Speaker 1: 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. 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. Episodes will include interviews with experts from in and outside of the photo industry, many workshops, and behind the scenes secrets that Allison uses 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. Lets do The ReWork.
Allison Tyler Jones: Welcome back to The ReWork. Today, I’m bringing you my BFF, Traci Beagley. She is the CEO of Sunland Home Healthcare. What does that have to do with portrait photography? Well, Traci’s my friend, my confidant, my workout buddy. And we spend most mornings after the gym sitting in the bubble of her car, trying to solve the world’s problems. So many of those conversations have been transformative for me and for her, so I wanted you to be in on one of those conversations. We’re titling this episode, What do You Want to be When You Grow Up? Because we know that what we thought we wanted to do when we were younger, doesn’t always pan out. Sometimes it turns into something better, and all of that is part of the journey that we’re involved in. I hope you’ll find this interesting, inspiring, and that it will give you a little lift for your day. Lets do it. Well, welcome Traci Beagley to The ReWork podcast. I am so glad that you’re here today.
Traci Beagley: Thank you, Allison. I’m excited to be here.
Allison Tyler Jones: I didn’t ever know that I would have my BFF on my podcast, but I figured that I would take our conversations from inside the bubble, also known as your car, post-gym, and I figured I just wanted to have the conversation… One of these bubble conversations I wanted to have today for our listeners as inspiration, because we’re… I think the world has changed in big, huge ways for everybody over the last couple of years, and I think we’re asking questions differently. One of the questions that I would love to explore with you in this episode is the idea of us when we’re young, what do you want to be when you grow up. You have a business, and you’re looking at the answer to that question in different ways. So tell me about Traci Beagley a little bit.
Traci Beagley: I’m from a family of entrepreneurs. For me growing up, it was natural just to think that someday I would own my own business. Not that I knew how to do that or what that looked like, but if that’s what your family does, you kind of just think that’s what you’ll do too. I’ve owned a couple businesses. The first one I did window treatments, and did that for five years and sold it. Then my current business is in home care for seniors and home based medical care for seniors and I’ve been doing that for about six years. That’s not what I thought I would be doing when I grew up, being in the senior healthcare space. But what I absolutely love about business is the opportunity to problem solve. You and I talk about this all the time. Are the people that on our team, are they in the right seat on the bus? Now, if we have X amount of money to invest in our business, where should we spend it? Are we simplifying our schedules? And are we spending our most important time on the things that we should be doing? I’m constantly looking at my calendar for the week, like, “What does my week look like? Are the appointments I have on my calendar, the things that only I can be doing?” Sometimes yes, and sometimes I’m like, “Boy, did I just fail this week?”
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. I know. And before anybody listens to, this gets the idea that at 5:30 in the morning that we pop in and are like, “Am I living my best life?” What this conversation that she’s saying right now usually sounds like, is like, “Good morning. Hi. Why didn’t you text me that you were tired? We could have just skipped this whole thing to begin with.” Or, “I hate my life. Why am I doing what I’m doing?” It never sounds quite this packaged and great.
Traci Beagley: My back hurts.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right.
Traci Beagley: I didn’t sleep last night.
Allison Tyler Jones: Or the t-shirt that you gave me that says everything hurts and I’m dying. My favorite. Or, my other one, my favorite plans are canceled plans. Yes. Just keeping it real, but yes.
Traci Beagley: My favorite word is canceled.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes, exactly. Well, I think both of us are doing what we wanted to be when we grew up, in that you thought you would always own your own business.
Traci Beagley: Definitely.
Allison Tyler Jones: But you just didn’t know exactly what. I thought that I would own my own bookstore, but that was before Barnes & Noble and Amazon. But I always knew that I wanted my own business.
Traci Beagley: Why did you want your own business?
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, for me, honestly, this is going to sound so stupid, but it is absolutely true. I remember my mom had a yard sale, and I had to have been maybe four or five, and she was putting out her old stuff to sell on the front lawn. And I went into my toy box and I was like, “Look at all this stuff. I could sell all of this.” And I started just taking my toys out and putting them, and she comes out and she’s like, “No, no, no, no, no. You just got that for Christmas. We’re not selling that.” But I was like, “Hold on a minute. You mean you put something out on this table and somebody gives you money for it? I am down for that.” It was at a cellular level, I was down for that.
