Lessons

Lesson Info

Building Confidence: Your Own Stories

before we go back to our list of pictures, there's a couple more things I need you to write down and confront. First, some will apply to some won't apply to you. Some you'll resonate with immediately others you might not pick up till later on, but there's a couple more things that you've got to acknowledge first, and especially if you're struggling to work out what your confidence blocks are. Um, we finished with your creating stories in your own head. We had a conversation over lunch about narcissists, read the Greek mythology. Narcissist Narcissist looked at his own reflection every day, and then he fell in the river and died. And then the wooden it's were crying and the river asked the wood. Nimes or the lake? Asked the witness, Why do you cry for narcissists? And they said, because he was so beautiful and the legs had, was he? When I looked at him, I only saw myself reflected in his eyes. You know the story of narcissism is that we will have egos and that we have narcissism. We spe...

nd more time specially when we feel very, um, undervalued and inferior. We spend more time worrying about what people think of us than what we giving. And this is what I'm trying to say in your pitch, your pitches, screaming ego or screaming. It's not screaming service and joy. And I love doing this. It's screaming. What do you thinking of May? What do you thinking about May How my standing How do I look? Are you judging May Am I good enough? You know, the voice off self doubt gets in the way of just about everything. The voice of fear gets in the way of everything. The voice of self hate gets in the way of everything. Reese, it the voice of self hate by stop thinking about what other people are thinking about you, that to your story. You know, when you go back through the slide, I want you to hear you are creating stories. You are believing your own stories. You created these stories. Okay, you've created these stories. You've got to try and challenge that what you're seeing to try and just for one minute think that you're the one seeing this and that there is another way, and you can find it. Sometimes I'm very good at identifying my blocks now because I'm not afraid of any of my blocks. I feel them come up. Sometimes I analyze them. I'm very, very, very, very fortunate that I have a lot of friends where I can sit down, put this on the table and say, Look, I've got this real block right now for May my friends, Tiffany Mark. I had a block about something that somebody said recently, and I couldn't move through it. I'm not interested in why the person said it to me or I'm interested in wide up seat MII. So I put it on the table where a dinner And I said, I've got this problem. I've got this block that I just can't break through And this was seed to May and I can't move past it and they really help me pull it apart from other perspectives and see it from the perspective of the person who said it that if I had a really healthy self belief, would I still feel this way? Maybe it triggers this. And then before I knew it, the insight to model May block was was really apparent. The biggest hurdle, I think, is that people don't know what their blocks are. You know what your block is? It's the thing that you get stuck on every single time. So it's I mean, there are a lot of stories around your block about receiving. You've told yourself I heard your reason. You know, gifts have been used as a weapon. I heard a therapy answer. You know, I like you've analyzed it in therapy. Even if that therapy was yourself, you've realized people have used that. The bottom line is not that somebody used gifts is a weapon. The bottom line is that you have a problem receiving. Okay, that is your block. Not that other people used you. Not that other people use gift giving to get something, but you can't receive bottom line. You you You have told a story around that You believe your own story. You made that story up. Okay, so you know when we are confronted, stop and say the faults comes down to may and what I'm saying if I can't find a way to pull it apart. But don't email me and say what is my block? Because I don't know. But if you email me and say my block is then I can answer that question, but I don't know how The answer, What is my block? You're the only one that knows it. But it will be in one of the things that we talked about confidence. I love the fact that most people describe me as a strong, confident woman. Um, a confident I don't think is a way that I would describe myself at all. Confidence is not a weird that I would use to describe myself. I love the idea that you think I'm confident. What is confidence then? Because if I think about what is confidence, it's it about being self assured. Is it about being okay? I want you to write confidence on a piece of paper, and I want you to write everything you're truly confident about. Okay, I am confident that I have photographed enough women that I am going to give a great photographic experience to anybody I photograph. I've done it. Its tried and true. I am confident that if I get you alone in my studio with a beautiful dress and makeup artist, I'm gonna take the best photograph you've ever seen of yourself. That I'm very confident of that. I am confident that there is nothing I can't work out on photo shop because I've been playing with it for years and years. I used the first vision of it. I am confident that Uhm, I'm going to What else? What else my really confident about? Like I want you to write the things that you're really truly confident