and thinks they're a photographer these days.
You know, as long as I've got an Android or an iPhone,
I can take the best photos in the world.
What types of practice or elements of technique
do you work on to create these amazing images
that you, they're able to create?
For me, I've learned a lot
from shooting different variety of things.
So not sticking to one category,
it's allowed me to find what I love most,
which has been great.
You know, I have my niche, I have my strengths,
but shooting a lot of different types of people
and different types of events
has been really educational and challenging in a good way.
And another thing that has improved my skill
working on basics is, and it's actually from art class.
I learned it in probably eighth grade or ninth grade.
They're called the elements of art
and the principles of design.
And they're just like foundational truths
about art in general, you know,
whether it's a painting or a drawing or a photo.
And those things apply to foot of photography.
And so those things have really improved my work a lot.
Perfect.
And so I like that you talked about not niching down.
Niching down is such an overhyped concept in my opinion.
Google's not very niche, Amazon's not very niche.
You know, these massive, Disney is not very niche.
They have all sorts of brands under their umbrella.
And you're talking about how being able to dive
into these curiosity buckets, these areas
where you don't necessarily have it perfected to a T
has inspired you and allowed you
to improve your craft across the board.
I think the same is true of entrepreneurs
and almost any endeavor and category at their end.
Same thing with visionaries.
Before we dive into your vision further,
I'd love to know what three resources do you recommend
to other leaders, visionaries, and entrepreneurs out there?
Yeah, so for, I mean, my focus in photography
is kind of limited as far as like resources for that.
But for me, I would suggest entrepreneurs
and self-employed people to seek out Facebook groups,
actually, Facebook groups have been like a shining beacon
of the cesspool that Facebook is sometimes.
Sometimes, not always, I like Facebook.
But I also don't like a lot of things.
But Facebook groups have been like this little safe island
where you can meet people in a localized area
that have a similar interest.
You know, there's interest groups, of course,
and hobby and profession groups.
But there's no algorithm involved in the posting
and the groups and there's no ads.
So Facebook groups that are specialized and localized
to something that you need to learn or benefit from
have been huge for me.
I have learned a lot and I've gained clients
and I've made friends.
Those three things are like huge to me.
And that's all thanks to Facebook groups.
Another resource, and this may be a no-brainer, but YouTube.
There are so many incredible channels on YouTube
that teach, for me, photography,
but entrepreneurial and money-making
and selling courses.
There's so many topics on YouTube that are scotch-free
and a lot of them are high quality.
Not all of them, but there are high quality ones out there
that you can really gain a lot from.
I call it the YouTube university.
Where'd you go to college?
Well, YouTube.
I was about to say, not all professors
are equal at universities and you nailed it.
Yeah, I've heard some horror stories of professors
that also hurt that the students can't even understand them.
And how do you learn?
How do you learn from that?
So yeah, YouTube has been huge.
And then another thing is to find mentors
that are ahead of you and above you,
but that can also be trusted and can teach well.
I've had a few people in my life
that have been able to mentor me.
Not that I've been a challenging student,
but they were willing, rather.
I should say they were willing to mentor me
and pull me up to the next level.
And that was a huge resource for me,
is just finding the right people in the industry.
Those are all fantastic.
In fact, the first two are unique.
Ironically, nobody's talked about the resource
of Facebook and YouTube.
And I think it's part of the thing
that some people take for granted,
but there's a difference in knowing how to play
on Facebook and YouTube and knowing how to use it
as a productivity resource.
And there are levels to that.
So I agree with you 100% Facebook groups.
When you filter and find the right type of Facebook group,
the people who are not even necessarily like-minded,
but have a sense of purpose and passion
around what they're doing, not just selling you something.
And in addition to that, they're willing to be collaborative
and come together in nature.
Doesn't matter if it's paid for or not,
you can find tremendous resources within those groups.
And life's about that, right?
Can we say the same thing about our own neighborhoods
and our own zip codes, our own states,
where you can find lots of resources that are distractions
and elements that can tear you down
as much as you can find elements that could build you up.
It just depends, what do we focus our time and efforts on?
You mentioned mentoring.
I have plenty of people who have mentored me
when I wasn't ready for it too.
I needed to learn.
So you mentioned they,
I can't remember the words you used exactly,
but there've been times where I didn't quite know
what I needed.
And thank goodness for a mentor who could help me see
what it was that I wasn't willing to see by myself
or wasn't capable of seeing by myself.
And then of course, there's always the opportunity
for us to step in to mentorship,
to accept it with open arms and say, you know what?
Maybe I don't know it all.
What can I learn from this person
who has experience in this category
that's different than mine or superior to mine?
And allow myself to dive in fully with that.
Who's your best mentor?
Let's give a shout out.
Give me a guess.
Could be Eli.
Who is it?
It's an easy one for me.
And a lot of people in San Antonio will agree,
Jim Landers.
Jim Landers is an awesome guy.
He's like the patron saint of learning photography
in San Antonio.
I did meet Jim once.
And he had that effect.
I'm not a photographer.
And I was like, man, this is cool.
He was in a photo contest group, right?
Yes.
Jim Landers.
Okay, excellent shout out to Jim.
Did you have more to say about that?
I actually didn't catch your off guard.
Well, a little bit.
I mean, he doesn't just teach photography,
which you can learn in a lot of places,
but he also teaches a business side,
which you can't learn in a lot of places.
