Uncover Your Brand Personality

I´ve learned along the way that to be happy + successful in life and business, you must be yourself and let your true personality shine.

No excuses! You are supposed to be you.

I´ve coached so many creative people and solo-entrepreneurs – especially women, who are afraid to be themselves and stand out, because they want to avoid:

Stepping on someones toes
Come of as a show-off
Getting harsh critique
Being judged
Looking like a silly, stupid or ignorant person

The one sentence I hear the most when I coach someone, is this:

“If only I had more confidence I would …(insert any task, dream or goal)”

“If only I trusted myself more I would……(insert any task, dream or goal)”

Here´s the deal;

The number one mistake you can make is to limit your true self because you are afraid others can´t handle the real you.

People want to see the REAL you, the unique person, the unique artist/photographer – they do not wanna see a bad copy of someone else. They want connect with you.

Instead of hiding the real you, make YOU your signature trademark. If you do that, you don´t have to compete with anyone because there´s only one you and you will automatically attract the people, clients, friends and followers that are right for you.

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If you want people to believe in you and in what you have to offer, you have to believe in YOU.

It doesn´t mean that you can´t have fears, insecurities or be nervous, or feel awkward at times – this is normal, this is just being human. But never let your insecurities take your pride and happiness away from you.

The truth is that the sentence: “If only I had more confidence I would .. is just a sentence playing in your head. It does not have to be your truth, or reality. But when you keep repeating it in your mind, you will start to believe you lack confidence and you will automatically limit yourself.

Today I want you to make a mindful + conscious decision to step into the world – every morning – as proud and brave as you can.

Your response to you and to any situation either moves you forward or holds you back. Choose to love yourself, be brave and move forward.

How To Transform Your Unique Personality Into Your Business Trademark

So how do you transform your unique personality into your business trademark?

It´s simple. All your qualities, special skills and passions are keys to making a brand of yourself. That´s your secret power sources!

Your personal brand rests on authenticity: the ability to tap into your genuine, humble, and individual human qualities from which your identity, personality, and character arise.

Examples of My Personal Trademark

Let me give you a few examples, to show you it can be anything and everything – the important thing is, that you choose something, that is SO you and make it a conscious + consistent part of your business and branding strategy.

If you look at me and my business, some of my unique trademarks are:

My background in psychology, that I use to empower creative people – especially female photographers.
My training + writing style; Helpful, kind, uplifting and encouraging training for women.
My personal lifestyle, including road-trips, my dog and my life in the Nordic country side.
My photography style; bright, fresh, happy and romantic.

Ask yourself the following questions:

(Take a quiet moment with yourself and a notebook, write down as much as you can. There´s no wrong answers – listen to your heart and soul while you answer the questions the best you can).

What makes me me?
Who am I meant to be?
What value I provide (what problem do I solve)?
As a role-model, what message do I want to send to the world?
What´s essential to me – what´s my can´t live without values?
What do I PRIORITIZE in my creative work, and in my daily life?
How do I typically dress? What´s my clothe style?
What do I love to eat and drink?
What do I love to wear?
What´s my favorite colors and are they present in my brand/style?
What´s my most loved passions?
What do people always ask me to help them with, because they think I´m good at it?
What´s your most obvious personality traits? What are you known for?
What´s your background story? How did you become who you are? Why do you do what you do?

For photographers:

What´s my shooting style? (camera, angles, compositions, styling, choice of object and so on…)
What´s my editing style? (bright, dark, moody, colorful, black/white and so on…)
Where do I want to be with my photography three years from now?

Create a list of all these answers and aspects. Don’t limit the list. This is a brainstorming exercise.

Narrow down the list to what´s mostly YOU. Ask family, kids, friends and network to help you – sometimes we can be a bit blind to what we are, so it´s good to have input from those who knows us well.

Your trademark should be 100% YOU!

Decide how to integrate who you are into your business, service, blog, photography style and brand. It does not have to be complicated, it can be small things like the colors on your blog, your hairstyle, the way you write, or bigger things like your overall message, your creative style or the way you interact with clients.

I´m excited to hear what you come up with – I would love to know, so feel free to share.

Much love,

5 Tips To Move Your Creative Business Forward When Self-Doubt Creeps In

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Do you sometimes doubt yourself so much, that you limit yourself in your career and end up not following your dreams?

Self-doubt is normal – it´s a common state of mind. Everyone doubts themselves; hourly, daily, weekly. Our brain is trained to questioning + analyze everything we do.

What makes some people high-performance individuals with loads of success is their ability to TAKE ACTION – despite their insecurities and self-doubt.

5 Tips To Move Your Creative Business Forward When Self-Doubt Creeps In:

1. Self-doubt is just a small part of you – it´s not ALL of you

First of all it´s important to shift your mindset. Fighting self-doubt leaves you frustrated, sad and tired. When you fight self-doubting thoughts in a negative self-critique kind of way, the self-doubt tends to spiral into more insecurities.

Start to think of your self-doubting voice as a radio channel in your head. You can hear it, but its your choice if you choose to react to it.

Accept that the self-doubting voice is living within you and treat it with kindness. Say something like “dear voice, I hear you and I know you only have good intentions. You worry about me because you care. You fear that I will make mistakes, be rejected or not be ready. But trust me; I got this! I know I can do this”.

