From Limiting Beliefs to Luxury Wedding Bookings with Aislinn McKenna

Are you dreaming of booking more luxury weddings but feel stuck at your current level?

You are not alone. A lot of wedding pros want to break into the luxury market but feel like it is out of reach because of mindset blocks they do not even realize they have.

In this episode, I am joined by Aislinn McKenna, a wedding photographer who made the leap from struggling with limiting beliefs to confidently booking luxury wedding clients she loves working with. We are digging into how your mindset impacts the level of clients you attract, the shifts that helped Aislinn book higher-end weddings, and what it really takes to elevate your brand without working around the clock.

In this episode we’ll cover:

• Why your mindset might be the biggest thing holding you back from luxury wedding bookings
• The small but powerful shifts Aislinn made that helped her attract high-end clients
• How to start positioning yourself for the luxury market without working 60 hours a week
• Why luxury clients look for different things than budget clients and how to meet those expectations
• The surprising ways your current marketing could be keeping you stuck at your current level

From Limiting Beliefs to Luxury Wedding Bookings with Aislinn McKenna

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
What if the biggest thing holding you back from charging more and booking luxury weddings isn’t your work or your marketing, but your mindset? We are diving deep into that in this episode.

0:00:14 – Intro
In a world where wedding professionals are struggling to market and grow their businesses, one podcast brings together top experts and actionable strategies to help you build the wedding business of your dreams. This is the Evolve your Wedding Business podcast. Here is your host, Heidi Thompson.

0:00:50 – Heidi Thompson
Hello there, my friend. I am your host, heidi Thompson, and I help all different types of wedding professionals make their marketing easier, book more weddings with clients they absolutely love to work with and build businesses that give them freedom and flexibility. And in today’s episode I’m talking to Aislinn McKenna, a former wedding photographer turned mindset and strategy coach for wedding photographers who want to book more luxurious weddings, want to earn more, and this is all built on Aislinn’s own experience. On Aislinn’s own experience, aislinn built her own photography business from the ground up, and in the process she realized that strategy alone wasn’t enough to book the luxury clients she really wanted. She had to do the deep mindset work too, because all of the tactics in the world will not help you. If you don’t believe that you’re worthy of those high-end bookings, you’ll wind up sabotaging yourself. Now she helps other photographers confront their limiting beliefs, build confidence and step into the luxury space by combining her strategy and mindset support.

In our interview, we talk about the mindset blocks that hold so many wedding professionals back from growth. We talk about why visibility and pricing are just the surface level symptoms of a deeper problem, and how to start shifting the way you see yourself so you can confidently market to higher-end clients and charge more for your work. If you have ever second-guessed yourself or held yourself back from going after the kind of clients you really want to work with, this conversation is going to be incredibly powerful for you. Let’s get into it. Today, I am joined by Aislinn McKenna, who is here to talk about all things. Mindset, which is so incredibly important, basically defines what we’re capable of, what we’re not capable of, and I think I know for me, it’s much more important than I originally thought it was when I first started a business. So, aislinn, I’m excited to have you here to talk about this.

0:03:14 – Aislinn McKenna
Heidi, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I am so excited to be here, so excited for our conversation around mindset. It’s such a huge topic. There’s so many ways that I think that we could go with this, but I know that this is going to be really helpful to someone out there listening, and every time you and I get on a call, every time that we collaborate with anything, there’s always just these really beautiful aha moments. So I’m just really excited for us to do this together today.

0:03:39 – Heidi Thompson
Yes, me too. So tell us a little bit about how you got into this whole world of mindset work and helping business owners with this, because you have a former life as a photographer yourself.

0:03:55 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, so I was a photographer for 14 years. I got into the luxury wedding space like towards the end of my career and as I started to kind of really hit into like luxury weddings like my last couple weddings were like 14k, 17k. We did in person sales. We had a very niche market in a small town in the south. So I had this like moment with myself, probably in like 2019, 2020, where I realized that the mindset beliefs that I had going into like my career could not continue if I was going to scale my business and if I was going to be working with luxury clients where money didn’t seem to mean the same thing as it did to me as it did to my clients. So I started doing money mindset work. I’d say that was probably like kind of more my first foray into like really digging into mindset. Before that I had done some affirmations, I had done some like you know, like scripting and manifesting work, but I wasn’t serious about it until probably 2019.

0:04:59 – Heidi Thompson
Wow. So it sounds like the clients you were working with that, like Nietzsche, you had really carved out for yourself, kind of forced you to have to confront this.

0:05:10 – Aislinn McKenna
In some ways yes, I think in some ways I hit this moment and this was just in my life in general I hit this moment where I was noticing like physical symptoms of mindset things. So I was having like migraines and I was having stress like stomach issues and I just was like hitting this point physically where I was having stress like stomach issues, and I just was like hitting this point physically where I was like, okay, something has to give here. And I knew from the people that I followed like mentors and coaches and things that I would read that like mindset was a really big part of that. But I had no idea like how to like go about actually changing my beliefs and actually changing the way that I interact with my day to day. So that was kind of the kickoff moment and it’s been just incredible ever since then.

0:05:51 – Heidi Thompson
What sorts of beliefs did you have to uncover for yourself and really start to deconstruct?

0:06:00 – Aislinn McKenna
Oh my gosh.

0:06:01 – Heidi Thompson
Oh my gosh, there’s so many.

0:06:03 – Aislinn McKenna
I’m sure I know we all go through these evolutions.

Yeah, I’ll be honest with you.

I would say boundary work and self-advocacy work was some of the biggest stuff that I had to do for myself.