Not even photography degrees.
They don't teach you business or photography
in most colleges.
And so that was huge for me,
was learning the business side,
learning that self-worth,
learning strategies to price myself
and how to find clients.
And it's something I'm still learning.
I'm not just on the top of the mountain, you know,
filthy rich.
Like it's a learning process still,
but he pulled me up light years ahead of where I was
and has helped me a lot.
It's huge.
I think one of the things that we,
I've taken for granted even,
I can't speak for everybody,
but all of these specialized practices,
whether it's chiropractors or photographers,
they talk about how they don't learn
the business aspect in school.
I think it's not because people don't express
that they want to learn that.
I know colleges listen to that.
You know, they probably feel the pain of that too,
but the challenge that we're not keying in on
as mature adults is realizing,
well, if they're not teaching it,
maybe it's harder than we think it is.
That should resonate with all of us.
Business is not easy.
And somebody who's oversimplifying it, you know,
they either, you know, again,
if they have a bunch of people who've been following them
who are winning and there's proof that they're winning,
that's one thing, but in all reality,
96% of businesses are going out of business
within 10 years.
I don't think colleges know how to bridge that gap safely
and correctly.
So we have to be very aware that, you know,
this game of business and fulfilling our visions,
it's not impossible, but it does take hard work,
which is not necessarily anybody's favorite thing
to agree to do.
What are your thoughts on that, Daniel?
Am I wrong on that?
Am I right on that?
Is there-
No, I totally agree.
However, I do think that colleges in a perfect world,
they could somehow teach the business information
with the trade.
That's a lot of information.
And I guess that's why business is a whole other degree
and rightfully so.
When photographers, when hopeful, new, fresh photographers
come and say, I wanna go to college for photography
and say, maybe don't do that.
I would humbly suggest go to school for business
and or marketing somewhere in that world.
Learn the hard stuff from a good source
and then learn the easy stuff.
I mean, I think photography is relatively easy to learn
compared to the business practice.
So are you suggesting that counselors might accidentally
talk people out of going to universities
and ruin the revenue stream of the university
if they were to honestly guide people to,
I never mind, I'm gonna leave that right where it's at.
So there is a revenue stream behind all business models,
whether we call ourselves universities or brands.
And sometimes we look out for our own
rather than fully looking out for the needs
of those that we're serving.
That's not a recommended path by me, by the way,
but it is something I am openly willing
to discuss in this platform.
So Daniel, we're gonna dive into your vision
right after a quick break.
I love your photography.
It reminds me of what I've seen from Josh Rossi,
who's one of my favorite photographers,
full-time photographer.
And your stuff is amazing.
I can't wait to just get to know you more
as now I live close in New Braunfels.
And man, I'm excited to have in your work
and see what types of photography
we can pull off for my kids in the near future.
I think that would be a fantastic opportunity.
So we'll be right back everybody.
We'll be looking more into Daniel's photography,
diving into his vision,
and see how we can help you with your visions along the way.
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Callum, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
What's up, guys?
Hey, what's up?
And welcome in to another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Callum,
founder and CEO of First Class Business.
And I'm excited to have Daniel Grove on my stage today.
He is a photographer, and he is not just any photographer.
He does those really cool photography concepts
that transform you into a superhero,
and you can see the powers and effects of it.
In addition to that, he does some amazing photography
for weddings or special events.
We're talking about memories here.
We're talking about transforming our future with memories.
We're gonna dive into that too, but the power of an image,
if you've ever had an image taken of you
or you've seen an image that makes you go,
wow, even if it's not yours,
that's that wow, that feeling and sense of awe.
In fact, I've got LeBron James on this wall behind me
and he is breaking the record for the scoring record
for the NBA.
And that moment, that awe that's driven by that,
it has a lot to do with the photography.
It has a lot to do with seizing the moment,
but it's now ingrained in history for all of us.
And you can have that same type of effect.
It doesn't have to be the scoring record or title.
And I hope that all of you get the chance
to have that experience, at least,
even if it's not for yourself, for your kids,
for other people who care about your life,
for other people, it might be your pet.
There's so many opportunities that go along with that.
And now I'm kind of turning this into a promotion
for Daniel's service, but why?
Because I've seen the power and I've felt it
of having that photography done
and seeing the effect it can have on both the brand,
of vision, and again, on memories of my own childhood.
So with that said, we're gonna move into a few resources
and bring Daniel back on stage.
First is the lost spot.
The Lost Spot's run by Melissa Gray.
I'm gonna keep this short today.
I almost didn't allow her to come onto my show
because lawyers are often pretentious.
They often condescend to speak over you.
She makes legal simplified.
I had a $20,000 lawsuit regarding our trademark
at Restaurant Connect.
We won, but we spent $20,000 protecting our own brand name.
I don't think we won in that case.
We could have done a better job of finding
who we were gonna work with and who we aligned with
to represent our brand than we did.
We suffered the consequences accordingly.
Don't be like Jackson.
Don't suffer the consequences.
Do your research upfront.
Find out who you want to represent your craft.
Then there's Recovery Unplugged with Andrew Sosin.
Recovery Unplugged is an addiction recovery program
that also incorporates music.
I'm a big fan of music.
I know what it's like to help people overcome addictions
as well as be involved in the process
of trying to understand it.
