Welcome And Season Four Kickoff

Welcome to Try to True with Dash of Woo, where we blend rock solid tips with a little bit of magic. I'm your host, Renee Bowen, a life and a business coach, professional photographer, Diet Coke lover, and mom of three grown kids, here to walk you through all the ins and outs of identity-based marketing and how to run a business that feels like freedom. Welcome to season four of Tried and True with a Dash of Woo, which is basically just me going into my fourth year. That's kind of how I've decided to break up my seasons, quote unquote. Um, yeah, I'm heading into the fourth year of doing this. So it's really exciting. I never thought that I would enjoy doing the podcast as much as I do. And I've been really consistent with this podcast. So, you know, I'm always telling you guys to toot your own horn and to actually look at the stuff that you've accomplished and, you know, be good to yourself when you think about that and reward yourself. And all of that stuff is really great for your unconscious mind to continue looking for ways to, you know, make you happy, basically, like a little kid. So it's important for us to do that, to pat ourselves on the back. And I'm going to take my own medicine here and do that a little bit because this is a really big undertaking. I do not have a team doing this podcast for me. There was a time, a short period of time, where I did outsource some of the editing, like out of my house, right? But my husband is mainly the one who edits this podcast for me. So thank you to Andrew for doing all of that because you guys, it's a lot of work. Um, there are times when I do edit my own shows here and there when I have to. Uh, but for the most part, it's me and Claude getting this podcast together because I have a workflow basically set up in Claude where I just kind of put in my transcript from that episode and it kind of gives me all the different materials that I need. So there's a big piece of it there is that it does help me at least sort of like organize all of the post-production of it, but I still have to get it done. I still have to post it. I still have to like make it, you know, make sure it sounds like me as far as like the blogs and the show notes and things like that. Uh, so it takes some of that off my plate. And Andrew does help with the editing, but the planning of it, um, looking at the guests, like I get a ton of uh guest inquiries every week. So planning the show, making sure I'm putting out content that is good, hopefully, and valuable and reflective of what my audience you know wants to listen to, to watch. So I really appreciate you guys being here. If you are a longtime listener, I just want to truly from the bottom of my heart, really thank you for continuing to show up and to listen and watch and be a supporter because that means the world to me, truly. And I've honestly, really just loved this process of planning the show, putting it together, and even, you know, getting these recorded. So thank you guys. No matter how long you've been around, thank you for being here. And if this is your first episode that you've ever listened to, welcome. I absolutely love that you are here. Really quickly, a couple of housekeeping things before I get into today's topic, which I think is very timely, not just for you, but for me. But I just wanted to kind of go over a couple of things because the day this show is going to air is May 6th, which is Wednesday, obviously, because that's my show airs, but May 6th. And so the timely things that I want to just touch on very quickly are so first, I am participating this month in something called the Holistic Marketing Summit. And it is completely free and it's going on for most of this month. You're gonna find the information. There's a link for you. Just click that and you'll be able to register for free and then get all the information. But this is really a very awesome marketing summit. It's hosted by a friend of mine and a previous guest of the show, Laura Kendrick of Cheeky Copy. The doors opened on May 1st and they close on the 21st. But access will stay open throughout through May 31st. So any last minute people can still dig in. And it's free the whole time. There's no upsells, um, no all access pass, no catch. And it is basically 17 free sessions from amazing women. I am so honored to be a part of this, but women who have built calm and profitable human businesses in every corner of marketing. Okay. So everything from copy to SEO to ads to systems, nervous system regulation, the whole deal. And you are gonna walk away from this, really knowing like what to automate and what to leave human, because that's a really big conversation we're having right now, how to turn people who are already in your world into repeat higher ticket buyers. You're gonna also learn about the marketing shifts that cut through AI slop, because there's a lot of that right now, as well as how to build an email list, your SEO foundation, why your marketing feels hard, what to do about it, and how to run a really awesome, sustainable, visible business as an introvert or a mom or all of the above. I know you're gonna get a lot out of it. So hit the link below that says Holistic Marketing Summit, and you're gonna be able to sign up for free. And the other thing I want to talk to you guys about for the photographers in my audience is that for the third