71. Growing Forward Podcast featuring Rich Breshears

Tri-Cities Influencer Podcast with Paul Casey

Paul Casey:

Goals are the gasoline that make the vision

Speaker 2:

Raising the water level of leadership in the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington. It's the Tri-Cities influencer podcast. Welcome to the TCI podcast. We're local leadership and self-leadership expert Paul Casey interviews, local CEOs, entrepreneurs, and non-profit executives to hear how they lead themselves and their teams. So we can all benefit from their wisdom and experience. Here's your host, Paul Casey of growing forward services, coaching, and it could be individuals and teams to smart breakthrough success.

Paul Casey:

It's a great day to grow forward. Thanks for joining me for today's episode with Rich Breshears he's the owner of Breshears photography. And I asked rich, what is fun or quirky about him? And there were a lot of things, but it came down to musical instruments. So a ukulele and a tuba. Rich. Tell us about that.

Rich Breshears:

Oh my gosh. So you won't believe this, Paul, but I actually went to college on his full ride scholarship to play the tuba, the way a full ride scholarship. They didn't tell me that was like me. That meant I had to like play in the marching band, which is something I did not want to do. But I was a yes, I was a tuba student all the way through college. I don't know. I thought I was going to be a, like a professional to bust. So it was just really weird, but I still own a tuba. I still play it occasionally Christmas carols and crazy stuff like that. But then a couple of years ago, we were at an auction and we go to a lot of benefit office and I saw like, I just couldn't help. It was like, it was like, you know, the angels were singing and this thing was blowing on the table. I mean, it was this purple ukulele and I picked it up and I just, I was like, Nope, I outbid everybody on it. And I ended up with this purple ukulele and now I play it for my

Paul Casey:

That's. Awesome. That's awesome. Well, we will dive in after checking in with our Tri-City influencer sponsor, it's easy to delay answering uncomfortable questions. Like what happens to my assets and my loved ones when I die. So it's no surprise that nearly 50% of Americans don't have a will and even fewer have an estate plan, many disabled clients worry that they don't have enough assets to set up an estate plan, but there are important options available to ensure that you have a voice in your medical and financial decision-making. Even if your health takes a turn for the worst estate planning gives you a voice when your health deteriorates or after you're gone. Maren Miller Bam attorney at law is currently providing free consultations to find out more about estate planning or to book an appointment. Call Maren at [phone] or visit Salus that's S A L U S-law.com today. Thank you for your support of leadership development in the Tri-Cities so rich. So our Tri-City influencers can get to know you take us through some of the highlights that have led you to where you are today.

Rich Breshears:

Oh my gosh. It's a long sorted story, but we began our business officially in, in 2000. So we're at our time. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. We got January 1st of 2000 was the beginning of our, of our journey as professional photographers. And I started out, I literally, well, backstep just a little bit. I was a social worker who specialized in geriatric mental health and was brought here to the Tri-Cities in 1992 to start the very first assisted living at Hawthorne court retirement center in Kennewick. And I had it was that. So I was promised two years here in this town and look at us 2021. And I'm still here. I, I told my wife, she said, Oh my gosh, I can't believe you're taking me there. We lived in beautiful cor d'Alene Idaho. And she said, Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. So we, we came here.

Rich Breshears:

I promised her two years, baby. After that two years, we're gone, we're going to get we're going to go somewhere. Cool. And the company that I was with said, well, we have places in Anaheim, California, or we have Dora, just lots of places. I really didn't want to live. So we just kept living here. And then of course changed professions in 2000 and opened our, our studio and, and, and, and then just kind of work through. It's very hard to become a professional photographer, as you probably guessed in this day and age of digital cameras and things people, a lot of times they say to me, rich, what else do you do for a living? I said, well, this is it. This is all I do. This is, this is how I feed my family, pay my mortgage, put the kids through college, do all that by the dog food while we don't have a dog anymore, but a, you know, cat food and, and all of that.

