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Preserving Memories: How to Archive Your Family’s Photos and Stories · Building the Best You

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What does archiving mean in your universe?
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: For me it is just making sure everything that's analog to be digital.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: But three steps forward is to make sure that what is digital is renamed and redated.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: So what that means is, right now, if you go on a trip and you take a photo or a video, you can find where you took that photo or video.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: You can find the date, because your camera, your phone, which is your camera, captures that information.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: You can sort of go into the maps of your photo and figure out.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: You know, see all your photos from Italy or Las Vegas.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: But when we digitize analog it just becomes ING234.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Right, and it becomes whatever date it was scanned.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: And I know a lot of companies scan and it's great.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I mean it's better to have it scanned than not at all in case of a fire or flood or whatever.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: But then they don't make sense of it.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: And that's where sort of a professional photo organizer such as myself in my studio, that's where we make the difference in making sense of it.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the House of Germar podcast where wellness starts within.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: The House of Germar is a lifestyle brand, empowering women to live all in through interior design and personal wellness.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: We are a destination for women ready to reimagine what is possible in their homes and lives and then create it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: We are honored to have you join us on our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I am your host, jean Collins, and I invite you to become inspired by this week's guest.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the House of Jomar podcast where wellness starts within.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, jean Collins, and today we are going to be talking about pictures.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Get ready everybody, this is a good one.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: We have Halei Shoa and she is the founder of Picturely, which is a really cool company, and she specializes in something that we all think about doing but don't necessarily do it, which is archiving your pictures.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And she happens to live in LA, so we have a lot to talk about and thankfully, she is safe.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Her family is safe.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: We're recording this right after the fires in LA, so we will talk a little bit about that and the importance of what she's doing to help families preserve their memories and her journey and how she got to be doing what she's doing, and we'll also touch on a little wellness, because we always talk about wellness.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So High welcome to the House of Germar podcast.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, jean.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm excited to have you, and especially given all that's going on in LA.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So, before we get started, what is LA like, like?
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: What are things like for you and your family and for your friends that are out there right now?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Luckily my family and I are safe and the studio safe.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I'm very grateful for that.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: It's really sad.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of clients who've lost everything.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of friends them to ask them do I call them, Like, what do I even say?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Because it's such a huge loss to the whole city, to the whole county, it's been hard to even process.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sure.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because it affects a whole community and it's hard for us to even understand and I, you know, I live in and I remember seeing someone posted on Instagram that the size of the destruction of the Palisades fire was larger than Manhattan, and that was the first time it actually put that magnitude into perspective for me, someone out here who's not as familiar with that part of the country I've been there, but not as familiar and just thinking about the fact like entire communities are gone and how tragic that really is to be living through that.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: So that's a lot.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of heaviness to that.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So I thank you for taking the time to come and talk about your business and what you're doing in spite of that heaviness, thank you.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: And you know it's more important than ever to talk about this.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for that, so let's talk a little bit about you.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: And what is your career journey to becoming an entrepreneur, and all the sort of the praying and the visualizations and the digging.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: The digging deeper led me to the fact that I just love working with memories and creating with memories.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: You know, I love creating photo books, gallery walls, whatever it is with memories.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: You know, every year I make a calendar for my family with our photos was one part of it.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Photos was one part of it.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Another part of it was that I archived my own family memories in my twenties while working in advertising, because my family left Iran during the Iranian revolution and they weren't able to take much with them.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: So it was kind of like the house is on fire, what do you take with you, right?
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: So they basically my mom packed three suitcases full of photos in my mid twenties.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I sort of started digging through them and started archiving them, started emailing them to my family in Four Continents, to my family at large, and it was just would bring so many stories out.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, I remember this and that you know those two things is really what brought me to where I am today and wanting to be able to help families preserve not only their memories but the stories to give them an aspect and an avenue to be able to share their childhood with their grandkids or with their cousins or whoever.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And here we are.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: And here you are.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Did you ever think you would be an entrepreneur?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Yes and no.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: When I first decided to do this, I'm like, oh my God, this is going to be so easy.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Excuse me for laughing.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: You know how hard, can it be?
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't everyone want to have a beautiful photo book?
