Living in Flow with Jeffery Shaw Part 1 (of 2)
“I think what inspires me the most is the contrast between mankind and nature.”
YOUR KEY INSIGHTS FROM jeffrey shaw
From humble beginnings, Jeffrey Shaw became one of the most preeminent portrait photographers in the United States. His on-location style and fine craftsmanship made him the go-to photographer for families of C-suite executives of Anheuser-Busch, Twitter, and many others, Supermodel Stephanie Seymour, news anchors Jim Nantz and David Bloom, sports icons Tom Seaver, Pat Riley, and Wall Street executives too many to mention. His portraits appeared on The Oprah Show, CBS News, in People and O Magazine and hang at Harvard University and The Norman Vincent Peale Center.
After 35 years of exceptional service to his exclusive clientele, Jeffrey decided to share his knowledge of business, branding, and marketing to support self-employed and small business owners as well as progressive-minded companies. He's an in-demand keynote speaker at conferences such as HOW Design, Growth Marketing, corporations the likes of Verizon and BMW, and institutions such as Florida Atlantic University and the Adams Center for Entrepreneurship. Jeffrey is also the author of two books, LINGO and The Self-Employed Life, a LinkedIn Learning instructor, and a regular contributor to various publications.
In 2014, Jeffrey started a podcast, Creative Warriors, later rebranded as The Self-Employed Life which is amongst the top 15% of all podcasts. His TEDx LincolnSquare talk was later moved to TED.com which is so rare it’s been said you have a better chance of getting hurt at home by your toilet. With abundant passion and a strong commitment to serving, we can expect there is much more to come.
metamorphosis
“I love that you use the word metamorphosis. Most of us, particularly as entrepreneurs, go through so many transitions and iterations of who we are in our lives that often the dots connect in a way that it makes perfect sense to us. Just from the outside, it looks like “How the hell did you go from being a photographer for wealthy families to an advocate for the self employed?” And for me, it all makes sense.
I started out in life as a portrait photographer for high-end families, I went into business at 20. By 23, I come transitioned to that specific niche, and did that straight out for 25 years, that was my sole source of income. I don't think you could have a more niche business. I did one thing. I did color photography, and traditional posed portraits for affluent families. But then about 13 years ago, I had this bug that I wanted to help other people. I had a coach for seven years. And when he retired, I just had this inclination that I just really wanted to do for others what he did for me, thinking it was just going to be sort of a side gig. But what happens to us often is, once that bug got inside of me, there was no turning back. I just found, I loved the business. I loved helping people. And it didn't have to be my own business I was building.
So 13 years ago is when I started coaching, and then coaching led to speaking on stages in the photo industry primarily. Then in 2018, when I wrote Lingo. Prior to that I'd solely been coaching photographers and speaking in the photo industry. And my concepts were so much broader, I want to have a bigger world impact. So I took my strategies of how I took myself from a lower social economic country town in upstate New York, to being the photographer for affluent families. And that's the journey. I teach about brand messaging, and how to speak the lingo of your ideal customers. I actually started there and started writing another book. I gave a talk at a conference and I walked off the stage and felt like I was writing the wrong book. So I immediately switched and said, Who I am for are self employed people? I felt it in my bones, it was just so deeply in me that I felt I am for self employed business owners. And of course, as our most profound moments often are in life, it was the most obvious moment because that’s the world I’ve always known. I've never had a traditional job. I've never received a paycheck my entire life. Of course I should be an advocate and a teacher for self-employed people. It was so obvious, but it was profoundly moving for me and changed my life. In the past two years writing the book, and then the book came out. The Self-Employed Life came out May 4th, and I just feel like I'm right on not just my purpose, but right on those I meant to serve.”
Life is an everything bagel
“The book I was writing was a deeper version of Lingo in a way. And it was recommended to me that the strategy behind that this book idea would probably make me millions, or would sell millions of books. I got the strategy. And I bought into the strategy. And I thought that's the right career move. But I just wasn't feeling it. I decided I wanted to stretch a little bit more into my coaching self. And I gave a talk that I now call Life is an Everything Bagel. It was about how your life can be an everything bagel. The fact of matter is that you don't have to choose between the poppy seeds and sesame seeds and onions and garlic and life. It's not until you stop choosing between things that you can actually choose everything.
I woke up and I realized I was faced with a choice. And I guess part of the reason I gave myself permission was you know, for one on ballsy, I may just have been I think by nature, being a self employed person, at the end of the day, I get strategies that will make money. And the reason for that, and I I'm a lover of money, I've no problem making it.
There's nothing like living in flow in your life and just feeling like you're doing the right thing. Once I had the concept and outline, I reached out to someone else I highly respected. My intention was to work with him as a coach to lay out the plan. I wanted to work with him. He came back to me rather harsh, and said, “this seems like it's a book just for you. I don't see this moving the needle. And it's not really worth investing in my services because it feels like just a book for you to write. But that's exactly the opposite of what I felt like. I feel like I'm writing a book for the world of self-employed people that need this content. And so now I'm just out to prove him and all the other doubters wrong.
I'm doing quite well at proving them wrong. How could we have known that there would be a pandemic where millions of people would lose their job and turn to self-employment? And now we're laying it right in the smack middle of the great resignation, where people are leaving their jobs in droves to finally create the life that they they want. And self-employment is often the way to do that. My timing was right. My instinct was right. And at the end of the day, what I'd say more than anything, was the instinct I just spoke of a moment ago that just absolutely trusting in my instinct that I'm on to something despite the promise of commercial success with the other book. I felt right about this one.”
on intuition
“Because it's kind of a process to this that I've come to know that you know, because gut instinct and intuition is one thing and then we doubt it and but here's the thing, I listen to my intuitions, but then I look for proof. And that to me is it's kondos kind of a system there, you know.
It's one thing to have the instinct of wanting to write this book. But then I looked for proof. The most obvious proof was, You idiot, this is all you've ever known, of course this is what you should be writing on. And that's when you're able to commit to the intuition. I just think that's an important distinction.
We have to be careful to not just follow every intuition that's sending us in all different directions. But at the same time, there's a huge loss if you don't listen to those intuitions. So it's kind of a two step process: listen to it objectively, and then dig for proof. Look for proof that your intuition is leading you in the right place.”
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