year in a row, I am teaching inside of the 2026 Milky Way online family retreat, which is a fabulous, hands-on learning educational experience for photographers. Now it says family retreat, but this year I am teaching you guys branding. In the past, I have done senior sessions. The first year I did editorial, senior posing, the second year I worked with a guy senior. And this year I am teaching about branding because that is my other specialty. And I think that first of all, there's amazing opportunities with branding photography. If you are not, you know, dipping your toe in it yet as a portrait photographer. I'm gonna talk to you a little bit inside of that class about why I think you should. And then you're gonna be able to watch me shoot an entire session as well as edit it. And I also talk to you about what happens on the other side of that session. So it's a really great program, just in general. I think Elisa, the founder, does an amazing job of putting this together every year. Like it is very in-depth. She dots all the I's, crosses all the T's. You get a really great group of instructors, and everyone is so forthcoming, really giving, also inside of the Facebook group. So if you have any questions, we're in there helping you every step of the way. And it's a great place to get a whole bunch of photography education for one low price. So today you can be entered into the giveaway. This is when our giveaway starts. The tickets are not on sale yet, so that is coming. But if you hit the link below that says Milky Way, you're gonna get to a page where you can enter their giveaway. So she's giving away a ticket, but I'm also giving away a ticket. So you have two chances to win this. So this giveaway does not go live until 10 a.m. today. So if you're listening to this podcast early in the morning or you're watching it, it's not gonna be live yet. Starting at 10 a.m., head to my Instagram post, the latest post that you're gonna see there that goes live at 10 a.m. Pacific time and follow the instructions on that post. And you're gonna be entered to win twice, right? So you can enter on their site, and then you're also going to enter on my actual Instagram post. That post has all the information that you need. So just make sure that you go and check that out when you listen to this episode. The contest is only gonna be live for a week, and then the tickets go on sale. So make sure you enter before then. And even if you don't win or enter the contest, you definitely should grab your ticket to this year's online family retreat. It is gonna be amazing. I'm excited because I've never taught branding in this way to anybody. I've always taught seniors. I definitely coach my one-on-one students a lot in terms of branding and headshots, but I haven't like taught a course on this yet. So it is pretty exciting. All right, so let's dig into today's show. I don't want to have this be super long for you guys. But basically, the title of it sort of tells you everything, right? Let's be honest, you're not letting yourself have the life you say that you want. And I think that that is a very easy thing to sort of say, but I want to explain the deeper meaning of why I chose to talk about this right now, because a lot of this is tied to the the things that I'm actually also going through in my own life and business. But ideally, I want this one to be the kind of episode where you're listening or watching and you're like, okay, yeah, this one's for me. So we're just gonna go there today, right? Because what I keep seeing over and over and over again, not just in my own clients, but in my industry and creatives in general and entrepreneurs, there is this gap between what you say that you want and what you're actually allowing yourself to have. And if that even just remotely feels a little bit true for you right now, it's not because you're stuck necessarily. I know it's a really kind of easy thing to describe it as. You might feel stuck, you might feel confused, or like you don't have a lot of energy. But really, I think what it comes down to is you're not allowing yourself to have what you say you really want. And I know that kind of stings a little bit, but stay with me here for a second. What that kind of looks like in real life could look like you saying that you want more clients, but being inconsistent with your marketing, or saying that you need to or want to raise your prices, but then second guessing yourself when somebody inquires, or saying that you know you want to be more visible, but then disappearing as soon as people start paying attention, or saying that you want momentum and something really big on the horizon, but you're constantly starting new projects instead of committing to one direction. So on the surface, it could look like I need more clarity or I need a better strategy. But underneath it all, I really believe that your nervous system just doesn't feel safe enough being the version of you who actually has those things, because that's really the part that a lot of people either don't talk about or don't really want to dig into. But your body is wired for what is familiar, not for what is possible. Okay. I've said it a million times. You're gonna do more to avoid pain than seek pleasure. So if you are used to playing small, not being seen, not making a lot of money, not taking up space, not having boundaries, not saying what