Before moving to San Francisco and starting her own photography business, Karina Louise lived a life of extremes. But if you ask her about her take-aways, she will tell you that these varied experiences were, in fact, the secret to finding the balance between competition and collaboration. In this post she shares about how this has been vital not only to her success as a small business owner but also to her fulfillment as a person.
The Boot Camp Model: Me as a Professional Athlete
I started playing racquetball at the age of 6. As a child I traveled across North America and met kids from all over the world. Most of it was fun, especially when I was winning. It felt good to be under pressure, to play well, to be praised by the people around me and to be consistently improving. I did pretty well through my teenage years and didn’t really know any other life. But as time passed things changed – the more I won, the scarier it got to lose.
My first major loss was at the Junior World Championships. I was 16, got third place and was devastated. It took me months to recover and I would then go on to use it as fuel, regaining my title the following year. As I moved into the adult level of competition, I had to accept losing from time to time and began to understand that learning from the experience was also valuable. If I’m honest though, losing always felt pretty terrible and over time the pleasure of winning began to wane.
At the age of 21, after 4 years of playing on the senior national team, I was done. Even though I had never really done anything else, I was ready to have a life outside of competitive sports. I had a university degree in business but I didn’t really know who I was. When you live in constant ‘future mode’ and you take the extreme focus on achievement out of the equation, you are suddenly stuck asking yourself what it is you really want.
The ‘Bliss-ness Model’: Me as a Hippie Traveler
After working for a few years I had saved up some money and with no real direction, decided to travel the world for a while. I quickly found myself surrounded by other ‘hippie traveller’ types. I loved how nice everyone seemed and how no one was impressed or even that interested in my sporting background. They wanted to know who I was instead of what I had accomplished. My then boyfriend and I floated from community to community in various parts of the world – from Bali to Goa, Hawaii to Northern California.
During that time, there was a lot of emphasis on being in the present moment and feeling positive towards everyone and everything. It was pretty much the exact opposite of seeing others as a competitive threat. But at the same time, it felt like just another kind of extreme. Although I felt more happy and peaceful, I was also quite empty and lost. Always searching for the next exciting place or experience, I found it difficult to build or become anything solid from that space.
When my savings and my relationship came to an end, I decided to start my own photography business in the Bay Area. But this change from going with the flow to suddenly planting roots was a big switch. After living so much ‘in the present’, I found it scary when I removed the extreme focus I had on ‘allowing’ out of the equation. It was then that I had to ask myself again what I really needed.
3 Practical Lessons About Balance
After living such extremes between professional sport & hippie travelling, I needed balance. Identifying each worlds key values and learning how they can harmonize with each other was a great discovery. When practiced together, they have created amazing balance in my life and my work.
1. Setting Goals vs Being Present
Professional sports taught me about how to set goals for myself. Every training session, workout and practice game was always directed at the future. I learned to set goals and to achieve them by creating regular, measurable milestones. In direct contrast, while traveling the world, my focus became all about the present moment. I found that being available to what was happening to me right now was not only incredibly interesting but also a profound place from which to create. I now find that a combination of the two is very effective. I tend to make some plans and outline clear ideas about where I would like to get to. But then I release my attachment to the details of how I get there, stepping back and allowing life to provide me with a more flexible path. This approach really helped me for example to run photo shoots – planning where we would go and what we might do. But it also helped me to get great natural shots, because by being present, positive and spontaneous, I was better able to connect with my clients to bring out the best of them in their photos.
2. Self Confidence vs Accepting of Others
Winning at anything has the tendency to boost your self-confidence and professional sports were of course a great avenue for that. I learned about how healthy competition can in fact strengthen us, as long as it’s not taken to extremes. In the traveling context, the focus was on openness and collaboration with others. This created a need for a different kind of internal strength. I needed to become clear on my own strengths, goals and boundaries, in order to help me to decide who was best to cultivate relationships with. Seeing everyone as competition can be just as destructive as seeing everyone as a trusted friend. I’m happily able now to balance these two belief systems, letting go of the idea that business is all about winning and losing with nothing in between. For me, success is measured more now by how much I am enjoying my work, helping others and making a sustainable profit. These things can’t be solely measured against another person and there is most definitely more than one winner. How refreshing!
3. Work Ethic vs Creative Freedom
Professional sports taught me how to be self-motivated, always training to become better and existing in a somewhat continuous state of self-improvement. Taken to extremes, this can cause burn out, so during my travel years, when the focus was on cultivating creativity in a state of relaxation and non-forcing, it was a welcome change. The drawback of an extreme focus on creative freedom is when people start to stagnate personally, never building or growing anything and using the freedom they have found as an excuse not to work hard for the things they want. I now try to blend both, by creating goals to achieve and then trying as much as possible to enjoy the process, keeping in mind that life is a journey. There is so much to learn!
We started Seeing Beauty to create a balanced alternative to the extremes, because we genuinely believe that it’s the only way to create sustainable and joyful small businesses. By getting clear on our own values and goals, all our decision-making becomes easier. Striking a balance between ‘boot camp’ and ‘bliss-ness’ can dramatically improve our quality of life and the success of our businesses giving us all a chance to be simultaneously directed and free.