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: What I've always known is that I want to be a boss, like I've always been a boss.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I had a big girl job in advertising, you know, launched many campaigns that I was responsible for, and I didn't do it myself, so I've always had a team.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And so what I realized is like, yes, I love doing photo books, but there's a lot of things that go into having a company and I don't want to do all of it.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And so now I have to have a company, I have to have employees, I have to have standard operating procedures and know how to do all the you know, payroll and clean.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I'm the chief cleaning officer as well.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Right, there isn't an HR department to call when you have questions or need to form for something.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Or you know IT.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: You know I've always, you know I'm kind of a tech geek, which is why I another reason why I wanted to do this, because I understand technology.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: But it's like you know you need IT when your server goes down.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: It's like, what do I do now?
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: It's the hardest thing I've ever done and it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Which is really cool.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Now, when you started your business, was it just you or did you hire a team right away?
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: It was just me.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: It was just me and you know I started right out the gate.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I got a client who may have been the client, but the biggest stash of photos I've ever seen, still, you know, because I was in this coaching group.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: It was a women's empowerment group and there was a woman in the group and she's like.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: You know, I have, I think I have a client for you and so we show show up.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: It was in Laurel Canyon.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Her dining room was bigger than my house and it was three feet deep of photos.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And then in the perimeter of her dining room, were also three feet of photos, oh my goodness.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: And yeah.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: So at the gate I was like, okay, wait I.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I got into this to wanting to do photo books and what do I do now?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: And so it sort of pushed me into archiving and learning how to archive.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: How do you properly archive?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And you know, I started studying the Library of Congress, the.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: You know the literature that they put out in terms of archiving, and so, yeah, it was good.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So what is archiving mean in your universe?
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: For me it is just making sure everything that's analog to be digital.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: But three steps forward is to make sure that what is digital is renamed and redated.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: So what that means is, right now, if you go on a trip and you take a photo or a video, you can find where you took that photo or video.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: You can find the date, because your camera, your phone, which is your camera, captures that information.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: You can sort of go into the maps of your photo and figure out.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: You know, see all your photos from Italy or Las Vegas.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: But when we digitize analog it just becomes ING234.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: And it becomes whatever date it was scanned.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: And I know a lot of companies scan and it's great.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: I mean it's better to have it scanned than not at all in case of a fire or flood or whatever.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: But then they don't make sense of it.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: And that's where a sort of a professional organizer, photo organizer such as myself in my studio that's where we make the difference in making sense of it.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine making sense of my boxes of photos, so let's talk about this from a consumer perspective.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: So if I were to reach out to you, what's the process?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: When were you born, when was your partner born, the kids, your parents, anyone that we could find in old photos.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: So we do a family chart and we paste it all over the studio when we're working on a collection.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: And the reason why we do that is so that we can organize things chronologically.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: And when we organize it chronologically, then we scan it and then we can rename and redate it based on the chronology of what we receive it, and then we can rename and redate it based on the chronology of what we receive Right and so and our clients have their clients who have never talked to before.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: You know, you could have as much information as you'd like.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I can give our clients like a weekly update, or, you know, I can just put it in a Google sheet and share it with them and they can look at it.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: So, as little involvement, it's just the beginning where we need to understand OK, show me what your mom looked like when she was five and 15 and 25, and then we can figure out the rest Right.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: So we just want, we just need to see what people look like at different ages so that we can identify those photos and match it to the timeline.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: So do you literally take boxes of photos and like lay them all out?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: What's your studio look like, literally?
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Literally Well, we have a lot of flat space.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: It's like a puzzle.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, exactly that.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have a lot of flat stand up desks because sometimes you just get tired of sitting down and sometimes you need to kind of move fast in sorting Right.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: So one side of the studio is where all the digitization and the analog organization is, and the other side of the studio is where we do all the digital organization and that's when we download your iCloud and your partner's iCloud and come up with a solution on how we can combine that with the things that we scan in case you want to provide, you know, certain aspects of it to family at large and keep certain aspects of it private.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot that goes into really understanding how you want to enjoy your memories and how you want to share it.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Do you just want to share it with you and your partner and maybe your kids, or do you want to go and give certain parts of the library to your parents, say, or to your aunts and uncles, because a lot of times one person in the family ends up with all the family photos.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: It could be the eldest child, or it could be the child that has the biggest house, or it could be the child that has the biggest house, or it could be the child that has more money or more kids.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: You know, whatever it is like usually like one person ends up with everything and what the work that we do.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: We allow families to be able to share that with families at large.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: So cool, so you're taking not only people's printed photos from years ago, you're also taking their.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: You can take their digital library to incorporate all of that, to make it present, to like include the family memories up into present day to get adopted and people were still printing it, because it was just what we did, and they didn't know what to do with the digital files, yeah, so a lot of times it would end up in cds.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: So we get a lot of cds with a lot of that because they didn't know what to do with it.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I'm laughing, I have boxes of cds and photos.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I am totally your ideal client.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh drives like memory drives drives and you're like, oh my god, I haven't seen that photo of my kid, who's now like 25, 28, whatever you know because their baby photos are stuck in these little thumb drives or digital video.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: You know tapes.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, we did a lot of tapes when they were younger, so we take all of that and we include all of that in the library.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: So there is nothing that we can't do in this agency, and it's wonderful to be able to be a 360, like to be able to provide like.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: If you consider something a memory, we can help you archive it.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Wow, including film.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Do you do actual?
