Happy Monday everybody. Yes, you heard me right… Monday. I’m so sorry for not posting yesterday but I was visiting my father in Suffolk with MG and extra family and then we were celebrating mother’s day in the wonderful curry house around the corner from where we live. By the time we got home I’d consumed about two large glasses of red wine and a gin and tonic… which doesn’t make for anything cognitive!
Having said that I have just come home from a wonderfully funny and exciting client meeting with Suzi – a bride for (hopefully!) September and a glass of rose was indeed consumed. I’ll just break for a bowl of cheerios —————–.
**Five minutes later** Cheerios are overrated. I’m having a coconut yoghurt and I’ve put some potato alphabet letters in the oven (yes I am about five years old.) MG and I have started online shopping (how 21st century darling) using mysupermarket.com and are saving on average around £40 per week. You can add things on your basket using one provider (I use Sainsburys) and it tells you how much you are saving compared to if you were to buy like for like products from another. Plus you just pinpoint exactly what you need for that week rather than dropping bags of M&M’s and popcorn into a trolley… And clearly alphabet letters are nutritional. Right!?
On with last week: I’ve been poorly sniffly so it hasn’t been all bells and glitter (I am a useless sick person) but I do want to speak with you about something that I need to remind myself daily to keep close to my heart.
DELAYED GRATIFICATION.
Guess what that means? Not getting/doing what you want now in order to maximise appreciation/success/happiness later.
I am THE most impatient person. My reference points unfortunately are so engrossed within social media that they tended to eventuate in my comparing (that dreaded word) myself to other weddings photographers. IT DOES NOT WORK. I have had a love/hate relationship with Twitter, for example. A general fundamental part of human nature is to want to be involved or be part of something. I wanted to be that kid in the play ground with a bunch of friends telling me how cool my Pokemon stickers were. I wasn’t… I was the kid making friends with sheep on the far side of the field about 100 metres away from my nearest peer. This obviously so influenced by my 7 years growing up on a sheep farm and yes indeed having a pet sheep named Scruffy (honestly.. as a 7 year old I would stand at the field and shout Scruffy and the SAME SHEEP would come over every time and eat some grass with me – weird I know.) That is kind of what I’ve at times felt like in the industry. I’m great at making friends and I have so much to offer I’m even flexible with the form the friend takes… and I am wary of all those kids judging my pokemon cards. Too many metaphors… okay… sorry.
I get to this space in my mind often now where I have that perfect balance between using social media as a business tool and creating relationships through it based on what type of tea I drink. But in the past, most of the time (I hate to say it) I’ve been worried that I’m not tweeting enough because X photographer who has X amount of bookings for this year and has won X award seems to tweet 24/7. What if that is a key to success? Perhaps I should be taking that on board?
And then I’ve done it for a couple days and felt like I’m SELLING OUT. Please do bear with me here as I am NOT saying that X photographer is selling out. They are doing (hopefully) what works for THEIR business and in their life. It doesn’t work in mine. My absolute ethos is to be genuine and honest with myself about what I want from that and when I look at it… it ties in to delayed gratification immensely.
Let me just share with you a social experiment so that you better understand the general term of delayed gratification and the outcomes that it can have.
“In one of the most amazing developmental studies ever conducted, Walter Michel of Stanford created a simple test of the ability of four year old children to control impulses and delay gratification. Children were taken one at a time into a room with a one-way mirror. They were shown a marshmallow. The experimenter told them he had to leave and that they could have the marshmallow right then, but if they waited for the experimenter to return from an errand, they could have two marshmallows. One marshmallow was left on a table in front of them. Some children grabbed the available marshmallow within seconds of the experimenter leaving. Others waited up to twenty minutes for the experimenter to return. In a follow-up study (Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990), children were tested at 18 years of age and comparisons were made between the third of the children who grabbed the marshmallow (the “impulsive”) and the third who delayed gratification in order to receive the enhanced reward (“impulse controlled”).
The third of the children who were most impulsive at four years of age scored an average of 524 verbal and 528 math. The impulse controlled students who scored 610 verbal and 652 math! This astounding 210 point total score difference on the SAT was predicted on the basis of a single observation at four years of age! The 210 point difference is as large as the average differences between that of economically advantaged versus disadvantaged children and is larger than the difference between children from families with graduate degrees versus children whose parents did not finish high school! At four years of age gobbling a marshmallow now v. waiting for two later is twice as good a predictor of later SAT scores than is IQ.”
Source – http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/10/stanford_marshm.html
So. I’ve concluded in my mind that I need to tweet because I want to converse with people. I don’t NEED a reply from them… it’s enough for me that I’m just making the effort and being certain in myself that I want to do it. I’ve also made an agreement to stop comparing myself and to really focus on what I currently have in my life and question whether I really need to reply to that mass enquiry search via Twitter or last minute half price photographer request on Facebook. The truth is that I don’t (I’ve rarely done this in comparison) and I would much rather just be patient and wait for my integrity, honesty and reputation to solidify within the industry on it’s own time. I would rather wait for that second marshmallow.
Lets get back to the simples now eh.
Despite walking past some terribly scary characters in Leyton I managed to my wonderful jazz singer friend Louise safely and albeit with a stalling car, we managed to make it to Southend also in one piece. Here we took these photographs.
Ciara from Wed In London replied to a contact I’d made via Facebook a few weeks back to confirm that she’d like to book me to shoot her little girls first birthday. That little one is Aoife and it was her birthday on Tuesday. Look out on the blog for the full post soon but for now, here is a teaser shot.
Lovely Alexis from OMG featured Lauren & Adam’s pre wedding shoot on her blog. *Note on Monday – I met Alexis for coffee today and it just increased my inspiration from her!*
MG and I booked to workshop with Jerry Ghionis in August. I’m so excited! This is absolutely about pushing your comfort zone and addressing where you are currently at in business.
My wedding photographer friend Laura Babb runs a great resource on Facebook called The London Wedding Club. Through this she was invited to the Weddings4Media event at One Marylebone and managed to get a plus two for Yolande De Vries and I. Free champagne and Denby crockery and some new faces put to names – tres bien. Thanks Laura for taking me x
I’ve added a PINTEREST tab to my Facebook page. Here is how to do it.
MG shared this link with me – Axioo. It was a little unclear to me whether it was photography, videography or design but it all became clear once I went to the about section. And I fell in love.
I love these words from Seth Godin. So true. What promise have you made this week?
Life affirming blog post from Chase Jarvis. Are you challenging yourself in this way with your photography? Does it interest you?
Love as always, CC xo
love that axioo website!!!!
There’s nothing wrong with having a pet Sheep – I’m totally jealous!! Good to read your decisions on our discussions the other day :)
T x