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Are you guys ready for some changes? I am!
This past weekend, Brad and I traveled to Dallas so that I could attend The What’s Next Tour put on by Justin and Mary Marantz. (Is my husband amazing for driving me down there, spending the whole day by himself and then driving me back while I called it “a weekend away together”? Why yes. Yes he is.) I’ve been to a couple smaller scale photographry shin-digs over the last couple of years but this was the first time I felt like I was really investing in my business the way I should be. Don’t get me wrong, I learned a few things at those other events but not enough to really jump start some much needed changes in my business. I had high hopes that this one would be different and for once…I was right!
Mary’s portion of the day was definitely my favorite. No offense to Justin, who put on a great talk about lighting where I picked up some awesome gems I can’t wait to put into use at my next wedding! But for real, Mary spoke to my heart. She spoke about fear and in doing so, uncovered some business fears that I didn’t realize that I had. I was all caught up in her discussion of all the yuck that comes with being afraid when she hit me upside the head with “What’s your ‘next’?”
huh?
I don’t know. I mean, there are SO many things that I would like to do (NEED to do!) in my business. I would like to blog more regularly, because I really do enjoy writing. I desperately need to update my website that shows images from the first years of my business and just really doesn’t reflect who I am as a photographer today. I have to find a way to not be working all day every day. I’m thinking about these and all sorts of other things when Mary let’s us know that we are going to have to share our answer. Ugh. Seriously?! This is where it got real y’all.
With Madi currently finishing up her senior year and me wondering if I’ve been the best Mom I could be over the years, I decided that my What’s Next had to be to figure out a way not to always be working. While I do love my job as a photographer, there have been far too many “not nows” and “I can’ts” because of my job. Something has to change. So when Mary got to me that’s what I told her. And then…she made me go deeper.
Yeah she did.
That’s what was terrific about the day. It wasn’t just a think-about-what-you-need-to-work-on and then go do it on your own kind of day. Mary took the time to address each one of us there and find out what the core problem was and what we needed to do about it. Then we went even further and broke off into small groups (shout out to my new friend Ashley of Jen and Ashley who was my groups fearless leader!). There we had an open table discussion and everyone shared and helped each other. In a career where I see more and more photographers not willing to help each other, this was a very welcome change. Plus, I made new friends. BONUS!
I left the day with my mind just reeling with ideas and possibilities for madigan.e.photography. Now here I am, back at home and ready to implement some of those ideas! Over the course of this year you’ll be seeing a lot of changes around here. I hope you’ll buckle up and enjoy the ride!