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: You know, whatever those like, film stips.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: No, I'm thinking like when we used to go and have your film developed at you know the Kodak place and you'd get the envelope and you'd get the pictures, but you'd also get, like that strip, the negatives, people who can't watch this.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, the negatives.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: In fact we really encourage our clients to scan the negatives because you actually get more photo.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: The ratio of negatives is different than the four by sixes that we used to get.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: The four by sixes get cut off.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: So when we scan the negatives you can actually see more photo.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Now it may not matter because most people, if they're okay to good photographers, they were sort of framing the picture correctly.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: But these photos, especially if they're in sticky album, they really degrade considerably.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: So we really do encourage to scan the negatives.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: It is more expensive but you know you get a better quality scan out of it.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And then what is the output like?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: So you know it's important to note that when we actually go through our clients' collections that we curate heavily, like you know, you may have gone with your girlfriends back in college and even high school.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: You guys may have gone on a trip and you just took so many photos of the sky, the this, the that that you may not even, you may not even care about now.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Right, it's just the people, the people photos that really matter.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: So we take out the things that may not matter to you and to things that you may want to pass on to future generations, and so we curate heavily and anything that we scan goes into beautiful boxes, archival boxes that we return to the clients and they're able to sort of.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: If they're looking at their library, the digital library, they're able to go into the box and find that photo so they can actually thumb through the photos.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Because I do think analog photos and memories do have a lot of energy.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: They hold a lot of energy.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: So someone can see it digitally and then the way it is described or whatever.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: They can then go find that actual image as well.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're matched.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: It's like a library system.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's so cool.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: That is even better.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: They're just sending back the box in this random order, being able to go back and sometimes get those pictures?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: There's no random order yeah, oh, wow, well, and the other thing I'm thinking of, which this might sound a little bit morbid but is actually very applicable.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: You know, when your parents pass away, or you know grandparents or family members that are older, if you go to have a memorial service for them, there's this mad dash and scramble to come up with photographs of them throughout their lifetime, and I know for myself from personal experience like there's a lot of time and energy spent on that at a time that you that's not where your energy should have to be going, and so it would be so helpful and I remember after the fact being like oh, there's that photo.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: It's such a bummer, we didn't find that in time for the poster in this, and you know so to be able to have that, especially as our parents age, so that they can give the input on those photos, as well as to what those photos are, especially, you know, the ones that they have inherited from their parents and of their youth.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I could look at pictures and I wouldn't necessarily know if it's my father or my uncle, but yet my father, since he's still alive, would be able to tell me that, and now is an important time to do that.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so important.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Even if you don't want to get your whole collection digitized and organized right away, I think it's really important to go through it yourself.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: I know it's really daunting, but I'm going to just give you and your listeners some just quick tips on even how to start.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: So one of the things that we encourage everyone to do is to take everything out and put all the like for likes together.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: What I'm talking about is put all the CDs and DVDs together.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Put all the tapes together that are the same, even if you don't know what tape you have about is put all the CDs and DVDs together.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Put all the tapes together that are the same, even if you don't know what tape you have.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Just look at the size and go okay, I think that's the same as that because it's the same size.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: So that way you would know at least how many VHS tapes you have, how many high eights, how many loose boxes of loose photos do you have, how many albums do you have?
