The Importance Of Being Organized

Speaker 1: 0:00

On this episode of She's crafted the thrive, our guests is photographer, Lord Neff, and talk about the importance of being organized, but let's be real. It's not really that easy for many photographers and creative entrepreneurs to get organized. We'll talk about Laura's journey to being when I called the queen of Organization and workflows and she'll share some of her tips and mindset shifts that will help you in your business

Speaker 2: 0:32

and welcome to she's crafted the thrive show for women in photography and other creative businesses. You'll hear conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain balance. As women, you have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's beer where you will see that not alone, we'll discover that's assessed as not beard. Negative thoughts and challenges are all part of the journey. On the podcast, you'll find inspiration towards me, have a life and business that thrives. Hello, Laura. I'm so excited to have you on. She's crafted to thrive. I'm super excited. I'm just so glad that we have connected like a while ago, but I'm just so happy that we've kind of stay connected and everything and I'm just so happy to have you on your like

Speaker 3: 1:24

amazeballs

Speaker 2: 1:25

amazing,

Speaker 3: 1:28

Nikita. I'm so honored and excited to be here and be on the show and talk to everybody.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Yeah, I think our, our like our paths, like as far as like what we do and why we do it are very, are very similar and that's why I think I gravitate it to you so much. I think it's wonderful what you're doing. So I'm saying this but nobody knows what I'm talking about. Maybe so please tell us a little bit about you.

Speaker 3: 1:51

Sure. Um, so my name is Laura. I live in northern New Jersey and I have two businesses. One is largely photography and would that I am a wedding photographer and a brand business owners and I absolutely love and thrive on fun loving couples who are adventurous and love to laugh. And I love creative entrepreneurs specifically for my business because I just love the storytelling aspect, have incredible stories and they're incredibly passionate about what they do. So I love being able to document that story so that they can showcase that to their audiences, showcase their passion, been doing it since 2013 was when I shot my first wedding. And I have literally since I was born in Preschool, I actually drew a picture of a camera when they, when they asked me what I wanted to do, when I was little, so prefer when I grew up and my mom was a photographer. So I think that's where that idea had come from. I just didn't really know any other career path as a dark room in my house growing up. And you have a studio in my house. So I grew up around the dark room with a camera in my hand. My mom, or probably not helping, probably in the dark room as it's Albert. So just grew up loving photography and always knowing that I want to do that. So right out of college, did my first wedding and not go to school for photography, but knew very quickly after doing interior architecture in the real world, which is what I went to school for that I knew right away after shooting my first real well, I do about 20 weddings a year and a brand sessions a year or so. I love those. Um, and then on the other side, which is my business that started in 2016 and then officially launched the website in 2017. Equip and empower and inspire people to build a profitable business and fulfilling life that is designed to help them save time and make more money ultimately so that and spend time with the people they love. So I focus on workflows and systems and productivity and time management tips and stuff like that so that people can work less, live more and really just spend more time with their family and their friends are doing things that they love or that they're passionate about. So I just got really fired up when I think about the techie when you're talking about workflows and systems and stuff. But it's so exciting when you get the feedback that somebody's got to go on date night with her husband for the first time in months during busy season, or they got to make valentines day cheats with their kids or they got to go paddle boarding or joined the gym again because of all this time savings and just this morning one of my coaching girls told me that now she's volunteering at her church and she was so fulfilled by saving time in your business just allows you to have more time to do things that you love in your life. And so that's the creative side of business. So that's the story about who I am.

Speaker 2: 5:42

It is awesome. You have so much like you do so much and it's crazy because

Speaker 3: 5:49

your photography work is beautiful. Like it's origin Arie and

Speaker 2: 5:55

sorry, I don't even know, like it's just really I the way it makes me feel when I look at it and then your business on the other side of that feels the same way, which is amazing because that means you're really connected with you. Like how you are as a person and how you are as an artist or how you are as a business owner. So I think those two businesses like marry really well, which some people can find it really hard to do those types of things and like it makes sense and people are now like, what is she doing?

