Recorded: Welcome to The ReWork with Allison Tyler Jones, a podcast dedicated to inspiring portrait photographers to uniquely brand, profitably price and confidently sell their best work.

Recorded: Allison has been doing just that for the last 15 years, and she’s proven that it’s possible to create unforgettable art and run a portrait business that supports your family and your dreams. All it takes is a little rework.

Recorded: Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, mini-workshops, and behind the scenes secrets that Allison uses is in her portrait studio every single day. She will challenge your thinking and inspire your confidence to create a profitable, sustainable portrait business you love, through continually refining and reworking your business. Let’s do The ReWork.

Allison Tyler Jones: Hi there, and welcome back to The ReWork. This is our first episode of ReWork Book Club and my guest Mary Fisk-Taylor, also my book buddy, is joining me on this episode to talk about two of our favorite books. One is an older book, Mindset by Carol Dweck, and it was a game changer for Mary in her life and in her business.

Allison Tyler Jones: And then the new book by one of our favorite authors, Greg McKeown, Effortless. He’s also the author of Essentialism.

Allison Tyler Jones: So we’re going to talk about both these books, how they made a difference in our lives and in our business, how we applied the concepts that we learned in them, and hopefully how they can best help you. Hope you love it.

Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, so for a few years now, I’ve had a book bestie. She’s here.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: True. True.

Allison Tyler Jones: … name is Mary Fisk-Taylor. And so if I haven’t read it, Mary has, and vice versa, I think we could say.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Or we like to think.

Allison Tyler Jones: We like to think that. We’re so incredibly well-read.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. Okay.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: We’re always reading a couple or few, several books.

Allison Tyler Jones: A few or several books. Okay. So I thought it would be fun, I’m so grateful that you’re here because I know that you are so busy, Mary, but I appreciate you being here. Because I think, you and I could both say that one of the keys to any success that we’ve had in our personal life or business, we can owe directly to the books that we have read.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah, books get a lot, so much credit in our life. Like from even being little and just needing to escape, it was Little House in the Big Woods.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: So books have always played a huge role in my life. Always.

Allison Tyler Jones: Love that. And whenever like the crap hits the fan, my first thought is like, Okay, what is the book that I need to read that’s going to fix this problem for me?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes, yes. A hundred percent.

Allison Tyler Jones: Long wanted to do this as part of the podcast, as just to kind of have like a book discussion. And so we did talk about this a little bit over text beforehand, about a couple of our very favorite books.

Allison Tyler Jones: So one is a backlist title that has been around for a while that was really instrumental for you. And you recommended it to me and I completely, totally loved it. And then the other one is a newer book that we’re going to talk about.

Allison Tyler Jones: So the first one is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, How We Can Learn to Fulfill Our Potential. And that is by Carol Dweck. So tell me a little bit about your experience with this book. How did you find out about it and then what was it for you?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. So I mean, and I apologize, I’ve already told this story and I’ll be quick. But this book was given to me… So she originally wrote this book for educators, for school educators, teachers, administrators. And has grown and seeped into all different industries, which I love.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But I hit a wall and it was a January 6th, I’ll never forget it. We came off one of our most successful years on paper, right?

Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And I hit a wall and that’s when I fully understood that I had to do some work. And it was that day that I just could not get out of bed, felt like you’re wearing cement shoes, and the thought of the fact that I’d worked so hard and on midnight of, you know, December 31st or January 1st, midnight, whatever. Everything went back to zero, about did me in.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Like the thought of getting up and starting over on all my goals and all my sessions and everything, was just more than I could handle. And that is the day that I went to my husband in tears and said, I’m quitting photography. I’m done. I’m going to resign from the board. I’m not doing this anymore. It’s just too hard. So this book was given to me by a friend, it was kind of like, Here you go, you should check this out. And I’m so…

Allison Tyler Jones: They slide it…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: They slide it over, don’t make eye contact with her, she might snap at any moment. And I read it, because I wasn’t doing anything else, I was sitting in bed.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And I read it and then I read it again. And I think I read it like three times. And then I could not, it was like I was so thirsty and it just, I don’t know what it was, Allison, and it… It’s not that hard, y’all, it’s not a hard read. It’s not like I needed to read it three times, but I needed to read it three times.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Because I had to really convince myself that it would work. And it was like, became a manifestation on some sorts for me. But you know, it just… Basically it talks about mindset, and whether you’re in a growth mindset or a fixed mindset.

Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. Which is, define, define the two.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: So a fixed mindset is this. Just let’s do it in photography speak. That won’t work in my town. Well, it’s easy for you to say, because you have X, Y, Z as your business partner. Or you live here or you’ve been doing this. It’s all the fixed things. It’s the, Woe is me. Poor me.

Allison Tyler Jones: What is will always be.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Oh yes. This is just, all that, just all that. Whereas a growth mindset does not mean that things aren’t happening, but it’s seeing failure as an opportunity to learn. It’s, Well, why not me? Or it’s manifesting it in just… Flipping it, you know, instead of looking at everything as a problem, looking at it as an opportunity.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: So, okay, cool. You know what? I live in this town and yeah, I don’t live in fancy schmancy wherever, but what does my town support? What would my town support? Looking at it that way versus, It won’t work here. Right?

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. And when I read it, the thing that really stuck with me, especially being an oldest child, is that fixed mindset was that we come with the talents that we come with and we just are this package, right? Like we either are, or we aren’t.

Allison Tyler Jones: So if you have a good thing, like, Oh, I’m creative and I’m a good photographer. Then we have to protect that at all costs. And anybody that says, Well, that image wasn’t exposed right or… That’s an existential threat to us.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Hundred percent.

