Intro: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Posers podcast, the place where we skip the fluff. Say the quiet parts out loud and dig into what really matters. This is where photography, psychology, and business collide. I'm Jody, your host, and I'm bringing you my raw takes, hard wins, and a whole lot of unfiltered honesty about what it takes to build a photography business that actually connects and makes money.
So ladies, grab your headphones and get your tits up and your ears open because we are going to build something really incredible together.
Well, well, well, hello. Hello, hello, my beautiful posers. Welcome back to yet another Titillating episode of the Posers Podcast. Do you see what I did there? Little titillating tits up moment of the Posers podcast. We are here. We might all be limping to the finish line on our fall [00:01:00] seasons. Our bodies hurt, our eyes are bleeding.
We all resemble a bunch of zombies from the Walking Dead, but we are making it you guys. Here's the thing too, is that. It's times like this when we start to feel our discipline slip, our motivation wanes. Inspiration is like, toss that out the window. We don't know her anymore. We're downshifting into the off season.
And even sitting here recording this podcast for you today, I am exhausted. I have been shooting for months. I have been doing back to back shoots for months. I have not had a weekend in months. And, uh, we're downshifting at the end of this season. Into, thank God our off season where we get to turn our bodies [00:02:00] off for a minute and rest can happen a little bit more and our bodies can stop doing the heavy lifting of shooting and editing and proofing and cuing and cranking sales meeting and like.
It's in that rest that our brains get the jumpstart that they actually need. Because you see during this time that we are cranking so much inside of our businesses physically, that it's easy for our brains to kind of take a back seat because we're on autopilot. We are out executing photo shoots and we can all do that.
Like the back of our hand, right? But now is time to make that shift. And as we get to rest our bodies, our brains get to turn back on a little bit. And this last week on Tuesday, my brain was absolutely on fire because. I possibly had one of the most genius moments that I've ever had while I was teaching the other day, and I need to tell you about it, [00:03:00] and I will in a minute.
But I wanna tell you first that today we are talking about motivation. And here's what I need you to know, like right at the jump of this episode is that motivation is what is she? She's a scamming, lying whore. Okay.
I bet you didn't expect me to say that. I say this because motivation is the resource that we're all told that we need to have, not only in our lives, but also in our businesses, right? We need motivation to get a task done. We need the motivation to build an email funnel. We need the motivation to overhaul our website, and most importantly, for today's conversation, we need the motivation to create content and to not let that side of our business.
Slip just because we're busy or just because we're uninspired or just because we're claiming that it's okay to let that fall by the wayside for the next few months [00:04:00] because we're spending our time elsewhere inside of our business. So we're talking about motivation today, but not in the way that you would see all of the.
Bullshit motivational posts on Instagram. I was a kid of the eighties, okay. We had motivational cat posters hanging up in our classrooms as we grew up, and I want today to be like a metaphorical ripping of the motivational cat posters down. Same goes for you guys of the nineties, the two thousands. You guys don't have those stupid motivational cat posters, but you do have ridiculous amounts of motivational quotes that are like flowing through your feed. And I want your algorithm to change today because today we are talking about the truth behind motivation. I'm going to tell you that motivation is bullshit.
It is literally a lie. It it's a lie that has been told to us over the decades of our lives as if it's this [00:05:00] magical. Like pill that we can just swallow and that we just get like, oh, as soon as I get the motivation to get on the treadmill, or I'm waiting to have the motivation to clean out my closet, or I'm just not motivated yet to read that boring business book.
But when the motivation strikes when it comes, then I'm gonna do all of these things. And I'm here to tell you that motivation doesn't come. That's the lie that has been fed to you. Motivation has to be created by you. It is literally as basic as science. Okay? This is a physics podcast. Now, you guys, because I'm gonna equate this to the Law of Motion, the Law of Motion says.
That an object in motion stays in motion and an object at rest stays at rest unless a force acts upon it. That is literally your motivation. If you don't start, then you won't start. If you do [00:06:00] start, only then will the motivation. To actually keep going happen. Does that make sense? I feel like I said that kind of weird motivation isn't the thing that you need.
Discipline is Okay, so motivation is created. But you create it through discipline, even outside of your business, anything in your life will get better when you stop waiting for it to get better or dreaming about when it gets better, and instead do the work to make it better Now. In order to really nail this point home, I need to tell you that I had that genius moment whenever I was teaching the other day.
And you know what? Honestly, we just, we just discussed Isaac Newton, but let's bring Einstein into the mix today too, because that's the level of genius I was when I equated motivation to a sourdough starter the other day for one of my students. I have a super secret. Monthly [00:07:00] membership group. It's not gonna be a secret anymore 'cause I just said it out loud on the podcast, but I have this super secret monthly.
