Are these thoughts stealing your money?

Do you love photography, but you are burned out on building your business?

Have you over-invested in photography programs and systems?

Are you tired of:

• Algorithm chasing?

• Hustle advice and systems that ignore your body + how your nervous system reacts?

• Feeling invisible even though you’re talented?

• Being told “just raise your prices” 😒?

You don’t need more tactics.

You need language, self-trust, and a way to see what’s actually happening so you can change it without the suffering.

Here is one question to ask yourself that will kickstart this desperately needed change:

“What does my self-talk sound like when bookings slow down?”

It’s important to know that the sentences running through your mind shape the emotions you feel. 

And those emotions drive all of your actions.

If you’re not getting the results you thought you would by now, it’s not because you’ve failed!

It’s because of your Default Sentences! And those are never your fault - they are never a choice, and they are never on purpose. 

Once you learn how to decide what to think, on purpose, not only will you feel better and eliminate suffering, you will see the exact result you’ve been picturing. Your thoughts might be stealing your money! A tiny shift could attract the exact thing you’ve been hoping for and trying to create. 

Read this client example to understand more about how this really works:

What if your thoughts are stealing your money (and your joy)! 

A client was explaining to me why she believed she wasn’t booking as much. We literally wrote down and listed her thoughts on a piece of paper:

“People in my town won’t pay for portraits anymore”…

“I missed my window”“I’m tired of explaining my value”

“If I slow down, everything will fall apart”

“I should be further along by now”“I don’t have the energy I used to”

We dissected each thought and separated them into concrete facts and opinions or beliefs by asking questions about each one. Q is me. A is my client. Starting with the first thought:

“People in my town won’t pay for portraits anymore”

Q: Are there any people in town who pay for portraits? 

A: Yes, there are people who pay other photographers for portraits.

Q: Who is the last person to pay you as their photographer?

A: My client from 2 weeks ago paid a discounted rate.

Q: Why did they pay a discounted rate and not the full rate?

A: I offered it to them so they would book.

Q: Did they ask for a discount?

A: No, but they were really quiet when I told them my pricing and showed them the package options.

Q: Did they ever tell you what they were thinking? How do you know they wanted a discount?

A: I guess I don’t know for sure, but everyone always asks about pricing and if there is a lower price.

Q: Everyone asks you to lower your prices?

A: Well, a lot of people.

Q: Do you lower your prices often?

A: yes, I have to or they won’t book

Q: Is making these blanket statements about every single human in the town useful? Are they all 100% true?

A: What do you mean?

Q: When you say “everyone asks if there's a lower price”, is it true that absolutely every single person asks for a discount? Can you list or name the people who actually asked for one in the last 3 months? 

A: Oh, wow. I guess there are 3 clients I can think of and 1 DM. 

Q: And how many clients have you photographed in that same time? 

A: 12 - 4 clients a month. 

Q: Notice how only 3 people have recently asked, and how you may be in the habit of saying “everyone” because you’re focusing on the discount. What could you focus on that would change the feeling you have when you think about giving 3 discounts out of 12 clients?

A: That feels so different. 9 people paid full price. 

Q: How do you feel when you celebrate the fact that 9 of your clients did NOT ask for a discount, but were happy to pay full price? 

A: I don’t know, I still feel like they wanted to pay less.

Q: When you go to the grocery store, do you want to pay full price or would you rather pay less? 

A: Obviously less.

Q: And does that make the groceries you buy to feed your family any less valuable - just because you wish they were less? What is wrong with wanting to pay less? Do you think less of the cashier? Do you value their service any less just because you wish you didn’t have to always pay full price?

A: Oh, wow. Okay I think I get it.

Q: Someone wanting to keep their hard earned money has nothing to do with what you are giving them. Of course they want to keep it! But once they have paid it, and received the images that will likely last much longer than they will, they forget about what they paid and they feel the value. I promise, your client values the pictures of themselves and their loved ones far more than you do. They become more and more priceless with time, too. At some point, what do you think they will think about paying you?