Allison Tyler Jones: Like we can’t learn, because we are a finished product. And I love how she explored like the athletes, you know, that the athletes that really had super, like really, really good natural talent, actually had the harder time developing and learning. And some of those ended up, there were people that came up with, who we would know as superstars, that were actually more talented than the superstars we know, but the superstars knew that they didn’t know everything. And so they were willing, because they had a growth mindset, they knew they could learn. That it would be possible to learn those things.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Oh yeah. There’s so many, and athletes are a great way. I mean, some of the best athletes ever born are never going to be on the all-star team. You know, like how does the team lose with the best basketball player in the whole NBA? Well, because they had a team of really great players that came together and learned from each other and cohesively came together as a team, and that’s always going to win. Versus the best of the best, who can’t hear or learn anything because they’re the best of the best. Like you can’t hear or learn that. We all know people like this, right? In all…

Allison Tyler Jones: Or have been people.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And might be again.

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, I actually think everybody has a fixed mindset in some area of their life. And you could say that that’s a blind spot. You know, where you just kind of think you know. There’s some certain things that you just think you know. And if the last two years have taught us anything, there’s a lot of the population on both sides that feel like they just know, and you’re not going to teach me anything.

Allison Tyler Jones: And I think for our purposes, talking about portrait photographers, if you have a growth mindset, it’s just that you’re teachable, that you know you don’t know, but you know you could find out.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Exactly. No, I think you’re exactly right. And I think that always being… And it’s, we know these people. And honestly, this is something that I didn’t just use in my business, I used in my sales… I mean, I did in my business, not just like to get myself re-energized and re-immersed into my business, but using it in my sales room.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: You know, instead of getting in the sales room with a dad with his arm or mom with her arms crossed, just shaking their head because the money, you know, we’re starting to talk about whatever. Instead of looking at that as defeat and, Oh well, it’s out, it’s done. No. Okay, looking at that as an opportunity to nurture this mindset of, Okay, cool. So tell me what will work, instead of me just being like, Well fine, you don’t want what I’m selling.

Allison Tyler Jones: Not my client.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Not my client. Exactly. And just talking… No, I don’t do that anymore. Because there’s a reason… And maybe it’s not going to work out, but this whole idea of mindset and, you know, like I said, the whole openness to being willing to rethink or reinvent.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And it also, for me goes into like an Eckhart Tolle kind of philosophy. Like just repurposing the negativity and the sentences I feed myself daily, is a huge mindset choice. So instead of me saying, Well, he’s just a jerk, or they don’t ever buy anything or he’s not my client. Saying, You know what, how do we repurpose that into… And look, not everything’s… I’m not trying to be Pollyanna here, and goodness knows I’m not, if you’ve ever met me, by the way.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But I certainly can reword that in my own brain to, well, maybe, if not that, then what? You know? Or if, you know, just… I don’t know, how can I reconfigure this? How can I reword this? And it’s just something, Allison, like, I have to remind myself of mindset, I feel like some days, every single day. But it’s something I need to check in because I can easily slip back in to it not just being a blind spot, being a lot of…

Allison Tyler Jones: A huge cataract, yeah. So what came to my mind is, I was thinking about in particular with clients too, is that say something goes south or is very difficult with a client. After I read this book, we had something that was pretty fraught with a client that was really hard. And I just remember thinking, Okay, this pain cannot go to waste. So there’s something to learn here. Obviously, either I missed something, didn’t communicate something. And I feel like our processes are pretty tight. Like I feel like I really do work on that.

Allison Tyler Jones: But if I had been in fixed, if I had stayed in fixed mindset, it would’ve been exactly that. Like, no, I totally quoted them, they totally knew what this was. You know, all of that. And then I could just write them off. But instead I thought, Okay, what would I need to do to make sure this never happened again?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Right. Failing forward and failing fast. Like fail fast, fail forward, right? But it’s that whole idea of, Okay, and then we do the same thing. And we used to not, Jamie [Hayes 00:11:12] and I. So cross our arms, get mad, they’re the jerk, whatever.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But no, if it went that bad, something fell short somewhere. So you have to go back and look at all your processes and look at all of that stuff and go, Okay, oh, you know what? We let it slide by without this. Or we didn’t insist on this. Or this piece of material didn’t go out in a timely fashion. Or whatever it is.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Or maybe it’s going to force you to look, are you really mining or refining in that area where your ideal client lives? Did you do an auction you knew was kind of sketchy? You know what I mean? Like iffy or… You know, do you have a well- defined ideal client? Whatever it is, I have to try to look at it as a learning opportunity. And that’s really hard. That’s really hard sometimes.

Allison Tyler Jones: It is.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Because you feel, like you said, you have these really great processes and procedures and you’ve got them nailed down, but we also make mistakes. We just do.

Allison Tyler Jones: And sometimes we didn’t make a mistake. So sometimes it isn’t our fault. Okay, so they truly… Like, let’s just use that scenario. It truly is, you’ve kind of got a live wire on the line, you know, or tiger by the tail, whatever euphemism you want to use.

Allison Tyler Jones: But then, again, that’s also an opportunity to, okay, by the time… Because I remember thinking with this client that I was dealing with, by the time I am done with this, I am going to have some really good words, like I’m going to have some really good sentences, that are going to help me get out ahead of this with another client. Do you know what I mean?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Right.

Allison Tyler Jones: But right now I didn’t have those words to get out ahead of it. But with the next client, I’m going to be able to have better sentences and be able to, it will help me refine my process. Or it will help me identify somebody that should never have been my client in the first place. But there’s always something to learn.

Allison Tyler Jones: And that’s the thing I thought was so valuable about that book, was that it really just comes down to, the fixed mindset is, I am what I am and so I can’t learn, I can’t be taught. And I think most people think they can learn, but really how are you acting? So when you’re saying… Going back to your earlier comments, that can’t happen here. Oh, well that’s nice for Mary Fisk-Taylor because she lives in Richmond, Virginia. She’s had all these advantages, or whatever. But to look at it and say, Okay, yes, Mary does live there. Yes, she has had advantages. But if I was going to do it, how could I?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Correct, correct.