Rich Breshears:

And the, and I, and I, and they say, Oh my gosh, how, how they look at me? Like, I'm just crazy. Like I'm from outer space, right? And no, it's taken a long time. It's you have to build that. You have to build that up. You have to build your name in the community. You have to, you know, you just have to become some more of a local name. You have to, you know, you have to do good for people and, you know, and you know, you're in and, and have that presence in the community. And that's just what happened for us. We just, we just are who we are. Don't force it. Don't try to be something we're not. And, and if you know me very well, you know, one that's who I am is who I am. And we've just got, been really blessed. I have to tell you more than anything else, just really blessed. And over the years, we, we picked up one staff member and then we picked up on another staff member. And now we're, you know, we've got several staff, people that work under us and, and we just have a great time. We, we play, we, we have a great time as, as, as a, as a team. And I'm just lucky to be part of that group.

Paul Casey:

And why do you love to do you do, I

Rich Breshears:

Don't know, Paul, I can't tell you

Paul Casey:

It's a strangest thing.

Rich Breshears:

I there's just something about, I may be having the worst day of my life. I mean, maybe just like horrible. Like I, I have sinus problems and things like everybody does in the Tri-Cities that's normal, but I'll be, I'll be like, we're sinus headache, or I, you know, I just don't feel good or, you know, just kinda grumpy. I, you know, you know, whatever, you know, and a client will walk in the door and my lights turn my lights on and we're talking and I start taking images. And I swear to you, not even 30 seconds later, a minute later, I am just having the best day of my life. And, and I'll just be just on cloud nine. And I never thought that would ever happen for me, honestly. It's, it's, I just fall into that, into that crease. It's just like, I'm here, I'm in the I'm in that moment. And the client walks out the door and I'm like, wow, I don't have a headache anymore. I don't feel, you know, I, I feel great. I, life is good. And, and, and, and it's been that way now for 20 years. So I I'm, I don't, I can't explain. I just love what I do. I love working with people. I love finding their, their greatest moments and cherishing the most with those with them. And, and it's just, it's a blast.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. What's the FA shout out to the Russian olive sinus.

Speaker 4:

I shouldn't know right here, the here this year. Wow.

Paul Casey:

But what is the favorite part of the job for you?

Rich Breshears:

Honestly, I had a family member who, a lady who came in yesterday and picked up her portraits and she walked in the door of the lobby and we, we always, we always present your images right in the lobby when you walk in the front door and she walked in and she just started crying and beautiful lady from Yakima. She's, they've been through a lot in their lives together. And, and she walked through the door and she just started crying. She was, I can't believe how beautiful that is. I just am. That's my family. And I'm just so proud of them. And it's just so beautiful. And that's really the moment where it becomes extremely real. And yeah, I guess it's the social worker in me that kind of goes back to, you know, really cherishing those moments as families. Cause they're, they're, they're, they're short, they're very fleeting, you know, just as you know, they're just so quick.

Paul Casey:

Mm Hmm. So, you know, you're in your strength zone every day, which is pretty awesome. Right. There's probably some weaknesses though that you have, that you got to maybe staff around or

Speaker 4:

Work on, you know, or so. So

Paul Casey:

Where do you sabotage yourself that you have to work on?

Rich Breshears:

Oh man. You know, it's so funny. I'm a huge fan of Steven Pressfield, the art of war and

Speaker 4:

[inaudible]

Rich Breshears:

You very much. And you know, when he talks about resistance, you know, when he talks about things like that, and I'm just, I'm Mr. Resistance. I mean, I don't, I own it all right. I, I sabotage myself constantly. Probably the biggest thing for me is, and it's been really hard because especially in my industry, like I said, I really like being in there with the clients I've been doing all that. Like, do you know? And, you know, you can get into the Photoshopping, you can get into all this stuff and you get into the whole artsy, fartsy side of it all, and you can get really deep into that. And, and you can really trip yourself. What I found for me personally, is I have to do as very little as possible and let my staff and let my wife who actually runs the business, believe it or not, I don't run the business.

Rich Breshears:

Marianne actually runs the business and she's an amazing operations person. And so she actually, she and the staff actually do everything. I'm just the guy with the camera and I'm really more of a figurehead than anything, which is great for me because it allows me to play and do things like that. But boy, you do not want me making business decisions that are raising them substantial or anything, you know, I'm Mr. idea. But then I, after I get past the idea it's over, like, yeah. And even I, I, I launched an idea on the staff on Monday and they looked at me like I was insane. I mean, they literally, like, I could see the eyes roll back in the backs of their heads. And I thought, wow, I really done fast past the Mark today. You know? And then they kind of come back down to earth. I go, Oh, sorry guys. I'll, I'll, I'll step out. Now

Paul Casey:

You caused enough damage for one day, right? Yes. So who keeps you accountable? Who keeps you energized to keep pursuing those goals? Is it your wife?

