Part Time to Full Time

Paul: Hello everyone.

Melissa: Hi everyone.

Paul: Hey, hopefully guys can see us.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: We were just a couple of minutes behind. We’re trying a brand new setup. Melissa is listening, she’s making sure everything is coming-

Melissa: Yes, making sure all the line-

Paul: -coming across all right.

Melissa: Yeah, we’re here.

Paul: It is wedding week.

Melissa: It’s wedding week.

Paul: It is our wedding week. We are broadcasting this live on Paul Melissa’s profile, our business page and we have it shared inside of the Profitographer’s Community. The interesting thing is when you’re looking at being an entrepreneur going full time or part time in between those two points, there’s a lot of struggles, I think, no matter what industry you’re in that we face. Before we get into all that though, how are you doing?

Melissa: I am doing great. Today was adventure.

Paul: Adventure?

Melissa: It’s funny, we talk with brides all the time about the stress of going through a wedding and we kind of take for granted what it actually is like and it’s been a little bit of ups and downs. You hear my voice?

Paul: I can hear her voice and why is that?

Melissa: I’m getting an overall cold right now.

Paul: Wedding week.

Melissa: I’m going to be perfectly fine on Saturday so now worries about that. I’m not even stressed out about it. Thank goodness for tea and medicine and good rest. That’s been good. There’s been a little bit of stress with that and just all the last minute details of planning and getting stuff and things you don’t think about. You’re like, “Oh gosh.” Running around, a little bit crazy, but we’re having fun. It’s good.

Paul: Yeah, it’s really exciting. I tell you, I just came off of a very big cold that Melissa now has unfortunately. It’s funny, we took a picture. It’s like, “Oh, here’s our meal this morning.” It was like two pills from a Z-pak.

Melissa: Yeah, exactly, Z-pak. I love the Z-pak.

Paul: It’s something that that’s the reality of being self-employed and being an entrepreneur though, is that we push through a lot of our work days. You really don’t get a day off.

Melissa: You don’t and it’s a matter of still providing good customer service but then also setting good boundaries for yourself. There have been days this week where I just said, “Pause, I’m done. I can’t do any more. I’m done.” He’s been very great with picking up the load where I was able to sleep and take some time off.

Paul: Yeah, and we even had a talk that we had with Tiffany Chalk, a wedding planner. She has a class locally and we were scheduled for both of us to go and thankfully in our partnership, I was able to still go and do the presentation while Melissa, she was in the thick, the deep of … Yeah, that was a very bad thing.

Melissa: Yeah, that was a bad night but it’s all good.

Paul: I can still hear it in her voice [inaudible 00:03:26] even-

Melissa: It’s the sexy deep voice.

Paul: That’s scaring me. Nah, we’re good. We just wanted to come on today and we do this every Wednesday, 7:30 Eastern Standard Time. We were just doing it in the group before. We have over 12,000 photographer entrepreneurs that are inside our Profitographers, the private community. Melissa and I are talking about it more and more and it’s like even though our page kind of touches more people even outside of the Profitographer community, we realize that entrepreneurship has the same struggles, no matter what the thing that we did, the servers, the product and everything else.

I think on both side it can create a great intelligent conversation, especially with both us being in different formats as far as being either corporate world or running a large company or just being in an entrepreneurship environment. That’s where I’ve been my entire adult life. Do you want to talk about some of the things we were talking about ahead of time?

Melissa: Let’s dive right into it. We want to talk about that transition from part time to full time. I think one of the first things that we really wanted to touch upon is really determining what your goals are as an entrepreneur, what your vision of your business looks like because full time, whether photography or whatever the case might be, it might not be for you. Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone and that’s okay. I think we want to stress that it’s not a dirty word to be part time.

