Ignite Arts Festival was great! I got to meet some really great young artists and I even bought a couple of their pieces. I met a bunch of new fans of my work and had an overall great sales day! The principal and staff at the Harding Charter School were amazing. They were so excited about the turnout and very gracious of me being there. Of course, I was just so happy to be a part of a great school and art program. 

I landed a new job within the photography world. This should be a fun one. I will be shooting kayakers, rafters, and tubers at Riversport Adventures. I can't wait!

Last night, I got to help a friend out with his bar, The Root. It was a simple but important task of being the doorman for the band, Dirty Red and The Soul Shakers. Fun times indeed! I even got to shoot a few pics of the band.

My wife and I got tickets to see Hall and Oates and Tears For Fears. I'm totally stoked for this one. It's gonna be totally 80's RAD man!

I got accepted for another art show. This one is going to be in the town of Duncan, OK. Small town, big heART right? This is the Chisholm Trail Arts Council Art Walk. I have family in Duncan and can't wait to see them again.

I also, have an art show coming up on 4/7/17 for First Friday at the Prairie Arts Collective in the Paseo Arts District. At this one, I will be showcasing "Bloom" a feature of many of my flower photos from the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and Butchart Gardens as well as a few others. These images will be hanging for the entire month of April.

      As previously discussed on here I kinda suck at this whole blogging thing. Part of it is because I only want to write when I think I might have something interesting to say. Maybe that's a good technique, maybe it's not. Maybe none of my stuff is very interesting. Anyway, this last month and a half, my lack of writing I am going to blame on a new job that I had. Yes, had. I handed in my keys today. It was the craziest job I have ever done. I think crazy is the right word. I was shooting still photography at dance competitions for a company I will call B.S. Photo. I replied to a Craigslist ad along with a bunch of suckers that read something like this, " Make $450-750 for a weekend of shooting dance competitions around the US." I thought I could do this on the weekends and still do my other photography work or something during the week. Most people think of a weekend as maybe Friday evening through Sunday and if we are talking about working hours, maybe 8-10-ish hours a day.
     What it really was, (you might need a calendar nearby for this). Leave at 6 pm Wednesday, drive nonstop (we had 4 people in the van taking turns) to Anaheim, CA from Oklahoma (19 hours), set up and start shooting Friday until midnight, set up and start shooting Saturday at 7:15am until just short of midnight, repeat the same schedule for Sunday, then on Monday, same start time but this time instead of ending at midnight, we get done at 8PM, tear down, load the van and get in, hit In-n-Out Burgers (my first time), and leave Anaheim at 11pm and drive all the way back to OK (19 hrs. again). When we get back to OK Tuesday night at 3:30 am (Wednesday). We get a text from our boss that we have a shoot to do tomorrow, technically today and they will let us know when. Keep in mind, Wednesday was supposed to be my day off. I finally get a text at noon from the boss that I needed to be on location at "1:15 No later!" The location was 45 min's away. Grrrrr.
     It keeps going. Our next "weekend" begins on Thursday again. We leave for Phoenix at 11 am. 15 hours back the way we just came from. We get to Phoenix at 3:30 am and our very special boss had booked our rooms for the following night, not the night we actually arrived. Luckily, the hotel next door had 2 rooms and I had the company credit card. 2 rooms at $260 each. Done! Check out the next morning and go set up for the shoot. We had a couple of hours of down time so we checked in to the hotel we were supposed to be in and then hit Joe's Farm Grill for the only real sit down food we would get. Started shooting Friday afternoon at 3 got done at 11:45. Next morning, 7:30 until 11:45 again. Sunday, 7:30 am until 8 pm and once again tear down and load the van. We pulled out of the parking lot at 10pm and hit In-n-Out Burgers again, then on the road for our 15 hour return trip home.

For keeping this shorter, I left out all the BS in the middle, like our system crashed multiple times both weekends and other stuff.  For those of you keeping track, that was roughly 185 hours of work (not counting sleep times) in 12 days. Maybe I'll get that $750 from the Craigslist ad!

So tonight I am reading The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. I can't even get though the introduction page when it hits me like a ton of bricks. I have heard it before but never really had any use for the info until now. I'm not sure if this was an AHA! moment or more of DUH! moment.

Let's go back to where this started. It was way back in the, uh, last night. I went to a Meetup called "Coffee with Entrepreneurs". We had lots of great conversations. The E-Myth book was highly recommended. Since I went full time photography last week, I am really focusing all energy on building my business and doing it the right way, whatever that may be. Something I heard throughout the night was the question, "Are you working AT your business or ON your business?" I knew what they were getting at, I just wasn't sure how to answer the question. It's just me and my camera. I am the business. Of course I am working At it. I had created a JOB for me not a business.

So how do I change this?

Back to tonight. I'm reading in the cozy corner this E-myth. I get to thinking about a conversation I had with my last boss. This guy is a boss of bosses, a manager of managers. He was a very higher up at Kraft foods for years and had 100's of people under him. He was telling me one night over a couple of beers about a mid level manager, named Bob, that used to work for him. Bob's job was to hire people to stock shelves with Kraft products in the stores. Bob was struggling to keep good employees and found himself stocking the shelves himself. My old boss goes to Bob and tells him that he is not doing his job. His job is to build a team, not stock shelves. He goes on to tell him that he should stop what he is doing and go find someone to stock the shelves, and train them to do it well.

I still haven't said what this AHA! moment was. I also haven't answered, "How do I change this?". As all this is rushing through my head, I remembered from way back somewhere basic business 101 stuff - Do what what you do best and hire out the rest.

I have never been a good door to door salesman or outside sales guy. That is not my expertise and quite honestly, I abhor it. So how am I going to build my business if I don't go find customers? Hire an outside sales person that does thrive in that environment - DUH!

That, my friends, is working ON the business!

Since you stuck with me through this rambling little story, I give you a pretty picture to admire on your screen. It is Mt. Rainier peeking through the clouds on a recent trip to Seattle. This shot was taken with my trusty cell phone and un-edited.

Photo credit unavailable.