Allison Tyler Jones: And is there are a way forward for me?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. You know, it’s kind of that old idea that, you know… Because I’ll start teaching, and look, I get it, not everybody likes the, not everybody’s picking up what I’m putting down. I get that. Because I’ve gotten very, kind of very… I don’t know, set in my ways, as I’ve gotten older in the business that we’ve built for ourselves.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But you know, I’m like, every town has an Olive Garden. You know what I mean? So let’s just start there. Like you don’t have to be up in the fine French dining restaurant and we’re not… But every, you know, there’s an Olive Garden or there’s a Ford dealership. Let’s just start there. So there are buyers, there are consumers, there is viable sales happening. So work around that. You don’t have to work around what MFT does or [ATJ 00:14:12] does or whatever.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But work around that. At least be open to what will work, versus crossing your arms, rolling your eyes and saying, That’s not going to work. And I’ve been there. I mean, I 100% have been there, and shut my mind to that, Well, that’s easy for X, Y, Z to say, because whatever.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Well, I don’t do that anymore. I try really, really, really hard to think, All right, you know, maybe that’s not for me, but what would work for me? And how could I make that work and viable, sustainable and profitable in where I live? Or in my business model, or what I want to do?

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I love it.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I know. So it’s a huge book. And there’s lots of free resources online. If you just Google it, you can take little quizzes, checking in on your mindset. And they’ll kind of let you know whether you’re fixed or you’re in a growth mindset. You might be surprised.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, and I loved all the areas about parenting too. There are so many things about, you can tell that she’s an educator because there were so many…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, like about over-praising, kinds of stuff.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, so talk about that. Talk about that over-praising thing.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. So, you know, if you have… With children in particular, it’s just what a slippery slope it is to over-praise. Because what could happen and does happen, is even though they are doing great, they’re excelling in that, what it does is it builds a fear and a fixed mindset that that’s all they can do well in. And they’re afraid, quite often, to try and do other things for fear of failure.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Like teachers would say, Oh, you are really great at re… I had a fourth grade teacher tell me, because I was so… Math was hard and learning its timetables and doing those timed test, times tables. I just really struggled with that. And she’s like, Well, you know, you’re just really good at reading and you’re just not good at math. So just focus on reading.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Same. I had the same thing said to me.

Allison Tyler Jones: But it’s like, Okay, how, like in fourth grade?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I mean, no, in fourth grade I decided I was dumb in math. I excelled in all the Englishes and languages and all the stuff. But just decided because of that comment that I was dumb in math. I know that teacher didn’t mean anything by it. I mean a hundred percent. But is that the picture, that’s probably not what you would say today. You know, granted, this was, when the Minutemen were around, is when I was in fourth grade.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: So, I mean, but that was not a good way to encourage me. Instead of… The way you would flip something like that is, You’re an amazing reader and you know what? You put that energy into math, you can be equally as amazing in math.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Yeah.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Instead of, Well, you’re just not good at math. You’re just really good at reading. Well that will… Are you going to still make me take math tests? Because I feel like you are.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. You just said I was bad in it, so can we skip that altogether?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. Absolutely. So, I don’t know. It’s a great book. I cannot recommend it enough. I think that it helps with lots of things, relationships, business, raising your kiddos. I think it helps in so many aspects. For me, it was a little bit of a godsend and I’m so glad that somebody gifted it to me, and it’s been a mainstay for the past many, many years.

Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. One of the quotes that I loved from that book was, she said, Learning fast isn’t the same as learning well, and learning well sometimes requires allowing time for mistakes. How are we emphasizing growth over speed in our business?

Allison Tyler Jones: And I’m like, Ooh, that one hurts me because I like a speedy solution. But, yeah. So there are just, there are so many good things about viewing challenges as opportunities. And thank you for recommending that book to me because I loved it.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes. Well, I’m glad you loved it. And I love that saying, and I also, the speed thing is hard for me. But we have to remember, we have to be patient. And that’s with anything, guys. And especially if you’re out there trying to try new marketing or doing things, you got to be patient. Just, you know, I hear this… Well all too often, I’ll work with a client or work with another studio and I’ll go, Well, I sent out an email and it’s just not working. Okay, well, let’s hold on. That’s not a growth mindset. Got to give it more than a minute. So, but that’s very hard for me too. I get it.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, and really, in the portrait business, it’s a business of relationships and that’s just a long, slow growth thing. It’s not something that happens overnight. Something that… You know, whether it’s your call-marketing relationships, your relationships with your clients. And then, but once those networks and those relationships build, exponential growth can happen.

Allison Tyler Jones: And so then you can look back and go, Wow, the last two years were awesome. What can I attribute that to? And you really have to look at it and you realize, actually, it’s just like some of that stuff that we did two, four years ago is coming to fruition finally.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Well, and when you say that, guys, as you grow your business and that as your sales get bigger and bigger, you’re going to find that those relationships took longer and longer. It could be 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 months, two years. Because these people are at this point investing hefty amounts of money in us. And that’s not a decision they’re going to make in an hour and a half, two hours. It’s something that you kind of have to grow.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Phil M. Jones uses that great example of having the big fish and the medium fish, and how you have to always have so many big fish on the line, right? And you work with your medium fish, but you always have those big fish going. And as soon as you get one through the cycle, then you start on the next one.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But as you said, what happens is that big fish tells their friends and they tell their friends. And then all of a sudden it becomes easier. But in the beginning it is a challenge. And it does take a lot of fortitude.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. So Phil M. Jones, what book was that that you’re referencing there? Because I’ll put that…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I believe that was in Exactly How to Sell.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. No, I was thinking about that as I was getting ready yesterday. I was thinking, even though I feel like I’ve been doing the same thing the same way for a long time, it does take longer, and it is a different process when you go from selling in like the below 5,000 average to higher than that. Just because it’s a… It takes a longer time to make that decision. It takes a…

Allison Tyler Jones: Whether it’s, and think about anything in your house. Like, you go to Target and you’re going to go buy a lamp, a couple of towels, some cute stuff for your house. 30, 40, under 100, maybe up to 500, you’re not asking anybody about that, you’re just doing that, right?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah.

Allison Tyler Jones: If it’s going to be like a sectional or revamping a bathroom or something that’s going to be above the 5,000 mark, for most families that’s going to require conversation for…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: A hundred percent.