Paul: Right. That’s exactly what you said, that it’s not a dirty word. I think [inaudible 00:04:53] in the real estate industry it’s like it was almost like, “Oh.” Just to even admit and say that you’re part time, meant that you’re less of an agent. That was really a bad way of looking at things. It’s kind of the [inaudible 00:05:05] type thing so all the full time people were like, “Oh.” They would make you feel that way. Ironically, I find that the same thing in the photography world, not across the board, nothing is 100% in anything that we ever talk about. It’s interesting that a lot of people feel a little insecure about admitting that, “Hey, I’m dual-career, I’m multi-passionate, I have other things that I do outside of this.” It’s just something that coming back to it like part time, depending on how you qualify that, truly it’s not a dirty word.

Definitely in this day and age, I think it’s a lot more accepted than maybe 20 years ago or something, where you were known for some thing, multiple things. Now, the challenge is we only have the same amount of hours in a day. When you are doing multiple things, you cannot give 100% attention to any one of those things. If your intention is to make photography or whatever your business is, to make it full time, to make it successful, it’s really challenging to spread and divide your attention between multiple things because you’re not giving 100% to anything. As you’re pivoting and coming over to something else, the other thing that you were working on kind of slowly drips down and the competition is not doing that though.

Melissa: Exactly.

Paul: The competition is solely focused on one thing so you have to be a little bit careful there.

Melissa: Unfortunately, consumers and potential clients, they only see you for one thing. If you’re doing multiple things, just keep this in mind, again, there’s nothing wrong with it but they’re going to get confused because if, for example, you’re doing photography but then maybe you’re selling a service, a jewelry or a beauty product and people do get involved with like the MLMs with that, so they do that. If you’re doing photography, you’re selling a product and then you have a full time job, you’re juggling a lot of things, you’re wearing a lot of hats. A lot of people, they can’t associate you with multiple things. They get confused. It’s again, establishing your brand and who you are.

I think one of the first things is when you are in the process of determining what your business model looks like, is really to figure out what that vision looks like and really hone down and sit down and if for photography, figure out is this going to be full time, is this going to be part time? Am I planning on being a solopreneur or am I going to have people working for me? Am I going to have assistants? Am I going to have people that are going to be second shooting with me? Really plan that out what your business looks like. What actually is your exit plan at the end of the day? Do you want to do this till the end of the day when you retire or are you looking for something else beyond photography?

Paul: Yeah, and I’m telling you, you definitely need to … Having this focus in mind, like the end in mind I think it’s Stephen Covey, Begin With the end in mind. With that, you have to look at it … I think so much of the time we focus on the amount of hours that we put into something is what qualifies if it’s part time or full time. I know in every industry, I have friends and we have family members and friends that are highly effective with their time and they’re highly effective in executing what they do for a living. What happens is they can actually outproduce people in a short period of time while other people take a 40 or an 80-hour week and try to accomplish.

It’s something that I think the whole, like is part time or full time really just amount of hours that you give or is it really the end result? What is it that you’re actually looking for? Just like what Melissa said though, is that you could have an 8-hour a day and do what I would consider like unproductive activities, things that are not billable hours. Let’s say the magic number everybody, whenever we talked, create things with anybody and just about every industry, the magic number, it’s been the same forever.

Melissa: For everyone.

Paul: It’s $100,000.

Melissa: Six figures. Everyone wants six figures.

Paul: Everybody’s like six figures.

Melissa: Everyone wants six figures and that’s great.

Paul: It’s like you know what, well, there’s some people that are doing that and they’re taking half the year off. They’re on vacations, they’re travelling, they’re snowbirds, whatever it is.

Melissa: They push it really beginning the year, they burst their butts and then they take that time off. It’s really a matter of how you manage your time with that.

Paul: Some people they’re week and worriers. We know people in the photography business that they have a full time career during the week or they’re a stay at home mom or stay at home dad during the week, and they bang out these weddings on the weekend. They do senior sessions and other things that they do on the weekends. But they’re so highly effective with their time because they have scarcity of time, that what they are doing is so much more important than probably the equal person on the side that claims themselves as full time, that has an eight hour day or 10-hour day and they spread over that entire day like one hour worth of productive activity.

