Jodi | Posers Ep 87
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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, hello, hello, hello, my beautiful posers, and welcome back to another episode of the Posers podcast. This episode feels so weird for me. I feel so naked because... Let me, break down what it usually looks like for me to put together a podcast episode. Usually, it [00:01:00] takes me at least eight hours or so out of my week to, , produce, script, create, think about, execute, put together, , whatever words you wanna use about, like, all of the steps that it takes me to put together a podcast episode.
, It'll usually take me, like, eight to 10 hours or so out of my week. So that's one whole entire day out of my week that it takes to create an episode. And I've thought about this process quite a bit. I've thought about how much I am... What's the right wording? , That I wrap up my self-worth in this idea that whenever I show up here on the podcast, that I have to have my thoughts articulated perfectly, that I have to bring value, that I have to have research behind everything that I'm saying, that if you are going to [00:02:00] dedicate and spend, , 20 to 30 minutes of your week listening to me, that I have to really, like, show up with all of this preparation in order to be giving you value.
And I think there's, there's a lot of therapy work that needs to get done there because what I'm learning about this process of building Posers is that me simply showing up and putting my brain on something has value. Me showing up inside of my DMs and talking through, , issues with you guys, that has value.
And none of that comes with me having to sit down, research, look things up, , I don't know, check and find, , stories or examples or anything like that from either my own brain or from the internet or from my own business or anything. So I'm showing up today [00:03:00] without a script. I'm showing up without those eight to 10 hours behind me.
I'm showing up literally with a Post-it Note that has one, two, three, four, five little bullet points for me to hit on and get this episode created and get it off to production and to get it off of my plate. And I want to ... I don't know, even whene- God, even whenever I just said , that I'm like, "Oh, I've got to get this off my plate," my immediate reaction is to think, "Why would they wanna listen if they know it's just my brain rambling?
Why would they want to show up and hear what I have to say if I don't have all this behind me and if I'm just, checking a box, if I'm just I've gotta get this off the plate, if I'm just like, 'Oh, I've gotta get this off to production'?'' Immediately, like even in real [00:04:00] time right now as I'm saying those words, I have these limiting beliefs that are running through my head.
So this feels so incredibly naked and so incredibly different to just show up and to just talk because I think that everybody in our industry right now is feeling the fire, right? We are in our fall seasons. We are overwhelmed, we are exhausted, we are sort of like burning the candle at both ends, and I'm feeling that really, really, really heavy too right now.
So I said on the last episode, running Posers and running JayAnn during this time of year is really hard on me. So I'm feeling like I'm too busy to be doing both things really well. And just like I said on the last episode too, I don't feel like I have to apologize for that because [00:05:00] I am in a room with really good company who all understands that this time of year is just really incredibly busy.
So I wanna just sort of tell you about some things that are ruminating inside of my brain, some things that I'm kind of like oscillating around. And one of them being that because of how busy I am on both sides, I'm feeling a bunch of like, I- Okay, thoughts versus feelings here. This is what I'm running through with my head.
Again, you guys are gonna notice that this is just me literally spit firing as if there's, like, a tennis match going on in my head, that I don't have the perfect words today. I don't have a perfect script in front of me. I haven't practiced this. I haven't run through it a few times. It's just me talking.
So,, The thoughts or the feelings that I'm struggling with right now is [00:06:00] that last year set the bar so incredibly high for me because I popped off in August kind of showing off a little bit last year. We're talking about 2025. Last year in 2025, in August, I ran my launch system so freaking hard because I wanted to show how powerful it was and how many photo shoots that I could get booked in a literal 18-hour time span.
And I did that because, again, I was really struggling with thoughts of value and worth and that the things that I do are right and the things that I do are smart and that they are backed by psychology and they are backed by research and, like, all these things. So August of 2025 was whenever I was first starting to launch the beta round of the mastermind.
So my launch for the [00:07:00] fall, I ran it really hard, and I showed off a little bit. I booked over 40 sessions, and that set me up to where last year from September to December, I made a quarter of a million dollars just on the photography side of the business. And that honestly blew me away. I had never made that amount of money in my business just during the family photo season, I had never made that kind of money.