Money mindset was just kind of attached to worthiness, wounds and believing that I was capable and believing that I was like worthy of being paid a certain amount. That work was like secondary to just giving myself self-compassion and giving myself like moments where I could actually advocate for like oh no, I actually have needs and it’s okay for me to have needs and it’s actually okay for me to tell other people that I have needs and like actually standing up and practicing those things. I feel like that was like some of the biggest shifts that I’ve had. And I, you, standing up and practicing those things. I feel like that was like some of the biggest shifts that I’ve had. And you know, I love when my clients come to me and they’re where I was back in that time, because I have so much compassion for them and so much love for them and I can see what’s possible when they start advocating for themselves and when they start really shifting these beliefs into a place of empowerment.

0:07:04 – Heidi Thompson
What does that look like for someone who is realizing that they have some issues around, you know, not having that self-compassion for themselves, not advocating for themselves, not being able to put boundaries in place? What does that kind of like before and after look like? Maybe for you, maybe for some of your clients?

0:07:28 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I’d say the very first step is self-awareness, and I’d say the people who are listening to this podcast probably identify as self-aware.

But if you are someone who you’re self-aware, but you only ever look for the bad parts or you only ever look for, like, the things that are wrong with you that need to get fixed, and you’re not looking at the things that are really amazing about you, you’re not looking at the things that you’re proud of about yourself, that’s not self-awareness as much it’s like just being mean to yourself basically.

So for me, I would say one of the biggest shifts that I have my clients do but I also did this for myself was these like micro moments of spotting things that I was doing or that my clients are doing and like pointing it out and saying to the brain okay, I need you to log that as something that we did that we’re proud of.

I need you to log that as something that we did that is growth or progress, because so often as creatives and just people in general, we aren’t actually logging the progress and saying, wow, I did this and I’m proud of myself for this. As far as before and after, there’s a huge shift in self-advocacy, self-compassion, self-love, self-respect, when we start to become more aware, and not in a way where we’re doing it to punish ourselves, or not in a way where we’re doing it to like be mean to ourselves, but in a way where we’re like, hey, I actually have value here, I actually have worth here and like being able to like tag those things for your brain. The brain’s going to start to look for more of that.

0:09:01 – Heidi Thompson
It’s so amazing to me when you do start to shift what you pay attention to and then, because you’re paying attention to it, you just start to see more of it because your brain is on the lookout for it. And I really push my members to every month when we have our mastermind calls before we get to any questions. We’re talking wins. We’re talking what’s one thing you’ve accomplished. You know, when we do our quarterly planning, we’re sitting down and actually like brain dumping what are all the things you’ve accomplished in the last quarter? Because it’s so easy in our businesses to get so focused on that next thing that has to get done on the to-do list that you don’t stop to reflect and when you’re on that treadmill you don’t actually feel like you’re accomplishing anything.

0:09:51 – Aislinn McKenna
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that there are a lot of things within the wedding industry that have been normalized that are not healthy, and I think that’s one of those things that got normalized. That isn’t healthy is is like not actually like pointing out to yourself and you don’t even have to point it out to other people. You can literally just say like, okay, what was my win from yesterday and what? Like? How am I proud of that? Basically, so I love that you do that. We do that in my coaching spaces as well.

We do Friday wins and I tell my clients I don’t care if it’s the fact that you were hydrated this week, that is your win for the week. I need you to celebrate yourself If you had a 15k sale amazing. I love that. We love financial wins, but I also love it whenever you tell me that you stood up for yourself this week or you advocated for yourself this week, because to me, that is so, so beautiful and such big growth. I also I wanted to point out you said that the brain will start to look for these things if we start to like notice them more. So there’s actually a system in our brain called the reticular activating system and that’s literally what it does. It looks for more. So when you start to put focus on more positive things, or you focus on a red car, you’re probably going to see more red cars, you’re probably going to see more positive things, because you’re telling your brain hey, brain, I need you to look out for this thing and that’s what that system does.

0:11:10 – Heidi Thompson
It is really incredible, Like when you do realize that that is something that just our brains automatically do. It’s so cool that we get to like hack into that a little bit and use it to our benefit. It’s funny, like even as you’re saying, that I’m so used to doing this for myself and my own business and having to go through like my own mindset stuff, Like I was even just thinking earlier today. This week I’ve been getting up significantly earlier, I don’t really know why. I just kind of have and I’m like I felt really nice this week, Like I’ve had a lot of space, a lot of like time, and it just feels good. And there is a previous me that would have never noticed that and been like yeah, this is a good thing. Let’s think about this.

0:12:01 – Aislinn McKenna
I love that for you. Yeah, I love that for you, and I’m a huge advocate of creating more space in your life and creating more space in your day to day to notice, because if you are living on autopilot, there’s nothing bad, broken or wrong about that, but you are missing out on the joy of being able to spot something that is going to make you feel awe. Something that is going to make you feel awe being able to spot something that’s going to make you proud of yourself. Being able to spot something. That’s going to be an opportunity for you. If you’re on autopilot and you’re so busy that you can’t breathe, you’re not going to have space to spot those things. So I think that’s another really good, like kind of point as well is like making sure you actually have space in your life for these things.

0:12:41 – Heidi Thompson
You had mentioned boundaries being a difficult thing for yourself and some of your clients, and I definitely see this as well, and I think and I’m curious where you think this comes from my personal hunch is like we’re just a helpful bunch of people, we just want to do good, we want to, you know, give everything we can to our clients, and I think that’s a wonderful thought, I think that’s a wonderful place to come from.

0:13:22 – Aislinn McKenna
But oh my God, can that absolutely? So I would say, like where this comes from. I mean like let’s, let’s just bring it back to childhood. If you had a childhood or you had experience in the past where saying no was not a safe thing for you to do, like if you said no, but that means you don’t get fed tonight. If you said no, but that means that you would get rejected socially. If you said no, that meant that you weren’t going to get to go to band practice or whatever.

