120: Mark & Sam – How to Manage Stress + Burnout & Tips For Running A Business With Anxiety

I have three kids. My wee boy is 11 and my girls are 12 and 13. So I have literally one teenager and one about to be a teenager in the house. And pretty much for the first 10 years of since they were born, I said to my wife, look, I want to make a conscious decision that I don’t want you to be in work. I want you to be the mum of our kids. I want you to be there for them. I want you to see every day, them growing up and taking them to school and picking them up. I don’t want to be, I don’t want to pay someone else to bring my kids up. And I want to take on that burden and I want to try and make that happen. That may have happened. So I was able to, over that first 10 years, supply everything that we needed from my camera bag, essentially. And it was tough. And, you know, we didn’t always have elaborate holidays and we didn’t, you know, have all those kinds of things.

But we had everything that we needed because we could sit in the back garden and get the barbecue going and play football with the kids and set up a wee bum and that and play with the kids and play with the dogs. And we literally just had everything that we needed. And I thought, this is a privilege that we can do this. And this is what made me even love my job even more because I thought, I can’t believe that everybody in my street has to go out to work and I have to do this. It didn’t seem right to me. It seemed like I was cheating with photography and that’s why I just love it. And I’m like, why would anybody not want to get into this industry? So I was able to support the family for 10 years. My wife decided that she wanted to go back to work part time. So she goes back three days a week now. The kids are all in school, two of them, two of them, one’s in high school, one’s in grammar school. But yeah, it’s quite challenging. My wife’s very quiet and understanding. She’s introverted, so she doesn’t really get involved. And you know, Mark and Danielle have said, you know, why don’t you ask her along with the retreat? And my wife’s like, no chance. I wouldn’t go. It’s just not her jam. But, but I, photography gives me that ability to provide for the family and also create the lifestyle. The lifestyle, I suppose, is probably more important to me than even the money. So there’s times where I would maybe look at work and say, no, I’m not going to take that because I want to do this. Or I’ve said that we’re going to go camping, we’re going to go camping because that’s more important.

Yeah, well, it’s something very close to our hearts, Sally, to be honest. I think there was an advert that used to go out in Northern Ireland, and it was a young guy who was walking back from the shop, and he was saying hello to everybody, and he was happy, and he was like the life and soul of the street. And then when he got back to the house, he took his mask off, and he sat in his house on his own, and the lights dimmed, and it was basically just simulating that when he’s out in the public with everybody, he’s showing the person he thinks that they want to see and that the person that he needs to be.

But the reality of that is completely different. And that is so rife in photography right now and probably has been for many years. Because people don’t want to admit that they’re afraid, that they’re insecure, that there are so many awesome photographers in this world now. A lot of them you’ve had on your podcast and you know, when people listen to photographers who are successful, when they see that the work that they’re putting out and how awesome it is, it’s, it’s easy for them to slip into that mold where they go, well, what have I got to give? And to be totally truthful because we are all about being ourselves with what we do with our retreat and with our attendees. Mark and I have already spoke about even being on this podcast. And I said to Mark, what have I got to give? Like, look at the guests she’s had on and I listened to some of your guests over the last few weeks and I thought, wow, these guys are amazing.

But the reality is, Sally, we have something to give and you have to believe in yourself. Imposter syndrome, what are you comparing yourself against? Because everybody that you compare yourself against, if you dig deep enough, they have their own issues, they have their own problems, they have their own insecurities, they have their own way of dealing with it. And we’re all in the same boat and I suppose they do use a Hollywood term, the fugazi is basically that when you look at someone who’s successful, you straight away think, wow, they’re amazing. They’ve got all worked out. I mean, you go and speak, you speak to them at the bar or you speak to them in private. They go, this night don’t have it all worked out.