Latest / Luxe & Legacy Podcast / Staying Grounded as a Creative in Overwhelming Times with D’Arcy Benincosa

Transcript

Staying Grounded as a Creative in Overwhelming Times with D’Arcy Benincosa · Luxe & Legacy Podcast

Welcome to the Lux and Legacy Podcast.
I'm Marie from Marie Elizabeth Photography.
And I am Amber from Light Live in Photography.
We created this show for photographers who are ready to run a luxury business with clarity, intention, and elevated artistry.
Each week we uncover the strategies behind high level brands from shooting and styling to client communication, to marketing, to designing heirloom products that increase your value.
If you want to attract aligned clients, produce, work with a recognizable aesthetic and build a business that supports the life you want, this podcast will guide you there.
Let's dive in.
Hi, guys.
Today's conversation feels especially meaningful for me because our guest is someone who has deeply impacted my own journey, both in business and in the way I view abundance, intuition, and personal power.
Today, we're joined by Darcy Benacosa, a world-renowned photographer, educator, mentor, and the host of the Play It Brave podcast.
She's known for helping creatives build businesses rooted not just in strategy, but encourage intuition, wealth, and deep personal expansion.
in, I think it was 2021, I should have checked I think so, yeah I think it was in 2021, I joined one of Darcy's coaching programs, and it truly shifted my money mindset a way that changed the tra- trajectory of my business.
She helped me expand what I believed was possible and grow in ways I never could have reached on my own.
What I've admired most about Darcy is she doesn't just teach the practical side of building a business, she goes so much deeper into emotional energy, mindset, nervous system regulation, and the feminine divine, which I love.
So in so many ways, I felt like she was a kindred soul Yeah.
you I think that's one of the reasons that I was really attracted to your education and your podcast as well, Darcy.
I think I began listening to it in 2020, if that's when you...
I'm not sure if you started it then.
But it's so inspiring.
And as Amber said, you really go into things on a, such a deep level that not only helps transform, your business, but also your outlook and your approach on life and everything we, we do.
So we're so excited to have you on today and chat and have some deep conversations.
Oh, thank you both so much.
It is just such a privilege to be here.
Amber, I love the beauty you put out into the world.
I'll never forget our first phone call when we were talking about your pricing and how you just really learned to allow and receive, and you expanded your capacity to hold your business in a new way.
And you've just taken it and flourished so much.
So it is so fun for me to be on your, both of your podcast and to be here and talk about the hearts of creatives and all the things that, you know, that we go through and the journeys that we're on.
Yes we're so excited to have you.
And I reached out to Darcy because she's so good about talking about balancing and regulating and being a creative in this crazy world.
And right now, and I think it's something that's affecting a lot of us creatives and empaths, is there's so much heaviness in the world right now.
I'm just gonna be really blunt about it.
There's a lot of grief, fear, uncertainty, and noise.
And at the same time, many of us are still trying to be creative and serve and build a community and be mothers and hold space for others, and it can feel really hard.
I know that for myself, we were talking about it before the call, I've felt quite paralyzed on and off because of seeing the heartache of what's happening in the world right now.
Just so many different directions of things going on that are quite crazy.
And we just really wanted to invite Darcy on here for a podcast to talk about fear and collective anxiety and how to balance that with staying on your creative power, your feminine power, regulating your nervous system, and how to stay gra- grounded in these really overwhelming times.
So we're so honored to have her here.
Let's get into it I told Amber she she did not give me an easy one.
Those are a lot of intense questions, and they are very heavy, and they do ring true.
And so Yeah, I really just hope that we can have a beautiful conversation, and that those of you listening can take on and reflect back some of the things that you're going through as well as we dive into this conversation.
It's a really important one to be having, and I think we need to talk about how we all process more because I think what happens is we get stuck in the trauma or the pain, and then, like you said, you freeze there, and then what? That's not serving you or the world, and so how do we move out of the frozenness even when things seem really heavy around us? Yeah, exactly.
That leads us into our first question for you, which is how do we as creatives stay informed and compassionate without being emotionally paralyzed? Emotionally paralyzed is a really interesting language.
I don't know if we can, but I know we don't have to stay there.
Does that make sense? So see something...
One, I do think everybody needs boundaries.
We always talk about boundaries, and as women, boundaries are something statistically and consciously it has been hard for a lot of us to set.