But here we are fast-forward to 2026, and I intentionally did not book as much. Because last year almost put me six feet under. But I intentionally pulled back. I scaled it back on my bookings. I knew that I wanted to be able to show up in posers. I knew that I, wasn't gonna have that same kinda time that I gave last year.
But now that we're here And I'm not pulling the same [00:08:00] amount of money that I pulled last year. I'm really struggling with this, these feelings of, , failure and self-doubt. And last night I didn't sleep very well because I woke up in the middle of the night with a bit of anxiety. And whenever I feel anxious, I don't know how it, , manifests in other people's bodies, but whenever I feel anxious, obviously, , my chest gets really tight, but I get really uncomfortable in my skin.
And it feels like I have to stand up, I have to walk, I have to stretch my body, I have to, like,, work on breathing techniques and, like,, things like that. Otherwise, I feel like my, my body will crawl, , outside of my skin if I don't. So laying in bed and trying to sleep was, like, impossible. So I'm up, and I'm pacing, and I'm breathing, and I'm stretching, and I'm doing all these things, and I'm like, why am I struggling with this?"
Because [00:09:00] I know that the numbers are still incredible inside of my business. Just in the photography side of my business, I'm right around, , 300,000 right now. And I know that I have about $100,000 that I'm, like, due to collect for this fall, which even that number right there, , that is insane to say that I'm at 300,000 for the year, that I know that I'll probably end up around 400,000.
I'm not gonna end up around 450,000 like I did last year. And just because there's that discrepancy, for some reason, my brain is telling me to panic, which , it's just crazy to me. But I say this a lot , inside of Posers. - Because this happens a lot, actually. Like,, We will go through the mastermind, we will change, , my Posers pricing structures and, like, things like that, and they'll set their pricing, and then within, say, three months to six months [00:10:00] of them changing their pricing structure, learning the new system, starting to make incredible money with that system, there's always this spot where they say, "Oh my God, I want more. Oh my God, I need to raise my prices." Or, , they have this, , really great run of making really good money, and then they have this little, , runway of, like, not making as much.
And immediately, that thought process, even though we're doing so much better in our businesses than we ever have, there's still just this panic button that seems to happen, with that no matter how much money you're making or how successful you are, that you still struggle. Or at least I'm saying that I still struggle with self-doubt and with feeling like a failure and feeling like...
I think especially because I put so much pressure on myself to stand [00:11:00] on this platform and to be an educator and to, be the face and the voice , and the brain behind Posers and all of that, that if I'm not making this amount of money, and if I'm not putting in this amount of work, and if I'm not, , showing up and having that perfect podcast script that is, , ready to go and it has value and it teaches this and it teaches that and everybody is just , "Oh my God, Jody's doing this and Jody's doing that," like, why is it that if I feel like part of that falls away- That I go into this place of having, , anxiety and that I can't sleep and that , there's just so much to be said here about just the pressure that we put on ourselves, the pressure that even, like I try really hard to make sure that I'm not comparing myself to anybody else in the industry.
But even my own comparison of my revenue last year versus my revenue this year, knowing that I [00:12:00] didn't even try that hard in the photography business this year. I really showed up in posers this year, and that's almost it. My photography business right now is just running on fumes because I have not done any marketing inside of my photography business for the entire year of 2026, and I'm still at this place where I'm making around, or I should end up making around 400,000 this year.
, That's mind-blowing to me. So I'm just ... , i have no pretty bow. I have no lesson. I have no, , way of even segueing into, , the next point that I wanna be talking about. But, , I just wanna say it out loud that , it's new level, new devil all the time. That the more money that you make, the more success that you feel, the more pressure that you're gonna put on yourself to , show up hard, show up in what you feel like is, , your idea [00:13:00] of getting as close to perfect or as close to perfection as you can get.
And I'm a very high-achieving person. I know this about myself. I've always been this way. It's not as if this level of neuroses is new to me by any means. But if you relate to the type of - personality that I am or that I have, then maybe the only point of this that I'm saying it here on the podcast is to make you feel like, "Hey, at least I'm not alone," right?
