Funny and hmmmm....

So yesterday I clicked over to my friends Facebook page and saw this! I don't add all the Facebook apps b/c there are a million of them and it's just overwhelming but at first I was flattered when I saw this and then I realized that I wasn't even listed at all on the smart category! What's up with that!!! I was flattered I guess...

...and then the lack of intelligence came out later as I tried to put up my new bookshelves. I can't tell you how the books stay on the wall but if you are a Ninja then you already know.

I drilled four holes in the wall before finding the stud and some of you witnessed my trials on the webcam...lol... I let Crystal do the rest otherwise I wouldn't have a wall left.

What do you want?

I had a wonderful conversation with my mom over Thanksgiving that made me realize that often times in life we act, and continue acting, in ways that we think are getting us closer to what we want but when we actually think about it we haven't even decided what we are striving towards and instead letting life's circumstances pull us in every possible direction. It's incredibly unfulfilling and can be incredibly painful.

I've been guilty of this in many areas of my life but especially in by business. Isn't it easy to get consumed with all the fun, exciting, possibilities of things we could do instead of FOCUSING on what we SHOULD do!

How many of you are willing to admit that you're spread too thin. That you've taken on too many projects and you're keeping yourself from reaching your potential because you're paralyzed by all the possibilities!

Stop gambling with your life. Stop flirting about hoping and START CREATING! It's your choice what you do with your life so decide what it is you actually want and make some decisions today about what you are NOT GOING TO DO next year in order to get that.

The sun will rise...

This was my view when I woke up this morning and it was a great reminder that even in difficult times the sun will rise and I'll have another day and another opportunity to make things better.

There's a great quote that says, “We can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness”

I like to get up and see the sunrise because it seems that no matter how I'm feeling I'm always reminded that there is something bigger at hand. Each day is a miracle and having reminders of that has helped me be thankful even when things aren't going the way I want.

What in your life reminds you of how blessed you are? You don't have to post about it but definitely think about it.

Downsizing

Downsizing, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

I've been trying to downsize my carry on a bit and these new Shure SE
420 headphones are awesome and take up only a fraction of the space
that my Bose headphones take up. I also have opted to simply bring the
iPhone instead of a phone and an iPod.

I wonder what other areas of my life contain things that I'm
"carrying" around but don't really need.

Are you weighing yourself down with technology, toys, people or even
beliefs that should be left behind? This is a good time of year to get
back to asking yourself those all important WHY questions!

Glory Days...

...and awkward high school dance poses. lol :)

It's always so fun to come home and go through my old stuff.

I found some pretty funny soccer videos too. I'm gonna try and get them digitized so I can put them online and show you guys.

I'm back with the Showit Crew and we are cranking. No rest for the wicked. I guess it is still a holiday but we are doing the coolest stuff so I'm glad we got to connect up here in AZ.

lens story

You can read the story on Melissa Jill's blog. Seriously...it was so funny to see all the men (I don't include myself in that statement) spend the afternoon thinking of ways to get the silly filter off the lens.


My advice was to send it to CPS and have them figure it out. Some help I was!

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

Here we are at Thanksgiving dinner...can you guess what my dad is
doing to Melissa Jill's lens!!!

Willow Creek Repents

My dad just showed me an interesting article that came out last month about a big church in Chicago called Willow Creek. Many of you have heard of it I'm sure and in the article the pastor comes out saying that they have done some studies that show that the way they have been going about their ministry hasn't been effective.

They had a very business approach to their ministry and it's something that I would've thought would've been a good way to go about it but apparently it isn't.

If you're interested check out the article .

Do you think the big - "program centered" model for church should still be kept and maybe just adapted or thrown out all together after what Willow Creek discovered?

Room

After 2 months of sleeping on an aerobed I finally got my bed in! YEA! If Crystal wasn't such an awesome taskmaster it never would've gotten put together! I can't believe how complicated a bed can be!

I'm headed home today for Thanksgiving and am so excited to see some family and friends. I may extend my stay in AZ to hangout more!

p.s. I didn't put the decoration on the ceiling. It came with the house. :)

Bachelor fridge

Bachelor fridge, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

Memories -> Change

I got a new book yesterday and read a great quote in it.

"Part of a quality life, part of true success is learning to appreciate and consider the emotional struggles of our neighbors. This gives us a greater sense of gratitude for our own lives, even for our own struggles." - Anthony Robbins

We all know that emotions are the fuel of our lives and almost everything we do is in pursuit of some type of feeling. One of the quickest ways to change our emotions is to think about things we appreciate or experiences that have shaped us. This month I gave a quick chat on ProPhotoResource about how to instantly create emotions in order to change the experiences we are having. I do this be recalling memories and it's fascinating how well it works. Check it out!

Stealing is bad

Colon just sent me this email and it made me really sad that people would do this. The photographer who is offering this bootlegged copy is a graduate from an art school and definitely knows better than this.