Traci Beagley: I’ve never heard that story.
Allison Tyler Jones: I know that’s probably not really a good inner… I wanted to help humankind. It’s like, “No, I wanted to sell my toys in exchange for money.” And then in fifth grade I made… Everybody wanted to be a cheerleader, and so I made pompoms out of crate paper, and sold pompoms. I had a thriving pompom business in fifth grade.
Traci Beagley: You were born a genius.
Allison Tyler Jones: I don’t know, but I was born a merchant I think is what that was. But anyway, but yes. You’re from a long line of entrepreneurs. Then also, our conversations definitely are how we are using our time, because we’re both mothers. We were younger.
Traci Beagley: Children. Yeah, and of course I’ve been married for over 20 years and tried to… I think sometimes we talk a lot about balance, that there is no such thing as balance. I’ve thought a lot about the seasons of our life, and sometimes the seasons of… What season of my life am I in. Sometimes the kids need more attention and I’m all in with the kids. Sometimes the business needs more attention, and I have to be all in. But it’s rarely that you just wake up and go, “Oh, everything is rainbows and butterflies today.” It’s usually like you were saying, this is really hard.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. Yeah. It is. It’s also sometimes really rewarding. You have days where you’re like, “I love what I do. I love this.” It has a lot of meaning as well. Your oldest is the famous Kaitlyn of ReWork. The Kaitlyn ReWork and Alison Tyler Jones Photography New Client Coordinator. So this is the mother of Kaitlyn, which those of you who know and love Kaitlyn now will know where all the genius came from.
Traci Beagley: Yes, absolutely.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love it. Okay. You’ve had experiences in the last few years that have changed your trajectory.
Traci Beagley: Sure. I was born from a long line of very strong, independent women who don’t need help, don’t ask for help. We’ve had multiple conversations about this. That’s how I grew up. It’s like, I can handle it myself. I’ll do it myself, and I’m not asking for help. And where I don’t have feelings, feelings don’t matter. Feelings are for weak people. A few years ago, was diagnosed with cancer, with breast cancer, stage two. I was 37. And it has completely changed my outlook on life. My therapist once told me, “Traci, you’re operating an entirely new landscape.” I think about that a lot. I’m still me at the core. It’s against every fiber of my being to ask for help.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yep.
Traci Beagley: But I’ve seen this new landscape where actually there’s really beautiful things that can come from showing that vulnerability, and showing that you’re not Superwoman. I’m not Superwoman, but I tried to pretend I was.
Allison Tyler Jones: You kind of are. You’re an oldest child and a redhead, so that’s kind of like Superwoman squared.
Traci Beagley: Yes. Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: I think we all, even if you’re not Type A, but you’re an entrepreneur, you’re an achiever. You’re moving forward in your life. You’re doing things, and until something happens, your landscape is, “I don’t need help.” Your landscape is our-
Traci Beagley: And we’re women, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. We can do everything. We’re a resource for everybody else.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. It’s give, give, give, and don’t say no. I love that book, the Year of Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: By Shonda Rhimes.
Traci Beagley: Yes. Yeah. It’s saying no to the things that you don’t need to, so that you say yes to yourself and the things that are better for you.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that book.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. It was so good.
Allison Tyler Jones: Because you think it’s going to be one thing, and it really is turns out to be something else.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. What we really do need to set our boundaries and say no to a lot of things. We talk about that a lot in our bubble. If I don’t say yes to this opportunity, what am I going to miss out on? X, Y, and Z. Well, if I say yes to that’s going to take two to three weeks out of my life to prepare for that speech and that presentation and the travel. And that takes three weeks out of my life for my work, my team, my family. That’s a really, really hard decision. It’s really hard. It’s so helpful to have a friend mentor, coach, whoever to be able to step back and have that 30,000 foot view, or see you from a different perspective that can help you make some of those choices. I really feel like we need somebody that we can bounce these ideas off of.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, and you are, as you said before, you’re… The reason I think we’re friends is because we align on so many things. We both love to learn. We both love to read. We both are continually trying to get to the next level, almost to the point of where we drive ourselves insane.
Traci Beagley: Solving the problems of the world.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes, exactly. But on your continuous learner journey, what are some of the things that have really been helpful for you that have been maybe game changers in your business? Or not even in your business, but also even in your personal life, as you’ve kind of gone through that journey of realizing what I wanted to be when I grow up?