Remind yourself that your self-doubt is just a tiny part of who you are – it´s not ALL of you. You are much more than that, and you deserve to act on your dreams and goals.

2. Listen to your gut feeling and set your own rules

There are no rules in life so why limit yourself to what everybody else is doing?

One huge trap to fall into is the idea that you need to follow specific strategies and steps recommended by experts, gurus and highly successful people. Of course, it´s great to seek inspiration and motivation – but know that it´s okay to do things your way.

If an expert recommends that you post five times a day to Facebook, but you feel like doing one post a week – then it´s okay; do it your way. If someone say, you must respond to ALL blog comments every day, but you rather spend time with your kids. Do it. Listen to your gut feelings and respect yourself enough to do things on your own terms.

I´ve spend many hours following other people’s guidelines and business-building tips only to figure out that when I run my business my way; I get results. That´s when I grow. That´s when I feel good and increase my income.

3. Do not procrastinate what’s important

Do you procrastinate? We all do it from time to time, right. But the amount of how much or how little you procrastinate will be directly linked to your success/progress or lack of it.

The more you procrastinate, the more your self-doubt will control you. Procrastination breeds self-doubt like nothing else.

In fact, if I could give you just one huuuuuuugely valuable advice in business and in life it would be to stop procrastinating and start doing.

Luckily procrastination is not part of your personality – it´s not who you are! It´s nothing more than a bad habit and changing that habit will boost your confidence and improve your life tremendously.

Start each day with a promise to yourself; “Today I love and respect myself enough to take action on what´s most important in my life and in my business”.

4. Say NO and limit your to-do list

To stay clear of self-doubt, negativity, and pressure; you got to say NO some more. I want you to say NO to everything that makes you feel awful, used, stressed out or abused.

To get success in life and business, you need to focus on what´s most important to you. To make room for what matters, you need to clear the way and remove all “clutter”.

Don´t waste your time following other people’s agenda – follow your own path. Do what makes you feel alive, happy and full of energy.

5. Plan your way out of self-doubt

The number one key to success is planning. Without a plan – you plan to fail!

No matter if you are the CEO of a multimillion dollar company or you are a small solo-entrepreneur just getting started, you must spend time on serious planning.

I do this twice a year. I take one full week where I plan my entire year – you know; all the big events, projects and goals. I plug everything into my calendar and make sure I have time enough to follow through with each critical task + goal.

Every 3-6 month I evaluate my plan. Am I sticking to my plan? Is my plan successful? Or is it over-ambitious or too lazy? And the most important question; is the plan getting me to where I want to be? If not; re-adjust.

If you did my Jumpstart program back in December/January, you properly made some big plans for this year. How are you doing with those plans? Are you sticking to your plans?

Take a day this week to re-evaluate your year-plan – or make one. Make sure your plan is right for you and if not – change your strategy along the way!

You deserve the best plan and the best time of your life!

Breath self-doubt out – inhale trust in you.

Much Love,

Why Photographers Cannot Take Pictures For Free

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How do you deal with a request from a family member or friend, who ask you to take their picture – for free?

Do you charge friends if they ask you to take photos? Do you charge uncle Ben when he want´s you to photograph all of his five children?

For many aspiring photographers this situation is a hot potato!

I´ve gotten countless of emails concerning this issue, because it can be so tricky to deal with. As a photographer you might like to get paid (oh yes) but you don´t want to come of as “being to much” or being stingy or un-friendly when it comes to friends and relatives.

My friends/family don´t ask me for free pictures anymore, they know I´m working hard and running a serious business. But I think it´s normal when you are still starting out, that people tend to think they can ask you to do it for free. It happened to me many times when I was first starting out!

When this happened I simply educated them and told them that there was much more to it than pressing a button. I explained that it would take lots of preparation and many hours of editing and therefore I could not take time out of my schedule to do it.

I said, “thank you for asking, but with my three kids and my business I simply don´t have the luxury to find time to do unpaid work”.

The moment you start to take your own work and time seriously people will feel this and be more careful to ask.

Keep in mind that people don´t ask to be rude, they ask because they don´t know how much effort you need to put into it – so my advice is to educate them about the amount of time it takes. Don´t justify yourself just say it as it is. And remember if you say yes to one friend…more will ask, so don´t go there 🙂

If you aim to make it as a photographer, creating compelling images is the way you´ll make a living. If you give away your images for free, or spend too much time responding to requests for free images, you cannot make a living – it´s as simple as that.

As a photographer (beginner or pro) you also have expenses to cover. You need to buy a camera, lenses, a computer, software, storage devices. You need to pay for website hosting, and maybe even logo and a branding identity.

In other words, you need to respect that your work is worth something – no matter your level as a photographer, you still need to cover your expenses. So if you´re not feeling worthy enough to get paid yet – at least promise me, to think about all the expenses you need to cover!

Spending time photographing friends and family is great in the beginning, it´s a good way to practice your skills. But if you wish to push yourself to learn faster and become even more creative, I recommend that you early on start to photograph people you don´t know well. It can be friends of friends or children from the local school. But always ask for a fee – even if it´s a small one. You can always raise your price as you get more comfortable with your work and skills.

At some point you need to move beyond family and friends, push yourself out of the comfort zone and decide that you are serious about making a living of being a photographer.

Taking pictures for free, will never pay your bills, cover your expenses or make you feel good in the long run.

Everything you do is worth something!

Much Love

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