If there was some kind of safety problem in the past for you as a kid or even as a young adult around saying no, guess what? We don’t break up at 21 and all of a sudden we have a brand new life where we don’t have any of our past programming from childhood. You’re taking what you learned when you were younger and applying it to your current day. So if it felt like it wasn’t something that you could do as a kid, it’s probably going to bleed into the business you’re running now. Whether you’re 30, 40, 50, above like doesn’t really matter If we don’t actively work on creating more safety around being able to say no and around being able to set boundaries, you’re just going to be using old programming that you learned when you were a kid.

0:14:35 – Heidi Thompson
And I think that can be done very kindly, very, you know, politely, very helpfully. I don’t think your typical client is going out of their way to try to stomp all over your boundaries. I think they probably don’t fully realize they’re doing that or they don’t expect a response in the time that now in your mind you’re thinking they expect. The time that now in your mind you’re thinking they expect. I’m curious, like is it response type stuff, you see, when it could, like communication based boundaries, come up most often, or is it coming up somewhere else?

0:15:16 – Aislinn McKenna
I definitely would say it’s coming up in communication. Because so if somebody were to ask you face to face like hey, like can you stay an extra hour for this wedding and you are like expected to auto kickback or response immediately because it’s face to face, then yeah, like it’s gonna be really hard to uphold a boundary if you haven’t already thought out. Okay, if somebody asked me that, here’s what I would say. If my answer is no.

So I think a lot of times what happens is people get into these situations where they don’t give themselves space to actually like decide what they want. They just assume that the person is not going to be okay with you saying, no, I won’t stay for an extra hour. Versus, if you have a process like, okay, 45 minutes before your time is up at the end of a wedding night, you go up to the clients and you say, hey, guys, like so excited my time is up. At the end of a wedding night, you go up to the clients and you say, hey, guys, like so excited I’m, my time is ending here at 10 o’clock. We have about 45 minutes of coverage.

I just wanted to check in with you see if you need anything or if you wanted me to stay for any extra time. Client says yes, we want you to stay for extra time. Amazing, that’s going to invoice at this price, like just to confirm you guys are okay with that. Yes, amazing, okay, cool, I’ll send you the invoice. I’ll stay till 11. That’s a very different type of conversation than like just auto kicking back, like, well, of course I’ll stay and I’m not going to make them pay for that.

0:16:36 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah and none. I think a lot of people really worry about coming across as mean or selfish or rude. Nothing about what you just said came across that way.

0:16:48 – Aislinn McKenna
Thank you. It’s a practice response, which I think is another thing. Like whenever you are really getting into boundary setting and getting into communicating your process better, surprise, you can practice in the mirror, like you can literally script it out and practice it in the mirror and like until it feels good and comfortable and like something that it would be like your language, like the language I just used. Most people might feel that’s a little like leaning towards blunt, but what’s your version of that?

0:17:17 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I think that’s really important, like you said, to decide in advance because, oh man, when you try to make decisions on the fly, when your emotions are running high, when you’re tired, when, like, there’s all this stuff going around in the background, you can’t make good decisions in that space.

0:17:38 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I tell my clients all the time, like one of the things I have them practice is pause and respond. So if you are somebody who, like, has a hard time with boundaries, what I want you to do next time like you’re like practicing your boundary setting is I want you to pause before you respond to something. So if somebody says like, hey, can we get a discount? Pause, that was a three second pause right there. So, like, that’s all you need in order for you to check in with yourself before you make a response. So that’s something you can practice.

0:18:11 – Heidi Thompson
I love that. I think we just I talked to so many people who are like why did I agree to that? Why did I do that? And it’s. It’s that exact thing of you’re in the moment, even if you’re not in person, if you’re getting this communication through text, through email, whatever. I think so many people feel like they don’t have that space to pause or they don’t have the awareness that by pausing you will make a better decision, or by scripting something in advance that you can, you know, grab from a Google Doc and modify as your response that you made when you were in a calm, relaxed state. You’re allowed to do that and I think that’s really important to realize.

0:19:00 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, when the body is in like a high stress response, literally there are certain parts of your brain that will turn off, oh, wow. So like, of course, we can’t make critical thinking responses when we are in an elevated, like heart rate type of situation, like a wedding day. So I think it’s really important to just like practice these things in different types of environments so that on a wedding day you’ve already practiced. Okay, I’m going to pause and respond because that’s my new normal. You can practice that, like when you’re like going to a coffee shop and they’re like hey, do you want whipped cream on this? Don’t auto kick back a response. Yes, if you’re lactose intolerant, like, I want you to pause and I want you to be like oh no, the actual answer I want here is no, but I’m going to give myself a second here to like form up that response.

0:19:49 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and another part about what you just framed up in that situation at a wedding is setting expectations as part of upholding your boundaries, and I think that’s incredibly important. Like they’re, they’ve just been informed that the time is coming to an end, which means if they want to get anything additional in, they have time to do it. Like you’re giving them some flexibility to work with.

0:20:18 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, we used to during receptions. So like, let’s just say we ended at 9pm, somewhere around the two hours before we were supposed to leave, mark, I would go up to all the parents of the clients and I would say, hey, I just wanted to let you know like I’ve had the most amazing time here today, like being here with your families has been so special. I loved this about the day, this about the day. Are there any photos that you want with, like, friends or cousins or sorority friends that are here or whatever? Like do you guys have anything that you want? So I give them about two hours before the end of the day to think about it, instead of it being at, like you know, 845. Oh, hey guys, do you want me to stay for the sparkler exit Like you’re giving? You’re setting yourself up for failure on that one. Instead, I want you to set yourself up for success by setting up expectations early and often and to the right people.