Membership group and it's called The Cult. Of course it is. What else would you expect me to call it? Okay. How does one join this cult? You might ask. You have to go through a round of hazing. You have to get jumped in a dark alley. Uh, you literally, initiation may be like a sacrificial lamb being delivered to my stoop.
I don't know. You have to knock three times. We, we wear pink on Wednesdays. Okay. But yeah, the cult exists. You actually have to go through my mastermind before you can ever be invited to join, and then maybe you have to prick your finger and become my blood sister. But, uh, these women who get this part of me, they get a very unhinged, sometimes brilliant, sometimes feral, always too emotionally attached to their businesses, but.
They [00:08:00] always get my unfettered hands and brain all over their businesses in a very intimate way. So last week we were in the cult and I started to talk to each one of my girls about where they are in their businesses, not only in where they think they are in their businesses, but where I am seeing that they are in their businesses from the outside standpoint.
So I was talking to one of the girls about her social media being slow, like super slow, uncharacteristically slow for her tum. Tumbleweeds could have been blowing all over her feed in comparison to her usually lively and active self. And she told me that she'd just lost motivation. That she didn't have any ideas.
She wasn't filming behind the scenes, wasn't posting, and the spark that she used to have a few months ago had completely gone out. Now it is my job to call her out on this. It is my job to hold up the mirror and get her back in the driver's [00:09:00] seat of her business, so. I brought it up that I had noticed that she was like very quiet on the social media scene and she said, I just decided to put social media to the side while I build out some other offers for 2026, and.
I just looked at her for a second. There was like dead silence. I just looked at her and the other girls in the group kind of like took a breath and it was like they all knew that the mother in me was loading. It's the type of silence where everyone in the room knows I'm about to go like. Full psychologist, full big sister, full mother energy, all in the same breath.
And the thing is is I get it, social media feels like it's a full-time job. It's exhausting. It's confusing. It's emotionally draining. It's like dating, but instead of men disappointing you, it's the algorithm. [00:10:00] Okay, I get that. But. Here's the truth that I needed her and you to hear. Motivation doesn't strike like inspiration.
Motivation doesn't come from a muse. Motivation isn't some fairy that shows up in a ball gown. Sprinkling confidence, dust the way that, I don't know, the way that Oprah hands out cars. Okay? Motivation is a side effect of action. It only starts if you start, your life gets better whenever you stop waiting for it to get better, and you start doing the things.
That make it better. I'm reading this book by Colleen Nichols, and it's called, don't Make It Weird, and she starts off her book talking about waiting for motivation. Now I took a red pen and I underlined the parts that really hit for me, the parts that slapped, and she basically drags like every business [00:11:00] owner who has ever stalled on something.
So the entire. First few pages of her book look like it's this blood bath of red ink, but it basically says that you can read every personal development book. You can listen to every podcast. You can journal yourself into a spiritual coma. You can buy the $3,000 course, you can sign up for the Mastermind.
You can burden sage, do breath work, meditate, cold plunge, whatever, chant, affirmations, whatever. But none of it matters if you don't have discipline. You're not just tired or unmotivated. You're undisciplined. You're uncommitted to the tiny actions that create momentum, and that's a hard pill to swallow.
Motivation isn't the resource that you need. Discipline is. Okay, so back to my cult. I adore this photographer. She is one of my favorite photographers that I've ever worked with, and I asked her, I said, okay, but [00:12:00] I need you to understand this. What comes first, your creativity or the material you create?
It is like what comes first, the chicken or the egg, except for this one has a right answer. Okay. Think about this again. Do you think that creativity regarding what to post just sparks out of nowhere and you'll all of a sudden have a content calendar filled for the month? Or do you think that you jump in, make the videos even whenever you're not feeling inspired, and then that material can drive your creativity?
she just stared at me. She blinked at me. I stared at her right back. Everybody kind of like leaned in and that's whenever the most genius analogy that I've ever thought of came to me because. You see, earlier in the conversation we were talking so much about how she had been making stories about her love of [00:13:00] making sourdough bread, and her sister-in-law had bought her a new Dutch oven, and she was, she's hysterical.
She's proclaiming that nothing more would be made inside of this beautiful Dutch oven. Even though she can make all kinds of different, different recipes, she is like, no. The only thing that this Deon will ever see is gorgeous, sexy loaves of sourdough. she's so funny. She's hysterical. I love it whenever she's on her social media.
So. This genius analogy kind of struck inside of my brain, and I told her, think of your BTS, your behind the scenes videos like it's sourdough. You can't make the sexy bread if you don't have a sourdough starter, and you would have no motivation to even make a loaf of bread if you didn't already have the starter made.
