Living your Pinterest Life

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for the internet phenomenon Pinterest. I thought it would be a good way to catalog inspiration for upcoming t-shirt collections, photo shoots and business ideas. I made the mistake of following everyone I am facebook friends with and my feed was flooded with an enormous amount of stuff. I started clicking around through different boards of people I knew and started to get kind of sad. I noticed that as I clicked around on boards labeled "my style" that people were lying. I kept thinking to myself that I have never seen this person wear any of this. I felt like the board was mislabeled and should have been labeled "The style I wish I could have but am too afraid of what people might think."

I also saw boards labeled "inspiration" and they were filled with photos of skinny girls, bikinis and healthy food. Again I felt like the boards should have been labeled "I wish I was this skinny but can't practice enough self control to lose weight."

I also saw a lot of "future project" ideas, which again should have been labeled "Projects that I will put off but still say that I am going to do someday."

I know this seems harsh and I am sure a lot of people on Pinterest are using these boards to really motivate themselves and get things done. I also know that our human nature tells us to be lazy, boring and stupid. I know that it's hard to take risks. I know that the idea of starting a project or business can be awesome and exciting, but when it comes to actually doing something about it....well, that's terrifying. So we just tell people about it and build these massive ideas in our heads that are never actually going to happen. This is what saddens me.

I think it's time for you to take some risks and to make some of these boards become realities. I know there are always a ton of excuses. They usually go something like this:

1. I don't have time. What a stupid excuses. If you have time to be on Pinterest for 2 hours planning a project then you have 2 hours to actually do a project. If you can watch TV or update facebook every 45 minutes or take instagrams non-stop then you have some extra time to make one of these boards become a reality.

2. I don't have money. It doesn't take as much money as you think to do most projects or at least start most projects. It certainly doesn't take a lot of money to start losing weight. Stop eating out so much and you will actually start to save money. Then you can use that money to do one of your projects. Boom! Two projects completed!

3. I am not totally sure how to do it. Today we have access to more information than ever before. If you aren't sure how to do something I am pretty sure there is a tutorial on youtube or the internet somewhere. If you can't find anything then just try it. If you mess up then that's okay at least you tried. At least you tried to make your vision a reality instead of always keeping it a vision.

I didn't start walk in love. by opening a store in one day. It was a lot of little projects and little risks that built up over years filled with mistakes, sweat and hard work. If I could go back 6 and half years ago I would give myself a high five for starting it and for taking it from inspiration to reality (I would also tell myself to go find Brooke and marry her next week). I had no idea what it would become back then but if I never took that step I would not be where I am today.

Pinterest is a great tool for inspiring creativity and vision, but it shouldn't just stop at the inspiration. It should always be a jumping off point into action. So take that action and start living your pinterest life.

The 2nd Period

I wrestled in high school. I was pretty good. Not great, but better than most. Wrestling is one of the sports that you love and hate at the same time. You love that it's one of the most physical demanding things because it makes you feel super hardcore but you also hate that it's so demanding and you just want it to end. You love how good you look while you do it but you hate that you have to cut weight. If you are wrestling in high school now and reading this know that you will miss it when it's gone. I never thought I would say that, but I do miss wrestling. Highschool wrestling matches are three periods and each of those periods are two minutes. There is no harder 6 minutes in sports and if you want to argue that then you obviously haven't tried to wrestle someone for 6 straight minutes, but that is not the point of this post.

Here is how a full match usually goes.

Before it starts : You're pumped up and ready to go.

1st Period : LET'S DO THIS!!!!!

2nd Period : You don't know if you are going to make it and you find yourself thinking, "Why am I doing this? My face is cut up, I have lost 15 lbs. I am constantly hanging out with gross, sweaty guys. I haven't gone out with my friends in weeks. I am wearing spandex. Why I am wrestling? This was a stupid idea. Next year I am going to play basketball or even better yet do nothing at all. I just want this to end."

3rd Period : I am so close to the end. I can make it.

After the match if you win : I love this sport. I want to get better.

After the match if you lose : I hate this sport. I need to get better.

Life has second periods, lots of them and I find myself currently in one. It's the time of life that doubt starts to sneak it. Right now it's my second period in business and more specifically the store. Things started off great and were exciting and then came the holidays which are awesome, but now it's January and sales are slow, while bills are still high. It's the second period and I have two options.

1. I can tap out and quit. Say something like, "It's the economy." or "It just wasn't working out."

or

2. I can keep wrestling and hopefully make it to the 3rd period.

The nice thing about wrestling is that the second period was only 2 minutes no matter what, but it's not like that in business or life. Sometimes we can be in the second period for weeks, months or years and the third period or finish line might seem so unreachable. It's times like this where faith in God really matters. The second period is what separates the winners from the losers. It showed you who is going to grit it out and push through the pain, exhaustion and suffering and who is going to quit.