Entrepreneurs, we have addictive personalities.
These can be simple things like binge watching Netflix
to escape life and are diving into apps for hours at a time
to drugs and alcohol.
If you suffer from it, my hope for you
is that you will seek the advice and counsel
from an entity like this.
If you have a friend or family member that suffers,
rather than putting the onus on them to seek the counsel,
call and learn what you can do to help them get inspired
to get the help they need.
You may save somebody's life in the process.
Now, the other reason why I bring this up
is he's got over 400 team members at Recovery Unplugged.
And some of his executives graduated from the program
within itself.
They are now executives with excellent families.
And his way of leadership just aligns really well
with my heart.
And when I find founders that have programs that are amazing,
I'm like, man, I want to tell the world about this
because I want to see that entity continue to succeed
in the ripple effect and byproduct of helping people
overcome their worst case scenarios
and transform them into some of the most productive people
in society.
I mean, I don't know too many causes
that are doing more for society
than what Andrew has been able to create.
So I'm just in awe at his team
and what they've been able to do for people.
Then there's the water project.
The water project will not benefit you or I.
People who are listening, we have the water that we need.
My water bottle is usually right next to me.
I'd have to run downstairs a whole 10 yards
in order to get access to my clean drinking water.
Meanwhile, there's millions of people
who don't have clean drinking water on this earth.
Their kids have to leave school
or they have to choose to leave work
and they walk three to five miles
and they get access to water that may not be so clean.
And that could be very dangerous for their family.
What's cool about the water project
is they allow us to see the projects
that we're contributing to.
And if you contribute even just $5
to that particular cause or project,
you get to see the outcome of the project too.
You get to see the borehole well that they drill
or you get to see the sand dam.
The community learns how to maintain it.
I just think it's amazing the amount of transparency
and the depth of education that the water project does
to help us get involved.
And there are millions of people out there
who could use their help.
Now, if you are struggling economically as well
or you know of another source of challenges,
another reality that people are going through
and you wanna drop a link to get support or help
for maybe your crowdfunding project
or maybe a friends, or maybe it has something to do
with another initiative in the world.
My friends, we have 8 billion people in this world to help.
And those of us fortunate enough to talk on a microphone
as part of our work or listen in and tune in
to receive knowledge.
My hope is that we can do more to at least spread the word
and help some of those people out.
So thanks for joining me in that and being interested.
And without further ado,
I'm gonna bring Daniel Grove on stage.
We're gonna talk about his vision and photography as well.
So Daniel, thank you for being here today, man.
It's my honor to have you as a guest.
Oh, my honor too.
Thank you for having me.
Absolutely.
So beyond the frame, beyond the photo,
what's your vision for those that you serve?
I wanna capture milestones.
I have kind of two sides to my business.
One is the creative fun stuff, which is great.
But then there's a more purposeful, more weighty part,
which is I wanna capture moments
that are important to people.
I wanna capture them in a timeless way.
It's where they don't look back in ten years and say,
oh, that looks like a 2010 photo.
I want it to be like a piece of art,
happens to be digital, but it's a piece of art on its own.
And they can enjoy it for decades to come.
That's kind of my, that's one of my goals
is to make long lasting time-freezing art
that means something to someone.
Absolutely.
Like that photo of LeBron behind you.
Right, for sure.
And as the guy with long hair now,
it is amazing how many people key in on my photos
and say, Jackson, you really should update your photos.
And we take those.
No, man, those photos have meaning.
I don't have to update the whole brand.
It gives us new dynamics.
But it is certainly helpful as well
to capture the new memories, the new essence.
So what are some of the favorite projects you've had
that when you think of the client reactions,
you know, I'm sure people have cried.
I'm sure people have laughed.
What was the circumstance and the case for those photos?
Man, I have had some, I have made some women cry.
And that's not something a lot of people can say
in their profession with pride.
So I definitely have.
And one session that was particularly special
was a surrogate maternity session.
So my friend was a surrogate mother for a couple.
And we did a maternity shoot with the pregnant mom
and the bio parents behind with her.
And that was just really special.
That was something that just almost felt like another level.
You know, it's like, am I even doing photography
at this point?
Like, this is incredible.
It's so meaningful and special to them.
But I've had a lot of sessions that had a lot of meaning.
And yeah, it's just been an incredible experience
to be so close to people's lives.
I like to say that I get, now this is more concerning
than the weddings often, but I'll say I get a front row seat
at the best day of people's lives.
And that does apply to other things too.
Big milestones to life.
Yeah, that's huge.
And like you mentioned too,
there's the reality of being there at the child's birth.
Yeah.
You know, again, best day of people's lives.
I mean, showcasing their hobbies.
Like we're looking at it in the screen right now,
the football player, the golfer that's multifaceted
in terms of their interests.
That's so neat how you're able to incorporate all of that
and create these visions that people may not even have
for themselves before they talk to you.
Sometimes they don't know it.
They don't know any better until they get to talking to me
and I start to open up their mind to the possibilities
that we could, what we could do in front of the camera.
I had a meeting one time with a 15 year old girl.
It was like a keen scene at a session.
And that was the planning consultation meeting
with her and her parents.
And she had no ideas.
I was like, okay, well, let's dig into who you are.
Tell me things you love.
Movies, entertainment, personality, style, all that stuff.