Speaker 3: 6:26

Yeah, I appreciate that. That is something that I struggled with not knowing if they should be together or separate and I wanted them to kind of marry very seamlessly. So that was something that I had worked on a lot to make sure that everything kind of worked in tandem and worked with me as a person and I think that's really what it came down to. So I love you saying that. I just really focused both businesses on what my personal values are and my business values are very much the same as my personal values. So I think that's what helps both businesses work and seeing very authentic to me and similar even though they're very good.

Speaker 2: 7:06

I love it. I love it. I have the privilege of working with one of your clients, Chris. Christina and I love her to death and I was like, oh my gosh, you guys are like you. Your business is so branded. Why? So are your clients, your clients match? They match like the kind of person you are. The personality and I'm like, that is so awesome because it's so hard to accomplish in a business is working at the same like versions. Have you been in a different way? That makes any sense?

Speaker 3: 7:36

Yeah, no, it totally makes sense and I literally feel like that every day, every time I get off a coaching call with one of my clients are a mastermind call or even after my retreat, which was in June, I'm blown away at how amazing they are and you know, they say your vibe attracts your tribe and I'm just so thankful for the tribe of people that have come into my life because of both businesses and my boyfriend kind of tests. I'd probably say once a day. I'm just like, I'm just blown away by my couples and my coaching clients and my retreat girls and I just feel very thankful, so appreciate you noticing that and I'm very grateful that that's the case.

Speaker 2: 8:20

That's awesome. Well, I do want to start asking you a question and I know it's the first question I usually ask everyone and you kind of went into it a little bit when you were talking about who you are and what you do and everything, but kind of maybe dig a little bit deeper and tell them you're like, why did you pursue this path in life? Because I think that sometimes we, we grow up thinking we're going to do something and then something changes or life changes or you know, we always have those pathways where we choose to go this way or that way. And I didn't know you went to school architecture

Speaker 3: 8:56

you just said earlier. So yeah. What made you decide this? Yeah, so I'll try to merge into one story, but essentially I got into photography because I wanted to tell stories and basically, like I said, I only knew photography as a career and always had a camera on you where there was vacation or taking pictures with my friends or just like landscapes and bugs and stuff like that when I was little, so I always had a camera on me and I think it really just came down to telling stories and creating a deeper connection between me and my subjects and my subjects and each other. So that's what I tried to do with wedding clients. I always tell people, I want you to be more in love by the end of your engagement session than you were when you came in. And I feel like embarrassed, successful, authentic connection between the two of them. And so I love that. Preserves preserves people's legacies and my grandparents are a great example of why I continue to love what I do. They've been married for eight years and it just celebrated 67 years old and I am just blown away and when I get to look at their wedding pictures and their legacy and I just always had that in the back of my mind and enjoyed their story and so that ends the photography side of things. I started to get into education totally on accident, so I can't really tell a story without telling my story of burnout. I was working so like I said, I went to school for Interior architecture and it did that in the real world as a project manager at a design firm and so very quickly became the lead designer at this very, very well established architecture design build firm and I was all of a sudden at the age of 22, Managing City and Boston and London and Mexico City in Chicago and I. I was doing. I was good at design but I didn't know the construction side of things, but I had to manage 60 construction workers at a time most of the time. So I really had any organized at that job and it was really draining all of my energy. I was not cut out for hospitality design, so I ended up getting a job at a photo studio as an editor and that was basically just a stepping stone for going full time with my business. And I knew I wasn't where I needed to be financially to be full time photography and kind of get out of design into the photography realm. At least it was a commercial studio, so still kind of far from what I wanted to do. But I was working there and it was October and I have 15 weddings on the books for that year and October are probably had five or six and I was just feeling the weight of a full time job and my business. And I felt like my business wasn't growing. I wanted it to grow because I couldn't dedicate time to it and I was burning the candle at both ends. Super, super grant out. And to the point where I was crying every single day and my boss called me into his office and essentially he just gave me permission to quit. He was like, you are super burnt out. I don't want to see this for you. I know that your business is going to be successful so if you need permission from me to quit because he's like, I know you have the type of personality that feels really bad that you're going to leave us during a busy time. But he was like, you can't do this to yourself, so I'm giving you permission if you want to fit, you can quit and we'll find the replacement for you. So I quit that day and my last day was Halloween, so it was the last day of October. And then I spent four months creating workflows in my business because I spent foremost trying to catch up from the season before because I had no workflows in place, no systems, nothing was consistent. There was just random post it notes and to do lists and pieces of paper all over the place. And so I was just like, I don't understand how people can actually run a business if they're not organized because I just felt like I was reinventing the wheel every time I got a new client. And so I sat down on my dining room table, created workflows for my photography business color coded them, figuring out who was going to do in my business because my mom started working for me a few hours a week and then I decided I was going to outsource editing. So it was just like color coding this lined piece of paper. I have it somewhere in my closet and I really want to dig it up. But, um, once I had that in place, I started to really feel like I had a lot more balance in my life and I was getting asked by a lot of people in my local cheeses together group what my workflows looked like and how I was saving so much time essentially and being so productive. So I started having people come over to my house and we would sit around the fire pit and I would kind of show them my work. So I sort of accidentally started mentoring and then when people were like, oh my gosh, I feel like you saved my marriage, this is amazing now. And like just so much feedback came flooding, flooding back after our sessions, just positive reinforcement that they were saving time and giving clients a better experience and totally on accident. I was never like, let's move into the education world. So I started mentoring and then so many people started asking me about my workflows are all these people asking me about the wedding playbook was my first product that launched in 2017. Since then, it's just grown into a shop. I think we have a course coming out and just sitting in my car the other day and I was just thinking about how, what the outcome is as a parent can spend 20 hours a week with their kid. Maybe that kid when they grow up isn't going to have social anxiety that they might have had if their parent was just in front of a laptop all the time. Or maybe it is going to save a marriage because now they're spending all this time to look in the mirror and love what they look like because they have all this time to go into the gym and it's also that part of their life. So I just started thinking about outcomes of people saving time and that has given me the motivation to continue running two businesses and then that was a long answer, but that's kind of the entire path and how I ended up here.

