SIC 40 - It's ok to suck!

Find out why is ok to suck, and the one thing you can do today to keep yourself inspired.

Share - Johny breaks it down.
Inspire - Print it Big!
Create - Why it's ok to suck when your starting out.

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Johny & Brent

In this episode:

(02:52) Taking a break from a hectic lifestyle
(03:30) When to Take a Break?
(06:18) Starting a photography business
(06:32) Do one thing a week
(06:50) Keep motivated
(08:51) Getting Inspired
(08:52) Best image and print it large
(09:11) Why print it large?
(09:15) Look at it more often
(09:19) People will comment on it
(09:48) Inspire to take more images
(13:26) It’s okay to suck when you’re first starting ou
(14:29) Do it, learn, get feedback, get better
(14:58) Taking action

Episode Highlights:

Taking a Break

• worked full time
• spend time with family
• hectic lifestyle

When to Take a Break?

• feeling overwhelmed
• let go of other things
• plan other things later
• get the positive out of the situations happening in life

Starting a photography business:

1. Don't overwhelm yourself with too many things
2. Do one thing a week
3. Spread it out and chunk it down
4. Keep motivated

Getting an Inspiration:

• take your best image
• print it large

Why print it large?

1. look at it more often
2. people will comment on it
3. remind yourself of you progress
4. inspire you to take more images

When you’re first starting out:

1. It’s okay to suck
2. It’s okay to not do something really well
3. Do it then you learn, get feedback, you do it again, get a little bit better

Taking action:

• It doesn’t matter if you’re good at it or you suck at it. It’s okay as long as you take action.

Introduction

Johny: Hey guys what’s up? Its Johny here and welcome to another episode of the SIC show and as always I’m super pumped to be here. And this week I’ve got a story about taking a break. And you’ll find out why I’m sitting in a minute.

Brent: Yes and I’m gonna inspire you with an old image of mine and it’s a 1 megapixel image I blew up really big and I’m gonna hopefully inspire you to get out there and do things even though you suck.

Johny: Take action, enjoy.

Taking a Break

Brent: Alright buddy so share the story with us.

Johny: Hi guys you are not gonna believe what happen; biggest epic fail ever. I’m gonna let you take a look under the table. I don’t know if people really have to look down there but check this out. Isn’t that thing insane?

Brent: So sexy man.

Johny: So what happened last week, well it’s nearly a week ago actually. I woke up at Brent’s one morning and we got to record a SIC show.

Brent: In the new studio.

Johny: Yes he bought away. Check out this man. I love that man.

Brent: Thumbs up.

Johny: Thumbs up. It’s good. I think it’s perfect. Anyway, back to the story. I walked up to the new studio which is Brent’s new pad. And went down the stairs for the very first well for the second time, got to the bottom hands full and collapsed.

Brent: Like Johny normally do he’s so fast, he’s doing 10 things at once. I think you’re probably thinking of something else and you forgot the last step.

Johny: I did. So anyway I had an epic fail on the stairs and fall over and I’ve broken my ankle. So I’ve got 6 weeks in this moonboot, resting and you probably think “Johny shrunk on the show. What the hell is going on?” I look new man. Look at me. I’m like a new improved Johny. I’ve done my hair. I’ve got a shaved. I’ve broken my ankle, man all these things.

When to Take a Break?

Johny: So anyway back to the story, Brent Mail recording a SIC show or just about to record a SIC show and man it’s painful as hell and I’m on painkillers but you know it’s giving me the power to stop and rethink everything. Yeah coz I still worked full time, still do our online thing which is Share Inspire Create lounge which I absolutely loved. And I love my family and I spend the time and always mixed things together just makes for overwhelmed and a hectic lifestyle. And I tell you what man, my body is painful. You know I put some white on which I’m gonna work into getting off now. And man I tell you what having this broken leg is actually giving me a break from my hectic life. I’ve taken this time well I’m gonna take this time. It’s been a week you know. I’m starting to finally feel good about it this thing. I’m finding the positives out of what happened. I’m gonna take a step back and really think about the things that I’m actually doing and making sure I’m doing all the right things and not too many things you know. Pace myself man because I tell you what having a hectic lifestyle and try to do many things man it’s gonna kill you. Eventually it would you man.