0:21:07 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and that gives you plenty of time. Then they’re going to have the perception like, oh my God, they’re so on top of it, oh my God, they’re so thoughtful. They bothered to come and ask to make sure we get these photos that we didn’t even realize we wanted. But now that you mention it, yeah, let’s get one with Aunt Susie that we didn’t even realize we wanted. But now that you mention it, yeah, like, let’s get one with Aunt Susie that we haven’t had one with yet. So it is, it’s funny, but like, sometimes upholding your boundaries can be an additional level of service.

0:21:37 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I mean, there’s a reason why our last weddings were 14 and 17K and it was level of service. It wasn’t because I was the best photographer ever or because I had the best planner friends ever. It was because of level of service. And literally I had clients from three years prior who remembered that I complimented her mom’s like dress on the day that her mom was a guest at a wedding day and, like I complimented her mom, her mom remembered that I had said that and she was like that’s your photographer, that’s who you’re hiring when you get married. So I think it’s just important to like remember that, like you know, level of service doesn’t always have to do with like the fancier camera or like having like the right connections or whatever. Sometimes it’s literally just the most like tiny thoughtful things that you can do on a wedding day that show that, a you have a process, b you have boundaries and b that, like you are there to serve and that you are there to make it the best experience possible for everyone.

0:22:32 – Heidi Thompson
I love that so much. It’s so simple, like we think this has to be this big, you know orchestrated thing and it can really be as simple as just adding in mindful touch points. So boundaries are obviously a big issue for a lot of wedding pros. I see it myself all the time. I’m curious what the biggest mindset hangups are that you see in your clients.

0:22:59 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I would say this is not necessarily by clients, but I would say this is kind of like, just in general, what I’m seeing out there in the wild in the wedding industry. I would say there is definitely some like belief work. There is some like belief in yourself, belief in what you offer, belief in being able to charge what you want to charge.

I think this is like one of the biggest mindset hangups that people have, and I see it all the time where they’re like, oh, the market’s oversaturated. I’m like it’s really not, it’s only it only feels that way because you’re looking at all the people in your like industry but you’re not looking at like you know, the fact that the wedding industry is actually very, very tiny. If you like, start to look at it from like all the other businesses like in the world, very, very tiny. If you like, start to look at it from like all the other businesses like in the world. So I would say, like biggest hangups would be belief in yourself, and I think that’s like one of the first things that I see.

0:23:54 – Heidi Thompson
And I know this is a huge question, but how do we deal with that? Where do you start with that?

0:24:01 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I think believe in yourself is going to be one of those things that you have to practice it across different areas of your life.

It can’t just be like, oh, I believe in myself in the gym, but I don’t believe in myself on a wedding day.

It has to be like almost like borrowed belief from other spaces and like start to like curate it in all of the spaces in your life. So when I think about believing in yourself more, one of the things I think about is every single person in the wedding industry has a unique perspective. So if you were to look at your business and look at what you’re doing in your market, but you are trying to borrow the language, trying to borrow the process, trying to borrow the clients of your five closest friends, that shows me that you’ve got some belief in yourself, things to work on. So I need you to look at what is it that’s unique about how I see the world, what is it that is unique about how I serve clients, what is so unique about how I communicate with my clients or what I see in them, and then start to build a personal brand around that and start to build, like your actual business around that personal brand around that and start to build like your actual business around that.

0:25:19 – Heidi Thompson
Something I have found that’s really helpful around this, but from a different angle really looking at like messaging and marketing and how do you stand out? Sometimes that’s difficult to see in yourself because you’re so close to it and my clients get so much out of going to their past favorite clients and asking them you know, why did you book me instead of another photographer? What would you say to a friend if you were recommending me? And then those patterns start to emerge of like kind of how you’re already showing up as yourself without necessarily realizing it, so you can more fully step into it.

0:26:07 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, oh, I totally agree with that. We did that a lot with our clients and then we also were really blessed with clients who were very vocal about what they loved about us. So like I got to see that mirror of what they saw in me and then I got to like solidify the things that like were like actual reflections of who I am and not just their like projections of who they think I am and just yeah, that’s a whole nother conversation, right, there is projections.

0:26:34 – Heidi Thompson
But to your point. You know everyone is coming at this differently. You may not realize it, but that differentiator is so incredibly important in any industry, because why should someone work with you instead of someone else If you can’t clearly communicate that? If you can’t clearly, you know, plant your flag and say, hey, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is who I serve, this is the problem I solve, this is what I’m all about. If you are interested in that, you’re my people. It becomes that situation, like you said, where it feels really crowded, because there are a lot of people in that like gray area where they’re kind of not really saying anything.

0:27:25 – Aislinn McKenna
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I um, whenever I have like a business intensive. Usually business intensives are very like one-off spaces where, like they’ll, they’ll do an intensive and sometimes they’ll go into like a larger program with me. But if it’s just a one-off business intensive and I’m looking at your website and I could not differentiate you from 10 other people, we have a problem. But that’s what I see a lot in the wedding industry is it’s the same language, it’s the same. I like coffee. Cool, good job. A lot of people like coffee. But are you a person who likes coffee enough to buy a $4,000 espresso maker? Or are you a Starbucks lover? Or are you a make it at home and, like you have a little mason jar person? Those are three different people. So being able to differentiate your version of you know, you’re welcome to say that you’re a coffee lover, but like, let’s get more like minutia into it, like, let’s get more into like the specifics.

