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- [00:00]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Recently, in one of my Facebook groups, I had a student who posted about a situation that no one ever wants to find themselves in, but is one of those where when you're on the inside, it feels one way and when you're looking at it from the outside, it is totally different. So the situation was that she had been having some health problems and was in the process of being tested for a pretty serious potential diagnosis. Didn't have the results yet, but was sort of in that horrible state of purgatory where you're, you know, you want some answers, but you're really hoping that the answers are benign or good or, you know, whatever the case may be. So in the meantime, she was getting inquiries about her photography services and being asked, you know, can you, can you shoot on this day and this kind of session? And blah, blah, blah. And she didn't know how to respond. Basically, she was caught in this situation where she knew that if this diagnosis came through and she did, in fact, you know, need to be in treatment and all this other stuff, that she wasn't going to be able to follow through on any of those booked sessions. But in the meantime, it's like, how much information is too much information? Are you going to share with these total strangers who are calling up that, you know, you're waiting for the results of this test? I mean, that kind of changes the nature of the conversation. And she was in a position where she probably didn't feel really comfortable talking about it either. It's a very highly emotional thing, all totally reasonable. On the other hand, she was concerned that if she just declined all of these sessions and then it turned out that she didn't need treatment, that she was going to have this giant gap in her calendar where she didn't have work and, you know, was going to suffer in that regard. So in her mind, she was in this no win corner kind of a situation. Responses poured in, obviously all of them sympathetic, empathetic, wishing her well, and many of them saying, like, do what you need to do. You know, if you want to take the work, take the work and apologize later if you need to change it or cancel it. And then, you know, other people had different opinions as well, but it was for the most part the advice that she got was, do what you need to do for yourself. And that certainly would be my advice as well. But that is easier said than done. We all know what it feels like to be in the middle of something like that and have our brains just run around in circles trying to find their way out of what feels like locked room. So today, my guest Maddie Pachang and I are talking about not this particular topic, but something adjacent. Right. And that is the situation where you find yourself in overwhelm. And I know that overwhelm is a vague term, a broad term. It sort of blankets a lot of different things, and Maddie's actually going to talk about that. But I think that what it almost always does is it puts us in the position where we can't think our way out of a situation because we're not thinking clearly to begin with. We have too much invested. We are too in it. You know, we can't see the forest for the trees. And because we operate our own businesses, because we are our own bosses, we have to learn how to recognize that overwhelm is taking over and then figure out a series of steps that we can put into place so that we can get ourselves out of it. It's obviously super important for our mental health, but it's also important for the work that we do and the longevity of our businesses. If this is. If. If overwhelm becomes a chronic situation for you, you're not going to want to run your own business for very long. So I know you're going to get something good out of this conversation, whether you have been at it for many years or if this is something new. Obviously, if you're listening to this when it drops, many of us are coming out of our busy seasons, and it can be sort of that situation where you're either still in overwhelm or just getting past it and feeling that overwhelm hangover. So although this may not be in time to save you from this year's bout of overwhelm, perhaps it will help you navigate next year's and or avoid it altogether.
- [04:34]
Maddie Pachang
Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Anna Mi Tonkin, and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it, and I can show you how.
- [05:03]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Maddie, welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. I'm so excited to have you on the show. How are we doing, friend?
- [05:08]
Maddie Pachang
I am good. It's good to be here. Thank you for having me.
- [05:11]
Anna Mi Tonkin
That's great to have you on the show. Hopefully by this point, most people are sort of getting to that light at the end of the tunnel, but I think that it's, you know, important, maybe especially at this stage where we're all sort of feeling the after effects, or many of us are feeling the after effects, to kind of dive in and see how we can anticipate, plan for and hopefully circumnavigate these kinds of situations.