, At least we can be crazy together.
I just think that sometimes inside of a community, especially a community with, , mostly women listening to me, that it can just sometimes feel nice to feel like even though I may be struggling on things on a different [00:14:00] level , there's still struggle, especially during this time of year.
There's still struggle, there's still overwhelm, there's still thoughts of failure, there's still thoughts of, , issues around self-worth and things that I know that I've got to stay in therapy for, because the only way that I keep growing and that I keep scaling is when I get a handle on all of this, and I can get this out of my brain, and I can move into the next spot that I wanna be in my business.
Okay. So,, I'm going to attempt here to also talk about the thing that I wanted to put together for this week, that I wanted to prepare and, you know, create into the perfect podcast script and the perfect lesson and the perfect whatever. But this is me letting go of perfect right here in real time. So I've had this thought that has been circling in my head for several weeks now, and I knew that I wanted to talk about it here on the podcast.
[00:15:00] And I do also know that there has to be a little bit of me treading lightly on this topic because I don't want to... I never actually wanna lead with shame. I never wanna lead with guilt. I never wanna lead with making anybody feel bad about themselves. And, , so that's maybe also why I tend to want to script things out and make sure I know what I'm saying because I do have an aggressive thought pattern.
I do have an aggressive way of coming about life. I'm v- very black and white. I'm very much , "This is right, this is wrong. You should do it this way." And I struggle in that place of having like a softness or an empathy or understanding where other people are at or what shoes they're walking in , and those sort of things.
So I lean heavy on being, like, more scripted here on the podcast because of that, that I wanna make sure that I'm showing up with also [00:16:00] softness and empathy. And whenever I speak just off the cuff, just out of the top of my head like this is when I can come off the most abrasive. So I am going to challenge myself here to make sure that I'm really thinking about this in a really, like, rounded kind of way.
, Okay, so I've had this thought that's been ruminating in my head and that I wanted to teach here, and it's this. So if I was to give you the example of any profession that there is in I would say the world, but I don't know if I can say it about like every profession. But over the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about, like, okay, what profession is there that I could give as examples that would, , really- nail this point home for me, and I keep on going back to, like,, nursing.
Okay? So if I was to give you the, the scenario for you to imagine that [00:17:00] you're a nurse or you have a friend who's a nurse or just even, like, imagining the way that, , nursing school kinda goes, then I want you to imagine that. So imagine that a nurse is walking in for her very first day of work , and she is saying like, " Okay, I'm brand new.
Okay? I don't know every single part of my job yet." But then a patient comes in and one of the other nurses says, "Okay, hey, you need to go in that room and you need to give that person an IV." Okay? I just, I'm bringing up this example 'cause I think that giving an IV would be like really hard. Could you imagine actually having to like stick a needle in somebody's vein and like hitting that vein and being able to actually pull blood out of their body?
Like that's... Science is crazy to me sometimes. But, so that's a skill that a nurse has to have in order to be really good at her job. Okay? So imagine [00:18:00] that a nurse was to say to, say, their supervising nurse that's on the floor, or to a doctor or somebody, and they were to say, "Oh, this is I'm fresh out of nursing school so I actually don't know how to do an IV."
I would imagine that whoever's in charge would be like, "Okay, cool. You're straight out of nursing school. Let me take you into this room and let me show you how to give this person an IV." And if that brand-new nurse was to say, "Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not good at that. Oh, no, no, no, I'm not... I, I don't want to learn that because like that's just not a skill set that I have."
And that actually, like I don't know, maybe she would say like, "That makes me a little queasy," or, "That's like just not the thing that I wanna do," then the nurse who would be on the floor, like her boss or the doctor or whoever is saying that would say, "Excuse me, what?" ? They'd be like, "You're a nurse.
You absolutely have to know how to give somebody an IV." Okay? [00:19:00] If we were to use this same example, say, in different professions, like if you had a teacher and the principal said something along the lines of , "Okay, I need you to build like a behavior plan for this student," and for that teacher to say, ", no, I don't wanna do that.