you want, then stepping into the version of you who is visible, who is booked, who's confident, who's making more money, who has boundaries, that doesn't really feel exciting at first. It could feel activating, it could feel very uncomfortable. It could show up in you thinking things like, who do I think I am? What if people judge me? What if I can't keep this up? That's a really big one. Because what if you do have some success and then you have to keep it out, right? So what do you do instead? You pull back, you might hesitate, might overthink, procrastinate, tell yourself you're not ready yet, or the timing's not right. I hear that a lot. Well, I don't really have time for that right now because I'm in my busy season. I'm gonna deal with that when I'm not in my busy season, but okay, that's a hundred percent your choice, but it is gonna keep being revisited. And sometimes it gets louder. So I really understand where this comes from because I'm not just preaching to you about this from the other side of like training, you know, psychological training. I can think of multiple times in my own life and business where I knew exactly what I needed to do and did not feel ready to do it or feel like I could. One specific moment where I really had an opportunity to show up in a much bigger way, in particular. And everything in me wanted to wait, wanted to feel more confident, wanted to feel more prepared, wanted to feel like I had it all figured out. And I didn't. I felt shaky, I felt exposed. Like, what if this really doesn't work out the way that I think it's supposed to work out? But I also knew something really important underneath is that if I waited to feel ready, I was never gonna do it. And so I did it anyway. And it wasn't perfect. But what it did was put me in the energy of the version of myself who does that kind of thing. And that changed literally everything. Now, again, there was a few moments that I could recall that really felt like exactly what I just told you about. But I'm talking about specifically right now is when I decided to really launch and like seriously launch my coaching business. I had been mentoring photographers for years. I had been sort of like studying under people for a while and helping in their communities and showing up as a support for them because that felt safe. But anytime I was called forward to speak my own truth, to be a leader in the photography industry, because that's how I started my coaching business. I always had this underlying feeling of wanting to shrink, right? It was this push-pull. I felt like I really wanted to be a leader in this field, but the other side of me, it was like 50-50, felt like, who am I to do that? I'm so not ready. I don't have all of these things set up, etc. Insert all the things, right? That is your unconscious mind popping in to tell you, hey, you've never done this before. It's not safe. You probably shouldn't do it because you're gonna die. That's literally what it is. But back then, when I was doing all of this, because this was in the mid-2000s, like 2013, 14, 15, leading into 2020. And it was safer for me to hide behind other leaders in our industry. I told myself that that is just the way it's done, right? But I could have stepped out. I was actually called forward by multiple people in our industry, asked to speak on stages, and I declined him a lot. And even when I did say yes to a couple of opportunities, I never really fully embraced being on that stage. I always felt too exposed, too raw, too vulnerable, not ready. And then in 2018, my twins graduated high school. My older son had graduated the year previously. My business, my photography business was going really, really well. And again, I was doing some like under the radar sort of mentoring for other photographers, but not really talking about it. And then in late 2018, a lot of things in my personal life shifted. It was a really, really rough time for me personally. Again, my twins had gone off to college, so that was really jarring, really odd. Went from having a very full house to having a very empty house. My husband and I had gone through the previous like three to four years, Andrew and I had gone through some really not super rough, but some interesting times in our marriage. But there really wasn't a lot of time to deal with it during that time because our kids were in high school and there was a lot going on. If you guys have kids in high school, first of all, no one prepares us for that. I'm still jaded by that. Like I thought once my kids got to high school, things were gonna get easier wrong. And then I thought also stupidly that once they were young adults in their 20s, things would get a lot easier. Again, not true. So if you're in the trenches, I'm sorry. It just gets different, different levels of heart. It's still fucking hard. So I thought, okay, things were gonna get easier. They didn't. Basically, it was shining a light. Having the kids out of the house was like shining a light on everything I had not dealt with in the previous five to seven years. In my marriage, in my own personal life, my own health, my business. Like everything just came to the surface. And it was really, really tough. The fall of 2018 was not something I really ever want to go back to, truly. And I still had to work, I still had to show up, I still had to run this business. Um, but everything in me was