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Introduction

Hello there and welcome to this episode of the She Calls Her Shots Podcast. I am so grateful that you’re here with me today. I imagine that you and I are either sitting next to each other, you know drinking a cup of coffee, or maybe a glass of wine. Or maybe I’m in your headphones while you’re driving in the car or doing laundry or picking up the kids, whatever it is you’re doing. I just hope you know how grateful I am that you are taking some time today to have this conversation with me. So thank you so much for being here. And today this episode is for my multi-passionate entrepreneurs, my heart goes out to you because I know how much of a struggle it feels sometimes when we just have so many different things that we want to pursue. And we have so many goals and we have so many different aspects of our business that bring us joy and that we want to pursue. And so this episode today is dedicated to you. 

And before we dive in, I wanted to do a quick shout out to one of my recent listeners who left a review for the podcast. The name that I have is Queen of Results, which is an amazing name by the way. And she said, “Krista has a great heart. I’m so glad I found this podcast. She’s approachable and breaks down the business of business in simple actionable steps. If you’ve been dreaming about how you want your business to look like but want some guidance on how to do what you need to grow, follow this podcast ASAP. So thank you so much for that review. I just appreciate it so much. It brings me so much joy getting to see them and getting to read them on the show. And so if you’re a longtime listener, if you haven’t left a review, I would absolutely love it if you took a couple of minutes today to leave a review on Apple podcasts. But all of that said, let’s go ahead and dive into this episode today. 

Idea For This Episode: The Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur 

So where did the episode idea come from? I have always been a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I didn’t really know that I was that when I started my business. I started my photography business way back in the day, in 2010, when I was still in college, and I thought at the time that my passion, my number one goal in life was to be a wedding photographer. That’s what I thought my thing was. And I became a wedding photographer, I started doing that and a number of years later, I really found a lot of fulfillment in doing branding photos for other women business owners. And then I thought maybe that is my passion, maybe this is what I’m called to do. I was getting really great feedback on it. It felt like a really easy transition. I felt like even though weddings and branding are very different sessions, going into the branding world felt very natural to me. And then when I started coaching, when I started doing one on one coaching, when I started this podcast, I then started to get this feeling of, “oh, maybe coaching is what I’m supposed to do.” And all of that to say that over the years, we come across these different passions and joys and things that we find that we love doing. And as fun as it can be to get to try something new and add in new aspects and parts into our business, as multi-passionate entrepreneurs, it often leads us to feeling we’re either going crazy, or we’re just always scaling through these different cycles of burnout. Because we’re always going all in, we’re always looking into, you know, what’s this new thing that I can add into my business? How can I grow this new part of my business? And so if you’ve been feeling like that, I just want you to know that is super normal. That is a very normal thing. As business owners we tend to be go-getters, we tend to have very big goals and dreams for ourselves. And so if you feel like you’ve felt all over the place, you’re trying to find that one thing. That one thing in your business, in your life that you feel like will bring you the utmost joy and success, then this episode is for you. So let’s go ahead and dive in.

The Life of The Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur

I’ve got five things that I want to chat about today about looking for your thing and the multi passionate entrepreneur life. So first things first, I just want to normalize that it’s okay if your thing changes over time. And I know that for me especially, I had been through this, as I had mentioned in my journey before. As my life stages have evolved, and as my priorities and my values have changed in life, so have my passions and the things that I want to pursue and spend my time doing. And I just want to help normalize or rather remove this pressure that we feel like we have to stick to one career or one thing over the course of our life or our business journey. For me, when I started my business, I was still working full time. Well, actually, when I started my photography business, I was in college. But I grew my photography business while I was working full time. And I got to a point where I really did love the company that I worked for. I loved my job, I loved my team. And sometimes, because I wasn’t all-in on my business, because I still had other things that I was doing that I found joy in, that I somehow wasn’t a real entrepreneur. And sometimes I think as multi-passionate people, we have all of these different things that we want to pursue. And because of that, we sometimes get this idea that because we’re not all in on one thing, we don’t have enough credibility, or we’re not an expert. And so we put this pressure on ourselves that we need to remove everything else and just go all in on one passion or one thing that we want to pursue. And I want to just remove that pressure for a minute. Because as creatives if you’re listening to this podcast, you are a go-getter, you love to continuously challenge yourself and grow, and we find a lot of joy and fulfillment in our work. And so naturally as the seasons of our life change, so do our priorities, and so do our values, and it’s okay, if at certain parts of your life, it might look a little bit differently. Sometimes you might go all in on one part of your business and pull back the reins on other parts, it doesn’t make you less of a legitimate business owner by doing that. So if you’re listening to this episode today, maybe you’re listening to this on your lunch break at your job. And you’re building a side hustle and you’re growing something that you love doing. I just want to encourage you and remind you that you are not less of an entrepreneur because you enjoy doing other things or because you have different passions you’re pursuing. So first and foremost, I wanted to kind of make sure that we talked about that. 

