How to Reinvent Yourself After Losing Everything | Mindset, Identity & Future Self with Scott Proposki

What happens when the life you built… disappears?

In this episode of The FitZen Project, I sit down with Scott Proposki—a former White House photographer who built an eight-figure photography business working with brands like HBO, the NFL, Google, and Microsoft…

…and then watched it all come to a halt during COVID.

This conversation goes way deeper than business.

We talk about identity loss, starting over at 58, and what it actually feels like when your nervous system is forced into stillness after years of constant motion.

Scott shares how he moved through that transition—from chaos and “looking busy” to clarity, leadership, and stepping into his next chapter as a coach helping entrepreneurs and creatives think differently.

We get into:

•  The mindset shift required to let go of your old identity
•  Why “staying busy” can actually keep you stuck 
•  How to be your future self now (and why it changes everything) 
•  The difference between selling the outcome vs. the process 
•  Why focus—not more information—is what actually moves your life forward 
•  How to navigate reinvention without spiraling 

If you’re in a pivot, a pause, or a “what now?” season… this episode will meet you there.

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Transcript

– Welcome + Meet Scott Proposki

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hey y'all, hey! Welcome to the Fitsin Project. Yes, I'm your host, Rachel Fitzpatrick, and I am real excited today because we have a guest, Scott Propowski. And he's built this kind of career that most people just dream about. He was a White House photographer. He was a photographer for major brands, eight-figure business, you know, National Geographic, NFL, you name it, the guy's done it all. And then all of a sudden, it came to an end. Literally, it stopped. So this conversation is about what happens to that identity that you built and it no longer fits. And I love this type of conversation. And I'll tell you why, because I just have gone through it in this like transformation myself. Building something that I absolutely loved and then had to totally walk away from it. So I totally resonated with Scott. I felt like this conversation was a movement in and of itself. And I really, really hope you pay attention to how he's shown his way to come out of it because maybe that's gonna land for you. And if it doesn't land for you, it's gonna land for somebody you know. And you're gonna love it. It's mindset, reinvention, future self-energy, and the truth about looking busy versus actually moving your life forward. Think about that, right? So, first shout out to some brands I love, RageCreate. You already know I love you. You have the calendars, the desktop pads, the sweet ass affirmation decks, one, two, and three, and a coloring foot to go along with them. And don't you know I have them all? I have them all, and you can too. You can go to ragecreate.com, use the code FITSIN, F-I-T-Z-E-N, get yourself 20% off. I'm sure there's gonna be a free shipping swagging around there somewhere too. And anyway, check it out. The link is in the show notes. You can also go to lotusandluna.com because they do fair trade clothing that feel absolutely organic and amazing, and they support causes for um employing women, y'all. So just check them out. Um, go find yourself some cute little summer clothes. They're always running a sell, and you can use code FITSINFITZEN on their website too, 20% off. So you heard it from me. All right, back to you and this conversation that you're going to love with Scott Propolski. All right. Awesome. Well, welcome. Welcome, Scott. I am excited to have this conversation with you and learn about your uh photography and your whole entire career base and how your coaching goes. Like, please tell me a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah, no, well, first off, you know, thanks for having me on the call, uh, Rachel. I kind of appreciate it. It's uh I know it takes a lot of work and ethic to be on these calls, so I do appreciate it. So um so as my intro goes, and it's kind of a hook as I say it intentionally, but I'm a former National Geographic and event photographer for the White House. And I've worked for um HBO, the New England Patriots, the NHL, and uh Google, Microsoft, and a few others as a photographer. And after I left the White House, I met some incredible business coaches that got me to create processes and systems in place to scale a photography business to um eight figures.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Nice. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Everything just changed off during COVID, right?