0:28:22 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I think and I’m very curious to hear where you think this comes from. But I think sometimes, when people are trying to differentiate themselves, they’re kind of trying to tick boxes of like, okay, I have to say what I like, or I have to, you know, have this particular thing on my about page about like, my likes and dislikes, and that’s not really what it’s about. Like that’s a structure, but that’s not the actual message, and the message is actually what matters, what goes into that structure. Why do you think people are so tempted to just blend in?

0:29:03 – Aislinn McKenna
I mean like biologically, let’s, yeah, biologically, psychologically, we are all about the tribe. We are all about making sure that we are safe in our space in the tribe. So if you look at the wedding community as a tribe, if you are too different, you are either considered a leader, which is like mostly positive, but also being a leader can be unsafe in some ways or you are considered an outcast. So if you think about like the wedding industry as a tribe, we don’t want to get kicked out biologically from our tribe because that would be unsafe. We get eaten by lions or whatever. We’re not biologically the same place we were like, you know, however, long ago.

But if you think about it from a psychological perspective, if you differentiate yourself too much, you’re no longer going to necessarily be accepted by the tribe.

You might get rejected, and rejection on a social level can be really like hard, unless you have like been doing this kind of like mindset work and doing this kind of like leadership work. That happens when you start to differentiate yourself and start to stand in conviction of this is who I am, this is who I work with, this is who I’m for, this is who I’m not for. So I think as far as like why do people do it? I think psychologically it makes a lot of sense. But also, do you want to live a average life? The answer could be yes or no. There’s nothing bad, broken or wrong about that. But if you want something extraordinary, you want the bigger weddings, you want to have like more of a name for yourself, you want to make a certain income, whatever it is. It might actually require you to differentiate yourself in a way that might feel unsafe, especially if your friends are not doing the same thing.

0:30:49 – Heidi Thompson
That safety piece is so crucial to understand because you might feel like, well, I am standing up. You’re probably not not, let’s be real, most people who tell me that are probably not at least not as much as they could be to be seeing the success that they really want. I think sometimes, like maybe you don’t even realize that you’re afraid of the lack of safety. Part of that lack of safety is like if I put myself out there in too bold of a way, I won’t get enough clients and then I won’t be able to house and feed myself, which is a very legitimate safety concern and I totally get.

But I think when you recognize what’s actually happening in your brain, it puts you into this weird observer mode where you can like kind of watch what’s going on and like, huh, okay, I see what’s going on there, I see why I’m feeling that, and then you can consciously make a decision to do something differently and not just be in that pattern of response.

So I think being able to shift into that observer mode, which I think is a lot of like the work you do with people, it sounds like it’s getting them to take that pause, getting them to take that step back and recognize what’s happening and to not react to what our brain has been trained to do for hundreds of thousands of years of evolution and what we actually want to do, and those are likely two different things. So thank you for bringing up that safety piece. Aside from pausing, what sorts of things do you tell your clients to do when they’re in that position of I can’t do that, and I can’t do that because it’s either unsafe because I’ll get rejected, or it’s unsafe because I won’t get clients, or something like that.

0:32:55 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I actually have an example of this right now. So I have a client who we’ve talked about raising her prices several times and she has raised her prices several times and she has 10 weddings booked for 2025. And she is so excited and I’m so excited because we’ve been working together for most of this year and getting her like just like really set up mindset wise to make these like big leaps. And the thing that I told her actually on a call last week was, like you have 10 weddings for next year. If you told me you want to raise your prices by $5,000, I would fully support it because you have the stability, safety of financial safety in order to make that kind of big social risk of raising your prices that much.

So I have conversations with my clients.

If they’re ever like, oh, I want to raise my prices, like we’re gonna look at the safety pieces, like psychologically, the financial safety, like also the social safety, because like I don’t want you to raise your prices by $5,000.

And then you’re like really sad because none of your friends will talk to you, like I don’t want that as your coach, because I would hate that experience. But we think, like I think about those things for my clients. But some of the other stuff that we kind of like think about is just like being the moderator of your life and being the kind of like director of your life. And that comes from that perspective of 30,000 feet, looking at, like what you’re doing, what the patterns are, what the themes are, and at first, when you are first looking at those things, you might not even be able to say like what it is exactly, but you’re going to start to notice those patterns showing up and then you’re going to be able to point it out and be able to actually like make a conscious change and actually like be like oh okay, I’m going to fix that or I’m going to change the way that I’m doing that.

0:34:42 – Heidi Thompson
But, like at first, like honestly, it’s a lot of it’s observation before you can actually make shifts. That makes a lot of sense and I really like that you highlighted the action pieces there. Like it’s not just okay, we’re going to raise your price, it’s that feels like a leap. Raise your price, it’s that feels like a leap. So what safeguards can we put in place, or what safeguards can we strengthen so that you feel comfortable doing that? I love that way of looking at it.

0:35:10 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, and you asked about like, what are some of the other things that we do with them? So I, inside of my signature program, success accelerator program, this is like where some of this comes in. But I also have a membership that’s literally just for mindset, so like it’s in there as well. But we talked a lot about these exercises of like, is it true? So like, if you, if you’re like Okay, well, you know, if I were to raise my prices, everyone’s gonna like abandon me. How, how, how do you know that? How? Oh well, I saw a TV show once where they showed that, okay, is your life a TV?

0:35:42 – Intro
No, cool, like we don’t have to apply that to our lives.

0:35:46 – Aislinn McKenna
So I like to kind of like, ask my clients, like, what are the beliefs that you’re holding for yourself that ultimately are not true? If you want to, we can dive into where did you find that Like and like, start to apply that to your life as a truth. But we have to forgive ourselves for having these beliefs, even if we don’t know where they come from and know that they’re not ultimately true and you’re willing and able to let these go and choose a different outcome instead. That’s where, like, this empowerment piece really comes in is, like you’re not bad for having old patterns and beliefs, but like it starts to become a conscious choice when you start to notice the pattern and if you keep choosing it, that is a choice to keep choosing it. So this is where, like, we really start to get into that empowerment piece of like you know what actually I’ve decided. I’m letting this belief go and next time this pattern comes up, I’m going to choose differently, and that’s the best place to be.