Traci Beagley: Yeah. I think there have been a couple of things that have been foundational. For one thing, going through this cancer experience, I’ve never been into therapy until after this. I have learned so much about myself from being in therapy the last couple of years. One of those is that it really is okay to fail, and failure is not something bad. It’s really hard for me to accept that, but failure is just pivoting and learning and going a different direction. In my business with my team, which is still so hard and goes against my core, but I tried to regularly once or twice a week, “Hey you guys, I tried this, and it didn’t work out, and I felt flat on my face.” Because I want to be able to normalize trying something and it not working out. And what did you learn from it? And lets go try something else. Because isn’t that what life is?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I love that. That’s so great for parenting, too.
Traci Beagley: Yes.
Allison Tyler Jones: Because how much do we expect of our kids?
Traci Beagley: Ask Kaitlyn. I have a volume of embarrassing stories, and it’s just funny to like laugh about it. It makes you human as a leader. It makes you more relatable. And things that I’ve read, I of course love Brené Brown’s work, listen to her podcast all the time. And it’s so important to normalize failure in your work, in your life, and be able to learn from it and move on. You obviously don’t want to stay in that cycle of not changing and keep failing. What’s the quote, when you make the same decisions over and over again?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I think it’s attributed to Einstein. It’s like the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results or something.
Traci Beagley: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I do try to do that around the office and normalize that. I love Brené Brown’s work, especially on leadership and vulnerability in the office and things like that. Some of the other things, I love Darren Hardy, and I’ve talked about him a lot. Darren Hardy, he has a business masterclass. He has a hero’s journey. He is super inspiring and practical. I’ve learned a lot from Darren and attending his conferences and things like that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Doesn’t he have a book?
Traci Beagley: Yes. He has a book. It is The Compound Effect.
Allison Tyler Jones: Got it. Okay. The Compound… We’ll relate to that.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. Compound Effect is fantastic. Darren Hardy has great stuff on leadership, and my team has been through some of his courses and things like that. But I try to give people opportunities as a leader. How can I help my team fulfill their own personal goals? My HR director, she wants to certify in a higher level of HR. That is her goal, and I said, “Great, lets do it. How can I support you?” She took a class two days a week for a couple months and passed her test. To me as a leader, that is so satisfying when I can see other people achieve and fulfill the goals in their own life.
Allison Tyler Jones: That’s awesome. Yeah. Facilitating others’ growth. And that’s what you’re doing as a mother. Women are uniquely suited for that to help facilitate others’ growth. And then sometimes we forget ourselves.
Traci Beagley: Yeah, and if you ask Kaitlyn, she probably says I’m stumping her growth.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, she is 20.
Traci Beagley: And you have told me that too. “Traci, you’re stumping her growth. Get out of her way.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, first of all, let me just qualify, that statement was made to you when you were driving back from California and Kaitlyn was, I believe 11 or 12 years old. She was trying to organize, I think either your entire Christmas or some birthday party or something, and you were texting me that, “This kid is driving me crazy. She’s trying to take over my life.” I’m like, “Why don’t you just get out of her way and let her take over your life? Because she’s actually super organized.” She could have actually run your household at 11 or 12.
Traci Beagley: Absolutely. Yeah, of course.
Allison Tyler Jones: Now she’s running my life. It’s awesome. I’m just working for Kaitlyn. That’s what we’re doing.
Traci Beagley:
Yeah. We are just helping and facilitating other people, and I find so much joy and satisfaction. It’s one of my whys when I can see other people achieve and live their why. We talk a lot about what is your why. Simon Sinek. Everybody has to watch that Ted Talk upon onboarding, because we talk a lot, what’s your why?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. The Simon Sinek Ted Talk.
Traci Beagley:
Yeah. I think all of us, post-COVID and especially post my cancer survivalship, when you face your own mortality, you’re like, “What am I doing here? Am I living my mission?” And I think… Not I think. With the great migration, so many people are reconsidering how they’re living their life and spending their time. I just was afforded that a couple years before the pandemic, and I think about it every day. What am I doing? At the core, who am I? And what are my superpowers and how am I using that to get back to the greater hold?