A: Maybe they won’t think about it at all.

Q: Yes. And maybe they will want to pay it again and again.

A: That would be a dream.

Q: It’s not a dream, it’s as real an assumption as you assuming they don’t want to pay. It’s as easy to think “everyone loves to pay me!” as it is to think “everyone wants a discount” Do you see how our thoughts can help or hinder our results? What energy do you think you’ll show up with if you’re always thinking “everyone loves to pay me because they love their picture more than even I do!”

A: That’s crazy. The energy I feel is night and day. 

Q: What we just did was examine your thoughts and decide to think something different, but how we did it is very important. It was not just randomly. Do you feel like you gaslit yourself? 

A: No, not at all.

Q: Do you feel like you changed your belief?

A: Not completely, but I definitely see it differently now.

Q: Do you feel like you can ask yourself questions, release judgment, and be curious when you feel like all hope is lost? Of course there are some things that happen in life where this would be gaslighting yourself, if you’re just trying to feel good all the time. Feeling good all the time is not human. Only AI and robots can do that. And not even them because they don’t feel. We are supposed to feel good or ok half the time and bad or even terrible the other half of the time. This is the theory of 50/50. If no matter what, you know you’re going to feel 50/50 emotions you want to feel vs emotions you don’t like to feel, then those emotions become smaller, more bite sized and more manageable, and even more enjoyable. So many people are telling us to regulate our emotions, but how? This is how. We notice our thought, examine them, release judgment because we are in our Default (automatic) thinking, and then we get curious so we can make decisions to think something different, but true, and then we feel…better!

A: I mean, I can definitely use this trick in my life. 

Q: Let’s find out how we can put this into action so you get the results you really want. When you think the thought “everyone loves to pay me because they love their picture more than even I do!”, how do you feel?

A: Hmmmm…I feel (laughing*) half confident and half nervous.

Q: Of course! You don’t believe this thought all the way yet because it’s new, but with practice, it will become your new Default thought. For now, let’s just sit in the discomfort of the new thought and see what we can DO with it so you feel like you can take action from it. When you feel confident, what do you want to DO? What self-talk is going on? What actions do you feel like taking? 

A: If I just focus on the confident half, I think of all the times my clients have raved over my work, placed orders, or even just the look on their faces when they see themselves in my work.

Q: Incredible feedback for yourself. Notice how useful this is and how it multiplies your confidence. Notice how you are literally creating that exact result for yourself with your next client by just thinking about it and putting the focus on real things that have happened. What could you do in your business to magnetize more clients like this?

A: I could ask for reviews or testimonials. I could share my work more often and talk about my experience, or even share what they said to me. I could remind them of what they said and ask if they would like to book again.

Q: And when you do those things, what does your end result look like? What actually happens?

A: I have content to post, I feel better about it, and I get a past client booked. 

Q: Your thoughts, feelings and actions create your energy. Your energy is magnetic. It will either pull toward or repel against what you seek. What other evidence do you have where this is true? 

A: The discounts!

Q: The discounts. When you focused on what was missing, or how you felt about not enough, you created more “not enough”. Not feeling good enough, not receiving enough, and then your mind is blank when it comes to content because…so much “not enough”. Even “not enough” compounds. The shift is not even about the discount. It’s how you think about the discount. A discount has so many benefits for you and your client. It can also be shaped into something different, like a bonus print, or a mini session with purchase. Something that feels like more, not less. Work with your feelings and thoughts, not against them.

A: Oh, I love that. I’m doing that.

Q: On your own, do you feel like you can examine the next thought? “I missed my window”?

A: I will definitely try. Can I ask you if I need help?

Q: Yes! 

 Curious about how this can work for you?

Post in Ask Your Coach (it's anonymous)

No bots, no AI, just a casual chat with a photographer who gets it.