Now, you really want to look at this especially being an entrepreneur, that you have to look at it … I used to joke and say it’s like having an auto body experience. You have to come behind yourself as if you’re boss of yourself in every activity that you’re doing during the day. Is it a billable hour? Is it something that is moving a needle, that’s making you money or giving you life and lifestyle, your family? Is it helping you? Are you slowly doing activities and things because I know half of your Facebook scrolling, you’re tagging, you’re liking, you’re commenting on things using the little puppies and little cats all day long. She still wants a puppy.

Melissa: I do. After the wedding, it’s happening.

Paul: I know.

Melissa: He will be part of the show.

Paul: She and David are getting on me about that. It’s like whatever you’re active in. We’re basically addicted to avoiding boredom these days.

Melissa: Shannon here has a really good point. He says multi-passionate. I love that. I think it’s also to really understanding your personality because for some people, some individuals really like to be involved with a lot of different things. That might be your personality and that’s okay too. That might be another reason why maybe full time might not be the right thing for you because you truly love to be involved with a lot of different things. I know that was one of things that … I definitely had a childhood. I loved being involved with whether it was photography world but I also love coaching, I love writing, I love creating. There’s so many things that I’m involved with.

As an entrepreneur, it’s okay to nurture that and foster that and just really understand that part of yourself. That might be something that might be really beneficial, that maybe photography might not be a full time gig for you. You might be involved with other things too and being okay with that.

Paul: Yeah. We’re one of the few that openly, very openly we don’t down anybody that’s dual-career or multi-career. We don’t look down on people that are in multiple facets in their life where you’re doing what you want to do. For me, when I had the real estate company, for eleven and a half years I had a studio in Philadelphia. Many people didn’t know about that. That was my escape. That was me-time, that was me getting away, that was me relaxing, rebooting and everything. If you looked at either direction, I was very successful in both directions and there was no negativity about it. But just because I wasn’t physically there 24 hours a day and pressed up against the glass, it’s just something that it didn’t make me any less of a photographer.

I still had the same skillsets, the same marketing, the same branding, all the things in place. I just had my life changed nine years ago. I guess it’s nine years ago now and it’s something that … A lot of positive things have come along in my life in that time. It’s something that’s really exciting that for us, if you technically look at it with the book that we did and the ongoing training and everything, we ourselves, we’re working photographers but we also are speaking and teaching and helping and coaching.

Melissa: Exactly.

Paul: Others as well.

Melissa: We’re multi-passionate as well.

Paul: Right. I don’t think people see anything negative about it.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: But again, it’s challenging. If you think about it, we’re doing a mix message on our business page. This is confusing for some people and you have to understand that this is the dangerous part, is that when you have your 9:00 to 5:00 or your other thing that you’re doing, and you’re putting that out or people know you for that, you could be an accountant full time. Whatever that is, people will self identify you like the label. That’s the box that you’re inside of their mind. They don’t mean to do it, it just happens.

When it comes to photography or whatever your business is or what your pursuit is, like for us it is photography, that’s hard to be in two spaces in people’s mind at the exact same time. It’s hard for people to relate and to connect. They’re not going to think of you first that way.

Melissa: They get confused because they associate with something else. I remember even with my own transition into the business now, I was coaching full time. A lot of people, they were just very confused because they had known me as a coach and that’s primarily all that I did.

Paul: Sure, I remember that [inaudible 00:13:27].

Melissa: I had to re-educate people that, “No, I’m coaching but I’m now doing it in this venue and this avenue here.” Again, you have to re-educate people. As you progress as entrepreneur, I think it’s a constant dance and it’s a constant journey that you’re continuing to grow and evolve. Five years from now, who knows where we’re going to be, you know what I mean? Ten years from now, who knows where we’re going be? We might be totally different from than what we’re doing now. As an entrepreneur, we always encourage people that really, you need to assess where you are right now, figure out where you want to go but you got to figure out where you are right no and get that big picture goal. That’s where you can, again, begin to start to take the steps towards that goal.