You Don’t Have to Be an Expert To Succeed in Business 

The second thing that I wanted to talk about is this feeling that we have to be an expert, and I’m doing air quotes. I know you can’t see, but I’m doing air quotes, as I say, expert. And because we sometimes have this belief that if we’re not an expert, no one is going to take us seriously. And I know that I felt this a lot when I was growing my photography business. There were so many aspects of photography and the business side of things that I just didn’t know. I mean, no one teaches you how to be a business owner, really. We don’t learn that in school. No one is like, here’s how to handle finances, and here’s how to handle business taxes, and here’s how to price yourself. And here’s how to be competitive in a market. Like nobody teaches us these things. And so for the first five, seven, even 10 years of our business, sometimes we can feel like we’re not an expert, we’re still learning, we’re still growing, like why would anyone take us seriously. And so often we think, well, if I just had more experience, or if I just had more of this, or if I just had this training, or this certification or this degree, people would take me seriously because I’d be an expert. But every single business owner, no matter what degree, qualifications, anything they have, we’re all continuing to learn on a day to day basis. And it’s not just the experience or the qualifications or the degrees or the titles or the things that make us an expert. It’s those experiences but also the belief that we have, that we have something amazing that we can offer to other people. For example, when we think of experts, an expert in our field or an expert doing the thing that we want to be doing, we sometimes have this idea that it’s the person that’s been in business for 10, 15, 20 years. Like they are 10 steps ahead of us. They have all of this stuff figured out. But guess what, for someone who’s just starting off in their business, they might connect and have a mentor who’s three years into their business. And that person that’s just starting off might look at that person three years in and think, Man, they are an expert. They have learned so much, they’ve grown so much, they’ve overcome so many different challenges and obstacles and have brought their business, you know, from the ground up for the last three years. And so I want to encourage you that, you listening to this podcast right now, I want you to know that someone out there looks at you as if you are the expert, because you are steps ahead of someone who is just starting off. Every single day, every single year that we grow in our business, we are further ahead than someone who’s just starting off. 

And so just encouraging and reminding you to remember that when we’re multi-passionate, we can sometimes again, feel like we have to be an expert in all of the things. And I want to debunk that myth and remind you that no matter where you are, someone is looking at you as if you have all the answers, even though you’re probably laughing like, “Krista, I wish I had all the answers.” Believe me, I wish I did, too. I’m 10 years into my business and I feel like I still learn even some basic things. I relearn things every single year as a business owner. 

So just remember that you don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to be this person with all these titles and certifications and qualifications in order to do the things that you want to do. Yes, of course, some fields require you if you’re going to practice whatever it is that you want to do that you do have to have a certain degree or certification. Yes, of course. But for most of our businesses, for most of our creative businesses, if you want to be a photographer, if you want to be a planner, if you want to be a coordinator, if you want to be a florist, if you want to be a coach, even, there are a lot of different coaching aspects where you don’t have to have a certain qualifications unless you’re going specifically into health, nutrition, diet and stuff. But there are so many different things that you can continuously give and share that are of value to someone who’s a few steps behind you. So that’s the first thing or that’s the second thing that I wanted to talk about. 