Allison Tyler Jones: … people, you know?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. And they’re going to think about it. And you’re not going to make a rash decision because they’re taking their hard earned money and they’re investing it in something. And I appreciate it. You know what I mean? I appreciate the back and forth, and I have no problem with it.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But I’ll be honest. In the beginning, I was impatient and I probably left a lot of money on the table wanting to rush them into making a decision. And if they came in and didn’t finalize at the… I was like, Well, that’s it.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Now, no, I don’t look at it that way. I look at it as, Well, it’s just going to be a bigger, better sale. They’re just, they need more time or whatever. Now of course we try to handle as much of that before the actual session as possible, but it still just does. I know my husband and I are not going to just go and drop 15, $20,000 without really thinking about it. Like, that’s just how we are, you know.

Allison Tyler Jones: Especially if you had no idea that the thing that you were looking at could even reach those numbers. You know? So if you’re thinking, Let’s, you know, Mary and Daryl, so Mary and Daryl are going to go sectional shopping. And in your mind, the last time you bought a sofa it was about $1,200. But your tastes have changed.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes.

Allison Tyler Jones: And you like nice things and you’ve seen some things on Instagram and you have this idea, this luxury down sofa, it’s amazing. So you go down to this place that you [inaudible 00:21:48], and you think, I’m just going to go in there and look at sofas. Well, it’s… You know, the last time we spent 1,200 on our sofa, this is a sectional, it’s probably going to be bigger than that. It’s probably going to be double. I mean, so maybe 2,500, maybe 3,000. You know, and you get in there and it’s $10,000 for a sectional. So what’s your first thought, is you’re the frog jumping out of the water, right?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And as a couple who just bought all new den furniture, very much went in there with an idea of what we thought it would be. And I’m pretty realistic. And by the time we added on everything we wanted, it is what it is. Right? So then you have to decide whether you’re going to buy it. So, you know, or buying a car. I mean, or whatever it is. Oh, the base model. Well, have you ever met me? I’m not buying the base model. It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t look at that as a negative thing. Again, it’s all about your mindset, right?

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I love that. So I think sometimes we read that. So if you’re in a fixed mindset in that situation, and you’re the salesperson, I’m selling you and Daryl the sofa. And you come in and sit on it and you’re like, Yeah, we are so excited. We can’t wait to buy this. This will look great in our house. And I’m helping you measure it, but we haven’t talked price. And so I’m thinking, I got a live one, like this is going to happen. And then I say, you know, it’s only $15,000. And you’re like, No, no way. So then I’m like deer in the headlights, I’m freaking out. So what happens in that? And so what I see with photographers is it’s like either not my client or they’re just cheap.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: They’re just cheap. Or even worse, they start down-selling you. Well, do you really need this big of a sectional? Do you really need the Scotchgarding? Do you need… So then they start discounting and doing all that to try to save the sale. I just needed to get over the shock. That doesn’t mean I said I wasn’t going to buy it. And I find way too often, we as photographers will start backpedaling immediately or getting…

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Well, and if they owned the store and they were like most, like many photographers and like, you know, when I first started and you get scared by that, you’re saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, is 12 too much? That’s not okay? Okay, well I’ll, how about if I make it 6,000 and I bring it myself.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: On my back.

Allison Tyler Jones: On my back, at midnight on Christmas Eve. Would that be okay? You know? But not…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And I’ll throw in these end tables for free, because I just obviously made you uncomfortable. No, it’s okay to be uncomfortable. It’s okay for you to feel uncomfortable. It’s okay for your client to feel uncomfortable. That does not mean that the deal’s off the table, by the way.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Right. So after I scared you with the $12,000 sofa, then what did you do? You walked away. You went over to Daryl and you said, Okay, well you were sitting on the sofa. What happened?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. We were sitting there and we really liked it.

Allison Tyler Jones: And you felt, it felt so good. And you see, like Daryl’s a big guy.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes. And we need a strong, sturdy…

Allison Tyler Jones: And we need a deep sofa. Well, not big. I mean, just tall. He’s tall.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: No, he’s a tall, big guy. And we also need it not too low. Because we’re not getting any younger.

Allison Tyler Jones: No.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: We don’t need those low couches anymore.

Allison Tyler Jones: No. And the dog [crosstalk 00:24:46].

Mary Fisk-Taylor: As they sit right now, looking at me. And you know what? She was really smart. She goes, Well, let me just go write this up as… And this is what I do, by the way. I’m going to write this up. And I sometimes do this at the consultation, but regardless, I will… She said, I was really proud of her. She said, I’m going to write this up as your wishlist and I’ll email it to you as well. And I will follow up with you. Would tomorrow be okay? Or Tuesday? When… And that’s exactly what she did.

Allison Tyler Jones: I love that.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And I said, Yes, that’s our wishlist. And we can make changes or what have you. And that’s what I do in the studio, when people tell me what they want. I say, Okay, let’s just write it up as your wishlist. And we’ll just go from there. And it’s an invoice, by the way. It’s not… And you know what, there’s a big number on the bottom and they can decide whether we’re going to leave it as is.

Allison Tyler Jones: So let me print this up as we just conceptualized it. And then if there’s any adjustments that need to be made, we can go ahead and make those right now.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah, no problem.

Allison Tyler Jones: So if the sale needs to be cut down, then it needs to be happening right now. I don’t want you to leave here thinking that you’re going to spend X and then you go home and call me crying the next day, and it’s half what I thought. Because then I’m crying the next day.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: That’s right. That’s right.

Allison Tyler Jones: I’d rather have it cut down before you leave.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Right. Because what’s more, and for the sofa thing, she could say, But you know, your back and the height of this is perfect and it’s sturdy, and you’ve told that… It has all this new scientific fabric that the dogs, it can’t… What were we going to do? Like, we had to buy it.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right? Yeah. What are you, going to go to Target and buy like the furniture that’s for tiny people?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah.

Allison Tyler Jones: You know, that you’re going to break the first time you sit, at least in our family, you break the first time you sit on it, you know?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. So we don’t do that. But, and that’s how we should do it in our own business. She never took that personally. Because it wasn’t personal to her, by the way.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Right.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: She just, we needed to understand… It’s funny because you don’t even realize that we did just buy all this furniture.