about. Noticed that none of those things are who you are. The things you do, right, I'm confident doing these things. So if I speak about the things I'm confident about doing, I sound confident because I'm very confident speaking about them. So how many people could have you ever looked at? Instead, I'm gonna take the best photograph you've ever seen of your cell phone. That's a pretty bold statement. I believe it. I believe it. Most people have bad photographs, so they're gonna love the photographs that I take of them. I'm gonna do my best to take the best photograph. If I miss, I'll try again. I won't stop. It is my goal. My sole purpose is to take the base photograph you've seen of yourself. So none of that confidence has to do with May. I'm not confident that I'm attractive because sometimes I'm not. Sometimes you walk in the room and you're the prettiest woman in the world in the room. Sometimes you're the ugliest and the oldest. Sometimes you'll the thinness. Sometimes you ever Feddis. Sometimes you're the youngest son. There's always gonna be someone prettier, younger, smarter, richer Finner the new. So you can be confident in how you look. It's only in who you are and who you are is not your physical self. Who you are is what you give. I have an incredible empathy for human for all humans and animals. For any living being, I feel everything people feel okay. I am also a theory selfish, grumpy person. When I'm hungry and tired, you run into me when I'm hungry and tired, you will not like me at all. And rightly so. None of us are perfect. So you know, if you meet me and I'm tired and hungry and you get in my face and you're like, I can have a picture with you or can and I'm gonna be like, really Yeah, I don't have compassion to you right now. I don't have compassion for myself. I'm tired and grumpy. I'm done and I need to go home because I'm gonna be horrible. Teoh. So it's not who you are in that moment because we don't know where people are out. We don't know if you didn't get any sleep last night. If you just broke up with your boyfriend. If he lost somebody you love, you know everyone has a reason for being grumpy or tired or hungry. So again, what are we talking about? What is confidence? It's It's how people say, I just don't have the confidence. I'm scared of rejection. Okay? Self hate years. I have a lot of self hate. So if I feel threatened, or if I feel in a way that people are going to reject me myself, hate comes up and says, Yes, you'll get predicted. You get rejected all the time, and then that voice inside you goes, and then all of a sudden you just feel your confidence drain away. That's just self hate. You can deal with that that your voice. I believe when you speak through your true path, you find an enthusiasm that is so rial and authentic. You don't need any confidence. Even an introvert becomes an extra vit when they're excited about something. My big brother is an introvert. I'm an extra Viet. He's an introvert. His Children, he would say, Mom, Mom, Susan extort the neighbors house and mom would have to come and I'd be sitting at the table having cup of tea in somebody else's home. As for you know, we grew up. He shy. He's quiet, he shy. But when he's excited about something, you can't shut him up. And here's the shy ist most beautiful dental man. But when he is on his soapbox, when he's passionate about something, it's like a different person. And I think, Wow, even an intra vit becomes an extra vote when the enthusiastic. So I have to ask when you're pitching, what is the part that gets you most excited about what you dio and are you pitching with that voice? Are you holding that energy in your heart in your mind, in your whole being, when you are pitching and selling your wick? Or are you thinking about what they're thinking of you? Are you stuck in what they're thinking off you and telling yourself a story? Or are you simply getting excited about what you do now? I don't need any more to sell what I do. I know what I do so well that I say it with complete enthusiasm. Like I feel very enthusiastic about what I do now. I'm so enthusiastic about being a glamour photographer that if somebody embarrassed me or said, I think what you do is disgusting and humiliating two women, or I think it's horrible over Photoshopped, or I think what you do is a lie or if somebody or why do you charge so much? If somebody challenged me about being a glamour photographer, I don't have a block around any of those criticisms. I've heard them all because I 100% believe in what I do now. Some like a you kidding. It's the greatest experience. It is the greatest experience to stand in front of a camera and feel pulled down and vulnerable and completely out there on your own, and then have somebody tune it around and show you how beautiful you are. Like seriously, people look at the back of the camera and they're like, How you doing that? And it's like it's you. You don't see that. That's a doctor, coolest thing. I do that. Wow. You know, think about that when you're taking photos. 