Your “Thing” Might Be The Thing You Didn’t Expect 

The third thing is, and this might surprise you, your thing might be the thing that you don’t expect. When I started this podcast, for example, I had no idea that it would grow into what it is today. As of right now, when I’m recording this episode, I have more than 60 episodes, and I have more than 55 star reviews. And that absolutely blows my mind when I think about it. I just had a conversation with my accountability partner. We talk every single week about business and how everything’s going. And I actually just had a conversation with her today about sometimes I even get freaked out because I see these reviews coming in. I see these five stars, I connect with people who listen to the podcast, who tell me how much they love it and how valuable it is to them, and I sometimes even get in my own head about, “oh man, I better not mess this up, I better continue to add even more value each week. And sometimes that success that we start to see, adds fear into our head of, “I’m not gonna be able to maintain this, what if I mess up? What if I do something wrong?” And all of that to say that I had no idea that this would be where it is today. And I was the girl who did not like sharing her opinions. I always felt really scared, intimidated. I have not always been the type of person that’s super up to date on world things. In general conversations with people, whether it’s dinner conversations, or dinner parties, or talking with people that I don’t know, I have never been that person that felt comfortable speaking up or sharing their opinion because I just never felt like I had anything of value to add. And if I had let that belief stay and remain true in my heart, I would have never started this podcast. Because I would have never believed that I had anything of value to share at all ever to anybody because I’m not sitting here coming up with these brand new amazing ideas every week. All I’m doing is sharing my journey and I’m sharing what I’ve learned from growing a business and I’m relating to other business owners and I’m having conversations with you about how challenging it can be sometimes to run a business and to grow a business. And if I would have let that belief hold me back this podcast would not at all have come into the world like it would have never happened. 

And so I want to encourage you that your thing, the thing that lights you up the most, the thing that brings you the most joy might end up being the thing that you least expect, it might be something that is completely opposite of how you’ve viewed yourself or thought about yourself. Maybe you thought you were never capable of doing this thing. And maybe it’s going to be the one thing that brings you the most joy. And so if you feel a nudge in a certain direction, or a desire to try something that feels crazy or a little bit out of left field for you, I just want to encourage you and challenge you to go for it and just see where it goes and take that pressure off yourself that it needs to be your thing. Because sometimes we put all of our eggs in one basket, and we think, “Oh, this seems like it’s going to be scary and crazy out there. And this is going to be my thing. And I’m going to put all these crazy expectations on it. And I’m going to have all these beliefs that it’s going to have all this immediate success. No, take all of that away, and just let yourself pursue the things that feel like they’re the right fit for you, and just see where they go. Because honestly, even when things don’t work, let’s say you launch something, you try it for a few months, and you realize that it isn’t for you, you’re still going to learn so much from that experience, that will circle back and help you gain more of the beliefs, more of the knowledge and more of the tools that you need to actually pursue the thing that you’re meant to pursue. So don’t put all of your eggs in one basket and think that this is it, this has to be the one thing. Let yourself go after those things that feel like they might be a little out there.

You Can’t Do Everything All at The Same Time 

And the fourth thing that I wanted to chat about is this feeling that as multi-passionate entrepreneurs, we often feel like we want to do everything all at the same time. And you’ll hear from a lot of people that you should not go about business in that way. And I’m going to be a little bit against that. The way that my brain works is that I only know two modes: I either don’t do anything at all, or I go all in. As much as I wish that I had this brain that could somehow monitor and mediate me from going too much or going too little, I just don’t have that. My brain has two settings, I’m either not doing anything or doing all of it at the same time. And I think that we hear so often as multi-passionate entrepreneurs that we have to pick one. Pick one thing and go all in, pick one social media platform and go all in, pick one idea and go all in. And while the sentiment behind that I know is a good thing because we’re trying to avoid burnout, we’re trying to avoid all of those negative things that come along with burning ourselves out. 

But at the same time, when we hold ourselves back from pursuing the things that we want to do, we’re not showing up on a day to day basis as the person that we are. We’re not embracing the multi-passionate entrepreneur that is inside of us. And so my suggestion, or I guess my thought around this is instead of holding yourself back, instead of telling yourself I can only pursue one thing right now, because so and so told me that I shouldn’t overwhelm myself, right? If you feel called to pursue 1, 2, 3 things, whatever it might be, that is totally okay. Just be very intentional when you’re creating your schedule for yourself, literally your day to day weekly schedule. Or when you’re creating your deadlines of when things need to be done and accomplished by, just make sure that you’re giving yourself enough breathing room. I think where the pain points happen is when we try to do everything at the same time, and we try to get it done like yesterday. That’s when the problems start. If you’re trying to pursue three really big business goals, and you’re trying to pursue them and complete them or get to these big milestones all at the same time, that’s when we’re going to run into trouble. But if you want to start things slowly, all at the same time, that’s okay. Just make sure that you’re giving yourself breathing room and you’re giving yourself a schedule that allows you to not only be in service to your business and helping the business aspects and those things grow. But you’re also being in service to yourself and your time and the priorities that you have and the values that you have and you want to live by on a day to day basis. 