Speaker 2: 16:30

It was a long story but it was a good one. It is so funny how the little pieces that we don't realize like ended up connecting the burnout is really I think everyone that I've talked to and I talked to you and just in general, like they all have a story of some point being like, I can't do this. I don't know why I'm doing this. I can't do this. It's too much. I don't know why I feel like you. I feel like you in that story where you're like, the boss had be like, yes, you can go. I'm kind of like that. But all the way like that, I do feel very connected to the people that I work with and I don't want to let them down, but I also am very aware that at times you have to, like, you kind of have to in order to say yourself, but it's very rare that I hear a story where they're like, no, my boss told me I need to go.

Speaker 3: 17:24

He was like, Oh Laura, can you tell me more permission to quit? I was grinding my teeth. Apparently he had been grinding his teeth when he was my age and now he's deaf in one ear because he liked it so much damage to. Um, so he, he, he made me get a mouth guard. You have to quit because I don't want you ended up ending up in the hospital with an anxiety attack or something worse. So I was very thankful to have a very understanding boss and they were just so amazing at encouraging me to do my business. So I feel very blessed to have had that work experience.

Speaker 2: 18:12

Yeah. So how do you think that that life, that life of architecture like sets you up for this,

Speaker 3: 18:18

both of your businesses, how did it.

Speaker 2: 18:20

I think that would have probably. I think that has a lot to do with it.

Speaker 3: 18:23

Your workflow. We're all. Because you probably have to do a lot of that. Yeah, I think it definitely started in college because I, we get our syllabus in the beginning of the semester and there just seemed like there was no possible way to get everything done that they wanted us to get done and there were times in college where I stayed up late to get things done as heck do I do that? And so I kind of was forced to figure it out. I finally figured out my senior year of college, but I would just make all these plans and schedules of how every moving part of my syllabus had to get done for the semester. And then when I graduated and went into that project manager role, I really need to learn how to. Essentially it was managing entire buildings being constructed or entire. Maybe not so much building restaurants and nightclubs. So they were like, we're in a building, but the entire project for, you know, nine to 12 months at a time between design and construction. So I would work with the construction manager for the project and just coordinating all these moving parts because as the lead designer I had to coordinate the mechanical engineer and electrician and the plumber and the carpenter and the furniture designer and all assessment. There were so many moving parts. So I think it taught me a lot about management and managing so many different facets at once, which I think is really helpful now that I'm running and I saw how much other people in the firm crumbled and projects get delayed months because of it because they weren't doing their job correctly. So when I quit and I had to pick up their mess, I was really thankful that I have an organizational instincts to get everything back on track. And I knew as soon as I went full time in my business, my mom started working for me and that's kind of why I created my first workflow because she was asking so many questions of how to get things done that I was handing off to her and they were things I knew I wanted her to be doing over and over again, like formatting the blog or photography images together after a wedding and rather than training her over and over again, I decided to make a procedure manual for my business. So we have an sop for wildlife photography, 135 pages. Um, and that's essentially what the wedding photographers playbook is, is my son. But it was definitely really helpful just being forced to project manage at a really young age and being forced to get organized and learn how to work smarter. Totally insane. Really translated into both businesses in that organizational. No, totally. Yeah. No, I'm the same way. I can't, I can't function when there is no organization and I don't understand it. When I would get some other businesses and I just think, how are you? How are you functioning? I think it would stress me out to the point that I would be in the hospital with an ulcer or something because