– The “I Don’t Know Enough” Trap

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, we got shut down, there was no big event. Um, we're a sizable company, 52 people, and um it just never really came back. Um and I couldn't shut the faucet off quick enough. Um because it just, you know, expenses are going on, trying to keep the company going on. And um, it just simply never came back to that level of uh multi-year contracts with different events around the country. Um, those are all gone, right? It was like starting all over again. And uh it took a toll on me. It was um it was difficult um to be launching a book in 2019, called camera focus, being on the road, you know, uh flying for this job, HBO, and going here and just all over the place. Complete chaos, complete chaos. And I thrive in chaos sometimes um to absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Right. Um it took a bigger toll on me than I ever imagined, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah, I would, I could, I can see that. Like I could totally see. As a matter of fact, at first, when I had the pleasure to get to meet you a few weeks ago and talk with you about it, I was like, man, I would really love to dive into how that landed with you, what it truly felt like in your nervous system having to kind of be still. Because, like you said, you are all over the place. You do have these like big name places that you shoot for, and you have been so what I would call successful in your career path, and the trajectory just was meant for you. And then all of a sudden you're just like you have to quit for a bit. What it what was that like?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Well, you know, it's um it's honestly, it was like a death.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah.

– Selling the Destination, Not the Process

SPEAKER_01 6:07

You know, there was a lot of there was a lot of mourning going on, right? And um trying to figure it out in your own was not a wise choice in my part. Um, you know, you just kind of, you know, you isolate, right? Trying to figure it out. And whenever you have somebody that's gonna isolate and you fall in a depression, the world's falling apart, you listen to the news, oh my gosh. Um, and it just spirals sometimes. And I was fortunate enough that I didn't spiral too long and realized that um, hey, what am I gonna do now? You know, um today I'm 58 years old, I feel like I'm 30, I look like I'm 35, no. Uh, but you know, I was 58 years old, you know, we you know I don't have the runway and the time to restart that business over again. And you have to think about letting go, um, you know, and have that mindset that you gotta let it go.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Yeah. That's hard.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

What are you gonna do next? It's yeah, it's easier said than done, right? Um, for sure, you know. Mindset though, right? It's very big.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yeah, absolutely. Was there like a special tool that you used or anything or a multitude of tools that you tapped into to help you kind of overcome or shift into that new identity?

– Future Self Energy + Being Present

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah, you know, I I fell into this role of I don't know enough. I need to take this course, that course, this course. And I don't know enough. I don't know enough. And honestly, you never know enough, right? And um, I fell in that trap of um, let me hide behind a zoom screen and let me look busy if I'm on a Zoom call, right? Um for some course or program or whatever it was at the time, constantly, constantly. And um, I was hiding behind the Zoom camera, right?

unknown 8:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Trying to look busy.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

But you inherently tapped into the fact that you know everything you need to to move on.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I did, you know, and it you know, it it it was a tool that got me through it, right? It was a new world. Um, I was trying to figure out I had coaches, I'm on these coaching calls and paying for this program, and I'm in these calls and I'm having these conversations with people. And I just noticed that I just thought differently. And um it was who I am, but you know, being a leader and having 52 people, it it spoke differently. I had I was very vision-based, right? Um, and I think a lot of people were attracted to that. Um, just like finding good employees or team members, I call everybody, right? Um, if you can, if you if you're a good leader and you can, you know, put out the vision of this is what's gonna happen, and here's how we're gonna do it, you know, sell sell the outcome, even in sales, you know, sell the destination, not the seat on the plane. And people want to see the destination. Where are we going with this? Sell me that idea. And um, I always had that mindset. And I'm like, hmm, you know, maybe that's my unique ability. It wasn't exactly taking photographs, honestly. It's that was past, that was gone. And it became more of a leader and a future-based kind of visionary, kind of individual.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Ooh. Man, but you did sell the vision literally with your photographs. I mean, if you put it in perspective a little bit, like that was the whole entourage, maybe just not tapped into the exact path that you just spoke. But yeah, that was uh picturesque.

– The Book That Shifted His Mindset

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah, yeah, the the big picture, right? Um, literally, right? And um yeah. So a lot of self-reflecting and trying to figure out what's next.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

What's next? And what did that look like to you? And how long did that take you to get there? So twofold.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

I don't know. I think I'm still there actually, Rachel.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Um well I try to be I try to be in the now, right? I try to be the now and I try to um, you know, what would my future self think? Because what I'm doing today is for my future self. The future's like in an hour from now, right? It's like now, you know, I'm being in the now. Um so my future self is actually kind of happy what I did.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Yeah, for sure. And you brought that in. Um I feel like this is so on par to what the Fits in Project is truly all about as far as your energy management and your vision and how to be that perfect visionary for the end game for the future self. But it does always begin with being present right now. But you have this uh unique capability, as you mentioned, of selling the outcome, not the the seat on the plane, you know?

