Defy Burnout - Part 1
INTRO
Hopefully you’ve noticed by now there are a couple new taglines floating around my brand: “Defy Mediocracy” and “Visuals for the Victorious”. My reasoning behind Defy Mediocracy was simple, I’m tired of people settling for good enough. We all know the saying “everyone gets a trophy”, well I don’t agree with that. Some people get trophies, the people who actually win. Before you log off this blog thinking “this guys a dick, I like getting free trophies” let me explain. Our market, photo/video, is saturated with crap. Scroll through Instagram, there is a lot of really bad imagery out there. If we’re being honest with ourselves, those people will not get hired. No trophies. If you don’t care about your clients you will not get hired. No trophies. If you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, and don’t deliver a high quality product in the timeline you were given, you won’t get hired again, or you’ll get fired. You get to polish one trophy forever, have fun with that. No matter what our culture tells us, we don’t all get trophies, and if someone gives you a trophy for nothing, you should give it back…you don’t want trophies like that.
Wow, that was a long intro, well it’s my set up for a series of blogs I am calling DEFY. I want to take a look at certain things that hold us back and talk about how I DEFY them. I don’t want you to settle for good enough, or getting meaningless rewards. I want you to WIN. Despite what people say, there are winners and there are losers, the first time you bid a big job and another photographer gets it instead of you, I won’t need to explain this. It sucks.
Let’s get started!
DEFY BURNOUT!
When I first started working in the photo industry I remember my boss at Sugar Digital telling me this was a “high burnout” industry, and they did everything they could to keep people happy and refreshed. In my naive inexperience I thought “I’ll never burn out, this is my dream!”, like I said, naive. It wasn’t more than a year later that I was hurting to do something else, anything else! It wasn’t my boss, or the job, it was that I felt uninspired and lost. I ended up going back to my career in scuba diving (that’s another conversation) and I kept doing my own photo/retouching work on the side. I did this for a while, often working 70-100 hrs a week to meet all my deadlines and manage a store. It’ll come as no surprise I found myself burned out again, and finally was able to quit my scuba job to become a full time free lancer.
There you have it, I quit my job, became a full time freelance photographer and I never struggled with burn out or inspiration ever again! JK, it was worse. Shortly after I quit we found out we had another kiddo on the way (we already had a 1 yo at home). I can’t totally explain the pressure I felt, scratch that, the pressure I feel. I’m the sole provider for our family, if I don’t make money we don’t have dinner, we lose our house and other horrible things that I don’t like to think about!
This is what you call a petri dish, a place where you grow bacteria…not the good kind. It’s the environment where burn out grows. As a result of the self imposed pressure I was working 70-100 hrs a week consistently, often working 7 days a week. This leads to my first point for fighting burn out: DON’T WORK 7 DAYS A WEEK. It’s soul sucking, it’s scientifically proven and it’s just not good for you. Lez be honest, I still have to do this sometimes, but after the crazy schedule I build in time off to compensate. It’s a different kind of tired, it’s exhaustion, and you will not be the creative person you always dream of being when you feel like this!
This leads me to my next thought, and that’s to HAVE SOME SORT OF SCHEDULE. I fought this for a long time, I thought “there’s no off hours when you’re a freelancer!”. Being honest again, that’s kind of true, but you also have control over how available you are. I tend to work from around 7 am - 6 pm Mon-Fri, and as needed on Saturdays. I try to avoid working on Sundays like the plague, that’s our day, that’s my time. I don’t even do social media on Sundays, and I try really hard not to use my phone as little as possible. I would also highly recommend letting your family know those hours, especially if you work from home. Let them know that “if daddy can focus on his work he will be able to be done faster and hang out!”. I use this kind of language all the time with my kids, that way they understand that I can be more efficient with my time if I’m not bouncing my attention from one thing to the next.