Speaker 2: 21:57

I don't know how you. I don't know how you.

Speaker 3: 22:00

I don't know how you do that. What do you mean you were there? What are you talking about? Yeah. I ended up in the hospital. I'm in college. I gave myself an anxiety attack. Started. I thought I was having a heart attack, so I got hooked up. Like my roommate. I was in the middle of class and my teacher was like, your friend took me to the hospital. Ended up being my one and only anxiety attack. Thank God. I still suffer from anxiety, but I'm like stress, anxiety, anxiety, where I worry about things. It's just kind of overwhelming anxiety, but it has lessons so much now that I have systems and stuff in place, but that was not.

Speaker 2: 22:52

No, no,

Speaker 3: 22:54

no, no, not. Well.

Speaker 2: 22:56

Tell me about. I know

Speaker 3: 22:58

obviously no for your photography and your know for education, but are there any little pieces of your business where people would be surprised, oh, this is what Laura does too. I don't talk about enough and even my coaching clients are like, wait, you have a shop, a shop that has digital products, templates and checklists and stuff. Mostly for photographers at this point, but I hope to add more for creatives in the future because I've done a lot of the work and now I just put it into the shop, but one of the things I guess or just one on one coaching and that is so fulfilling to me and I don't think I've ever officially announced it. It just kind of organically happened and that's awesome. But I don't think I've ever put it into a newsletter or blog or anything like that. Um, but I feel very thankful for the incredible coaching girls that I have. But one of the things that has just been the biggest piece of my heart this year and my businesses, my retreat and that is called the fireside retreat. And it was the best week of my business, I was so fired up and we did four days of learning and adventure. We just talked about creating workflows and creating systems and building like a very holistic lice and business because I feel like most people scales are way far to one side talks about how to put the important things first. And my slogan was live with intention, work with passion that was centered around. So that's something that had gone on this year and I hope to do more of that in the future. And it's not something I've talked about a blog post about it, but it's something that I know definitely want to do more of in the future. And then the other thing that I apparently. The other thing, the other thing that we offer is done for you custom workflows. So I create custom workflows for business owners, all types of creative. So like I've worked with hair and makeup artist and stationary designers, event planners, custom workflows for their business. And then I actually implement them into their crm, honeybook, honeybook, so that their workflows can be automated. Because most people have no idea how to create a workflow, so that course will be teaching photographers how to do that, but I can't be all encompassing and teach every type of creative how to do it, so we create custom workflows and implement them for them so that they can automate all their systems and save a lot of time. So that's something that the end result is pretty.

Speaker 2: 26:07

Yeah, I knew about everything except that I did not know about that one. That's a. that's an awesome. When I wish I had known that because I now. Then I say now I've always talked a lot of photography.

Speaker 3: 26:21

I'm here.

Speaker 2: 26:22

So many of them.

Speaker 3: 26:24

First of all,

Speaker 2: 26:25

they don't have the patients have from. They'll have the patience or the time to do it. They're like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to make my own. Can you do it for me? And I kind of do it, but I don't do it. Like I don't, I don't like doing it for them. Like I just don't because it's not my thing. Like my thing is coaching like creatives and photographers in their marketing, like what to do, what next do, how to do the done for you services. Like that whole thing is like I love you but I need to send you to somebody else. So that's perfect. I didn't know that.