Allison Tyler Jones: That’s so funny.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And so you know, and then three years later it’ll be delivered. Because they’ll be [inaudible 00:26:37].

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I know. Right? I know, that’s, yeah. Supply chain is going to be…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: That’s a whole other story.

Allison Tyler Jones: … another podcast episode. Yes. I know. Yeah.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I’ll wrangle my kids in, since both of them went to college for that.

Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So fixed mindset. You are not a finite entity. You can be taught, you can grow. And so when we come up against something that challenges us, that makes us think this business is never going to work, or that we are a failure, that there always is a way to learn more. There’s always a how to, if we have the want to.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I think… If you have the want to. And for your clients as well, you might get a mother-in-law or a dad or a mom or sister or whatever, and the neighbor, and they’ve got a fixed mindset of what’s appropriate on the walls or whatever it is. Don’t give up. Because you know what? Sometimes you just, having a conversation and developing some sort of relationship with them, you’ll hit whatever the trigger is. And all of a sudden they’ll go, I understand why. You know what I mean? Whatever that is.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: You know when you go and I lay into my… You know what though, I understand what you’re saying, I totally understand why you feel like maybe that’s too large, but you know what? She gets 18 summers before the whole family changes and we’re at 12. Now’s the time. This is an heirloom, this is on the heirloom map. This is a milestone you do not want to miss.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And all of a sudden, you’ll see a grandmother, little tears or dad, tears, you know? Wow. We have six more. You know what I mean? And I use that all the time. So don’t assume your client’s mindset’s completely fixed. You have the power to sometimes get them into a growing space. So…

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. And it doesn’t have to be trickery.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: No, it’s not at all.

Allison Tyler Jones: Or some weird used car salesman trick. It’s just really sharing what is true. And being the expert and saying, No, this is… And as mothers, I think… Or as parents, you can say, Hey, like your kids are gone, mine are gone. You know, it’s like, yeah. Trust and believe this is going to change in a hot second.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. One day you’re going to be in your car, crying all the way to Knoxville, Tennessee, listening to Landslide. And you’re going to cry for eight hours straight. Like this is going to happen. You know what I mean? So I am coming from a place of empathy and authority. You know, I’m not just trying to… I really believe it. I believe what I’m telling them. And I know you do too.

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and I think also the growth mindset too is, rather than when first presented with a no or a resistance in some form, whether that’s in the form of a client or a setback in your business or whatever. It is not just taking the first no and just realizing, Okay, well, what else do I need to understand? And how can I help them get what I know they need that they really do want? You know? Help them overcome their own resistance now.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And sometimes if you’ve done a great job with your consultation, you’re going to go back to the original, why now? And go, Well, you told me X, Y, and Z. And this is what I believe as a professional. And that this is going to fulfill that, why? And sometimes just reminding them of the why is enough, you know? And if it’s not, it’s okay. Learn from it, move on. And don’t …

Allison Tyler Jones: Doesn’t mean you suck, doesn’t mean they suck.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Correct. Correct. Correct.

Allison Tyler Jones: Means we can learn. Love that.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Always can learn. Yes.

Allison Tyler Jones: Okay. So Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. So highly, highly recommend. It’s also a good listen too. I’m a big fan of an Audible situation.

Allison Tyler Jones: Okay, so our next book is Effortless by Greg McKeown. Famously the author of Essentialism. Which… Essentialism is essential.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: It is essential.

Allison Tyler Jones: Everybody needs to read that book. I’ve talked about it a lot. So we’re not reviewing that one here. But his new book is Effortless. So Essentialism is all about how do you start selecting the things that are most important? It’s kind of a process by which you decide what is the most important thing. And then Effortless is the book on how to make the most important things frictionless.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes.

Allison Tyler Jones: So he’s talking about, do you ever feel like things are just so much harder than they used to be? Or you know that something is important, but yet you struggle to get it done. You’re running faster, but not moving closer towards your goals. Or you want to make a higher contribution in some way, but you just don’t have the energy.

Allison Tyler Jones: And so it’s all about turning like tedious tasks into enjoyable rituals. So he’s kind of exploring the idea of, how do you make the things that you really should be doing, the things that really do bring you lasting results and happiness. So whether it’s exercise or spending time with your family or… How do you make those easy, and then you make the stuff that we love to do, like binge watch things on Netflix or whatever, and make those hard? You know? And so, yeah. Which is kind of Atomic Habits-ish.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: It is, ish, but no it’s different. It’s a little different spin. I agree. I mean, how to make the things that we don’t like to do easy. I mean, there’s lots of… And it’s not just trickery, by the way. Like, he actually has some really nice concrete things that he talks about. Like talking about letting go or avoiding perfectionism, streamlining, things like that. Right?

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. The perfectionism one was a big one for me. He said…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Me too.

Allison Tyler Jones: … Perfectionism makes essential projects hard to start. Self-doubt makes them hard to finish. And trying to do too much too fast makes it hard to sustain momentum. I resemble every one of those things.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Perfectionism makes it hard to start. That’s obviously… Like I’ve got to do… So I can’t start now because I can’t do it perfect. Self-doubt, well, I can’t finish it because it’s not perfect. And then you try to do too much too fast. I mean, I just like, I should raise my hand right here on that one.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: For all of those.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. It’s… That’s a hard one.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: What does he say… Did he say something like the courage to be rubbish, or like the courage to not be…

Allison Tyler Jones: Yes.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Like I barely could read those words. I mean, I don’t know what to even do with that word. Like, and rubbish, it just sounds so much better than, you know, garbage, essentially.

Allison Tyler Jones: I know. The London accent, yeah.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But I’m just like, Whoa, really? So, wow, so I need to have the courage to be rubbish. I’m not there, by the way. I’m not even, I’m not there.

Allison Tyler Jones: No. But I think the reason why his books have resonated so much in recent years is, everything is just, there’s just so much more of everything.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I know.