Paul: This isn’t something that we talked about but I do … Because I think this is very important because this is something that we talk about in other aspects. I also want to jock you right now because some of you might be for the long in this and you are full time and you might be struggling. You might be hitting the brick wall and you might be the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. You could be a different point in a journey where for you, you’ve been full time then market shifted change, maybe you evolved or didn’t evolve or the competitive landscape is going in a direction that you don’t want to be in anymore.

There’s nothing wrong with that because where I’m saddened a lot is where we see people digging their heals so hard on something that’s not working. You go into that failure direction and you get dragged into it and pulls your entire life down. We have some people that we talk to and when we go through it it’s like you know what, maybe the entrepreneurship, the risk that’s involved and the mindset that’s involved and everything that comes along with being an entrepreneur might not be the perfect build for everybody.

At the end of the day, sometimes we have to tuck that ego inside, we had to sit there and say, “You know what, I shouldn’t, maybe from an ego standpoint, I don’t want to get this job pre see but for my family, for the lifestyle, for the struggle that we’re going through.” I’m beating myself up over and over again, then I need to tuck the ego inside and say, “You know what, what’s the right decision?” There’s nothing wrong with … All the successes that you see out there in the world, all the people that you talk to that are incredibly successful have had failures in their life. They have learned from it, they have taken a step back.

Nine years ago I went from here to losing everything and being homeless, living out of my car and it’s something that when I re-invented myself as a photographer locally, I was taking the 25 dollar and 50 dollar gigs from the local newspaper in the local weekly publication to literally put food on the table for myself and sometimes for my son as well. It’s just something that that’s the reality that I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t live through what that was. But I had to take a step back. Sometimes we could be talking to some of you that that might be the decision that you might be making. There’s nothing wrong with that. You can take a step back, pant, re-group and then go get them. The next time round with a smarter mindset and skill set, they learn through that experience.

Melissa: Yeah. At the end of the day, you know what’s best for you and your family and you have to figure out that right thing. Like Paul was saying, making the right decision even if it means putting the ego a side and getting that job. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s a person that I follow along, Marie Forleo and she has a term that she’s coined that’s called A bridge job. A bridge job is basically that job that’s going to be a vehicle for you, that’s going to bridge you from where you are to where you want to be.

It might not be your dream job, it might not be where you want to be but it’s there to provide you stability, it’s there to provide you that income to come in, whatever that number is that you need, so that you can have that stability, have that peace of mind as you’re working on your business. A bridge job is something that everyone can really benefit from, especially if you are considering that transition from part time to full time. We’re all about taking risks but I think for entrepreneurs, it’s really all about calculated risks.

You definitely want to step out of the comfort zone and we’re all about like, “Go for it. Jump out the door.” But you want to make sure you have that parachute on, at least a little one on because calculated risk. You don’t want to do anything blindly especially for those of you that may have families involved, other people involved, spouses involved. You need to consider all those factors and it’s really looking at it from a wholistic view of entrepreneurship. Some of you might have the luxury of being you’re single and it’s just you. If you’ve had that risk factor inside yourself and you have that, “You know what, I’m just going to go for it.” Some people are really fueled by that. We call that positive pressure.

Paul: Positive pressure.

Melissa: But other people crumble with it and you have to kind of figure out that for yourself. Where are you falling on that spectrum? Are you over [inaudible 00:18:12] naturally? Are you one of those more cautious people? There’s nothing wrong with either or other. I actually tend to be more of a cautious person in business. I’m the cautious one. I’m the one that, “I don’t know, pop the breaks. This is not right.” He’s the one that’s pushing the gas and I’m like, “Wow, this is crazy.” You have to kind of figure out for yourself where you fall in that category and it’s okay.

There’s no right or wrong with it but figuring out what the best strategy is for you. For some people, it might be a bridge job, a part time job or whatever the case might be to help you bridge that gap as you go along the way. Other people, they’re either fueled by the fire under their ass, just go on, go on for it. You know what I mean? It’s really figuring out what’s best for you.

Paul: Right. There’s no right or wrong. I see there’s a bunch of people.

Melissa: Yes, so it happens. Anne’s in here. Hey Anne.

Paul: Are you able to scroll through that bunch of-

Melissa: Yes, and Ryan is in here. He says, he calls them stepping stones.