Speaker 3: 27:04

Yeah. I feel like all of my services and then somebody asked me for a full day and then somebody asked me if. And that's kind of what happened with the done for you work flow as well. Somebody. Well, can you put it into my system for me that for. Because I don't know, talk about that anywhere. We don't do too much but we might do like two a month and I would love to do more of them because I know most people think it was happening because my coaching clients, I was giving them the workflows for eating them for them and then saying, hey now go implement this into your crm and I would follow up with them six months later. I'm wasting time and I feel like that's kind of how it all happens and I feel like it's the mechanical piece of your business.

Speaker 2: 28:19

It's the theme that you. I mean, most creatives, they're creatives for a reason and they love to do what they do. It's very rare that they find that you were, they like, like they're good at both where they can like do the retirement

Speaker 3: 28:32

free and,

Speaker 2: 28:33

and then at the same time you like, I'm doing this, this, this, this.

Speaker 3: 28:38

It's very, very slim.

Speaker 2: 28:45

Does that frustrate you sometimes feel like when you're working with a creative and you're like, I don't understand why you don't get this.

Speaker 3: 28:57

My frustration is like I just want to like shake people to get them to realize how much time they're wasting by not having workflows and systems. So to put it into perspective, when I started using my workflow has saved about 1200 hours over the course of a year, so it was 30 hours a week. I brought my business down 40, 50 hours just for photography plus shooting down to like 10 hours a week because my clients were like, wow, I'm getting such an incredible experience. You're giving me such an incredible experience ahead of time. Like I just ended up looking worked slow clients, science vendors that I'm working with on a wedding because I introduced myself to them like two months out from the wedding and they're like, wow, so do you help people organize their business? And I was like, that's a strange question to ask. You must have heard about me. And so now working with them, which is just like crazy. It just gives such a such a better experience to everybody that you're working with when you are organizing the save time. So that's where my frustration phones, because people don't see the benefit. It's hard to see the benefit until you have it happen to you. So that's where my frustration comes, but most people understand the concept. That makes sense.

Speaker 2: 30:43

The frustration part is real. It is real. I know. I feel like that sometimes to my clients where they're like, they know they need to do the piece. I think the biggest piece that I struggle with, and I would imagine this is probably part of your workflow, is staying in contact with your clients

Speaker 3: 31:01

pass and like potential. And even if they said no to you, if you touched, if you talk to them,

Speaker 2: 31:07

that doesn't mean that they don't. Maybe it's just not now. Like that's my biggest thing with my marketing coach. I'm like, you need to communicate with these people. You can't just six months after you've done this shoot and be like, hey, here's an email that talks about,

Speaker 3: 31:20

you know, working at another session. And they're like, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 31:29

So what advice, well, before it gets to the advice, like how do you, obviously workflows help you keep balanced and you know, your balance, but how do you do that with your family, to businesses basically like your, your health, your wellness. How do you find balance in your life?