But I believe in boundaries in everything, so even your consumption of news.
So you know your creativity, like Amber, you said, "I feel creatively frozen."
Creativity cannot blossom where there is consumption.
So my first equation, mathematical equation for you would be, okay, if I'm feeling creatively frozen, it means I am consuming too much, and what am I consuming? There are endless bad things happening that we can consume, and I by no means am a person who says just bury your head in the sand, high vibe, don't take in the negativity, because that is a new age belief that has also...
I think it's I think it's avoidance.
I think it's actually just spiritual avoidance.
But then we also can set where it's like I can be informed without replaying and replaying what the new- I remember I was with my friend, and something really tragic happened on the news a little while ago.
It was right at the beginning of the Israeli-Gaza really intense conflict.
And she had CNN on, after four hours of it just, I was like, "We need to turn it off now.
Okay? We have both taken in enough.
We are informed.
We know what's happening.
To keep replaying it is just re-traumatizing, re-traumatizing, re-traumatizing."
And again, when you're just in trauma or freeze, you aren't in a place where you can find your own empowerment and what your role is to play, if any, in the situations that are happening So I don't know, did that kind of answer your question? So I can go more into depth about how we feel the emotions, but the first thing is the boundary around how much you are consuming Yes.
So taking it in, but limiting yourself, having boundaries around that, and not getting sucked in for too long.
But yeah, that's same thing is it's important to me to be aware and not just completely tune out to things because I do wanna still take steps to do something, even though my part is maybe very small, like signing a petition or calling a Congress member or something like that, like I do wanna take small steps, but yeah, putting boundaries around it is important and then there's something I wanna, I'll talk a little bit about, and maybe it will make sense into how we operate, our energy systems operate.
So we can have our own energy system, our own body, what we're feeling, what we're doing, and then there's the collective consciousness.
So obviously, and if you look at the layers of emotions, each emotion has a frequency or a level that you feel at.
It's like a vibrational frequency.
It's from David Hawkins, who is genius.
He wrote The Map of Consciousness.
So the lowest frequency you can feel is shame.
It only vibrates at a 20.
Courage vibrates at a 200, okay? Just to give you...
And in between shame and courage is guilt, fear, apathy, grief, anger, pride.
is where emotions start to become positive.
That's why Brene Brown's work really hits hard, because all Brene Brown is doing is helping people move from lower emotions to the courage frequency, which is 200.
And the highest on the frequency chart is 700, and really only enlightened beings like Jesus and Buddha have reached the 700.
But you can get up above courage.
And so I give that little explanation to say can ver- when we, when you say being sucked in, we can be sucked into the collective consciousness of fear And we can live there.
But if we process the fear in our own bodies, it only actually takes a couple of minutes.
Now, it might take a couple of minutes a day.
You can go into the fear, but if you really feel it, and you...
and we can talk more about how to feel the emotions you process it, and then you can bring yours.
Like you said, let's come back up to courage because in courage, Amber, is when what we have to be at to take the actions we feel called to take, to call the congressman, to think, "Okay, I am one person in this big, vast universe."
For me, was like, "I don't know who to trust or how to get food to children in Gaza, but I know what I can do is go to the least stable parts of my community," which is about three miles away, and I have a good friend who teaches in that community, and I can go in, and I can pay off some lunch bills for students there.
And my students, kids who are hungry, who...
And I was a schoolteacher for 14 years, and you guys cannot imagine how many kids in United States.
I think sometimes we forget that the US has its own very special set of problems as well.
So when I get into helplessness and I'm like, "How am I suppo-..."
This fight between Israel and Gaza, just as an example, has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years.
What is this one girl in Salt Lake City, Utah, supposed to do? I'm not sure, but I'll...
I think I'll know it, and I can do a little research, but what I can do now is help children in my own community feel safer, and it has a direct reflection on where I live.
And I can send, instead of sending fear to Gaza, which we're all doing, what if we really worked on sending love even if it feels frustrating? And I'll give you a little example.
I had a good friend, and she got really sick she called me and she told me, and she said, "Darcy, I'm telling you because I know you won't send me the energy of fear and worry.
You will send me love, which is a high frequency."
And she's "And that's what I need.
I don't need anybody's fear projected onto me while I'm already with my own about the diagnosis.
So you're the first one I called because I knew you wouldn't just be like, 'Oh, no! Oh, gosh! Ah! And you just send all this fear to them, and then they get into the fear, and then you have a fear party.