- [05:37]
Maddie Pachang
So my name is Maddie Pachang. I am a brand photographer and educator based in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota area. I am a wife and a mom. I've got three young kids. They're all under the age of 10, and they're super fun. I've been a photographer for about 12 years now, and I have been doing brand photography for about 6. Took a pretty slow pivot into brand photography as I kind of discovered that I could do something with photography that also used my marketing background. And that made me really excited. I was about six years ago when that transition started to happen. I was leaving my day job and I was actually the person who really liked her day job. I really liked what I was doing. And I've always enjoyed marketing and pr. So when I kind of accidentally fell into brand photography, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is great. Like, I can combine these two things that I love. And then in 2020, I started my, like, education and coaching business. And that's taken a lot of turns over the years as well. I started speaking to just creatives in general and over the years realized that I could go so much deeper if I worked specifically with photographers who wanted to pivot to brand photography. And so that's what I've been doing for the past couple years. I run called Rebrands, and it is designed to help photographers charge four figures and scale to six figures with their brand photography business. And then I launched a program, a course called Rewind, which is just a really low ticket, low ticket offer design to help them shoot their very first brand session.
- [07:15]
Anna Mi Tonkin
So.
- [07:16]
Maddie Pachang
So more on the tactical side of what does it look like to shoot a brand session? So that's where I spend a lot, a lot of time now is working with those photographers who want to get their nights and weekends back and start shooting brand photography.
- [07:28]
Anna Mi Tonkin
I love that. And I. And I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I feel like if I were either starting now as a photographer or if in my own business I was trying to grow brand photography would be exactly where I went. Right now, I feel like that is the hot spot. There's so much demand for it. I feel like the frontier is sort of wide open and being written as we as we speak. But I love what you're doing in that little corner of the photography world. I feel like understanding how to set that up and sort of market it and all the different pieces is. It's just totally different from the family photography world, the wedding photography world. Like it is its own thing and. Yeah. So it's great.
- [08:13]
Maddie Pachang
Yeah, I'm happy to be here. I, I'm obviously, I mean, I'm gonna, I'm incredibly biased, but I love brand photography and I completely echo everything you're saying. Like, it's such, I know that it can feel like there's a lot of photographers doing what you're doing. Like as soon as you start to focus on something, you kind of start to feel that way. But brand photography just continues to be so untapped because the demand is so high.
- [08:36]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah, yeah. And I also look at it kind of when I used to work in the medical world. We would laugh about how different it, you know, if you go into a certain department or area of medicine, your work life is so different from other parts. So, you know, if you're working in the emergency room versus, you know, in a dermatology clinic, your hours are different, the stress level is different, the, you know, what constitutes an emergency is different. And I feel like brand photography is one of those where you can actually work during the week and you get maybe less pushback about pricing and stuff like that. Because this is a, this is a write off for the people who are hiring you and it's part of the, you know, it's part of their working budget as opposed to with family photography or something like that. You're, you know, this is completely discretionary spending.
- [09:32]
Maddie Pachang
So if I ever tell someone I'm a photographer and I don't specifically say I'm a brand photographer, they'll be like, oh, it, you know, it's summertime, so you must be so busy. And I'm like, no. Or oh, it must be so hard to shoot, you know, to work nights and weekends. I'm like, no, I don't do that either. Like, it really is such an ideal, like business hours.
- [09:54]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah. So good. But even people with ideal business hours still run into situations where they are, you know, cramming to make deadlines and sort of erasing all those boundaries that they set for themselves and all the different things. So talk to me about your experience with overwhelm and sort of getting to know that the signs and symptoms of that over the years in your business.
- [10:21]
Maddie Pachang
Yeah. So I am a big believer that I don't Think that hustling in your business is all bad. My issue is when the hustle doesn't stop when there's no light at the end of the tunnel. But I think we're going to have seasons of hustle in our business. And a recent one for me was this year in May, I was shooting all of the content for Rewind for my new course. And in this program, you get to come behind the scenes with me at four brand sessions. And so I had a videographer come, and we were shooting brand session after brand session, and I had a mini session day, and I had a styled shoot, and then I had all of my other clients that month. I usually have a decent amount of clients in the month of May anyway. And I had told myself, that's okay, because on May 17, I'm going to like, that's the light at the end of the tunnel. But that wasn't actually accurate. I was telling myself that. But really, as soon as we finished filming for Rewind, I was starting to work on things for rebrand, which is my group coaching program. I was gearing up for the end of the school year with my kids. Like, there was really no end date. And I kind of didn't realize that until it was almost too late. Like, you know, you're just in the middle of it, and you have to survive. And so I did as much as I could to kind of just survive that season and get to what was more of a true end date, and then had to do a pretty hard reset to say, like, okay, I got to, like, get these boundaries back in place in my business, because I found myself constantly saying, I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed. And I know from, you know, the years that I've spent in business and also the people that I've worked with, Overwhelm can be a bit of a habit. It can be something that we kind of slide into. And I noticed that in myself.