0:36:43 – Heidi Thompson
It’s a very unique position to be in as a human, to wake up and realize that you get a choice. You get a conscious choice, and that’s not to say it’s going to be the easiest thing in the world. I mean, you’re basically working to remap your brain. Of course it’s going to take some time, it’s going to take some work, but you do get to choose. Yeah that’s powerful.

0:37:10 – Aislinn McKenna
We like we kind of do like subconscious reprogramming is like what it’s called in the in the world that I’m in. So it’s the basically rewiring of different neural pathways in your brain. And the way that we rewire different neural pathways is we choose differently. So if you come up against the same stimuli, you come up against the same pattern or environment or whatever, and you choose the same pathway over and over and over and over and over again, but you don’t actually like that pathway. Like there are things that we can do to subconsciously reprogram and repattern the behavior so that when it comes up again you can look at it and say, oh, actually I’m going to choose this instead. And that’s where a lot of power comes that a lot of people just don’t even know they have accessible to them.

0:37:53 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and I think when you realize that kind of what you’re doing is like building a muscle for the response that you’ve been doing, and I mean, if you were to look at that on a physical, you know way of thinking about things which we kind of should think about sometimes when we’re thinking about mindset, because it can be a little squishy, but it is like brain chemistry and everything that’s happening in your brain. You know, if you were lifting and you started to build a bunch of muscle in one part of your arm but on another part of your arm you would make adjustments to get the results that you want. But if we can’t see it, if you don’t have the awareness of it, it’s a lot more difficult. But it really is the same process and it’s going to have the same resistance, it’s going to have the same oh this is hard kind of feeling to it sometimes, just like building any other muscle does.

0:38:55 – Aislinn McKenna
I have a health coach and I was talking to him recently and I’ve been lifting since like 2017. So, like I’m not new to lifting heavy weights and I was telling him recently that I was lifting a deadlift, which is like you pick something off the floor. Basically it’s really heavy. And I was telling him like I was like man, like you know, 145 pounds felt really heavy today. And he was like it’s, it’s going gonna feel heavy. It’s 145 pounds. And he was like like you have to choose your hard. Either you do 145 pounds or you do 100 pounds. 100 pounds is still heavy, 145 pounds is heavy. It’s gonna feel that way. So at a certain point, like there is a lot of like mental stuff that we have to kind of get over to do the harder things, but again it’s like just like putting in the reps of like it’s going to be heavy regardless.

0:39:43 – Heidi Thompson
So I might as well choose the heavy, if that makes sense, yeah, and I know for me personally, if I have that expectation of this is what it’s going to feel like. This is normal. This is maybe going to suck at first, like you know, moving up a weight, but all of that is to be expected. It becomes a lot easier to follow through with it, at least in my brain.

0:40:07 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, and I think that’s why it’s so important to have coaching and communities where there are people doing things that are maybe they’re aspirational to you right now, but they’re going to be things that eventually you might try or master, even Like it’s important to be surrounded by those types of people because that is going to show you and normalize like, oh, lifting 145 pounds, like yeah, that’s heavy but I can do it. Oh, charging 10K for weddings yeah, that might take me a while but I can do it. That’s it’s important to have that kind of like social validation.

0:40:39 – Heidi Thompson
It’s so funny how that works, like if you look at the history of people attempting to run, what is it like? A four minute mile, like nobody could do it for the longest time, and then one person did it, and then there was a flood of people who could do it, and it wasn’t because anything else changed other than seeing somebody do it and seeing it become possible. That’s the only shift.

0:41:06 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I was reading a book called Feel Good Productivity recently and they were talking about this effect of seeing it done before you do it. You’re more likely to do the thing if you’ve seen it done before. So they were talking about it was like a social study experiment where it was like they put two groups of kids in a rock climbing gym Neither groups had ever rock climbed before and the first group they showed a video of how to rock climb. The second group, they didn’t get a video. Who do you think actually got to the end of the rock climbing wall? It was the kids who had seen the video versus the ones who didn’t. So it was a really interesting kind of like commentary on like hey, when you actually see someone else do that, you have like borrowed belief in yourself that, oh, I could do that too.

0:41:53 – Heidi Thompson
I love thinking about that as borrowed belief, and that’s why, when I see someone do something that it’s like, oh man, that’s crazy, I could not imagine doing that. It’s like, well, if they can do it, I can do it. Right, I mean, I can figure that out. And then all of a sudden, this entire new level unlocks. It’s incredible.

0:42:14 – Aislinn McKenna
That mindset right there I don’t know if you guys like heard what Heidi just said the mindset of I see that person doing something really cool, notice where she went oh, that’s really cool, that could be something that I could do. Versus oh, that’s really cool, I could never do that. That right, there is a mindset that you can plug into right now. Listen to this podcast episode. I want you to think about.

If there’s anything that lately you’ve been tagging as like, oh, that’s not for me, or oh, like I wish I could do that, turn it around. If you’ve seen somebody do it before, you are more than capable of it being possible for you as well. Like it’s a possibility for you as well. And when you start to see, you know I have friends who make millions of dollars every year and I’m just like, okay, they can, they can do it. That’s something that maybe I can do. It’s not something I’m currently living, but it’s something I could do. Versus if I looked at it and I was like, oh no, that’s never going to be for me. I’m identifying as someone of. It’s never going to be for me Identify as someone who maybe that is something I want to do, identify as someone who is like saying like my identity is I get to choose. I get to choose whether or not I want to go after that.