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Right, right.

– AI, Photography & Industry Evolution

SPEAKER_02 11:20

And I think that that's how manifestation truly is embodied is by being the person that is at the end of the game versus the the stuff in between. So like you take on that energy of that future self in the now moment. Like how did you was that just something that you always carried with, or do you feel like um that's something that's like neurotypical for you, like just in general?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

No, you know, I you know, I had to be taught it, right? Um just like a lot of things. And I I had a friend on his name is uh Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Uh we went to we had the same coach many years ago, and Dr. Benjamin Hardy, um Ben, Ben Hardy, uh young young guy. He uh he wrote a lot of books, you know, not how but who and Be Your Future Self is one of his books. And um I was there when he was writing the book and got to see the draft versions of of uh Be Your Future Self now. And I just saw the draft and I would talk to Ben and he would tell me what's gonna happen with the book and how he's gonna do it, and I got the behind the scenes of it. And I was very yeah, I kind of fortunate because um Ben Hardy's just an incredible individual, um, wrote multiple books. Um and but it was that one book, you know, Be Your Future Self Now, that he wrote that I got to talk to him as he was writing it. Hitman on Dan Sullivan. So it was kind of a very unique situation for me. It really kind of changed the way I think, really.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah. And d your whole entire presence, literally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, I didn't think it was gonna make that much of an impact on me. I gotta be honest with you, but um, it just hit me like, you know, it really did. You know, be in the now, be in the now, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:14

So that brought you from COVID where you were completely like in disarray. And you put those tools and tactics in for being in the now, for your present, for future self. And then now, where are you now and how'd that land?

– Standing Out in a Noisy World

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah, so you know, I'm always always thinking the future, what's next? Um I'm always trying, you know, it right now we have AI, right? AI is crazy, something new coming out all the time. You know, I I I help creators, business owners, entrepreneurs, and photographers in their business. And yeah, it's my job to get to people to think differently in what's next. And especially my my group of photographers um to you know, paint a picture of this is what the future may look like. And are you ready for it? Because photography is not gonna go away. I mean, it's not gonna die. It's gonna evolve, just like everything else. Nothing dies, it's just going to evolve. And can you be ahead of that evolution of AI, right? Um, similar, similar to the days of that film photographer, right? Um, so maybe if you weren't born in that era, there was film, right? You had to develop it and um Kodak. And um, but there was a, you know, people that were doing photography and film, and then digital came out, right? Well, a lot of these film photographers that were at a certain age and they're like, oh, digital is gonna take over the world. I'm out, you know, and they left and they didn't see the future, right? And well, obviously, digital came through and it's brought photography even bigger, right? Yeah, so the iPhone came out, it had a camera on it. And a lot of photographers were like, oh man, you know, uh, the iPhone is gonna take over the world in photography. And, you know, we're not gonna have jobs anymore. And well, that didn't happen. And uh, you know, photography even got bigger even from that point on. Um, and even still today, we have AI, but I don't know. I don't see Canon or Nikon going out of business any day soon.

– Camera Focus as a Life Philosophy

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Right. Right. I feel like AI with anything can be used as a partner versus an enemy on a multitude of things. And of course, you can demonize anything and it will come to fruition if that's where your focus is. But in my opinion, I feel like AI is just going to enhance everything that we've already gotten. Um and okay, you know, like it will be what it will be, and that's perfectly fine. And there will be another loophole where you get to grow into humanizing things. One of the coolest things I um realized just the other day, you ever heard of Sturgel Simpson, Johnny Blue Skies?