Allison Tyler Jones: You know, there’s so much more distraction. I know we’ve heard it a million times. But it really… Have you ever been 10 o’clock at night in your bed, on Instagram, and before you realize it’s like two and a half hours later and you just watched like 95 reels of…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Dogs, for me.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Whatever. Kids, toddlers, I don’t know.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Cute little dogs. I just, it’s a rabbit hole for me. And yeah. Or a mindless game. Like I just, and then I’ll just…

Allison Tyler Jones: Something where, I’ve got to turn my brain off because I can’t think about… When you’ve got the hamster wheel going. To me, that’s what it is. It’s like, Am I depressed? Like what is happening here? You know?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Well, I mean who knows what it is, but it’s happening more than ever. Because I can’t shut my brain off. And so that’s the only way I do. But then, now I’m tired.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right, right. And then he explores the idea of residual results. And so what he says with residual results is that with residual results, you put the effort in once and then reap the benefits again and again. So the results flow to you while you’re sleeping, results flow to you when you’re taking the day off. Residual results can be virtually infinite.

Allison Tyler Jones: And so he uses an example of, there was one family that they really admired their family dynamic and their culture. And what they had done is they said, Okay, we’re going to get together. We’re just going to make a standing date. And every summer we’re going to get together at this lake house or whatever, like whatever they were going to do as a family, because their family was getting bigger and bigger and they were having grandkids and whatever. And so they started this, it just was a don’t-miss thing.

Allison Tyler Jones: And so now they’re into like the fourth generation of this summer event. Which, it doesn’t have to be a lake house. It could be at a park near your house or whatever. But because that decision was made, at some point, it did become effortless. Does that mean that it’s not hard to plan, that you don’t have to still buy all the the GladWare and the things and cook the food and all that? No. But you don’t have to decide, Okay, we really should be getting together. We really should be.

Allison Tyler Jones: Because when we’re spinning in that, that’s not effortless. It’s pushing the boulder uphill. So are there things in your business, because that’s what this podcast is, is for the portrait business. What are some things that we have done that you feel like in your business or in our business, that have made things effortless? Like you’ve decided something, and so then it just made a decision, maybe you made a lot of decisions, like a residual benefit for you.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. So, and I have a great example. So, couple years ago when I went through and did all my story brand training, really bought into, and glad I did, the whole idea of the importance of a drip campaign and transitional calls to action and a regular email campaign. Came home, completely jazzed up and a hundred percent on board that we needed these things. Sitting down and writing these things…

Allison Tyler Jones: Brutal.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Absolutely would’ve rather just about done anything. Like, sure, I’ll scrape the tile. I’ll keep the… I mean, in the [crosstalk 00:35:33]…

Allison Tyler Jones: All your pencils got sharpened, all your junk drawers got cleaned out.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I mean, everything was clean. The closets were clean.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But when I finally sat down and did the framework for all these things, now I just have to plug in, fill in the blanks. And every month and every… It’s easy. It’s easy. Now, do I still have to do it? Yes. It’s almost March, I’m like, Oh, you know, I’m traveling tomorrow. I [inaudible 00:35:53] my March ones ready.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: But it’s just plugging in some different dates…

Allison Tyler Jones: I need to do that.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: … some different images. But when I tell you that I’m embarrassed to tell you how long I waited to get those done. So that’s a great example. But the one that I have not gotten around to is my website. I even paid someone half of the money and I still have not sat down and gone through the images and done the work. Because I just… Wrapping my brain around it.

Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, I have a good quote for you that is not from either of these books. I think it was like a meme off of Instagram. But I have it on my bulletin board in my office, and it says, End dreading by doing.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Oh.

Allison Tyler Jones: And so what that meant to me, how I interpreted that, is this can be book club and favorite quotes from Instagram.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Absolutely.

Allison Tyler Jones: This can just be whatever we want it to be. Okay.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: That’s right.

Allison Tyler Jones: What that tells me is, and I know you’re like this, it’s like this. Okay. I got to do my website. Then I got to go through all the images and then I got to get with Jamie. And then I got… And so there’s all this, we build this huge mountain up. And we know, we’ve read the time management books that really all you need to do is…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: We do.

Allison Tyler Jones: Could I do one thing? Like, what’s the one step?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah.

Allison Tyler Jones: Create a new folder in Dropbox that says website images.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah.

Allison Tyler Jones: That’s it.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: That’s all you have to do.

Allison Tyler Jones: The only step you can take today. And when you do that, you’re like, It’s a win, and you feel energized. And so you’re like, Well, I can probably just pull a couple of images.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Just that session. I’m going to start with that session.

Allison Tyler Jones: But until we just get a little start, it’s brutal.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: And this goes back to like Atomic Habits. Right? Or, you know… Just start with that. It’s like they, what is your… If you ever, which I’m not having a lot of luck with, but like a personal journey with exercise. Just put on your gym clothes.

Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, I can tell you exactly what that was for me. Because I, in 2010, I reached a point where I was like, I got to do something. I had a huge health scare and I decided, I’ve got to lose 100 pounds. So I started on this journey and then didn’t get very far and then had this health scare. And I decided if I live, I will make this happen. And so I had to make exercise a part of my daily life. And of course I gained 30 pounds back on COVID, but that’s a separate issue.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: We’re not going to shame.

Allison Tyler Jones: We’re not going to shame.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: No.

Allison Tyler Jones: So what I did with that is I said, All right, what is the minimum that’s still successful? Like, I define that. So my minimum that is still successful is three days a week.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Okay.

Allison Tyler Jones: So that’s like, three days is minimum. Now that’s three days of whatever. So if it’s a walk, that’s 20 minutes, it’s a walk… It’s something. Okay, so three days a week. That’s the minimum. And then how, I remember reading about exercise and this was something that was so amazing to me. That they did a study with a bunch of people, you know, the control group, right. The whole thing. And so they said, Okay, we have group A group, group B. Group A, before you go to exercise in the morning or whenever you’re going to do it, here’s this little pep talk we want you to give yourself about, you know, working out or whatever. And then the other people they said, they didn’t say anything, just work out.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: It’s like a self acclimation, like…

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, just like, Okay, we’re going to go, it’s going to be great. Do you know that the people that they gave the… Give themselves the pep talk, were like 40% less likely to exercise.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Stop it.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Do you know why?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: No.