And I'm not saying that you don't ever feel fear.
I'm not trying to bypass our emotions or say, "Oh, just high vibe.
Don't feel that."
No, honor it, feel it, but realize emotions stay in your body for about 90 seconds if you truly feel them.
Then they can cycle out, and then you can get into another emotion, which is courage or willingness, acceptance.
Those are...
reason.
Those are all higher places that.
we can go I love that.
And that was one of the things that had an impact on me.
I remember in the coaching actually talking about vibration and giving numbers to it, and giving, a stratosphere to it, and understanding that fear guilt about money, guilt about anything is gonna keep you in a lower vibration and gonna keep you in that kinda lower mindset, and it's gonna impact everything, including how much abundance you pull in.
And talk a little bit more about that, 'cause that's one of my favorite topics that you, that we talked about in your coaching, and the different levels of, like, how you said f- shame and fear is around 200.
How do you go from a 200 to a 500? What does that process look like? And this is where I think we have to be really careful not to...
I don't wanna shame anyone for...
You will never not have shame come up.
It will happen.
It's just how long do you choose to live there? guilt really has, I don't feel guilty very often anymore, whereas when I was deeply in in a certain mindset, I had a lot of guilt for everything.
And so I think guilt is one of the first ones when women can finally release.
It feels so good, and you're free.
And the reason why you want to, why I would be interested in it, so I don't want to become this where you're like? "Oh my gosh, I just felt guilt.
Oh, I just ruined my whole mon- abundance manifestation."
I think there's a really dangerous area these maybe they're woo conversations.
I don't see them that way.
I see them as scientific, mathematical conversations actually.
And we have so much data now to prove That.
everything is energy.
And so for me, I don't want somebody to into a shame spiral because they're feeling shame, right? Then you're just in this spiral.
It's okay, shame is gonna come up.
We all have it.
We get embarrassed.
We feel like we don't wanna be looked at.
Oh my gosh, maybe we wore the wrong thing, or, oh, I wish I was...
for me a lot, y- when I was younger, because I am a plus-sized woman, I'd have a lot of shame around that I wasn't skinnier in this culture that really valued that, right? So the thing about guilt and shame, the hard stuff is it keeps you in victim mode, and it keeps you from your fullest expression of yourself.
I remember when I finally just got over myself, I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna start this YouTube channel.
I'm gonna start sharing what I know about photography and different things, and I'm going to start teaching courses," because I didn't for a long time because I was like, "I have a double chin, I'm embarrassed that I have a double chin."
Whatever.
Women, you all know what I'm talking about.
You have all said to yourself, "I cannot show up online because I have this or this.
I'm too skinny.
I'm too this.
I'm too tall.
I don't...
My eyebrows are weird."
Whatever it is, we've all had that, so I know you can all relate to that.
But the problem with that or the sad fact is then We don't live our fullest expression of ourselves, which is not only the gift to ourselves to do that, the gift to the world.
This is actually what the world is needing.
So it makes me so sad when I think of people just being frozen and not creating and just being stuck in these f- hyper-focus on what's going wrong and never balancing out our consumption of the negative with consumption of the positive, which people don't do either 'cause there are actually a lot of really cool things happening in the world as well that we don't see.
And, social media and the algorithms are never gonna show us those things because they get their money and their whatever from us just being in that consumption mode.
And not as much in our power.
So when I, to use it as a very simple example, when I finally got over myself, got over my embarrassment or shame about my body, and started creating my, my YouTube channel Wealth started coming in at a very fast rate because guess what? People don't care if you have a double chin, they just care if you can solve their problems.
I was solving a lot of problems, and I was enjoying it.
I really love...
you guys bring me any business problem in the world, and I will sit until I have solved it, and I love doing that because there is always a solution.
But I think it was Einstein that said, "You can never get the answer to a problem in the same energy, in the same mindset," basically he's saying the same frequency, "as the problem was created."
And that is why I think a lot of people have coaches, is because a coach can help.
You'll be in the frequency of your problem.
You'll be, like, looking at your pro- Like, if I had just looked...
My problem was I'm too overweight to start a YouTube channel.
If I had just stayed in that energy, I would have never found a way out of it, and instead I was like, "That's just plain ego.
That's my ego trying to keep me small and keep me safe."