- [12:12]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah, it's like chronic pain, right? Where when you first experience whatever that pain is, you're like, oh, this is terrible. It's terrible. And it's. Your brain pays a lot of attention to it, and you are thinking about ways to get out of it and all the different things. But over time, as that becomes chronic, you accommodate to it. You start to become the person who, you know, sort of lives with that. You're not thinking about it, you're not talking about it. It's there. It's still causing problems, but it's almost becomes, like, part of the scenery. And it changes the way that you are in the world. And I feel like that is true. So I have a lot of personal experience. Like, I think I have a pretty high tolerance for hustle. You know, I. If you give me a long checklist, and I will just, like, keep after it. But everybody has their limits. And when you're somebody who is sort of willing to stretch those limits, I feel like it can be dangerous because then sometimes the limit is like binary, where it's like, I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay. I am not okay.
- [13:21]
Maddie Pachang
Yes, exactly. You know, I think the easiest part of boundaries is setting boundaries. The hard part is continuing to hold those boundaries. Right. And we can't think that just because we set the boundaries that, like, people are going to uphold our boundaries and, like, respect those. Like, we have to continually do that. And so that's really what that kind of season looked like for me, was saying, okay, I'm not upholding these boundaries. So what. What do I need to do here to get back on track? So I stopped feeling this, like, overwhelmed sense all the time. And for me, that really starts with naming the actual feeling that I'm having. So if we don't name the actual feeling that we're experiencing, not just overwhelm, but specifically what is going on, we can't fix it because we're not being specific with what the actual problem is.
- [14:13]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah. And I mean, again, I'm going to just bring back the chronic pain thing. It's almost like when it becomes that generalized sense of, like, I have pain as opposed to I have knee pain or whatever pain, then it's. I don't know. It's like, then which doctor do you go to? Right. I mean, it is. It doesn't. It. It's like, it becomes too vague. So talk to me a little bit about, like, how it shows up, what kinds of different feelings you're talking about. Is it because I. I do think that people will say overwhelm or, you know, feeling overwhelmed is its own feeling. But maybe. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's a combination of other things.
- [14:55]
Maddie Pachang
For me, I can drill it down a little bit deeper than that. And there's three that kind of stand out, at least for this last season. And it's possible that these depending on, like, what's actually causing the overwhelm, but some big triggers for me, the questions that I will ask myself are, am I overwhelmed, or am I learning something new? Because that is a big trigger for me when I'm learning something new. I am so quick to be like, I'm overwhelmed. This is too much. I'm not tech, I'm not a technical person. Like this is a lot. The second one is am I overwhelmed or are my expectations totally out of whack? I'm an enneagram3, so this is also a big one for me. Like, am I overwhelmed or did I just think that I was going to get this done in a day? And it's not a one day project.
- [15:39]
Anna Mi Tonkin
I hear that 100%.
- [15:42]
Maddie Pachang
Yeah, that's a big one.
- [15:44]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah.
- [15:44]
Maddie Pachang
And then the third one is AM I overwhelmed or am I over consuming? That's another big trigger for me. Like sometimes I'm just too plugged in. Sometimes I just need to put my phone down at 5:00 or log off at 5:00 and like go touch some grass.
- [15:58]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yes, yes, yes, yes, for sure. So how do you see that? Like what's the ratio? I guess it just kind of depends on the person.