SPEAKER_01 16:06

No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

He is um an awesome artist, he sings uh old-time music like country, but bluegrass, but indie. And in my opinion, he's just a regular everyday badass. But he's awesome in his music. And he specifically released his last album to be only on vinyl cassette or CD. So not uh streamed music in Spotify or anything like that. And he has proven that he is capable to overcome all of that digital and streaming because he ranked number three in the top charts for selling his debut album this year. And it's like no one's done that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, it it's being unique and innovative and thinking differently, right? What's your unique dominant position that makes you different than everybody else? Um is the bigger question, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Yeah. And I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Well done.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

In your photography and in your business as well. Is that what your book is um made up around? Is how to really just kind of put yourself in your creations?

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yeah, you know, camera focus came out um right here. A little copy here, you watch it on the video.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah.

– Intuition vs Overthinking

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Um yeah, it's a great book. Um it's a really good book. And yeah, you know, we you know, having a camera is your superpower to give you that vision, that tool, right? That if you have this tool, you can do anything. Um, and for me, that's what it was, right? For some musicians, it could be the microphone, it could be the guitar, it could be whatever that is, right? What's that tool that's gonna really get you like, man, I got this, I can do anything. And it was being very camera focused and and not everything else. I didn't get wrapped up in everything else. Um because it was so camera focused, right? Um and uh, you know, today we are all. I mean, we're on Zoom calls or riverside or podcasts, and um, we all need to be camera focused, to be honest with you, right? Um, so it's kind of a term that's it's easy identifiable, right? Like we need to be focused on the camera to do our work, to pay attention, to be in the now, and to move move forward in the world. It's just simply the way it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Um, I love that. It's so fun. I could talk to you about this for forever, but it's like um the yoga philosophies and stuff like that, with the focus. It's like my yoga teacher yesterday just had said it wasn't that yoga was invented and you do all this stuff so that you can um post it online or whatever, be the best or some ego way. But it was literally like you do these hard poses so you can stay in the now of discomfort and then notice what that feels like in your actual body. And then that brings in a certain level of focus for the present moment that you can then it's a skill that you like gain that you take off of your mat, and that's what you end up embodying, which I find that super unique with your camera focus.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Oh no, I I totally identify it with it because at that moment in time when you're doing those poses and you're in that moment, right? Hopefully, most times, you're not thinking about anything amount anything else.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

No.

– Reinvention & Letting Go of the Past

SPEAKER_01 19:53

You are just so zoned in, right? And that's the only and that's the power of yoga and mindset. And for me, camera focus, uh if I was taking um a certain project, right? I was just I would just analyze it, like how can we do this better? What can we do? How can we do it? How can we do it? I always don't think about anything else, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Yeah. And when you're like in the moment of shooting, how many angles did you did you find yourself of the same focal point of trying to get? Was it always just like, oh, you nailed it your first time? Or did you move with the movement of where you were looking?

SPEAKER_01 20:32

You know, I was kind of in a, you know, uh uh years ago when I was taking a lot more photographs, right? I was kind of a guy that looking back on it, even vacation photos, right? I if I didn't see it, I didn't take the photo.

unknown 20:46

Really?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Like when I saw it, I saw it. Like I didn't like, let me try here. Let me take, you know, I I wasn't I wasn't present, just took hundreds and hundreds of photos of of uh whatever I was doing. Most of the times it was a very few amount of photos.

unknown 20:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Um, most of the time it was just visually seeing what I wanted to do. If I didn't see it, why take it? Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

That's awesome. I know. But I was take pictures of my son. I've got like 500 of pictures that I will never look at again.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

But no, you never know. You never know.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

There's always one of the same photo and one particular pose. I'm like, oh, that worked.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

You know power digital.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Yeah. It's exactly why the iPhone phone like photograph and camera will never overcome the actual professionals of taking photos.

unknown 21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

You know, sometimes it's not about the gear, it's in the moment, the environment, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Um, getting the other person um comfortable.

unknown 21:50

Right.

– Writing His Future Before It Happened

SPEAKER_01 21:50

I'm sure when you take pictures of your son, you you kind of do certain things to get them to look at the camera. Um, you know, if they sometimes if there's certain Age, the five-year-olds, and give me the goofy face if I tell them to smile on the camera. But if I tell them to do something else, they're all in.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Right. So it's setting up your environment. Same thing when I do the Patriots or bigger jobs. You get to really set the environment up. No difference. No difference.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

So when you're in your coaching sessions now, which I assume that's where you grew into, right? Actually, do you want to talk more about that? Like your growth from COVID into your now era?

