Lessons in Life From Business

Since I was 19 (I’m now not far off 27), I’ve been running a business. I’ve never had a regular 9-5, and have only been “employed” under a freelance basis for 3 years of my life. So for essentially all of my life, I’ve been running a business, making all the decisions for my own destiny, and learning the lessons that come with that the hard way.
And a lot of the lessons I’ve learnt in business can be applied to life in general, so I thought I’d share a few of those lessons for this month’s blog.

1. Mindset is EVERYTHING

There’s a huge amount of ups and downs involved in the self employed life. One minute you feel unstoppable, successful, and like everything’s working out for you, the future is so bright and exciting! The next minute everything is going wrong, you’re a failure, you’ll never make this work, and all you want to do is hide under a blanket, cry, and chug a bottle of cheap wine to make it all go away.

The peaks and troughs are never ending.

But despite the rough and the smooth pummelling me non stop, I’ve developed a pretty decent mindset to deal with the setbacks and hard times. Sometimes those hard times will go on for months, and you have to keep dragging yourself back to the desk, showing up for your business, and reminding yourself that it’s all temporary.
You need to develop strategies which help keep your mind in top shape, to hold onto that positivity in the darkness so you can keep moving forwards, to be able to continue to put one foot in front of the other each and every day.

When your mindset isn’t strong, the harder times are impossible. You need to be able to become strong in your resolve and find what works for you to get you through the tough times.

2: Working harder isn’t always the answer

I’m an incredibly hard worker, I know graft and long hours well. I’m dedicated to the core and will do what I need to do to make things happen. But it doesn’t matter how hard I work, if I’m not working on the right things, it’s a wasted effort.

This was one of those lessons which was incredibly hard to swallow, when you’re trying your hardest to make something happen and nothing seems to be moving, it feels like you’re just not cut out to do what you dreamed of doing.

But I’ve learnt that when my hard work isn’t giving me anything back, I don’t need to stop having weekends and work even more hours, I need to sit down and assess what specifically isn’t working, and how can I look at it from a different angle.

I also ask the right people questions on what I need to do in order to make something work. Notice I said the right people? Don’t take advice from just anyone, be selective, because not everyone knows what they’re talking about.

The quote “don’t work harder, work smarter” has never been more true. Identify the problem, redirect, and pour your energy into that. Don’t just work yourself into the ground.

3: Ignore the competition

I’ve allowed myself to get sucked into watching what everyone else is doing far too often, and I’d start comparing myself, wondering why those people were getting all the bookings (Hint: they’re often lying about how busy they are, hello instagram vs. reality), and then berating them and what they did in my mind every time they popped up on my feed. It made me bitter and resentful.

So I unfollowed or muted all of them. I don’t really follow a lot of other photographers, especially the ones who are my competitors, for these reasons alone. I do follow the photographers who’s work I adore, who inspire me, who wow me every time they pop up on my feed, because that feeds my love for creativity, it doesn’t make me miserable.

It’s useful to sometimes check in on your competitors, to see how they’re offering things to their clients, to see if they’ve done something you might not have thought of, simply to understand how you can be different from them and stand out in your market, but generally, ignoring them is better for your mind will make a difference in you focusing on your own shit.

Ignore your competition, focus on yourself, lose the distractions of others.

4: There is no “right time”

I run 2 photography business, Pursuit is the younger one having only launched in September 2021. I’d had the idea of launching a fitness photography business for years, it had always been a dream. After 6 years of running my other business, one day I just decided to say “fuck it! Let’s do the fitness photography thing!”
I launched Pursuit in the heart of my busy season, I gave myself stress nausea and could hardly sleep, my workload was insane. But I did it! In everything I’ve decided to launch, there’s never been a right time, never been that perfect moment where everything came together and it all happened effortlessly. The decisions were usually made when I was finally sick of my own bullshit and decided to actually take action on that first step.

There’s never a perfect time to start something, it’s incredibly rare that life clears your path and gives you that moment where you can effortlessly start something.

Simply decide you want something, and take the first step. It doesn’t have to be huge, it could be a conversation with the right person (for me it was approaching a friend who was an IFBB pro and asking if I could shoot her for my portfolio), or you deciding to write out a basic plan.

You don’t need to know every step that lies ahead, or have much of an idea of what you’re doing, but in taking that first step you’re making your idea a reality.

5: Rest isn’t an option, it’s compulsory

I used to only give myself one day off a week, and sometimes I wouldn’t even take that. I’ve often had weeks at a time where I just didn’t give myself a day off, and I think in part I wore that like a badge of honour under the glorified hustle culture we live in today, and also the fact that I was living with the socially acceptable form of addiction that is workaholism.
I can’t remember when I decided it, but at some point, I realised I needed 2 consecutive days off a week, because I wasn’t able to fully recover in just one day. By 4pm of my single day off I’d already be thinking about work for the following day, I didn’t have a full 24hrs where I could just exist outside of work.

Last year I saw the physical manifestations of working too much too, and despite diligently sticking to my 2 days off a week (I will admit there were some occasions where I wasn’t able to take those days off simply due to workload), I was severely burnt out and drained. It affected my mental health, as well as my ability to shoot to the standard I demanded of myself.

At the beginning of this year, before the diary had a chance to take on a life of it’s own, I booked in all of my weeks off for the year ahead. I gave myself a week off every 2 months, and my god did it make a difference.
When I was getting to the point where I was feeling drained, I knew I didn’t have long until I had a break, which made the tough weeks so much more doable.
And my quality of work improved hugely! When I’m well rested, I’m able to create so much better, I can see the smaller details that need attention more easily, and get so many ideas both when I’m shooting, and in day to day life.

“You can’t pour from an empty cup” Replenish yourself with rest, with things outside of work that bring you joy, and you’ll be able to bring so much more to the table.

So that’s my little list! Obviously there’s a lot more lessons that I’ve learnt, but that would go on forever, so I wanted to condense it into 5 lessons. Did anything surprise you? Are you taking anything away from this list? Or have you learnt some of your own life lessons from running your own business? Share them in the comments on my social media posts linked to this blog!