It was two days after Thanksgiving. We had just finished the three hour drive to Scottsdale from Show Low, Arizona. We were exhausted and weak. Completely worn out from the busiest season we had ever experienced. We drove to Scottsdale for a family session that we were crazy looking forward to. And it’s not hard to see why when you look at the Brockman & Regnaert families. It wasn’t hard at all to muster up the strength for their session – when we met them in the parking lot, it was game on! But is also didn’t take long for the adrenaline of our session to wear off and for us to feel the hard crash come on again.
We had set out to have a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend in the pines with Erica’s family. We had planned and prepped to make sure that nothing got in the way of us turning off our computers, putting our phones on silent and focusing only on family time. What actually happened couldn’t have been any more opposite! We had just come off of back to back weeks full of sessions. We thought we’d handle a morning session, pack our bags, and finish the day with an evening session before driving up north. Instead, we got a phone call that morning with an amazing opportunity that we simply couldn’t turn down. It meant that Erica was gone from 10AM to 3PM. Meanwhile Jon was packing bags for our family of four (hoping not to forget anything!) and getting everything ready for our family session that started at 3:30PM. By the skin of our teeth and God’s good grace, it all worked together on time and on schedule.
Having added the extra all day session into our schedule, it meant Erica culling and editing the photos on our drive to Show Low and her staying up late nights to turn them…plus the other photos we already needed to deliver. We aren’t complaining one bit. We are super grateful for the opportunities to serve our clients, and no amount of work will ever make us complain. But it did tire us out!
That’s when we saw it. We were leaving the session with the Brockman and Regnaert families. We were sipping Starbucks coffees hoping to squeeze as much energy out as we drove back to Show Low editing as we went. That’s when a spectacular car pulled out right in front of us. It was a $300,000, 624 horse power midnight black Rolls Royce Wraith. Far from something you see on the road everyday. And as impressive as it was, the car itself isn’t what we pulled away talking about. It was the license plate. It made a statement, and it was easy to understand.
HSTL4IT
Hustle for it.
It was almost as if that successful person was reaching out and saying, ‘Yeah, I have a sweet car. You want to know why I can afford this car? Because I hustled hard. I ran on little sleep. I worked while everyone else relaxed. And it paid off.’ It’s a theme we’ve kept seeing repeated over and over. Investors on Shark Tank, educators we respect, and other successful entrepreneurs have all acknowledged that success requires the hustle. It did way more for us in that moment than the coffee we held in our hands. It energized us and motivated us like nothing else.
It reminded us that nothing good comes easy! We heard a pastor once say, “We live a microwave dream in a crockpot reality.” And how true is that? Sometimes it is hard to keep pushing, but it is good to remember that the success of the dream is all in the hustle.
So no matter what your dream is. No matter what goals you have for yourself. Whether it is the college degree. The internship. The company you started. The home you’ve set out to keep in order as you provide for your family. Remember that success, however you define it, is all in the hustle.
HSTL4IT, Friends.
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