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Surviving the Side Hustle
Welcome to "Surviving the Side Hustle," the ultimate podcast for balancing the demands of entrepreneurship with maintaining mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
Hosted by Coach Rob Tracz, an expert in helping driven professionals achieve 'personal development for professional success,' this show is more than just storytelling—it's a masterclass in thriving amidst the entrepreneurial grind. Each episode features candid conversations with leaders who are rewriting the rules of entrepreneurship, sharing their unique stories, the creative solutions they're offering, and the everyday challenges they’re overcoming.
Whether you’re a side hustler looking for your big break or an established entrepreneur seeking fresh perspectives, "Surviving the Side Hustle" provides valuable insights that resonate with the movers, the shakers, and everyone in between.
Feeling burnt out and sidelining your own health? This podcast empowers you to overcome stagnation, build resilience, and optimize your life and business. We dive deep into your goals, identify obstacles, and share strategies to boost your energy, improve your strength, and keep the entrepreneurial grind enjoyable.
Join us for inspiring stories, expert insights, and practical advice to help you look good, feel good, and do great things at every stage of your entrepreneurial journey. Let’s not just survive the side hustle—let's master it.
Surviving the Side Hustle
Photography Meets Coaching: Beth's Unique Path to Empowering Others
What if you could finally overcome self-doubt and see yourself in a whole new light? In our latest episode, we sit down with Beth Brown to uncover her incredible journey from a budding photographer to a successful breakthrough coach. Learn how she fuses her photography skills and coaching expertise to help individuals rewrite their stories and elevate their lives, especially those grappling with trauma or self-doubt. Beth’s unique approach focuses on internal confidence and how it reflects in one’s external portrayal.
Beth opens up about her transformative journey, emphasizing the vital roles of forgiveness and self-awareness in personal and professional growth. She shares how a forced period of professional inactivity during 2020 gave her the clarity to find success and the importance of forgiving oneself and others. The discussion touches upon how growing up as an only child fostered introspective habits that have served her well in her entrepreneurial ventures. Beth also highlights the critical roles of honesty and curiosity in achieving optimal performance and fulfillment.
As we delve deeper, Beth discusses the challenges of maintaining honesty and accountability in entrepreneurship and the importance of setting realistic goals. She introduces her specialized journals— the 20 Day Forgiveness Journal and the Evict Fear Journal— as lifelong tools for self-improvement. Beth reflects on expanding her photography business beyond New York and the necessity of standing firm on pricing. Through her story, we explore the grit and resilience required to navigate the uncertainties of entrepreneurship and the unwavering mindset needed to push through difficult times.
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I feel like I've been running into you a lot lately, with a bunch of different events and things going on, but how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Hi Rob, hi everyone, I'm great. Yes, everyone thinks I actually live in Stanford because I'm there so much, but I live in Brooklyn. But yeah, I'm always in your area, so it's always good to see you. Thank you for this. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time too, and I know you were talking about another event later today, so I don't want to take up too much of your time. But if you could just kind of give a little introduction on who you are and what do you do and who do you help, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, well, no, the thing is is I love to talk, so we've got all day. No, I'm just joking, I won't keep you that long. So, yes, my name is Beth and a lot of people know me or call me Babs because I am a serial entrepreneur. Me or call me Babs because I am a serial entrepreneur and one of my businesses actually my first business is a photography business Babs Photography it's my initials, so that's how Babs came about. And then a couple of friends in high school. It was like an affectionate nickname. It's like huh, how do I want to call my business? This was like over 10 years ago and I was trying to come up with a business name and I was like babs, why not use my initials? So, yes, so basically I am a professional photographer and then I am also, more recently, in the past couple of years, a breakthrough coach, and in both areas I help people to level up, to elevate their lives, and I do that either like the external part, through the photography, but the coaching is like internal.
Speaker 2:So and they actually do go together, even though the breakthrough coaching, I'm not teaching people photography.