So the starter already being made. Or being available to you [00:14:00] makes the dough possible to begin with, and this landed for her right away. So in terms of social media, feeling like it's this overwhelming task, or not knowing what to create or not feeling inspired, you don't have to get stuck in the weeds with all of that.
You just have to make your starter. You have to set up your tripod and just let it record, because then you'll go back and you'll watch the footage and you'll see something. You'll see some great pose that you did. You'll see a kid crack up at something that you said. You'll see something sweet happen.
And even if. You nothing like this happens. Even if you don't see this motivational spark, then you'll still have a ton of B roll that you can clip up and use with an attention grabbing hook that can work for driving your audience into your lead magnet. Okay, so put your phone on a tripod and record while you [00:15:00] edit.
Record while you pack your gear. Bagg record while you read a book. Set up for a shoot. Clean your camera. Open albums, look through an album. Open frames, install frames, call photos, anything. Work through like or record while you're like shooting. It's so, it's as easy as that. Integrate. All of this into your life, okay?
Whenever you integrate it into everything that you're normally doing inside of your life, then it makes it easy. And instead of, instead of thinking about social media as if it's this whole entire other job, just set up your tripod, put your phone on it, and record everything that's already happening.
Because that integration, that's your sourdough starter. You think that creativity births content, but that's wrong. It's the other [00:16:00] way around. Content births, creativity, action births, motivation. Material. The material that you create whenever you just stick your phone on a tripod, that's what births the inspiration.
You don't have to get ideas out of thin air. Your brain gets ideas whenever it has something to work with. All right. This is why so many photographers feel stuck around social media 'cause they're waiting to understand what they need to post, or they're waiting to feel creative before doing the one thing that would actually make them creative.
So don't waste your time trying to multiply the wrong resource. You don't need more motivation. You need more discipline. Because discipline is what's going to carry you whenever you're exhausted. Discipline is what's going to get you up off the floor whenever that bitch motivation has ghosted you. [00:17:00] Okay?
Discipline is what actually builds the business. This is literally the part of the conversation where I turn into your business mother and I need to tell you that. Just like a man is not coming to save you, motivation is not coming either. You are not going to wake up one Tuesday morning with this lightning bolt of motivation and suddenly become consistent.
You are not going to create your best content after your brain just. Magically stops feeling overwhelmed. And then you can like pay attention to your content. You're not going to wait your way into a brand that books your calendar out. You have to build your way there. When you're unmotivated, that's whenever you have to still build your way there.
That's real business. That's how women get shit done. Okay. That discipline. It's not sexy, [00:18:00] it's not glamorous, it doesn't, I don't know, look good on a highlight reel. Okay? I told my student inside of the cult, if you had an employee working inside of your business with you, you would never let them skip their workload because they just, you know, didn't feel motivated.
And if you wouldn't let an employee do that, why are you letting yourself do that? Okay, let me bring this kind of full circle. Motivation is unreliable. While discipline is dependable, motivation is emotional. While discipline is strategic, and I'm saying this as someone who has built a multi-six figure business with absolutely no motivation to do it.
If I waited to feel motivated, this podcast right here would not exist. The posing method would not exist. The 200 K season challenge wouldn't exist. The mastermind, the [00:19:00] cult, none of it would exist because I would still be sitting on my couch feeling sorry for myself that my ex-husband left me with three boys to raise.
Okay, because the truth is I am painfully average in so many ways. I can barely do math. I can't cook a chicken breast to save my life. I don't have a morning routine. I have to force myself to exercise, and it's still barely happens. You guys, I eat McDonald's for breakfast. I am not a naturally disciplined person.
But I've made over a million dollars in the last four years because I stopped waiting to feel ready and I simply started moving. It all starts with action. So here's your homework today, not tomorrow. Today, take one tiny action. Make one BTS clip. Make one story. Make one reel. Make [00:20:00] one post, one thing that puts motion into your business.
That's your sourdough starter. That's your discipline muscle. That's your future self saying thank you for not abandoning this business. Motivation is going to join you somewhere along the way, but discipline is what gets you off of the couch. Alright, my beautiful posers. Tits up ears open. Get your phones out.
Go take one tiny disciplined step today. The motivation will come the moment that you give it a place to grow. All right. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and to all of your cute little gobblers. Bye for now friends.
Outro: Okay, so that is a wrap on this episode of the Posers Podcast. If you loved it, please subscribe, rate, and review because honestly, algorithms are needier than all of our ex-boyfriends combined. And ladies, I need all the help I can get. [00:21:00] If you've got thoughts, questions, love letters, even hate mail, please send them my way.
I actually read every single one of them. So until next time, stapled, stay messy and don't let the bullshit win. Tits up. Ears open and go build something. Incredible. Bye for now, friends.