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, you know, it's it's not it's not about me, um, but it's it's it's a story that if somebody's listening, right, that that person, that unique person, is that I had a soul search of exactly what I want to do. You know, do I want to do this? Do I want to do that? But honestly, I I've always been in this mindset of call it coaching, right? Or a leadership role. And honestly, I'm the type of person where I don't see myself doing anything else now. I mean, this is literally what I'm born to do. This is what I do, this is what I'm good at. And um, you know, this tough times, you know, trying to ramp up or try to, you know, do some kind of promotion or promote it and maybe it didn't go well, or some did, some went great, right? But just like anything else, um, I have my ups and downs and trying to figure out the business with technology and you know, funnels and emails and you know, all the technology that you gotta be you get your head around, right? Um, but at the end of the day, I honestly don't see myself doing anything else. This is where I'm supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Yeah. I feel that. So when you landed into that, what was your biggest driver? Like you said, you know, you're not supposed to be doing anything else. Like you've always just been in leadership. And what was your like, yes, this is my focus point?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

I'm reaching into my drawer here. I don't really talk about this book that often, but I wrote a book during COVID called Um Be Focused.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Nice.

– Why People Stay Stuck in Old Stories

SPEAKER_01 24:09

And um COVID was just kicking in. It was 2020 when I started to write the book. And um, I was a beekeeper. I had bees. And um um and I, you know, I I had a mentor that said, Scott, you really should write a story about bees and should be a next book. And I'm like, well, where am I going with this? Right. I love bees. I think it's great. Um, but then and the uh COVID happened, COVID-19 was hitting round and it was all about viruses, as we all know. But being a beekeeper, if you um, and there's a point to the story where I'm gonna get to that's super important that changed everything my life. Um, um, being a beekeeper is like you need to watch over the hives to make sure that they survive, right? As a beekeeper. Um, and there's a lot of viruses that can affect bees. And this is the, you know, the news stories that come out about bees are in an endangered species, right? They're dying off because of different viruses, I guess. Um, so you have to be a good beekeeper to make sure that you can keep your beehives uh active and thriving. Well, COVID happened and we're getting this virus in the world. And if you weren't a good CEO looking over your company, your bees, your work of bees are just gonna die off. So if you're a good leader and a good coach or a good beekeeper, your bees are gonna thrive. Your business is gonna thrive. And so that was a whole metaphor around the book uh about thriving in corporate America. Um, you can't have two CEOs, you can't have two Queen Bees, right? So it was a really fun book. Um, so he wrote it during COVID, super high, again, Scott's passion, uh hyper focused on it, became an Amazon bestseller for like a hot minute, um, which was fun. Um, but what was really remarkable to me that I wrote the book in 2020, book came out in 2021. Three or four years later, I was reading the back page of my own book. The last page was right in the book. And it shocked me what I wrote. Now, this is in 21, 21, 2021. Um, just losing the business. You know, wasn't I didn't think the photography business, what I was doing, was gonna come back. And I actually wrote in my book, my coaching program, my website, ScottRposky.com, um, and that I was a business coach, and this is what I'm doing, and I'm gonna be at the I'm gonna help companies thrive. Well, I gotta be honest with you, at the time, I wasn't. And I laid out my whole business program on the last page of this book. And I only realized it until after I was doing what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Ugh. I got cold chills.

– Breaking the 95% Thought Loop

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah, so it doesn't matter how many books I sell, what the book does, because um that book obviously had a lot more power in me as I was writing it during Kobe, trying to figure things out. Um so I was just needed to be focused.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Oh snaps.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

That is awesome. I you literally wrote your energy in the now for how you were gonna be in the future. You've been doing that, like that's how you turned.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

So I saw that. I knew that. Yep, this was a sign. This is what I should be doing. So, yeah, very good question you asked me. Like, how'd I know? What was the sign? That was my sign.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

That was so great. And you gave that to yourself as not even knowing that you were doing that when you wrote that. You're like, yeah, that's what I do now. One day, it will be.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