While you are in the second period it is awful and you find yourself thinking that nothing good will ever come from this but you're wrong. Good things will always come to those who push through adversary. Even if I end up failing and the store closes I will have shown to myself, my family, my wife and my God that I believed and pushed through the second period. That I am not a quitter and that in the end all I could do was my best.

When you own a business you're tendency is to always paint a very beautiful picture about how things are going so your clients don't get scared but it's not always like that and I think that's okay. If you were to speak with anyone who is super successful they would be the first to tell you, but I think they would also tell you that those times were when they learned the most.

If you are out there and you are currently in the second period of life and wondering what's the point or thinking about quitting. Don't! Keep wrestling, keep believing and keep moving on because the third period is coming and you can make it.

Hire Passion and Teach Skill

One of the newest things to me is having a team. We have a walk in love. team and a Brooke Courtney team. I am going to focus on the walk in love. team and how we ended up with these eight awesome people. When we decided to open the store we weren't really worried about whether people had computer skills, could work the register or knew how to fold a shirt correctly. Those are all things that we could teach. We wanted passion, energy and excitement! We wanted people who loved the brand and wanted to see it grow. Here is how we got those people.

We needed around 8 people to staff the store.

First we asked 3 of the people who worked at the kiosk the year before - Mike (my brother), Matt (the first walk in love. intern) and Maddie (who I've known since she was 6 years old).

Then my best friend, Jeff, asked if he could have one of the jobs. He was tired of working at his other job and was ready for a change. So we said, Yes!

Then we posted an application online for the 5 positions we had left and were greeted with over 100 applications.

So Mike, Brooke and I looked through them and narrowed it down to about 30 based off whether they fit our brand. We were looking for excited, young and happy people to join our team.

Then we thought about sitting down with 30 different people and having them all regurgitate the same answers on why they were perfect for the job and blah blah blah. Not my idea of an exciting Saturday.

So instead Brooke and I decided to have a party at our house and invite the current team of 4, some other friends and all 30 potential team members. We wanted to see how they interacted with each other and with other people.

I won't go into the details of the party, but after it was over the team came to almost unanimous decisions on who would be a good fit and who wouldn't. We were all in on 3 people so I offered them all a job and they accepted. Two of them - Drew and Gina still work at the store.

Then there was one other person at the party that I was on the fence about. I heard peoples opinions on her but it came down to me to make the decision and I had to trust my gut so I asked our last team member Kristen to be on the team and I couldn't be happier with that desicion.

I love our team. I love their energy and passion. I love that I can trust them and I love that I didn't just look for people who gave me the right answers. Yes, sometimes I am so frustrated with our team members, but in the end I know that each one of them is passionate about walk in love. I know that they will do their very best to represent the brand and to live out our message in public.

I think whenever you are hiring or building a team look for passion first and skill second. When we asked Maddie to be the intern for the Brooke Courtney team she didn't know much about photography but we knew she had a passion for it. Skills and technique will come with coaching and practice, but passion will not.

Refresh

Brooke and I had the privilege of shooting a wedding in Jamaica this past week.  When we booked the wedding I thought it would be good to add on a few days after shooting for some vacation time.  We have only been on one short vacation since our honeymoon and I thought it would be really good for us to get away and unplug, but I had no idea how good it would end up being.

I only used my phone as a camera, didn't sign up for wifi and beside shooting the wedding set no agenda for the week.  It only took me about 3o minutes of laying in the hot tub on the first night we arrived to realize that I needed this.  While 2011 had been an amazing year of growth and excitement, it had also been non-stop.  Always moving, always working, always answering some question about the store, a wedding or what I needed to do today.  If you have spent any amount of time going to church I am sure you've heard the sermon about "being still and knowing God is God."  Normally those sermons end with 5 minutes of awkward silent time when all I can think about is what I want for lunch (usually pizza) or what football game is on later (Go Niners!).  It's hard to force still moments.  Our brains are crazy, they never stop and I feel like mine has been on overload for the past year with all the newness of 2011, but stillness is so good and while laying in that hot tub I was reminded of that goodness.

I spent the week reading EntreLeader by Dave Ramsey.  I am only on the second chapter because after about every paragraph I have to put the book down and really think about what he is saying and how I can apply it to the walk in love. team, the Brooke Courtney Photography team, my family, relationships, my house and so on.  So far the book has been a lot about goals and vision.  I am not much of a reader and even less of a writer but during this vacation I really fell in love with the idea of writing my goals down.  Writing them down made them feel so real and permanent, like I had to push to make them happen, like if I didn't try everything in my power to reach them I would be failing.  So I wrote personal goals, business goals, relationship goals, house goals and even refreshing goals.    I initially thought that writing them down would be somewhat stressful, like a long and impossible to-do list that would only end up making me stressed but as I inked the goals in my moleskine I felt a feeling that I haven't felt in a while.  I felt refreshed.