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: And then you could go from there.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: An album holds approximately three to 500 photos, usually closer to the 300 range.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: A box a shoebox of photos holds about a thousand.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So if you have like five shoebox worth of photos.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: You know you have about 5,000 photos.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: If you have 30 albums, you know you have about 900 to 1 photos, right?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So then that way you can get an idea of how many photos that you have.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: And if you do want to go to the next step, you know, always start with the albums, because that's where you, or your mom or your grandmother or whoever, spend some time to organize that and put that together.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: So always start with the albums, because then that gives you some semblance of an organization.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: This is exactly what we do in this agency, by the way.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: We always start with the albums and we always leave the loose photos to the very end, because the loose photos are either the photos that were the most important, because someone passed away and you were scrambling and you took out the best photos of them, or they're the sort of the C photos, the photos that you didn't necessarily want to throw away but you didn't want to put it in the albums.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like a good rule of thumb to start there and then take your tapes and DVDs and CDs to someone local or, you know, call us and we can help you.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: But take it and get those digitized and transferred and make sure that they can rename and redate, because there's information on even on VHS tapes.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Somebody always wrote something like so-and-so's graduation 2002.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Right, there's information on there that you must retain and it's really important not to lose that information.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Wow, lose that information, right?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: So of the digital output, can people then take those files and let's say, I'm just going to use like Shutterfly, for example, right, you know, I have different books that people have created over my daughter's lifetime of her at different periods of time, and are the photos in a format that someone could take those and be like oh wow, let's take that Paris trip that we never did anything with and let's create a bound book from it.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely Okay.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: All your digital and all your digitized analog will all be in a format where you could do multiple types of projects with them gallery walls and photo books and we do that all the time with our clients.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: How do your clients find you?
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: Well, we're on all the socials, our clients.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: How do your clients find you?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Well, we're on all the socials except TikTok.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: I never did TikTok, but I'm on Instagram.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: We do a lot of tips on Instagram and Facebook and, of course, our website.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: So do you find most people come to you because they know someone who's done something or they've just done a Google search and then they find you that way.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Now that I've been established for some time, it's both.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: It's through word of mouth.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: I work with a lot of designers and I work with a lot of home organizers.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Because you know designers, can you know obviously anyone, anyone that can go into someone's home and see and be able to help a family, like we're all resources for our client, like I.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: You know I always tell my clients.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: If you need anything, you know, even if it's like a really good plumber, just let me know and I can, I can figure that out for you.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know like we are all such deep resources for our clients that you know home organizers and designers can go into the home and go okay.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Clients yes, that you know.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Home organizers and designers can go into the home and go okay, you know, I know someone who could do this for you.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I get referrals through sort of our what we consider power partners.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: And then Google is a big one.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I would think so.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is there a part of you that's a little bit amazed at how big your business has?
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: gotten.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean I, I practice gratitude every day and my business is always in my heart, and even when it's, you know, in the slow periods and I've been in business long enough to know that even the slow periods is a gift from the universe to say, okay, now you get to work on your business.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, exactly this is a gift and use it as that.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Everything is a gift.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Every day we wake up is a gift.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: You know, sometimes I have to pinch myself.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: I have 18 hard square foot office.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely beautiful.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: I designed every aspect of it, from picking the flooring to the colors on the walls, and I only had five days to do it.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: And it's beautiful.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: And we receive clients here and.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: But of course, we also go to our clients, no matter where they are, to be able to help them and collect their, their information and their assets.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and how do most people ship everything?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to you, because I'm thinking of the woman with all of those photos and, you know, in her dining room, like that's a lot of stuff.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Well, luckily Laurel Canyon is not that far from where we are in Los Angeles, so we were able to go to her, but this is still when I had my regular job in advertising.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: So I got the client.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: And then I was working at an ad agency that was doing a global work for Jaguar and Land Rover, and then they turned around and said, hey, will you, can you be our director of operations globally?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: And I was like, well, I can't really turn that down, cause that's a little gig.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: And so I put my husband on the the photo organizing stuff, because he's he used to deal with assets and he's a photographer.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: So it was like go time in 2016, 2017, 2018.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: It was like I, you know, we were both working 24 hours a day.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: It was like go time in 2016, 2017, 2018.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: It was like, you know, we were both working 24 hours a day.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: It was fun and it was exhausting and we learned.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: We both learned a lot, but you know, it's of course, it's easier for us to work with our clients, but you know, we got.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: I've gotten to a point where I don't really need that much of my client's time.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: I just really need to understand their goals, which is, you know, we have a pretty good process in obtaining that and and just learning who is really important in their photo collection, right, doing the upfront work of who's who.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: It's the who's who org chart.