like, oh my God, like what am I doing? And it was in late 2018 that I decided I was gonna take this coaching thing seriously. There were a lot of things that sort of lined up for that to happen, and I won't go into detail of all of that, but the gist of it is basically for you to kind of hear that I was not ready. I really wasn't. But some things happened in my life that made it very clear and intuitively I just knew, right? And I I'd like to think that I am an intuitive person, and I'd also like to think that I trust my intuition. I haven't always, but more often than not, and definitely more so now in the last five years than I ever have. However, back then it was still like, I know this is my intuition, but it's still, it's still like, I don't feel like I should be doing this. All that to say, I I had the opportunity to really study with someone who was gonna help me take this business to that next level. And yes, I had to invest a lot of money to do it. A lot of money, way more money than I ever thought I would ever spend on myself. Because like I'm not that person. Like, I will buy a camera, I will buy a computer, I will invest in my tech. And maybe I'll invest in some really beautiful high thread count sheets or an item of clothing that I know is gonna last me 20 years. But on the whole, I am not that person. I'm not gonna buy designer bags, you know, I'm not spending thousands of dollars on shoes. This is not who I am. I'm a little too Virgo for that. I've got way too many Virgo planets. So I'm just too practical in a lot of ways. So when I saw the sticker of what I was going to have to invest to get the training that I knew I needed to do this, I was, I mean, everything got activated in my body. Literally everything. I got sick, like physically sick. Um, I like for a while. My body just went haywire with this. But I processed it. And again, this is before I really started digging into my human design. So now I know I was really riding that emotional wave because I'm an emotional two-four generator. So I cannot make decisions in the the height of an emotion, whether it's super high or super low. And so I was listening to that wave already. I just didn't realize it. And I didn't, I like I would have, it would have been really helpful knowing, having that knowledge. However, I leaned in. I said, you know what? I know that on the other side of this, first of all, if it's this activating and it's scaring me this much, I gotta do it. I have to do it. I'm way too entrenched in the self-development world. Because, like when Tony Robbins would say, like, if you can't, if you feel like you can't, you must. Because that's really a sign. It's not an opportunity if if you choose to look at it that way. It's all a choice. You can definitely choose the opposite. But for me, in that moment, I knew if I don't choose to take action on this, everything that I want is on the other side of it. So if I don't embody who that person is, like who's the kind of person who drops that kind of money on an educational program, on a mentor, a coach, on themselves. At the end of the day, I was investing in me. Yes, it was my business, but as a solopreneur and as the founder of this business, it all fell on me. So what does that mean? If I fail, oh my God, it's all on me. If I invest all this money that we literally could have taken and gone to Europe, it's all on me. You know, it was it's this is the thing that I see show up so much in so many of my coaching calls with people. It's like, it's all on us. So that all comes down to your visibility and everything, right? But if I had waited until I was ready, I would still be freaking waiting. I'm gonna tell you that right now, I would still be waiting. And I could look back too on my move to California. I literally moved to California when I was 25 with two giant dogs and a Honda Prelude and no job and about$3,000 to hold me over. If I had waited until I was ready, I'd still be in Louisiana and I wouldn't have the life that I have now. I wouldn't have my kids, my family, my husband, this business. Nothing. So I knew I already had proof from my past that I could figure it out. But I had to take the leap. This was really scary, though. This was the scariest thing I'd ever done, truly, because it had so much money on the line. Before that move to California, right? I knew I could find a job. It was the 90s. It was so easy to find a job. I could wait tables. I could do whatever, right? I just knew that I could get it done. This was different. I had kids. I had, you know, kids who were entering college. I couldn't mess up my income. I couldn't like just throw away such a large sum of money. So that was really, really weighing heavy on me. But I did it and I did it messy, but I did it. And the minute I launched that program, so in late 2018, I started digging in and learning how to do it. Early 2019, I launched it in January. I signed someone up into one-on-one coaching with this new program that I had created within two weeks of launching. And that person was not even in my warm market. It was somebody who found me online. It was such a great reminder from the universe that when you take action and you follow your path, trust your intuition, trust yourself to do it. And you show up and you become that version of yourself, it's right there waiting for you. It's literally right there waiting for you. So that's