Speaker 2:I'm teaching people literally how to see themselves in a new light and shift their perspectives, and especially after going through a trauma or heartbreak, and so the two go very close together. Because I can take a picture A picture is worth a thousand words, right? I don't know if you've ever done that. So you take this picture, right, and it comes out, and it could be the traditional, which is like the printed format, or like the digital format now. But a lot of times, internally, what we're doing in our thoughts, in our emotions, is drawing pictures in our minds, and so there's like a whole mental and spiritual aspect where we're drawing light, and photography in Greek the original word, means drawing with light. So, and when we're in like dark places after trauma or heartbreak, sometimes like really in pain or hurting or feeling bad or hard about ourselves, you know a lot we don't have a lot of light, that's, you know, illuminating in our minds, and so I support people with seeing themselves in a new light and getting some of that light back in.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's awesome. So for your breakthrough coaching, is it you just work with individuals who've experienced trauma, or are you you help them break through in different kinds of areas in their life, or could you explain a little bit more on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so someone doesn't necessarily have to have trauma. I think the human experiences we've all had some sort of heartbreak or no one's life is perfect, right. So it's just that some of us have had some bigger challenges that we have, you know, worked on overcoming and getting breakthroughs in. So I do work with everyone, both men and women, and but really the core of it is seeing ourselves in a new light. So, rewriting the stories, mapping out new stories we have.
Speaker 2:I focus a lot on fear and a lot on forgiveness, and those are things even in business that you know, even business owners, entrepreneurs, can really sometimes struggle with, not because of trauma, but just because of self-doubt, like comparison, you know, fomo, fear of missing out. If I don't lower my price to get this client, maybe I won't have any work. I just had a conversation earlier today that was like how am I not going to get this job Because I don't think he's going to like my price, and in fact, during our conversation, I raised my rate. Who does that? I do so, you know. So there can be a lot of fear, and so it's really about you know how we see ourselves and how we see our worth and our confidence. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Some pretty powerful stuff. And yeah, like I like how you were saying, saying before how you work on the internal, but then you also with the external, with the photography thing, right, so you're kind of tackling both things with that in terms of the photography business. Um, do you have a specialty with that or is it just kind of because I know you for I know for headshots and a lot of things, for events and things like that but, um, do you shoot everything or what's? What's the situation there?
Speaker 2:I don't shoot everything. I don't shoot babies. So I shoot maternity and you can call me once the baby is walking, but in between birth and like walking, we, we don't. We're not going to work together and I don't really shoot weddings, but I shoot engagements because those are super fun. So I'm really a portrait photographer and that's how I do a lot of work with the business owners in our circle. You know the branding, the headshots. That's part of portrait, but it could just be a portrait just because you I don't know are celebrating a milestone.
Speaker 2:I had someone hire me once and she was like I want to remember myself and how cute I was when I was young. It's like huh, who says you're not going to be cute when you're old, right. Who says when you're 70, you cannot be, you know, beautiful and sexy in your own way, right. But people have these ideas and these images that they draw on their minds and automatically, but whatever, I did, her shoot for her. So that's where you know, like we all have these stories we tell ourselves and so that's why, like I think right now, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, I love photography. I will always shoot. I can't imagine ever putting my camera down and never shooting again. But I'm really passionate and really driven with with the coaching aspect and supporting people, cause I mean just that example alone of how I got that client. She wanted to remember how she looked cute when she was young.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I know personally for myself it's it's it's very rewarding being able to connect and help others achieve the same kind of whatever goal that they're kind of working towards. From my early days, just sports, working together, to then fitness and nutrition and now helping individuals kind of scale their ideal lifestyle really in the entrepreneurial light. So I totally understand how rewarding that is. But I want to ask how did you get into the coaching and so how did you get to where you're at now? Because you're juggling two different things really and I'm curious to hear how you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I kind of go back and forth and I have to allocate time for different things, like yesterday I shut down my entire life for editing. Today I was focused more on coaching and a lot of my time is spent looking for work right, because when you work for yourself full time, you somehow have to connect with people and get people to like you and know you and trust you those typical marketing words that I think most people who've been in business for a couple of months now know, like and trust. But how I became a coach was because I went through a personal traumatic experience and then that was followed by a heartbreak two different people and one of the things that I noticed, not so much as I was going through it but like afterwards, was how much my own stories that I was telling myself and I personally was refusing to forgive. That was where I was really stuck in my personal life. I was refusing to forgive someone who hurt me, but also, as it turns out, I was refusing to forgive myself. And then I had some other issues. I realized when I was starting to do the work with people that I didn't even realize I hadn't forgiven. And once I forgave and really let things go.