And after about 30 minutes, I had so many cool ideas
that you could see her eyes were lighting up.
She was like, oh my gosh, like a circus themed photo shoot.
I would love that.
I love circus and performance, you know,
is this all these cool possibilities.
And we did have an amazing, amazing photo shoot,
but opening up people's minds to things
that they hadn't thought of before is really cool.
That's it. That is awesome.
It is one of the most empowering feelings too,
is to capture the essence of somebody else's vision, right?
By painting, you know, a potential reality,
like what you see based on who they are
and where they're at, by asking great questions, right?
I think it's a certain skill.
I was in a, with a social worker that I knew quite well.
And this little girl comes in who had been working
as part of, I think it was good Sam,
but they were working in a bakery or something like that.
No, they were working in a child center.
Why?
Because she had raised all of her younger siblings.
While I was thinking in my head, like,
she might hate childcare at this point.
And I wonder why she missed work.
So I literally jumped in.
I was probably 21 years old.
I jumped in, took over the session for the social worker
and started asking like, what do you like to do?
Like, what are you passionate about?
What makes you happy?
She's like baking.
And next thing you know,
we got her lined with a position in the bakery at H-E-B.
You know, she was super excited, you know, like to go.
And I was like, man, there's a gift to be had.
And there's a shared experience too of feel good
when you're able to help drive that open for people.
And so I absolutely love the power of the work
that you're doing.
And I wish we had all the examples ready to showcase.
All.
I have so many photos.
Right.
And it would make it more powerful.
So we've done our best guys.
Those of you listening,
go to the action steps on the website
and take a look at Daniel Rose photography.
In fact, it's a, it is Danielbrophoto.com.
You can look at it while we talk.
So what's your vision for you, Daniel?
What do you see for yourself on the horizon?
For myself personally, or as a photographer?
Either one.
So yeah, personally, I want to be a dad
that is there for my kids,
which I'm mostly able to do on a new level
because I'm self-employed, you know,
I'm making my schedule,
but I want to be able to provide well for my family
by using the skills that God's given me
and the skills that I've nurtured and grown.
You know, I had this crazy idea
that I could make a lot of money
doing something that I also enjoy.
Yes.
That's not a reality for a lot of people, unfortunately,
but I'm working towards making that
a more of a reality for myself.
And yeah, that's my goal personally,
is to do what I love and be there for my kids
and raise little world changers, you know?
We need more of those.
That's so cool to raise little world changers.
I love that.
And you talk about being in a route to that reality.
And to me, you know, I see the quality of your work
and I'm like, oh dude, you're like beyond the route.
You know, you're about to cross that finish line,
you know, of being able to make that happen.
But at the same time, moving from the hyperbolic world
to the reality that business is hard.
I mean, there's a lot of components to that.
So I appreciate your reverence for the reality
that there's more to do to be able to sustain and build that.
And while I'm grateful for the four hour work week
and the lessons that it taught,
especially in relation to becoming part of the new rich,
those who are able to do what they love while working,
I've never been a big fan of the concept
of a four hour of work per week,
especially since Tim Ferriss works far more than four hours.
He posts on LinkedIn four hours per week,
let alone the rest of the conferences
he participates in and does.
But you talk about it from the standpoint
of there's more to do.
Do you feel like providing for your family
means becoming the next Jeff Bezos
and having to have billions of dollars per child?
Or do you feel like there's a balance
between world conquering production as a photographer
and maybe there's the other side.
What if you were just a dad
who didn't make a massive name for yourself,
focused on your family and making those little world changers
and made it $100,000 per year salary
and had your means taken care of?
What strikes success in your opinion?
I would call that man rich.
If he has what he needs
and has kids with good heads on their shoulders
and has a strong marriage, he's rich.
It's not, I don't want it to sit in your bank account.
It's the quality, not the quantity.
So that's kind of my goal is,
and I don't know, I don't wanna be the next Jeff Bezos.
I don't wanna be a empire.
At this point, and I can't speak for 25 years in the future,
but I don't want to have a brand
that has like a huge empire of other people under me
and this whole expansive thing.
That's not my vision right now.
I just want to have enough for the now
and a little bit for the future
because as you can tell,
things are getting more expensive every year.
So that's a little part of my dynamic there.
My equation is trying to make sure that I can, you know,
afford the next 10 years.
But yeah, I just wanna have enough to have my kids stable
and I don't want billions.
That actually doesn't turn out very well
for a lot of people, right?
So that's not a fix for life problems.
It's what's in here and what's in here that can fix things.
And I believe that God is a huge element to that as well.
So yeah.
For those listening in,
Daniel pointed to his heart and his mind
as those being the elements that matter.
And of course, as you said, God being part of that equation
and the money for me, it's a vehicle.
It's a resource and how we use it depends,
but the more money you have,
it's almost kind of like it's an accelerator for life.
And if you don't know how to control that accelerating power
or the brakes that go along with it,
it can certainly cause massive destruction in our lives.
You know, you can quickly drive a Ferrari into a brick wall
much faster than you anticipated.
So it is worth preparing ourselves for those realities.
Speaking of brick walls,
what is the absolute worst leadership experience
that you've ever had?
I, so I've been doing photography since high school
and it's kind of grown,
but during that journey, I've had various full-time jobs.
So I had a job where my boss was scary.
He was intimidating and unpleasant.