Paul: Stepping stones.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: That’s a great term.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: We’re going to get caught up because we know there was a lot of people that were saying things so we can call back up.

Melissa: Eddy is in here. Eddy [inaudible 00:19:10] is in here, Sarah is in here. Eddy says, “Shouldn’t we all be getting ready?” We have been.

Paul: We will definitely clip you in on how crazy-

Melissa: Oh my gosh, it’s been crazy. We’ll share that at the end. Stick around for the end. It’s a fun story.

Paul: You’re going to share it all now?

Melissa: No.

Paul: I was going to wait until after the wedding.

Melissa: You’ll wait after the wedding?

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: Let me [inaudible 00:19:28]

Paul: Suspense.

Melissa: Kerry is in here. Hey Kerry. Ryan says we can borrow his puppy. I love your puppy. He’s a big puppy. Tammy has an issue. She says, “As an aspiring writer, I am taking a masters writing class. However, I find it hard to stay focused on task because I can’t keep the end game at focus. What advice do you have to stay …” I think to stay on task basically, is what she’s saying.

Paul: Do you want to comment on that?

Melissa: I think what the biggest thing is, is that basically you’re doing a lot of things and you’re writing and you’re trying to stay on task. You need to as a writer, from a writer’s perspective, is dedicate that time to writing and having specific time for writing. You have to be disciplined about it, I think with anything, whether it’s writing or creating, whatever we do that we have to have that specific time because we will do everything in our power to sabotage ourselves as human beings. If you have that set time where you do nothing but write, even if it’s just like an hour a day and you sit down and you focus on your writing, I think that’s going to help you move that needle especially if that’s something really important for you.

Then again, coming back to why you’re writing, it’s not just about writing a really fantastic story but you want to share something. You want to give something to the world and you’re really coming back to that internal why. That’s going to drive you to make that time and to make that time really important.

Paul: Yeah. I think also just having … We talked about this before about having theme days.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: Do you want to talk a little bit about that because I think that would help out.

Melissa: Theme days is one of the things that we have been putting in our business and we didn’t really realize that we were doing it until when we were doing the research about productivity. We’ve been doing this for some time now. This is where you actually set aside each day that we’re having a certain theme. You might have an administrative day where you do all your administrative duties on one certain day. You might have a day where it’s your creative content writing day, you might have a day where it’s servicing your clients and each day has a different theme.

What’s great about theme days is that they’re all specifically laid out for you. In that day you know that, let’s say if it’s a content creative days, since we’re talking about writing, you spend that day writing. You write all day. But there are things come up during the day that you have to handle. Like if a client calls, you have to adjust that or if a situation happens, you have to take [inaudible 00:21:36] you do that. But you know at the end of the day that you come back to that specific theme. It keeps you on track, it keeps you on focus because a lot of times what happens is that we sit down in front of our computer with the best intentions of what we’re going to do and then we get totally overwhelmed like, “What I’m I going to do today?”

Then we know they’re not doing anything. They end up in Facebook, scrolling and scrolling and everything. But if we know that Wednesday, that’s my day for content creating, that’s my day for writing, I’m going to write. You write all day that day and whatever you don’t get done, you push it to the next week and you keep going. Themes are fantastic. It’s something that we do on our business. It keeps us on track, it keeps us moving the needle, it keeps things going.

Paul: Yeah, because definitely we’re doing the theme days as well. You have that dedicated where you’re saying that the writing time, but also all those other bigger projects, those distracted pieces get put into their own days as well. You basically have taken those projects and those things and you’ve pushed them, and you’ve given yourself permission to deal with them a whole other day. Those are things that will distract you from the writing but they have their own day now. You can focus on them in a whole different day. I think that would be a great methodology to do.

Melissa: Ryan had a great book here. I haven’t read this one yet. David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done. I haven’t read that one yet so I’m definitely going to check that one out.

Paul: We’re caught up on comments already?

Melissa: We’re caught up on comments.

Paul: Wow.