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, oh, that's so fascinating.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: All right, so you mentioned the universe One of my favorite things to start to talk about and gratitude I can woo-woo with you for a long time yeah.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I'm all in.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I'm all about gratitude.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I start every day with a gratitude practice, so I would love to learn some of the things that you do, because I always think for my audience.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: They see us as these businesswomen who run these businesses, and yet it's important for them to understand the stuff that we do on the side to take care of ourselves and our own inner wellness, because it is a necessity I feel, and I feel very strongly about this.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: As an entrepreneur, and especially as a woman, you have to take care of you, otherwise no one else is going to.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: So let's talk a little woo, let's talk a little wellness.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Let's get woo yeah, let's get woo yeah, let's get woo and well.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: For me, woo and wellness are hand in hand.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Obviously, when things are well and you have all these clients flowing through and everything is working out perfectly, it's great.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: But there's an ebb and flow to everything.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: There's an ebb and flow to our bodies.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: There's an ebb and flow to everything, to what's happening in the world right now.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And you know, the good is great and the things that I'm not going to say negative, but the things that go against what we expect and what we don't want is what's happening for us and not to us.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, so when the going gets really tough, I just kind of go to that 30,000 foot level and sort of try and see why this is happening for me right now.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: What are the lessons that I'm supposed to take away from this?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: And it really changes the energy of holy cow, you know, and that anxiety to really getting grounded and, you know, being able to stay clear and have your clarity as you're going through these tough times.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a lot.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: It's hard to do sometimes, especially as an entrepreneur, because you're carrying the weight of your success.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Plus, once you have employees, you're carrying the weight of their success also, and that's a lot.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of responsibility.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: It's a lot to sign up for.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: But you know, I do believe that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: So our spirits are here to learn from this human experience, from this vessel.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: So what am I here to learn and what is my purpose?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: And I've always known that my purpose is service.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, and service comes in so many different ways.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Right, I could be a doctor, or I could be a photo organizer, right, of course it's still service Service.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Customer service in your business is critical.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: You are still in a service industry that's right, trying to make people's lives better.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, now do you journal?
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Do you meditate?
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: pray.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: I don't meditate.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I do nature walks, which is kind of a meditation.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, although our nature right now is she's going through a lot right now.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do journal, but not every day, you know, and it makes me so sad because when I go through my journal I'm like why didn't I remember about that?
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: So then but just like life gave them away, I have ADHD and it's hard for me to have consistency and I think it's important.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I was always like ashamed of saying that I have ADHD.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Because I'm like I have a big girl job.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I can't say I'm ADHD or I'm an entrepreneur.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: But you know what, whoever's listening to this, you're not alone.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of successful people with big jobs or businesses that are growing and thriving who have ADHD.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: It's not easy, but you have a magical brain like I do, and sometimes the consistency part is difficult for us, and especially the consistency part in wellness.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, and I think it's important for us to at least remind ourselves that our person is important.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: We are important, especially as women.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: We have to continue to remind ourselves that we're important and to make sure that we are making ourselves.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Like you know, I always put myself last.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh, the business, the husband, the family, the, the, and yeah, no, it's, I'm important, I need to take care of myself.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: So yes, you have to make yourself a priority.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly yeah, without a doubt.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: My business coach always says you know I am valuable because I am, and it's like you know.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: She's always reminding me like you are valuable because you are, not because because I am.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: She's like it's not just because you hit a revenue goal or you accomplish this.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: And it's hard as an entrepreneur because we evaluate ourselves based on such different success metrics and she's always trying to get me to like pull inward in terms of success as an entrepreneur.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I try and redefine success for me, because success in most first world countries is money.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Right, what's success?
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, how much money am I making?
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: But for me, the success is the fact that I don't have to work 10 hours a day and I don't.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: You know, success is for me to have a flexible schedule, for me to be able to see my parents my dad's 97.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: My mom's 84.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, for me to be there for my husband and my family so we can define our.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, we have, let's put it this way, I'm so grateful that I can define success for myself.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: That's another thing that I'm really grateful for, that I can define that as an entrepreneur.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, and a lot of times they say I was just reading a book called the Illusion of Money and it's that you know really what we want.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: It's not that we want money, we want freedom.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: And you know people don't like scream and yell like, yeah, I want to work 18 hours a day to make all this money.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: We don't actually want that.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: We want freedom of choice, you know, and we want freedom to be able to be ourselves and do the things that we want to do, and money sometimes affords us that freedom.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: But a lot of that comes from within.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: First, in order to get that freedom is understanding who you are and finding your passions and following it.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so what's on your bucket list for the future, for you personally and professionally?
