051: From Depression to Deep Relationships with Robert J Hill

Episodes The Bearded Tog

August 22, 2018

From Depression to Deep Relationships

Depression is a deep and dark place so many freelancers and entrepreneurs find themselves in during the journey of their business. It’s not talked about enough in our industry, and we’ve not been given solutions to navigate our way out of it. It is possible to go from depression to deep relationships.

In this episode I talk with Robert J Hill, a traveling wedding photographer from Portland, Oregon about how he hit the peak of destination wedding photographer goals and how it cost him many personal connections and sent him into depression. We talk about how to get out of these rough places, and lead your business in a way that focuses on fulfillment more than finances.

Robert’s Takeaways From Depression to Deep Relationships

Accomplishing your dream business goals is not guaranteed to always fulfill you. Within two years of starting his business, Robert found that he had everything he had ever wanted in business. Unfortunately, his personal life had fallen apart and he went into depression.
He found happiness in his work. He realized he was sacrificing happiness at home to be this “ideal” successful photographer on instagram.
Social media callas, everyone friends, but the photography industry can be a lonely one if you don’t make intentional and real relationships with others.
Connecting with people and building relationships requires you to open up yourself and be vulnerable.
Ask yourself this question: Do you care more about money, or do you care more about people? Why are you running this business?
An industry is never saturated unless everyone is doing the exact same thing.

More Takeaways

If you photography 40-50 weddings a year, and are happy doing that, that’s perfectly fine. However, Robert wants to know what kind of impact can you make for those people when you are building relationships for close to 100 people each year?
The deepest value and depth Robert has found is in building real relationships where you can talk to each other about topics that go beyond surface stuff and are able to be vulnerable with each other.
A lot of photographers don’t want to be fully themselves in their business. They want their business to exist outside themselves. Robert believes that when two are fully connected and energetically flowing with balance, everything works out as it should with a great outcome.
There are two ways of going about business. One is where you niche down and specialize, and focus one one thing and work hard and make your success doing just that. The other is where you focus on intention and being authentic to who you are. It’ll take harder at first, because you will have to dig through a lot of stuff inside yourself, but Robert prefers this path because you will end up giving more authentic value to people.