If I put aside how I look or I come to, heaven forbid, love how I look and love who I am and love my curves and love that I'm so tall and love all the things that I didn't like, and I bring that frequency into it, and I just show up and help people instead of making it about me, that's where I feel the true abundance of anyone comes in, is when we're hyper-focused on ourselves, and our ego is telling us to play small, and we're stopping ourselves from doing all of these things that the real true highest self is saying, "Do this."
It...
You can feel the nudges.
You know the whispers.
That is your intuition of, "I think I could speak on a stage," or I have a book in me," or, "I really wanna make this amount of money or whatever."
When we can get out of our own way and do that, then that's when the path to abundance really starts, and it's abundance in every area because guess how much more abundant my life is when I actually love my body? It's so much more abundant.
And when I don't hide, and when I wear whatever I want.
I always thought I'd have to lose weight to have a really a really beautiful boyfriend or whatever.
I hadn't been in a relationship for a long time.
even at the current weight, I didn't lose a single pound, but when I started to have more of that love, of course a relationship manifested and so many women were like, "How did you manifest this?" It's just a natural mathematical equation after you come to self-love.
And I'm gonna say I also ended that relationship after two years because it wasn't then the highest place for me.
And now the biggest act of self-love right now is taking a break and really coming back to my center.
So I am never...
I've been single for way too long to ever say, "Oh, and then I loved myself and then I found the most perfect relationship and we were happy forever."
I don't know if life always works that way, at least not mine, and I have a lot of peace about that because within a relationship or out of a relationship, the biggest relationship is with ourselves and making the most loving decisions for ourselves that we can That.
And speaking of that, what are some ways that you stay in your feminine power? What would be some practical...
'Cause I know you do tapping, I know you do and your sister has a lot of somatic energy work, right? Do you have any recommendations for that? Because that's the other thing that I'm personally feeling right now is imbalance in the world of patriarchal power versus the matriarch.
And something that I know I need to personally work on is staying in that feminine power I don't wanna put you on the spot, Amber, but tell me your definition of feminine power.
Tell me your understanding of the feminine because I'd love to, I'd love to fully understand where, what your definition of is that, and then I can speak a lot more to it.
And you too, Marie, if you have your own version.
Like, when you're connecting to your feminine, what are you trying to connect to? I think the, creativity, feeling limitless, Feeling like...
a- and I it's hard for me to disconnect from the world on what...
I feel like the world had made so much progress, and things were always moving forward, and now a lot of things are being pulled back, and, even women's rights are being questioned right now.
Just staying in the belief that women have just as much as men.
Not to say that men- women should have more or anything like that, but just feeling The divine feminine power.
I don't know how to explain it I think it's a really powerful question for every woman to sit and get really clear.
is divine feminine power? do I utilize it in my life? First of all, what it, is it? What is it? What is it to me? What does it mean to me? I don't know, Marie, if you wanted to add anything there Yeah, when I think of creativity, creating, and I think of creating for myself but also for others, and just making things better for those around me, whether it be my family or my community or, the world.
So I think that can be tricky when, you wanna help and then you're overwhelmed by what's happening and you don't know where to start.
But for me, I think that those are the things that come to mind.
My feminine power is making things and then how can I help those around me? That's really beautiful.
So let me, let's, yeah, let's go onto a fun conversation about the, th- the feminine.
So first, let's say that feminine, let's be clear that each individual, no matter their sexual orientation, no matter anything like that, has a masculine and feminine energy within them.
It's it's not so much about gender, though it, most of the population...
I really resonate I wanna be 80% in my feminin- feminine, or 70, and then be in my masculine, and I tend to date men who wanna be more in their masculine and, but still explore their feminine.
I don't want a man who doesn't know to be in feminine energy.
So a really simplistic way of looking at it is that the masculine energy is the protector.
the structure.
It's the one that has the to-do list, often.
If we're thinking "How do I see if I'm in my feminine or masculine?" So if you're constantly, focused on your to-do list, on tasks, on focusing on things, on accomplishment, protection.
To me, the men in my life, because I have a lot of divine masculine men in my life who are they really hold me.
They are like, some people give metaphors like it's the rock that holds the chaos of the water, the waves splashing upon them.
Or it's the riverbed that ho- holds the flow of the water, and the feminine's the water, and the masculine's the riverbed that gives it that containment.