really the part that I want you to hear. You don't become confident and then take action. You take action, and that's what creates the confidence. You don't become the person first in your mind. You become her through your behavior, through those decisions, through what you do when it would have been a lot easier not to. So let's really get radically honest for a second. There's some things that you already know you should be doing. Maybe it's not this big of a leap that I'm talking about, but you know you should be showing up consistently, whether that means online or physically, right? Depending on the kind of business you have and how you want to run it. Reaching out to people, following up, putting yourself in rooms or spaces where your people are saying what you actually want to say you know, but you're not doing it. And it's not because you don't care or because you're incapable of doing it. It's because doing those things would require you to be a different version of yourself. And that feels wildly uncomfortable because it's supposed to. Your body and your mind are designed to keep you alive. That's it. So as we step into this new season of this podcast, but also this new season of life, okay. I really feel like I am in that. I don't know about you. But 2026 obviously is a dumpster fire. However, I really feel like there is something very exciting about that. But I also know it can feel really scary. And I just want to remind you that if nothing changes, nothing changes. Okay. And I don't mean your ideas, I mean your plans. I don't mean the notes on your phone or all those courses that you've bought that you've never finished, or the things that you've saved on Instagram. Okay. How many of you guys have a folder of saved posts and you're like, yes, that that's it. But it's that that's where it lives. I really mean you at your core, your behavior, your willingness to show up differently, your willingness to do the thing before you feel 100% ready. So here's the question that I want to leave you with. Because chances are, if you're listening to this podcast, you're a little self-aware, right? Or you want to be. You, I don't know where you're at on your journey of self-awareness, uh, self-development. But at the heart of it, yeah, we talk a lot about marketing, but at the heart of it, this podcast is about your identity and who you really are and how you really feel and the the change that you want to create in your own life, but also the world, because there is a huge trickle-down effect. I mean, if you are sitting on a gift, you're sitting on your purpose and you're not doing anything with it, you are robbing the world of that gift. And I really believe that we all have unique gifts. Okay. Like, yeah, I know I'm Gen X, and we were brought up to believe that you're not special. Everybody, everybody has an even playing field, and you know, don't make too much noise or talk too boldly about yourself, be humble, all those things. Yes, of course, we want to be good people and we want our kids to be good people, right? We want to be polite. We want to make sure people don't think that we're too much, but at the end of the day, we get one shot at this thing. Okay. I mean, I do believe in reincarnation, but we're not going there right now. I mean, we have the awareness of this one life. So what are you doing with it? Really, truly, what are you doing with it? I don't know about you, but I'm gonna be 56 in September, which feels crazy to say out loud, because I don't feel whatever that's supposed to feel like. I don't know how that's supposed to feel. I I definitely remember thinking when I was younger how old 56 felt to a young person, but I don't feel like that now. Your perspective can change, right? And it should. It really should. So you really kind of do have to destroy this old version of yourself to move into this new version of yourself. And I just want to give you the permission to do that because I feel like a lot of us are just carrying with us all of this old programming. And it feels really safe, but it also feels very connected to our lineage. And that's a really big piece of it. Because of course, you can still love your family and still also admit that, hey, that probably wasn't the best way to raise a child or to treat me or whatever it is. Two things can be true at once, right? That's how we move through things when we start looking at it with that 30,000-foot view with neutrality, and we can look at all of these little different pieces of how we were shaped and formed and programmed, we can look at it with new eyes. We can look at it with neutrality. And we're not so charged up about it. That's where growth lives. But I know that to get what you want, you have to be willing to show up differently. You have to be willing to do a thing, the scary thing, before you really feel ready. So, what are you not letting yourself have right now? That's just, I want you to just kind of like let that simmer for a couple of days. And what would that version of you, who does have it, actually be doing today in her life? Really allow yourself to feel that for a second, not just think about it. Okay. Because she's not thinking about stuff. She's not just planning, not just journaling. She's doing. And that's where that shift lives. It's not in another strategy or another idea or this person's posing guide or this person's marketing