisions right now on who’s the best photographer because there’s so many good photographers, there’s so many epic cameras that make even a mediocre photographer kind of pretty good. There are so many editing software’s that make your images look like the the talent and skill it used to take is not as needed, I still think you want to go down that path of being as talented and masterful as you can. But what makes people’s buying decisions is how they’re connecting with you, how they like you how your energy feels to them. And so if you are stressed and burned out and overwhelmed, you are going to repel people who want the experience that you could give them if you you know surrendered a little bit, some of those things that are making you so stressed.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Yeah, I love that so much. Before we wrap up, I do want to have you touch on really quickly. The Money loves speed. Because I think that is well I don’t I’m gonna let you get into it. I don’t want to say anything first. So will you explain to me this concept that Money loves speed? Yeah, I
D’Arcy Benincosa
realized that when I got really clear, the money comes in very fast. And I had this, you know, I had been working for a year I quit my school teaching job, it was making 50k. And I had made like 100,000k in a year where I had made 50. So I’m like, Oh my gosh, I just doubled my income. And I have this crazy idea. I was like I’m gonna make $30,000 in a month. I’ve never done something like that. And I got very clear on how I was going to do it. And I kind of got out of my own way. And every day I showed up in the energy that this was coming to me in the energy and this is kind of beginning stages of when you start to realize oh, I can attract money, I can do this thing. It becomes more nuanced, the more experience we get. But by the end of that month, I had made like $33,000 or something like that. And then I realized that came in so fast as soon as I got out of the way so I played the game again the next month. When you are clear things will come quickly. And if the only reason they won’t come quickly is it is now time for a life lesson that you need to learn. I needed to learn that I could start my coaching business and that is why the wedding inquiry stopped. They did not stop because I was not interested. mindset, I wasn’t attracting all these things, you know, it didn’t stop because of that. And I think people have to get very careful because of the thing they’re trying to manifest or trying to bring in, doesn’t happen. They start to blame themselves when sometimes it’s divine that it didn’t happen. But for the most part, you have to go through the lessons of learning how to bring money in quickly how to open, how to open the gates to it. In you know, that $30,000 month, couple years later in my business, I decided to have another big month, and I ended up generating $300,000 in a month 30,000 3000 300,000. If you are aligned, if you have the skill set, I have to just say that because this is not going to come if you just are trying to manifest it by thinking positive thoughts, you have to develop a skill set, you need to be a trained professional, you need to have something that gets people results, you need to like you need to have that foundation, and then you partner it with your mindset. And money has a lot of characteristics and clarity and speed are two of my favorite ones. So you can generate, if you put your mind to it, and you start diving in. And this is where a good coach can help you understand what offer people buy, understand how to run an ad to understand all these things, you can explode, you can get big you can bring in those things faster than you think you can.
Sabrina Gebhardt
So I’m going to ask you one final question. You coach women in this capacity all the time, this is what you do, and you do it so well. And you do it in a coaching container. But you also kind of do it on Instagram and on your podcast. And you just love to teach people through this. So I would love to know where you start with someone who is really struggling in this mindset space, someone enters your world, and she is stuck in scarcity and lack of clarity. She’s in that negative fear spiral, but she knows there’s something more what’s the first thing you do to help her through that.
D’Arcy Benincosa
The first thing is we’re going to make money a game. And I have this beautiful training called the seven day money mindset makeover. It’s free. I pop in your audio, uh, you know, it’s just an audio that you play for 20 minutes each morning, and I slowly start to show you the patterns you currently have about money and how you can change the pattern, change the thought. And when you’re in fear and scarcity, you’re in an emotion, right, because of the thought you were thinking. So if we can change the thought you think, then we change the emotion. If we change the emotion, we change the action. That’s the way to transformation you are a transformational coach. I’m a transformational coach. I mean, I teach marketing, I teach all these things. But at the end, we’re trying to get you to transform your negative patterns into ones that are supportive. So we change the thought, the emotion changes, different decisions are made. And that’s how you get out of your scarcity and fear. So yeah, just the seven day money mindset makeover is an awesome place. It’s just on the website. We can link it in the show notes. It’s a really fun one to start with.
Sabrina Gebhardt
And love that. Yes, that will definitely be linked in the notes. So I always like to end with a couple of fun rapid fire questions, and I would love to know Darcy what’s your favorite coffee shop? Order tea coffee? What are you getting?