It's funny. It was February of 2020, and I was talking about writing the book to my team. And we were in the conference room, and um, it was like March 3rd, March 4th. And I said, Um, you know what, this COVID thing, COVID-19, um, I think we're gonna have a global pandemic. And I think I'm gonna write about the book about the viruses, about the whole story with overseeing a beehive and overseeing your business. Um, and I'm gonna write about the book about a global pandemic with COVID-19. And I said, What? I said, a global pandemic. What is that? What are you talking about, Scott? And I said, Yeah, I I I really think this is gonna be a global pandemic. And I remember somebody in the office said, You're not gonna actually write that, are you?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

And I said, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

– Focus as a Superpower

SPEAKER_01 28:42

And uh, well, that's what happened. So from the st from the very beginning of this book, um, it it kind of helped me write it in the in my basement and from leaving the office in February, March of 2020, um, and going all the way through three or four years later, that um the power of me, you know, writing. I enjoy writing, I read a few books. Um, camera focus changed my life, that book, and helping other people. Um, and it just became this is where I was meant to be. And I'm okay with letting that past go. Even though we had a I had an extraordinary career, and it's still going on, um, which got me to where I'm doing today. But it's a new season. You know, people go through divorces and um, and you know, I I I speak to some friends that, you know, they've gotten divorced and they talked about their spouses, and they go on. Oh man, oh, and furthermore, man, can you believe? And I let them finish.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

I'm like, how long how long ago did you get divorced? Oh, about 10 years ago. They talk about it like yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

And they didn't let it go. And I didn't want to be that person.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Yeah. You know that speaks on so many levels, just in general. Um, you can repeat your same thoughts. Most people that walk around totally unaware of their self and unaware of their surroundings, they repeat 95% of the same thoughts they thought the day before. And maybe 5% of your day is something new. And you're just on repeat every single day in your mind until you really learn how to break your own mindset and break that charge to really try to think out of the box or do something new, whatever. It's wild.

– Being in the Business of Yourself

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Oh, I I'm a complete believer of that. I mean, sometimes um um, I remember I had a very big sales call planned for the day that I needed to be on a call. And um I didn't do any not this isn't all the time, but it was a big call. And that day I didn't I didn't do anything else. I didn't do any work. I worked for my home. I just I think I I was outside working around in my outside yard and outside my backyard and um just thinking about the call. So that when I was on that call later in the afternoon, I was like super just dialed in. And it was that type of call where I just didn't want to have, I wanted zero distractions um to be point on on that call. And uh, and so sometimes you just gotta focus on one thing. And not sometimes, a lot of times I try to do. Um, but I didn't, you know, it wasn't distraction. It was my mindset of going for a walk. I went for a walk, went for a hike with a dog, and just thinking about that call. What would I say? What about this? What about that, right? And um otherwise, you know, I did I get past the day, did I yeah, I walked away from other things, but this was super important to me, right? And so all day long I just thought about the call, what I was gonna do, what I was gonna say, how I was gonna go, you know, manifest that call, like it actually was already done, right? So it was super important to me.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah, that's really, really cool. I know um we could talk about the mindset and energy forever. I feel like that is just what you embody. Just totally when you go into something new, when something comes to you, it's literally like you have this calm essence and it's truly all in the mindset and how you approach the game.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Like, yeah, you know, yeah. I mean, you when you lose things, you gotta be a little bit more cautious sometimes. And it's not shiny object syndrome, right? It's actually thought out. Try to, you know, you make you gotta make quick decisions in the as a business owner, and some not right. But um, when you don't have as many decisions to make, you can think about it a little bit more, right?

– Finding Your Niche Without Overthinking

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um I want to ask you um a few a few more questions, but for one, I want to start with um what does it mean to you to be in the business of yourself?

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Um, I don't know any different, actually. Um I never had a corporate job. I never had any other job but working for myself um my entire life. Um is I've never had any other job.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

That's awesome. Man, not everybody can be so lucky. All right. So with that, you get throwing a COVID deal.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Um for sure, but yeah, it's just like everybody else, you know. We all have our our challenges and but um yeah, I don't, I just most people say I'm I'm probably unemployable, honestly. I don't know why, but I understand that not that in the I I understand the words, right? Um that unemployable.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Right. And then if you were to ask the next guest on the Fitz and Project one question, what would you want to know?