- [16:08]
Maddie Pachang
I would say it depends on the person. Honestly, for, for this last season, it was kind of all three, to be honest with you. Like, I. This was a really challenging year for my business. This is the first time that I have said like, I'm going to actually kind of scale back on photography and try to scale these group programs and make sure that I have really good systems in and you and I have, you know, geeked out about airtight air table many a time. But when I was first learning air table, that was really overwhelming. There were a lot of things that I was learning this year that made me just feel overwhelmed. So that was certainly part of it. My expectations were very much out of whack. I was working on projects that were, you know, weeks and month long projects, thinking I could get them done in a day while juggling a bunch of other things. That's completely unrealistic. And I was over consuming. I was looking at what other people were doing in their businesses and I was scrolling threads too long and all of those things. So I think when it gets really bad, I typically see that like it's a pretty solid combination of all three of those things.
- [17:13]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah, I think that's true for me as well. And you know, I, I don't think that social media and our ability to over consume helps in any way because it, or rather it exacerbates the other issues. Because to your point, it's like you go on Instagram or you go surfing around other people's websites or you listen to a podcast from somebody who you know is miles and miles ahead of where you are on your journey, talking about where they are on their journey. And it's very easy to be like, why am I not there already? Why is it taking me so long? When the fact of the matter is, most people take a long time to get to wherever they are. And it's. It's just, you know, it's like that comparison is the thief of joy thing. It's also can be the thief of, you know, sleep and your ability to function in the world when you just feel like you're always behind.
- [18:12]
Maddie Pachang
Yes, exactly. Ironically, during this season, I was scrolling on Instagram and I came across a post from a creator, and I think that she was talking about, like, health and fitness and that sort of thing. But the post said something along the lines of, my new mantra is, I am in no hurry. And that was kind of the turning point in this particular season of overwhelm, of me being like, okay, I need a reset. I need to take a deep breath here. Because that's what I was sliding into was. Was being in a hurry. Being in a hurry to, like, finish this project and being in a hurry to get my kids out the door. And I don't want to. Like, this is very dramatic, but I don't want to get to the end of my life and be like, I was just in a hurry for everything. You know, like, as difficult as this year has been from a business perspective, I know, because I know myself. I will look back in a couple of years and be like, oh, that was such a great season of, like, learning and growing. And, like, I will look back on this fondly. I don't want to, like, rush through it because I want it to be over.
- [19:16]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah. I mean, it's so easy to get into that mentality of, like, just around the next corner, I'll be exactly where I want to be. And especially given that you and I share our enneagram3 status, I feel like it is just this constant moving of the goalpost where it's like, as soon as I hit, you know, goal A, then, like, who cares about goal A? We'll just. We'll focus on goal B. And it doesn't give you a whole lot of opportunity to celebrate the milestones that you do achieve. Well, that's a whole separate conversation, but, yeah. But, yeah, no, I definitely hear where you're coming from. Okay. So you kind of recognize, like, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Let's drill down on what it is that's causing it, and then What?
- [20:02]
Maddie Pachang
Yeah. So there's a couple steps that I take to. To fix this. And I think the first thing is realizing that I am in the driver's seat. And certainly it totally depends on the individual person and, like, the support that they have and, like, where they're at in their life. I absolutely recognize that. But I do think that there's an element where we have to take ownership of, like, the reason that we are in this. This stage of overwhelm more than likely is because of decisions that we have made, Right? Not always, but in my case, it was me. I was the problem. And so recognizing that if I'm the problem and I kind of created this mess, I can also fix it. I can also get out. I'm not stuck. I don't have to keep doing the things that I said I was going to do. Like, I can say, nope, this is a hard stop, and I need to have better boundaries here. So the first thing that I did, which is simple but perhaps not easy, is really sticking to office hours, making sure that, like, you know, my phone goes on the counter and maybe a screen limit comes on after 5pm or even after 4pm that's when my kids get home. Making sure that, like, I'm not doing that thing where I'm like, just, you know, just 30 more minutes to finish this project. Like, nope, the project will be there tomorrow. So that's a big one. And adopting that mantra of, like, I am in no hurry, it will be here tomorrow. Everything will be okay. I mentioned a screen limit, but, like, that's a big one for me. And people will often. I've talked about this on social media before, and people will ask, like, how do you do that? Like, the screen limit never works for me. And my very boring answer is that I give the phone to my partner and. And I say, put a screen limit on this and don't tell me the password. Oh, yeah, that's good. That works really well. Yeah, so I've done that before and like, yes, that it is a pain. Cause there are sometimes that, like, I need to get past the screen limit to do something for work or whatever. But the whole point is that it's a pain because do I actually need to get past the screen limit or can I just wait until tomorrow morning and then, honestly. Oh, go ahead.