Rich Breshears:

I would say, yes. We, a couple of things. One to the team, we push each other every day and that's just really normal. The other thing is, is, and I, and I can't say enough about this, but I've been a member of some form of mastermind or, or coaching process since 2004, Marianne actually bought me a coach. Cause I was really struggling back in 2004 and she, she hired a coach for me. And in, it helped immensely back then. And ever since then, I've coached with you personally, a couple of times I've been in, on the coaching end for what you do. And I have had some form of coach either in industry or out of industry or both at any given time since then. And Dan, along with the coaching and the masterminding process of, you know, you're getting into a mastermind group, those people really hold your feet to the fire. And that's, that really helps. And for me personally, having a mastermind outside my industry is extremely helpful.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. So tell me what mastermind has done for you. And I'm probably going to start a couple more up this year because I just love small groups and the power in a small group of, especially when the peer coaching. Right. Was, was that the benefit for you or were there even other benefits?

Rich Breshears:

Oh yeah, I would say, and it really it's, it is the pure coaching. It's the, you know, the peers, you know, you, you give a presentation at a meeting and, and you know, you say where you're at with things what's going on and, and people, you know, w and one of your buddies that you love and trust, you know, sitting at the table across from me, he says, rich, you said that last month, that's exactly the same. Or I've heard this same phrase out of youth three months in a row. I'm starting to get concerned about you, things like that. And it really makes, makes you step back and go, okay, I'm really causing my own problems here. I'm, you know, I'm in my own way. And, and, or I'm really hitting that, you know, that Steven Pressfield resistance factor, you know, where I'm, I, you know, I'm saying things, I'm saying words that are really starting to become evident as to where I'm really at with things. And, and then, you know, I literally, while I was sitting in the lobby waiting to, to, to catch up with you for this, all of a sudden, I get a text from one of the guys in the group saying, Hey, buddy, what's going on with this? You know, so, and it's, and it's, it's crazy because that, that, that, that real intimate relationship that you build with, with a tight knit group of people is extremely important.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. So try see the influencers gather some people around you that'll help you stay accountable. That'll help, they'll encourage you on your goals. Because sometimes when you're a solo preneur, or you've got a small team, you feel like you're alone, and you've got to get people wrapped around, you get out and network with other people who can you make good connections, and you never know what that, that great idea is going to come from. And that, that could be the thing. That's the turning point for you? It

Rich Breshears:

Really is. It really is.

Paul Casey:

So replenishment of energy keeps a leader or an entrepreneur at the top of their game. Rich, what do you do to manage stress?

Rich Breshears:

Who would you use I to break out or the tuber, right? Oh, is anybody knows me? Knows that I have a fairly large presence on Facebook. Maybe not always a positive presence, but I have a large presence ranting. Again, there goes another rich rant, but in which you'll see, like, in this last year, I would say the stress levels have been pretty high this last year, probably. But if you noticed it probably was a lot of posts of me out in the, in the wilderness out hiking way beyond the reaches of, of, of society. And I find myself heading out into the woods a lot, but heading out in or out into the desert or out into, you know, I, I, that's probably why Jesus went out there. Cause I mean, at 40 days, baby, I mean, I could've, I could've spent a lot of time out in the desert this last year and been extremely happy was always when I came back in that I was, I was stressed, freaked out.

Rich Breshears:

And so there's that there's that stepping away. But then the other part of it is honestly, is, is I've really gotten into meditation. You know, you call it prayer, call it meditation. Collibra, you know, whatever you want to, whatever that, you know, whatever word that fits for you, but being able to step back really center yourself and really take that time. And for me finding those triggers, when I'm, I am starting to stress, sorry, I'm starting to freak out just a little bit. Something is starting to really get in, get into me. I was starting to see some of those triggers and trying to find those triggers when I'm starting to go, who rich you're, you know, you're, you're starting to lose it, you know, and, and really stopping and taking a few deep breaths, really getting myself re-centered again, you know, and it's amazing what five minutes of just, you know, taking some deep breaths and stepping away from things that, that really helps me to get my myself back on track.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. I was just reading about that today. That to manage your energy, oftentimes it is just the deep breathing. It's amazing what it can do to get you back grounded once again. And it kudos for solitude too. You know, we were in this noisy society, even in COVID, we're in a noisy society with lots of stuff coming at us through news and social media, that to go out there in the, in the desert, in the mountains, there's just something that you get perspective there. Sometimes you get really creative ideas too, especially if you're a creative, that's where I get the best breakthroughs. And yeah, you just come back refreshed and ready to go at it again. Exactly. Well, before we head to our next question with rich, a shout out to our sponsor, located in the Parkway, you'll find motivation, new friends and your new coworking space at fuse.

