Photographer’s Corner | Chalene Johnson and SMARTY

“WHAT SEPARATES THE ENTREPRENEUR WHO OWNS THEIR

OWN BUSINESS THAT ISN’T PAYING THE BILLS, AND THE

ENTREPRENEUR WHO IS A MILLIONAIRE IS ONE WORD –

DISCIPLINE.”

– CHALENE JOHNSON

___________________________________________________

To have a thriving business as a wedding photographer, you’ve got to emphasize the honing of your skills in business, we daresay even more than in photography.

Where can you start?  Two key steps:

• Educate yourself in business
• Build a strong network.

We’re constantly on the lookout for a great networking organization.  Here’s one for women entrepreneurs: SMARTY.

what is SMARTY?

From SMARTY | SMARTY is based on the idea that highly successful women-owned businesses are a result of three essential elements: a solid foundation of sound business practices, a supportive, collaborative community, and curated ongoing education and opportunities that offer growth and expansion.

Recommended to us by the lovely Eva Chiou from The Wedding Pantry, we had to check out this OC SMARTY event with the inspirational Chalene Johnson!

who is chalene johnson?

From TurboKick.com | Chalene Johnson is an entrepreneur, TV fitness personality, clothing designer, author, motivational speaker, choreographer, wife, mother of 2 and relatable girl next door.

You may know her, like we know her, as the high energy adorable trainer from Turbo Jam!

We’re not go-to-the-gym kinda people. We’re the workout-from-home, a virtual exerciser if you will.  Turbo Jam with Chalene was actually one of the first fitness training videos that I [Drexelle] actually really enjoyed.  If you haven’t seen it, try it out!  She’s awesome.

We were super stoked, as apparently so were many other ladies as the room was packed, to hear her story of incredible success at the SMARTY event.

So we drove down to the lovely Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach.

Checked into the Orchid Terrace for the SMARTY OC event.

And sat down in the packed room to hear her speak on Developing Entrepreneur Discipline and HOW IMPORTANT your daily to-do list really is.

___________________________________________________________________

“MOST OF US WON’T REMEMBER WHERE WE PARKED AND WHAT DAY IT IS.  SO WHY DO WE EXPECT TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING WE NEED TO DO WITHOUT WRITING IT DOWN?”

– CHALENE JOHNSON

___________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________

“ENTREPRENEURS WHO ARE SUCCESSFUL MUST DO WHAT NO ONE ELSE WILL DO, BECAUSE IT IS PAINFUL, BECAUSE IT IS CHALLENGING, BECAUSE IT TAKES TIME.”

– CHALENE JOHNSON

___________________________________________________________________

She was so sweet and took 1 on 1 questions afterwards.

Chalene with Cassie Piasecki, the stylin’ SMARTY Orange County leader

I had to meet Chalene and thank her face to face for her awesome workouts and, of course, the amazing evening.  As an almost OCD Type A personality, I had to ask her personally about the how to get away from being the excessive to-do-lister that I was.  Her advice?

• Prioritize your to do list to top (MUST do today), high (must do this week), and medium (get around to someday).
• Only fill your day’s to do list with what you know you have time to do.  If you find you don’t, move it to another day so you don’t feel like a failure for not accomplishing everything.
• Break your to do list to more manageable chunks.  Instead of broad tasks like “improve PR”, break it up to “google PR reps, print descriptions of 10 PR reps, read descriptions” etc.

She shared tons of great stuff.  Hear more inspiration from Chalene Johnson here.

Check out the next SMARTY event here.

What helps keep you disciplined?  Share your tips with a comment below!