Allison Tyler Jones: How are you thinking about that? What does that look like as you’re thinking about that? Because right now you own a home healthcare business. You had a previous business. Do you feel like that this is where you’ll end up for the rest of your life? Or do you see yourself doing something different?
Traci Beagley: One of the thoughts… I mentioned I had a window treatments business, and I absolutely love business. But as I thought about that, I didn’t find a lot of joy helping people pick out their window coverings. That did not-
Allison Tyler Jones: Get you out of bed in the morning.
Traci Beagley: Mean anything to me.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah.
Traci Beagley: I loved the meeting people, and I loved helping them in that relationship, but picking out window coverings, I was like, “This is such a waste of my time.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, interesting.
Traci Beagley: Fasts forward to in-home care for seniors. I feel a lot more gratification, because we are helping people age in place with dignity, helping them maintain their independence as long as possible. I find so much more joy, gratification, fulfillment in doing something for people that they’re not able to do for themselves.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. Just even as you talk about it, I can hear that in your voice. I think the window covering business… I think business is a game, it really is. It’s a really fun game. It can be risky, and then you could look at money as the score. That’s kind of how you keep the score. Is it profitable? Is it not profitable? You can kind of game all of that, which is kind of fun. Really, if you love business, you could say it doesn’t really matter what it is that you’re doing. You just like to be in business. You bought it, you started the business, you built it up and then you sold it. But now it sounds like what you’re doing now is more of closer to your heart.
Traci Beagley: Yeah, definitely. I love the leadership aspect of it. I also do love… I love that in Arizona there’s not a lot of regulation in home care for seniors. So I love knowing that I have established a very ethical business, and people can come to us and they can trust us and know that their mom or dad who’s a senior is taken care of. I feel a great sense of responsibility, but I also feel a great sense of pride in that people can trust us. There’s this trust factor. People have come to us in a very chaotic time of their life.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh yeah, scary.
Traci Beagley: “Mom or dad have fallen. They’re in the hospital. I don’t know what to do. Or they’ve been diagnosed with dementia. Help, I don’t know how to do this.” We don’t have marketers. We have trusted advisors who are there to guide them through this aging process and help them make these decisions. I know with your business, you have people that help guide them through their decision making process in the fine art print that they’re selecting and that sort of thing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, I think it’s similar. And there’s a lot of meaning. You are meeting people at a really vulnerable time in their life when there’s so many unknowns. They don’t know if their parent is dying. They don’t know if they’re failing at how long is it going to be that they’re going to have to… There’s just so many questions and guilt and all kinds of things, probably that they’re not able to be there for them or whatever. To be able to take something that is seen as almost a necessary evil in a way, like, “We have to get help for mom or dad,” and turn that into something that’s really meaningful. I’ve watched you do that, the way that you guys deliver that service and the way that you care for those people. I think it’s really special how you do it. I think it’s really amazing. It’s an example to me… In our business you would think, well, it’s always special to get your picture taken. But usually dads aren’t that into it.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. Well, the thing with getting your picture taken is I think of… Well, I’m not a very good subject matter on this one, because you’ve taken our pictures since Kaitlyn was like three, when you were still taking pictures outside at the park.
Allison Tyler Jones: Back in the olden days. Wasn’t 20.
Traci Beagley: What year was that?
Allison Tyler Jones: 2006 or… Well, five is when I started the business. Yeah. So 2005, 2006.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. Every time I see that picture of us at the park, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, we have come such a long ways.” From a park to you took my brother’s engagement party, which, you don’t even do that anymore. Right. It’s funny because I… Oh, then we had pictures in your basement at your house. I’m probably one of the few people that have had that ever
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. You’re an OG. Yeah.
Traci Beagley: How fun is that to see you grow from getting into the photography business, to where you are now with your niche? I love your online master class and your podcast. We’ve talked about podcasts six years, seven years. We were talking about it in the bubble, like, “Oh, I should do a podcast someday.” And I’m like, You have to do it.”
Allison Tyler Jones: I know, and here we are. You’re being interviewed on the podcast. It’s so fun.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. Take a minute to call it a win.