And I think with the rise of feminism, we were hoping that it would be the rise of the divine feminine, but at first, I think it was just we want to be...
We want all the rights that men have.
So feminism, which I am a deep feminist I just say, but feminism the shadow side of feminism is it's just a very extreme version where women want to be like men.
And that also traps the divine feminine, too.
And so again, everybody has to see how much feminine energy they wanna have versus masculine energy they wanna have.
I love being in my masculine, and I think it's because I've been single for so long, but I am a very good provider.
I'm a very good...
I'm very good at running a business.
But when I up shop for the day I log off at 4:00, I learned this from a lady many years ago.
She's "I do a transition into my feminine."
So I put away the to-do list.
I put away the structure.
I put away, you know- know, whatever, and I can, we can go into more of the qualities of, I feel like I'm giving it such a limited view of divine masculine and feminine.
But I think a lot of people already can sense what's what.
then I get into my feminine.
To me my feminine comes a lot when I dance, when I make really good food, when I I'm a big cook, and so I have beautiful dishes.
And when I'm, I, it's very rare for me to just make a really ugly just slap it o- mine has to look plated.
It, but it brings me a lot of joy, 'cause I'm very artistic.
And feminine is really it's a space holder for emotion, right? So our feeling sense.
So I think emotions can have a very feminine expression and a very masculine expression.
You can always think of the mama bear and the papa bear, like, how would they, what would they do, and things like that.
I have a dear friend, and he goes every year to Costa Rica, and he fire tends this very feminine place.
So it's about 80 women who gather, dancing, commune, and the men hold the perimeter.
They hold the safety around the perimeter.
They hold, they keep the fire.
They bring the women water.
They basically...
and this is a big thing of the masculine, they do love serving the feminine.
So I don't know if people would think it's...
I love when a man opens a door for me, because that is his service to the divine feminine.
And I understand that a lot of feminists still have a lot of disempowerment to work for, and so their reaction would be, not even feminists, maybe wounded feminine, would be like, "How dare you.
I can open my own door."
to me, that's not actually seeing clearly the service the masculine is here to do for the feminine.
The feminine is the creator of all life.
She I haven't birthed a child, but I understand the portal that is my womb birthing something.
I've birthed a lot of things, just not an actual human baby.
But that portal is exactly to the divine.
We have a channel to that.
And any man would say this, I'm not trying to put down men, but they would say, "Yes, you have a connection to life that is so needed."
And so think the biggest crazy conspiracy in the world is when a woman just wants to try and be like a man.
Feminine leadership is incredible.
Women haven't had a chance to lead, but I think if they did, could lead countries, they have in other places, not in America yet, but leadership qualities are different.
you're birthing the babies, you're gonna think really differently about war, you're also not gonna be totally, I feel like women are the ones who are really ending sex trafficking.
I look at JK Rowling, give or take whatever you think of some of her thoughts, but she has lost her billionaire status because she has put so much into ending sex trafficking.
She has put those billions of Harry Potter dollars to really protecting the children.
Yeah, I think it's really interesting too, I also agree with you, Darcy, that there are a lot of wounded feminists out there.
And I think a lot of people who are feminists, like deep down will see these wounded feminists and be like, oh, kinda turned off to that.
But like really, I think that it's being in your feminine it's diff- it just, being a feminine leader is different than being a masculine leader, as you said, and it displays differently.
And I look at these countries that have female leaders and I'm like, "Wow, things are going great over there," yeah, we might wanna sugarcoat it and think, "Oh, if women lead, everything will be perfect."
I don't know if that's true.
I think we still need to learn that.
The thing that I want to say is true is it's so hard for a woman lead because we've only In our s- in a patriarchal society, you only prize and value what the leadership has currently been, however that's valued.
So whether it's force or brutality or logic or whatever.
I'm not saying women aren't logical by any means.
But they are, they tend to be easier lead.
I always think, "What would a country be like if it was heart lead still with, just anyway.
And I have so much compassion for quote-unquote wounded women because all of us, every woman, nobody has escaped what it feels like to be oppressed by that masculine, by patriarchy.
But the answer to healing patriarchy is not to hate men.
That is, that, it, that's just creating the exact opposite of what got us there.
And yeah, it's, it You really do want to hate it, a lot of guys sometimes because you're like they've hated us, and they've oppressed us, and this is da, and this is what patriarchy's done.
And I'm so angry, and I just wanna take 'em down."