Speaker 3: 31:48

Um, I think one of the things that I had taught at the retreat was that it's really important to schedule your personal life before your business because it's very easy to over schedule your business, whether it's photo sessions or meetings or really anything. So one of the first things that we did at the retreat was just set boundaries around our business, whether that was a set amount of hours we were going to work every day or set up non negotiable, nonnegotiable. I don't have meetings and I'll have sessions. I don't, I typically don't have weddings on Sundays. Those are the one day that mine and my boyfriend's schedule overlaps that we both typically have. So that is very sacred day that I try to dedicate. So I've set up a lot of non negotiables like that. Like I'll only meet Tuesdays and Thursdays if I can help it. I don't take more than three sessions in a week. So just setting up these boundaries around my schedule was the first thing that I really had to start implementing. And then I basically wrote down a list of all the things that I love to do and things that fulfill me and I made sure that they were on my calendar somewhere, so for the month. So whether that was a date night or going paddle boarding or going kayaking or going to the gym or just like reading, taking time to read or watch Netflix or something. Like I scheduled it into my calendar and that was one of the exercises we did at the retreat. It was just writing down 10 things that you miss right now because you're too busy and then checking out your calendar and figuring out where you can put that into your month or your week. So I tried to do that in each area of my life every month if I'm like kind of just planning out in advance like a, you know, here's the day that we're going to have a date night because my boyfriend works three to four jobs and I have the two businesses. So we're both very busy. So we try to schedule out on the calendar like this is the day we're going to have a date night or we're going to go for a hike or something, so I'll schedule that out ahead of time because I feel like if I don't it's just not going to happen and then we're going to be sitting around doing nothing on a nice day and you're like, oh, we should have done something fun. So I tried to schedule out ahead of time and set the boundaries and non negotiables and just also I asked for help. I know what my zones of genius are and I know that my time is better spent in my zone of genius than my zone of competence or incompetence is what they call it. So I have hired in assistance on the virtual assistant and my mom is also part of my team. So she does a little bit for both businesses. She does the bookkeeping and I know that she could keep so much faster and more efficient than I could ever bookkeeping because it is of no interest to me. I never wanted to be in my zone of genius. I have no interest in learning about it. Same with facebook ads. I'm just like, no, as I don't want to do it. So, um, there are just, I basically went through all the things in my business and I started that I do or that I need to do and I started writing was zone they were in, so it was zone of genius, which other things I'm really great at. So that was just photography and creating content and educating and bringing value to people. And then zone of competence post things that I'm good at, but I don't necessarily need to be the one to do them. Um, and um, most people spend a lot of time in their zone of competence, like answering emails and scheduling meetings and everybody can do that and everybody, you know, is good at doing that, but they don't necessarily have to be the one doing it. So I feel like most people spend a lot of zone of incompetence is basically the things that you struggled through that take up way more time than if somebody else. We're actually going to do that and a an example of this would be two days ago, my windshield wiper stripped and I bought new windshield wipers and I was like, oh no, I'll put them on. It's fine. So I just bought them at the auto parts store and went home and tried to figure out how to put them on and then me and my mom spent an hour trying to figure out how to put window whoever's on to no success. So then the next day I had to go back to the auto parts store and ask them to put them on for me. So I was like, wow, I had just given my zone of incompetence to somebody that is actually is in their zone of genius than this would have been way more efficient. So I've just learned what my zones are and I've found people who have their zone of genius is my zone of incompetence and I have just really invested in people to help in both businesses and bring their zone of genius into my business too. Help scale that. So again, but boundaries, nonnegotiables, scheduling life first, asking for help, knowing his own genius, that would be my advice and then obviously setting up workflows and systems to give you consistency in your business because the biggest thing is just it helps you not reinvent the wheel every time you know exactly what you have to do for each client and you have the templates, you have to email templates, the questionnaire templates, everything, every task, all in place and you're never wasting time writing to do lists and wondering where a client is in the process. So that is has all helped me tremendously in having.

Speaker 2: 37:27

There were a couple of good nuggets in there. Like I'm like when I listened back I'll be like, okay, I need to break that down, write that down. They were all really good. I really liked the point where you were saying that you need to like schedule, like put the things that you enjoy doing on your calendar. So like for instance, my husband and I like to go to the beach, but we, I mean we literally moved to Florida to be close to the beach. It doesn't happen that often. Part of it is because I have chronic pain, so it's like at times we're like, oh, we should've went and it's just like you said like it's like a beautiful day and it's like why aren't we doing anything? And it's like. So it's a great. It's good advice.

Speaker 3: 38:10

That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 38:12

I'm going to ask you this because I know my listeners and what I'm starting to, what I really like to do for people that are like, no, the real grit stuff. So what for you, my last question usually is what tools do you use, but I'm not gonna ask you that because you just gave us tons of tools and tips and all that kind of stuff. So what do you struggle

Speaker 3: 38:36

with and how do you overcome it? I'm very much with selling my products and services on the photography side of things. Like I know like I know that my educational services are very good too, but I feel very weird talking about them so I can talk about other people's services all day long, but I have a very hard time talking about my own. So that is something I'm trying to overcome my mindset because I know that I'm doing a disservice by not telling people these things exist and I think I just need to tell myself over and over again that this is going to help them have more time with their family and their friends and doing things they love. And so that's something that I really need to overcome. And that's probably the biggest thing. And the second biggest thing is just I love both my businesses so much. So even though I have the tools and the capacity to have work life balance, I still find myself working all the time because I love it and I know that that's not healthy in the long run. But my hope I don't live with my boyfriend or anything. So my hope is that someday when we are married we will both be able to drop the hustle a little bit and take back a few notches and just have the foundation set up to be able to relax a little more in business. So I think I'm just way too much of an overachiever and that put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel like I sabotage my balance. I think balance in all this free time, how can I. that's my biggest thing. So I think I need to do a better job at realizing what projects for my audience and my community and focusing on those instead of just doing things for the sake of doing them. So just