0:43:20 – Heidi Thompson
And that is incredibly empowering, getting to have that choice, and I absolutely love seeing people around me have like insane success, like I don’t feel jealous about it, because I look at it as like, well, there is another, you know, piece of data in the category of that’s something we can do, and if I decide I want to do that, that’s something that is possible and, hey, maybe I can follow in their footsteps, maybe it’ll make it a little bit easier, maybe I can get some shortcuts. You know that learn from the things that they learned during that journey, and it is that is one of the mindset shifts I’ve made that has served me incredibly well. I was definitely not that person when I started my business, so it takes. It takes some work, takes some time.

0:44:12 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I completely agree, and it’s a shift for me as well. That I’ve had to make is just like if I see somebody doing something that I like look at and I’m like, wow, that’s incredible, it’s not, oh, I could never do that. It’s like huh, is that something I want to decide? I want to go after yes or no.

0:44:28 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, because there are some people doing incredible things and it’s like yeah, no, that doesn’t work for me, purely because that’s not something I want to do, Like that life is not the life that I want to live, but I’m not coming at it from. I can’t do that, which sounds subtle but is a huge difference.

0:44:50 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I feel like most of mindset is this very subtle, a lot of it.

0:44:54 – Heidi Thompson
Because it sounds like it shouldn’t make a difference. A lot of it it’s crazy. Because it sounds like it shouldn’t make a difference.

0:45:09 – Aislinn McKenna
And it’s just like this insane leverage you have on your brain that you can make these small shifts and see huge results.

Yeah, it’s, I think, one of the things too, about like kind of we were talking earlier about tribes, we were talking about like standing out and all these different things of we were talking earlier about tribes, we were talking about like standing out and all these different things If you don’t ever share or showcase the things that you’re proud of about yourself, you are keeping the world from seeing other possibilities.

Like I think about like some of my clients who share like oh, like I just booked a 15k wedding when they share that inside of our group, everyone else in that group now has like very close proximity social proof that it’s possible for them as well. And I think it’s so important to share the things that make you different, of course, but also share the wins and share the things that you have done along the way to show other people what’s possible for them. I think about that all the time that like if I, if I shut up about all the things I’ve ever done, that would never help my clients see what’s possible for them and that’s like I want to be that, that beacon for them of like, hey, when you decide your life is going to change, it gets to change and I want to be that beacon for them.

0:46:15 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah. And it gets to put you in a position where and I’ve said this to clients before you know if they feel uncomfortable about, you know, putting themselves out there in whatever which way. The way I kind of moved past that was if I don’t do that, someone that I could have helped isn’t going to get help. And who the hell am I to do that? Yeah, and then it’s like all right, got to do it.

0:46:48 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, it also pushes you to go further for yourself as well, like when you are, when you’re a leader for people whether it’s, like you know, we both got coaching clients but like you’re a leader for your clients as well. When we were, when I was a wedding photographer and I had a husband wife team like my husband was helping me second shoot and stuff Some of the stuff that we would talk to our clients about was like marriage stuff and like how we communicated within our marriage and that showed our clients who were freshly married or they were about to get married, some of the ways that you can communicate with your partner. Like if we didn’t share that stuff, they wouldn’t have the model of it to put into their data bank to ask themselves is this what I want to do or is this not something that’s for me?

0:47:27 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, it’s like making it open source. I love the way of thinking about that that you have. Are there any? I mean, there’s endless mindset hangups, mindset shifts that people make. Are there any like really common ones that you see among wedding pros that you want to address, that you want someone to notice that they’re doing today?

0:47:52 – Aislinn McKenna
All right, my friends, we’re going to talk about self-concept and identity here for two seconds, all right. So identity is basically like you’re saying I am this person, and self-concept is kind of like how you see yourself as well as how the world sees you, and you can work on different pieces of self-concept work and identity work. But a lot of people in the wedding industry will say I am a photographer, I am an artist, I am a creative, I am, I am, I am. That’s all identity pieces and identity stuff. But what I notice is that most of the time when somebody says I’m an artist, they are taking on the very worst aspects of the story of being an artist. They’re taking on the I’m a starving artist. They’re taking on the I’m too scattered to have a good client experience artist. They’re taking on the oh, I will post on social media once and then I won’t post again for another five months part of being an artist. They are taking on the worst parts of that identity and self-concept and saying, oh, but I’m an artist, so it’s okay. And here’s what I want to say to you If you ever want to scale your business larger or you ever want to see the success of the people that you are currently putting on pedestals in the wedding industry.

You get to be an artist, but you get to identify with the best parts of being an artist, the parts where you are compassionate, the part where you see things in the world that other people don’t see, the parts where you are really good at reflecting back to people the beautiful things that you see in them. Like, there’s so many parts of being an artist that I want you to like write down that you love, that you identify with, and then I want you to act on them. So our identity really helps us to kind of like, make quicker decisions. It helps us to make decisions on like does this align with like who I think of myself as? So if we start to align ourselves with I am a business owner who happens to be a talented artist, that is a really good identity to have if you want to scale your business and if you want to attract those higher end clients, because you’re going to start thinking from the perspective of I’m a business owner first in this identity little space who happens to be a talented artist. So you get to take on the best parts of that identity.

So I love identity work. I think it’s so fun and you get to take on the best parts of that identity. So I love identity work. I think it’s so fun and you get to kind of like script out your character if you will. But this is a huge piece that I see a lot of wedding professionals just kind of like playing into and I just want to say, like you don’t have to. It’s a choice to play into this and just because your friends or the other people you’re seeing on the internet are doing this doesn’t mean that you have to.