And there are things that need to be taken down.
And honestly Trump being elected president I think was the beginning of the fall of patriarchy.
I think it actually happened I say this when people, like and I don't like Trump by any But I say he's made me a better citizen I don't think I cared as much until this man got into office.
And then I was like, "Oh, I gotta step up.
I gotta take more action.
I need to do more things."
So it's funny, but I say Trump has made me a better American, a better citizen because I pay way more attention now than I used to.
So the wounds, not to say buck up, get rid of your wounds, or the wounds will go away if you let a man open the door.
I am not trying to simplify that.
The wounds need to be honored, but they but also eventually healed.
And there's a lot of people, not just women, who get a lot of attention from being wounded.
We are in a culture that is so obsessed with woundology right now, and it's keeping us in an infantile, disempowered place.
And so that's why the inner work is so important.
We have to see what's triggering us, where we're at, what wounded us.
We have to come to terms with how patriarchy has hurt us.
And then we can choose to heal that and not I don't get as charged around patriarchy I actually, I don't know if I can say this, but I did a plant medicine journey, and it rewired my whole body, and I purged all the patriarchy from what had, from my mindset.
Not saying that I don't see it all around me.
But I, but it's not a wound anymore for me, and thus I can see it from, instead of anger, I can see it from courage, and I can take a lot...
And I'm a really smart woman, so I can see where my piece is and what I can do, and I don't take on whole thing of it, right? 'Cause that's where we get weighed down and frozen.
The whole problem of patriarchy is not just Darcy's to solve.
I can solve the portion that I am responsible for, whether that's educating men in my life, whether that's edu- you know, he- listening and helping and holding space for women to heal from what's happened to them.
I've had to go through some deep healings about it.
But I can be a sovereign, divine, feminine place.
And yeah So beautiful.
Yeah, no, this is helping me a lot today actually, this conversation.
Good Marie go ahead.
If...
Is...
Are there any of the questions that you wanted to ask? I guess changing scenes a little bit here.
For a lot of our listeners, they're creatives, they're photographers, and I guess in a practical, approaching things from a practical standpoint, so many photographers have been saying like, "Oh gosh, things are so different this year.
There's a lot going on in the world.
Things feel so heavy.
I've had less inquiries."
People are just wondering, how to show up, how to, put that abundance out there it comes back to them.
Do you have any practical tips for photographers For photographers to thrive in the state of the world right now? Is that kind of the question? I think the first thing is to not be in resistance to the fact that things are changing.
Because what you're describing is, "Oh, no, things are changing.
Things are changing.
Oh my gosh, it's not gonna be the same."
Okay, cool.
That, like how I said I'm, I really love solving problems, this just looks like every industry, every business will never stay exactly how it was.
We're always advancing.
Change is always happening.
Back when I used to lead the mastermind, I was selling it out like crazy, and now people want more of a monthly membership, right? So we can talk about offer, like what their offer is, like generally, if they're still offering their sessions in the same way and people aren't booking that way, and then they're getting really upset.
Cool.
Get upset for a minute, and then figure out like the next, like how people are buying now.
So I personally believe that anybody who is selling anything, and this is something creatives don't love.
So my coaching system, how I work with someone, is I have four pillars, and we dive in really deep.
So the first one is story, the second one is style, the third one is structure, and the fourth one is sales.
And if you are not really aligned in all of those, your business is really gonna struggle.
So the story.
So they may need to tell a more compelling story now because people are not just buying good photos, they are buying people they resonate with their values.
Like I get hired by people who have certain values.
Like I'll never forget the wedding, and she said, "I hired you because I love your perspective on life and I listen to your podcast."
It wasn't just my photos.
That wasn't the first thing.
She just really liked what I, Darcy, stood for, and that is happening more and more.
So we have to create the story of your business, the brand stories, the stories you're showing up and telling online.
If you're just saying, "Book my mini sessions," that's not a compelling story anymore.
And so there's a lot around what's the story of the business? What are the stories we're telling? What are How are we making our images more storytelling? Because everybody's going more into cinematic storytelling.
So does your way you take photos need to evolve too, right? So one, we just wanna dispel the fear and the resistance.
When you suddenly accept and you're like, "Okay.
Yeah, things are harder and different," I don't know, to me, that just puts me in a place of empowerment instead of a place of freeze of, "Oh my gosh, I don't know what to do.