Like that's not why I went into teaching. That's not the thing that I love. That's not the part of like what I wanna do," that teacher- Would get fired, right? If a car salesman went into their job and they... , i'm making up stuff off the spot, you guys. , I literally don't have notes in front of me, and so I'm trying to think of these, , professions of, like, okay, what does a car salesman have to do in their job in order to be considered, , a good car salesman?
I have no idea. But I don't know. Imagine you're walking in, you're working at Pottery Barn, and your boss says to you, "Okay, hey, I need you to, , go style this storefront window," or something like that. And you're like, "No, no, no, no, no. That's not the thing." [00:20:00] You're getting my point, right? That for any profession, any other profession that we can think of or know of, if those employees were to go into those jobs and say, "Mm, no, that's not the thing that I wanna do.
I only wanna do this certain set of skills," or, "I only wanna do this certain part of the job," they would get fired, right? So then why is it that inside of our profession, inside of our industry Why is it that photographers feel like they get to say, "Mm, I don't wanna learn that part. Mm, I don't wanna do my marketing.
I don't wanna show up on the internet. I don't wanna show my face on social media. I don't wanna learn SEO. I don't wanna learn, , how to do collaborations in my community. I don't wanna learn how to do trial reels. I don't [00:21:00] wanna learn how to do a DM script. I don't want to learn sales. Sales feels greasy.
I don't want to do that stuff." So I just really wanna pose this question. I don't have a pretty bow on this either. I don't have any sort of lesson that I'm gonna wrap up and I'm gonna tell you, , here's how you gotta think about it, or here's how you gotta go out and do it, or whatever. I just wanna pose the question, and I want you guys thinking about this too inside of your business.
If you show up to your job and you say, "I don't wanna focus on marketing. I don't want to learn sales. I don't want to do these other parts of the business that I didn't sign up for," or you feel as if you didn't sign up for, you feel as if you signed up to learn how to work a camera, to learn how to pose people, to learn how to take pretty photos.
You love to go to the do the style shoots. You love to go make all the pretty things. But you don't wanna run the business [00:22:00] side. You have to ask yourself the question, "How do I expect to not get fired? How do I expect to not lose my job? How do I expect to actually have a thriving, surviving, amazing, profitable business if I'm saying that I'm actually gonna show up and not do the parts that I don't wanna do simply because I just wanna do the fun stuff?"
So that is what has been ruminating in my head. Maybe at some point, whenever things calm down for me, I can come up with the research behind it, and the script that makes it prettier, and the lesson, and the way that I can tell you that you need to change your mindset, and you need to think about it differently and whatever.
But honestly, I also don't feel like that's my job. I feel like it's my job today to show up incredibly imperfect, because things are way too busy in my world right now. But I'm still setting up a [00:23:00] microphone, and I'm setting up a camera so that I know that I have this part of my business completed.
Because even though this isn't always the pretty part, I know that I still have to show up. I know that I still have to learn these parts of my business. I know that I still have to be inside of these parts that sometimes feel a little bit harder, even though what I would love to be doing right now is going and approving galleries, and getting butts inside of my sales room so that I can make some money right now.
But sometimes we don't always get to do what we want to do, and we have to learn the skills that are actually going to make our business profitable. So that is a very rough episode with not a lot of pretty segues, and I don't have really good stories to tell, and I don't have these amazing examples. But I actually think [00:24:00] this podcast episode is pretty great.
So maybe I'll try to do this a little bit more often. And this episode, what did it just take me? It took me 25 minutes to just write down some notes on a Post-it, come sit my butt back in a room, set up a microphone, set up a camera, and I just saved myself eight to 10 hours, and I'm pretty sure that I still showed up with a fuck ton of value.
And that I'm hopefully getting you to think about your business in a completely different way. So that's all I've got for you. Bye for now, posers.
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. 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, [00:25:00] stapled, stay messy and don't let the bullshit win. Tits up. Ears open and go build something. Incredible. Bye for now, friends.