Maybe you want to start a podcast, and maybe you want to launch a course, and maybe you want to do one on one coaching all at the same time. That’s absolutely okay. You absolutely can do that. But just be very careful of your schedule and your timeline for when you want those things to be fully ready, fully launched and be intentional like, I’m going to have 25 people in my course and I’m going to have five one on one clients. And I’m going to have 50 episodes and my podcasts all at the same time. That’s when I would say, let’s slow down a little bit, and let’s just pursue these one by one as we’re growing them without putting too many restrictions or these tight deadlines on where we need to be by what time. So that was the fourth thing that I wanted to share today. 

Be Patient: Success Takes Time

And then the last thing, the last point before I go into some mindset tips is something that is kind of a mindset thing, but also tactical. Remembering that whatever it is that you’re meant to be pursuing right now, and notice I say right now because this might change in three months, six months, a year. But the thing that you’re meant to do right now might take a little while to build momentum. And just starting to learn and to curb those expectations that we need to be finding success immediately or making a lot of money immediately. I think that as multi-passionate creatives and entrepreneurs, one trap that we sometimes fall into is following that belief that, okay, instead of pursuing everything at the same time, I’m going to pursue one thing for now. But then what ends up happening is when you pursue this one thing, maybe it’s a podcast, let’s just say, maybe you want to start a podcast, launch a course and do one on one coaching. And you say, you know what? That feels like a lot. I’m just gonna do my podcast right now. I’m going to focus on one thing. What ends up happening is that because we know that those things are on the back burner, we now have all of this pressure on how our podcast needs to find quick success. Because if it doesn’t find quick success, we know that we can’t start on those other things until we feel like we’re in a good place or whatever that measure of success is to us in whatever it is that we’re pursuing. And so we end up putting all of this pressure and these timelines and these deadlines and this belief that we need to immediately be making money from our current project, so that we can then move on to the other things that we want to do. And just breaking the idea that we need to be making a lot of money immediately. Because building a thriving business takes time, there is no shortcut, there is no quick way of doing it. You might be the one person in the world who was meant to do whatever it is that you’re pursuing. You might want to start a podcast, you might be the most amazing podcast person. You might in five years have the number one podcast in all countries and have millions of downloads. But here’s the thing, when you’re first starting off your podcast, probably not going to be so great. Episodes may not be super exciting, you’re going to be learning what it is that you want to talk about, what is your style? What’s my flow? Who’s my audience? And so if we put all of this pressure on ourselves that we need to be successful immediately, we might end up quitting the one thing that we were truly meant to do. And so ditching this idea that if we’re doing what we’re meant to be doing, success will feel easy, or I’ll enjoy all these quick wins, or all of these things will start to happen for me. Because the truth is that every single thing that you will do, or start or try in your life, it’ll likely start feeling a little bit like a struggle, no matter what. Anytime we try something new or try to grow in a different direction, it’s gonna feel a little awkward. We’re gonna go through some growing pains, and it is what it is. 

But just remembering that the thing that you feel most called to do, it may feel a little bit like a struggle in the beginning. And guess what, you might not make any money at first. You might not make any money for the first six months or the first year or who knows if you’ll ever make money. This podcast, for example, I don’t currently have any desire to monetize it at all or to bring in companies or do ads for other companies. I have no desire right now to do that. That might mean that this podcast for the length of its entirety, however long I decide to do it, I may not make any money from it. But guess what? The more podcast episodes that I launch and create, the more people that I get like you that love listening to it and find value from it, the more people I’m adding into my corner and into my little part of the internet and social media and into my world, that love the things that I put out and the content that I put out. And to me building that community is worth so much more than monetizing on the podcast. But it’s just accepting this belief and this realization that I may not make money at first, I may not make money at all, I may not make an income from this, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not the thing that I’m supposed to be doing. And so if you are in that place where you’re only pursuing one thing, and you know that you’ve got a lot on your plate that you want to get to eventually, I want to encourage you to kind of take a step back and really journal and ask yourself your intentions. And I don’t mean that in a negative way, but just getting really clear on am I putting a lot of pressure on myself to create some growth in this business that’s just unrealistic. Am I putting so much pressure on myself that I’m gonna burn out and quit, and stop doing the thing that maybe could be the best thing for me to do long term in my business. So just get really clear and ask yourself that question. 