Ah!" Like I just don't go there.
Sorry.
I'm almost 50 years old.
I just, I know that pattern, and I just don't go there, ladies.
That's why I mentor a lot of younger people, to help them learn to handle how to do that.
So the story, then the style.
What is your branding? How consistent are you with your branding? Is your branding updated? I can't tell you, I have done multiple thousands of- website reviews and brand reviews.
I am a deep brand strategist.
And their logo looks like clip art, and they wanna try and get like, how is it visually translating? And I'll tell you, you need to be checking that visual translation every year.
If you branded yourself five years ago, sorry, you're out of date, and you're not gonna be able to command or attract the clients that you want.
Then the structure.
So that's what I was getting at is, if the old structure I remember very clearly when the struct- I u- when I 'Cause I've been a photographer a really long time.
I'm almost 50, so I've done it for a really long time.
And I used to give people CDs, and they'd have to buy the JPEGs.
And they I had all these things.
And then there was a big transition where people just did an all-inclusive package, right? You can get all the images and the session fee for this Much Some people still don't do that, but the majority of people want that.
They want all their images now.
We are very image And not only do they want 30 images, they want 400 images, and that's a whole thing.
So how are we structuring what you're selling? And are you looking at that structure every year and looking at how people's buying habits, which I study a lot of psychology.
I'm very curious about the human mind, and so I study this all the time.
And how are we offering it? And then final, the sells.
And if s- And I'm just shocked by so many people are like, "I'm creative, and I wanna start this business," and they have zero they zero training in how to sell something to someone.
They just have n- They're like if the images are just pretty enough."
No, actually, no.
What we're do- I just was posting about this on my Instagram stories the other day, is that the biggest misconception is that people think the person with the prettiest photos will get booked.
It's not true.
a lot of people don't have the taste that we have, so we have to help them.
But you could be the best photographer but the worst salesperson, and you could be making hardly any money.
And we all know the mediocre photographer who's really killer at sales, and they're rolling in the money.
It's not how good your photo is, although I really love mastery, so I love challenging myself to become a better photographer every single year.
But I do not ignore the other three.
I do not ignore my story, how I'm showing up, what I'm talking about, how I am showcasing my values, how I can give calling cards for people to talk to me.
'Cause they'll be like, "Oh, whatever she's saying, that, that's who I resonate with.
That's who I want to photograph me.
That's who I agree with."
We're very much in that now, so hopefully that's helpful.
So that's the business side of it, right? Okay, life is hard, business is different.
Cool.
Yes, it is.
keep going.
If we just stay stuck what...
Then you're just gonna be stuck and that it's harder? Okay, that gets us nowhere.
So that is your divine masculine being like, "Okay, we got the problem.
Let's go."
That's why I say my masculine side is really developed because sell systems is a lot of masculine energy.
But a lot of women shy away from it because they're afraid to sound salesy, which I just think is the stupidest, it's the stupidest story we're telling ourselves.
It just creates like a block that doesn't need to be there.
And if you like to use the word serving instead of selling, that's fine too.
But making a lot of money, so I like tracking how I sell, and I truly believe that what I sell makes a difference.
How do I know that? Because I get amazing testimonials and amazing results.
And Amber, you're a shining example of how you really benefited from what I was selling you, and so I don't have, I don't have blocks around selling.
If...
We could do a whole nother podcast just on the language of sells.
And I'm also master certified in NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming, which is how to talk to the subconscious mind so that it has clarity and understands and knows how, and like really trusts and goes into a yes.
So there's a lot of things around that.
No I still have that NLP book that you recommended, and I still look at it from time to time.
That's a great book.
Yeah, that's Awesome.
Awesome.
This conversation has been amazing.
Thank you so much for being here.
I think that it's really going to take people from that fear mode, 'cause, and I go in and out of it, right? 'Cause I know all of this.
I do know that when I'm in that positivity, in that light, I'm able to be more creative and attract people to me just naturally and help people more in the world, which is what I want.
I don't want to be stuck in the mode of thinking about all the world's problems.
So today you have really helped me break through that a lot and get out of my anxiety, out of my head.
I'm gonna set some boundaries.
I'm gonna dance more.
That one is the key.
I dance I transition out of my work time into my evening time, and I start it with some dancing in the kitchen, yeah Love it.
Awesome.