When he called you, he started checking your desk,
making sure you were on task,
you know, dotting your I's, crossing your T's.
When he came to the room, you think you're in trouble,
that's not healthy and it's toxic and it was awful.
It was stress-inducing when he came in.
And after that, I had another boss that was the opposite.
And I was like, when he walks in,
you just assume he's ready to tell a good joke,
just to hang out, to be your friend.
There's still tasks and responsibilities.
Like that's not what I'm talking about,
but he's warm and welcoming
and it's a healthy relationship.
So yeah, that was my worst was just having that boss
when he walked in, you think you're in trouble.
And that's not good.
You have a book in there, it's Rich Boss, Poor Boss.
Oh, is that part of the story?
You've heard Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
As a book by Robert Kiyosaki,
it sounds like you've got a rich boss and a poor boss,
you know, to learn from, what was he looking at on your desk?
I don't know, I just wanna make sure
everything was perfect, you know, scared.
Oh my goodness, that is weird.
Yep, there are, I guess we can call them leaders out there.
There are people like that.
People in control.
They may not be leader, but they are in control.
That's true, that's true.
They don't only think they have control,
but in many cases they are empowered
with control that affects us.
So what's your best leadership experience
that you've ever had?
I hate to circle back to what we've already said in the past,
but with Jim Landers, he was a great leader
in that he was patient
because I had so many battles in my mind.
You know, Joyce Meyers, the battle of the mind,
I was struggling to get over multiple hills
of psychological doubt and limits that I put on myself
in terms of my business growth and methods
that I could make money through my photography.
But he was patient with me
and he asked those great questions,
those mic drop questions that stuck with me
and made me answer them in the right way
as I was more honest with myself.
So yeah, he was a great leader in that regard
that he helped me grow in a good way.
My goodness, what were the mic drop questions
that he asked you?
Do you remember any of them?
They're all-
They're all circles that you were going through first.
If you don't mind, if they weren't too personal,
but other visionaries might be feeling the same way.
They might be watching and be like,
man, he overcame it, I wanna overcome it.
What does that look like?
You know, I don't remember the specific questions.
There are more things that are burned in my subconscious
and I have memories of our talks.
We would do like, I think maybe a weekly phone call
and some other back and forth.
But I remember these talks he would have
where he would ask me a question like,
how much is an hour of your life worth?
I'm like, I don't know.
And then, you know, how much money do you need to survive?
You need to do math to get that answer.
And you have to be honest
and include things you may not wanna include.
And then you get a big number like, oh my gosh,
I have to have this number met, you know,
at least to survive.
So things along those lines, not those exact questions,
but it was things that you have to ask yourself before,
maybe before opening a business would be good.
Or if you're too late or you started,
things you need to answer quick to stay afloat
and not be wasting your time.
These are, they're huge.
There are many, many entrepreneurs.
And I mean, I consult for a living.
It's a large part of what I do.
And it is terrifying.
How few entrepreneurs know those types of answers
and they are essential.
And it's terrifying until you just hear it all the time.
You're like, okay, well,
people are finding a way to survive.
But I think a lot of people assume that when you look at
and assess the worst case scenario,
that you become a self-fulfilling prophecy
of that worst case scenario,
when in fact that's not the case.
That's not how a self-fulfilling prophecy works.
When you have your worst case scenario planned out,
but you've also prepared out your best case scenario
and you hit your middle ground in between,
it can often give you a sense of hope
and a sense of purpose that, okay,
I was able to accomplish this and then some,
and I'm working towards that healthy goal
of what I want in the future moving forward.
So getting a, having a firm relationship
with your existence, your current existence,
your reality is a massive step up.
And that's cool that Jim Lander's helped you figure that out.
Is there any other, what was holding you back
from wanting to move into your photography full time
and accept the skillset that you had
as something people would value?
It was generally regarding prices and value of what I did.
He had this lofty vision, to me it was lofty at the time,
that you can make thousands,
not just make thousands off of a photo shoot or wedding,
but that it's actually worth that.
And I almost disagreed.
I was like, oh, I could never charge over $500
for a family photo shoot.
Like that's, no one's gonna pay that, no one.
But I was wrong.
And he had ways of proving me wrong and backing it up.
It wasn't his opinion, it was his experience
and his knowledge over years of doing this
and coaching others who had become very successful.
And the price jump is a big thing for all entrepreneurs.
Like how much do I charge?
There's competition, there's my experience,
maybe isn't that much.
I can't charge more than this level
and no one's gonna ever hire me.
It's a big battle of the mind
and your self-worth, your self-value,
the vision you have for your service, whatever that is.
How much is it really worth?
Well, people pay all kinds of numbers
for all kinds of things around the world.
Maybe it's just you're in the wrong audience.
It's not that you're not good enough.
It's the audience you are reaching
or maybe stuck in doesn't value what you're doing enough.
Good for him for hitting that point.
That is a massive warning.
Well, it's again, it's hard for you
because it's for a number of reasons,
but we're talking about the difference
between the ideal client,
which is what people think they talk about
and what I call the typical client.
And people get so obsessed with the typical client reality
that they face on the daily basis
because they're talking to them so often,
they forget the existence of their ideal client.
And they forget to use a language associated
with the ideal client.
So what happens is you talk to 99 typical clients,
people, oh, I would never pay for that photography.