Recap

So just to recap the different things I chatted about today. 

• So number one, it’s okay, if your thing changes over time, just with the seasons of your life, your values and your priorities will likely change. 

• Number two, if you’re not an expert in something, it’s okay, it doesn’t mean that people won’t take you seriously. We’re all continuing to learn and grow. And we’re all considered an expert to someone who’s a few steps behind us. 

• And the third thing is, remember that your thing might surprise you. It might be something that you least expect it to be. So if you feel that nudge to go in on something, follow your intuition. 

• The fourth thing is that you don’t have to go all in with everything at the same time. But it’s okay if you do. Just relieve yourself of those tight timelines and those deadlines where you feel you have to do everything at the same time. 

• And then the fifth and last one is just remembering that it will take time. The thing that you’re meant to do might take a while to build momentum, and so curving any expectations where you need to be making a certain amount of money or booking a certain amount of clients in order for it to be a legitimate path for you or a legitimate part of your business. 

Mindset Tips For The Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur

And so just to wrap up, a few little mindset tips, if you find yourself connecting or resonating with this, I want you to remember that you know a lot more than you realize. And I mean that in the sense of again, as multi-passionate creatives, we tend to forget how much we actually know about the different things that we are passionate about. If you’ve been in business for more than, I don’t know, six months, let’s say if you’re listening to this podcast I know you’re a go-getter, you are chasing after those goals, you are working hard, you are putting in effort, you’re taking messy action. You six months ago and you right now, you are a completely different person. You have learned and you have grown so much. And so just remembering in your inner confidence, what you have to offer to other people, you know a lot more than you’re giving yourself credit for. And I want to encourage you as you’re on this journey, and as you’re reflecting on the process of growth, and all of these things that you’re starting and trying, the new aspects of your business that you’re pursuing, give yourself time to journal and reflect on the process. Because you will be so grateful that you did a year from now, two years from now being able to look back and reflect on where you’ve come from, you’re going to realize: (a) You knew a lot more than you gave yourself credit for at the moment. (b) You’re going to also look back on that and just realize and be so proud of how far you’ve come. 

And then lastly, if you’re like me, if you feel like you’re multi-passionate creative, you feel like you’re all over the place, you feel like you’re trying to accomplish everything at the same time. You’re sometimes working a little bit too hard and creeping up towards that feeling of burnout, I want you to just sit back and ask yourself, “Okay, what would I be most excited about pursuing right now, in this moment? What is the thing that will fill me with so much joy and fulfillment and bring me so much happiness?” And it doesn’t matter if it’s not the most profitable thing or the most profitable business idea. And it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense to other people. You might have other people wondering why that is something that you’re going to pursue right now. I want to encourage you to sit back and just look inward a little bit and ask yourself, what do I feel called to do right now? What’s the one thing right now in my life that I feel is important to me? And just give yourself grace to know that that may change over time, it likely will change over time. But when you can be true to yourself and who you are today, right now, despite what other people might think, despite their opinions, despite our fears of failure, when you can be true to yourself, you’re gonna find so much joy and fulfillment, and every single experience that you gain is going to circle right back to help you get to where you want to go. 

Parting Thoughts 

So that’s everything that I had for this episode. I hope that this was so helpful for you. If it was, I would love for you to connect with me on Instagram, send me a message and just let me know what resonated with you. You can find me at Krista.Marie.photography. I’ll also have the link in the show notes. Please just send me a message. I love connecting with you and getting to hear from you. And if you heard this and you’re like, “Krista, this resonates with me so much, how can I dive deeper into this? If you’re looking to work with someone more one on one and to help you grow a thriving business and create that multi-passionate, thriving business of your dreams, I would love for you to head to the link in the show notes and fill out a coaching application. Every few months, I open up some new spots depending on what my client’s situation looks like. But there are a few different ways that we can work together. Even if you’re not ready to commit to a full three to six months of coaching, there are other ways that we can work together. So if that’s something that seems interesting to you, I will have the link in the show notes for you to be able to fill out an application and for us to schedule a discovery call. But until then, I just hope that you keep calling your shots. I hope that you continue to take messy action. And I hope that you just continue to believe in yourself that you are fully capable of accomplishing your goals and your dreams, and that I’m here with you all of the time. I always have your back and I will see you over in the next episode.