Paul Casey:

Whether you're a student just starting out or a seasoned professional, come discover all the reasons to love coworking at fuse come co-work at fuse for free on Fridays in February, enjoy free coffee or tea, Wi-Fi printing conference rooms, and more, and bring a friend. If you use this, where individuals and small teams come together in a thoughtfully designed resource, rich environment to get work done and grow their ideas. Comprised of professionals from varying disciplines and backgrounds. Fuse is built for hardworking, fun, loving humans. Learn more about [e-mail] or stop by seven to three, the Parkway in Richland, Washington. So rich over the years, you've you brought some people on your team. You said, and who is that ideal person for you that to have on your team? What were you looking for maybe even in this community, or you think about like, who would be a great employee?

Rich Breshears:

Oh man. Gosh, Paul, I'm so glad you asked that we were literally working on this right now in the studio. It's so funny because we're kind of a little bit of an expansion process and we are hiring some, some various individuals, but you know, what we found is, and we are, I know it was literally having this discussion with one of my staff members say, well, she's probably one of my key people. She is one of my absolute key people. And, and she said it, and I was so great to hear her say it. She said, you know, you can really hire for the, the tasks are one thing. And a lot of people can do these particular tests. But what we're really looking for is the people with the right personality, the right attitude that fits in with the team. And we're pretty picky about who we hire on that level.

Rich Breshears:

We found that if you don't fit in with a team, you know, we have a real problem. So we're like I said, we're pretty picky. Very first person that interviews you when you come to work for Berkshires photography is my wife, the boss. And she meets with you very first. And she kind of goes over some real basics, the tasks and things like that. And then, then you meet with the rest of the team. All, you actually get a team interview. The, the entire, the entire team has about a half an hour interview with you and you, we just see how, how they fit when with that team. It's not really the questions that we're asking, what we're really looking for is fit and how that's, how they, we, we listen in and we kind of see, and we have, we get reports back from them. Just how did that, how did that gel, how did they, how are they jelling? And then the last person has to deal with me. So, because I'm the crazy one. So we always have one last interview with rich and that's

Speaker 4:

Kind of, I'm the, at least the crack head, right? Gladiator.

Rich Breshears:

Oh, they, they meet with me. And if they write pretty much, if they survive me, they, they, they can handle the crazy brochures. The diary that's, that's about as bad as it gets. But what we found is really is people who it EPR, sheers, photography, it's different for every industry, right? Or every business. But for us personally, people who are willing to chip in people who are willing to set their ego aside, ego is a massive issue in, especially in what we do, because people can be really proud about their work. And so they don't take. And even I tend to, I can be that way. I mean, gosh, I'm a creative for gosh sakes. You know what don't tell me my baby's ugly. You know? So, so, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, you have to be able to take input and say, gosh, what you're doing here, isn't working. We need to do something different and, and, and make that, make it, make it better. So people who are able to set the ego aside and take the input, things like that, those are really important. I have to tell you the polar some really, really bad I'm in common sensical things that I don't know, maybe aren't common sensical anymore, but I have to tell you being on time and actually showing up to work when you show up to work. I don't know if that makes sense, but if you

Speaker 4:

Isn't that sad that we have to say that even six, come on, you know, like, yeah.

Rich Breshears:

Show up to work and show up to work with you, show up to work, you know, and, and be there and be present when you're there. I can't tell you it it's, it's, it's I find it quite sad today. The people who are even in their forties and fifties, who will show up on their phone and they're literally on their phone and they've got it right in front of them while you're in the interview sometimes, or things like that. And they're just not able to, and it's, it's so sad and they might be extremely talented people, but they're not able to relate in with the rest of the team. So those are really probably the most critical thing.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. Yeah. Emotional intelligence. You're, you're describing interpersonal skills, presence, informality, you know, the, the ability to laugh at yourself or, yeah. I mean, when I think of photographers, I would like, I definitely want someone who is present and not other directors.