- [22:05]
Anna Mi Tonkin
I was just going to say, for similar reasons, I took all of my social media apps off my phone.
- [22:11]
Maddie Pachang
Yes.
- [22:13]
Anna Mi Tonkin
So I can still go, you know, into Chrome and, like, type in facebook.com or instagram.com and log in, but it's a pain and the interface sucks. So it's like I am disincentivized to do it if there, if I need to, you know, if I like, for whatever reason, whatever constitutes a social media need. But that really limits me or encourages me to stay limited to just checking in on my computer during the day when I'm actually working. So it adds that layer of intentionality to it.
- [22:47]
Maddie Pachang
I love that I haven't gone quite that far, but I have. My Instagram is set up to give me like an. I think it's like an hour a day and only between the hours of 10am and 5pm or 4pm and that works really well because I still, I mean, it's kind of like cheating. I can still pull it up on my computer and I do often like I'm responding to DMS and that sort of thing, but I'm not mindlessly scrolling rolling. And that's the issue.
- [23:11]
Anna Mi Tonkin
That is the issue, of course. I mean, social media, the reason that we don't just delete it from our lives altogether, especially as business owners, is because it does have its place there. Is.
- [23:20]
Maddie Pachang
It can be great. Yeah.
- [23:22]
Anna Mi Tonkin
I compare it to the difference between someone who wants to like quit smoking versus someone who wants to lose weight and go on a diet. Like, you still have to eat. You can't just cold turkey quit eating. And that's not to say anything about losing weight or quitting smoking. It's just a matter of. It's a different thing, social media, you could completely cold turkey detox from it, but that has different repercussions. So.
- [23:46]
Maddie Pachang
Yeah, exactly. So another thing that is important when you're feeling this way and when you kind of identified like what feelings am I having? For. For me at least I will take a look at my calendar because my calendar does tend to be a pretty solid sense of overwhelm when I let myself slide into that. And so I will look at my calendar and I will get pretty ruthless with what's actually on there. And a lot of the time for me that looks like remove moving all of the extra stuff like, you know, cop. I. I will get a lot of emails from people who like, want to get coffee and like chat and if they're like a really good friend of mine and it's more of a social thing, then generally it's important that I keep that on there. But if it's somebody who like is, you know, looking to network and that sort of thing, I'm totally open to that. But a season when I'M overwhelmed or coming out of overwhelm. It's not the time. So I just have to be really ruthless with my yeses and my nose because the more that I can look at my calendar and see open space, the better I will feel. Something else that I will do is make sure that I am putting time on my calendar for me. And so that typically looks like movement, it looks like a lunch break. It looks like going out for coffee with my husband, like those types of things, and making sure that those things go on my calendar first. I just find that that is a really important thing. And it's sadly the first thing to go when I'm busy. So putting those back on and making sure that I have space for the things that make me happy is a. Is a big deal.
- [25:19]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like for anybody who's read that book, Profit first by Mike Michalowicz, it's the same concept, except that in that particular space, you're saying, this is my salary. That's the first line item on the budget. Rather than I will pay myself whatever's left over. What ends up happening is you become much more ruthless about the things with the profit first that you're spending money on, aside from paying yourself. And, you know, that's sort of what your goals are based around. But I love the idea of translating that into your time, where you're protecting the sort of sanctity of the time that you set aside for the things that, when you're being really honest, are the most important to you in your life.
- [26:02]
Maddie Pachang
Yeah. And when it comes down to it, the thing that's most important to me, and I think to the majority of us, is connection. It's that feeling that you're connected to something bigger, that what you're doing is making a difference. That connection with, like, other human beings. And for me, when I'm feeling overwhelmed, it's because I've lost sight of that. Like, I've lost sight of the impact of what it is that I'm doing. And I've lost sight of the reason, like, why I'm doing it. So something as simple as logging off at 4:00, going outside, touching grass, talking to my neighbor, going to the park with my kid. It's crazy to me what a difference those really simple actions make. And those things aren't related to work at all. Like, sometimes it's not actually the work stuff that needs to change, it's just making time for the personal things that make work easier.
