With Laura Esmond

If you said you want more financial freedom, are you keeping your prices in the middle or safe just so that you feel busy when what you really need is to raise them so that you can get that financial freedom in your business. If you said you want more time with your family, are you saying yes to every client request, leaving your evenings, weekends consumed?

This is not about shaming yourself, it's just about noticing, because every choice either pulls you closer to what you want or pushes you further away. When you start to notice the patterns, you can shift them slowly and intentionally, one decision at a time. You can shift your business and your path towards getting that feeling that you initially identified.

Welcome back to the podcast here with Laura Esmond. Today I wanna share with you one of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself in both life and business. What do you actually want? It sounds simple, but this little question, which I have found to be really hard for a lot of people to answer.

This little question has helped me pivot and grow as a business owner and photographer. And through the answers I've watched many of my students not only create lasting impact on their financial outcomes, but I would say even more importantly, discover more joy in how they show up to their business every single day.

Because that process, what we're doing on a daily basis is what we actually have to love, not just the outcome. So in this episode, we're going to dig into why this question matters. How to tell the difference between what your soul wants and what your ego chases, and how your answer can become the compass that guides everything else.

Let's dive in. Okay.

When I first started my retail studio, I made a pretty big mistake,

I never stopped to ask myself one really important question. What do I actually want? Instead, I jumped head first into a business model with high overhead, lot of rent, staff, payroll, products, subscriptions, all the things, you name it. And because of that, my guiding question wasn't about vision or alignment.

It was always when we were in the heat of it, especially, how can I make money today? How do I cover this month's bills? And of course the business I built reflected that mini sessions stacked on mini sessions, event after event, a membership that was really great in some ways, but also spiraled out of control pricing that kept us busy, but also left us feeling pretty drained.

On paper, it looked great. We were profitable. The calendar was always full. We felt popular, but it wasn't. Aligned. It wasn't intentional, and by the time it grew to a point that I started to actually reflect and ask myself that question, it felt unchangeable. It felt like trying to turn a cruise ship around.

Here's what I've learned since, when you start with the question, what do I want? Everything changes from there. It's like planting a seed. You're telling your energy and your actions where to go Without that clarity, you end up reacting instead of creating, which was what I did, how can I make money today?

I have bills to pay. I had to react to that business in that stress. One thing I did learn in this process of, of realizing I really was going to have to make a change in my business.

Was that not all wants and needs for a business are equal. Some come from your soul, others come from your ego. Both matter, but they give you very different outcomes. Here's what I mean. Your soul usually wants a feeling. You can connect it with peace. You wanna feel connection, you wanna feel creativity, you need a lot of freedom in your business so that you can be inspired.

All of these are feelings. For some people, maybe they want high energy, so that would mean having a packed schedule. For others, they want peace and slow, they want, they need slow mornings and weekends with family. Your ego though, everything is driven around numbers. I want a hundred thousand dollars in revenue.

I want 5,000 followers. I want 200 likes on every post. Those numbers though, they never stop moving. They are a moving target. Once you hit one, you immediately want the next. You hit 3000 followers. All of a sudden you want four, you get to four, and you want five. You want five, you want six. Just never stops.

Same thing with revenue. People rarely look at their business and think, great. I made a hundred thousand dollars this year. Cool. I, I don't ever need to make more money. We tend to say, well, maybe I can make 110 next year or 120. These are moving targets, and that's healthy for a business.

Okay, we should have goals on both sides, both the ego number driven goals, but also the soul driven goals, the things that are going to make us excited to show up on a daily basis. I don't show up for numbers, but I do show up for clients and connection and community, and also I show up to the freedom that I have in my business.

I know this firsthand because I built my first studio almost entirely from ego. I thought success meant being popular, having a busy studio, hitting income goals, and while the business looked successful on the outside, inside I always felt.

Panic. I was tired. I was creatively empty. I showed up to sessions kind of exhausted and just waiting for it to end and move on to the next one. So all of my sessions looked the same and felt the same. Creatively, I was drained. I built a business on fear instead of desire, instead of what I really wanted.

What did I wanna show up to every day? Because here's what I have figured out now. This is what I really connect with now. Fulfillment doesn't always follow success, You can get to that 3000 follower mark, but you don't feel fulfilled by it. You want more, but success almost always follows fulfillment.

The closer you can model your business to one that fulfills your needs. The rest client money growth will flow more naturally and often your definition of success starts to change. For me, that meant breaking down a business I'd worked years to build. It was terrifying. It seemed silly from the outside to fix something that didn't appear to be broken.

But the more I listened to what I really wanted, artful work, deeper conversations, space to breathe, the easier it was to let go of the business that I had built. So I downsized. I shifted from a retail studio to something more intimate, and I honed in on a very specific session type that really allowed me to feel the most artful.

I was still photographing all kinds of other things, but I loved focusing on this one because it was fulfilling that desire to create. I started saying no to more than a couple of sessions a week. Okay. I had gone from photographing multiple sessions throughout the week. Probably one every day at a minimum, to now saying no.