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I think that, ironically, I think these fires are going to really make people a little bit more conscious about preserving their memories and therefore positively affecting people calling us and wanting to hire us, sort of from the ashes we rise.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: I mean not that this oh my gosh, I can't even imagine if anything happens to the studio.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: But so I think that's a good thing.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: We're just kind of gearing up.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: I've gotten a lot of phone calls.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I just went to New York to be on Good Day New York to talk about the importance of preserving and how to even make it so we're agile in case something happens in the house.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: But personally I would.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: You know I always want to take an international trip every year and I've been doing that for at least 20 years.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: So this year might be Japan, I don't know yet it's a big one.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, so it depends on you know, on a lot of things like the when and how and all that stuff.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: But it's hard.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: It's hard when you have employees and they rely on you for a lot of information for you to be out three weeks.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Right, yes, exactly, that's a tough vacation to take, but if you're going to go that far away, you almost need to.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, so that's one of the things.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: And then just continue my self-care Like I really started a good self-care routine that I am comfortable with.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It's not, it's not super difficult.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: So just continuing that and continuing to feel better, to feel lighter and healthier and more clear about what we need to do.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but then the universe brings what you what you think about is what you attract.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: So I truly believe that, right, and so that's like talk about manifesting Exactly, like really, what you think about is what you attract, and I've met so many entrepreneurs that are like that's exactly why I have what I have and how I've created the life that I've had is that I just believed in myself and I had a vision and I had a goal and I just kept taking baby steps towards getting to it.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And that's manifesting in its most basic sense.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: It's so true, yeah, which is so great.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I've taken up so much of your time and truly, once again you're in LA and I just feel so grateful that you were even willing to get on with us, because I feel like there's just a lot going on in your universe over there.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: So, before we go, I always like to ask my guests if there's a book that they would recommend that has impacted them either professionally or personally, because I'm a true believer that books can change lives.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: So is there a book you think our audience should read?
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, there is a book by my coach, who I studied with in 2015.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: And I'm actually one of her coaches now.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: I went through her TAIL program and I'm also a life slash business coach.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Love it, and her name is Andrea Quinn and she wrote the nine essential tools for women to be able to accomplish anything.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Ooh, so yeah, it's great.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: I, you know, I coach with her nine tools, I practice her nine tools.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: It's not anything that we never heard of, but it's just the way she puts it and it's a very magical program and it's a very magical book, and so I hope that you guys all look her up and get her book and get her audio.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: It's her voice and she's a slice of heaven.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: She's amazing.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I have never heard of her and I do try to read all the books that all of my guests recommend, so I grow a lot by having so many guests on.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It's wonderful.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So I love coaches.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: I think coaching is so important, both personally and in my career.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I think coaching is really important, yeah, and I think it's a gift to be able to coach people, so I am so excited.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I will definitely read her book.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that I did not ask you that you want to make sure we get out, that you want to share?
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: If people want to sign up for on our website it's picturely P-I-C-T-U-R-L-I and that's a weird spelling P-I-C-T-U-R-L-Icom slash connect.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: So if you want to connect with us, you can sign up for a seven step guide on how to start organizing your own photo collection and it's a really good tool to just.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Obviously it's not going to give you everything that you need because it is a long process, but you can sign up to receive that.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Otherwise, reach out to us, follow us on all of our channels.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: On Instagram and Facebook, we put out a lot of great content that I think is helpful.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Also, if you sign up, we do a lot of workshops and, of course, comes out.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I'll tag you on social media as well, so everyone will be able to go and find you.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So, haleigh, thank you so much.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: This is really.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: It makes me think.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: This is kind of on my to-do list is to deal with the many boxes of photos that I have from when my daughter was younger in particular, and I know my father has an attic full of family photos and every time I go up there it honestly just gives me anxiety because I don't know what to do about them.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: So I am so happy that I met you and hopefully our paths will cross again.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: I would love that.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: I would love that, Jane.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being a guest and have a beautiful day and good luck to you and all of your neighbors in LA.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us for another episode of the House of Jermar podcast, where wellness starts within.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you being a part of our community and hope you felt inspired and motivated by our guest.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please write us a review and share it with friends.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Building our reach on YouTube and Apple Podcasts will help us get closer to our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: You can also follow us on Instagram at House of Jermar and sign up to be a part of our monthly inspiration newsletter through our website, houseofjermarcom.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: If you or someone you know would be a good guest on the show, please reach out to us at podcast at houseofjermarcom.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: This has been a House of J Germar production with your host, Jean Collins.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining our house.