In business I feel like it's go, go, go and make small changes along the way, but never stop.  You must never stop or you will lose a client, a step or not reach the next mark.  With that attitude there isn't a lot of time for feeling refreshed and refocused, but as I marked my journal with goals that's exactly how I felt.  I felt that while I have been successful I have lost my way  a bit.  Now I don't mean anything illegal or immoral, but just unfocused on why I do what I do.  It was mostly little things, like how I can better incorporate our team in things and build better, fuller relationships with our clients and customers.  Things that can't be fixed by a meeting or a brainstorming session, but only by a shift in thinking, a refocusing.

The tricky part about feeling refocused is about making it actually happen in real life.  I am not in Jamaica anymore and I came home to hundreds of e-mails, questions and to-dos.  I still have the daily to-do list, but when you write your goals down and look through that lens as you check things off, change will happen.  Today, as I answered my first 50 e-mails, I kept thinking about establishing a better, closer, more genuine relationship with our clients or potential clients (one of my goals).  I tried to explain myself better or read their inquiry with more attention so I wouldn't miss anything.

As I think about what needs to happen at the store I am asking myself if there is one specific team member that could help.  Is there a team member with a certain skill set or passion that can help with this task because one of my goals is to create an even closer team.

I was really excited to get home after this week.  I was excited to feel refreshed about what is going on in my life.  If you are anything like me you probably think that a couple hours, a day or a week off to refocus will just cause you more stress about what you are falling behind on.  That is what I thought.  I even told Brooke before we left I should have just booked the trip to shoot the wedding and come home, but I am so thankful that I added on those extra days.  I am so thankful because I was able to spend some time being still, writing goals and refocusing why I am here and why I have been blessed with what is in front of me.  It feels good to be refreshed and I encourage you to schedule or force yourself to take some time to do the same.

2011 : The Year of New

I know this blog is covered in digital cobwebs since I haven't posted anything in a while.  This is my year end recap that I posted to Brooke Courtney Photography.  It explains why.  One of my goals in 2012 is to write more so this blog should have a lot more posts! Last year, I wrote a year end re-cap about 2010 being the best year of my life. While this year certainly topped last year, it was a very different type of year.  2011 was the year of new. Brooke and I did a lot of things for the first time, with the two biggest things being opening a store and opening up Brooke Courtney Photography to a team.  These two changes have taught me some very important lessons and I thought that I would share those with you.  This post is especially for you entrepreneurs, leaders, visionaries and managers out there.

1. Stress : I found out this year that I was doing too much.  I found myself not spending time with Brooke, my family and myself.  Now I didn't just lock myself in a room and work away like Quasimodo in the bell tower, but looking back I wish that I spent some more time doing things that really bring joy to my heart.  This year I am having monthly projects - things I want to do that don't have anything to do with work, like organize the garage, making shelves for the closet and so on.  They aren't big visionary things, but they are things that I keep putting off, things that I know when done, will make life feel more full and Brooke super happy.  I think that if I would have spent more time doing those things I would have stressed less about money, timing, employees and logistics.

2. Patience : I thought that the store would open, millions of people would flock to it and I would sleep on a yacht for the rest of my life.....not really. I don't like boats. But! I did think that as soon as the doors to the store flung open all my work would pay off, and then I learned a little bit about patience.  The store is doing well, but I think I had false hopes to how fast it would grow. I've learned that the work isnt' done, that doing something big and great doesn't happen overnight and takes time, work and that magical word I have no time for - patience.  I've also learned that with patience comes commitment.  I've had to ask myself, "How big do you want to see these businesses get? and Are you willing to wait however long it takes to get there?"  If you can't say yes to the latter then what are you doing in business?

3. Team Members : This year we added two team members to the photography team and an intern.  We added nine (for the first time ever!) in the walk in love. store.  We now have one photography team member and two interns on the BC team - and seven team members at the store.  When growing your business and adding team members (we call them team members because employees just work for a paycheck, team members work to make things better) things become a lot more challenging.  Brooke and I were so use to doing things our way and we figured out quickly that you couldn't just add extra people to that and expect them to jump right in and be exactly where we are.  We have found, through trial and error, how to work with our team members, which include some of our best friends and family.  It's taking time, open communication and patience to have a team - and those are three things that would not be listed under my strengths. Naturally, this has been one of the hardest parts of the year for me. We've lost a team member from Brooke Courtney and that was hard to take.  We felt like a family member was leaving, but like all things, we have to learn from it.  We have to choose to be better and with a new intern coming this summer we will have the ability to do just that.  The store also lost two team members, but something the store did this year was amazing -  it brought a relative group of strangers together, it gave us a common ground to know each other and share with each other.  Three of my best friends work at walk in love. and one of them works at both.  That is amazing.  Having a team is hard and it requires a lot patience, listening and understanding, but mostly it requires trust.  I have to trust every day that whoever is working at the store or shooting a wedding is doing a great job and that is hard to do, but worth it.