Brent: And I was really worried about Johny here. You know coz he does full blast and he hardly get any sleep. He’s got a new born baby; keeping up at night. He’s working all his jobs and overwhelmed. Eventually and physically you can’t do it anymore. I mean you got to stop guys. Look if you’re watching this and you’re in that point where you’re feeling overwhelmed or just tired from doing too many things. Maybe it’s time to stop; have a little break and think about what are the few things that you should be doing and let the rest go.

Johny: Yeah that’s it. Just plan it to be done later on. Go and you just got to rethink the whole thing. You know actually the feeling I had this morning I went out with my partner which I absolutely love. But we went for a coffee this morning and I sat down and it was the first time I can remember I don’t know how long I didn’t have to be anywhere. I had nothing on my mind except what was happening at that exact moment and enjoying that coffee which by the way I hadn’t had an espresso for over a week. It was insane man. I could have enjoyed the coffee but really average.

Brent: You know what I think you need to be hospitalized just for that. I mean like the withdrawals of caffeine and I’m not gonna kill you.

Johny: it’s crazy so anyway I think what happened to me the positive thing out of me for breaking my ankle is it made me stop. It made me rethink everything. Absolutely everything I do in my life and only do the things I wanna do. I mean there are some things I have to do and yes I have to go to work because that pays the bills and keep the family fed and teach me to have and all these things and I love doing the Share Inspire Create Lounge because that keeps me motivated.

Brent: Oh we don’t have to do the show.

Johny: I love doing the show.

Brent: I’ve done the same. We don’t’ have to. We want to.

Johny: We want to do. Man I love it. But you know what? It’s one of my major goals in photography and I absolutely love photography too. You know 6 weeks of not being able to go out in the field and shoot is gonna be tough for me. But you know what I’m gonna do things like these and I’ve got a new podcast in the work so I’m working on and I wanna start. They are the things that I’m gonna do. I’m gonna create things that helps other photographers. You know get that same feeling I get when I’m on the field. I wanna help other people master their photography. And that’s my other big goals man. You know I love it.

Brent: And there’s one thing I guess another thing you can learn from what happen to Johny is you can take any situation that’s happening in your life and you can see the positive in it. Okay so he broke his ankle and major pain. I do take him to the clinic.

Johny: He picked me up off the ground.

Brent: Take him home and all those stuff; picked him up off the ground. And you can think okay these things are happening to me but is there a positive that you can take out of it. And you have found the positive that you can take out of that.

Johny: And that’s what it is guys. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and you’re feeling like it’s all too much and often this will happen you know the point where you’re taking your photography from a hobby to a business that is the point where you start to feel overwhelmed. Coz there’s always things you wanna do. You do this, you do that. Man I’ll tell you what that is the point where you got to sit back and pick the things that you need to do to get to the next step.

Brent: And one thing a week guys.

Starting Your Own Photography Business

Brent: If you are starting photography business do one thing a week. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many things. You got a list that’s like 30 or 40 things long that you need to do, yes those are the things that you all need to do but just do one a week. So let’s say let’s create my website’s front page this week. And in a week’s time it’s done. And then you know do something after that. Okay so we need to get a logo. You know you can’t do everything at once. And that’s about to do it. You spread it out and chunk it down.

Johny: And you know what? You know when you do achieve that one thing it makes you feel so good. It makes you motivated to move to the next thing. While looking at the big picture and you do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and you don’t finish anything. I tell you what, completing that one task it like man.

Brent: Like us one SIC show a week. So at the end of the year we got 52 SIC shows. And it adds up. It accumulates. Actually your paces off and you come up with some really cool stuff every week like we do. You know we think what’s the one thing that we can share with you guys this week that will really make a difference in your lives?

Johny: Definitely man.

Brent: So that’s what we do.

Johny: So that’s it. My ankle is broken so I’ll see you guys in the lounge man coz I’ll be spending here more of the time.

Brent: So leave comments over here and you can send all the sympathy emails and comments below if you like.

Johny: Actually hit me up on the Twitter and my Twitter ID is ijohny. Actually I really love the Tweeter man. If you’re not on Twitter get on there. It’s just great. 140 characters send in my way I absolutely love it. Anyway that’ll be in the show notes and that’s my story guys.

Getting an Inspiration

Johny: Okay Brent man, inspire us something. I love this.

Brent: I’m gonna close my laptop. I’m gonna inspire you guys with this. Okay so that’s an image. Hope you can see it over here. We’ll probably put a photo.

Johny: Yeah we’ll take a photo and put it up.

