It’s the first week of summer, and you’re running a household and a business. It can feel like a lot, but you want it to feel easy. How do you do it? In this episode, I’m going to share with you my approach to creating a summer of ease and grace that allows me to spend quality time with my family and still show up for my clients.
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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Review the Show Notes:
The key to surviving summer (3:21)
Getting clear on what you want summer to look like (4:29)
You don’t need to be a “yes” Mom (5:38)
Be honest and vulnerable with your clients (7:34)
Episode Links:
Episode 30: Successful Summer Planning
Review the Transcript
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 through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there. If you’re trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in yet willing to talk about the hard stuff to to shoot it straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight. Welcome back to another episode of the shoot it straight podcast. Well, it’s the first week of summer, you have a business and kids and a household. Maybe you already have a summer nanny lined up, you probably have camps and vacations planned. You have tiny humans that are vying for your attention and are already telling you that they’re bored, and you have a business. And it needs to be taken care of. And clients that need to hear back from you. It can feel like a lot. But in the back of your mind, you want somewhere to feel easy. You want somewhere to feel like the break that it is. You want pool days and lazy mornings and vacations filled with laughter. You want to feel creatively inspired and like your days can slow down. You want to enjoy not having carpool or sports or homework.
So how do we balance these two things? How do we let ourselves have a summer that feels easy and beautiful, while also managing our household and our business. I’m going to fill you in with what I’ve done in the last few years. It’s not rocket science. But my hope is that this will feel almost like the start of summer pep talk that I hope that will be said 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 map 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, and 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. The key to this for me, for the past few years has been all about grace. I give myself more grace during the summer than any other time of year. Sure, I try and create the perfect summer schedule filled with lots of open pockets so that I can say yes, and to slow down. I also try and plan intentional pockets to work and to buckle down and do things that need to be done. But at the end of the day, Grace has been the answer. Some days turn into one big yes, where we swim all day and then visit the ice cream truck and then go to Target for a new game and end with a movie. And other days are filled with my kids in front of screens entertaining themselves. Because I feel really motivated to knock out this special project that I’ve been working on. It’s all about setting the best of intentions and then holding them very loosely.
It’s not holding them with a tight white knuckle grip. It’s about not expecting perfection, not expecting the days to go exactly as you planned. But instead it’s about creating intentional plans, and then holding your plans so loosely, that it’s totally fine if it goes completely off the rails. So back in episode 30. I talked all about successful summer planning. Surprisingly, that episode was almost two months ago. That is how far in advance I start thinking about what I want our summer to look like. And for me with my kids ages and in our particular season of life. The main priority for our summer is memory making. My oldest only has three summers left at home before she’s off to college. So I’m trying to soak up all of the memory making possible while still keeping things in my life and my business afloat. Oh, that means a lot of grace. When the kids all get invited to playdates at the same time, I buckled down, and I use the quiet of my house to hustle and get things done. And when I know that they’re off doing fun things at a summer day camp or with grandparents, again, I sneak away to my office and buckled down. But when they’re at home asking me to play a game, or get out the bubble machine, or throw the football, or go on a bike ride, or go out for lunch, or take them shopping, or to go swim, I want to be able to say yes, and not feel weighed down by a schedule or a system or rhythm that I created. It’s all about grace.
Now hear me when I say this, I am not a 100%. Yes, mom in the summer, I still say no to a lot of things. It is hot as heck in Texas in the summer, and there are days when I don’t want to leave the comfort of my air conditioned home. There are days when I’m crabby. And I don’t want to say yes, there are days where I’m exhausted and literally want to lay on the couch and veg out all day. And there are days where I have actual commitments and have to work like photo sessions, podcast interviews and coaching calls. But in all of the in between time, I try and leave room for grace, holding my plan for my day as loosely as possible. I love routines and schedules and rhythms and checklists, as much as any other Enneagram three does. And so summer truthfully, is actually really hard. For me. It’s such a fluid season where everything and every day and every week feels different than the one before. But at 43 years old, with an eight year old, a 12 year old and a 15 year old, I’m trying to appreciate how different summer feels than the rest of the year, I’m trying to teach myself to lean into the flexibility that summer can have. So if you’re anything like I used to be, and you find yourself creating a color coded and laminated summer schedule and routine chart, I would encourage you to loosen up a little bit, I would encourage you to plan out your work time and hold it loosely, I would encourage you to create more downtime so that you can say yes, I would encourage you to be flexible and work at a different time every day. If that’s what is needed to survive the summer, I would encourage you to take entire weeks off if you can, I would encourage you to have a talk with your partner about needing extra help when they’re home from work or on the weekends. I’m not exactly sure what it can look like for you. But I promise that your business will survive the summer if you run it at a slower pace, I promise that you can take care of your clients well and enjoy your children at the same time.
At the very start of summer, one of the things I do is send a newsletter to my clients, I remind them that just like they are we’re starting summer, which means travel and swimming and more time with family. And that in turn means a longer turnaround time for me, I set that expectation in advance so that they all know I’m trying to be the best summer mom just like they are I’m going to photograph their family and edit their images and going to take care of them and serve them to the best of my ability. But their gallery might take a little bit longer because I’m leaning into time with my family. And guess what, in all the years that I have been sending that newsletter, I have never, not one single time ever gotten pushback from a client about this announcement. In fact, quite the opposite. They all respond with beautiful sentiments like take your time. We’re in no rush. I love that you do this and I support you. Thank you for letting us know. It’s a beautiful thing to be honest and vulnerable with your clients. So let this episode be a little pep talk for you to lean into ease and grace the summer. Hold your business loosely say yes as much as you can to your family and your friends and to ease. Take time for yourself and enjoy the ride because your business will be there in August when school starts. It will be ready for you to buckle down and set a firm routine and schedule and really dive back in when school starts. So until then, give yourself and your business the grace that you would give others it’s a beautiful thing to truly allow yourself to slow down and enjoy summer while putting less pressure on yourself.
And that’s it for today, my friend. We’ll see you next week. 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.