Allison Tyler Jones: I remember when I had my scrapbooking store. I was probably in my mid thirties when I… Well, I was 29 when I started that business. Then when it really got rocking and rolling, I was in my mid thirties. It would have so many young moms come in, and they would have-
Traci Beagley: I was one of them. I went in, too.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yes. Young moms come in with their babies and strollers and they would say, “Oh, I would just love to start a business. I bet you just have so much fun. I bet you just love to just scrapbook and work.” And I’m like, “Okay well, the day that I put a knife in my scrapbooking for myself was the day that I started it as a business.” But they would say, “I just really want to start my own business.” And I realized at that time, I was enough older than these younger moms to realize that you can have everything you want. You just can’t generally have it all at the same time. When you’re a younger mom, you tend to think, especially if you’ve got little kids, you think this is never going to be over. This is so hard, but you love it. It’s also great too.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. The days are long. The years are short.
Allison Tyler Jones: Exactly. Yeah, but sometimes not short enough, because wow. I had a few years in there that were really long. Now that I’m in my fifties, I look back and I think, “Wow, I’ve had so many different iterations of myself.” I always say, I wish I had the 20 year old hardware with the 57 year old software. I wish I knew what I knew now, but with the younger body, would be so awesome. But looking back-
Traci Beagley: Doesn’t look like the pre COVID body, right?
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, I know. It’s so bad. Lets not talk about it. Let’s not talk about the W word.
Traci Beagley: I totally see that. One thing I’ve thought a lot about lately, and you have been foundational in my growth in this area, is being an imposter. As women, and even men too… I’ve been taking this speaking class called Heroic Public Speaking with Michael and Amy Port. Imposter syndrome is something we’ve discussed on there many, many times. I personally, as I’ve thought about it, have felt like an imposter. I’m not an expert. I can’t go out there. I’m not going to go on stage. I can’t write a book. All these other people are the experts.
Traci Beagley: I have just kind of come to… And Allison, you’ve told me, “Well, Traci, you have this skill, or this is where you’re great at.” I have learning in the last little bit to step into my own role and to stop thinking of myself as an imposter, and thinking that I’m not capable to write a book, I’m not capable to run a business. I’m not capable to meet the CEO of some huge company. I’m really focusing on learning to step into my role, to claim my power, and to know that I am the expert in my space, and to use that for the benefit of my company, for my family, for the community. And just stop pretending that I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve claimed that power. And I’m the first to say, I don’t know what I’m doing, but you know what I’m saying.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah, no, I think that it’s… What I realize about that is that imposter syndrome, I think is such a… You’ve heard it talked about a million times. It’s used a lot when applied particularly to women, but I think it’s just a human tendency to think that everybody else knows better than we do. Unless you’re a sociopath, and then you think you know everything, or a 14 year old. But really, most human beings don’t think they know everything. They think, “Oh, I don’t have an MBA in geriatric care. How dare-”
Traci Beagley: Attached to my name.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. “How dare you start a home healthcare company. I don’t have an MFA in photography. How dare you start a portrait business. I don’t have a MBA. How dare you start a business?” There’s all of these things that we think… I remember telling Julia Woods when I was maybe one or two years into this business, and things were going really well in the business, and I just said to her, “I keep feeling like the other shoe’s going to drop. At some point, somebody’s going to be like, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ and we’re going to take all of our pennies and go home.”
Traci Beagley: Yeah.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. But at some point, you realize that staying in that self doubt and that navel gazing is actually self-indulgent, and that the negative forces in the world… You could look at whatever your religious preference is. Negative forces. I think we can all agree that there are positive forces and negative forces. The negative forces would have us play small. They would have us dumb ourselves down, because that’s not going to create the greater good. The greatest good that could possibly be created is for us to emerge in our fullest, best, highest, and best version of ourselves, and bring all of that power to good and light the way for others to bring their power into being. And by power, I mean force for good. Whether that’s a mother or a business owner or anything.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. For me, I’m achiever, so I constantly am spinning myself into a, “I have to achieve. I have to achieve.” And it’s like, “Well, when I achieve this, then I’ll be the expert. When I achieve this, I’ll be the expert.” And every time I achieve something, I still don’t feel like the expert. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting. Right now, my latest thing is, “Oh, I’ve got to get an MBA. I need a book attached to my name and I need an MBA. And when I have those two things, then I will be-”
Allison Tyler Jones: What?
Traci Beagley: Good with myself.”
Traci Beagley: Yeah.