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Um I would want to know is I'm really big on self-awareness. Like, what's your definition of self-awareness?

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Yes. Because as you may know, you may not know, but the Fitzin project has been around for exactly a year, celebration year.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

I listened to the podcast, see?

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah, like how great, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

So one year.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

When you were saying earlier, you were like all of the people or all of the things you have been and gone through got you to this exact moment. I just feel that in my bones right now of being the person that I've been in all of my past lives to get me to this exact moment. And there's just nothing but gratitude that I see.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

So yeah, yeah. And you couldn't done it before because you simply weren't ready.

– Final Advice: Focus & Presence

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Right. Yeah, exactly. So now I'm venturing into entrepreneurship myself and seeing what that life is like. And I think it's so far been incredibly fun because I get to meet some really awesome people like you. And this has been fun. This has been a great conversation. So I really appreciate you jumping on here and reaching out. How can we get a hold of you or be part of your collective?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Yeah, so I kind of keep it simple. So there's um there's two ways photographer creatives. It's the camera focused method.com. And for the business, the business owners, it's business focused method. So business focused method.com or camera focused method.com. So serving two groups of people, um, two different issues, two different types of um businesses, right? The creative individual that's super creative, or the entrepreneur that's running a business that's trying to scale.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Because that's what I was doing. I was doing both of those. Um you don't find that too often. So I I see the creative side, but I also see the the the other side of the business. Like, how do we create a business that you want to prepare to sell, but you don't want to? Or need to.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

That's where we need to be at, where a lot of business owners they need a lot of help. Um, and having that mindset, let's create this business like you could sell it, but don't need to or don't want to.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

I love that. When I was working last year with a mentorship program, I was in one for an entire year. And it took me like six months to really identify um my niche, so to speak, or my client avatar, so to speak. And I'll say for someone who I feel like I can get along with everybody, it was really hard to get into that granular focus of what is exactly that I offer. And am I okay with it being 10 people in the entire world might love it? Like a sauce for just 10 people. You know?

SPEAKER_01 36:57

I I tell a lot of photographers, I'm like, oh Facebook ads and do this and marketing. I'm like, how many customers do you really need?

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Twenty?

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Twenty that's not I'm not looking for the entire world.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Just you know, you can go swimming in the ocean. You don't have to touch all the water, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Right. Yeah. Very well said. All right. Any one piece of advice you can give to let's do both, to both your creatives and your business people. What's your one biggest piece?

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Yeah, you know, it's actually, you know, everything we just talked about today. One is focus on one thing. If you're in business, focus and be in dominate that position. Don't don't dabble. Dominate it. Own and control that territory, right? And the creators, you know, be in the now. You know, we're always creating, we're always, you know, we always want to be over there. We always have to be over there, but you'll never be here.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Right. You can't skip it.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Uh yeah, be in the now and and um focus on one thing for the business people. And and a little bit of both on you know on both sides, really, you know.

SPEAKER_02 38:11

So yeah. Perfect. Well, thank you, Scott. I really appreciate you. I appreciate your time and your knowledge. I think this was so cool. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Yeah, no, it's awesome. Love sharing the words, try to help somebody out. My mission when I wrote my book is if I can just help one person in the world, mission accomplished.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

So well, you did great with me. I'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Mission accomplished.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

All right. Well, that is a wrap. And I will say, if this episode slaps, why don't you go ahead and send it to a friend? Don't be a knowledge hoarder. Send it, send it to a friend. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and go to the show notes and join my email community because that's where it's at. And I will say it's worth it. Uh, friend of mine through my email community just won my giveaway for my one year of being live with my podcast. And my giveaway was two free tickets to the full weekend of the Kentucky Yoga Festival. There's gonna be more like that coming along your way. So, either way, go into the email community, be part of the fits in community, and be part of the fun stuff that I share, not only just in the podcast, but in your inbox. All right, let's bring it in. Let's take this all the way to the um. All right, take a breath.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

And always know you are your most important project. Until next time.