What I really need is space in between each of these sessions so that I can get fueled back up creatively. Also, give me time to just download and call and work through these images and work more closely with that one client before moving on to the next.

The business that I have shifted to, I feel I can show up so much more naturally to this. I've built a business that feels like me. It now supports my need for freedom. By having space between sessions, it supports my desire to create slowly, maybe not with every single session, but I'm getting that just often enough inside my business.

Now that it. Feels really good. It supports my need to have lots of different interests, such as educating and working with other photographers. I have the space now to do that.

I built a client experience that relies on relationship and friendship, and even though I do use automations in my business, I don't 100% rely on them because I don't have time for it. They're just there as a catchall to make sure that everything is communicated. I have plenty of time now to communicate with my clients one-on-one, and I love that piece of it, but I never would've arrived here without wrestling with.

The question, what do I even want from this business? So what about you? I actually have two questions I want you to sit with first. What do you actually want your business to feel like? Do you want it to center on artistry? That kind of quiet, intentional, slow creative work that fuels you as an artist?

Not everybody wants that. Some of you are like, yes, that's exactly what I want. It lit up all the centers of your mind where others went, not really. That's not what I want. Okay, then that's okay. That's okay. For you, do you crave maybe having deeper connections with your clients and the relationships you get to build through your sessions?

Maybe that piece of it is really important. Maybe you need freedom, like I did, slow weekends with your kids, white space on your calendar space to breathe. I know for me personally, when I look at a day on my calendar that has nothing, and from the moment I drop my kids off at school to the point I can pick them up, I'm like.

Oh, I just breathe On those days, they feel so good and obviously can't do that every day. That's not possible, and I am still working on those days, but I don't need to answer to anybody on those. That feels really good for me, so I make sure that I have those days built into my business. Or maybe it's as simple as building a business that just funds your life while leaving room for the things that matter most.

Outside of work. Not all of us find our purpose through our business. Some people just say, I just enjoy taking photographs. I just enjoy being a photographer. I don't feel the need to be an artist. I don't really want to create lots of artwork and, and wall art and that sort of thing. It's not what, what, where I wanna spend all of my time, but I do wanna be a photographer and I wanna be a photographer that makes money that I can bring back to my family.

That is an amazing purpose. Your purpose is outside of your business, lives, outside of it, so let's build a business around that. The important thing here is that you answer that question in a way that feels true to you, and I recommend if you can get off social media for a little bit, stop looking at what other people are doing so that you can allow for that answer to bubble up Until you get quiet, you might not be able to answer it because if you're anything like me, you'll chase shiny objects.

stay focused on you journal about this. Allow yourself to resonate and marinate on this for at least a couple of weeks before you try to force an answer. So once you've identified question number one, what do you want this business to feel like?

Okay, you're thinking from your soul, not your ego. It's not numbers driven. You're not thinking of a revenue goal. You're thinking about what you want your business to feel like. Once you have that answer, what choices are you making right now that are pulling you away from what you want? If you said you want a business centered on artistry.

Are you still feeling pressured to offer mini sessions that leave you no creative space?

I'll insert here. By the way, I actually love mini session events when done properly and with the right expectations and mindset, but they aren't for all people.

If you said you want more financial freedom, are you keeping your prices in the middle or safe just so that you feel busy when what you really need is to raise them so that you can get that financial freedom in your business. If you said you want more time with your family, are you saying yes to every client request, leaving your evenings, weekends consumed?

This is not about shaming yourself, it's just about noticing, because every choice either pulls you closer to what you want or pushes you further away. When you start to notice the patterns, you can shift them slowly and intentionally, one decision at a time. You can shift your business and your path towards getting that feeling that you initially identified.

So let me leave you with these three takeaways. Number one. Build from intention, not fear. When your decisions come from panic or pressure like-minded, your business mirrors that energy and keeps you stuck in that cycle of fear. But when you lead with clarity and focused intention, your business grows in a way that actually supports the life you want.

Every time you make a decision. Check in with. Why are you making this choice? Will it lead you towards your goal or push you further from it? And it's okay to stray from your goal, maybe one month to increase your cash flow or something along those lines, but you don't want to steer yourself so far away from your goal that you can no longer get back to it.

Number two, honor What fuels you? Some of us thrive on high, energy and packed calendars. Others need slow mornings and space for creativity or weekends free with family. You might even enjoy seasons where you run on a high for a bit. Then enjoy the swing of retreating back home. Nothing here is right or wrong.

What matters is paying attention to what truly sustains you. And number three, define success on your terms. Numbers and goals will always shift, but when success is tied to the process. How you create, how you serve, how your work feels. You'll experience fulfillment every step of the way, not just when you hit that next milestone in your business.

So I'll ask you again, what do you actually want? That answer becomes your compass. That answer is the business worth building.

Thank you for joining me today, and I will see you in the next episode.