The cool thing is that she couldn't even sell them because other OSPers turned her in! We are investigating if she has sold other disks or is stealing other products so if you've been contacted by a photographer selling stolen copies of software or DVD's send me an email. This crime can bring a fine of $250,000 and 5 years in prison so I would strongly suggest that this photographer send Mike a full price check ASAP for every copy of the disks sold.

As all of you know Mike Colon is super awesome and helps so many photographers. He's been one of my biggest mentors over the years and I know he doesn't like to stir things up but I don't mind and things like this need to be brought into the light so people know that they will be caught.

Earthquake!

I'm so bummed I missed the earthquake! I was downtown having dinner with Allie and her brother and when I came home Crystal was telling me about how she was sitting in her apt and all of a sudden everything was shaking. She thought it was just the UPS guy driving his monster truck on the driveway but it was actually an earthquake! Gnarly!

My house is on the side of a cliff and really close to a fault line so there is earthquake concern but there hasn't been an earthquake here in a long long time until yesterday and I have earthquake insurance but I was thinking what I would do while my house was rebuilt.

What would you do if your home was destroyed and you had 6 months of insurance money to go live anywhere?

Full Week

This last week was so packed and I'm spent. We had a Showit meeting here in SB and so it was all day meetings and planning and then trying to squeeze in time around that with friends and so I've felt on-the-go more than I like.

But one thing I'm loving is Apple's new OS - Leopard. The networking stuff is so easy and one of the features I like the most is the screen sharing. I used to do it with a "VNC" client but that's not nearly as easy as just being able to click share screen and be able to run any computer on your network. I use this mainly for music because I have a couple of Airport Express stations around the house and I like to play music from my main computer but I like to be able to control it from any computer around the house.

I'm off to play in a soccer tournament right now...I'm excited. I have gone on two runs this week, played Wii boxing (which is a workout) and now playing soccer today. I'm proud of myself.

Wonderful weekend

The wedding was great and a bunch of you got to tune in and see us shooting at the salon! How fun was that! If you got to see us shooting post up and let me know how it was because that was just a test but I know over 50 people were watching so that's cool!

The real treat was getting to shoot with Jasmine Star who I believe to be the hottest thing in the industry right now as well as my new friend Kimberlee West who is an incredible photographer and an absolute doll. She's from San Diego and she totally saved my butt when I made a "rookie mistake" (as Brett put it) during the recessional. My card filled up and I had to grab her camera to catch the bride and groom walking out. lol. She posted some pictures and said the sweetest things about the weekend on her blog so be sure to check it out!

Now this week all the Showit guys are in Santa Barbara for a week of planning and prioritizing as we plan for another great year. Many people think that I create the Showit apps and that's funny because I'm certainly not that smart. Really all of you invent them. I just listen to what you need and find people who can make the solutions. The success of my software company as well as my photography business has been largely dependent on one thing - listening.

Fun Day

This weekend Deyl and I took little time to pamper ourselves. Deyl invited me down to a Maroon 5 concert last night which was super cool. We almost rolled into the concert wearing matching tank tops that some guy was selling outside but we just couldn't do it.

Deyl has a lot of banking friends who want him to buy things with their money and they had invited him to their VIP booth which had a private chef, bar, and deserts! It was insane and then we stayed at Gary Fong's killer condo in Marina Del Rey which I love.

This morning we had breakfast at this nice French place down the street and then went shopping. I got the coolest things! I first wanted this sweet shirt which Crystal is trying to hunt down now but since they didn't have it I bought a robe. It's heavenly. I never want to take it off. I don't even know what it's made out of but it's the softest thing ever. Then on the way out of the store I saw this jacket and it was super impulsive but I had to have it. It's almost as comfortable as the robe but more appropriate to wear out. I've never seen or felt a jacket like this and it's like the silkiest leather you've ever felt. It was $800 which is gross but since I'm shooting a wedding tomorrow I felt ok dropping a grip on it.

Then we were off to 3rd Street in Santa Monica for more retail therapy at the Apple Store. I got some fun goodies to try and dial in my place a bit more on the wireless side. When I told Allie about the trip she said, "Wow - I'm glad Deyl is married."



Tomorrow I'm gonna be shooting and I'm going to try and turn on the LIVE cam so check it out on - davidjay.TV - or here on the blog.

Banking in my PJ's

Deyl made me read Richard Branson's autobiography "Losing My Virginity" and it taught me more about business and how it's run than any other book I read this year. I think I'm a lot like Branson in how I operate and that is good and bad but one of the things that I realized from reading the book is how dependent we are to banks. Branson's entire empire nearly came crashing down several times because banks refused to do what he needed them to do.

I've been having one of the most frustrating situations of my life dealing with Wells Fargo and although It's not severely affecting my businesses (yet) they have been holding nearly $100k and giving me the run around as to where it is and why it hasn't appeared in my account for several months. Banks are dependent on other people's money and because of this 3 month drama I am leaving their bank. I'm on the verge of putting my story and some of the specific and incredibly rude and unprofessional ways they've handled this in an email so just for fun I did the math on their potential loss when I tell 11,000 people not to use their bank.