Melissa: I’m on the one’s channel, I’m not in the other channels. I don’t know how things are going on because we have this kind of going on in different places.

Paul: When the count down is happening, Melissa is like, “They’re going to share it.

Melissa: I’m not a text. I get anxious every single time I’m getting ready to go. I’m like, “I got to get everything right here.”

Paul: From our standpoint, looking at these things, we have to look at maybe possibly bringing along a virtual assistant that can do some of these [inaudible 00:23:14] things for us so we can stay on focus on task with what we do best.

Melissa: That’s another thing. Everything has a bad side. Entrepreneur is really what you do well and what you can outsource. We’re learning these things we do really well, things that we could probably give to someone else to help us out with.

Paul: When you’re a small business owner, one of the biggest challenges I think is that when you come in and you hear this word entrepreneur, it sounds cool. It’s like, “Yeah, that’s what I want.” But if you haven’t been self-employed before, we look at it, it’s kind of being … You have the self-employed attitude but then the mentality actually, because you have the excitement like, “Oh, I’m going to be my own boss.” But then you have the other side, the limiting beliefs because what’s happening is you’re coming in typically not from that background. You sabotage yourself really easy because you have a mindset of an employee.

It’s kind of like, “Oh, if I can sleep in, if I can take a day off or I’m scheduling …” When you do enough of that, you’re going to sabotage yourself. Once you become more effective, you can actually take from what other people say is part time effort, you can have full time results. It’s something that we know, again, we have several friends that we know people that work very limited number of hours in a week that are highly effective. They have all this free time and all this less stress. When you’re younger or maybe you guys are at different levels, it’s kind of more, more, more or bigger, bigger, bigger is better. As you mature and you learn and you go through things, you start realizing quality of time is even more important.

Instead of running myself ragged, I can duplicate myself. Sometimes that’s outsourcing, sometimes that’s hiring a staff member and expanding beyond yourself because whenever you bring in a partner or a staff member, an admin, because if you’re looking again, for instance, at six figures a year plus, if your doing 10 dollar an hour work, then you’re never going to get to the 200 dollar an hour worth. The challenge is that at some point, you might be looking and saying I get to buy myself off and you technically could be doing part time effort because you have somebody else that your employ that’s doing the everyday busy work for you.

Melissa: I think there’s a lot of advantages too being part time. Again, we’re one of the few that are like your business is whatever you want to make of it. With part time, you have a lot of advantages where you can spend time with family. You can still, again, pursue other avenues if you are multi-passionate. You can have a certain amount of dedicated time that you have to your craft and then do other things.

There’s a lot of advantages that you shouldn’t forget about that as well. Sometimes you might end up making more money as part time because the effort and the cost of goods and the things that you put out there as far as your timeline because again, we all a lot of times forget about the amount of time that we put into things and count that as part of our cost of goods. You actually might make more money being part time than really doing the … Depending on how you do that if that makes sense.

Paul: Yeah. This will be more of a deeper dive with everybody individually because depending on your value system and your habits and how you are will determine how effective you would be as either a business owner or an entrepreneur, which are two different things.

Melissa: Two different things. I know [inaudible 00:26:32]going on like [inaudible 00:26:33].

Paul: No, but I think it’s important.

Melissa: But they’re two totally different things. Being a business owner and an entrepreneur is two different things.

Paul: Right. You might be whatever you do is technical and you might love it. We definitely recommend, highly recommend a book the E Myth.

Melissa: By Michael Gerber.

Paul: Yeah, and this will give you a deeper dive in this exactly. Pretty much when you’re an entrepreneur, you’re really splitting … You’re becoming a split personality.

Melissa: You feel like a crazy person.

Paul: The ongoing joke is you just left a secure 40-hour week job in order to take the entire risk in trying to make the same amount of money or the dream of more money in five times the amount of time just so you can say you’re an entrepreneur. But I tell you, there is consistencies. People that are successful, they’re getting certain things done repetitively. In every industry, if you follow the same type of habits, no matter what the industry is, you’ll get some more results. It’s a pattern and it’s there. Success leaves clues.