Rich Breshears:

Oh my gosh. Well, there's some real freaks in my business. No, no, no, no. Don't avoid it. I might be one of them where there's some people out there who is like, Holy smokes. If they ha, if that person had just old ins of, of people skills to go with their, with their incredible artistic skill, it would be amazing. Like they would kill it. They just need that little tiny bit of people skills.

Paul Casey:

Right. Right. Like you say, you can train the skills, but you can't train attitude. Right. So we've got to work on yourself and your own attitude and that's, what's going to make you most employable. So you've got to think strategically, do you, are you part of that, looking at the big picture of the business, is that, is that mainly your wife? Do you have team meetings together? How do you, how do you look for a long-term impact for your business?

Rich Breshears:

That's exactly what we do. So Marianne and I, of course, we work together. We play together, we sleep together 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It's pretty impressive. I know you do this at home. Do not go into this one lightly folks. It's, it's dangerous. And she lets me live, which is really impressive. I, I, she has not fired me or kill me. And so, so the, I have to say, so that's what we do. We, we get together at least once a quarter, we do a massive step away for about five to 10 days every year. At the very beginning of the year, we retreat just the two of us. We get away. There's a huge international conference for photographers that happens somewhere in the world every year in January. And we just coincide our board meeting with that particular week.

Rich Breshears:

So we step away and we do some really deep dive into what, what is the drive for? What are we doing this year? What's going to happen this year? Where are we headed? And then we come back and we strategize with the team and we start to actually break that out and, and start actually how one gets the team. Buy-in because, cause like I told you, rich comes up with some pretty crazy ideas from time to time. So it to get some team buy in, where are we going to really head with things and, and, and there is a team going to buy into this. And then, and then beyond that, we start to actually, you know, break it down into tasks. And, and then we, we started working on scrims about maybe four years ago and working in scrum. So

Paul Casey:

Tell everybody what a scrum is. I've read about this.

Rich Breshears:

Yeah. So working in scrums is, is something that's really high in the technology world. They do this a lot, but we break tasks into, into a two-week period. So what can you get done in two weeks? And so we break it down, break it down, break it down until we can get just a little bite size pieces that people can do. And each one, every Monday morning, we break down our scrums into every Monday we say, okay, this is where we're at in this scrum. This is where we're at in this scrum, this, this project is going on. Where are we at? You know, this brochure, this website, whatever, wherever we're at, working on whatever special tasks we're trying to do for, for development of the company, we break down into those pieces. And then we, we, we just farm that out to each other. Everybody just takes a different task that in their specialty and we just kind of go from there. And, and at the end of two weeks, you look at it and if you got it done, you got it done. If you didn't get it done, it's nobody's fault. Probably other things came up maybe at night, not be important anymore, which happens occasionally because rich has some pretty crazy ideas. And then the third thing is as well, maybe it was just too big of a job. We need to break it down into smaller pieces again. Yeah.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. And I, I think that's the definition of overwhelmed is not broken down into small enough pieces. So, so that often is, and that doesn't mean you're a failure. That just means your brain couldn't take that in and that big of a chunk. Oh yeah. But I really love how you said you tried to go to a conference every year. You probably get fresh ideas there. And of course I know you've got a lot of awards there too. Congratulations, by the way, along the way that's been pretty cool, but also tying a retreat, a staff retreat to that for strategic planning for the year, a kudos to you for that, I think more, more teams and businesses need to get away more often for that, that change of place. The change of pace leads to a greater perspective.

Rich Breshears:

Exactly. You're I think you hit it on the head there. It's I think so many times the one thing we need to do is to stop and take a little bit of a step back, a little bit of a break. And then all of a sudden, you free up your mind to, to actually see what you were missing. You're able to go, Oh, that's the piece of the puzzle that we are missing all along. We didn't think about that, you know, but, and it can be just an over the craziest thing. Yeah. I, I, I, I read a book and I'm so sorry. I think it was maybe in one of two tools of the Titans or something like that from Tim Ferris. But about every 45 minutes, you should take a break, no matter task, you're on whatever you're doing, but it's that same concept of, you know, every so often you just need to really step back and just go, Whoa. Okay. Where are we at? What's frustrating me. Ah, wait a minute. Just to get away from it for a while and then come back out.

