Entrepreneurship is one of the most creative and lucrative careers. As entrepreneurs, we know to think outside the box and innovate, yet we can become trapped under the glass ceilings we make for ourselves. Realizing that you have limitless potential is the key to breaking through this stumbling block.
In this episode of the Pollen Podcast, we talk about the glass ceiling hindering you from reaching your full potential as a creative entrepreneur. We then get into how you can break free from this mentality rooted in the corporate mindset. Finally, we emphasize the importance of awareness and keeping an open mind in this journey.
If you’re feeling ready to break through the "glass ceiling" and remove the mental blocks keeping you small, this episode is for YOU!
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1. Listen to an episode or two!
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If we break the top 100 this week by all of you following these steps I will be giving away TWO private coaching sessions. LET’S DO THIS!
🔥Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Learn your upper limits — your glass ceiling — and why creative entrepreneurs create them at all.
Realize your limitless potential and capabilities. The glass ceiling is just that: glass! You CAN break through it!
Learn how to manifest your desires into reality. Find out what’s getting in your way and dismantle it!
📘Resources
Sign up for Diana’s Ascend the Mind, a four-month, immersive experience mastermind with 1:1 support for entrepreneurs
🎧Episode Highlights
[02:18] The Glass Ceiling
Diana leads the Ascend Mastermind program, where she guides elevated entrepreneurs to expand in various ways.
They talk about money and abundance and what being a creative entrepreneur means.
Entrepreneurs often create their glass ceilings from a deeply ingrained corporate life culture and beliefs.
It takes a lot to unlearn ingrained societal systems and realize your capabilities as a creative entrepreneur.
[05:11] Breaking the Glass Ceiling
As entrepreneurs, we can make things out of thin air. We then get to charge what we want for what we create.
Diana: ‘Instead of deciding, ‘Oh, this is how I'm making money. This is how much money I'm making a month, and this is what my budget is,’ we get to reframe that and say, ‘Wow, I can actually make as much as I desire because magic comes out of my fingertips—because I can create anything out of thin air.’ - Click Here to Tweet This
Remember who you are and what you can create. The glass ceiling you’ve imposed on yourself or that’s been imposed by others is not real.
You can create whatever you desire. Get out of the corporate mindset that says you have to work within boundaries.
Creative entrepreneurs don’t have boundaries and limits — we’re not stuck in a cage.
[09:09] Realize Your Limitless Potential
Take note of any limiting beliefs in your language. Adopt the belief that you have limitless possibilities.
Think of five different ways you could make $10k next week as an exercise. Be creative and open-minded.
Opening your mind and realizing what's possible is part of breaking free from the cage of societal norms.
Know what drives you. Tune into the full episode to hear Diana's experience as a full-time photographer!
The exercise on making $10k next week is not about putting in the work. There is abundance all around us.
[15:53] Manifesting Money
Diana: ‘Breaking out of this glass ceiling mentality that is corporate life is letting your brain actually gather evidence that it's possible.’ - Click Here to Tweet This
Manifestation isn't just about hoping that things will fall in the right places. It's about getting clear about what you want so you can start looking for it.
Manifestation is letting your brain know that what you want is possible. You don’t necessarily have to know the how or have the timeline.
[17:11] Creating Magic Out of Your Fingertips
What are people asking you that you have profound answers in your mind but dismiss?
Consider that people might be willing to pay you for the one thing you're good at.
Hiring a coach can help you adopt a “forest through the trees” mentality.
Listen to the full episode to hear about Diana’s transition from being a photographer and graphic designer to a business coach!
Diana: “If I wouldn't have been open to seeing other possibilities and getting out of my own way and busting through my own self-imposed glass ceiling, I would never be here in this life that I am so beyond aligned with at this moment.” - Click Here to Tweet This
Remember: awareness is critical.
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Thank you for listening! If you’re ready to land your dream clients, make money running a business that lights you up, and live a life that you love, you’re in the right place. Stay tuned for more podcast updates and other exciting programs from Diana Davis Creative!