Allison Tyler Jones: Because, and this is so true, this happens. Is that, then in your mind, you’re like, Well, I’m talking myself into it, so it’s still a decision to [crosstalk 00:39:16].

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Ohh.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right? So what I found, and then I was reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. And she was talking about how she makes herself work out every day. All she does is just say, I just got to get in the cab. She lives in New York. I just have to get in the cab. Because if she gets in the cab, she’s going to end up at the studio and she’s going to be working out. So she found like, where was the point at which it made my working out inevitable. So for me, it’s lay the clothes out the night before, and then in the morning when I wake up and I start thinking, Well, do I feel achy? I feel like I might be getting a cold or something, you know? Maybe I’m having, is that Ebola? I don’t know.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Is there a fever?

Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. I know. So then I just immediately stop and I go, Get in the car, get in the car, get in the car. Just get in the car, just get in the car. So then I’m not thinking… Even as I’m pulling on my, like the Lulu, that’s coming up over the muffin top in the, you know, 5:00 AM in the morning. And I’m like, Just get in the car, just get in the car.

Allison Tyler Jones: Because I know if I get in the car…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: You’re going to go.

Allison Tyler Jones: I’m going to go. And so that truly has made a regular exercise habit, is now effortless for me. Because I just, I don’t allow myself to talk about it. It’s kind of like the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Mel Robbins thing, you know.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I was going to say, it’s like Mel Robbins. That’s exactly what I was just thinking.

Allison Tyler Jones: Get in the car, just get in the car. Like, so I don’t have to work out. I’m not working out.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: No, just get in the car.

Allison Tyler Jones: I’m just getting in the car. No promises.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Okay. Yes. [inaudible 00:40:39] same thing.

Allison Tyler Jones: Then I get in the car and I pull up and then I’m thinking, I’m not going in. Because I’m fat and I don’t want to go in, you know? But then I’m like, Okay, I’m just going to go in. I’m going to do the first exercise. I just, I’m going to warm up. We’ll just see, you know?

Allison Tyler Jones: And then, then you’re there. I’m here, I’m just going to… Well, I’m not going to work that hard, because I’m feeling… I have Ebola so I’m probably not going to work that hard.

Allison Tyler Jones: But then you’re like, Well hell, I’m here, I’m going to work hard. And then there’s some guy next to me that thinks he’s going to lift heavier than me and that’s not happening, you know? So before we know it, I’m sweaty and it’s 400 calories and I’m done.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: See, yeah. So you just have to do it. You just have to do it.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. It’s the… you just got to start.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: The little things. That’s interesting though, about the self, like the self acclimate, or…

Allison Tyler Jones: Isn’t that crazy? Because you would think that…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: The positivity.

Allison Tyler Jones: You would think that it would be opposite. Yeah. No, it was… Because then you’re thinking, because you know, you do that. You’re like, Okay, I’m totally going to go. It’s going to be great. The night before, right? You’re like, I’m going to go. And then you wake up in the morning and you’re like, I’m not going to go.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: No. Who am I kidding?

Allison Tyler Jones: My left toe is just…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Throbbing.

Allison Tyler Jones: And really, I’m in my fifties. Like I, how skinny do I need to be?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Well, that’s where I’m at. I’m like, as long as I… Same with me, I’m like, if I… My doctor says I can live longer than I’m going… It’s health for me at this point. I’m not trying to wear…

Allison Tyler Jones: Ivan doesn’t like skinny girls, you know? That’s the other… Yeah, I know.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: We want Ivan to be happy, for sure.

Allison Tyler Jones: I know. So we digress, off of that.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: We did. I apologize.

Allison Tyler Jones: But it’s still effort.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: It is effortless.

Allison Tyler Jones: And then the other thing that I loved, what he talked about, one of the things is he said, and this is so true for me. And actually exercise has played a huge part of this for me. So because the only time I will regularly exercise is at like 6:00 AM in the morning. So I have to get up at like five-ish. Because the only thing I’m then missing at that point is sleep. I’m not disappointing anybody. I’m not missing a client, I’m not missing my kids. That’s just, I’m getting less sleep. So I, you know, have to get to bed earlier.

Allison Tyler Jones: But what I found is that it actually gives me three more great hours in my day. Because your morning, right, is your best. And if you’ve exercised, you’re like fully oxygenated and you’re feeling good. So he says dedicate mornings to essential work. But I love this part. Break down that work into three sessions of no more than 90 minutes each, take a short break, 10 to 15 minutes in between sessions to rest and recover.

Allison Tyler Jones: And so I have found that those 90 minute chunks are really good for me. And then just, you know, if you can get a couple of really good 90 minute chunks in the morning before noon, you can do a week’s worth of work.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Oh, a hundred percent.

Allison Tyler Jones: You can get your website done.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I could, I could.

Allison Tyler Jones: You could.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I could. Instead of getting up early and being angry that I’m up early.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right. No, for sure.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I’ve done that for the past two days. I’ve been so tired. I literally just fell asleep before eight o’clock the other night, 8:00 PM Eastern. Okay? I was up at 3:30 and then I just was angry for hours that I was up. That was productive.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. No, but I read this… Okay. So I read this article. I think it might have been Harvard Business Review or maybe the Atlantic. I don’t know. But they were talking about how right now, because of the ‘Rona and all of that, that the sleep patterns are wonky. But guess what? They said that actually this interrupted sleep that, everybody’s getting up at 3:00 AM. Like they have melatonin now that’s called 3:00 AM melatonin. Not even kidding.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: No way.

Allison Tyler Jones: I have it and it works. Yeah. It’s great.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I’m going to check it out.

Allison Tyler Jones: We’ll link to the…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. Link to that too. I’m going to need that link.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. But anyway, but I… You know, because I was feeling like the same thing, like everybody says it’s got to be uninterrupted sleep. I’m not getting my REM. Somehow I’m going to get Ebola for sure. You know?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes.