And it's a grounding reminder today that building a business and building life is so deeply intertwined, right? And true abundance asks us to hold the beauty and the pain with both.
So I know so many women listening today needed this, myself included, and your wisdom has impacted so many, myself and my business, and s- I'm so appreciative of you, and just love that you were able to come on the podcast today.
I'm truly grateful Oh, thank you so much for having me.
I could talk about this stuff for hours and hours, and hopefully what I said gave just a little lightheartedness to the heaviness because by no means do I say turn away from it, but also don't let it destroy your life, because you are here to i- If we're all photographers, our, one of our main values is beauty, and I'll just end with this.
When you're at a funeral, imagine a funeral with no flowers, right? Ugh, somebody died.
We can't have beauty.
We can't...
we need to...
This is very serious.
But no, everything about the funeral becomes about the flowers, and I always think of that little metaphor when life is really hard.
still need the flowers.
We need the beauty.
We need the fields.
We need the beautiful dresses.
We need to create the art.
We need to help, that's just what will keep the world from going into the very dark place that it, we know it can go Yeah.
Art is always there.
I think about that too, Darcy, and during, the Nazi concentration camps, there was so much art actually being created there because people It's how we cope.
It's, it's it's how we survive in many ways.
I love that.
Okay.
Before we wrap up, can you tell everyone where they can find you, connect with you, and what offers or spaces you have right now for photographers or entrepreneurs who want to go deeper with your work? Oh, thank you so much.
The nice thing is there's only one Darcy Benincosa on the planet just darcybenincosa.com
if you can spell it.
Hopefully it'll be in the show notes, and I'm also on Instagram.
And I work? with people in a couple different capacities.
So one, I will be launching a group program.
Like I said, my st- my story style, structure, and sales, we go through a six-month program where we really dive into all of that.
We rebrand you if you need to update your branding.
We look at your offers, your pricing, all that.
I go through the NLP sales strategy and psychology so people can really be trained on sales, and we really let the heart of it be your story and the stories you're telling, right? So that will start in January, but you can, I've got some things around that.
And then if you are feeling really heavy, so one of the things that I'm certified in is called timeline therapy, and we do about a 90-minute session that we cycle through emotions and we release those emotions.
So the emotions have an order that they release in, and they build on each other.
So the first one is always anger, and then after that, usually anger covers sadness, and then after sadness, we have fear, and then we have guilt, although we all need, and then we have conflict.
And as an NLP coach and practitioner, everybody wants to do this, clear these things quarterly because it is maintenance for your brain to connect with your body.
I do a lot of brain maintenance, mind maintenance, because if we don't, we will go into cycles and ways of depression and overwhelm, and all of that means you're running a program or a pattern that is not serving your highest good.
And so I know how to retrain your brain to that.
And so those sessions, they're just 90 minutes to two hours, but we clear those five emotions, and I get that done myself every quarter at least, like three times a year, and you will be really good at just keeping yourself light and not stuck and frozen and weighed down and everything.
So those are the two biggest things that I do.
Of course, I run beautiful workshops all over the world.
I have one coming up in England, and we have one spot, somebody who couldn't make it.
So if anybody wants more detail on that, we're doing 10 creative studies with light, shadow.
We're in this big, beautiful manor home.
I can send the details.
But thank you for letting me share all of that.
Oh my gosh, all sounds amazing.
I need to book that NLP session.
That sounds amazing.
Yeah I really, Amber, I really think it will just lift a lot of things for you.
You are such a sensitive, compassionate soul, and we just don't want her drowning.
We need her strong and vibrant in your light.
Your whole business name is your personality, and we can't have you wa- staying frozen in the dark, okay? So any way that I can...
I think doing one of those sessions would be incredible for you.
Yeah.
Let's Yeah.
Okay You are an amazing person and mentor and coach, so thank you so much for coming on today Thank you ladies.
It Yeah to share space with you both All right, Okay Thank you so much for spending time with us today on the Luxe and Legacy Podcast.
We love being part of your journey as you build a luxury photography business that feels aligned and elevated.
Be sure to follow us at Light underscore Live in underscore photography and.
At Marie Elizabeth and if you enjoyed today's episode, we would be so grateful if you left a review.
It truly helps other photographers.
Like you discover the show and join this community.
Make sure to join us next week.
We have another conversation that's going to inspire and give you even more tools to grow your brand with confidence.
We can't wait to see you then.
Bye.