Get ready for the inspiration and motivation you’ve been looking for!
Transcript
So my point of this conversation is to remember who you are and what you can create, and that any glass ceiling that you're putting on yourself, any upper limit, that's not real. And we're putting that on ourselves, and we need to get out of our own way.
Diana Davis: Welcome to Pollen, the podcast for creative entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Diana Davis, multi-passionate, creative business coach, Gemini, manifesting generator, matcha drinker, and travel junkie. I'm also the founder of Diana Davis Creative, where I went from a six-figure photography business to coaching creative entrepreneurs like you. If you want to have a career and a life you love, you're in the right place.
On this show, I'll be coaching on all things creative entrepreneurship, and you'll hear stories from fellow creative entrepreneurs that will show you it is possible to do life the way you want to. They'll share the nitty-gritty of their journeys, like the real shit, and how they are doing it differently. I'm stoked to have you along on this journey. Let's go.
Before we get into this episode, it would mean the world if you could take these four steps to help me in celebrating the launch of the Pollen Podcast. By doing this, you're also entering to win a 90-minute business coaching session with me for free. I know, totally insane, such an amazing opportunity. So here are the four steps. Number one, listen to an episode or two. Number two, subscribe or follow the show. Number three, leave a rating and a review. Number four, share your thoughts on the show on Instagram and tag me @dianadaviscreative.
For everyone who completes all of these first steps and messages me the word “pollen”, you will be entered to win a private coaching session with me. Now listen up, if we break into the top 100 in our category, by all of you collaborating and lifting this up, by listening, subscribing, and reviewing, I will give away two private sessions with me. I cannot wait for you to listen and learn so much on the show. Join the party and help us in hitting some pretty big frickin milestones, by subscribing, reviewing, and sharing. What are you waiting for?
Welcome to episode two of the Pollen podcast, I want to talk about something that is on fire for me right now. To be totally transparent, I just got off my Ascend mastermind call, a mastermind that I lead for elevated entrepreneurs to really expand in all sorts of ways. Basically, they are thriving, they have clients coming in, they have income coming in. And they are ready to literally reach new heights with the help of each other. Whether that is expanding in terms of PR and getting their name out to the public, or thought leadership or abundance and money and product suite. They are expanding and these calls are expanding. Right now, they're every Thursday morning. And they're literally the favorite part of my week.
We just got off that call and I'm so jazzed and fired up. Because we were talking about money and abundance and being creative entrepreneurs and what that really means. And I just want to talk about how we kind of create our own glass ceilings. And we really don't need to be doing that. We have this idea and this societal belief from corporate life, right? Most of us were in corporate at some point or some real “job,” right? Where we had a salary or an hourly rate. And we got a certain amount of money per month. And we had to budget by subtracting from that total every month. Okay, rent is 1,300, groceries are 300. What do I have left?
We kind of stay in that mindset, even when we become an entrepreneur and it takes a lot of unlearning of all these societal systems that we have ingrained in our minds and our bodies and our habits. We get to unlearn that and realize that we are fucking magic. Creative entrepreneurs can literally create out of thin air. And even if you're just a human in a corporate job, you still have this ability to create out of thin air. And instead of deciding, “Oh, this is how I'm making money. This is how much money I'm making a month. And this is what my budget is,” we get to reframe that, and say, “Wow, I can actually make as much as I desire,” because magic comes out of my fingertips, because I can create anything out of thin air.
If we're talking coaching here, for example, you can create a program out of thin air, it just comes from your mind, it comes from your magic, and we get to charge what we want for that program. What is it worth? What will people pay? What's the ROI for them, right? But then it's not even stuck there. Like, “Okay, I'm going to have a one-on-one client. And this is how much we're going to charge. And this is what they get.” A group program is also this kind of quantum leap, if you will, of one to many, and limitless possibilities. Where it's not just — say we're charging $2k for one client, we could have 20 clients in one room. And that creates its own magic.