Just coming back to the Michael Gerber book, The E Myth, we highly recommend it. It’ll more clearly define how you’re taking yourself. Divide it into three sections. We are the technician side, and over here you have the entrepreneur and way over here you have the manager. The manager oversees the technician, makes sure they’re doing what they’re doing but also there’s the cheques and balances at the entrepreneur, which on my end, I’m the risk taker and I’m like, “Oh.” If I did every idea we ever thought of, it would be kaput. She’s the one that’s like, “Oh, hold on, we got to look at this. Does this make sense? Is this in line with our vision?”

Melissa: Unfortunately for us, there’s two people here but for a lot of people, it’s one person. You have to manage all three of those as one person and figure out where you naturally fall and then get the skills to really cultivate that other parts of yourself so that you can do those other things.

Paul: Yeah, and some of you in the creative spaces like photographers as an example, some of you love just to do the photography. For you, you could get your fulfillment by being a second shooter, by working as an associate photographer for a company, by working with a regional based company. You’re going out and you’re doing the photography and you walk away. You don’t have to worry about the client. Follow up and all the backing work and the post-production, all that stuff, maybe you just want to have a camera in your hand. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just understand that it’s just one of the pieces of running successful businesses and entrepreneur because you have to be all three. Some of you love managing people. You might find yourself naturally maybe you want to be a manager of one of those regional companies.

Melissa: Maybe you’re a connector, maybe you love to get people to gather and that’s one of the aspects I have.

Paul: There’s no right or wrong. Sometimes people find business partnerships, where two photographers or two people in the same industry come together because one is strong in marketing and sales and the other one is strong with the technical aspect. We saw in the real estate industry where somebody was a real estate agent and they’re here, and here’s the money person or the handy man over here and they go around fixing up houses but they both don’t the same skillsets but they complement each other.

In a way, if you look at it individually, they both would have been part time because they’re both not doing the full scope of the business. There’s a lot of different ways you can actually look at this. We just wanted to kind of rattle off a little bit today and just talk a little bit more. Maybe if you wanted to see if there’s anybody else that joined or-

Melissa: Christian is in here and Christie is in here. Hey guys.

Paul: I got my voice back.

Melissa: I know.

Paul: She’s barely getting her voice-

Melissa: Tammy said, “Great advice. Thanks. Theme days are awesome.” Yeah, I definitely would check that out. Anne wrote a little, “Day one dream, day two plan, day three create, day four review, day five edit day, six meet client, days seven me-time.” That’s great. You can do whatever those theme days are, whatever you need to do.

Paul: Rinse and repeat.

Melissa: Rinse and repeat, just keep going. Excellent.

Paul: That’s awesome.

Melissa: Awesome. I think the biggest thing is whether you go full time, part time, you just need to own it and remember this is a marathon, it’s not a sprint. Wherever you are in your journey, to be okay with that. It’s very easy to get into that comparison complex, where if you’re not full time and you’re part time and you’re like, “Oh gosh, I should be so much further.” You’ve probably gotten so much further already where you are right now. If you’re full time right now and you’re struggling or having challenges, again, remember you’re in this for the long hall. Take a deep breath and just really realize that this is the journey, this is the piece of the part of it and there’s going to be ups and downs. I think that’s one of the things that you’ve taught me a long the way too.

Paul: Yeah, she was not used to that.

Melissa: I was not because I-

Paul: She was used to corporate living and consistency.

Melissa: I came from the corporate world where it was very consistent. For me, my transition to entrepreneurship was a very rough one and I can relate to so many people that we coach and mentor because they’re like, “Oh my gosh, there’s not enough. What I’m I going to do?” You have to kind of just get this sense of peace that if you’re doing the things that you need to do on a consistent basis, it will come but you have to do the work. It will come. It’s not like you build and they come, but you have to do the work and just being okay and holding steady throughout the process.

It’s again, figuring out where your personality falls within that. If you again, really thrive on that positive pressure, you can’t take more risk, more calculated risks. If you maybe are a little bit more hesitant, that’s okay too and having that kind of a back up plan, whether it’s that bridge job, part time job, whatever the case might be. But again, bottom line is you got to figure out what’s best for you and your family.