guide or whatever. It's in embodiment. It's in action, in deciding, you deciding. I'm gonna move like that version of me now, even if it feels uncomfortable. I'm gonna do it anyway. And I know we say that all the time, like doing it scared, like seeing the fear and doing it anyway. Yes, that is the surface. That's the surface piece, right? Underneath all of that, you guys know it's the unconscious work. Because again, if you've listened to this podcast for a minute, you know that that's where it all lives. It's your unconscious mind. It's just trying to keep you safe. So get real with yourself. What do you really want? What is it? Is it 10 new clients in the next quarter? Is it a whole different version of your business than it looks like now? Is it a whole new pricing structure? Is it a new offer? What are you not allowing yourself to call in? What are you not allowing yourself to receive? Because it's there waiting for you. The minute you open the door, it's there. Because if you had the idea, it's already happened. And then another timeline. That's just quantum physics, it's already there. She's already doing it. What are you not allowing in? And why? It's time to get radically honest with yourself about that. Because in 2026 and the way that we're doing business now, we don't have time for any of that stuff. We don't have time for, I'm not ready. No, you're ready or not. Ready or not, here we go. Fire horse energy. It is like a fire hose right now. It's about you taking some action. Okay. And when you do, knowing, knowing, first of all, that you've got it. Okay. And the universe has your back and that everything is working in your favor. Really believing that. I know it sounds like woo-woo shit. It's not. It's literally how you program yourself. So I wanted to talk about that here today for you just as much as for myself. Because I'm also in that place again. I'm, you know, 2018 is when I decided to do all of this. And I've been running two businesses pretty equally for that length of time. One foot in coaching, one foot in photography. And in 2021, I started putting way more feet, way more, way more of myself in the coaching and the education side and less in the photography. And then 2021, 2022 happened with my husband's business and the entertainment industry just taking a hike. So I had to put more of myself back in the photography, which thankfully I'm grateful that I could do. But I know, I know that a big piece of that, and still to this day, is that there's a level of safety that still exists there. That's my safe spot. I know that I can put the gas back on that version of my business and I would be okay, right? But I haven't grown the other side of my business to the level that I really want it to grow because I'm still doing a lot of that. And I know there's a lot of the talk in the photography industry about like, oh, you know, someone decides to be a coach or an educator and then they stop doing photography. That's not what I'm talking about. I think that a part of me will always be a photographer, no matter what that looks like, because it's really who I am. Like I'm a creative and that's how I express myself. But it's, it'll probably look a lot different going forward. And if people don't want to learn from me because I'm not working as much as a photographer, that's fine. There's a lot of educators out there. That's okay. I'm interested in working with people who are ready to make the next step, who are ready to trust themselves and who are ready to just dig in into this identity work and figure out this root cause of what is really going on there and moving through it, because it's 100% possible. Because my purpose here on this earth is to help you be the most you that you can be, whatever that looks like for you and whoever that is. So who is that version of yourself that you want to call in, that you're moving toward? Just take a step toward her today. Okay. It could look very small, but take a step. The more small steps you take, the more momentum you build. And that's what we do here. I don't just sit around and talk about ideas. We look at what you're doing, where you're holding yourself back, where your nervous system is keeping you small, because that's really the whole deal. And we start closing that gap between where you are and where you want to be with strategy, sure, but also with identity work and real support. Because doing it alone is really hard. I will tell you that. So if this episode kind of hit you in the gut, if you felt called out in a really good way, don't let this just be another thing you listen to and just nod it off, too, right? Do something with it. Make one different decision today. Take one action that future you would take. Because that life that you say that you want, it's not waiting on more clarity. It's waiting on you. And you can have it. I believe in you. If you want help with it, you know where to find me. But I'm always cheering you on from the other side of this computer. So thank you guys again for being here. If this resonated with you, share it with a friend. Leave us a review or a rating. I am going to be giving away some audible books for the next four people who leave reviews to the show. The link is below. All you gotta do is tap it and say something nice. I appreciate you no matter what, though. And I hope you guys have a great rest of your week. Love you. Bye.