Distractions : MTH Challenge Step 2

NOTE: For those of you who just joined us, I am interrupting the blog for some business owner confessions. We all have dreams, mine is to own a successful boudoir photography business. This is my journey through the Make Things Happen Challenge, I hope you will challenge your self and follow your dreams!

Make Things Happen Challenge : Step Two

We all have our weaknesses. I have a weakness for cupcakes and ice cream. Foreign Accents. Anything involving French culture. These are all healthy weaknesses, but I also have to admit I have an unhealthy weakness for social media. Hi, my name is Laura and I’m addicted to social media.

I am nothing but grateful for social media. I have gained a lot from facebook and twitter that I am nothing but grateful for. I have reconnected with old friends, networked with other professionals who inspire me and free cupcakes! Social media even brought me Make Things Happen, but social media is also a big fat distraction.

In the challenge for day two it says to list your top ten distractions.

1.Twitter

2.Facebook

3.Email

4.Pintrest

5.My Day Job

6.Brain Junk

7.The food network

8.HGTV

9.School

10.Discouragement

Instead of focusing on what really matters to me, being a photographer. I am wasting my time on all these distractions!  Are you guilty of taking one more peak at facebook instead of doing the things that are truly important to you? Not only am I guilty of letting it distracting me from my dreams but also my family. My boyfriend Matt is my family, he is the boy I want to marry and create a family with. He is also the one I’m ignoring when I’m buried in Twitter updates rather than meaningful conversations.

So this weekend I’m cutting the cord. No Twitter, No Facebook for Saturday through Monday. Yep I’m adding an extra day, since it’s the fourth of July. Connecting with people through a computer is wonderful but connecting in person is A MILLION TIMES BETTER! A few months ago I decided to take twitter beyond 140 characters and meet with one Erin, the owner of Theda Bara Vintage Lingerie. It was so empowering to connect with someone face to face! At first I was scared of meeting with “strangers”, afraid I would sounds stupid and they might reject me.  But after facing that fear I was given the best reward, encouragement! Then I did it again with Erica from Colorado Occasions. Meeting with other people that share your interests is so encouraging and it’s great to know you’re not alone. This is one of the main reasons I decided to put all this personal business stuff on my blog… I hope to encourage others to go after their dreams. It doesn’t have to be photography or wedding related, you could have a dream of being a doctor (my boyfriend’s dream), learning something new or being president and it all starts with these small steps from the Make Things Happen Challenge that will lead you to BIGGER, BETTER, GREATER THINGS!!! (Explosion of excitement) BUT we have to turn off the distractions. After reading the challenge post for day two I turned off all the notifications that constantly pop up on my phone through out the day, I unsubscribed to all the sh*it email lists that clog up my email and I am also taking a vow to not only turn off social media this weekend but also every day after 7pm to 7am. It’s time to respect my dreams and myself. As much as I love all my lovely ladies I chat with on twitter every day I would much rather have a glass of wine and talk about our dreams in person.

What the junk : MTH Challenge Day 1

NOTE: For those of you who just joined us, I am interrupting the blog for some business owner confessions. We all have dreams, mine is to own a successful boudoir photography business. This is my journey through the Make Things Happen Challenge, I hope you will challenge your self and follow your dreams!

 Make Things Happen Challenge: Step One

Day one of the challenge is clear the clutter. The first thing that came to mind when I read this was not just physical clutter in my home, but mental clutter. My mind is like a hamster on a wheel, constantly spinning with to do lists, ideas or did I remember to turn the curling iron off this morning (thank goodness for the self timed safety feature).  I found the exercise of downloading everything on your mind to be refreshing. Ten minutes I sat down with my business journal to write… the first three minutes I was fine. Words, lists, a few sentences, there are no rules to what you do in those 10 minutes. Then… nothing. Suddenly my hamster wheel of a brain stopped moving. Clearing the mental clutter I feel is just as important as clearing physical clutter but for me it’s not just giving your self time to write everything going on in that big beautiful brain, but also to not think.

Just days before getting the invitation to do the challenge I had came back from a vacation to Thailand. Besides being amazing beautiful I learned something in Thailand, to relax. Part of downloading for me is clearing all the ideas spinning around in my head by writing it down but also just sitting quietly for a while to think of pure nothing. Before my trip to Thailand I rarely ever stopped, constantly I ran a marathon in my brain but in Thailand I finally stopped. I sat down. I did nothing. An entire day I would spend listening to the turquoise ocean waves, watching the clouds roll by and watching the little crabs be crabs. This may seem like a step backwards, but for me it was a huge step forward. Thinking of nothing actually allowed me to think of new, fresh, better ideas. Now you don’t have to go to Thailand to download. When I’m home I still watch the clouds, I just admire them looking at their shape, texture, their color at sunset or how the sun shines through them. I also download by listening to music in another language. Edith Paif is my favorite. I know some French but I don’t try to translate it, I just get lost in the beauty of the music. I don’t focus on the words because the purpose is not the think (which is why I choose something that isn’t English). Go Tan Project is another foreign music group that is amazing to just get lost in!