Bouncing…that’s a good segue. I grew up with this idea that “you need to learn how to MULTI-TASK”, that’s wrong. I still struggle to overcome this idea. It’s not multi tasking, it’s called inefficient. I have learned a lot about this over the years, and in a nut shell you’re brain is struggling to jump from one thing to the next, therefore making everything mediocre. It also trains your brain to under perform, so don’t do that. How does this relate to burn out? Two reasons. First, if you multi task you’ll get half as much done in twice the time. It’ll feel like you’re SUPER BUSY, and you are, but not in a good way. You’ll feel like you’re always behind, and you never finish what you start, these are very defeating emotions. Secondly, it makes for a messy brain. When you’re mind is always jumping around and can’t focus on something it’s very hard to be creative. When you can’t feel creative it’s easy to feel discouraged, which leads to faster burn out…because you’re busy all the time doing things you don’t want to do…and you’re doing them poorly!
This is a long topic for me, and I think I will make this a two part blog in the name of digestibility. I want you to know that this is a long because I have a lot of experience with burn out! Mine is greatly self inflicted, and I still struggle with it all the time. I just hope that in some small way my struggles can help you find the light in your own. Next week I will finish this blog with a few more tips and thoughts!
Until then I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR HOW YOU FIGHT BURN OUT IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!
DEFY MEDIOCRACY
2017...the adventure continues.
2016 was an incredible year, we were extremely blessed to shoot with some amazing companies and individuals. Our last big shoot of the year was with Elizabeth Marks (pictured above), and to say the least she is one of the most inspirational people/athletes you can imagine. With that incredible momentum, and new year's in the recent past, I thought it would be good to get the year started off with a blog about what's coming in 2017!
First of all, you might wonder why I haven't really posted on any of my social media channels (or at least I like to tell myself you've been wondering) and that's actually pretty easy to answer, I've been with my family. One of the main things I want this blog to be about is the importance of priority and scheduling. As I have blogged about before, I am a husband and dad before anything else, that's what my main priority is. When we ended 2016 I was working anywhere from 70-100 hrs a week just to stay on top of the deadlines, and we needed to take a minute to regroup as a family and get some quality time. Next week I will be back in full swing, but I wanted to take a second to challenge you as you go into this next year with a couple of thoughts:
1. Get yourself into a good headspace - This can mean different things to different people, whether it be through prayer, meditation or even just sitting quietly, take a minute every day to visualize your day and your career. I still struggle with this, but every morning I wake up, make coffee and take the first few sips just for me. You can look to people like Chase Jarvis, Marie Forleo and I am sure a million other succesful people for more ideas on this.
2. Take Care of your body - I definitely struggle here, but I have been working really hard at making sure I exercise and eat as healthy as possible. I hate the gym, but I go, and try to take a minute to breathe. We all work long hours, and this industry takes a toll on you, but you will be able to handle it better if you are healthy. Plus, for all my fellow dads out there, it will help you be focused and have more fun with your kids if you can still pick them up at the end of a long day :)
3. Take time for creativity - This can also mean a lot of things, it could be sketching in a coffee shop, walking through the city, watching a visually inspiring movie, etc. Make no mistake, creativity is nurtured, it needs love and time just like any other skill.
4. Schedule it! - I think one of my favorite quotes from Marie Forleo is "if it's not scheduled, it's not real!" I totally agree with this, and as crazy as it may feel at first you need to make sure you are scheduling yourself. I am not just talking about scheduling those meeting you have, I am talking about scheduling personal deadlines, projects, e-mails, marketing, etc etc etc. If it's important to you it should be in your schedule.
Alright, so with those nuggets in hand, what can you be expecting to see from us in 2017?! I am excited for what's coming, and while I can't talk about all of it, there are some really exciting projects we are working on. In the next couple months we will be finishing our huge video series on composite photography, shooting in studio and on location to show you guys how it goes together. I am also working on more Photoshop tutorials to give you guys all the puzzle pieces you need! A little birdy has been chirping unconfirmed rumors of a podcast...but you'll have to wait to hear more about that one :) Of course we have a bunch of shoots coming up, and we'll be posting all the bts and images through our different social media channels.
I am also planning on broadcasting live on Instagram this year, so keep your eyes peeled for that!
In closing I wanted to open the floor to all of you! I would love to hear what topics you'd like to learn about in 2017, whether it's lighting, business, composite, Photoshop, or anything else, please feel free to leave a comment below and I will do my best to respond or possibly do a tutorial!
Thank you all for an awesome 2016, and now, go BE AWESOME!