4. Strength: It is there. There were a few experiences that really stretched me this year and made me question if I could do all this, if I could keep it up.  The main one was having the store move.  I remember getting the phone call (telling us we had 30 days to relocate our entire store) and instantly feeling like I was going to throw-up.  I remember thinking that the dream was over - the store would move, people wouldn't find us and all the work, money and sweat we put into it would be for nothing.  I thought that I was going to end up a failure and my friends and family would abandon me.  I know a lot of that is not logical, but it's what accompanied that news.  I didn't think we could do it - lose money on our first location, move and catch up - but that's when I found it.  The strength.  I found it within, through the power of God, that I could push through this horrible news and overcome.  Strength was shown to me in the most by my Aunt Helen.  From the time we heard the news to the time we had to move, my cousin Carmen died in an accident.  She had just graduated high school and was on vacation with her family when it happened.  It came as a shock to our entire family.  Funeral plans were made and we all traveled to western Pennsylvania to say our goodbyes.  It was here, when I watched my Aunt Helen take to the microphone, that I learned a little bit about strength.  Listening to my Aunt say goodbye to her daughter and then watching her sing "It is well with my soul" was the most valiant act of strength I have ever seen in my life.  It was that amazingly, powerful display of strength and courage that has showed me it is possible to push through.  I am not trying to compare the moving of a store to the loss of a daughter, but what Aunt Helen put on display was empowering and incredible.  It is that type of strength that comes through Christ and his spirit and when I remind myself of it, I am overwhelmed with courage.

5. Tomorrow : There were times this year that we were ready to give up, that we couldn't go on, but that's when were reminded of tomorrow.  Tomorrow is coming and with tomorrow comes hope, new dreams and a new chance.  I hope that if you are out there in a hard place, trying to make it you would never forget that.  Tomorrow is coming and there is always hope.

These are the hands.

This statement may seem obvious but as a wedding photographer you go to a lot of weddings. At these weddings I get to see a lot of different types of vows, some are very traditional and some are very unique. I've heard a lot of readings from the Bible,Dr. Seuss, and even a vegan cookbook recipe...yes a vegan cookbook recipe as a wedding reading. This past weekend at the wedding we were shooting the pastor had the couple hold each others hands face up so they could see the palms and read this poem. First he had the bride hold the grooms hands and said,

These are the hands, young and strong and vibrant with love, that are holding yours on your wedding day, as he promises to love you all the days of his life.

These are the hands you will place with expectant joy against your stomach, until he too, feels his child stir within your womb.

These are the hands that look so large and clumsy, yet will be so gentle as he holds your baby for the first time.

These are the hands that will work long hours for you and your new family.

These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, for a lifetime of happiness.

These are the hands that will countless times wipe the tears from your eyes: tears of sorrow and tears of joy.

These are the hands that will comfort you in illness, and hold you when fear or grief rack your mind.

These are the hands that will tenderly lift your chin and brush your cheek as they raise your face to look into his eyes: eyes that are filled completely with his overwhelming love and desire for you.

And then had the groom hold the hands of his bride and read this,

These are the hands that are smooth, young, and carefree, that are holding yours on your wedding day, as she pledges her love and commitment to you all the days of her life.

These are the hands that will hold each child in tender love, soothing them through illness and hurts, supporting and encouraging them along the way, and knowing when it's time to let go.

These are the hands that will massage tension from your neck and back in the evenings, after you've both had a long hard day.

These are the hands that will hold you tight as you struggle through difficult times.

They are the hands that will comfort you when you are sick or console you when you are grieving.

These are the hands that will passionately love you and chrish you through the years, for a lifetime of happiness.

These are the hands that will hold you in joy and excitement and hope, each time she tells you that you are to have another child; that together you have created a new life.

Perhaps these are the hands that will comfort you when you are told you cannot have a child, and will convince you that together you will create new life in other ways.

These are the hands that will give you support as she encourages you to chase down your dreams. Together, as a team, everything you wish for can be realized.

Now you may have seen this at a wedding and I am not totally sure that this was the first wedding I've seen it at but for some reason it had quite the impact on me. As I stood there and shot photos while the pastor said these words I couldn't help but think of my wife's hands. I thought about how much they do for me out of love, how graceful they are, how talented they are and how they are totally hers yet she so freely uses them to help me. I've been married over two years now and every day I have some sort of realization that I am just scratching the surface of understanding what love is and that day as I heard those words and a few days later as I took these pictures I am overwhelmed by the power of love so simply displayed by my wife's hands.