10. Think about hope. She buys a $1200 package. She got it by the $1200 package or she doesn't buy the 1200. I'm screwed. You know, think about the gift you're giving, but you've got to find the value. So what excites you? I'm excited by the fact that people, um, see themselves. I'm excited by the fact that most people actually know how beautiful they are, but I shocked when you can show it to them. Okay, so there's not a lie there. There's not the it's you took a picture of me and how I feel in the mirror that I've never seen another picture. I'm like, Yeah, that's cool. That is so cool. But everybody has a different value yet quit in is if you don't have the enthusiasm or you feel like you can't find the enthusiasm, does that mean that you are in the wrong field or it does so if you can't find anything that makes you makes an introvert like just screaming at the top of their lungs on the hilltop. That means you're doing the wrong thing. Pretty match. I'd say so, Yeah. If you are not excited about what you're doing, you should consider going and doing something else. Because how could you possibly make an income if you're not excited by it? You know, my brother when he started building, but that my introverted brother, he would email may from Australia, four. In the morning. Um and I would say to him, Why did you see that email at 4 a.m. And he would say what I was. I start wicket five, and I'm so excited about what I'm doing. I can't sleep. So he would get up four to make coffee and to answer a couple of emails because he was so excited about building this building. Hey, just want to get up there and just go every day. And I remember thinking, Can you imagine wanting to get out of bed yet for I don't want to get out of bed at four. In the morning, Like, wow, to be that excited about something, Okay, Lets just debunk that for there's a couple of things around that one of them is your close. But you're not that close like this. My friend Jamie, who was doing photography but ended up opening a juice bar. And then there was, you know, my friend Susan, who was trying to shoot when she wanted to video, you know, And then there was my friend, two people in the industry doing things in the industry that are close, but not quite really close to finding the true path. Ah, and I feel like want to you when she speak through your true path. Yeah. Now you are going to lose faith in what your true path is very quickly because everyone does. You can reconnect to it. I do. I lose faith and what I'm doing monthly. Even after 25 years, sometimes you just get just a horrible comment on Facebook. And you think I could just delete this Facebook and just going to something else like this Just some days. You just want to get about you get a hard client or someone doesn't spend money in its awakening you to the fact that you're disconnected or its awakening you to the fact that you have lost your mojo or your flow 30 overworking that you're pushing too hard that you have a new block to face. And then you realize that again. Same view, different attitude. You realize that there's just the weakest never done, even ever, ever, ever, ever. But there is a significant flow in change when you shift, and if you reconnect, you get the flow again. You pitching again from enthusiasm. I so often going to businesses in the failing. And I'll say, When were you the most successful? What were you doing? And they show me what they were doing a year ago when they were making, you know, 18 grand a week or aiding rain a month. And I'm like, What's the difference between then and now? And they just look at May and everybody said the same thing. I guess I was just really excited back then and I go and you're not now and they go No. Well, let's get excited. What did you change? What? What are you doing now that you should? Are you overworking for status? You know, and it shocked me. How many people was simply just been town? I put a slide in here. It's coming out called restoration I I went to Jennifer had sent in 1/4 Orson's workshop last month. I did it because I wanted to have an artist's break. I wanted to do a fine at workshop that was based on just getting reconnecting. To find out wasn't about portraiture or selling or anything like that. It was about finance and she said a word that just made me instantly cry instantly. She said, Restoration? You need restoration. She didn't say released because I feel guilty about sitting on the couch five minutes. So wrist is not a word you should say to me here a type personality. If I'm not working, I'm not making money. If I'm not making money Oh my God, Lord, I'm all over the place. I'm just like, Go, go, go, go, go, go In there anything that will stop me is getting sick or getting hit and then a lie in bed going. I don't have time to obey sick. And then I think, What am I pushing so hard for? For what? More money? Like what? So then I'm like Push, push, drive, drive, push, push, drive, drive! And then I just loose my mojo and that's it. My whole will to live, just go. And she said, Restoration and the word restoration to sport instant tears to my eyes cause I thought to myself, I need restoration. You need to go into a cave for one week and not give, give, give, give, give, give give to everybody which means I need to receive more. So I now acknowledge what my restoration is. Um, I need to restore the passion and drive and enthusiasm that I have for my business for my career. Then I can pitch with enthusiasm. Without that, there's nothing. Do you have a question? You know, im another Ah ha! Moment for me is what you just saying earlier that you know, I feel good, that I think I have chosen the right path. I was in a comfortable position and I get so excited about being in front of the client and taking them from that, you know, first shots where they're kind of stiff and shy. Still two to the end process of that session. And I get so excited about showing on the pictures and doing and ah, also in the sale process. When I do the reveal wall. That really, really generally pumps me up with so much joy and excitement that I know I'm doing the right thing. That's great.