Paul Casey:

Yeah. I think that's called the Pomodoro technique where you go for X number of minutes and then you have to take a break and you can just set this little tomato timer in it. It goes off and reminds you to take breaks because most of the people I coach don't take enough breaks. So I'm glad you say slid that in there. Cause that's a, that that is huge to stay fresh and leadership. So with your, with your team and maybe I'll change this question a little bit of with your customers, what do you do to wow. Your customers? So you make even more of a difference or there's some little things that you and your team do to really hit it out of the park.

Rich Breshears:

Hm. Probably the number one has another great question. But one of the things that we do is we've really carved a specialty when you and I met long time ago.

Paul Casey:

Oh my God. A leadership group. Yes.

Rich Breshears:

It was kind of like a sort of a mastermind

Paul Casey:

Was, was leadership is action. It was called jazzy jigs.

Rich Breshears:

Well, long time ago, the anyway, one of the things I found was that the best thing to do is to really strike that for a second. What was the question? Why were your customers? Oh my gosh, thank you.

Paul Casey:

He can, he's going to edit it. Yeah.

Rich Breshears:

One of the things that we found way back then was that we have to start specialist specializing. We have to actually bear down on one thing that we do and we do it really well because when you and I met Claire back then I was doing everything for everyone. Okay. If you call me and you said, Oh, I've got this, this makeup bottle that needs to be photographed. This is a little product photograph. Can you do that? Yes, I can do that. I, you know, Kenya, can you come photograph this school dance? Yes. I'll come do that. You know, can we, can you photograph my family? Yes, I can do that. A wedding. Yes. I can do that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I can photograph anything. You know, and I wasn't, I was photographing everything mediocre. I was doing, we as a team, we weren't doing well.

Rich Breshears:

We were, we were just shot gunning an octopus thing on everything out there and not really doing anything really well. And w the more we bear down on what is it that we do? What is our mission and our vision, and really focusing on that mission and vision and saying, this is the client we want to serve. This is who we serve. And this is what we do really well. And keeping that foremost in every decision we make, the more we've done that. And there's a lot of times I will have, literally, because rich has, like I said, rich has crazy brain. He does all this crazy stuff with thinking all this stuff all the time about, Oh, I could be doing this and I'll have my, one of my production assistants will come in and go rich, where are we doing this? Oh, Oh, wait a minute. Got me. You know, and I'm sometimes the worst member of this, you know? I mean, it's the, owner's going to be sometimes the worst.

Speaker 4:

Oh my gosh, this is so much fun. I'm going to do this. Right.

Rich Breshears:

And so, yes, that's, that's probably one of the biggest things that I, I find is just, we have bared down specifically on to working with families. That's our number one thing. That's, that's our mission. That's our vision. That's exactly what we do. And, and bearing down on our mission and vision like that and saying, these are our core values. These are the ways we work and saying, yes, this is what we do. And when somebody calls me and says, Hey, I need this house photographed. I go as much as I would love to. That sounds like the most.

Speaker 4:

It's amazing ever. I mean, Oh my gosh, I'm doing this for,

Rich Breshears:

I would go do that. You know? And so that's making, that's

Paul Casey:

Really good. It's been like a filter then for you, once you identified your ideal client, it became a filter. So you could say no to other things that you're tempted to squirrel too. Right?

Rich Breshears:

Exactly. Yeah. And right down to, this is how we treat clients. This is what we do. This is, this is the kind of output we, we give our clients so that they're not shorted in the end that we take really good care of each and every one of them. And it's right down to that very last thing, like I said, the most, most important thing is when that family member walks in and sees their image, that mom, she walks in her, that dad walks in and they see those images in the lobby. And you know, and we've done a really good job, you know? And that's the most important thing and everything else, all these other little fun things I want to do. Oh man. I mean, Oh, there's, there's some really cool books outside of town. I could go photograph I'm. It's not what I do. It's not, I mean, yes, that would be so much fun, but it's not what I do.

Paul Casey:

I think you've, you've coined the term octopus thing.