Brent: This is the canvass that I created about 10 years ago. And the reason I’m showing you this is it’s the very first image I took in this area when we moved here. We moved here about 10 or 11 years ago. And I went to one of our beach and I photographed this on a 3 megapixel camera. Now this is 1/3 of that 3 mega pixel camera. I cropped it. That’s about 1 megapixel image. There you go.

Johny: You cropped the 3 megapixel. That is insane man.

Brent: And I printed it this big. So it’s pretty big for a 1 megapixel. But here’s the thing guys. I wanna inspire you to take your best image. It doesn’t matter where you are in your photography learning progress. And print it. Print it large.

Johny: Your most favorite image.

Why print it large?

Brent: Favorite image, just one. Go and print it as big as you can. Look this is a 1 megapixel. I don’t know how that is, 40 inches wide? I don’t know. And print it. Why? Because firstly you got to look at it more often. It’s not gonna be hidden in your computer behind the bunch of other things. Secondly, people will actually comment on it. And you may get bad comments but I’m sure you’ll get probably good out of your great comments when I saw this. And the reason why I kept this is to remind myself that I’ve actually progress a little bit. But let’s have a look at the case study that I did and maybe how can this help you. So I took my best image and printed it. I was still working full time, the engineering type of work. And I come home and I look at this image and it would inspire me to go out and take more images. And I’m like I got it on a perfect day with this beautiful light. I wanna go out there again. And I get up every single morning, go out and take more images. And eventually I produced this book. A Moods of Port Stephens book which are now sold out. I think I got a couple copies left to full you know for special people. But you know I created this book over about 6 months. Getting up really early and I published it and that got me known in my area as the photographer in this area for landscape photography. And then that got me more photography gigs. I got wedding photography gigs. It got me portrait photography work. You know commercial photography work, the local tourist and board actually paid for me to go on a helicopter and photographed the area from the sky.

Johny: That’s crazy.

Brent: I mean just from putting this book together. You know I’ve produced all sorts of things. Here I have a canvass that’s a bit dirty, packed away that I used to sell. So there are a lot of things that I’ve sold. And that got me started. If I hadn’t printed this image, I may never have got started.

Johny: You may not have the motivation to go out and shoot more and showed more of your work and get paid from that. That’s awesome man.

Brent: Exactly so hopefully this motivates you guys to take your best image go print it and keep it for yourself. You know put it somewhere where you can see it every day.

Johny: Print it big.

Brent: Motivate you and get out there and take more photos and then you don’t know what might happen.

Johny: I got to say you know I’ve talked about this before but putting your favorite image up on the wall, printed that you see every day is one of the most rewarding thing as a photographer. I love it man. I love going out to my space where I worked. I’ve got a print hanging up there one of my favorite ones. Actually everyone’s probably seen it. But it’s one of my favorite shots. Man I love seeing that; printed it big. It’s just awesome man. It’s just inspiring. Every time I see it you know “that’s the one I took.” “That’s one of my favorite images” and hanging on the wall I love it.

Brent: totally.

Johny: And one thing I’d recommend is every 12 months, 2 years, whatever find you next favorite image and do it again. Print it. Coz you will see a difference man. In photography it’s gonna go ahead and leap and bounce man. The more you do it, the more you get out there and practice, the better it’s gonna get so you know every couple of years find your next favorite. When you got some spare cash and print it big. It just keeps you inspired and keeps you motivated. Awesome man, great story brother.

Brent: Hey Johny what’s this?

Johny: Oh that’s the new dinger. I don’t know if you’re ding worthy.

Brent: Oh really?

Johny: Hey it’s the dinger. Don’t touch the dinger. It’s going on my side. No I’m joking. Guys I don’t know why I bought a dinger.

Brent: Okay, we’ll it useful.

Johny: I think it’s gonna be, there’s different types of ding. So there’s the double ding. I think that’s like when something’s a big deal I’ll double ding.

Brent: Okay.

Johny: And there’s the single ding when it’s like “yeah that’s pretty choice man” and then there’s the muted ding and that’s like “yeah it’s okay” and there’s the real muted ding and that’s like “hhmm boom”.

Brent: So can we go Johny broke his ankle.

Johny: Yeah could and it’s probably like rougher. Coz it’s like really bad. Anyway, I don’t know I just bought a dinger.

Brent: There we go.

Johny: It is now on the set.

Brent: Cool.

Johny: Great story brother.

Brent: Thank you.

It's ok to suck!