Traci Beagley: And I know as soon as I get my MBA, if that’s what I end up doing, I will be on the next thing. That will never be good enough. So why are we never good enough? Why can we just not… We have this conversation all the time. Why can’t we just be happy with who we are and the things in our life? But it’s that constant, “When I get there, then I’ll be happy. When I have $8 million, then I’ll be happy.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. $8 million and a fast metabolism. That’s all we need. Yeah. Well, and you think of yourself, your teenage self. “Well, when I’m 16 and I’m driving. Or when I can go to prom. Or when I have that boyfriend, or whatever.” I think, again, going back to that human nature thing, there’s a genius about that. There’s that we were born, we were created as creators. We were created to expand and help and bless the world. And we have this inner need to be better than we were before. I definitely don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think that’s a great thing. But again, that force for bad, the force for the negative is going to be, “You’re never going to be good enough.” But that’s not anything that anybody else can tell us. It’s something that we have to figure out for ourselves. Whether that’s through therapy, reading, attending things, but I think it’s part of your person homework. It’s part of your human homework, is to figure out how can I be the best, like where you’re saying, am I living my mission? And I think your mission changes. I don’t think it’s one thing. At least I feel like I’ve had many missions throughout my life, and I-
Traci Beagley: Well, why won’t you? Because you’re a different person now than you were 30 years ago.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. But don’t you think that we… That kind of in the ether is like, “Oh, you need to figure out…” Even when you’re saying your why, well, my why today might be different than my why tomorrow. There’s some things that stay true. Also, I like the ability… I never want to be put in a box. I hate boxes. I’m not a fan of rules. You and I are very different in this way. You love boxes and you love rules. I like to be… I don’t like any restriction. But anyway, I don’t know where I was going with that, but you get the idea. It’s to give yourself the freedom that just because you said you wanted to do… Home healthcare might be your thing right now, but you might be expanding into something completely different in the next five years. Who knows? Who knows where you’re going to end up?
Traci Beagley: Yeah, and that’s what I love about this journey of life. I used to absolutely hate the word journey because I want, “Tell me A, B, C, and D. And I will go get that done.” I want the checklist. And the journey… If you guys have ever seen that, it’s kind of a meme, of an entrepreneur, and it’s just all these scribbles in this huge, messy thing. It’s not linear, and I used to just hate the word journey. But I actually really love it because it’s so fluid and it gives you the opportunity to learn and explore and get to know yourself better, and give yourself permission to change, to become.
Allison Tyler Jones: To become something. Yeah. Oh, and that’s a great… The concept of becoming, I think we’ve talked about that too. I love the idea of when you love checklists and when you do love lists, you think, “Okay, well I’m going to go learn this and I’m going to be an MBA. Or I’m going to be a photographer. I’m going to be a business owner or whatever.” But becoming, that’s kind of a different way of looking at the world. We don’t obey these rules, or we don’t follow these guidelines just because they are rules or guidelines. It’s because we want to become what that is going to create for us.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. I used to hate the word become. Like I said, give 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and I’ll go get it done. And then get me the next thing.
Allison Tyler Jones: Anything that involves the process of any kind. Or like destinations, check it off the list. I don’t need to have process. I want product. Yeah.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. It was like when I was going through cancer, tell me exactly how many rounds of chemo and infusions I need to have, and then I will be done. And it doesn’t work like that, and I had to learn the really hard way. But to me now, I feel like my eyes are open and I’m seeing life in a very different way. I love the freedom and the ability that I have been looking at, reconnecting with myself and who I am, and who I want to be, and what I want to give back to this world. Like you said, it changes. It changes because of your trauma or because of things that have happened to you or experiences that you’ve had. A lot of times people… Those things are the catalyst for people to start a nonprofit or get involved with volunteer work. It takes that incident, that trauma, unfortunately, or something that you’ve overcome. And the healing journey is you giving back to that space.
Allison Tyler Jones: Oh, for sure. One of my favorite quotes is Ernest Hemingway. I hope I’m not going to butcher this, but he said, “The world breaks us, and afterwards many are strong at the broken places.” I love that, because I think when we’re young, we think we have this idea of this journey of life that is going to… We have expectations of how we think our life is going to go, and I don’t think very many people get to even 25 before that’s been smashed in some way. Whether a breakup or some kind of disappointment or whatever. Then the older you get, the more people that you have in your life, even your children, things happen that just take you down. I think this life is uniquely suited to break us in our most vulnerable places. The people that we think we have it all under control, and then it’s just, the rug gets pulled out from us.
