1-2-3-4-5 Sabbatical

Over the last couple of months, I have had a lot to think about, and I have been making excellent progress understanding my current vision plan and what I need to do to obtain my destiny. A big, huge, aha moment happened and to put it frankly, urgent changes in my life need to be made and it is time for me to “do the work.”

Here is a video to explain what I am doing, and if you’re more of a reader, the video outline is in full text below. Thanks for being here!

I am taking a Sabbatical from most work right now and using this time to work on what I’m calling my “1-2-3-4-5 Intentions for 2014.”

  1. One whole year of no alcohol. This supports my #4 and gives me a completely healthy body to support my mental and spiritual growth. You can’t have 1 without the other, and it makes this next step in my career even more investing.
  2. Two weeks of social media detox (I deactivated my FB account and logged out of everything else). I would like this to last longer, but some of my authoring goals require publishing and “crushing it” online in February.
  3. Three months of creativeLIVE time-off. I have had two years of intense education and at this point, every time I host I get completely derailed off of my own vision plan, and the time it takes to rejuvenate from a workshop back to this place of vision-action is very time consuming. It is my time now to put the education I’ve learned into practice.
  4. Four days a week spent in spiritual and physical growth. These days will be spent meditating, praying, reading and exercising. It is imperative that my mental and physical health be strong for me to reach my full potential in life. This is my biggest weakness right now and the most important in implementing.
  5. Five projects that I have started and/or have been working on for the last 2-3 years will be completed. They are listed below.
  • I just finished finalizing my wedding photography brochure and started sending it out. They are glamorous prices aimed for shooting only a very few select weddings because that’s all I want to shoot every year. No more killing myself over the summer weekends for a few hundred bucks. I will be re-branding my old wedding website (LifeworkImages.com) to match my new branding (on LaRaeLobdell.com and blog PhotoSister.com) and prices to honor the beautiful imagery I have loved to create for those select clients I have chosen to photograph over the last couple of years.
  • I’ve let my dream commercial client list sit and collect dust on my table for 6 months and need to honor my time invested in making my dream of working for some respectable commercial magazines come to life. This means I also need to finalize my commercial portfolio, print it and travel to show art directors in New York.
  • I still have yet to wrap up my Working Artists of Theatre Project, the 2nd draft of the large coffee table book is sitting here on my table doing nothing. I need to make edits, then share it with a few trusted professionals to help with final edits. My editor is ready to get this sent in for publishing. It will be shared with the world as a kick-ass promotional campaign piece (on LaRaeLobdell.com and blog PhotoSister.com).
  • My workshop is written on about 1,000 post-its, scrap notes, index cards, numerous folders, Evernote documents, iPhone documents, and more. As of last Friday, I am ready to finally author it along with a few ebooks to be published (on blog PhotoSister.com).
  • Finally, there is a young playwright I promised to produce her short play. She has done the work to write it, now it’s up to me to coordinate and produce it. I’m excited and ready to finalize that over the next few months and help make a young playwright’s dream come true while helping the foster youth of Seattle.

 

Everything is all laid out and I started executing it on Saturday, January 11th, 2014.
Work Happily Ever-After by Jeff Jochum

Along that journey, I FINALLY finished reading “Work Happily Ever-After” by Jeff Jochum! I had been taking to heart all the nuggets of information and had written notes the entire reading period. After finishing the book, I spent many days fighting an inner battle of WHO I AM and WHO MY CLIENT IS. That period was a mind-trip and that hardest battle I’ve fought yet! Forget about what is currently paying the bills and find what makes ME the HAPPY, right? Easier said than done, especially when I discovered…

I Photograph Working Artists.

When my research and discovery led to me writing that statement on a piece of paper, all the phrases my family, friends, clients, colleagues, and acquaintances filled my mind for days: “You don’t want to photograph artists, they don’t have any money,” “Don’t photograph artists, you can’t work for free anymore,” and my favorite “ Photographing artists will only hinder your journey.”

So I did more work. I poured through 6 months of Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Harper’s BAZAAR, and W, tearing out all the photos that are my style, photos that I could have shot myself, and the images that grabbed my heart. As I tore out these images, I categorized them and organized them in folders. I studied the images and took a deep look at what it really was that attracted me. You know what?

Every single image was a famous actor of theatre or screen, director of theatre or screen, playwright/screenwriter, fashion designer, or musician. EVERY ONE. They are affluent artists that continually work towards new art, creating for the world non-stop. They are A-Listers that own mansions. It was an ah-ha moment as I realized that I can have my dream client and make a good living doing it.

I Photograph Working Artists and will be compensated with value and live a happy work life.

Will keep you posted along my journey. For now, I’m still gettin’ in the grove after my social media detox but welcome your thoughts and insights!

Thank you for sharing your gifts. Thank you for being you!

 

Book list: here are the books mentioned in the video that have helped me along my journey (click image to purchase):
           

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