Oh, I would never, you know, oh my gosh,
someday when I'm rich, I'll pay for that.
But not right now, Daniel.
And oh, and you're hearing all those nos so often
from people who aren't qualified.
They're not in the moment.
There is only 5% of your market at the time
who is ready to buy.
And so you hear 95% of people say no.
And then when you get to the 96th person,
what often happens is, oh, I know,
you don't want it just like everybody else.
And the ideal client goes, oh, with that attitude,
you're right.
Yeah.
I don't want it.
Oh, I mean, oh, thank you.
Yeah, I'll take more information
and look for somebody who exudes hope.
Oh, I mean, oh, and who's ready to talk to me
at a higher level.
That is a tremendous challenge for all visionaries
and entrepreneurs out there is to stay in the mindset
that the very next conversation,
every single conversation is a potential ideal client,
but I cannot succumb to talking to ideal clients
with typical client behaviors
ingrained in my own communication patterns.
What are your thoughts on that?
You've had some experience with this for a couple of years.
Where would you take that?
What have you seen?
What can you shed light on for the audience?
Yeah, definitely.
I've come to a point where when someone doesn't,
I don't wanna say can't afford me,
but they don't want to afford me, right?
That's the case for most people, not all.
But for those people who don't want to afford me
or can't find a way to, to not get hurt about that
and then try to make amends and try to fix things
and make nice like, well, I'll do it for this much.
How about for this much?
You know, I'll lower my price.
I don't, I no longer feel the urge to do that at all.
I feel empathy for them
because there's a lot of things I can't afford
and I also can't afford myself.
That's another hard lesson I learned from Jim
is if you can't afford yourself,
you're doing all right.
You shouldn't be able to afford yourself.
That's a goal as I wanna reach that next level.
But yeah, when someone can't afford me
and doesn't want to, I don't get but hurt about it.
I move on and I say, okay, well, if anything changes,
let me know.
Any questions you have, just write me anytime.
You know, I'm not gonna judge them all of a sudden.
I don't wanna make them feel bad about their circumstance
because I've been in circumstances I can't control
and it hurt, you know?
So I leave them and I'm polite to them
and professional still and I move on.
I move on to the next person.
Instead of wasting my time compromising,
I'm gonna use that time with someone who values me.
Keep my weekends open.
Instead of booking cheap stuff,
I'm gonna keep my weekends open for the big stuff
because that's what I need to be booking.
I need to make myself available for the future that I want.
That's right.
And it's hard, but it all comes back to your view
of yourself, your self-worth
and your vision for what you do.
Absolutely.
There's a balance to be had on this too.
Visionary is entrepreneurs looking to scale exponentially.
If you have this skillset that Daniel Grove has,
one that is just like unheard of on the market
where you can visually see the value of what's there,
then you also have the opportunity to tap into
a certain level of free service.
So I'm gonna go against the grain here with what you said
because there's price dropping,
but there's also recognizing a strategic relationship
and there's a difference there.
So for instance, Anthony Edwards right now
is becoming the new face of the NBA.
The playoffs are on and everybody's talking about him
like he's Michael Jordan.
He's saying all the right things too
to win the media's attention in the right ways
and saying, don't compare me to him.
He's a legend, he's the best.
And it's creating this incredible PR storm
around him and LeBron James.
And how LeBron James has handled those questions
versus him, et cetera.
And there's this drama going on.
But if Anthony Edwards wanted the photo from you,
wanted you to be that photographer
and you decide or you propose to him,
hey, I'll do this photo shoot for you,
pro bono, free of charge.
Do you see the value in what would happen
if you had that one session move forward?
Yeah, so yes and no.
I am not a sports guy.
So I don't have insight into his history and his reach.
But I was-
You know Michael Jordan is, right?
Yeah, you see the new Michael Jordan?
He's a-
So if I believe with honesty
that me doing this work for him
is going to get me the work that I want,
then I'll go forwards with it.
But it's really hard to make that judgment
unless I know someone.
And maybe if we already have a relationship,
there's more likelihood that that'll work out.
That I'll actually benefit from it.
I've done a lot of pro bono stuff.
Half of it is for fun and for learning on my own behalf.
And the other half is because I made promises
that never happened.
I've shot popular semi-famous influencer people
that have big numbers on their social media.
But their reach didn't help me.
What I did for them didn't help me.
I have had some that did help me.
So I'm not like completely callous to working for-
I love what you said.
You're hitting super important highlights.
You said semi-famous.
And you said people who, you know,
if you're not on the Michael Jordan level.
And if they are going to bury what you did,
if they're not a openly grateful individual
that expresses gratitude,
you should take that as a sign
that you're not gonna get the endorsements
that you think you're going to get.
There are levels.
There are strategic levels to pay attention to
in relation to this concept.
And you don't have to give it for free.
Most people like that are going to end up
paying you for it anyway.
Especially those who have that gratitude mindset.
They're not just going to take advantage of you.
Go ahead.
I've worked with nobodies that did so much more for me
than the somebodies.
So many time, time and time again.
And in the photography world, there's a big,
I don't wanna say debate,
but it is definitely a topic of discussion
you see on all the Facebook groups is TFP.
It stands for trade for photo, time for portfolio.
It essentially means photographer and model
are giving each other the services for free.
And they both benefit.
That's the key.
If you're not benefiting,
if you're not both benefiting from it,
then don't waste your time.