Speaker 2:It was 2020. So I was like on this three-year battle where I was literally telling God, I don't want to forgive this person in particular. I was like, okay, I guess I'm just going to let your business die. And my business was like going down, and I think part of it was because the way I was seeing myself and life in general, I was kind of not being as social. You wouldn't have seen me as many networking events in Stanford, and so, like that, that did affect my business.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of shame, so I was not really willing to be open. But I also do feel that there's just like a spiritual aspect to it, and when we are not giving out the things that we would want to receive, we're not going to receive those things back. And so 2020, when the world shut down and at one point in 2020, it was illegal in New York state for me to even shoot, like I couldn't even photograph. It was like totally illegal. But by the time, like the summer came around and everything, I was legally able to start shooting. And in 2020, in person, that's my business as a photographer, my business did better than it had for the few years prior. And so you know from my own experience and listening to other business owners talk, there's like a huge connection, a very important connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean definitely is.
Speaker 1:And you said a lot of great things there and I want to.
Speaker 1:I want to rewind a little bit there and get back into just to kind of ask you how did you because it sounds like everything in your coaching really stemmed from self-awareness and it was really kind of looking in and kind of being aware of, hey, I don't want to forget or I'm not forgiving and I'm not forgiving myself, and then also noticing that it was impacting your business and unable to essentially kind of show up for yourself because you're kind of holding a grudge against yourself and other things and that really weighs on you and I want to ask you a little bit about the forgiveness aspect. But before I do that, I want to ask you about the self-reflection how did you get into that and how did you? How did that even come apart? Because usually, at least from my personal experience when I was younger, and things didn't play out the way I wanted to, it was holding a serious grudge and it was never my fault. So I would always kind of push and flip somewhere else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think one thing that I have and that gave me an advantage was I was an only child. I grew up as an only child, which means I had to learn how to entertain myself, and so there's always a part of me and sometimes I actually went into overthinking and some of my friends will still be like Beth, you're way overthinking right now Because I would have so much time on my hands to entertain myself. But you know, growing up I had a journal. I had or well, I called it a diary. I wrote a whole lot of poetry.
Speaker 2:I started a whole lot of books that I never finished, and I mean, as an adult I finished books. But you know, as a kid I was like I'm going to write this book. So I already, I think. In fact, I never even thought about it until you just asked me this question now, but I think I may have already had an advantage because I had some of those reflective habits from growing up. Uh, that may be someone who had siblings or a big family. I came from a really small family. Uh, may not have had, because they would have had so many other things to entertain themselves with.
Speaker 1:Uh, I can see that I can totally relate to that because I see, having conversations with my girlfriend Victoria, she shares a lot of things when anything's going on with work and such, and I can see she has a big family very close with her family. I had a very unique family, so there were certain times where I was kind of like an only child, maybe like a sibling kind of thing, and then there were other times where I had I had four siblings, I think, at one time, which so it was very weird situation. But I totally relate to what you're saying there, how I kind of look at it and tackle certain things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can see like both sides, that's that's a cool perspective.
Speaker 1:That's unique too. Yeah, um, but and then, can you, can you bring into a little bit about the forgiveness aspect?