My point of this conversation is to remember who you are and what you can create, and that any glass ceiling, that you're putting on yourself any upper limit, that's not real. And we're putting that on ourselves, and we need to get out of our own way. And maybe someone else is putting that on you. We're all going to have those people in our lives, especially as creative entrepreneurs, who say, “Get a real job, what are you even doing? Is this all a scam? Like photography is not a real job, or you can't paint for a living? How can you even charge for that?” And that's all bullshit. And we need to unwind that and get back to our core. And if we close our eyes for a second, we can picture ourselves as these like glowing, sparkly rainbow humans, who are just oozing creativity.
My challenge to you today is to take away your own glass ceiling, realize that you can make whatever you desire, you can create whatever you desire. We are the writers, the authors of our own lives, and we need to take back our power. Get out of that corporate mindset, that we have a certain amount and we have to work within boundaries. As creative entrepreneurs, we do not have boundaries and limits. Boundaries are a whole other conversation. We have like good boundaries to protect our energy. Money is a boundary, all of that's a whole other conversation. But we don't have cages. We get to free flow and create whatever we want to create. So notice language like “I can't afford x, or that's just not for me, or who would sign up for that?” Notice those limiting beliefs coming through. Notice how you're anchoring into those.
Just like they say in meditation, letting those thoughts kind of pass by, like clouds without judgment, and actually routing back into the belief that you have limitless possibilities at your fingertips. Something we also talked about in this Ascend call is ways we could make $10k next week, just as an arbitrary number and just as a challenge. An exercise that I would love for you to do, maybe pause this episode and go journal it out for a second. And decide how we could make a $10k month and be really open-minded and part of this kind of unlearning and getting out of the cage of societal norms. We're not in that cage. We're crazy entrepreneurs, we did not choose this journey to be in a cage. So part of getting out of that cage is realizing what is possible and staying really open-minded, seeing the forest through the trees.
I'm going to tell you a little story really quick and we'll get back to this exercise. When I was a photographer full-time, I was mostly shooting women and wellness. And I was charging around $350 for an hour shoot, and $550 for a two-hour shoot with 20 selects for the one hour and 50 selects for the two hour, just to give them a little incentive. And so many people, when I was shooting with them, would ask about how I knew I would make enough money that month. Was I worried about needing to get 20 to 50 shoots a month to make the “salary” for myself that I required living in New York City.
Being a manifesting generator, a Gemini, and a creative, I never had an answer for that. I would always say, “I don't really keep track of ‘Oh my God, I need to make 20 shoots at $350 this month to make sure I hit XYZ goals,’” because that's not really how I work. And I think just knowing that about yourself is really important, what you're driven by. Are you driven by goals and numbers? Or are you like me, where you kind of just need to hold a desire and trust, take action and trust and let the universe meet you halfway, right. So what I mean by seeing the forest through the trees, is that I would have all of a sudden a $4k shoot come through.
Where I just posted a boomerang on Instagram, started a conversation with a brand, they saw that I was a photographer, they wanted to talk about shooting together, I realized that they were owned by Procter and Gamble, and they probably had a pretty good budget, I sent them a proposal for $4k and they said yes, and I'm like, “Holy shit, that's a lot of $350 shoots.” So instead of focusing on the trees, and every $350 shoot, I have to make my goals or desired money, I can see that forest and be open to other possibilities.
When you go do this exercise of how could you literally make $10k next week, and I'm not talking putting in the work of $10k but having people sign on with you in some way. So maybe, right now, it's March 31, and maybe next week, you have a photography client that signs on for a shoot in June, but they're giving you a 50% deposit today. Or maybe you are promising income. You have promised income coming in. And it's not that you're doing 15 shoots next week to make $10k, but you have deposits coming in promised money, promised cash. And by the way, please have at least a 50% deposit. I know a lot of you out there do not. And you might even be making a textile that hangs on the wall. But you're getting paid when that textile is finally finished and delivered to that person.