Johny: So there man that was an awesome thread in the Share Inspire Create Lounge this week. Tell us about it mate coz it’s really an interesting topic and I think it’s gonna help people really push their photography if I keep this in mind.

Brent: Definitely and I call it “It’s okay to suck” when you’re first starting out. Meaning, it’s okay to not do something really well when you first try and do it. I guess you can break it down well let me go back. I’ve just sold my business, my photography studio. And we’ll talk about that in another episode a little bit more. And the guy that has bought it I’ve trained him to run the studio. So we’re in there and we go through a planning meeting and then ordering presentation which someone actually comes in and purchases the images that we have taken of them. And even though I’ve got checklist, I’ve got training and all that stuff at one point you’ve actually got to move from theory to the practical. You actually got to take what you know and do it, right? And the first time you do it you’re gonna suck.

Johny: That’s right.

Brent: You won’t be graded at. But it’s okay. It’s okay to suck as long as you take action and you do it. And it’s just a starting point. You know you do something, you’re not good at it but you’ve done it. And then from there you learn, get feedback, you do it again, get a little bit better and you do it again, you get a little bit better.

Johny: You know that’s such a great thing. It’s such a great motto man. I believe there’s no such thing as a mistake. It’s only all about learning so you can get better the next time you do something. Nothing you can’t do particularly with photography. People get caught up in this equipment, that equipment, this and that. You know when it comes to settings and it’s all about jumping out and getting out there and doing what you had to do.

Brent: I think it’s about taking action.

Johny: Taking action.

Brent: So as long as you’re taking action it doesn’t matter if you’re good at it or you suck at it. It’s okay as long as you take action. It’s like driving a car. It’s difficult to steer a parked car. You know you can’t. You got to be moving. You got to be rolling. You got to be taking action. That way you can steer it and get better at what you’re doing.

Johny: Yup I totally agree man.

Brent: Beautiful.

Johny: You’re getting better man at what you’re doing. I didn’t give him the right to ding and he already ding three times. You know guys what do you reckon.

Brent: Every time you get a metaphor we’re gonna ding it.

Johny: Can Brent be a dinger? Have you got the right to ding? I think you do.

Brent: Do I suck at dinging? It’s the first time I’ve done it.

Johny: Oh man you’re gonna get better. I think you know you’ll never get the mute. It’s all about in the hand movement. But you know it’s okay to suck. There’s no mistake.

Brent: So the action step there guys is take action. Whatever you’re doing when you’re first starting at something take action because it’s okay to suck when you first start.

Johny: And get out there and create and share your images in the lounge man. Because I tell you what, that is the next thing you can do and the action to make your photography just shine.

Brent: Definitely and just so you guys know we’re in the lounge every single day. Me and Johny plus hundreds of photographers and we’re teaching them by talking about things like this. Giving them assignments and people are taking actions. They’re putting images in. They’re getting feedback and they’re becoming better. It’s awesome.

Johny: You know what? You know the one thing the biggest piece of feedback we get is having people there they know some things about photography you might not know and getting that feedback straight away. I tell you what man from people it’s like living next door with a pro photographer, seriously. I mean I love it. I just love helping people man.

Brent: Me too.

Johny: It’s awesome man.

Brent: And that’s why we started the Share Inspire Create.

Johny: That’s it man. Help as many as photographers as possible to master their craft. I mean that’s what it’s all about isn’t it brother?

Brent: Totally.

Johny: That’s a whole motivation.

Brent: Cool, and awesome show again Johny. Thanks for sharing your broken ankle with us this week.

Johny: Awesome man and guys get your next image and print it big and put it on the wall your favorite image. That’s gonna inspire you all the way man.

Brent: And take action. That’s the third point.

Johny: Whatever it is, read about it. Do your research and get out there and do it. Doing it is the one thing that’s gonna change you.

Brent: Definitely.

Johny: And we got something special for the guys?

Brent: We always got something special for you.

Johny: So check out the link below. We’ve got a special there for you for the Share Inspire Create Lounge. We’d love to see you in there. We’re in there all the time. And guys please if you got anything or any questions you wanna hit me up. Hit me up on Twitter and we’ll put our Twitter handles. Just tweet me on the Twitter.

Brent: And also on iTunes you know we love our fast ratings. Thanks for that.

Johny: We appreciate it guys and as always it’s been another epic show man. And we’ll see you next week. Have a great week guys.

Brent: See you.