Speaker 2:Yes. So I mean it pretty much came to a point where I didn't have another choice, where I didn't have another choice. Things were really not working for me. And I would say to anyone who's just in general, looking to be healthier maybe they're already healthy, but to really be at optimal position for performance, so to speak, in business or in life, or just full enjoyment, uh, one is honesty, and you have to be honest with yourself. And the other thing that I don't hear a lot of people talk about is curiosity. So the one thing is I wasn't being honest with what had happened to me, wasn't being honest with what had happened to me. So at one point I was, I knew I needed to, I knew I was hurting and I knew I was a mess, and I did tell God I was like God, I don't even know what to do. Like, what do I do?
Speaker 2:And so I felt like he showed me for three years like this, this, like I felt like he kind of led me through all these different processes that I went through, but it wasn't until, oh gosh, a little over a year after. So it was a sexual assault. That was the physical trauma that I went through, and it wasn't until like a little over a year after that where I said out loud I wasn't talking to anyone, I just said out loud that I was raped and I lied to the man that I loved about it, cause then there was another guy that I tried to get to know, but it didn't work out and it doesn't matter the details, except that I became very angry about it. But I had lied to him about really kind of that part of my past and so when I said what I did that I was so ashamed of out loud, even though I was talking to no one, I literally felt like something break. I can't really describe it aside from I just felt like something broke. So I would say be honest, you have to be honest, and until you're honest you can't get anywhere. Like nothing's really going to happen because you're going to be just going forward on lies or half truths. And then the second thing was is I eventually got to a point where I was like still, things are not working for me. I've read this book, I've tried this, I'm doing this, I've done that.
Speaker 2:I became curious like what would happen if I forgave? Like what would it actually look like? Like how would that benefit me? And it was my curiosity that pushed me over into being willing to forgive myself, forgive the person who hurt me myself, or get the person who hurt me. Um, so I, I I had. So I just feel that curiosity is one of the most, even in business, like my, business isn't businessing, so why, why isn't it? Why am I not hitting the numbers Right? We all have those things and it's so important.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that's. That's. That's crazy, because I just was thinking about what you're saying here and it's so true, even in my business. But when it's strength and conditioning, if it's someone weight looking to lose weight, um, or even, yeah, just with their business, it's really. It's that honesty with yourself, like you got to know your numbers, you got to know your data points, you got to know what you're eating versus what you're burning, if you're looking to change your body composition um and then it's also the curiosity so like, why is it not, like what's, what's actually holding you back there?
Speaker 1:um, and I'm really interested, though, because I come into, come encounter with a bunch of individuals of over my life, who who have a, who can have a problem with being truthful sometimes, sometimes, whether that's with themselves or with others. And how do you, how can someone start to be more honest with themselves?
Speaker 2:well, so so, yeah, I guess. Well, like I said, kind of going back to what I probably already had a little advantage because I'd had practice with it growing up I was just choosing not to use it because I was just so pissed off about everything. Even like for a little while, for that whole first year or a little more, I wasn't even telling God what I, I wasn't even being honest with him, I was just like I need help and I need you to help me, but I couldn't even tell him. But I feel like, when I just spoke it out, so be in a place where no one's listening. You know, journaling is a very safe place and if you feel like and this is what I tell some of my clients when I coach, because I've had people say, well, I don't even feel comfortable writing down my thoughts because, like, someone in my family might get into my journal Well, you know they may or may not but burn it. Like, after you're done writing it like, burn it, shred it. You know you could, you don't have to keep it, um, but get it out and even, and just starting to get it out and using your own voice, talk to yourself.