0:50:36 – Heidi Thompson
That is amazing. It allows us to, like, keep ourselves in this weird box, like you said, and just have those worst components, those worst tendencies of like oh, I’m not a business owner, I’m not an entrepreneur, I’m just a photographer. Well, that’s not helpful, that isn’t going to help you make good business decisions, and I’m sure you see that all the time.

0:51:03 – Aislinn McKenna
Or oh, I’m just a small business owner Like.

I’m sorry, like what do you mean? You’re just a small business owner. Like, are you saying that because, like, you have a certain income? Or are you saying that because you don’t want to be seen as a larger business, because that sounds scary to you? So, yeah, I was like my poor clients, like I love them, they love me, but I call them out on so much stuff like this where, like, they’ll say something I’d be like oh yeah, is that, is that what you want to play into? But truly, like that’s where a lot of the growth happens. Like, once you have these mindset, concepts and exercises, like working for you and you’re practicing these things, it kind of doesn’t matter what strategy you use. Like people will come to me all the time before they’re my clients and they’ll be like, should I do three packages or one package or custom packages? And I’m like, let’s work out your mindset first, because all of those things work.

0:51:55 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, yeah, that’s a really good point. Like there are infinite choices and infinite things you can make work, but if you don’t like have the operating system to run, any of that whole thing’s gonna crash and burn.

0:52:09 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, exactly, the brain is an operating system. It’s a computer. So, by the way, you can program it.

0:52:15 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and even just being aware of that is like holy shit, I get to actually do that. That’s incredible.

0:52:22 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, I mean this is I could nerd out on this stuff for like days, which is why I have programs for it. It’s why I have masterclasses for it, because this is the kind of stuff that, like when I started to learn you know, like the computer is a brain when I started to learn concepts like that, it changed everything about the way that I saw the world and it helped me to become more of this empowered version of myself that I always thought I could be, but it just wasn’t able to because I didn’t have the right programming to do it. I didn’t have the right concepts in place.

0:52:54 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, and realizing that you can learn concepts, you can get the programming that you need in order to make it work, is hugely empowering.

0:53:06 – Aislinn McKenna
Absolutely, totally agree.

0:53:08 – Heidi Thompson
Well, where can people go if they want to learn more about themselves, their brain, their mindset, that they need to work on? What’s the best place for them to get in touch with you?

0:53:19 – Aislinn McKenna
Yeah, well, I live and breathe on Instagram, so you guys can come find me at Aislinn Eileen Coaching. If you find Aislinn Eileen, that is my old wedding Instagram. It’s no longer active, so you’re looking for Aislinn Eileen Coaching. That’s the first place. And then I have a website, aislinnaileencom. There’s some freebies on there. There’s a whole bunch of really great blog posts on there. I also have a podcast, clarity Convos for Wedding Pros Podcast. Heidi’s actually been a guest on it before, which is amazing. So those are the places that you can find me. I am open in the DMs if you guys have questions or if you’re like hey, how do I work with you? All of those things, you can find me on Instagram. That’s where.

0:53:59 – Heidi Thompson
I pretty much live all the time Fabulous. Thank you so much for being here. This is such an interesting conversation.

0:54:05 – Aislinn McKenna
I have loved this. I loved being able to share all the nerdy brain stuff, all of the psychology, all of the like biology pieces like it. Just it was so fun to share these things and I really hope that whoever’s listening to this that you had an aha moment from today’s episode. But my biggest hope for you is that you actually go implement. Knowledge is not meant to be stored. It’s meant to be used. So if you got something from today whether it’s something Heidi said or something I said please go implement it, even if it’s the smallest practice, and I want you to come back and let us know, like, what you implemented and what you loved. Oh, that is gold right there.

0:54:42 – Heidi Thompson
Thank you, this has been wonderful.

0:54:44 – Aislinn McKenna
Thank you so much for having me, Heidi. I really appreciate it.

0:54:48 – Heidi Thompson
I hope you got a lot out of that. Look, I am the least woo-woo person ever. I am incredibly pragmatic and logical and practical. But even I can’t argue with the fact that what goes on in your head influences your behavior. Your mindset really does matter and I will fully admit it took me a while to get to that conclusion because I 100% tried to fight it. So if that’s you and you’re like, no mindset doesn’t matter, just know I’ve been there and you can’t escape what you think. You just cannot outwork what you think.

So I will be sure to link to everything in the show notes, including Aislinn’s podcast over at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/310. And I would love to hear from you. Shoot me a DM. I’m evolveyourweddingbusiness on Instagram and I would love to hear what you took away from this. What did it make you realize? Do you find it difficult to maintain boundaries? Are there particular beliefs that you’re holding that you’ve realized like, oh shit, this is really holding me back? I’d be really curious. If you had any aha moments, send them my way and I will speak to you again very soon.

About Aislinn McKenna

Aislinn McKenna is a former luxury wedding photographer with over 14 years of experience, featured in prestigious publications like Martha Stewart Weddings and Brides. She transitioned to coaching in 2020, helping creatives scale their businesses and elevate their mindset. Aislinn is dedicated to teaching strategies for success, nervous system regulation, and the importance of automation in business. Her clients achieve impressive results, such as $25K months and 5-figure recurring revenue. Passionate about empowering others, Aislinn combines business acumen with personal growth to create lasting impact.

Website: aislinneileen.com
Instagram: @aislinneileencoaching

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Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
The Stand Out & Get Booked Challenge
Episode 240: Building A Healthy & Wealthy Money Mindset with Erinn Bridgman
Episode 140: Upgrading Your Money Mindset with Tonya Rineer

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