No, please implement at least a 50% deposit. So you have that cash flow and have a little bit of freedom and excitement and energy exchange right up front to start this textile that is going to be in this person's home. So how could you make $10k promised cash next week? And I want you to get really creative. I want you to come up with five different ways you could do this. So if I'm a photographer, and because I was, I'm going to just use this a lot as an example, I could rent out my equipment, that could be a way I could make money. Honestly, I could literally sell my desk and my clothes and my furniture if I needed to. That could be another way that has nothing to do with my career. But there is abundance all around us. I could have one big $10k shoot get booked, I could have several, five to be exact, $2k shoots, right? I could have a big shoot for $7k and a couple smaller shoots to make up that $10k. I could consult, I could do a mentorship session, I could charge 250 bucks for someone to pick my brain, and I could do a Lightroom or Photoshop course. There are so many ways and parts of manifesting money and breaking out of this glass ceiling mentality that is corporate life is letting your brain actually gather evidence that it's possible.
Manifestation isn't just about putting it out there, sprinkling your fingers, and hoping the fairy dust lands in the right places. Manifestation is getting clear about what you want so that your brain can actually see it when it's in front of you so that you can actually be looking for it and letting your brain know that it's possible. But you don't have to know the how, or the timeline. So this $10k exercise is so important. Not so that you can go do this exact blueprint of what you come up with next week to make this $10k, but so that you can start to realize how many ways it's possible to make the money you desire. And it doesn't have to be $10k. You don't even have to want $10k, you could want more than $10k. That's not the point. The point is not the numbers. The point is being able to realize that you can create magic out of your fingertips.
What are people asking you right now, in the DMs, in conversations with friends, family, new people, even going to a bar and meeting someone new? What are people asking you, over and over, that you have answers to that you maybe think aren't really a big deal, but you're actually really good at this thing and people would pay you to do that? For me, that was coaching. I was a photographer and a graphic designer, this is also seeing the forest through the trees, right? I was a photographer and a graphic designer. You couldn't have told me, I would be a coach, like I would have laughed in your face. I knew I wanted to be known as an entrepreneur, but you couldn't have told me I was going to be a coach.
However, with the help of a coach, which I highly recommend — if you have not hired a coach, please get support. But with the help of a coach and also just having that forest through the trees mentality, I was able to start to realize how many people were asking me how to do entrepreneurship. How many people respected the way I was going about it, the resources I was sharing, even from my accountant, taxes, legal, contracts, all of that stuff a lot of people don't share. I started noticing this. I started having friends literally, who are quitting their jobs say, “Hey, can we grab coffee? Can I just pick your brain?” I was starting to notice DMs that were asking not for photoshoots or not even what kind of camera I used, but how do I have a client workflow? How do you take a client from inquiry in the DMs to paid-in-full invoice?
I started noticing those things and, with the help of my coach at the time, I realized there was something there. So I started doing strategy sessions with people. And I started pricing out coaching packages. At the time I wouldn't call myself a coach, but eventually yeah, I'm a coach. And that's how this was born. Another multi-six figure business that I've created out of thin air, from the magic of my mind and my fingertips and my experience. And I always say my certification is life. I've been through it, and I've been you. And I'm really fucking good at what I do. I was really good at being a photographer and a graphic designer, that was another six-figure business that I had. But if I wouldn't have been open to seeing other possibilities, and getting out of my own way, and busting through my own self-imposed glass ceiling, I would never be here in this life that I am so beyond aligned with at this moment, being able to support other creative entrepreneurs on this journey.
Being able to be totally nomadic, being able to hire a team and support those people in their dreams, creating a community that I could have only dreamed of five years ago. So do this exercise. Be cognizant of what your own glass ceiling is. Be really aware. Awareness is so key. And just notice where you're putting these limitations on yourself. And let's bust through them and be the magical fucking unicorns we are. Because we are, we're so rare and so magical, y'all. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for listening to this little soapbox. I hope it jazzed you up. And if it did, please share this episode on Instagram and tag me and let me know what you got out of this, your biggest takeaway. That would mean the world to me. That would mean the world. Spread the word. Spread the message. Taking you to church here. Alright, Pollen. I'll see you soon.