Speaker 2:I, you know, like that was pretty much what I did. It was a very short thing where I said you know, this is what happened and this is what I did. It took me like 20 seconds to say it. But once you get that out, you don't have to do this for a long time. So a little bit each day to like people think, oh, I need to spend like all this time on my mental health or my wellness. Like all this time on my mental health or my wellness no, 20 minutes, and maybe in in to get started, 20 seconds, and then you just kind of let it go, cause if you sit with it too long you're going to get yourself back in a rut and it's actually going to do you damage anyway. So just say it and move on, and then the next day say something else, move on and keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. I love that Cause I was trying to think of a situation for myself. Even when not being honest and part of being an entrepreneur, you have to do some sort of an outbound reach. And for a little while there I set a goal for myself to have a conversation with X amount of people. And if I didn't get to it, or if I didn't track it, if I didn't know the numbers or whatever, I would just kind of lie to myself saying oh yeah, I did it, check it off, check it off, check it off. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then that curiosity is like, oh, why is my business not having the success that I was intending for it to happen? Until I had that reflection of, oh, I said I was going to do this, what happened? And then I had having to voice it out or write it out or whatever. Getting out the situation like, oh, this is when I do what I'm supposed to be doing, my outbound reach, but what was I really doing? Social media, tv or whatever, it might be some sort of a distraction. So, yeah, I love that voicing it out, to kind of hold yourself accountable and just like that.
Speaker 1:So that's powerful stuff there I love that tips and tricks, you've got there that. So that's powerful stuff there. I love that, tips and tricks you've got there. But where are you at currently with everything and where are you looking to go? Are you just looking to what are some goals, I guess I should say, for your businesses? Are you looking to grow the photography to a thing where you have a team and the coaching? Are you looking to just grow and scale that up, or are you just kind of planning to kind of keep things just kind of as a floating for now?
Speaker 2:No, I definitely have goals, so I cannot scale myself. So I have no desire to scale me. But in terms of the photography, yeah, sure I would be happy. It's not really my priority. My priority is for my big long-term priority. I want to keep shooting, so anyone's welcome to hire me.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to turn away work, but my long-term goal is for 10% of my income to be through my photography and anything that I cannot handle like I don't have time for, yes, to send to another photographer to provide them with work as well, but mostly when I'm looking to scale, I have two journals.
Speaker 2:I have a forgiveness journal and I have an evict fear journal, and my current goal is to sell 1,600 of those every month. I am nowhere near my goal yet, but that's okay because I work on it every day. Well, not every day, but almost every day. Yeah, see, if I'm going to be honest, I probably work on it like four days a week, specifically on the journals, maybe five, but I, yeah, so sometimes I just need a break. But, yes, so that way, because I I personally can't coach 1600 people a month, but I can still help 1600 people or more a month. I mean, there's a lot of people that are really struggling, whether they want to admit it or not, and in different areas, and I think fear and forgiveness is two things that we can all benefit from. So, yeah, I'm looking to really scale that.
Speaker 1:Could you share a little bit about those journals?
Speaker 2:Sure, wait, hold on, let me I didn't bring them out Let me reach and grab them. Oh gosh, I should have been here, wow, yes. So the first journal is a 20 day forgiveness journal and it looks like this Very nice.
Speaker 2:And so basically it's a lifestyle and I consider a lot of the things like forgiveness, discipline, responsibility, honesty they're really kind of lifestyle choices. Really it's not like a one-time thing just to get what you want. It's not like a quick fix to get what you want. It's not like a quick fix. It's really a lifestyle of you know lifetime, because it life lives. And so I did set the journal up to really look very lifestyle like.
Speaker 2:There's a lot there's music in here, there's physical release, anxiety release, there's scripture. It is written from a biblical perspective, which makes it a little different from a lot of journals. And then I did very similar for the evict fear, also very lifestyle like, because lots of things come up right as soon as you get through your fear of spiders. Then there's inflation and once you get a handle on inflation then you might have parents who are aging and be afraid that something bad is going to happen to you. You know what I'm saying. So life it's like a lifestyle of you know. How can I take these tools and and use them and what do I meditate on? How do I stay calm?
Speaker 1:Love it, I love that, and so where do people go to find those journals?
Speaker 2:So great question. They can go to Amazon and if you type in just 20 Day Forgiveness Journal, this has been out for two years, so this comes up pretty quickly. This one has only been out since April. So if you type in Evict Fear and my name, beth Brown, I think it will pop up, but I'm not sure that it's populated enough on Amazon to just pop right up yet. Or you can just reach out to my website. It's listed on my website, levelupwithbethcom, or on my Instagram.