Good luck clearing the physical and mental “junk” in your life. Of course beautiful ideas are not “junk”, but if those beautiful ideas are locked up and getting lost… A beautiful mind is a shame to waste.

The Challenge : Confessions of a Business Owner pt. 2

There are two things recently that have lit a fire in my heart. The Secret and The Make Things Happen Challenge. For me they both go hand and hand. If you have a dream I encourage you to do both. The Secret cost around $16 at practically any where that sells books or Free if you check out the book from the library (but I promise if you check it out, you'll probably end up buying it), The Make Things Happen Challenge is Free... So what's your excuse? My dream is to have a successful boudoir photography business AND be a fashion photographer. (That's right two big dreams, there are no limits to dreams.)

First, The Secret. At first I was skeptical and didn't believe in The Secret. You are the creator of your destiny and it is through positive thought that will attract all desires Sounds pretty powerful huh? When we are children it's so easy for us to dream and believe in magic, but somewhere along the way we fill ourselves with doubt and we partly stop dreaming. I can't explain what made me finally stop caring about how this "magic" happened but I knew that my dreams where not coming true. I use to be focused on the negative, I trolled  other photography's blogs and stewed in jealousy of their success and made comments to myself like "I can do better". YUCK! It's no wonder I wasn't successful with starting my business, instead of focusing on my own success I was too busy focusing on putting others down. It was around the beginning of this year that I stopped doing that and focused on my work rather than others, this was before reading The Secret but I realized that this change was one of the reasons things started to change in my business. 

The Secret has changed my life. If you follow my personal account on twitter (@ElleBea) you may have seen my three thankful things I post per day. The Secret taught me to be grateful, it encouraged me to be positive in every aspect of my life and it taught me to believe in all my dreams and that nothing is impossible.

Second is the Make Things Happen Challenge, if you have a business or want to start a business YOU ARE CRAZY NOT TO FOLLOW THIS BLOG! Lara Casey is the editor of Southern Weddings Magazine and the business woman behind Make Things Happen. I attended the Make Things Happen workshop in March 2010. I had been blessed with a scholarship to the workshop. I wasn't sure what I was doing there, I was so intimidated, so scared, but it was amazing. The workshop was more like therapy, it was so emotional because it was the first time I realized my fears. The fear of failure. After this amazing realization I started to dream and believe in myself again, but then I put MTH on the back burner. 

Soon after starting to read The Secret a breakthrough came. I started to demand a clear vision of my business. Suddenly from all the confusion and struggle came clarity. I finally found the courage to commit my website to 100% boudoir, found my branding and I re-found MTH! A re-awakening, a kick start, re-charge to kick butt and make things happen! I even found new friends, fellow MTH alums from acress the country that either lived in or were moving to Colorado. Proving that we all are truly connected. How amazing life is! 

So now I challenge you! Don't be afraid... We will do it together and there is tons of others out there ready to support and inspire you. Join me in the Make Things Happen Challenge, it's already started but you can start at any time. There's also a chance to win a spot to one of the Make Things Happen Workshops, Click Here. You have till June 29th to enter. Now unfortunately there's only two more cities left, neither of which are anywhere near Denver BUT if you win I would love to help you with a ticket and offer up one of my buddy passes which will give you a very discounted flight. (E-mail me if you would like more details) I hope that you all will keep dreaming and will join me on this fabulous challenge!

Confessions of a Business Owner

Hi, My name is Laura and I'm the new girl in town!

As you may or may not have noticed there has been a lot of changes to the Boudoir Denver blog and my “first big girl” website ElleBeaPhoto.com . I've always been passionate about photography but business?! Yikes! Business was more like a dirty word and something I was straight up terrified of! I have always thought of myself as an artist, not a business woman. Fear started to stand in my way of pursuing my dreams and I couldn't let stupid fear stand in my way anymore! I would like to introduce to the world my vision, my passion, my heart and my soul... Boudoir Denver. While posting my latest photography sessions, tips & tricks, and featuring other fabulous business in Denver run by lovely ladies, I would also love to share with you all my journey in pursing my dreams as a business owner. Hopefully I might inspire some of you amazing ladies to follow your dreams too!

This is the brand new look of Boudoir Denver! Another “B” word in business is branding... the look and most importantly the feeling of a business. Boudoir photography to me is more than just sexy photographs, it's a celebration of womanhood and more importantly a celebration of self! I will admit it, I HATE photographs of myself, majority of woman do. I want to change that. I want to create an experience that will make every woman feel sexy, romantic and as beautiful on the outside as she is on the inside. I started to focus on how to communicate this feeling in my business visually and it was as if the universe handed it to me on a silver platter. I wanted a look that was both romantic and feminine then suddenly I was surrounded by color! From my morning breakfast (rainier cherries) to a rusted pickup truck suddenly the “look” of Boudoir Denver appeared! A warm natural pallet of brown and beige with a pop of my new favorite girlie color, coral. I hope you love the new look as much as I do! Stay tuned for more confessions. Be inspired and Dream BIG!

{xoxo}

Elle Bea