- [26:55]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah. And one of the thinking traps that I find myself getting caught in when I'm overwhelmed is this sense of like, make a list of all the things that I'm feeling overwhelmed about and just like get through those and once I'm through those, I'll feel better.
- [27:09]
Maddie Pachang
Yeah.
- [27:10]
Anna Mi Tonkin
So this has been like a years long thing that I thought that was the solution and then exactly what you're saying turned out to be the more true, which is like, actually the best thing I can do is step away from it. Because what happens for me at least, is I become extremely inefficient with my use of the time when I'm working. It's like if I'm overwhelmed, it's almost like I am, you know, crawling through mud to try and do the stuff. Whereas just taking that space, taking that break, even taking like a day or two off and then coming back to it, I'm so much more efficient and so much like, able to get so many more things accomplished in a much shorter period of time.
- [27:51]
Maddie Pachang
I completely agree. It is the opposite of what you feel like you should be doing, but it is exactly what you need to do.
- [27:58]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah. Ugh, yeah, totally. So how does this now show up? Like, do you feel like you have started to have a better emergency alert system since that's on my mind in your own life? Like, are you quicker to pick up on it? Do you have talk more about that?
- [28:22]
Maddie Pachang
I'm definitely quicker to pick up on it. And I think that that's why the. But I think that's why what happened in May surprised me so much because I was like, wait, I'm better than this. Like, I don't let this happen anymore, but it still can, you know. But yes, I definitely pick up on it faster. I am more aware of, I think probably like the stage one trigger for me is my calendar. So I'm much more aware of like, making sure that stuff doesn't get too overloaded. And it's silly little things. Like next week I have coffee meetings like four days out of five. And yeah, and like having to be dressed and ready and out of the house and get my kids someplace and to a coffee shop by 8:30. Like, that is enough to send me into a tailspin one day a week, let alone four. And so when I was looking at that the other day, I was like, okay, like, I have to make sure then that the rest of those days are more open. I have to make sure that maybe I get up early to go work out or I take time for a walk later in the day. So noticing, knowing what your triggers are and understanding that like, you know, it's not. It might not be realistic to say I'm never going to have four days of meetings in a row like there again. There's going to be seasons where that, that's just kind of how it has to go. But how can you make sure that you're supporting yourself when things get busy, you know, and making sure that there's some sort of an end date? So, yeah, to answer your question, I definitely, I definitely feel like I notice things faster and just have systems and boundaries in place to make sure that they don't happen. Think very simple things like making sure that I'm working out in the morning and moving my body and taking time for lunch. Those make a really big difference.
- [30:07]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah, I'm just going to insert another one of my little hacks or tricks you raise, you know, moving my body, getting out. Oftentimes when I'm going for a walk or I am, you know, driving somewhere or whatever. I've got podcasts or audio books on in my ears. And so I am constantly consuming information. It's not always business related. It's not always photography related or, you know, anything like that. It could be a fiction, like a novel that I'm listening to. However, what you said about overconsumption, it's like what ends up happening is if I'm in that overwhelmed kind of state. First of all, I'm not paying full attention to what I'm listening to anyway because my mind is racing in a thousand directions, but also filling my brain with something sort of unrelated. It buffers for me that feeling of, like, you know, I don't. I'm not. It gives me a nice escape, but it doesn't allow my brain to process what it needs to process. So I've actually. And this happened when my car stereo was broken, but I was driving around and there was nothing on. And I ended up really appreciating just being in the car in the quiet. So when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I try to like, not automatically put something in my ears if I've got a moment and instead allow that just quiet. Because I feel like whatever my brain is doing, and I'm not like meditating or doing anything active, I'm just letting my mind wander. And that's been super helpful for me too.
- [31:45]
Maddie Pachang
I feel attacked. I feel like that is probably exactly what I needed to. To hear. No, I have such a terrible habit. I joke that, like, I can't be alone with my own thoughts.