But if you will benefit from shooting a model
you've never shot before or you're new,
and this is a great chance to learn
with no risk of money on the table,
and they're maybe new,
they wouldn't learn posing and working with stuff,
then it's great.
Both people benefit and we're both happy.
But if it's not mutual beneficial,
it's kind of a, it might be seen as a waste of time.
Right, absolutely.
And again, there's that distinguishment.
We love to put people on the A-list pedestal
that don't deserve to be there.
You know, and if I don't say the name to you,
if you don't recognize the name,
then they're not A-list in my opinion.
And that's not a popular belief, right?
If you're talking about somebody local
who has a great, you know, influence
and they wanna be seen as an A-lister,
the last thing you wanna do is call them a B-lister.
They can still hurt your life and hose you.
My point with that is the A-listers that I've worked with,
the people that are, or the B-listers that I've worked with
that are on their way to A-list,
they don't take advantage of people.
They're very conscious of their reputation.
They're very conscious of those that they serve.
Anybody who doesn't is on the fast track
to being not only a B, C, D, and F-lister,
but you know, irrelevant or a mark
in the history books of who not to be like.
Those types of people, they're fairly common.
There's more pretenders in the market
than there are contenders, as my buddy,
Caesar Torres would say.
Big fan of that quote.
So thank you for derailing a little bit with me on to that.
We're gonna move into another,
really the most powerful lesson.
So what is, out of all of your experiences,
if this was the last chance to share
a powerful lesson in the audience,
what powerful lesson can other visionaries
learn from your experience, Daniel?
Is to find that thing you can offer the world
that you enjoy doing.
And it's sort of, you may be seeing it as a niche service,
but I think that the most important thing you can do
as a business owner, and the best lesson that I've learned,
is to find what I'm passionate about,
and what I can do for the rest of my life
if I won the lottery and didn't need to work ever again.
Another thing Jim Landers, Mike dropped on me,
was if you won the lottery and didn't ever have to work
again after that for the rest of your life,
what would you do with all that time?
And that's the thing you enjoy most and are passionate about.
And for me, that would still be photography and creating art.
So that's what I'm doing, and that's what I'm pursuing
and getting the best at, is doing that thing
that I am passionate about, that I've been gifted to do,
and that I have the platform to do right now.
I love that.
So find that thing that you offer the world
that you enjoy doing, what you're passionate about,
would do even if you didn't have to work, and do that.
Yeah.
Right, that's-
Find ways to stand out.
There's other people that will do the unique thing
that you do.
Nothing's that unique anymore.
With this age of information and people are learning
and doing amazing things around the world,
there's not a whole lot of new stuff out there,
and that's all right.
But there's still maybe 5% that do the unique thing
that you do, but you need to find ways to stand out,
at least stand out locally so that people see you
as the expert in that thing.
And they'll willingly put down the big bucks
or whatever you require to do that for them.
Absolutely.
Well, we're talking a little bit now about the difference
between the red ocean and the blue ocean.
For those of you who've been to business school
or had the basic business concepts,
red oceans are shark-infested territories
where blood's in the water
because everybody's a photographer and does that.
Then there's the blue ocean of nobody's there,
so create a new market,
and you'll have the irresistible ocean everybody wants.
Well, there's partial truth to that.
You also have to market an ocean that nobody's heard of,
and nobody wants to be the first to go to.
So there's a different challenge.
But when you rise above in the red ocean,
when you're the provider who stands out,
you actually have a far more lucrative opportunity
than if you just try to go create a new ocean
that nobody's aware of.
So there's ways to look at this on both sides.
There's advantages, there's pros and cons, assessing it,
having mentors who help you assess it,
joining Facebook groups, as Daniel mentioned,
all important aspects to understand what's right for you.
But I do, and I do love the concept of
find what you love to do, figure out what that looks like.
That's why we created passionpro.org.
As well, it's a free resource
to help people explore their passions
and see if they're truly off to the races,
building what they are aligned with and love.
And as I mentioned, that's a free resource,
so feel free to use it, everybody.
Let's walk through a little bit more of these,
the aspects of using the photos and memories
to transform your future.
When I say that, I mean, I wrote that
hoping that it aligned with where you're going,
do you believe, Daniel, that photos and memories
can transform a future?
For sure, yeah.
On the client side, the photos are very important.
They're a very important service.
They have a lot of value.
It's not just a few pictures.
It's not just a JPEG file on my hard drive.
But those are memories and emotions
that are frozen forever.
Memory is not reliable.
Even in court, you know, memory, eye witnesses
and things are becoming less useful
because memory changes and shifts.
And every time we remember,
we're remembering the last time we remembered,
which is remembering the last time we remembered.
And it's not steadfast.
And so the art of photography and videography
is a unique way to freeze that for sure.
And it won't change, you know?
Not the way memory changes.
So I see it as a very important thing
that helps people's futures.
It helps them look back and remember where they've been,
you know, with kids.
They grow up so fast.
I have five of them and they are all little time machines
making time fly by.
But being able to freeze their childhood
or different stages of their infancy
and their baby pictures, like that's important.
And it also, the dark side of this
is that it serves a really special purpose
when someone is not with us anymore.
And I can't tell you how many times I've had people,
long time clients reach out and say,
hey, my dad passed away
and the last photo you got was at our wedding.