Allison Tyler Jones: But part of those experiences combined with who we came as to this world, combined to make our unique talent and our unique gift to the world. That’s where I see a lot of creatives. My students and listeners to the podcast, is that sometimes we doubt ourselves, we think, “Well, who am I to do X, Y, Z?” Kind of even what you’re saying, “Who am I to write this book? Who am I to give this speech? Who am I to fill in the blank.” But why not you? And the other thing that goes along with the who am I, is it’s been done before. I’m sure you’re having those thoughts like, “Oh, the cancer memoir’s been written.” Or how many photographers are out there? How many home healthcare companies are there? But it hasn’t been done by you, with your unique journey experience. You’re going to be able to touch people in a way that nobody else could. It’s the same with our business, too.
Traci Beagley: Yeah. It’s been super interesting. There was a quote by Richard Branson that I saw five or six years ago. It’s something to the effect of, “If you put your employees first, then your customers will be happier.” There’s a lot of versions of that quote. I printed it out and I put it on my wall, and probably five or six years ago, and I thought, “It’s my goal to help our employees be happy.” I absolutely believed that in my core. It resonated very strongly with me, so our goal and mission here was to put our team first, and to help try to solve their problems. Whether it was transportation or daycare or other things. We’ve created this culture of putting your team first, and to us, it’s very natural. It’s who we are. It’s been very intentional. There’s a process. There’s somebody in charge of it and it gets done, but it’s been super fascinating, post-COVID for all of these thought leaders, not only in our home care industry space, but all around. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, we got to put the employees first now.”
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. You’re like, “Hello?”
Traci Beagley: There’s podcast after podcast about putting your team first, and webinars and this and that and all the thought leaders. And I’m like, “Hmm, this is not new for us. We’ve been doing this for six years already.” It’s been super interesting to kind of watch that unfold.
Allison Tyler Jones: I love that. And I’ve watched you create that culture step by step from nothing. I think it’s really amazing. I think that’s why we have the teams that we do, and I think that’s something that women can uniquely really bring to business as well. Is that taking all those benefits that sometimes have been seen as negatives, like too nurturing or too emotional or whatever, but bringing that into building a team and building the needs of your employees is core.
Traci Beagley: It’s really rewarding.
Allison Tyler Jones: Well, you’re good at it. So what’s next for Traci Beagley?
Traci Beagley: That is a good question. Like I said-
Allison Tyler Jones: I know you’re working on a book.
Traci Beagley: Maybe, I don’t know. I’m having major imposter syndrome thoughts in my head, so I need to quiet my inner critic. That’s what the Ports call it. So I’m trying to quiet my inner critic. Maybe make a speech, because they say if you start with the speech, you go out and try that out on different audiences and you get the feedback on what people like, it will help you write a better book. Possibly that, I don’t know. I’ve kind of been looking into an MBA because then I will have arrived.
Allison Tyler Jones: Right. Of course. You’ll arrive broken and beaten and so tired.
Traci Beagley: I’m kind of obsessed with those three little letters behind my name. I don’t know. There’s that, but there’s a lot of different… I’ve been looking at different coaches, bringing them in. I feel like my team could use a pick me up, and they’re sick and tired of listening to me. And frankly, I’m kind of tired of listening to myself at this point. It’s really great, and they love it when you bring other people in for some leadership training or customer service training or things like that. That’s our next discussion when we go work out, is I need to pick your brain on some people like that.
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I love it.
Traci Beagley: Yeah, lots of good things. But again, it’s what do I want? What am I going to get out of this? Is it just going to cost me stress and be the hamster on acid spinning my wheels? Or is it actually going to bring me fulfillment and purpose and meaning and new relationships? Those are a lot of-
Allison Tyler Jones: Might be both.
Traci Beagley: Thinking about. Yeah. Yeah. Wherever it’s going to take me?
Allison Tyler Jones: Yeah. I love that. Well, I appreciate you being here. I love this conversation. It will be ongoing, to be continued in the bubble-
Traci Beagley: Lots to discuss.
Allison Tyler Jones: At our next workout. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
Traci Beagley: Bye.
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 it next time on The ReWork.
Speaker 1: You can find more great resources from Allison at dotherework.com. And on Instagram at do.the.rework.