Allison Tyler Jones: But they were saying that actually preindustrial, the sleep patterns were different and that’s completely fine. You can have serial episodes of sleep.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Okay. This is making me feel a lot better about my life because I’ve lived my whole life this way, probably.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I’ll sleep in like three hour, four hour blocks. Two, three. Yeah.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. That it’s legit. So I’ll find that and I’ll send that to you. But I thought it was really interesting. And so they were interviewing one of the guys that had… Maybe it was the guy that wrote the article. But he said, I kind of find, like now that I’m not worried about it and feeling angst about it, when I get up at like that 3:30 and kind of putter around for half an hour, it’s like so quiet. And I feel like I’m kind of like getting away with something and like it’s all mine, you know?

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Right. Because people aren’t interrupting you, you have uninterrupted time. I mean a lot of authors and, that’s when they write. I mean, they’ll get up and write in three hour, two, you know, well, 90 minute blocks or whatever. And then go back to bed and then get up and finish the rest of their day. Which is not as productive as those blocks of time.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Wow. You know what? That’s a game changer for me. And I guess I’ve always, now my kids aren’t here anymore. Why do I feel like I have to be so quiet? I mean, who am I going to wake up? Like, the dog? My dog’s so old, he won’t even get up.

Allison Tyler Jones: But again, now so that… We can circle back to mindset on that too, and Effortless. Is that, maybe the things that we have put ourselves in a box and think this has to be this way…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: I love that.

Allison Tyler Jones: That we could say, Well, or it could be a different way. But I’m, now that my kids are gone, I could get up. I could go sit on the couch. I could read my book, you know? And then I feel like I’m kind of getting away with something, I’m being naughty and staying awake or whatever. And then go back to bed or whatever, you know? So, anyway.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, you know, I think that this all goes together, right? We keep referring to all these books, but I loved Effortless for so many reasons. And the perfectionism hit me hard, you know, but the whole idea of letting that go is hard. But also the whole idea of streamlining that was like a big part of the book, that I need to be better at streamlining the processes and using that better. And I think I used to be, and I think I got out of habit. I don’t know, but I don’t feel… I know all this stuff, why I… I feel all over the place lately.

Allison Tyler Jones: Well, but you’ve also just come off a year of being president of PPA.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: It was COVID and then my presidency. So…

Allison Tyler Jones: Also pandemic, and like wholesale social destruction for two years.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yes. A hundred percent.

Allison Tyler Jones: There have been a few things going on. Now, yeah, now war in Europe. I mean, you know, there’s things.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: There’s so many things for me to worry about.

Allison Tyler Jones: Right. A lot of things. But I love books that make me see in a different way. Don’t tell me what to do, but that actually change the way that I think and view the world. And allow me to come up with my own best, Oh, this really works for me rather than like, everybody should do it this way.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Right. Right. Well, the whole streamlining thing, like breaking it into as few steps as possible. Because I love to drag it out and make it as hard as possible. Like you said, put on your clothes, get in the car, go to the… Oh, you know, but me, I’m like, Well, you got to pick out the outfit. I got to brush my… I mean, I have to throw everything in there. The website, I can’t just make a folder.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. It’s that imperfect action over perfect inaction. You know, it’s like just doing that little, that first step. Because for me, that’s such… How many projects have you been putting off and you build it up in your mind? I got to call that client, I got to do that thing or whatever. And then it’s been on your list for two weeks, you keep not crossing it off, you keep transferring it to the new list. And then you’re like, You know what? I got to… And it was like 10 minutes. And it literally…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Yeah. And it’s done.

Allison Tyler Jones: It literally hung you up and it was in your mind and was… At 3:30 AM, instead of reading your book, you were thinking about that thing. Or I don’t know if that’s you, but that’s…

Mary Fisk-Taylor: No, that’s totally me. That’s totally me. And I’m like, Wow, wow. I could have not let that live rent free in my head for two and a half weeks, and disappointed myself and the person that I’m dreading… Yeah. I do it way too often, so I need to do better.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: So that, it was a good, I’d read that book. Because I, we talked about it, and I was like, Oh I don’t think I have that one. And then when I went to look at it, I’m like, I totally have that one.

Allison Tyler Jones: Had it, read it.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: So it was a good reread for me. It was a really good reread. Both of his books are great. But I will say that that book would not have had the same impact or effect if I had not, was not in tune with Mindset. Like for me it always goes back to Mindset, always.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Love it. And I feel the same way about Essentialism. I feel like that… I think those two books for… Are like central. You know, Essentialism and Mindset were both good.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: They are, so fun.

Allison Tyler Jones: Yay. Well, book club, our first time. So hopefully that was good.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Our first book club. Yes. It was great. I’ve been looking forward to this. And yeah, maybe it won’t be our last, because I don’t have anybody else to talk about books with, so…

Allison Tyler Jones: Right.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: You’re my book person.

Allison Tyler Jones: And I’m looking at you on Zoom and I see behind your head, there are a lot of books back there. So many things to talk about.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Lots of books.

Allison Tyler Jones: All right. Well thank you so much, Mary, for our maiden voyage into ReWork Book Club. And we will do this again.

Mary Fisk-Taylor: Thank you. I appreciate it, Allison.

Allison Tyler Jones: Thank you.

Allison Tyler Jones: If you have a favorite book that you would like us to know about or to talk about, I would love to hear about it. Email me at support@dotherework.com, or DM me on Instagram at do.the.rework. And let me know what titles have been lighting up your Kindle in the night.

Allison Tyler Jones: Do you know someone who would really benefit from this episode of The ReWork? Maybe a fellow photographer who’s in the trenches with you and always looking to level up their biz. Or perhaps you have a friend who is struggling to make their business work. I would be so grateful if you would share this episode with them. All you have to do is head to the platform where you are listening, click the share icon and text it or email it to the person that you think could need it most. Thank you so much for doing that. And while you’re there, if you have a chance and can give us a review, it would mean the world. We are a micro, tiny podcast, and we’re trying to get the word out to as many portrait photographers as possible, to help them build better businesses and better lives for their family. And if you would help us do that, it would mean the world. Thank you so much. And we’ll see you next time on The ReWork.

Recorded: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com and on Instagram at do.the.rework.