D’Arcy Benincosa
Yeah, I don’t do tea or coffee because I’m already just so full of energy that if the one time I’ve taken caffeine, I turned into such a bi tch that’s like I can’t ever do this again. But I love a good croissant pastry any day. I don’t I don’t want to support a chain but I’m doing high protein foods right now. So the eight bytes from Starbucks are like my go to when I’m out and I’m like I need food. I never thought I’d be that person that that’s what I would get. Okay, I love it. Like I would get like a really nice English breakfast tea.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Oh, yes. So I always ask everybody about their dream vacation and this is going to be complicated for you because you’re so well traveled. But I’m going to ask it anyways. So is there a place you haven’t been yet that you’re dying to go or a favorite place? That Money’s no object? You get to go away alone or with friends or family? Where are you going?
D’Arcy Benincosa
Yeah, for me now because I have seen most of the world it’s about who I’m with. So I’m planning this really fun 10 day adventure in Iceland with a campervan with one of my dear friends and we’re just so excited. We just did all the research or I’ve been to Iceland once but it was during my hustle phase and I just showed up I shot for three days. I didn’t really get a go like hiking or anything like that and I’m like I gotta redo this so Iceland’s definitely at the top of the list I have a dream to be in Finland in those crystal clear igloos and watch the Northern Lights. I have a I’m have a Estonia going on, I really want to do some shoots in Estonia. And then I have this road trip planned from Croatia, to Slovenia, up to Budapest, Hungary, and then end in Vienna, which is one of the things that I’m hoping to do next year.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Wow, that’s so exciting. That’s so exciting. Okay, if you think back over the course of your business from starting as a photographer, and then working your way to where you are now, what is the biggest decision or investment that you feel like was a game changer for you?
D’Arcy Benincosa
I think just, there’s so many good ones. I do think moving to New York City, and really giving myself the chance to be around the art, the fashion, the kinds of clients that I wanted, not saying that everybody has to move, because now I operate really beautifully out of Utah, I moved back here about a home. But moving to New York City, and I just hustled so much, but in like a really beautiful way. And I did I had a chance to collaborate with so many artists, and I was really inspired. And then the other one was right when I quit my job 2013 I saved up a bunch of money. And I went to Europe and I went to like four different countries. And I did styled shoots all over and I came back and I dripped that content for one year. So it looked like I was actively in Europe for a very long time. I didn’t let them all go out at once. And that right there solidified me as a destination wedding photographer, which is now allowed me to travel and shoot in over 53 countries like from that I booked weddings in Singapore, I have shot a wedding in Iceland. I have been, you know, to, you know, Thailand at the Four Seasons, like so many beautiful weddings all across the world, which is exactly what I wanted at that time and really investing in those shoots, and really being strategic about how I marketed those shoots. biggest game changer ever.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Oh, I love that so much. Okay, last question. If you were not in the high end, destination wedding space slash business coaching, what do you think you’d be doing?
D’Arcy Benincosa
I would be living on the coast of Ireland writing erotic novels. I love that. That’s probably coming in the next four years. I’m going to retire.
Sabrina Gebhardt
I love that so much. You knew exactly. You know exactly what it was. I love it. I
D’Arcy Benincosa
have a lover that just chops wood and makes me fire and he’s probably a sheep herder. I don’t know very good looking. I just live in romance stories. I think it’s why I’m so good at weddings is I love romance. I love being in love. I love having loving experiences. The cool thing about not being married, you know, there’s always the past, you know, the grass is greener. So I’ve had a lot of different lovers. I’ve had a lot of different experiences. I’ve had a lot of different romantic things in Paris. And I just had a great one in Greece earlier this year. So I would be writing the ultimate romantic novels from oh
Sabrina Gebhardt
my gosh, I love that I can totally see that for you to Darcy. Again. This was such a fun chat. I love getting to connect with you on the podcast. Before we go, why don’t you go ahead and share with the audience where people can connect with you?
D’Arcy Benincosa
Well, the awesome thing is, there’s nobody else named RC Ben and cosa. So it’s Darcy Ben and cosa.com. You just might have a hard time spelling it. But I am on Instagram. And that’s where I connect with Sabrina and so many people and just share a lot of things there. So that’s a great place to start and just get the seven day money mindset makeover. Listen to it briefly. It’s going to just help you start to see the world in a different view and get out of that fear and scarcity and into the abundance thinking.
Sabrina Gebhardt
I love it. Thank you so much for being here. My friend was great to see you. So good to
D’Arcy Benincosa
see you. Thank you. Thank you. I love everything you do. Your audience is so amazing. And you have so much beautiful energy that you put out into the world. I just I love it. And I’m so grateful to be here. Thank you.
Sabrina Gebhardt
Thank you. See you next time friends. Thanks so much for listening to the shoot it straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode at Sabrina gebhardt.com backslash podcast. Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gebhart 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