Speaker 4:

He made it into. I made a verb. It felt like that my new term,

Paul Casey:

I love your chuckling when you're listening to this because that's you and that's me. And so, yes. So you have to get clear on your values. You've got to get clear what you do the best. You got to get clear on, where you can add the most value and get the most return on your investment. So that prevents octopus thing.

Speaker 4:

I love it. I don't know if I can claim that term or not, but I'll tell you what that's you it's you. Right. All right. Rich,

Paul Casey:

A wrap up. So what advice would you give to new leaders, new entrepreneurs, anyone who wants to keep growing and gaining more influence?

Rich Breshears:

You know, I have to tell you the number one thing I, I, it just comes to my head is when it comes to being a new entrepreneur and one don't let anybody tell you, you can't do it because there are going to be a lot of people out there who tell you, you can't do it. Yeah. I can tell you, I am one of those people who probably shouldn't be, but can't do it. I mean, like, I mean, I was told so many times how broke I was going to be our poor. I was going to be how quick I was going to go out of business. How awful this was going to be, how nobody's a full-time photographer in this day and age, how impossible it is. And I am walking, talking, breathing here before you today because I didn't believe it. When people told me I couldn't do it.

Rich Breshears:

Yeah. That's number one. The second thing is, find out what you do well, and do it really well. And third is be good to yourself. Be coming to yourself. You're going to have really crappy days out there. And there's going to be times when you're really feeling beat up. And you're probably the one that's beating yourself up the most. I leave if you're like me and yeah, just give yourself some love because nobody else is going to love you as much as you do. And you're the one who has to put on your socks every morning. And, and that's, that's just the way it's gotta be. So be kind to yourself more than anything else.

Paul Casey:

Good stuff. Rich self-compassion is huge, especially in the land of COVID right now. So how can our listeners best connect with you?

Rich Breshears:

Oh my gosh. Facebook, if you're, if you're living dangerous, I'm on Insta as well. I, one of my one rich photo guy on the Insta, there's a on Facebook. It's just a rich for shares. So, you know, go search me if you feel like being that dangerous. I on Twitter, I don't follow that much, but if you do eat me, I will. I, you know, I will see it. I will, I might respond to it. I might not, but that's, that's, that's one reason photo guy as well. I'm on LinkedIn. And, and then you can always just reach me at the, at our studio brochures, professional photography.com.

Paul Casey:

Awesome. Well, thank you for all the contributions you make to our community. So many nonprofits, your business touches, your generosity is admirable. And thanks for all you do to make the Tri-Cities a great place. Keep leading. Well, let me wrap up our podcast today with a leadership resource to recommend it is called a it's a podcast called business, made simple with Donald Miller. He's the StoryBrand guy changed his podcast name to business, made simple, and it's little, little nuggets of good stuff. If you are running a business, there are some solo episodes where he just pontificates on an area of your business. And then he brings in some great guest experts, and he really gathered some great thought leaders in the industry. So business made simple podcast. If you're looking for some professional growth again, this is Paul Casey. I want to thank my guests. Rich Breshears from Breshears professional photography for being here today on the Tri-Cities influencer podcast. We also want to thank our TCI sponsors and invite you to support them. We appreciate you making this possible so we can collaborate to help inspire leaders in our community. Finally, one more leadership tidbit for the road to make a difference in your circle of influence. Brian costal says, if you nurture your mind, body and spirit, your time will expand. You will gain a new perspective that will allow you to accomplish much more until next time kgs keep growing forward.

Speaker 2:

Thank you to our listeners for tuning into today's show. Paul Casey is on a mission to add value to leaders by providing practical tools and strategies that reduce stress in their lives and on their teams so that they can enjoy life and leadership and experience their key desired results. If you'd like more help from Paul and your leadership development, connect with him at growingforwardatpaulcasey.org for a consultation that can help you move past your current challenges and create a strategy for growing your life or your teams forward. Paul would also like to help you restore your sanity to your crazy schedule and getting your priorities done every day. By offering you this free control my calendar checklist, go to WW dot, take back my calendar.com for that productivity tool or open a text message two seven two zero zero zero, and type the word growth

Paul Casey:

Tri-Cities influencer podcast was recorded at fuse SPC by Bill Wagner of safe strategies.