I had to guess and so I figured most photographers on my mailing list probably bring in between $40 - $100k a year and so I took an estimate of $50,000 per photographer and if all 11,000 photographers on my list vowed to never use Wells Fargo for their banking that would cost Wells Fargo $550 million every year which adds up to $5.5 billion dollars over the next 10 years. All because of terrible customer service.

Deyl's been talking to me about how important it is for me to start developing relationships with banks so things like this don't happen so yesterday I switched all my accounts to Santa Barbara Bank and Trust and at 10am today had two bankers come to my house to finish signing the papers. Banking in my PJ's! This is how it should be! If you're in California and need a solid bank with people to talk to instead of the robots that Wells Fargo makes you deal with go checkout Santa Barbara Bank and Trust.

The Digital Photography Show

Out in NY I did an interview for Scott Sherman's Digital Photography Show and it turned out great so be sure to have a listen and get on his podcast! Lots of great tips and interviews uploaded all the time.

Click here to go hear the interview and my part starts just past the 41 minute mark. Scott teases me about my age and my "Away Message" and it's pretty funny so go listen.

Halloween Party and Canon 1.0 lens

Last night we went to a halloween party! Allie decided to just wear my old Ninja Gi. I'm guessing that not many of you knew this but I am actually a Ninja and I'm not really supposed to tell people that so don't tell anyone. Allie pulled off a pretty good Ninja....except the shiny jewelry. A true Kunoichi (Female Ninja) would wear jewelry but not along with their Gi because it would affect their ability to be invisible.

Enough about that! We had a blast and last night I also shot these pictures with my new Canon 50mm f/1.0 - WOW! This lens is like magic! The top one was showing the clouds below my house at night and how the city lights make them glow...and the color shot of Allie was shot with only the light from her laptop at 400 ISO - 1/60th - at f/1.0

What a night - What a life

Last night Allie and I went down to hang with Gary and Missy and Denis and Beth. It was quite a night! Gary took us out for a sunset cruise on his yacht and it was incredible! There's something so magical about being out on the water and seeing the sky go deep blue and the city lights begin to glow behind you. It's so fun because even though I live so far from my friends I still see them every couple of weeks!

I was also super stoked because Denis brought me his coveted Canon 50mm f/1.0 lens! He said he had shot some of his favorite images with this lens so I am beyond stoked that he passed it on to me. I'm so excited to shoot with this lens. It was discontinued a long time ago and they are really hard to find. It's incredible and no other lens can get shots like this one can!

Failure is impossible if...

I haven't ever advertised for any of my businesses so I have relied on Word-of-Mouth and "Word-of-Mouse" marketing. I think this is the best way to go about most businesses these days and this is what I love talking to photographers about. The world is becoming increasingly more connected and you can see that natural, organic growth doesn't necessarily mean a slow adoption of a product or service. If your product is good and if you listen to your customers and make changes that need to be made your business can skyrocket even without the typical things that you think you might need.

Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist for Apple, says we need to approach most business with a "Ready - Fire - AIM" mentality.

I did this in my wedding business.

I started shooting weddings long before I was "prepared" - I didn't have a sample album (still haven't gotten around to that), I didn't have a website or a blog, didn't have any promotional material (still don't but I have a cool business card), have never advertised, never ever went to any bridal shows and at the beginning I didn't even have a computer to show my work on! I showed my first clients pictures from a service project I did in Mexico! I showed pictures of sad little kids but I booked the jobs and it made me realize that a lot of the things people think they need to succeed they actually don't need at all!

Showit-DVD is another great example of this! Countless people told me this would never work and since this business cost 10's of thousands of dollars just to start it and is a semi-expensive business to run it kinda freaked me out. But I knew from my own experience that there was a need and that a lot of photographers didn't want to deal with the hassles of producing and delivering products to their clients and so I went about it the same way as I've gone about starting my other companies. I've gotten the product out there and let it spread on its own. We haven't even made a real website for it yet because we wanted to see if it would actually get adopted and boy did it ever! This is a little graph my partner Todd sent me today showing the rapid growth shown by monthly orders we've had simply by letting customers who use it and enjoy it tell their friends. Last month there were 397 Showit-DVD orders!

What are you putting off because you don't feel ready? Go do it...and don't be afraid of failure because I've learned that it's impossible to fail if you are results oriented. Think about it. You ALWAYS get a result! It's not always the result you wanted or hoped for but you can learn and grow from it and that is success!

Where is the world?

Where is the world?, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

When I looked out my window this morning the world had disappeared. It
actually disappeared last night and hasn't come back yet.
Everything is so surreal right now.
This mix of feelings and freedom is something I've never had before.

Sent from my iPhone

Do you need to stop?

My buddy Dane Sanders gives some advice on one way to stand out! Check it out!