- [31:57]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yep.
- [31:57]
Maddie Pachang
Yep. I'm constantly, I'm in the morning I'll listen to personal development and at night I listen to fiction. Like there's constantly something in my ears and I don't think that I'm going to stop with that. But knowing when. Yeah, yeah, but knowing when, you know, it makes sense to take a shower with absolute silence or drive in the car with absolute silence. And I, on the rare occasion that I have done that. I totally agree. Like, it just kind of helps your thoughts like work themselves out and marinate a little bit. And oftentimes that's you just needed like that breathing room, you know? Totally. I love that.
- [32:35]
Anna Mi Tonkin
And it's something, you know, this is the do as I say, not as I do thing where when I'm talking to my teenagers who are constantly listening to or consuming stuff, it's just like their entire generation is wired that way. When they're in the shower, when they're. And I'm like, just turn it off for a minute. And I can say that all day long. And then I have to turn around and look in the mirror and be like, you too.
- [32:58]
Maddie Pachang
Same same with my nine year old.
- [33:00]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yep.
- [33:00]
Maddie Pachang
I totally agree.
- [33:02]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Oh, man. Well, Maddie, these have been such great pointers, reminders. I think it bears revisiting all the time because to your point, like, we can know all this stuff all day long, we can learn it, we can, you know, intellectualize it. But when it comes time to actually put these things into practice or even just notice them creeping in our lives, that is where, you know, it, it gets hard. So I'm glad that we had this conversation and shared this conversation because I think I have no doubt, especially this time of year, that this is going to be a good reminder for a lot of people.
- [33:40]
Maddie Pachang
Most definitely.
- [33:41]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah. Well, tell everybody where they can connect with you and learn more about your programs. If brand photography is something that you are hoping to either start incorporating or scale up in the new year, you're going to want to put MADI on your radar.
- [33:58]
Maddie Pachang
Yes, absolutely. I would love that. I love connecting with people on Instagram. I've also been very into threads lately, so you can probably find me there too. And I have a free shot list on my website. Maddie pachang.com shot list. And that's going to tell you the 11 shots that I get at just about every personal brand session. Just a really good guide if you are new to brand photography. If you're, you know, not sure if you want to be a brand photographer, but you do want to add it to Your services. It's a really great place to start.
- [34:27]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Amazing. I think that's 9, 10 of the challenge when it comes to getting into brand photography, especially if you're coming from a niche or specialty where you're photographing typically multiple people together or people and their pets or whatever, because there's this interaction quality that you still want to have when you're doing brand photography, but you're often only photographing a single person, and so they might feel uncomfortable because they're expected to sort of, you know, pose. And I'm putting that in air quotes. But, like, you know, they. Unlike if you're holding your newborn and you're looking with love at them, or you're playing with your pet, or you're, you know, holding hands and walking with your partner, it's totally different when it's just, like, you and a laptop or you in a mug or whatever.
- [35:15]
Maddie Pachang
Yep, totally.
- [35:16]
Anna Mi Tonkin
So I feel like, as the professional, it's so important to have, like, a list or, you know, some sense of inspiration for the 99% of people out there who are not, like, naturally gifted at just performing for the camera.
- [35:31]
Maddie Pachang
Absolutely. Yeah. That's the reason I created the shot list, because I had so many people come to me and be like, how on earth are you spending two to three hours with one person.
- [35:39]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Yeah.
- [35:40]
Maddie Pachang
And shooting the entire time. And I'm like, oh, like, there's so much that you can get. You know, there's, like, so much creativity to be had. But that's after hundreds of sessions, so I'm happy to share about it.
- [35:51]
Anna Mi Tonkin
Amazing. Well, we'll put that link in the show notes. But, Maddie, thank you so much. It has been a pleasure having you on, and I will look forward to talking to you soon.
- [35:58]
Maddie Pachang
Thank you for having me.
- [36:00]
Anna Mi Tonkin
All right, bye.
- [36:01]
Maddie Pachang
Well, that's it for this week's episode of this can't be that hard. I'll be back same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links, notes, and downloads@thiscantbethard.com learn. If you like the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review in itunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.