Speaker 1:It's in the links in my bio, which is Babs B-A-B-S Photography LLC, and so you can just go there and um, so yeah, you can find the links a couple places, but these are it yeah, boom, perfect and um, and taking on new clients for both photography and for coaching as well, yes, so if you have questions about the journals or coaching or even just photography, um, reach out to her on social media and just connect with her. She's a great person to chat with and talk to and always answers very quickly. Now for photography are you local, just in New York or are you kind of spread out a little bit?
Speaker 2:So what happened when I ended up being full time as a business owner? It's like I need as many people to know me as possible, because not everyone always needs a branding shoot or a birthday shoot or whatever you know. Not everyone's always having an event. So I said I need to go as far as possible. So right now, most of my clients are in like Stanford area, long Island area. Obviously, I live in New York, I go to Jersey as well, and but I literally will go anywhere. I've had clients fly me to Jamaica before, so I'm happily accepting more clients who want to go to Jamaica or wherever. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So Specifically the Jamaican people looking for the Jamaican shoots is perfect. Love that.
Speaker 2:I liked it there.
Speaker 1:Go back. Well, beth, I know you're a very busy person, so I don't want to hold you up too much, so I wanted to take a second and just give you some appreciation, uh, for taking the time to come on, kind of share a little bit about your story and, uh, about some tips on, uh, forgiveness and just like, even just self-reflection and things like that. Um, I know you and I, whenever we have a conversation at different events and such uh, we tend to talk for a little while and I want to be sure that we're courteous of your time here. So, thank you, thank you so much, and it's been a pleasure having you here. But before I let you go, I got to ask you what would be your number one piece of advice for entrepreneurs or side hustlers just starting out, or even advanced stages. What would be your piece of advice to help them survive and keep moving forward?
Speaker 2:Gosh, that is a really great question, and how do I narrow it down to just one? I do think curiosity probably is one of the top. Probably is one of the top skills we need in life and for business success. I also feel that grit is very important. Grit in the sense of one not giving up like in the traditional sense, just like hold on, because there is going to be the ups and downs. But, like I was sharing at the beginning of our conversation, I had someone today and during our conversation I was like oh, you also want this as well for your shoot. So now the price just went up. It didn't go up a lot, it was only another $100 up.
Speaker 2:But the grit of then, when you get the comeback, the reply from your prospective client of, well, you know, I don't know now if I can afford you, and then you start hearing about numbers that other photographers charge and I you know which is like sometimes free or not much. And and then in your brain you're like I might lose this gig. But the grit to like hold on and stick with what it is that you want. I mean, I do work with people, I'm not completely unreasonable, but then at the end of the day, I still have myself I have to look for out for. So the grit for advocating for yourself, explaining you know if it requires, like why you're doing what you're doing, and if you lose the client, you lose the client. It's more time on your calendar now for someone new to work with and I don't know he made book with me. I don't know what's going to happen, but, like the conversation ended with him, I'll let you know if you're in my budget, okay. So I mean it could still easily work and I think that's the other thing is like I easily could be in his budget because I didn't like increase it by that much.
Speaker 2:So I don't really know. But just that grit of not being intimidated and you know, just just kind of hold on. You just kind of like have to hold on and that's that's why probably let me make shameless plug again, this, this book. A lot of entrepreneurs really like this book, this journal evict fear because because it can be like really scary, especially when you know your livelihood revolves on you being able to get the work. So how do you like get your brain to not, you know, go down the dark? Oh no, this is. I have to give in.
Speaker 1:Well, I love it. Yeah, grit is very powerful and strong. I hold it very near and dear to myself and my coaching and make sure that is a strong emphasis on every person, because you need a little bit of grit, and certainly very powerful. So the grit, the honesty with yourself and the curiosity, I love it.
Speaker 2:I can't wait. I'm sure it will be soon. All right, have a good one, rob. Thank you again for your time and this opportunity. I really appreciate it as well. Yes, peace.