I decided to make family photos a priority this year because of how important it was for capturing life’s precious moments. But I also was reconnected again with Ryan Droze who is a professional photographer, an amazing person and old friend. Seriously, have a look at his work…because if it wasn’t for Sari this whole time, we would have no family archive at all.

So I decided that something nice for her was in order with a surprise photo shoot last weekend. Although it was humid as all get out, we were able to capture some precious moments (except the pics of me wiping the sweat off my face with a diaper…don’t worry I’m fairly certain it was clean).

The other day I wrote a post about helping others and the importance of putting people before yourself. It talked about people always trying to sell themselves instead of giving yourself up for someone else’s ambition and purpose. That’s been my new style to live by, in a lesson that I am following now.

Whether it be general emails or text messages throughout the day, when someone asks me my opinion on something that is important to them, I drop everything I am doing at that moment to answer no matter what. If it means that much to someone else, it means even more to me to help them out. Putting the importance of the simplest things like photos for someone else, gave back in the form of old friendship while also keeping our family history going.

That’s my new style. How will you frame yours?

I’ve found out that when trying to pitch people on branding, it just doesn’t work. Every time I have read articles and sent replies to media journalists, it’s always the same thing…crickets.

Lately I have been working on the concept for helping travelers share vacation homes together with HomeSlice, Stay Social (insert shameless plug here), in addition to a full time job during the day. For most people that know me, the idea for HomeSlice was well received and once people started liking the idea, I thought the work would start to run by itself and eventually I would be able to make the business take off. Big mistake and a huge wake-up call.

So much attention is given trying to balance everything in between like a see-saw except only this fat kid is at one end of the plank. Not only was I feeling rushed to get as much done in as little amount of time as possible during the day, everything was coming across as only being about what my needs were which was to gain more exposure without there being anything in it for anyone else except to help me. Man that’s so selfish.

The harsh reality is that NO ONE KNOWS YOU except your close friends and family. If you are trying to make something in business happen, STOP. Think about everything you want for yourself and toss it out the window into another person’s lap. What do that mean? It means putting yourself second by trying to help others before yourself. I never fully understood that until now.

Throughout my life I have read a lot of books on successful people, from Jack Welch to Jack Dorsey to Napolean Hill. And the common denominator I have come to the conclusion among all successful people finally rings true. In order to be successful you have to help other people first. Period.

Not until recently was I able to begin an open dialogue of communication without pitching anything, or sending any cold branded emails to anyone, instead it was from the heart with an open mind on helping other people get to where they want to go. Since then, I’ve received more open lines of communication from people without any sugar-coating, fancy prep work, or hype in the last 2 weeks than I have in the past 2 years. There is no more solicitation, no more selling the “why”, rather it’s walking in someone else’s shoes.

With all of the electronic tools out there, nothing is more important and more valuable that when the branding comes from someone other than yourself. Think about it, when was the last time you bought into an idea or something vs. hearing about it from your friends? The most valuable commodity is referral.

For those who already know this, I applaud you. For those that need or are looking for something…

How may I assist you?