So thank you for that.
And those types of things are like, oh, gut punch.
But it reminds you that what I'm doing is legit,
it's important and it's a service that is valuable.
It's not just a cool American thing
to have photo shoots done every year.
Well, it definitely, that is definitely a societal thing.
But beyond that, it's important and serves a purpose.
It's big.
It can transform the future.
I would even say for good and for bad
or for light and for dark.
I mean, like for instance, the lack of the photos,
you know, can create a bit of darkness
and loss of like, did these things really happen?
Did these events really matter?
Did anybody care about me
when I was going through that experience?
So capturing it,
whether you have a professional photographer
or you are a self photographer,
remembering that what you're capturing is telling a story
and also then re-emphasizing that story over time.
When I was in Uruguay, I had a tough time.
I mean, it was a very hard two years.
I loved that experience.
Thank goodness I recorded a lot of the positivity,
but I did take a few pictures of myself,
few selfies, crying at my desk.
Like it was miserable.
I was, I lost 45 pounds.
I'd gone to the hospital several times.
They're about to shit me out of the country
because of how bad my health was.
And if I had chosen to focus the story
and the memory of that experience
only around those dynamics, right, of the negative,
then you're right, 15, 20 years later,
it would be very easy to lose sight
of all the good that did happen at the same time.
So what else would you recommend in terms of,
we got, do you know a Razor Ramon by chance?
No?
Okay.
It's a cool name.
How do I know him?
It is a cool name.
We got a guest that came in
and we're gonna experiment a little bit.
So I'm gonna bring Razor on with us real quick.
Razor, can you hear us?
Say hello.
He can't hear us.
Awesome.
Razor Ramon.
Are you a big fan of photography?
Razor Ramon?
Well, we took an experiment.
We'll use it as our inside joke for the rest of our lives.
We love you Razor, we wish you best.
But it, and again, what's cool about this,
even that memory right there, right?
How we choose to amplify that reality of like,
well, we took a shot in the dark.
Can we learn from it?
Can we laugh about it?
It becomes an opportunity for you to,
choose how do you allow these experiences in your life
to affect your future?
The choice is yours.
So I highly recommend hiring somebody like Daniel Groh,
DanielGrohPhoto.com, hiring Daniel Groh for photography
and building these types of images.
If you got a kid that's struggling with their,
within securities, this is an opportunity
to help them find a balance of like,
why they're special and valuable to you.
Help them find a balance of like, why they're special
and valuable to the world.
And you just can't put a price on that.
I've seen that boost in confidence in that almost like,
form of artistic medication for kids and teenagers
that this type of work has been really influential
in their adolescence, you know, growing up
and seeing themselves in a new light,
not being embarrassed about that thing they're into,
their hobby, their nerdy thing, their cosplay, whatever.
Girls seeing themselves as beautiful and powerful
and, you know, as an individual that has value.
Photosheets do give someone worth.
The fact that I would do all that I do to capture photos
and the fact that their parents or loved one
would hire me and go out of the way
to plan this whole thing for them,
that's really impactful for young people.
That's amazing.
I love it.
I love what you do, man.
Visionaries listening in, bringing your vision to life
in the form of a photo, in the form of a design
is one of the most powerful things that you can do as well.
The same thing happened when we created the logo
for First Class Business years ago.
Me and a team on Fiverr created that logo.
As it came to fruition, it empowered me to realize,
wow, I really can bring this thing to life.
This is really the direction I want to go.
And it has led to so many amazing opportunities
for really serving people at a new level
because it's empowered me to say, you know what?
I'm onto something here.
I'm onto something that matters and will help people.
And I wouldn't have had this show without that experience
building confidence for me along the way
as dumb as a caricature of a hero might seem
or as misplaced as people assume that hero is me.
It's not me.
It's the people we serve.
It's the business owners
that we were helping accomplish their dreams.
We're simply the Alfred behind the scenes
helping with the operations as Batman goes out
and saves the day.
So Daniel, thank you for coming in and sharing your vision.
Those of you listening in,
you'll be able to access Daniel
through all social media platforms that he's connected to.
And down below the vision, we'll have the action steps
that you can take to get involved with this work.
Whether you're local to San Antonio or not,
you might think, man, I wish I could work with him
but I live here.
Well, cover the T&E, cover the travel expenses.
I mean, I'll bring Daniel out
to get involved in your events.
I imagine you'd want to travel.
Is that the case?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So especially when the price is right,
bring his whole family.
You know, pay for all of them to come.
I definitely want to go then.
What was that?
Said I'll definitely want to go then.
Yeah, for real.
Like, and what do you want?
Like you want a happy photographer,
a happy service provider.
Those are the types of people who go
to the ends of the earth to provide great solutions for you.
And the same is applicable
for any service provider you might work with.
There's an opportunity there to solidify your legacy
at a new level, serve people to even greater capacity
and make sure that you're transforming your future
for your best self as well.
So Daniel, thank you so much for being here.
Any final thoughts before I wrap up?
I know we're over.
And we covered a lot of good stuff.
So I can't think of anything else right now.
Awesome.
Well, I'll see you behind the scenes.
Visionaries, if you're feeling inspired
in the top right corner, it says be our guest.
We'd love to have you as a guest on the show as well.
And we will see you in the next episode.
Take care everybody.
Bye-bye.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your.