Speaker 2: 41:09

those are really good. I think a lot of us struggle with that. Finding you love what you do, you probably want to do it all the time. Like that's just what you do and even though he has the time to do it, it's Kinda like I can do it. I have the time because they have to have the time and I know how to do it. And I love that you said

Speaker 3: 41:27

learning to

Speaker 2: 41:28

still those pockets of you're going to do work to fill the pockets with things that you love to do versus

Speaker 3: 41:34

the like, I'm just doing it because I'm just doing this thing. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's very common struggle with all of the entrepreneurial society in general. We always use busy as a good thing and I noticed myself saying it all the time, like I was just on the phone with my insurance company and then everybody's responses like is good. Like I need to start changing my answer now. No unfulfilled. I'm doing things that fulfill me instead of doing things that keep me busy because that's not how anybody should live their life and nobody should live their life. Just be busy all the time. Should be and nobody else's.

Speaker 2: 42:29

I like that. I like that. I think I might try that every now and then.

Speaker 3: 42:34

See I'm filled.

Speaker 2: 42:38

So tell us how we find you online and

Speaker 3: 42:42

any, anything you want us to take a look at after they listened to them. So my website for the educational side of things, which I assume most people will be most interested in as lauralee creative dotcom. So Lau r a, l e e Dot t.com. And on instagram on my instagram we'll have links to every other website and everything. Photography is photography.co Dot Com are my two websites on my instagram and on Lee creative. If you go along the menu bar on the top, there's a link to my shop, so if there are any photographers that need help with workflow, there's springs, you said the more one on one person to person, whether it's retreat or coaching or mentoring or anything like that, and then the shop has products and a ton of freebies. If you scour the site, there's like three and three on the shop page and on the blog, so the blog has an archives already have like 60 or 70 posts, so there's a lot, a lot of nuggets in there to read and find and photography workflow on time management and task management and self care and relationships and priorities and just a very overarching thing. So that's all on the blog and also definitely look out for a podcast coming soon in the next couple months. Awesome.

Speaker 2: 44:30

I'm not a photographer

Speaker 4: 44:32

right now. I did way back when, but for my business I created a crafted this thrive. I've used some of the tips just for my business that you have in your blog and stuff like that about workflows and like, especially when it comes to email. Oh my gosh, email is like so crazy. So there was a couple bob do that and I sent it to my girlfriends that are in network marketing and they're like in love with them. They're in love with the tip. They thought I gave him like, no, no, no. Laura gave this to me. I didn't know anything about this. Here's the blog post. You go read it. I don't know. So, um, even if you're not a photographer, if you're a creative person or if you're just in business in general, like her blog is amazing. It's great, and has lots of cool tips and things that you can use for your business to keep you focused and not all over the place. So I love it. You're welcome. Well thank you so much for being on. I can't wait to hear and listen to your podcasts. Podcasts are fun. I love. I'm loving it. Like I can't even lie. Like at first I thought, okay, I mean I knew it was going to like it, but I didn't know I was going to be like in love with it, but I'm like in love with it. I'm like, I can almost feel myself pivoting to doing it more,

Speaker 2: 45:51

turning it into some other part of my business, like a major part of it. Like I'm just loving it. I'm so glad I was able to have you on. Thank you for your wisdom and your lovely, lovely stories and your words. It's unbelievable. Encourage people and I believe them inspired to go on to know that you can do this and there are ways to do it better.

Speaker 3: 46:13

That's the biggest thing. Well, it was such an honor and it was so fun. I love podcasts, so great hanging out with you and a lot of value to your audience and inspiration and encouragement, but I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 46:33

All right ladies, thank you for listening and I hope this conversation inspired you. Be sure to subscribe and tell a friend. That's it on this episode, and yes, you are crafted to thrive.