Paul: Right. I tell you, the key is consistency.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: Consistency, consistency, consistency, because the people that get in, in an entrepreneurship stand point, typically again, self-sabotage without realizing it, they don’t show up. That is the number one thing that I think kills every single opportunity, is the inconsistency at what they do. Whatever idea you learn, whatever … So many people they see a webinar, they go to seminar, they learn some great new technique or trick. They try for a week or two weeks and it’s like they didn’t get the immediate result and they quit. I’m telling you the success is being consistent. Showing up and doing what you know you need to do even when it’s uncomfortable because it’s the one in trade out of your comfort zone, is where everything is. We’re in a competitive situation, is we’re planning on all of our competitors staying inside that comfort zone. All we had to do is get one inch outside of it and that makes all the difference in the world.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: No matter whether you’re full time, part time, in between, dual-career, multi-career passionate, it doesn’t matter. Just understand that wherever you put the time and your focus, that’s what’s going to grow. You have to nurture whatever it is and it’ll blossom. If you try to do multiple things at the same time, just be respectful and understand that none of them are going to get 100% of your attention, which means all of them are going to slowly grow or they might slowly be dying if you’re not paying attention to it. Everyday you’re making decision, you’re either staying on track with your goals or you’re slowly moving off track.

What Melissa said at the beginning, you need to know the bigger picture. What is you why, what is your purpose? Where do you really want to be? Sometimes we need to do a reassessment. It’s May the 3rd today but you know what, you might have done … Did new year’s resolutions that, “Oh, this is what we’re going to do this year.” Maybe you need to re-visit now. You could be in a space right now that you need to make today day one, or should I say day zero and re-evaluate. Maybe the direction you’re going right now is not the same values and goals that you had six months ago or two months ago or three or five years ago. Are you working up the same set of principles and goals that maybe you’re not even in the same space in your life and things aren’t as important anymore. Anything you want to add right now for today?

Melissa: Just last thing, just remember that you’re awesome. You have something unique to give to this world. You really do. Again, whatever the avenue of the vehicle that you have, just go for it and do it. Part time, full time, whatever the case might be. Don’t forget that, that you have something unique, something special to contribute to this world. Never forget that and just keep going toward your dreams.

Paul: Yeah. Are we good for today?

Melissa: We are good for today.

Paul: We are heading into … We are three days.

Melissa: Yes.

Paul: It’s May the 3rd. Three days until our wedding. This is so crazy. We both resect this week. We had some crazy things happen.

Melissa: I guess we’ll say that for next time.

Paul: Yeah.

Melissa: We’ll say that on the wrap up show.

Paul: Any other couple in the world probably would have had a melt down. We just laughed and like, “We got this.”

Melissa: Yeah, this is our life.

Paul: We do, yeah. We’ll definitely share that definitely with it all being in past tense.

Melissa: Absolutely.

Paul: Thanks for all the love and support and kind words and encouragement and everything that everybody always gives. Hopefully something today touched inside of one of you and please share it. If you think that this message is important to somebody that you know, please share it in any groups that you want. We love to get the word out. We don’t have all the answers, we’re always seeking just like you. For us, we just want to keep moving it and passing it forward.

Melissa: If you are a photographer, we have a wonderful group called Profitographers. Please join it. It’s an open Facebook group. It’s a great community where photographers of all skill levels, all levels just get together. We learn, we go out to share together. We share knowledge, we talk about business. It’s just a really supportive community. Gosh, we’re over what, 10,000?

Paul: We’re 12,000 now.

Melissa: Twelve thousand now and counting. We’re really proud. This group has been active for over a year now and just to see the leaps and bounce in the community and people coming together, it’s such a great positive feeling. We’d love to have you come and join us there as well if you are a photographer.

Paul: Yeah, excellent. Well, until we talk again everyone.

Melissa: Stay profitable.

Paul: Bye.

Melissa: Bye.